>> michael steele, who's running for re-election, will be joined by his challengers at a forum hosted by the group, americans for tax reform. live coverage begins at 1 p.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> for these children, our children and for all of america's children, the house will come to order. [cheers and applause] >> with the start of the new congress this wednesday, look back at the opening of past sessions online at the c-span video library with every c-span program since 1987. more than 160,000 hours. all searchable, all free. it's washington your way. >> now, a discussion on lobbying in washington and how it impacts the legislative process.

speaking is thomas williams, federal projects directer for the conservation fund and a professor at american university. the university's public affairs and advocacy institute hosts this event. it's about an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. i'm jim thurber, i'm the directer of the center for congressional and presidential studies and a professor at american university, and i'm directing the public affairs and advocacy institute, and this afternoon we're going to have a presentation by tom williams about epa greenhouse regulations and the legislative process. why are we doing that? well, it's because we have a case study in the public affairs and be advocacy institute related to greenhouse emissions and regulation, and and he's going to be introducing to you

the context of this on the hill in terms of who the players are, the process on the hill, the legislative process, but also the political context especially after this election. tom's a great guy to do this. this institute brings together the academic and the applied, that's what we do very well at american university. our students leave this institute frequently and go right into professional jobs, advocacy jobs, but also on the hill, the white house, elsewhere. tom epitomizes one who is great at the academic side as well as the applied side. he's had 25 the years -- 25 years experience on capitol hill working for the energy and natural resources committee ending as its chair for the democrats. the staff directer, not the chair. i think he would probably not

like to be the chair, but he was the staff directer. he also was the assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks in the department of interior. he is currently directer of federal programs for the conservation fund and president of the williams group that focuses on natural resource eshoos. issues. as usual, we'll have a presentation and lots of time for q&a, and if you would when asking questions, please, say who you are for our audience and where you're from before you ask the question, that would be, that would be great. this is the 35th session of this institute. it's unique. no other institution in the united states or the world has it. and we have people now throughout the united states but also throughout the world that have graduated from this institute and have gone on to very good careers. and tom williams has helped them. he's an award-winning teacher.

in 2004 he became the awardee of the outstanding teaching for an adjunct professor at american university which is a very competitive thing, and we thank tom for coming today. and if you could come forward, that would be great. [applause] >> oh, man, man, man. all right. well, it's nice to be with you again. i'm going to take a little while today to talk about the legislative process. i'm going to relate it a little bit to the issue about which you've been asked to develop your lobbying plan. for those of you who have studied or lived the legislative

process and anyone who's taken the legislative process from me i include collude in this category, you're going to know a lot about this. but today as we go through some of this, some of this process and some of these steps and some of these stages which are, you know, you get in this context and you sort of get a little jaded about the whole idea of how our laws are made and the path of legislation and all that, and you sort of think, oh, that's not really how it is, you know? i know, i know how it really works. well, it really does work this way. it's just much more complex. there's much more, there's much more richness to the process and much more complexity to it. but the steps in the process that you as a lobbyist need to

pay attention to are pretty much the same in how our laws are made or if you're really working on the hill or you're really working downtown or wherever you are. it works, it follows. so keep that, try to keep that in mind. as you enter the field of lobby ing, with any luck at all you will have clients. you will have people who will come to you and offer you money to help them in their endeavor. whatever it is that they come to you for, you'll have your rates and your staff and your office, and you'll welcome them in, and in that initial meeting you'll say something really clever like what can we do for you? or what, what's your problem? or how can we help, right? so the clients may need help with any number of issues, any

number of things, any number of, any number of problems. they may come to you with something very narrow, something very specific, something very pointed, something very limited in time and space. they may come to you with some notion, some idea we'd like to do so and so, or we'd like to try to do this, or we'd like to try to do that. and your job is to listen to their request and be then bring your -- and then bring your expertise to the issue and to the process and think how best can we get this job accomplished. your client may have in mind a mr. smith goes to washington moment. you know? you're going to find two or three members of the house or two or three members of the senate who are going to take

over the house floor or the senate floor, and they're going to bring his or her issue to the, to the attention of his colleagues and speak for hours and be eloquent and beautiful, and at the end of the day he's going to get a standing ovation from his colleagues, the bill's going to pass. he's already got himself a new suit picked out to go down and stand next to the president and get a pen, right? this is really going to be big stuff, you know? and you're thinking to yourself, all we need's a letter. all we need to do is get the chairman of this subcommittee to write the assistant secretary of whatever a letter and get this guy a little, you know, get this guy a little piece of, a little piece of business in a regulation, get this guy a little waiver from some, some particular existing program. all i need to do is to go talk to my friends on the appropriations subcommittee and get this guy a million dollars

to take care of this problem that's going to be put in the report at the staff level. nobody's ever going to know it, nobody's ever going to see it until it's signed into law along with other trillion and a half dollars' worth of stuff. right? so that may be what you bring, that's what you're hearing, you know? that's what you're hearing. the client may have in mind bills and hearings and debate on the senate floor and deep discussions with the president or his staff about how this bill is or isn't going to get signed or whatever. you're thinking, i know how i can get this done. i know how i can get my fee, and i know how i can satisfy the desires, the wishes of my client. and at that point you're going to lay out for him or her a

proposed strategy. maybe this is going to come off the top of your head, maybe you're going to ask one of your colleagues into the office at that point to say, liz here handles our work in the house. i believe this is the most appropriate body to deal with it. i believe she has really close connections with the energy and commerce committee, i believe she knows the staff directer up there, i believe liz could be our lead person to go up and help you, assist you with a personal visit to make your pitch. and let's see where we go from there. i mean, it may be on the fly, off the cuff as it were. based on your experience, based on your knowledge, based on your expertise. it may well be that you think as this person is asking you what it is that he would like or asking you your advice you may think to yourself, uh-oh. i need to talk this through with

my colleagues. i need some help on this. i need some, oh, yeah, i think i remember there was something about this a couple of years ago, and it didn't go well. there's more here than meets the eye. this person thinks this is what he or she wants, but what's really going on here is something a little more, little more tricky, right? so you may thank you for coming, it was a wonderful meeting, i'm going to talk to my colleagues, we'll get back to you, we'll get you a proposal, whatever, right? but the point is, the point is your job is to listen and bring your expertise to bear on how to accomplish the client's executive -- objectives. what are the access points, actors, tools, etc. that's the real world. okay? and we're very fortunate this

afternoon we're going to have another one of our mentors that's going to address this issue a little more about how to manage clients, how to deal with clients' expectations and all that. which is good. for our purposes for the institute, right, we've kind of decided what the ask is here, right? we've kind of decided what that is. the ask for our purposes is going to be for half of you to develop a plan, a full-blown legislative lobbying plan that covers all of the congressional arena, that covers all of the major policy actors in the congressional arena, involves the president as the chief

executive who has to sign legislation. you, you're being told to develop with a full-blown congressionally targeted lobbying plan to enact a bill or to defeat the bill, all right? in this case. you don't have the luxury in this class to say, you know, i think we could get at your problem by doing something less, or i think we could get at your -- why don't we wait a little while on this and see how things come out. or something of that nature, right? we're going to have, we're going to have a bill, we're going to follow that bill through the legislative process, we're going to follow that bill downtown to the white house if it makes it, if it makes it that far, and we're going to have a full-blown, a full-blown lobbying campaign utilizing the

congress and the chief executive. okay? so we're going to, we're going to -- we're going to cut out some of the, we're going to cut out some of the suspense. we're going to have a bill in. in your scenario you have, you have that bill, right? or you have, you have a surrogate for a bill. s.100 i think it is. and this is based on the legislation that senator rockefeller introduced in the last congress to block or to prohibit the environmental protection agency from issuing certain regulations respecting the limitations on greenhouse gas emissions, all right? it's important for you to know as a lobbyist the substance of the bill, of course it is. of course it is. in the real lobbying world, it's especially important for you to

appreciate the substance. you have to know what that bill does. you have to know the background. you have to know a good deal about the substance of the legislation. or you have to have somebody in your firm that does, right? oh, yes. liz handles this. she knows all about this. she's our expert. maybe if you have nobody in your firm that's the expert on this particular bill, you might hire someone. you might put somebody, your firm might put somebody in another firm on retainer who's an expert on the substance of the bill. for you we have a bill, and you need to know something about the substance. as we spoke about this morning in this exercise, it's not so much that you know everything about the issue. you do not need to become

technical experts on the science of global warming or the science of carbon emissions and the science of carbon sequestration and the regulation of these pollutants, right? but you do need to know enough about how the bill works so that you can be, so that you can be effective. you need a little bit of who, what, when, where and why. who? well, you need to know the sponsors of the legislation. again, it matters, does it not, who sponsors these bills? i mean, if you're a lobbyist and someone comes in the and wants you to move a bill with, one of the things you want to know is who's bill is it? why would that matter? why would that matter? give me an example. just think about this. somebody comes in and says there's a bill in congress, and we really -- in the senate, and we really want to pass it. what would be one obvious thing that would matter to you in terms of, in terms of who that sponsor was? what would be one thing?

yes? >> i'm sam, and i'm from minnesota. what party the sponsor's in. >> absolutely. why would it matter what party? we're a full-service, ecumenical lobbying firm. why would we care if it's a democrat or republican, emily? >> emily from missouri. it would make a difference in how hard it's going to be to get their bill passed. >> absolutely. just a very basic piece of information is going to tell you in the senate, for example, or the house is this, is this sponsored by someone who's in the majority in that body? or is it someone who is in the minority in that body? not to say it's, not to say it's a cinch if it's someone in the majority or it's a goner if it's someone in the minority, right? but something as basic as that, you know? it tells you a lot. tells you a lot about how likely a bill is to be scheduled.

or if sam says he wants to know what party, and i say, oh, this is senator rockefeller, he's a democrat. i might say, i might say, well, that's good, that's good in the senate, but do we have a sponsor in the house? oh, yeah, yeah. we have congressman snort. he's a democrat too. hmm. how about we find a republican in the house since the republicans now control the house? let's see if we can find a republican sponsor for a companion bill in the house. because that would maybe facilitate the possibilities of a bill moving over there. champions, who's for this bill? is there anybody that likes this bill? no, we're pretty much it. [laughter] we're just pretty much out there on our own on this one. well, no, we hope that we can think about others who would be in favor of a bill like this,

others who would be in favor. and we might think, we might think this terms of party. we might think in terms of the kind of bill it is. this kind of bill, a proposal to prevent or limit the environmental protection agency from regulating greenhouse gases, hmm, wonder what kind of people we might find for that? well, maybe people who have, who have fossil-burning fuel plants in their states or districts. would be a good one. just for example, all right? opponents? is anybody opposed to this bill? no, everybody likes it. well, that's good, this'll be quick. chances are we have opponents. who opposes it? who opposes it? do we have any serious opposition? the on this? well, yeah, the president said he'll veto it. oh, darn. [laughter] yeah, that's pretty significant. yeah, there have been a couple of test votes on this. we've never gotten more than 40 votes, but we're feeling pretty

perky about the possibility of this. well, who are the likely opponents, you know? where do they come from, who are they? so actors both institutional and noninstitutional. by that we're talking about groups that might oppose, groups that might support. maybe states. we had a good discussion with my group before lunch, and there was a really good question about are the states involved in this kind of exercise? the yeah. we might find -- yeah. we might find that there are states' governors, attorneys general in be several of the states that might be allies or champions or points. opponents. the white house in this case, the president in this case is certainly a player. members of the house, members of the senate. so you get the idea on who. when, time frame, scheduling. well, again, we've helped you on this one.

you can't tell your client that i think this is going to take two and a half, three years to get done. we've told you that in this for the purposes of this exercise you're to assume that you will either pass or defeat this bill in the first session of the 112th congress. they're going to come in january, right? and usually in a nonelection year which 2011 will be they usually stay in pretty late. well, this year they stayed in pretty late in an election year, too, didn't they? but you can sort of figure they might be in until end of, middle, latter part of october maybe, something like that. maybe even, maybe even hoop over a little bit into november. so you have about that long. that's your window in terms of getting your, getting your work done. what else does timing mean? it has something to do with scheduling, doesn't it? you're the lobbyist. you're thinking to yourself,

hmm, how am i going to get this bill that my client wants passed scheduled for a vote in the senate where the democrats are still in charge, where there was an unwillingness to schedule that bill when the democrats even had a larger majority at the end of the 111th congress. how's that going to work? scheduling might be difficult in the senate. in the house getting a bill like that scheduled, maybe not so much. if leadership is supportive. right? but you need to think about what the, what the scheduling might be like and how you as a lobbyist might impact that scheduling or might be able to inform your client. maybe your client is going to say if we could get this done by the end of the week, it would be really good. and you're going to say, mmm,

that might be tough. why? it's very important to me. well, i know. [laughter] i know, but there's a new congress, and the new congress always is kind of slow, and they kind of take a while to get geared up, and there's the pesky budget that comes up, you know, in february and the president insists on doing this whole state of the union thing, you know, the end of january, and that's going to take a little while. and then, oh, yes, we don't have a budget for, you know, for the past fiscal year, past march. we kind of need to do that. and, oh, by the way, we have a little debt, and we're going to have to raise the debt limit pretty soon. a couple of other things going on. we may not be able to move you to the head of the line. right? and that's the kind of thing that you need to think about as part of the process that you can inform your client.

