>> the nation's mayors are in washington for their annual winter meeting. they released a report today on economic conditions in the city. several discussed the report's findings at this 40 minute news conference.

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you, all, for being here today, and as we begin our winter meeting here in washington, d.c., i'd like to bring your attention to our u.s. metro economy's report that i have here, and once again, it tells the story, a story that we have told here in washington again and again and again, and that's the story that america's cities are leading a fragile recovery, but it's time for washington to join in the effort. they need a wakeup call. it's time to end the politics of

block and punt as we enter this playoff season and start doing something to put people back to work. today, the mayors released the 2010 report, and the finings couldn't be clearer. while dc ditters, the metros are driving america's economy. there's a lot of talk and there should be about the 1% and the 99% of us struggling to make ends meet, but with this report, it chronicles the 90% of the gdp generated in our nation's metro areas. the 85% of the jobs, which are produced in our metro areas. we saw in 2011, we will a 1.3% job growth across the country. that's an anemic rate by

anybody's standards. we have been told at least in this report that we're expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of a 2% job growth in the coming year. it doesn't have to be that way. virtually all of the job growth that's been generated in the country has been generated in cities like the ones represented by the mayors who are here today. in my own city as an example, on our own without federal partnership, we've invested $4 billion, 40,000 jobs to modernize our airport, to make it the gateway to asia. working at the harbor and expanding the capacity at the port to be able to compete with

panama. as you all know, we passed -- we can generate 166,000 jobs in l.a. alone if the congress gets off its duff and does what it should do, and that's pass the surface transportation bill, we can generate millions of jobs in the united states of america if they pass america fast forward which now 120 # mayors have gotten behind. we can use local investments like ours in l.a. and cities across the country to put people back to work now and accelerate in our case 30 years of investment in a 10 year period of time. we can't do that without the federal government. now, we saw last year, we were here, all of us, and we called

on the congress to fix the deficit and the debt. many of us republicans and democrats challenge our own party to address entitlements as part of the solution. we also challenged the other party, depending on which one you come from, to address the need to close tax loopholes, and strike a grand bargain around the idea that tax fairness it not tax warfare. tax fairness is something that we have all believed in on both sides of the aisle. these are the kinds of issues that are facing our nation's mayor, and i like to quote our friend to the right mayor nutter who says when someone approaches him on the street, nobody asked him about the deficit. they ask him about a job, and

that's what we're asking the congress to do as well. we're asking them to do their job. we saw last summer that they failed to address either the deficit or the debt. they put us on the brink of default; then they put together a super committee which was supposed to have struck a grand bargain, find a commonground, move away from the partisanship and strike a bargain that cuts our spending, but also makes the appropriate investments. we put forth a common sense jobs agenda which in many ways was a reflection of both democratic and republican views on what to do to get people back to work,

so we're hoping that they'll do a little better job than they did last year. i've mentioned, and i think we all agree that if you were to put a grade on last year, you'd have to give them an "f" for failure. they didn't do much in the way of job creation, but they have an opportunity. we all know that when you get an "f" at the midterm, you can work hard to get that grade up, and we're hoping that that's what they'll do, so we're asking them to pass the surface transportation bill, to expand at least for a year the payroll tax cut, to make the kinds of investments in america fast forward and other things that would put people back to work. with me is the vice president of this organization, the mayor of philadelphia, michael nutter

among the most in creating jobs for our city. thank you so much. the president makes the case of why we can't wait and to continue what the president said, given the rating that the president has given the congress, they need a lot of extra credit projects to demonstrate to the american public why they should have the jobs that they have. they have jobs. millions of americans do not have jobs. i have not heard talk of the american jobs act in months. what happened? it really begs to question what is the congress doing each and everyday while they supposedly work for the american people while millions of americans are out of work. we need investments in infrastructure, in our school, in our bridges, and in our roads. we need more cops on the street, and we have to make sure that work force development and

training programs, community development block grant program, these are programs that have demonstrated year after year after year that they work, they work on the ground, in city, the president laid out the case, and 80-plus percent of americanings live in a city, and 90 #-plus percent of the gdp of the united states of america in cities and metro areas all across the country. this is about jobs, jobs, and more jobs for americans. we have to put people back to work. what's that we do in our cities and sometimes even without federal support, we're making things happen, but the federal support really does make a difference. it makes a different at phillie international airport while we try to expand it to serve more and more passengers and bring tourism and hospitality to philadelphia. it makes a difference when we revitalize the city hall.