venue, where? meaning what? meaning house or senate, right? now, we're going to have to do both, right? constitution, we talked about that today, you know? okay. so we're going to have to do both. but would it matter to you in advising your client about the venue? sure. like what? for instance, what, what can you think of that you might tell your client if client says i don't care, house, senate, it's got to go to both. pick one. go for it. what might you tell him or her that would be a little more strategic? about how it might matter or something you might want to think about with respect to venue? what can you think of? what can you think of? yes. >> nick from pennsylvania. you might have better odds of passing some legislation in one house as opposed to the other. >> will you might, absolutely. in this case you might have a

better chance in the house just given what we were just talking about. and maybe you want to move to the house first, maybe you want to try to get some momentum coming out of the house going to the senate. that could certainly be a consideration. what might be the converse of that? how might you argue that the other way? you might say to your client, let's see if we can get this done in the senate. let's put our resources, right? while we still have 'em, while we haven't spent all your money yet and while the issue is relatively fresh, let's put this out in the senate. let's make an effort on the senate side first because if we can't get it done over there, if we can't get 60 votes, maybe much. so you could argue it either way. i like nick's idea of going to the house first, of getting the

momentum, maybe get a big vote and then sort of leaving it to the, to the senate. but you see what i mean about venue. context. context. context. what does that mean in this sense, the context? i say to the client, well, i don't really like the -- we're not working, we're not working this in a very, in a very favorable context here. what might that be? it might be what's going on around the country, the world, right? like what? like the deficit, like the debt, like the economic downturn, like economic climate that some would argue might raise the cost of electricity to consumers or raise the cost of producing electricity to producers who

would then in turn pass those increased costs on to customers. back in those, i don't know what it was, 19, 20 minutes when bill clinton was president and we had, and we had surpluses as far as the eye could see and everybody was sitting around kind of noodling about how are we going to spend all this money, my god, we're going to have billions of dollars worth of surplus, that was kind of a problem at one point. can you imagine? right? well, that would be a very different context, wouldn't it? if you were advising a client on something like this. you might not worry about that so much. or you'd probably worry about it, but it wouldn't be as dispositive of the issue whereas in this, in this case the context is pretty, you know, could be -- on that particular issue can be pretty, can be

pretty important. motivations of proponents or -- why do you want to do this? what's this all about? why do you want this bill passed? i don't know. well, if you don't know, if you can't give me the rationale why this is in somebody's interest, surely it's in yours, but we need, you know, we're not going to be able to do this just because the guy that's paying me wants it. can you give me some bigger context about why this is a good thing for the country? or at least a chunk of the country? right? so all good things, all good things on why. okay. so much for the bill. a bill is introduced -- yeah, go ahead, luke. >> i'm just wondering, from a lobbyist perspective if there are or opponents or proponents to a particular bill, so seemingly the issue is off the

table and now you're giving life to it to try to move it forward. would it be better to have people that are strongly for it or strongly against it? >> depends on which side you're on. if i'm trying to get it done, i want people really for it and not many against it. if i want to kill it, i want people to fight like a tiger, and nobody gives a darn about it. i'm being facetious. you know, i can argue it both ways, you know? i think sometimes lobbying an issue that's mature, that has some clear opponents and proponents, there are some lines that are drawn. you kind of know where people stand. you kind of know where the buttons are to push. sometimes that's easier, sometimes you can be more effective. other times an issue sort of de novo, you know, an issue that really nobody's thought about very much, and you're kind of bringing it to the fore front.

you know, the field is wide open there. you might have some ability to frame the issue better, you know? you don't have to, you don't go in to talk to somebody and they say, oh, yeah, i know this. this is that thing about so and so, you know? and then you spend ten minutes in the meeting trying to explain why it really isn't like so and so, right? whereas if you go in and it's a new one, you know, you have the ability to sort of frame it and, you know, put parameters on it at the, you know, at the time. ..

>> it's going to be hard to say oh no, it's not that. it probably is. good question. now, now, stephen, or john today when we were in our little discussion before suggested, well, gee, wouldn't it be better to be a posed. wouldn't it be better to be on the side of stopping? than on the side of passing? absolutely. almost always. in lobbying the congress. just because the congress is so fragmented and decentralized, there are so many points at which, you know, a bill or a proposal, or an amendment can die. and to win, you know, you need to win at almost every stage. you only can lose once. so if i'm thinking is this a new

issue or is this an old issue? that's one consideration. the other consideration is am i stopping or am i starting? and that is going to make a big difference in terms of your strategy and your approach. so that dichotomy, i think it would be -- will certainly be important. okay. bill is introduced. you know that. they introduce bills. what happens to bills when they are introduced, they go to committees. why do bills go to committees? so they can die. most bills that two to committee die. that's where bills go to die. the bill burial ground; right? many go in, few come out. all right. but it's an important step in the process; right? most major pieces of legislation are referred to committee. most major leases of legislation do have substantive legislative hearings, at least at one point in their lives. most bills get referred to

committee that have hearings do get reported or voted out of committee to the respective floor with recommendations from that committee as to whether or not that bill ought to pass or not. and that bill will be reported often times with changes with modifications, amendments made by whom? made by the members of the committee that in theory, anyway, have some issue expertise. all right. committees in the congress are based on subject matter. jurisdictions of committees are based on subject matter. that's why you have an agriculture, energy, commerce, and armed services committee. right? those committeesal -- committees deal with issues in their subject matter. people are on those committees in part, often times, because they have some expertise.

either they have it when they come, or virture of the fact they've served on those committees for a while. is that the only reason people are on committees? no. sometimes people are put on committees for all kinds of reasons. some of them very political, some of them very personal. but you can can -- you can figuf we are doing a -- in this particular case, rt committee on energy and commerce has jurisdiction with the environmental protection agency. they have people on the committee that know about this. now they may know about it in a very substantive, academic policy way. they may also know about it in a very political, parochial way; right? home style, hill style, those of you who have legislative process know you have that dichotomy,

this duel nature they are there to deal with the folks back and and constituents and need for reelection, at the same time they are serving in a body that making policy for the country. there's the dichotomy, sometimes it conflicts. sometimes it does -- it hails naturally, nicely. one the places that that home style, hill style factor becomes very clear is in committees; right? because people serve on committees sometimes to take care of both of those needs. someone from the midwest on the agriculture committee because it's all about where he or she lives and works and represents agricultural interest. he or she maybe on a different committee because that's where they sort of even up their thei-

you know, get on the hill style politics. they are on a committee where it's not as important to the folks. they can make deals and trade votes and be involved in thing that is are more national important and less local importance. but in our example, we're going to have a referral in the house to the energy and commerce committee. all right. that's where the spill going to be referred to the energy and commerce committee. we have -- one thing we know about the energy and commerce committee is what? we know there are new leaders; right? because there was a switch in the last election. we know there's a new full committee, new subcommittee chairs, there are more republicans now on that committee than democrats. there's going to be a presumption on your part. it's fair to make. that measures and matters that

are supported by the republican majority on that committee are probably going to pass and those that are opposed by the republican majority on that committee are going to have a more difficult time passing. unless there's a -- some sort of coalition, some kind of reciprocity on that committee that allows some sort of bipartisanship; right? so we are going to worry about that committee, the new leadership, and we'll talk about rules here in just a minute. let me get john's question. yes, john? >> the staff. do we use committee staff in the same way that we deal with individual member staff? how does staff come into what we're doing within the process? >> well, good question. chances are you as lobbyist will spend a lot of time meeting with staff. sometimes you'll meet with

members, sometimes people in your firm have a relationships with members and you'll have face to face with members. often times, you'll have face to face with staff. if you are meeting with a committee staff person chances are it's doing to be about the substance of the legislation. it's going to be about how does this work? you know, how does this fit in with the epa's regulatory regime, how does it fit in with what the committee or what the congress has done in the past? it's going to be -- it's going to be mostly substantive. if you were to target some members, let's say and not go to the committee staff, but go to their personal staff, how do you think that conversation would go? would you talk -- would you talk substance of epa authority and

regulatory authority and -- you might. what else would you talk? >> about how it's going to affect their district. >> absolutely. absolutely. you zero in on that home style, wouldn't you? and you'd talk to that personal staffer about how this bill does or doesn't help his or her boss. now these people are smart. they need to know the substance as well. this isn't one of those things, don't worry about the details. just tell the vote. because it's good back home. certainly not. just like you wouldn't go into a committee staffer and say don't worry about the politics, this is good policy. you couldn't do that either, would you? but the preponderance is going to be one way or the other. when you are writing your plan and calling for interactions with the committee and the committee staffs, yeah, you are going to have a different -- you are going to have a different focus. you are going to have a

different pitch than if you are lobbying individual members. yeah, good question. excellent question. rules committee -- rules -- doing rules. well, we are doing rules, aren't we? not those kind of rules. why do we care about the rules committee, well, it matters for the scheduling in the house. you'll notice in the senate, no rules. no rules committee. well, there is a rules committee. but it's not important. no. no. [laughter] >> no, no, no. it's not important in the same way; right? the rules committee in the house is the committee that sets up the floor procedure for every major piece of business that comes to the house. the house has a very different structure than the senate. the senate we know about the senate, unlimited debate, unanimous consent, protection of

the minority, 60 votes to cut off debate; right? if you want to offer an amendment on the arms services bill to something really whacky, let's say oh something crazy like immigration or "don't ask, don't tell." you know, really whacky stuff. like they did this time around, or originally tried to. you could do it; right? nongermane ams in the senate, no time limitations, anybody can offer amendments. the house is very different. schedules in the house is controlled by the rules committee. who can speak? for how long? on what subject? who can offer amendments? how long can you debate that amendment? who gets to speak for it? who gets to speak against it? nongermane amendments, i don't think so. right? so you need to pay a little bit

of attention to the rules committee if you are dealing with this issue in the house side because you want to be sure that you've thought about the rule. you want to be sure that you've thought about a process whereby you can ensure or try to be sure that you are not going to have a rule that's going to allow people to come up and offer amendments that might be killer amendments. right? that might be difficult for your side to handle. and if you are dealing with the majority in the house, you can be pretty sure that's not going to happen. just like it didn't happen for the last few years when the democrats were in charge. but the rules committee is something that you never want to leave out of your plan, because you want to be sure -- you want to demonstrate that you know that part of the process. because it is vitally important to the way the house functions. yes, ma'am? [inaudible comment] >> so the speaker and staff on the rules committee does have so much power over rules

themselves, does it make sense to start with the speakers office before going to the rules committee? >> sure. in theory. i mean i think -- i think what you are going to find with respect to your issue is those of you that are trying to enact this bill that limits the authority of a regulatory agency to impose rules and regulations on businesses and industry, you are probably going to find a fairly receptive audience in the speaker. and in the leadership of the house in general. and liz made a very important point. she said, well, since the speaker stacks the rules committee, horrible to be that cynical at your young age. but it's true. it's true. the rules committee, you know, most committees -- not most committees, the committees of the house and senate are

basically apportioned based on the ratio, right? as the ratios between the democrats and the republicans get closer together, the number of members on the committee get closer together. if it's really close, you might have 10 democrats in the house, in the senate and 9 republicans. 10-9. maybe it's 11-8. maybe when we had a tie back in the day when senator jeffers switched parties several years ago, we had a 50/50 tie in the senate. we had committees that were evenly divided. or -- or if the ratios get bigger, the committee ratios get bigger. more of one, less of the other. expect for the rules committee. and usually the speaker or the leadership doesn't take chances with the rules committee. rules committee is sometimes called a speakers committee. it is a committee that the

speaker is sure that he or she has a solid majority. either democrat or republican. and so when votes are taken and the rules committee, if there's a defection, if somebody didn't get the memo, if there was a defection or two, it's not going to be a problem. right? so it's kind of a chicken of the egg. you know, you can go to the rules committee because the rules committee is going to be probably your guys or not, or you can do the speaker and sort of work back that way. it's probably easier for a lobbyist, expect for some of you that are high powered and well connected, probably going to be a little easier for you to go to the rules committee, rules committee remember, rules committee staff than it would be the speaker. the speaker off. >> what about the agenda in general and speaker power for that? i mean it seems like at some

point, you would want to be in contact with the majority party. >> absolutely. oh absolutely. absolutely. the speaker or maybe the majority leader in the house that's really kind of more about, you know, scheduling and more about sort of the -- yeah. but somebody in the leadership whether it's the whip or the majority leader or somebody in the office of the leadership or the staff. absolutely. >> it keeps going back to when we were talking about contacts. do you see that being another problem? even if, you know, the republicans a majority of them would maybe support this bill, maybe they are saying this isn't one of our priorities. where we need to table it until, you know, the next session or whatever. >> oh very good. absolutely. point. yeah. and by the way, you know, we're talking about republicans -- it would be the same if it was the democrats in charge. i'm not suggesting there's anything different. just who's in charge runs it the

same way. you are right. substantively, this might be an issue that there's clearly a majority in the senate -- jeez, on the house on the republican side to do. but strategically, they may say not now. we really, you know, we want to use this momentum that we have with some of our new members on cutting spending. you know, we want to -- we want to approach those issues first. or we don't want to pick a fight with the president just yet. i can't imagine those words coming out of anybody's mouth over there. let's for the sake of argument. you know we -- so yeah there might be -- there might be strategic season -- reasons why it wouldn't work. schedules would be important in that regard. excellent question. appreciations. why do i have appropriations up there? this is about rules and regulations. why the appropriations committee? why if you were lobbying and

designing a legislative strategy to get this regulatory bill enacted or defeated, why would you want to think about or touch base with the appropriators, the cardinals, the 12 or 14 or however many it is cardinals over there? why would that matter to you? think about -- yes. >> it has to be funded at some point. >> it does have to be funded at some point. the epa is just like any other agency, it needs appropriations. if the administrator of the environmental protection agency, ms. jackson, is going to implement a regulatory program effecting power producers and regulate portions of their activity, she needs money. doesn't she? and so if you were to have this legislative proposal go down, it

might be important to think about ultimately a strategy that in an appropriations bill said no funds in this act shall be able to the administrator of epa to carry out any activity related to. what's that called, by the way? anybody know what's that called? that's a rider, isn't it? that's a rider. that's a limitation. a limitation rider. that you might put on appropriation bill or some other budget or some other budget bill. now how about you -- how about you guys that are pushing this bill? why would you care about the appropriations committee? this is a tricky question. well, you might want to be sure that didn't happen; right? you might want to be sure that you were engaged with your friends on the appropriations committee.

people who you -- who were your supporters on the appropriations committee to be aware of an effort like that and offer some opposition; right? so think about appropriations as maybe a little bit of a backup here, or something you need to think about. you are trying to do the rockefeller bill; right? pass it or kill it. but appropriations at least on the committee side is something that you need to think about. in the senate, there's environment and public works committee. it's sort of equivalent to energy and commerce. we certainly have a narrower democratic majority; right? senator boxer who was recently re-elected from california is still the chair of that committee. we clearly have a narrower majority from, don't we? and we also have appropriations and no rules; right? no rules committee. on the senate, remember it's kind of a jump ball when it comes to the floor.

okay. let's move now to the floor. all right. see how we are doing the legislative process. isn't this fun? we've introduced a bill. referred it to committee. now we're on the floor. this is great stuff. house and senate different rules. we just talked about some of the ways that we have different rules. right? the house is a majortarian institution. the house is all about 218. right? a majority of the house is what you need to win. once you get the majority in the house, if you have the votes, let her rip. right? if you have the majority, you have a lot of momentum going for you in the house. you have a lot of potential for good. if you have the majority. if you have the votes. right? and it's a majortarian institution designed to carry out the will of the majority.

so when nick suggested that one opportunity -- one way to think about -- remember, we're talking about venues. one way to think about that was, gee, we think we might have a good chance of getting this in the house. once we demonstrate we have the votes this might happen pretty quickly, pretty certainly. why would the certainty, why would the certainty provided by the rules of the house be important to you as a lobbyist? you win, you make your client look good, he takes you to dinner or pays -- his checks don't bounce, sure. but what else? how could you use that, the knowledge of the majority and the certainty that that brings you, if you have the majority, how could you use that strategically as a lobbyist? how could that help you? how could that help you? yes. >> you can tell your client you think you can get it done in a certain amount of time.

>> all right. matt -- matt from --. >> delaware. >> delaware. right. you could be on -- the guy could think this guy is really smart. could be. could be that. think about this what if you were designing sort of a media strategy, a communication strategy. and you really wanted to pour a lot of money around the money into a time at which something might be happening. there might be a vote or there might be some action. and you felt pretty confident that when you looked at the schedule, and it said we're going to take up this bill in the rules committee on monday, they are going to report it out on tuesday, now we have what three days now? the rules of the house now. the new majority is going to give -- you have to wait three days for people to be able to read the bill before it's taken up on the house.

the point is you might be able to sort of look at a schedule and say, next friday. they wouldn't do it or friday. next tuesday. this bill is going to come up. oh, let's get -- let's bring people into town. let's have a big letter writing campaign. let's have some media coverage. because we're pretty sure -- we're pretty sure based on the way the house works, that we're going to have an opportunity for some -- for some earned media and some attention to our issue. in the senate, who the heck knows? i want to move this bill. well, i don't. okay. we'll do something else. right? you don't have that ability unless you get some kind of an agreement. you really don't have that ability to sort of -- you know,

use your ability -- use your tactics. because things just don't work like they might. timing largely on the scheduling. we really don't know. we really don't know. someone made this point a while ago. we really don't know when this bill is going to come up. we've given you the task of passing it or defeating it in the first session of the 112. so we've sort of set an artificial deadline for you. but that's almost a year. 10 months. might it come up the first couple of weeks? might it come up right before the august recession? might it come up just before they adjourn in october? might this come up just after the easter recess? we don't know, do we? we don't know. and for you as a lobbyist in the real world, you need to sort of pay tang to the rhythm. there's a rhythm.

things that don't happen, you know, because of other things. you sort of begin to get a sense of sort of when the real pushes come and when the real slack periods are. you fete a -- you get a sense of that. for you, you are going to have to make some assumptions. those of you trying to pass the bill are going to have to make some assumptions where's a reasonable time to think the legislative vehicle will be considered in the house and/or the senate. and those of you that are trying to defeat it, you are just going to have to be ready. right? because there isn't going to be a very precise, prescribed time frame. leadership, key to schedules. yeah, you are going to want to -- i think the comment by liz earlier about those speakers office. or the majority leaders office or the whip's office in the house trying to get a sense of

when schedules. try to get a sense of when something -- when a bill might be scheduled. also the leaders of the issue, not just the leaders of the body, but also the proponents, or the opponents may have something to say about when bills are scheduled. maybe somebody is going to be out of town. maybe one of your champions is working on two or three bills. and he or she says you think, we'll, gee, we're probably not going to do two or three major pieces of legislation at the same time; right? you find yourself scheduled out because -- because of that. overall floor strategy, did somebody had a hand. it just dawned on me. yeah. this is liz. >> from philadelphia. >> liz from philadelphia. >> going on just in general, you know, over and over it seems more apparent for those of us trying to push the bill, it's much easier in the house. but since we are starting in the

senate, is there -- i mean the bill that we are looking at right now, the senate bill, are there any kind of benefits, real benefits of starting in the senate compared to starting in the house, or overall not really? >> well, i think -- i think as we spoke of -- as we oke of earlier, if the senate is your most difficult list, and you can get that done first, you can sort of see how your path might at least in terms of the congress, your path might be clear. on the other hand, often times, proponents of legislation like to pass it in the easier venue first because it gives the momentum, it kind of puts the ball in the other body's court. you know? now let me just mention a the bit all of the subject here, but

you can certainly assume for the purposes of your papers that there will be a companion bill in the house. they can be working simultaneously. you don't need to assume that this has to be pass the senate first just because we are starting with the senate bill. so you can assume a companion bill in the house moving through roughly the same introduction, referral, committee action. you can make those assumptions. yeah, yeah. fine. okay. floor strategy tactics, overall game plan. this is the fun part; right? this is the part that you really don't need to get paid for. just kidding. this is the part where you sort of sit down and try to sort of game it out. what do we have? who do we have? how is this going to work? where are the chess pieces? how do we move them around?

how do we maximize our advantage? how do we maximize the terrible people on the other side? right? this is all about the tactical process that you and the groups that you are representing and your champions, right, your legislative senate/house champions, this is sort of your strategy. your game plan. part of that might be do we start in the house or do we start in the senate? well, let's see the advantages of this and that. where's the best committee for us? oh my goodness. what it goes to the environment and public works committee in the senate and it doesn't come out. what do we do? right? how would we do that? how would we think about that? how could we get around that? so that's where you begin to sort of develop the real

strategy and the game plan. all right? and so this is the -- kind of the fun cerebral part. champions, opponents, right, this and the coalitions, the groups, the moderates, the blue dogs, the candidates who are going to be up in 2012, the new class that was just elected in 2010. right? putting this vote matrix together is the work part; right? kind of show horse, fun stuff, workhorse. how do we get to 218 in the house? how do we get to 60 in the senate, 50 in the senate,41 in the senate, spending on, you

know, you got it? so yeah. putting together this is kind of the nitty-gritty of the process. because you got to have -- you got to have a majority or a super majority in both houses to advance the bill to the president. the same bill to the president. right? you got -- and when you are showing us, aka, your clients, when you are showing us your plan you know we are going to look at all of it, and we're going to read all of it and care about all of it. we love you all. but we want to see in that plan how do you get to 218 in the house, how do you get to 50, 60, 40 whatever the number is

wherever you are going. is it realistic? we think we'll get 80 votes in the senate. why? we just think we will. that won't work. how? why? why are these people going to vote the way you think they are going to vote? and you can figure it out. you can do it. i promise you, you can do it. and if you are not sure, you can make really good assumptions as to why something is or isn't going to happen. and that's good enough. as dr. thurber said in the beginning, what we are trying to get you to do is mix the academic and the theoretical with the very practical and try to teach you the -- that you can move between the two. all right. all right. so good. we've been on the floor. what are we going to do? going to go to conference. everybody knows about conference; right? we have a house bill, senate bill, they are different. we want to reconcile the

differences. the only way to do that is to go to conference; right? the only way to do that is to go to conference; right? no. of course not! the house passes a bill that says xyz, the senate passes a bill that says abc. the senate says we like xyz. off to the president it goes. no conference. right? no conference. the house passes abc, the senate passes xyz, the house looks at the senate bill, how about abz? okay. the house passes that. then what happens? back to the senate. senate bill amended by the house. that house amendment then needs to be considered by the senate. the senate gets the house amendment and said wish we'd have thought of it. and on it goes to the president. have we had a conference yet? no. no conference.

no conference. it can ping back and forth several times until there's an amendment on the text without a conference. but sometimes when there are two different versions, one way to reconcile the two different versions is to go to conference. all right. on this bill, you are just going to have to make some assumptions about whether or not you think there will be a conference or not. and it'll affect your timing; right? it'll affect your timeline. if you are going to have a conference in there. if you think there's going to be a conference, you need to account for that in your timeline. you need to account for that in terms of who you are going to lobby. and we'll talk some more during the process about who the conferencees, might be, and how that might work. you need to consider there might be a conference. the resolution maybe easy or difficult.

this bill that you have, i don't know. i'm not sure i see this. i'm not sure how conferencable this one would be. it's pretty narrow. you might have a difference in terms of the duration. maybe the epa is limited for one year, maybe two years, maybe three years. maybe it's just about greenhouse gases, maybe it's greenhouse gases and fine pa pa -- particls or something. maybe a conference, maybe not. but you need to think about the strategy and the tactics. house versus senate, a lot easier to go to conference, again in the house than the senate. why's that? because a lot of the motions that need to be made to get to conference in the senate are debatable. what does that mean to you? if it's debatable in the senate, it's what? >> filibusterrable. >> yeah. sam from rhode island, or

somewhere, no florida. one of those. so yeah. if it's debatable in the senate, it's filibusterrable. if you have to go through several motions in the senate to get to conference, well, maybe you don't want to do that. maybe you want to try to avoid that. okay? conference is nothing more than an agreement between the house and senate. it's called a conference report; right? you use the bill number of whenever body acted first on the bill. if the senate acts first, it's the senate bill. if the house acts first, it's a house bill. and then the conference report is just the text. well, we agreed to do what the senate wanted to do in section one. we agreed to do what the house wanted to do in section two. it's called a conference report. it goes back to the receptive houses for a vote. it's unamendable.