it makes a difference when we build affordable housing for children and seniors ensuring that people have the services they need in their communities. our report demonstrates that because of the cut in the budget on kdbg alone, a billion dollars and 35,000 jobs has not happened because of that. it gives a triple return, $4 billion budget, $12 billion in gdp output from that one program. the question i continue ask is not only what is the congress doing, but does the congress even understand what they are doing what they do it? they are investing in technology and growth all across the united states of america. we need a real discussion, a real discussion about where we are going in the future, how we can use this metroeconomy's report to help los angeles and baltimore and columbus and burnsville and mesa and so many other cities and, of course,

philadelphia, all across the united states of america. lastly, billions of dollars of capital sitting still on the sidelines. president obama and the congress saved the banking industry, and yet they sit on stockpiles of money that could fix our water systems, our highway, every piece of possible infrastructure in the united states of america needs investment, and the federal government, unlike any city here, has no capital budget. how can you possibly run a government and not know where you are going to make investments, five, ten, 15 years down the line? that's not good go.. that's not good government. that's running in circles and making the lives of many, many americans miserable. we have to get things done. i wish the congress had the same work ethic that mayors do in the united states of america. thank you. [applause]

from mesa, arizona, a mayor representing the conference, the second vice president, a man who has stood with us in calling on the congress to do its job, mayor scott smith. >> thank you, mr. president. i think the common theme you hear here is cities matter. if you felt a certain frustration with mayors, it's because when this financial crisis began and threw the last three to four years, you've seen cities respond. you've seen cities meet the crisis, deal with it, and tonight to do the best we can to provide services to our citizens at a high level. there's a reason for that. we don't have the luxury of kicking things down the street. we can't punt, and so there is a frustration when we see other levels of government who talk a lot, but don't do a lot.

we want action. we want smart investments. we don't want to waste money. we understand fiscal responsibility. we understand the federal government's challenges. we also understand that when you make smart investment, when you invest in infrastructure that has long term terms, and there's direct returns, not filtered or deluded returns, but those that create jobs and generate economic activity. you can do certain thing, and we pointed them out in the jobs program that we presented awhile ago. things as simple as issuing visas to bring thousands and thousands of foreign tourists to the country that generate instant economic activity. there's things that can be done that are not being done. cities matter. we're here with realistic expectations. we know it's an election year that we have not seen in a long time, but we'll continue to

shout from the rooftops if we have to that cities matter, we're here, we want to be partners in the economic rebound because this is where the action is. we have a lot of -- to offer, our message will be heard, and we'll yell as long as we have to because this is the future not only of the cities, but the country, and we are assets that need to be maximized. we are ready and willing to work with the federal government and do things right. that's the message of cities. we matter, and we care. thank you. >> with that, more than happy to answer any questions. as you can see, there's a number of mayors here, some of them are also in meetings. as i understand it, this is the highest attended meeting in a very long time, and the reason is clear. we all recognize we have to act

on behalf of the american city, and as you can see in this report, so go the nation. any questions? >> this morning to do something about immigration reform, wondering what the conference plans for this year and where you see a contradiction from this report to the original reforms to bring people to the legal work force and there's citizens facing high unemployment. >> it's interesting. i had an opportunity to speak to a group of reporters at the christian science monitor earlier today, and i was saying that the mayors and they're both democratic and republican mayors, here, we're not nearly as partisan. our debates are never as polarized. we are much more practical and

focused on problem solving, so as an example -- over the last number of years, this conference on a unanimous basis has come out in support of comprehensive immigration reform. the immigration system is broken. everybody acknowledges that. on the left, on the right, and yet this congress has failed to do anything about it, and you're absolutely right. you bring -- yes, we should secure our borders. we should make sure that people pay their taxes and are law-abiding. they should get at the end of the line, but in the end, we should provide a pathway for citizenship and bring in those people, the dreamers alone, the young kids who were raised here, who will brought here by their parents, they, alone, will generate more than a trillion dollars to the u.s. economy. if you're talking about the 12