you can't amend it. it's not like a bill. you vote it up or you vote it down. and then accompanying the conference report is a statement of managers which is kind of like a report. the house had 25. the senate had 50. the con -- conferrees. why is it important? because you are at the end of the process aren't you? this isn't something that committee put in the process that was changed and revisited along the way; right? this is the end of the line. we have a conference report. we have a deal between the house and senate. right here. in this conference report. and this document right here explains how we got there. we adopted this senate provision, we rejected this

senate provision, we melded these provisions together, the conferees feel strongly this should happen or that should happen. really important from a legislative history point of view. i got it. never knew the legislative process took so long. okay. now we go to the president. right? we go to the president. remember your american government. your civics. house, senate passes, goes to the president. right? the president -- what can the president do? what if he does nothing for 10 days not counting sundays? >> passes. >> it becomes law without his signature. what happens in during that ten days the congress adjourns? >> it's pocket vetoed. >> pocket vetoed. right? he doesn't veto it. if the congress -- if the congress -- what are the words,

the congress by their actions prevent it's return, the president would like to send this vetoed bill back with his message about why it was such a bad idea and why he vetoed it and give the house and senate to override it. oh darn. they are gone. i can't return it. the president can't send it back. it's pocket vetoed. when they wrote the constitution, we are not keen on the cheap executive thing. because the king was a stinker. we really like the congress a lot better than we like the president. but we can't let the congress just send the president a bunch of bad bills and then go home and make him eat them. that doesn't seem right; right? that's where the whole thing of a pocket veto can. or he can veto them. he can sign, not do anything for 10 days not counting sunday, and it becomes law without his

signature, he can try to send it back up, if the congress has adjourned, it's pocket vetoed, or he can just be a man and veto it. and explain why. or not. no, he has to explain. he's supposed to send it back with his reasons. what else can he do? what else have we learned in recent years that the president can to when he signs something? this is extra credit. this is not going to be on the examine. yeah, matt? >> the issue of signing statement. >> signing statement where the president says i'm signing this bill, but i'm not going to implement sections two and three because i think they -- i think they impinge on the power of the executive. and under the constitution, i believe that this function is an executive function and i'm going to sign it, but i'm going to implement this provision a little differently than the

plain law of the plain statute says. and that's all pretty exciting. and it'll be litigated. eventually we'll get that one sorted. we'll get that one sorted out. for our purposes, the president in this scenario is a big deal; right? it's a big deal. why is it a big deal? because we know that this president has taken a really strong positive stand in favor of doing something about -- about greenhouse gases. internationally, domestically, legislatively, or -- or in a regulatory regime. and the bill that was enacted by the congress that limited or constrained his environmental protection agency from acting in this area would probably be something that the president would be very concerned about.

and so i think when you do your plan, you need to think about the president and what might happen in terms of a veto. those of you who are opposed to this bill that might be your last stand. it won't be your last stand, will it? because i don't want to give away the surprise. but there is a step; right? but for some of you, you may look at this and say oh my goodness. all of these democratic co-sponsors in the senate, and a much closer ratio now between republicans and ds. we think we are in trouble in the senate. we think the bill could pass. we think the bill could get 60 votes and pass. and in the house, we really think there's a good chance it could pass. what happens then? you go see your dad; right? you go see president obama and

say, oh they've done this terrible horrible thing. will you veto? now is it a sure thing? let's think about that one. here's the president. here's the law. that limits the tissue the applicability of an epa regulatory for a couple of years. and he's got to make some decisions about whether or not he wants to veto this or not. what might be some of the things that would be in his mind? would be in his calculation. what do you think, joseph? what might the president think about? [inaudible] >> go. he's up in 2012. is this going to be a good thing or bad thing politically? they would not admit to that in a million years. all politicians think about

that; right? there's going to be some electoral politics involved. there's going to be presidential electoral politics involved. there's also going to be some congressional 2012 electoral politics involved. sure. what else? what else might he think? yes, where are you and who are you? >> i'm from vermont. >> vermont. 24 people in the whole state. most of them are here. go ahead. [laughter] >> there might be some sort of legislative deal that the president might get in chamber, quid pro quo. >> yeah, good. could be part of some package. everybody is scratching their heads. why do you think he ever signed that bill? what's going on? you might not find out for a little while. you might find out it was part of a brokered compromise. has that ever happened? [laughter] >> sure. sure. could be that. what if this bill passes the

senate with -- bless you. with 14 democrats voting for you it. 15 democrats. i don't know. pick a number. if -- what if it passes the house 350-75? what might that suggest to the president? come on. keep up. huh? >> his party wants it. >> his party wants it. there are people in the party that might be hurt if he vetoed it. what else? >> might have the votes to override it. >> do the math. exactly right. he might look at this and say i'm going to get overridden on this potentially. now politics of overriding a veto even if the legislation passes the house and senate by a big enough vote, it's different; right? i voted for this bill, i voted for this limitation on the

administrators regulatory authority. i didn't vote against president obama yet. and that's a different deal for me if i'm a d; right? so the politics of override is different. but it might well be the first place that you'd start is you'd look and say how likely am i to be overridden? do you i want to be overridden? do you think there's a political negative for being overridden? i might think as the president there's a political positive for vetoing and not being overridden. we talked about bill clinton not long ago. anybody remembered what happened to clinton when the republicans passed a budget that had things in it he didn't like and he vetoed it and the response was to shut down the government. and he never looked back.

from a political sort of, you know, public opinion point of view. it was a huge advantage for him. huge plus. so you could think maybe obama would think to himself, yeah, i'd like to kind to veto this one. or he might think -- i'm not sure. i have a lot of ds that have voted for this. some of these are in tight elections. do i want to put a bunch of these -- a bunch of them, well, there's about three left. do i want to go after some of these democrats in the midwest? that have these coal plants in their districts? do i want to make this a big election issue in 2012 for them? i don't know. maybe we lose the senate. maybe there are some people in the senate who this would be an big enough issue that the politics might be such that i would find myself if i were re-

elected in in -- sorry about that. if i were re-elected in 2012, i might find myself with a republican controlled senate and house. do you think about that? sort of you and lobbyist and the arguments that you want to make and the tactics that you want to bring to bear on -- oops. oh yeah on people like this. you know, carol browner, chief of staff, head of legislative affairs for the white house. you know, you might want to think about lobbying these people and how are we -- how is this going to play out? right? talking to these people. how do you think the politics of this is going to shape up? good. yes. emily? >> do you think it ever works the other way where a republican in the current congress, the republican doesn't vote for the bill then when they are going to override, he decided to vote

because he wants the president to look bad? >> he wants the president to lose? so young to be so cynical? >> sure. i'm sure. i'm sure. probably less like it. you are probably going to get people who would vote yes on the substance, but then if it was the matter of standing against the president of their party, especially if the president had them down for a little visit, that's a more difficult vote, i think, than voting no and then turns around and voting yes just so you can kind of stick it to the prez. could happen. would happen. any other comments or questions before we go off to the next slide? nope. we are good. okay. good. [inaudible comment] >> not so much. yeah, omb, everybody know about

omb, office of management and budget. sort of the policy, you know, guardians of the president's program; right? the office of management and budget that tries to sort of keeps the president's program on track are these legislative proposals consistent with the president's agenda? with the president's program? the omb is kind of like -- no, no strike that. the omb, there are some similarities in the way the omb is trucktured where the offices in omb that are subject related and so there will be people in the office of management and budget who have natural resource air quality, regulatory, epa issues under their jurisdiction; right? and who can be involved should the president wish to involve them in strategy, decision making, the preparation of

position papers of the administration on legislation such as this? and the omb is lobbiable. especially those of you who would be opposed to this bill. you are probably going to find some -- you would probably find some receptive ears at omb. probably not so much on the other side. but yes, john? >> i have a question. do you want me to wait until the end? >> no, no, do you have something on omb? >> yes. >> go ahead. >> i wanted to let you know from the class we have someone coming from the class to talk about their role. but also in drafting statements of the administrative policy, staff which can have an impact on whether the votes are there

or not on the initiative. and does not want to be covered by c-span. >> well, maybe -- yeah, good. that's good. [laughter] >> that's excellent. yes, john, go ahead. >> maybe i missed it. but i don't think i did. what kind of influence is the lobbyist have in the hearings? >> well, you tell me. let's say we're going to have a hearing on -- let's say we're going to have a hearing on the bill in the senate. and you are a lobbyist. and you have a client. and you know this hearing is coming up and your client has a point of view and there's a public hearing on this bill. what kinds of things might you think that your client could or maybe couldn't do with respect to that hearing that would be helpful or otherwise? >> well, i'd want to know who's

testifying. >> would you want your client to testify? >> it depends on the client. >> true. good point. but that would be the first place to start is maybe you want to call your contacts on the committee staff and get your client on the witness list. you might want to be on the witness list. you might not. good point. it may depend on your client. your client might make a really great witness. your client maybe somebody that's best sitting in your office watching it on television. you have to make that judgment. okay. what else besides testifying? what else do you think you might come up with? anybody want to help? you have an hearing. you have a client that's interested in this bill. you are having a hearing. maybe you want direct physical testimony or what else? >> you can get one panel or so filled out for people to gather at the hearing. >> sure. use the hearing as an

opportunity to know there are going to be people around that care about the issue and there maybe an opportunity to get information out at that point. be sure to identify yourself. perry? >> perry from philadelphia. you can submit written testimony. >> you can submit a written statement. maybe joe is better back at the office. but a written statemented submitted for the record would be good. what else, luke? >> yeah. >> what else? >> third party boundaries come in as well. >> really good. really good. you might not want your client there. your job might be to get somebody that's a couple of steps removed; right? who would come in that might have some connections, policy connections with members who if they heard your client say it, they'd be saying, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, we've heard this before. if you get someone in to validate your position that you know not one of the usual

suspects, great. yeah. great. how about a question? maybe you as the lobbyist want to use your contacts with the committee or the committee staff to get a remember of the committee to ask a friendly question of your witness or your third party validater witness, or maybe you want somebody on the majority or minority side to ask a question of another witness. what about that study in 1985 that said you were killing all of the little baby seals; right? you might want some kind of a question like that. yeah. so there are lots of things you can do. lots of things to do at hearings. yeah, good question. okay. let's see. where else are we? oh good. we are done with the legislative process. whew. thank god. let's talk about the big picture. there's things that i want you to think about. in the context of the legislative process to be sure

divided government, we have divided government again; right? we have a house controlled by the republicans and senate controlled by the democrats with a narrow majority and lots of democrats up for re-election in 2012, democratic president up for re-election in 2012. we have a divided government. a lot of new players, a bunch of new senators, a real bunch of new members in the house; right? so there's -- i mean there's something going on there; right? that's important. presidential election year. we talked about this impact on -- impact on timing. it maybe the president. maybe the theory of the proponents of this bill -- let's get this done. you know, we think this is a bad one for us. we think the president is going to have a hard time vetoing this one. we think if we does, he maybe over ridden. let's get this over with. if we are going to lose, let's

lose early and be done with it. on the other hand, the strategy might be we want to stretch this out as far as we can and right in the heat of the campaign. it'll be too late for you all, because you have to have it done by the end of the first session. but in real life, maybe you want the president sort of standing out on the campaign trail having a veto ceremony at the end of the grand canyon. protecting the vista. yeah. so timing is important. we talked about context. think about the contacts. the economy. the role of government. we kind of know that's a big one these days, don't we? the federal government. the role of the federal government. right? the power of the federal government, the proper place of the federal government in terms of regulation of business and in terms of, you know, in terms of

injecting itself into the private sector; right? it's a little tougher issue now than it was a few years ago we think. we know it is, don't we? if you were going to lobby in favor of this bill, you'd want to phrase it, you'd want to frame it how? we don't want these -- we don't want the regulatory agency imposing these burdens on whomever they are going to burden; right? you'd want to sort of frame it in a, you know, get the government off of our back point of view. if you are looking for -- if you are looking for a strategy theme or theme or a message on the other side, your message probably isn't the federal government knows best. is it? trust the epa. lisa knows best. right?

probably not the tactic that you want to take. health and safety. economy. maybe you make an argument that it's good for the economy. you maybe an argument that it's good for, you know, all kinds of things. but probably the best argument is not that the congress wouldn't do it's job and so now it's time for federal regulatory agency to step in. yeah. context is important. :

>> explained them. substantive matters, but benefit in this case, we want you to understand the substance. it's important as lobbyists that you understand the substance of whatever you're lobbying. but in this case we're not going to try to make you zionists and the like. and then, unlike previous classes where the veto is really kind of not being as much in play, both sides really need to think about that step in the legislative process where the president gets to say yes or no. now, what happens if the president says no?

we have an opportunity, right, for the congress to override the veto, two-thirds, right? so maybe for some of you, maybe for some of you, you keep falling back, we will fight them in committee. we will fight them on the floor. we will fight them in congress. we will fight them in the white house. we will fight them when they come back to the congress. you know, for the second or third time. maybe that's where you are. and isn't it great, isn't it great that we had a process and that you understand that there's a process that allows you to think about all those different options and alternatives when you design a plan to go in and pitched a client. you have options, alternatives. you have knowledge of the process. you're able to make a case that involves lots of different -- you just don't have to go in

there and say, well, if we can get 40 we are in good shape. if we don't, we're screwed. you don't have to do that. legislative process for all its warts gives lobbyists lots of different access points, lots of different ways to get a job done. all right. comments or questions? do we have time? sorry. [laughter] >> fifteen minutes, but i wanted to finish the -- >> i'm sorry. >> don't apologize. it was great. >> thank you, tom, very much. [applause] >> we are going to take a 10 minute break. 10 minutes.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> now more on lobbying from american university. a former legislative affairs director for president clinton discusses how the white house lobbies congress for its legislative agenda. you will hear from charles brain is now president of a lobbying firm. he talks about the evolution of a legislative affairs office and how the obama administration might try to work with the incoming congress. this forum is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> well, welcome back to the public affairs advocacy institute. my name is patrick griffiths. i'm the academic director of this institute. this is a professional institute that is designed to explore and convey insights and skills that are necessary for professional advocacy in washington, and probably applicable to many capitals around this country.

this afternoon we have two speakers. i will -- our first is chuck brain. chuck is a dear friend and colleague for many, many years, is an old hand in washington. has worked in many institutions. here that shaped public policy one way or another. he has worked on capitol hill,ap part of the ways and means ivmmittee, former chairman dan t rostenkowski, a real powerhouses himself. chuck has worked in the clinton administration, the second term he was the director for thee legislative affairs, a job thatn is extremely important inaffair. helping to be the president's job chief lobbyist shaping srat is strategies and shaping themnc on capitol hill.irectly th the he direct --and the finer details of strategy development and in slugging itd out day-to-day on capitol hill on cng to make the case.

he's also worked in the lobbying, part of a firm prior a to going into the white house and has had his own veryior uccessful lobbying firm here ie washington working principally with democrats and beyond. unique aspect of firms here in washington, but very successful, and kngtowing how to shape agai, another avenue into shapingg policy from the outside.again we are really delighted to have him back once again to talk hiback once about hagis experiences in lobbying, particularly the whitx house and the congress, but in lobbying a any way you might want to share with us. ngress, but anyway you might want to share with us. >> thank you. [applause] >> that is most famous, or im or indented to pat for having described the job that he alluded to, we shared as i was about to take, i said is this a

good job. and he said it's a great rearview mirror experience. in other words, the farther away from it that you are, the better it was. and it's now about eight or 10 years, and it was a great time. i had a wonderful time in the white house. and i really did. and my topic today is the executive congressional relations, but i want to sort of describe white house, all of that goes into devising and implementing legislative program and strategy on behalf of the white house, but also maybe suggest to you that you also need to appreciate those dynamics that goes on, that go on between the white house and

the hill. as you build it into your own, you know, legislative strategy, plotting strategy on the outside, you can't operate in a vacuum. your lobbying effort, you know, just going into a black box. you have to appreciate who's getting along with you on the hill, who's cooperating with you, who's up, who's down, in order to build your strategy from the outside. so that's in addition to just being, you know, good observant of sort of, you know, current events and good citizens. i mean, the profession that you are sort of seeking to get into,

as i understand it, you also need to know what's going on up on the hill. and i've come to the conclusion after sort of 20, 20 plus years, i don't want to say exactly how long, in washington, that the congressional white house relations is really the most interesting thing that goes on because it's the most dynamic set of relations, and, you know, most complicated and most fluid. you've all heard the analogy, playing three-dimensional chess. and the other, the other is, you know, description of something

that's difficult like landing a plane on an aircraft carrier, and lobbying for the white house is trying to play three-dimensional chess while you are landing a plane the aircraft carrier during a snowstorm. it is just that difficult, but that also is what makes it a great rearview mirror experien experience. but it also makes it sort of very dynamic, and challenging. when you do, when you walk through the gates at the white house, you know you're in the big leagues. is no other way of saying it. everything else is just sort of, you know, on the way to the big leagues. i want to start, to give you an

example of how the dynamic relationship, maybe sort of pull you into the discussion, i want to start you off with a couple of hypothetical questions. you have a job, let's say you have a job at pat and i had, head of legislative affairs for the white house. the president is going to make a couple of calls to the hill to advance his legislative agenda, legislative agenda that you have been working on. and as happened, they turn to you first, but okay, who do we call? and let's get your reaction. who would you call? [inaudible] >> the speaker? put a name on that.

nancy pelosi. okay, okay so pelosi. who did you say? >> the majority and minority leaders. >> of the senate? i'm giving you two, two calls. not for. >> i guess if you are looking at, you would call nancy pelosi and harry reid. >> okay. why would you call pelosi? >> depending on the issue, you want to see where they were on issue. >> what would you say if -- let's get another.

>> the chair of whatever committee. >> potentially, but you would get, the president engages sort of at the leadership level. at that process. the chair has to be encouraged to do something, or scheduling something on the floor or something like that. usually it would be the president, not exclusively but usually deals with the leaders. who's got another? remember, you get two calls. would your answer to the question be affected by the most recent elections? you know, come january, maybe i should specify it. you know, boehner and read would

be too obvious ones. you are raising the question of how does nancy pelosi, and how does the speaker of the house, the democratic leader field because presumably this past year you were calling her, or her office first. but what about, what if i said well, mitch mcconnell? mitch mcconnell and reid, harry reid. that sort of indicates a different dynamic, which is if you want to talk to the leaders of both houses, which is, you know, and you're willing to just say in his pass congress, you call reid and pelosi, okay, you check the boxes with the leaders of both bodies, which happens to

be the leader of the party on the hill. that's a nice little symmetry. it gets complicated when your party is dominated by the leaders of the other party. so, and that's the potential switch from the one call to the house leadership, being from a republican to democrat, from pelosi to boehner. but to go at it, a there's no right or wrong answer here. it's probably just, there are a handful of right answers, but i've given you too. but to talk about mcconnell versus boehner. mcconnell, reid. you know, you're looking at in

excess, the senate, the senate versus the house. and so much of what in the past, certainly the lame duck, but much of the past congress, it's sort of whatever you get through the senate. you know, the house has to take, you know, more or less if they're going to do anything. so if you can get it through mcconnell, being the minority leader in the house, in the senate, okay. but those are legitimate. but my point is that the answers change depending on what's going on, you know, with elections, what's going on politically, going on between the two sides. you can't look in the constitution for the right answer, or what is right, you

know, december of last year it may not be right december of this year. you know, sort of another question is, or maybe a bonus question, it's a day after the election. who do you call? you've got a lame-duck session that is staring you in the face. who do you call? the heads of two bodies, pelosi and reid. yeah, that's fine. or should you call boehner again? you know, that's another

possibility. again, borges called mitch mcconnell. mitch, what will you pass? what we do that through? and i suspect that some of these conversations actually were held out the white house, you know, who are we going to bring down? who are we going to have to, you know, the real meeting. not the one that's for the public. which may not always be the same, the same answer. anyway, this is an example of, if i work in academia -- if i were in academia, thank god i'm not, i would've written by this point in my career something called the role of twos in the

american legislative process. you've got two bodies, two parties, and two branches. and whatever, you know, mathematics you can do with those things. and out of that you get almost a seemingly infinite variety, certainly a challenging set of changes where, okay, the bodies have different interests, you know, on the hill. ..

they are my adversaries. the real enemy here in the front is the other body, the senate. and republicans say that about s republican senate. democrats certainly, this past session said that about a democratic senate. and we are about to see different reactions from the democrats on the hill, what they think of the white house. in other words, the head of their party may or may not continue to be their leader, depending on what he pursues as

his agenda. anyway, that's just a way of trying to underscore to the extent i can be effective here of the dynamic relationships going on on the hill, vis-à-vise the white house. and if you're not a tuned to hag what's happening you know, you might as well, i like to say that you are painting, you are painting a picture but rather than doing it from talent and from years and years of experience you are really painting it in numbers if you don't appreciate that, you know, that changing dynamic and are sensitive to that.

any questions about the current situation or the possible dynamics or the possible changes? go ahead. >> my name is sam and i'm from minnesota. i guess u.s. the hypothetical, the president got two phonecalls, who do you make? you have been in the clinton white house and seen the president really only makes two phonecalls to capitol hill when he is on a legislative. i/o is imagined it was a little more extensive than that. >> well depending on what else is going on. you know, there may just be two. it may just be, if it is something major, sure there

could be a whole lot of effort to pull together to send it into the white house run by white house affairs and where you would bring in, have cabinet members make phonecalls, you know, involved the chief chief of staff, involve the vice president, things like that. but really, you would be surprised at really how little of the presidents time or attention you can get on a routine basis. you know, the president, it is hard for people who have spent their lives on the hill, have got other things to do. big security issues, thinking of international issues. you know, i know some people in

d.c. who are asking you know, what was the president doing, thinking about going, within days of the election, to president in southeast asia and did a couple of stops over there and ended up in an economic summit. and people i have talked to on the hill are like, what are you doing going over there? we just lost an election. well, the fact of the matter is, he had an economic summit to go to that had been scheduled for a couple of years and has a role of, to the outside world. so, it may just be two calls, depending on what else is going on. go ahead, right there. >> can you shed some light on your thoughts of the current tax deal that obama and the seedier majority cut, maybe some

background thoughts on how it happened and how it went down, etc.? >> it is probably the most recent example of the dynamic relationship and changing power structure that exists. by and large, if i were a democratic member of congress i would probably have voted for it. but, to think that any democrat on the hill plays a significant role in its development i think is dubious. you know, didn't do it, but i think that was probably -- you know, some of us had questions

like, okay, and speculated for months about where's the president going to play the game? where in the spectrum is he going to go as a result of what was proved out to be, in his words, a shellacking. seeing that this shellacking was coming, and there was speculation, will he triangulate, which is a bad term, coming from the clinton administration. to me, triangulation means simply working with the people who share your views and your goals. regardless of party. or that some people said no, he won't do that. he will go hard left, and sort of, you know, the left needs to be appeased.

they are disappointed for a whole variety of reasons. and while i am sure the white house is flexible enough to do different strategies on different issues, it is an example of okay, he wanted to get something done, which is another imperative of any white house and therefore -- they are there for four years. the most you can be guaranteed his four years and you get renewed once, but you you are guaranteed another four years, and so there is an imperative to get things done. whereas congress, there is always going to be another congress and up until, you know,

the massive defeats. you can plan on being around for a while. i think that assumption is now questionable, about how secure any seed is, but that is, i mean, the difference between the white house and congress. and so, within i think a couple of days, as i read the newspapers correctly, the president has decided, okay i need to get a deal here. we need for whatever reason to clear the deck of some issues, including some of the other sort of business that he wanted to get done, and i'm referring to the s.t.a.r.t. treaty which normally he wouldn't think of as a legislative issue, so you need

to get through the end of this year. i think of people on the hill, the democrats, might have urged him not to cut that tax deal. lets just sort of go into next year. maybe there are some republicans who didn't like the compromise either. certainly, there was a 100% vote on either side of the aisle, so i am sure the republican leadership was also criticized in private caucuses for compromising with the president rather than waiting until january 5, when we can do it our way. the house will send the senate sort of, given the dynamics of the rules committee and the majority nature of the house of representatives, send them sort of the -- the estate tax is an

example. send them complete repeal or permanent increase in the bush tax cuts. let's wait until january to do that and then we will fight it out over in the senate and we will jam the president, but a constellation of interests came together. he wanted to get something done, and on the hill, to my surprise they wanted to get something done too virchow socom i mean is that a, is that a sign of things to calm? we will see. it also then gets to and more questions here, the agenda setting function of the white house and we talked a little bit here and a second about the role

president in setting the agenda and the legislative process, but the state of the union isn't typically until the third or fourth week in september, i mean in january. the house of representatives is coming in and staying in, in january. so what is the house going to be doing with the new republican majority, the first three weeks in january? they are going to be setting their own agenda, so we will see what happens in the future. but, it is a further example of, you know, the dynamism of the relationship. amalie. >> i was wondering, you

mentioned that the elections would have an impact on the context of the president and the highest level of leadership. [inaudible] >> yeah. that is typically outside of the legislatures purview and gets to other offices that are part of the white house team. you know, public affairs process

that supports the president. there is an intergovernmental affairs office, which works with the, the mayors and governors, and they be the president in some circumstances will call a governor. asked the governor to lobby his or her members of congress. so yeah, there is a whole lot -- i don't think i would advise them to call the owner of the philadelphia eagles and talk about michael vick. but, there is a whole sort of set relationships that go beyond the narrow lane of white house affairs, but as part of a team, you hope that okay, it is all coming together and so folks on the outside are involved in that

sort of, focused in on that goal. john. >> i have a similar question. is very probable scenario in the new congress and what kind of speaker john is going to be where the white house would almost marginalize him if he is not in control of these factions in the house with a tea party people, the incoming folks? and what they have to make those phonecalls, they may not call john and they might go to i don't know, can't tour or somebody else. boorish the speaker always going to be --. >> not always, but when you have

got, i don't know, publicly reported to be rivals i am sure they would say they were each other's best friends and democrats have the same set of personalities at the top. to call the inferior one, that being the lesser, to call the assistant and not the leader, you are playing with fire there. so, you had better have a real good reason for calling, calling one and not the other. >> if the speaker calls the white house -- [inaudible] >> not typically.

i mean, in theory, every communication with the hill goes through legislative affairs so every meeting is set up the legislative affairs. meetings are one thing to control. every phonecall going out should involve legislative affairs. phonecalls coming in, well, you know, that is less stringent. phonecalls, president clinton used to call people on the hill at 1:00 in the morning. i know their wives didn't like the phone ringing. i certainly wouldn't want my phone to ring to get a report on what the president said.

especially i mean, this white house, you are dealing with two former legislators and two former senators. to try to monitor joe biden's calls, good luck. and you know, my reaction, when i was on the hill, head of legislative affairs, if any significant person wanted to talk to the president, go ahead, let them. one time i happen to be traveling with the president to boston, my hometown, you know, and we met at the airport by senator kennedy, who drove with us in the presidential limo to the event and so just the three of us in the backseat of the

lemieux and when we got to the place, i got out and it was clear that senator kennedy wanted to have a conversation with the president. my thought was, you know if senator kennedy wants to have a private conversation with the president of the united states, i am not going to get in the way. and so i just sort of stood outside. that is also ask i went into the event and realized it was a winter much like today. i realized i only had one of my gloves and i went back and they are the president was holding up a glove. and he looked at me and he says, is this your glove? yes, mr. president, thank you for doing it. anything else? >> i was wondering if --.

>> i am having fun and i enjoy your questions, and i'm sure you learned from my answers to your questions. >> i was wondering if you have made any major changes to a lot of legislation? >> i think his legislative agenda was by and large thrust on him by events, first of all by economic events, which i don't think he is given credit enough for and i am editorializing here but two years ago at this time in december, december of 08, the white house transition team was actually up and running as a functioning government, and the

president had to deal with an economic crisis while he was in transition and the first several months were in part getting president wishes proposals through the congress. so that is part of the -- things that happen that you have to deal with. and the banking bill, largely, had to do it. i think the one that is you know judged, second-guessed at this point is health care reform.

should they have done health care reform? but i think people, you know, fully appreciate what public opinion was back then. both during the campaign and then early on. health care reform was a huge priority and taking that on first, you know, i don't quibble with that at all. you have to realize that, specially in the white house legislative affairs, that everyone is going to second guess you. if they hadn't done any of those things, you know, they would be second-guessed by the same people that second-guessed them for having done it, so -- i

don't have any quibble with it. i think the big question is, and i alluded to it, what is the agenda going to be for this year and you have got the state of the union out there, and again the date probably has been set but the third week in january is a good guess. the budget, they announced it is going to be delayed but it will probably be mid-february and another major event is the expiration of the debt ceiling, which for those of you who don't know, there is a dollar amount that is set in law that the united states can't borrow more

than that amount. now, it is not a date and time but it is an amount, so when we hit the debt limit, it is a matter or a projection. it is right now projected to be sort of early spring, march, april timeframe. and i mean, that is what the republicans back in 95, shut the government down over. and it resulted in, i mean a constitutional crisis, major confrontation, you know, and history being made as a result of that. what are we going to see? where are the republicans going to want for an increase in the debt limit?

you would be surprised. a balanced budget package or a significant deficit reduction package. along the lines of what erskine bowles and senator alan simpson just came up with. other than that, i don't know what the white house has on its agenda. they seem to have gotten a lot of it. what they didn't get in the last two years they got in the lame-duck, and there were policy options in the white house who were busy churning out other things. tax reform could be one of them. a freestanding tax reform bill, but on the other hand, the democratic congress was

receptive to the president's agenda. i mean especially the house of representatives has the ability to sort of move. one thing you could maybe fault the administration for was moving on climate change or energy legislation, but nancy pelosi sure got that through the house to the consternation of some people who aren't going to be a member of the next congress. does that come back in some form but then you have to sort of say, what is the republican agenda in the house? the gavel is going to pass from, i mean it is very symbolically passed from nancy pelosi to john

boehner. it was the other way around four years ago, but while that is just symbolic and a piece of wood, i mean an awful lot of it goes without. most importantly, setting the agenda, dropping the gavel in literally dozens of committee rooms and asking people, witnesses to raise your right hand. we are not going to talk to you about, and the republicans in the house will fill in the blanks. the democrats get one witness, whereas it is entirely differen.

alright, i always liked going back to the constitution itself. we talk about white house and congressional legislative affairs, congressional relations, and ask what the constitution says about the role of the president in the legislative process. can anyone tell me sort of like how many times or what sorts of powers that the president, how many times he is mentioned or the powers the president has? emily. [inaudible] >> and than that actually sort of is in article i of the constitution, which defines the legislative branch, so it is even part of the legislative

branch, you know, which starts off saying all legislative powers being in the hands of the legislature that consists of the house and senate. so and there they describe a pocket veto situation. there is another one, however. >> there is advising and reporting of the state of the union. >> yes. in article ii, which deals with the executive branch, it says the president shall from time to time give to congress information of the state of the union and recommend, meaning congress', consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. i mean, other than in that same

section sort of some relatively archaic language about it can convening or returning congress under "extraordinary occasions"really the president can, the constitution gives him the power to decide whether or not to veto a bill and how to veto it and, you know, to send up his views on the state of the union, you know, what else you think is going on. such measures that are deemed to be expedient and out of those two sections, we now have a situation where i don't think

there is any doubt that everyone would agree, or most observers would say, that in the legislative process the president is the preeminent power. he sets the agenda. he drives the process. very little -- very a little originates on the hill on its own and that was always the case throughout history. but it certainly is today, and while we can debate why, how, really, since the past 70 or 80 years, you know, how the president has become the preeminent power in the legislative process since the

eisenhower administration. there there is has been this office of legislative affairs where the executive branch has focused its legislative efforts through this white house of legislative affairs that padded i had the privilege of having. it goes back to, the story goes, the eisenhower ministries and where president eisenhower, who of course had spent some time over in the pentagon in the military, to put it mildly, he got to the white house in 1953 and said where is my legislative affairs officer? what are you talking about? well, you know, who is the person responsible for

implementing, you know, working with me on congressional affairs we don't know what you are talking about. over at the pentagon. we have an officer in charge of everything, and there is somebody over there who does, you know, congressional relations. oh, yeah, that is new. we can set up that office and ss sort of diffused throughout the government, but beginning sometime in the early 50s the white house legislative affairs office was set up and one of the early incompetence of the office called it -- his job was to build bridges across the yawning

constitutional chasm, being the executive branch and the legislative ranch. he also said it was his job to unchecked the checks and unbalanced the balances. it is a pretty apt description are certainly poetic. a person who had the job in between patrick and myself said his job, he realized at any point this is less poetic and less flowery language. he said at any point in time he realized that somebody in the government was doing something completely stupid that was bound to take somebody off on the hill big-time and it was his job to go fix it. but that is probably more accurate description, more contemporary than bryce harlow in her early incumbent but to

unchecked the checks and unbalanced the balance. but having said the president is the preeminent legislative actos on white house, it is all done through white house legislative affairs. there is no office on the hill that is part of the white house. white house legislative affairs usually doesn't have a place on the hill to call its own. frequently people hang out. it sounds mundane but it is a practical matter, where are you going to go to leave your papers? where are you going to go to, you know, use the computer?

where are you going to go to meet somebody? the vice president does have an office in the capital. he has got staff that uses that office but frequently -- [laughter] i knew it was hot in here. but that is the only piece of property on the hill that the white house has regular access to and then only with the permission of the vice president and his staff. it is true that this white house legislative office did have access in the house to a room that the speaker was kind enough

to provide, but that is when the speaker controlled all of, mrs. pelosi, controlled all of the real estate and she shrinks her staff, shrinks her real estate, all of that is controlled by boehner. you know, mimicking a situation that i faced, we faced much of the time, i mean after 94 in the white house, we had this office space in the house that was the end of the hallway outside of the -- office. that was it. think of it, just sort of like this major lobbying effort and machine and responsibility, and

people, where are you going to put the secretary of state when he is up for a meeting or he or she is up for a meeting? where are you going to conduct your own meanings? you don't control any office space on the hill. it really is a different branch. but the office of legislative affairs really never, never changes much. the structure, since eisenhower, it has grown but from one administration to the next, the structure, it doesn't change. it has been tried. you come in and you are moving so quickly with the transition, you are like okay, this is what my predecessor did regardless of

party. let's just do it the same way. so it is headed by an assistant to the president for legislative affairs, one person. below that there are three deputies, one deputy who is in charge of the house, one in charge of the senate obviously and one doing the internal paperwork. he is called an inside deputy, just to go to the meetings and make sure that the paperwork has been signed off on etc.. below that, there is roughly half a dozen, both the house and senate, special assistance to the president, people whose job it is to go to the hill and, you know, to divide up a certain number of members and committees and issues, slice it whichever

way and maybe several ways. so you will have somebody who is in charge of the commerce committee. you have somebody in charge of ways and means in the house and the finance committee in the senate. below that person, below those you have got -- excuse me -- a number of staff assistance. those are people who i like to say, they really do much of the work at the white house, certainly in legislative affairs. people just out of school, looking around. some of you people are probably older than the staff assistance in the white house, but people

who answer the correspondence, peop >> people who coordinate events. every event that occurs, it's going to have a -- a congressional component. white house legislative affairs will be involved and to make sure that, you know, that, you know, that senator glen is treated properly. i use senator glen as an example not because i'm showng age, because one night late afternoon, thinking about back to the clinton administration, it was going to be a metal of honor award ceremony to a couple of korean soldiers for whatever reason hadn't received the metal of honor that they were awarded

back in the '50s. the mistake was realized, you know, one of them was going to be postmouse award and two others were there. and the gentleman, you know, late '60s, early '70s, and that was going to go on. we didn't know anything about it in legislative affairs until we got a call from senator glen, who if you will recall, you know, was a decorated veteran of world war ii, korean war, most famous -- mostly to my generation as the, you know, the first man to orbit the earth. i'm down and got my phone call from my officer saying that

senator glenn had just called the house and people were doing the event and he was told that there was no room there for senator glenn at the event. which it was full. no he couldn't come down. that's the wrong answer to tell a sitting united states senator. much less john glenn, because he was a marine, a couple of his gentleman were marines, so i was told white house switchboard had senator glenn on the phone. we're going to put him through to you. okay. senator glenn, yeah, what can i do for you? chuck brain. chuck, i'm with annie, my wife, and we have some of the grandchildren here. we're in the van driving around town. we're on the way to the white

house, and they tell me i can't come to the awarder ceremony. i said, no, senator, i don't know how that happened. just come down, pull up right through the, you know, we'll take care of you. that wasthat was -- i understooe importance of senator glenn. not only as an individual, but also, you know, to the president's legislative program. you know, quite frankly, he was a vote. and so i said, yeah, come right down. yup. i'll meet you at the front door of the white house. i went in and, you know, saw the person who had told them no. i just got a call from john glenn. i told him to come down. you can't do that. tell him go back. you know, he and his wife will

have to turn around. there's no room for him. fine, okay. i'm going to have senator glenn standing here in five minutes. the president is going to come by. the president is going to say, john, why don't you come on in. and you are going to be the one who says to the president, no, he can't go in. that doesn't -- you know. he said, fine, i'll find room for him. i'll do whatever. but that's a little bit of the sensitivity. there are other support offices in the white house and i'm using, you know, describing legislative affairs as a quote support office. but you all have, you know, particularly sensitivities. and responsibilities. mine just happen to be, you know, congress. so i was going to be responsive to whatever members of congress wanted to do. you are also supported in legislative affairs by other

shops and assistants to the president like yourself who were in charge of policy, national economic council, you know, democratic policy council, council -- you know, economic advisors, national security council, i mean the -- and the national security advisor believe it or not has the same rank within the white house as, you know, as pat or i did. cabinet affairs. somebody has to get on the phone every morning with the chiefs of staff to the cabinet. the cabinet members saying like okay, this is what the white house is doing today.

we're advancing this proposal. this is the president's schedule. and as i said, made reference to earlier you know, the governors, the mayors, et cetera, the state legislatures, and then also sort of a vast communications shop. which has grown beyond, you know, the white house press secretary to, you know, types of media that, you know, pat or i don't understand. but i'm sure that somebody in the white house who is in charge of facebook, or twitter. it's all overseen by the chief of staff. but the power of legislative affairs, it's effectiveness is

built on persuasion. you have to be able to persuade people on the hill to really do what you want them to do. to get them to do what you want to do, you have to persuade them that it's in their best interest to do what you want. you can do that on the basis of party loyalty. that works. excuse me. you know, members of your own party, you can get 90% of your own party, you know, just by saying, you know, by putting a proposal out there. you'll also lose 90% of the other party. just by getting a proposal out there. just like the supreme court nominees, okay, i mean it's -- we've seen how this game played. you know, judge scalia sat on

the bench, been there for about ten years and it was approved unanimously. judge alito, and why can't i think of her name? yeah, kagan. kagan. >> okay. >> who was colleague at the white house. you know, you really only have a handful of members votes on the other side of the aisle. that's why i said, the effort has to be on those in the middle. keeping those of your party who you should get, but -- excuse me, persuading some on the other side that they should do it too. they should support you too, which is increasingly difficult. but again we talked about choices that the president has to make of where he wants to play the ball game, so i think it was also referred to what sort of -- what sort of leader is john boehner?

what sort of speaker is john boehner going to be or mitch mcconnell? will they perceive it's not interest to get something done. in which case legislative affairs is going to be successful. by their own -- some of their biggest friends on the democratic side. so but as you develop your legislative, you know, strategy being aware of and being able to tap into, you know, the change in dynamics between the house and, excuse me, the house and senate and the congress and the white house is important. so with that, you know, if somebody will be kind enough to ask a question, i can say my thoughts. >> let me go back to one of the points that you were making and maybe unanswered questions, do you -- in your judgment, do you

think the republicans benefited by their cooperation with the president in the lame duck? because it appears that they had clearly a strategy of just say no. >> just say no. >> they got awarded in the election for that. i mean they all in a dramatic way. then somehow they decided to cooperate on a lot of things. so do you think they are benefiting from that? and i know you are not certain. what might we take from that going forward? >> that's sort of -- that level of cooperation is something that i didn't predict. i was saying, okay, there's going to be nothing to come out of lame duck besides a -- the only decision the lame duck is going to make is the length of the continuing resolution. so i was surprised by that.

[inaudible comment] >> why not wait until january weekend to quote do it right. have a longer if not permanent level of cuts, higher estate tax, you know, exemptions and things like that. it's too soon to see if they are quote rewarded or not. the ultimate reward will come november two years from now. as you know there are political scientists and social scientists talk about sort of the great movement of history. and trends and things like that. some of these -- some of the most important things come down to individual decisions made by

discreet actors. you know? i mean john boehner, mitch mcconnell, barack obama all made the decision it was better to cooperate and get it done. get these serious things done. whereas, you know, the progress nast caters looking at it from almost, you know, disinvolved interest, nothing is going to happen here. so we'll see. i grew, you know, most of my time on the hill was in an era of divided government. excuse me. it was a clear majority in the house, a majority in the house that we thought was never going to end. you know, years 30 through 40 let's say. but the white house, you know, was -- i never thought i would

see another democratic president after jimmy carter. so i'm sort of a fan of divided government. i mean i think, you know, things get done. you made reference to dan rostenkowski, the biggest thing to get mentioned in the -- in his obituary this past august was tax reform. you know, back in, you know, 25 years ago. it was a republican with ronald reagan's proposal that we worked with republican white house and republican senate to accomplish. you know? >> i think it's in their self-interest to do. >> right. yeah? >> any other questions? john? >> yeah. when you were with the white house, was there ever a time that you would lobby the senate

to not pass something or lobby the democrats in the senate to hold something up, that way president clinton wouldn't have to veto it. were you afraid the vetoes could come back on him? >> it was probably -- it was probably more a case of being flexible about what we thought was vetoable raised the level -- raise the level of objection ability to the veto level. i think in the eight years of the clinton administration, there was one veto that was successfully overridden. and that isn't testimony -- it's in part testimony to how effective, you know, white house legislative affairs was in the administration. it's also -- i mean it's another thing about whether or not we

were selective in what we chose to threaten a veto on. i think what you reminded me of while you want to advance your agenda to have a signing ceremony with your priorities, you also want to make sure that other things that you would object to maybe, you know, the veto stage is the last stage. that maybe you don't have a, you know, even a hearing on some bill that you know if it picked up scenes that you would have to object to. >> try to stop it? >> yeah. >> one last question, john? >> do you -- does the office of legislative affairs ever deal with external? >> we did.

in sort of -- on some relatively big issues. not on a day-to-day basis. there wasn't the time to meet with outside folks. andand -- but on major initiati, i think especially in a -- on trade-type issues where there was clearly an alignment between, you know, the think on some trade expansions, we would meet with, you know, business community. i mean it is illegal to be in the federal government and urge somebody go to the hill and lobby. but short of that, short of asking someone to lobby on behalf of an administration proposal, you can certainly tell them, give them status report. tell them who you are working with. let them know. so frequently on our own

initiative and certainly with public affairs, you would sort of get after -- get pulled into a meeting to talk to -- not just out -- i mean private individuals or, you know, on behalf of, you know, either labor unions or, you know, business interests, i mean other governments. you know, i can think of -- i mean the south american ambassadors could come in to, you know, have a meeting. and you'd be brought in as part of a program. ministers, i can remember meeting with -- ministers, you know, were part of a legislative strategy that we had. and so i sat in the roosevelt room with a bunch of ministers. so yeah it's part of the -- part of the -- part of the effective lobbying. and, you know, i go out in a

layman sort of -- i don't see this white house doing as much of that as they could. and i think they probably hinted their own effectiveness in their regard by not doing that. you should be correcting. and another thing is that -- having a legislative affairs team that's, you know, by definition, you know, has never lobbying before. you know, i question the wisdom of that too. i understand all sorts of post employment reinstructions, but preemployment restrictions, i question. it's like hiring a baseball player to play basketball. you could do that if you are a millionaire owner. but, you know, i'd go get a

baseball player. >> thank you, chuck. [applause] [applause] >> we'll take a break and come back for the last presentation. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> republican national committee chairman michael steele is running for a second term. and he faces his four declared challengers in the debate today hot rated by tucker charlesson. live coverage on the companion network c-span.

here on c-span2, live coverage of jerry brown's third inauguration. he won two terms to the office in 1974 and 1978. we'll have that at 2 p.m. eastern. and later today, a forum on lobbying, covering topics from methods to ethics. hosted by american university, that'll be at 1:45 on c-span3. >> c-span2, one the c-span's public affairs offerings. weekdays, live coverage of the u.s. senate, and weekends, book tv. 48 hours of the latest nonfiction books. connect with us on facebook, twitter, and youtube, and sign up for alert e-mails at c-span.org. >> every ten years after the national census, lawmakers

redraw the districts using the newly populated numbers and demographicked. here's a conference about date, districting on class rather than race. this is just under an hour and 40 minutes. >> thank you. let us pray. our father in heaven, we come to you this morning in thanking. thank you for all of the blessings you've stored for us during the course of the week. we thank you for touching with us a thing of love this morning, and waking us up, allowing us to get out of bed to do your service. we thank you for all of the blessings that we've seen. we thank you for the good things that's happened, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to sit down and discuss during the session today. let the participants, as they go

forward sharing information with us, and bless us to the end of the session. we ask these in jesus' name. amen. >> thank you very much, senator. again, we want to welcome c-span. this is the second time within the last four years they have been with us. they were with us on the digital divide and now they are with us on redistrict and reapportioning. i want to thank all of the members of the panel that we appreciate you. we appreciate your expertise on this position. and we always welcome all long time friend and support roland martin. thank you. he's been with us before. now it's my pleasure to turn it over to our president to the year 2011 and 2012, please welcome barbara ballop from kansas. >> thank you. it is an honor for me to reach you. certainly for our closing this morning. we just had an unbelievable

breakfast, and i think we all feel rejewuated and -- rejuvenated and ready to work. thank you to the congress. it's also my honor to recognize and introduce to those of you our moderator for this morning, mr. roland martin award winning journalist, and political analyst. i just found out comes in the room, he and i have one thing in common as we both share the same birthday, by the way. which is november 14th. when i look at this, whenever i'm looking at cnn or whatever and i have all of the pundidn'ts on and i see him come on, i know there's going to be action. there's going to be disagreement. someone is going to say something and he's going to do one of these numbers. you know it's going to happen. i'm sure. maybe some furniture moving. i was trying to be nice.

when i look at this, i'll simply say some things you may know. you know that in he was ebenese magazine most influential african-american, he's the chicago defender, the nation's most historic black newspapers and founding editor. he also has a new book out, it's "the first barack obama's road to the white house." one the things i can appreciate and i hear people say often about mr. martin, if you want to hear it the way it really is, he will present it to you. we are very fortunate this morning to have him moderate.

[applause] >> all right then. november 14th is a good day. mrs. rice's birthday. before we get started, today is a important day beyond this conference. today i see all of my nonalpha friends. today is the founders day of alpha pi alpha. all of the alpha's stand up to be recognized. all right. just letting folks know. as i tell them all the time, i sort of compare when my folks

talk about alpha, omega, kappa, i say the difference between first class and coach. i don't mind coach, but it's not first class. and one of my good kappa friends over there, he tried to make a remark earlier. he said what's today? i said it's your daddy's birthday. [laughter] >> so just in case y'all forget, when you go home, i want to have it ringing in your head, who's your daddy? alpha is your daddy. all right. [laughter] >> and also senator ellis did say it was one thing that you forget in the introduction, also i'm a native texan. all right. so he also born and raised in houston. that's why i went ahead. folks, just so you are not confused. folks say you are from chicago. no, i live in chicago for six years. but i'm from houston. important distinction. all right.

let's go ahead and i want to introduce our panel right now and get right to it. john on the far end of the panel, deputy secretary intergovernmental relations, new york state senate. give a round of applause please. next to him a anita earl. he's the executive director for social justice. [applause] >> and in the hump seat, john tanner, he's the former chief of the voting section of the justice department civil rights division. [applause] >> next to him the honorable gilda cobb hunter, state representative from south carolina. [applause] >> and obviously you brought your own fan club. just want to embarrass the rest of the panelists. and last but certainly not least, from my native texan and houston, the honorable state

senator rodney ellis. [applause] >> senator ellis is in a little pain these day, he also graduated and finished from the university of texas law school. they lost on thanksgiving. he's in a little bit of pain. you didn't think i was going to pass that over. you followed me on twitter. you didn't say anything that night. so again, this whole notion of reapportionment in terms of how we are going to be operating in the next ten years is so vital. i'm going to ask a political question before policy question. it amazes me how this issue was rendered totally irrelevant and silence. it rarely came up the stakes in terms of every ten years how districts are redrawn. from a political stand point and

even if you don't get involved in politics, why is that this is such an important issue but it's as if it gets no attention every ten years until after the fact? >> yeah. one reason why is politicians we tend not to raise it, it gives the appearance of being self-serving. we know that it matters. not just for legislatives, members of congress, county commissioners, school boards, everybody will have to redraw the lines unless you are an united states senator. everyone else will have to draw the lines. it appears to be self-serving. it's hard to get the public to understand until something dramatic happens. >> it's very self-serving and talked about after the election. so it amazes me how it's not a significant issue prior to the election. but after people say it's really so important. >> well, let me take a -- have a

different response. i would suggest to you that it didn't get raised with policymakers and people who were in decision making positions. from my perspective and the perspective of my colleagues out here in the audience, the issue was raised. it just fell on deaf ears. the folk who were in a position to make the decision about redistricting and understanding it and the fact that state legislatures draw lines whether we're talking about congress, the state houses, whatever, we recognize that and those of us on the bottom try to get those up on the top to recognize that. it's just, and perhaps it's just us democrats. we are always a day late and a dollar short. and we're talking about redistricting now and from my perspective and we had this conversation, because we didn't address it up front, we got to have a different frame of mind.

and a different tag moving forward. because what happened on november 2nd means to me and the perspective of some of these folk in the audience that the old way we were thinking of restricting -- redistricting and doing things, we aren't going to be able to do that anymore. there are different people in the state houses. >> i got funders on both sides, whether someone is a democratic or republican, players have it. when you are trying to raise money for state rep where normally you wouldn't get the kind of funding that came in the last cycle, it's because you let the folks know the lines will be drawn in the texas where we have a redistricting board, assuming the state and senate cannot agree, which is the case more so since the republicans control most state houses, republicans do well in terms of statewide houses. we have a justice department that would not be as political as it had been in the past. at least that will help us have some semblance.

>> keep in mind if i may, funding is different. not all of us are highly favored to live in a large state like texas. if you are a small state like south carolina and virginia and all of those, the level of funding will be different. >> how much black state senators in south carolina? >> nine. >> there's two in texas. we might be big. but there's still two. one in dallas, one in houston. go ahead. >> i think also it's very important that the broader community is unaware of these issues and the complexity and importance and ramifications of redistricting. we had an opportunity when we were doing the census process that just finished to point out that this count was going to determine the political representation in the future. i think we did not do enough collectively in terms of our media, our outreach, and elected officials in government to tie that issue of accounting the

census to our representation, our voice in the legislature for the next ten years. >> and i would just add, i think that you are certainly right. it didn't get the attention it deserves. but i would from a perspective of several decades of redistricting, it got more attention this time than previous deck raids. i think from a perspective of voters on the ground, redistricting has traditionally been done in back rooms. not something they understand and get involved in. as technology has made it easier for individuals to draw maps, i would say over the last three cycles of redistricting, we've seen more community involvement. in north carolina where i am, there was some talk about how the impact of our state legislature races on redistricting and the supreme court maps getting into the court. there was more than before, but

not as much as should be. >> i want to mention one time. i'll tell you what i think redistricting. >> can we do this, can you leave all of the mics on? >> we just leave them on. >> the own time i think redistricting in my state, in our state got more attention, i think there and around the country than it has probably gotten in a long time was in 2003. do you remember we had to recounting stuff going on in florida? you had the recall stuff going on in the california, and then you have to re-redistricting in texas. normally you draw the lines once a decade. in '03, republicans pretty smart, tom delay put enough money to take over the state house and decided mid decade they'd do it again. oklahoma hosted them. on the senate side, they were gone by three days. on the senate side, we thought

three days. my wife had a baby. 48 laters i go back home. it put it on the front burner and the average person could see. my republicans colleague picked up five seats in the united states congress by re-redistricting. then people understood it matters. >> actually, i wanted john to speak on this. i want to come back to the point because i'm going to break down some of the things that happened with that. also how race was used effectively by the republicans to engineer that also happened. go ahead. >> i agree with anita, there was more attention. but it never really caught on. in my mind, it was sort of over the horizon issue. it's a long-term issue. i think this election was about people getting a paycheck next week. not about what happens next year or the year after. >> there was one, tieing redistricting to issues is one way to have broadened the consciousness.

and i think one key issue that's caught on is prison-based gerrymandering or the prison count laws. the average american understands that particularly in communities of color where too many of our relatives are incourse -- incarcerated and have their right to vote taken away and being counted other than where they live. when people began to make that connection, you can see them understand much more powerfully that that count and where we are counted will affect our representation. >> i don't -- you can answer how you want to. do you believe when it comes to this issue that nationally many democrats approach it as doing the right thing? and republicans approach it adoing the ruthless thing.

i don't mean that in any way. republicans see it as take over. democrats say it's all about fairness and doing the right thing. >> yeah. >> and it's sort of amazing when you look at how different people view this very issue. and so speak to that in terms of how -- how do both parties in your estimation view this issue? don't be scared. >> well, i'll say that i believe all parties are operating in their own self-interest. none of them are mag -- that's why it's important that another perspective needs to hit the table in the communities of color need to think about protecting and preserving the representation that they have. and increasing that representation, particularly going forward. forget -- yes, there was a political seat change that just took place.

but american diversity is at an all time high. there are over 100 million people are nonwhite. our legislature is not 1/3 nonwhite. we need to focus more on the positive side of the equation and those that are protecting black representation, thinking about increasing it, need to work in coalition with others to make that dream a reality. >> i agree. this is an issue, like all other issues, where the democrats are approaching it in fairness and justice. and the republicans are approaching it as a matter of selfishness. then i'm a democrat. so that's -- >> no, but politics, get as many as possible even if we change it midstream. >> i would add something to that. everyone during redistricting,

keep your back to the wall. because it's not just the other party. it's not just you know, people who are white. it's every person for themselves. you know, your best friend when it comes down to it might not be your best friend. >> roland, i would just add to that that not necessarily in a partisan sense, but progressives has to be constrained by the notion of fairness. what seat did i have? barbara jordan had the seat in state senator. they had the at large scheme of electing people. when she went, democrats controlled the texas legislature. back then democrats controlled most southern legislature. she had to fight with conservative white democrats to make room for others. this element of self-interest. my first experience is when i guess you might have been in the high school when i was on the city council. they came in and said we got to

redistrict nine city council districts in houston. they said councilman, your district is the right size, you are next to one that's too big and one that's too little. you got to take some people from a smaller district and put them in a larger district. which precincts do you want to take out? i'm young and it's simple. the ones that i lost. you got to get rid of. >> i can o -- do math. >> take out the ones i lost. they said the problem is they are in the middle of the district. what you ought to do two that are higher income and two that are lower income. i figured that would protect me. but i've evolved since then. i met anita on the issue of districts electing judges. from the minority perspective, as black legislature, we have to

be concerned about the diverse issue and not be self-center. not fight with legislatures and we have to be concerned with our republican colleagues who want to help us. you know, that means not help. when they say can i help ya? they would like to pack them and crack them. you know, on election day with this turnover, i won 75% of the vote. i didn't need that. they have packed all of the african-americans that they can find in my district with 20 lines because they want to get rid of people that i might influence at voting and the white democrats. >> and that's why i raise the issue in terms of that particular wave. when you talk about the diversity of the country, we are will be by 2022,

majority/minority country. when you look at political districts, they are blacker and blacker, browner and browner, whiter and whiter, and it is clear by design that this is being done. and so over the next ten years, how do you fight that when you saw such a change on november 2 when you saw state legislatures flipping where the democratic south broken after so many different years. how do you fight that over the next ten years when you go through the battle and efforts to make the districts based upon racial lines when some people see that really as political lines. >> let me just say the supreme court has made it harder for you to fight that. in the bartlet decision recently, the court said that in order to protect the district under election two of the voting rights act, you have to draw a district that's 50% or more african-american, even if it's possible to elect a candidate of

choice of black voters in a less than 50% district. so while -- and the naacp was on the side. if you elect under 50% that should receive protection under the act. the point is it's going to be harder as you are trying to draw maps and consider what you can protect. now i'm talking about the part of the voting rights that covers the entire country. it's going to be harder because you are going to have to show it's possible to draw 50% or more voting age districts whereas previously, many of our state legislature, many of our local elected officials who are candidates of choice of black voters are elected in districts that are 42, 46, something less than 50%. because we've seen increasing white crossover vote. so the supreme court has made it much harder to achieve what you are asking to do. >> i agree with that. but i'd also point that out section five of the voting rights act for those of you in the section five stage, i

presume you know if you are or not. it protect gains that have been won. i believe very strongly it protects the districts that have been electing minority candidates who are elected from districts that are under 50%. i also think it protects against packing. because if you take, you know, minorities out of a current district, and put them in to senator ellis' district, what you are doing is reducing their power and in that original district. so i think that there are protections in the section five state that is are not present in other parts of the country. the way that you have to go in the rest of the country is show that this change that the packing or whatever the failure to draw a district is most -- motivated by the racially

discriminatory purpose. that is a complicated and difficult task. it's doable sometimes. >> i think getting on top of the process right now. in fact, some states have to take care of their redistricting in the next six months. states like new jersey, of course, pointed out to us. coalitions again, multiracial coalitions, and political coalitions, so that finding common ground rather than going at it in a death-grip struggle over this line or that piece of territory. if groups can come to some type of agreement and come up with coalition plans or alternative redistricting plans, i think they can put pressure on the process up front. there are caucuses in the room that historically have met the challenge. >> so for the purpose of the folks in this room and those watching, give us an example of the kind of coalition building

that you are talking about that has been effective that could serve as a model for other folks to follow. >> i can give you a new york example. blacks there's a caucus in new york and in fact, i'm not -- our chair maybe, senator ruth hassell thompson is chair of the black, hispanic, asian legislative caucus. back in the '80s that grew. the first challenge of redistricting plan for new york city that they felt did not draw enough districts for black and hispanic communities. and they actually shut down. they won in the federal courts and shut down the election, shut down the redistricting process until more districts were drawn. then feeling their oath in 1982, they challenged the redistricting commission that i now -- that i've now been appointed to. then they challenged the

commission, the leadership of the state legislature, expect for the speaker who actually joined their lawsuit and they forced the redrawing of additional congressional districts and state legislative districts in new york. had those groups not worked together, you might have had black legislators fighting hispanic legislators over this piece of territory or that. they wouldn't have achieved a positive result if they did. >> one the things i think is important to remember here, there's no cookie cutter approach to redistricting. and each state does it differently. some states the general assembly does it. in some states there are commissions that are appointed to do it. the bottom line is coalition building has to be external in my opinion, has to be external and internal. he's talked about the external piece. let me for just a quick second talk about the internal piece and break it down regionally and

say with all do respect to new york, it's a little bit different down south. here's my point, in most southern legislatures where the process is done internally, where what's left of white democrats, black and brown caucus members don't get together and don't agree up front that it is totally ridiculous for all of us to pack in as much as possible into these districts, i think we're all missing the point. here's what i'd like to leave with you. because i may not get this opportunity. as legislators, the challenge is on us to first and foremost stop being selfish. as senator ellis pointed out, we don't need these districts with these super high majority black populations in my opinioned. and by the way, i'm only expressing my opinion, not the organizations opinion, okay? the second part is i believe

very strongly that the political climate we are in right now with polarization and just the whole -- all of that ball of wax. about how we have gridlock not just at the congressional level. most of us in state houses would agree we have the same problems. we have become much too partisan. i think that in and of itself for those of us who care about public policy, who care about people and process, it behooves us to talk about what is in the best interest of democracy and the people that we serve and it makes us better legislators when we have to go out and work for the vote and as has been pointed out, appear around the margins. if you have to go and work for the vote and appeal to people who are different from you, then i think that makes you a better legislator and the makes the

process better. >> let's be honest a lot of folks -- [applause] [applause] >> a lot of folks don't want to have to work that hard for the vote. let's just be honest. i got you. but what you -- you talk about the issue of selfish. and i'm going to go back to have what took place in texas. look, i was covering the whole issue when you saw the loss of five white democrats to congress. but the hook to that whole piece was the creation of a black district in houston. and so it was very interesting watching that whole debate where you had african-americans who said well, we don't know what the five white guys did for us. if we can get this one seat. so that was viewed as a victory in picking up one seat, but politically for the party, you lost five seats. so you really had a loss of four. that's really what broke that

whole deal when an african-american state representative led the effort and of course when he ran for that seat, the congressional seat, he lost and then lost this seat as well. >> he ran for mickey leyland's seat. he's a fine fellow. he's out of politics now. i helped retire him. let me go to this broader issue first and foremost. for young legislators in this room, you need to know the process. you need to know the process. if you are a big state like new york, california, texas, the resources are there for you. if it's a state, there's legal defenses and various groups that will help you. get on the computer and figure out how to draw a district. remembers with it shall rather self-serving. most important issue for everybody in the room right now is your state budget. who gets cut, who does not get cut? if you appear to spend all of

your time figuring out how to draw your district. you may draw a wonderful district which you will probably get retired. but you got to spend some time, some effort, and it's a difficult thing to know. now on the issue of what happened in texas, 31 of us in the state senate, these seats are a little bit bigger than congressional districts. i think we picked up three new congressional seats in texas, more growth than anybody in the country. picked up one the seats out of new york. right now we have 32, we'll probably have 35 members of congress, but 31 members of the state senate. i don't want my lines drawn when i'm talking to myself. i want some people that will agree with me or other districts that i can influence. you got to take that self element out. i've been here 20 years. i have served longer than i am going to serve. i don't plan for them to roll me out of them straight into the

nursing home. i want to make sure that i can impact drawing a district with some person with my values i think can win. they may not necessarily be african-american. most influence in texas has been hispanic. a good number of the border states and nonborder, it has been hispanic. young worker i tell them there'll be one african-american in the state senate and another person that looks like me but might be from the dominican republic. nice brown skin. that's okay. i want them to have a district where they have fight for issues for people that i think i have fought for. these are not our seats. you know? this notion of racial gerrymandering was to create opportunities for people who think like we think. and they don't have to look like us. some people that look like me,

don't think like me. but you got to be careful with that. >> american demographic is moving in favor of communities of color. so communities of color's back should not be against the wall in terms of trying to figure out or scramble for representation. in 200, there were 35 million african-americans. in 2010, there were 42 million african-americans. there are seven million more people of african descent in america than ten years ago. that is an opportunity for increasing representation. not decreasing. not retrogression. we need to find where the new seven million and reap the harvest, and also work with other groups in multiracial and multipolitical coalition so that

everybody gets a share. >> and clearly we are talk about a black state legislators. but we do have to confront the issue of the competition that is out there and prevalent, that's real, when it comes to african-americans and hispanics. and so for each of you if you can, give me an example of not what is worked, but a horrible example that you've had that you've witnessed that you think has really hurt both communities by the kind of level of fighting and why that can't be the role of progress over the next ten years. >> i can't think of that many issues of terms of redistricting. but on political issues, i can. generally, black and hispanic legislators are going to agree on affirmative action programs for business enterprise. we come together.

sometimes african-american might be more sensitive on criminal justice reforms, because right now most of the people that are in prison, they are black. won't be long based on statistics there will be another color on the immigration issue. from time to time, i've had to talk to my black colleagues. some of them are here in the room to say we ought to not go take the easy route. we ought to make sure we are going to give our hispanic colleagues the benefit of the doubt to think through how we addressed that issue. because i don't want to break up that coalition. we usually have a generals persons agreement in san antonio, texas. there has been one black state, one hispanic, they are not black. they are hispanic districts. in houston area, fastest growing area right outside of my district. that was black guy who ran for state house seat. we now chairs the martin luther

king committee. he didn't win. but he put the incumbent, and he was frustrated and didn't run. hispanic lawyer jumped up. he won the seat. the african-american beat her. we have to have a closed door discussion. we can't always control the general persons agreements. i say we try to have the dialogue on nafta on the federal level. the issues of labor unions being concerned by job. in my point of the country where it was important. the african-american members of congress and african-american politicians restrained themselves from getting out too far that they were against that issue because they knew it was important to hispanics. as would be the case if it was south africa on the border with texas instead of mexico. i think at least in my backyard, we try internally to have those discussions. and sometimes people just have a bad attitude. wouldn't have anything to do with you being black or brown. you have a bad attitude.

that had nothing to do with race. that's because i just didn't like that person. >> i can give you an example of where african-american and hispanic communities fought against each other. this comes from rhode island where in the last round of redistricting. >> rhode island? there's brothers from rhode island. are you in the room? i'm just checking. i'm just checking. y'all lighten up. [laughter] >> we are not in vermont. come on now. i'm just messing. go ahead. >> the city of providence is a majority/minority. in the redistricting, it would have been possible for those six to at least have one majority -- one district that would elect candidates of choice of african-american, one that would elect hispanic voters. instead, they essentially eng