million people here, if you brought them out of the dark into the light, they'll add trillions to the u.s. economy, so it is a jobs issue. unfortunately we can't get the congress to do their job on any of these issues. >> wondering if you could address the report -- >> beg your pardon? >> address the report because there's good news about recovering jobs, a section in here talking about some 80 cities -- >> there's 340 cities still trying to recover from the recession, about 80 of the metro areas need another five years to dig themselves out of the hole, about 25 recovered the jobs that they lost at the beginning of the recession, but vast ma yourty of us --

majority of us, we still have a long way to go, and every mayor here is investing local dollars to put people back to work, but as you heard vice president nutter mention, you know, things like work force development used to be bipartisan issues. you know, every president since eisenhower has supported the national highway system, has supported transportation funding. these were issues -- the federal aviation, the faa, these were things that historically were not mired and partisan politic, and today, you can't get support for virtually any of the investments. as i said at a breakfast, not all spending is equal. as a matter of fact, we have to cut our deficits. many of us, particularly the men here to my right and i talked about simpson-bowles as a template to address the deficit

and debt looking at, you know, making smart cuts that make sense at a time when the deficit is as high as it is, but you can't cut your way out of this crisis. you have to make investments, too. you got to make investments in infrastructure. you got to make investments in police and fire to keep our cities safer. you have to make investments in our schools. you have to make investments that produce dividends at the end of the rain bow, and -- rainbow, and unfortunately, you have a, you know, a congress that is, as i said, punting and kicking, screaming a lot, and not doing enough to move the ball across the goal line. >> when you came to this conference, when all the mayors were here, you had much the same message, but a year later, the community development block grant has been cut, the president's talking about more pain to come, congressman more

good luck than ever. do you have any reasonable expectations that washington will do anything for you guys other than deliver more problems? >> we all agree, and i think you agree, that they deserve an "f" for failure, but we're at the midterm level, and we could do that by passing a number of things we just mentioned. we duty bound, every one of us. there's not a one of us that comes to washington, d.c. to take in the sites. we're here to do work. we're here to fight for our cities and america. it would be political malpractice for us to stay home demanding congress not to do their job. we all agree it's an uphill fight because the failure for

them to do the most minimal things to have support in the past is pretty glaring and pretty clear. we are duty bound to continue to push and the fact you are here is a reflection that cities matter as was mentioned, and that the congress needs to do its job. yes? >> mr. smith -- >> we did accomplish something. the original proposals were much more daughter and drastic, up td we did do a lotment a quick thing. you made a comment about what congress can do for us. we're not here to ask congress to do things for us, but with us. that's the important thing. >> and for the american people. >> and for the american people. cities are economic drivers, and

we're frustrated what cities have to offer are not recognized and not working with us to maximize the great potential. that's frustrating for mayors. >> what do you say to republican leaders in congress who seem intent on cutting and making drastic cuts inside the programs? >> i would agree with our president. there are smart cuts. there's dumb cuts. smart cuts are cuts of inefficiencies, of programs that don't create benefits. dumb cuts are when you cut the meat out of programs that provide the dividends and returns that create economic growth. you know, look at where -- look at where you're cutting. we recognize we have to be more financially prudent. we've done that. everyone on this stand made drastic changes in the way they operate their changes. we've had to look at how we can get the greatest return, had to look at how to invest a

shrinking capital base to get the maximum return. that kind of discussion never happens in washington. it's just let's cut and trim. as a republican, that's what i want to see. that, to me, is a pure republican principle, make government more efficient, make government better and more connected with people. that kind of discussion do you want seem to be happening. -- doesn't seem to be happening. >> i have one point here. can we have a little quiet in the back, please? he asked a question, and now, this is a basic business and economic principle, and you don't have to be warren buffet to figure this out, even jimmy buffet can figure this out. [laughter] if you had a product delivering 90% of the output, would you invest more or cut that line? if you're a business, you invest because that's where the bulk of your return coming from. that's who we are.

we're the 90% of the country delivering jobs and making america strong. all we need is a more friendly federal government. we're not asking for a handout. we're asking for a hand, in partnership and respected for what it is we do for a living each and every day. that's what this is about. >> any spanish speaking cameras? i'll say a little in spanish. >> i'll let the staff who is more intimately known with the details. i shared with you the brush of the 90% output, the 85% of jobs that are created. the 80 cities that won't improve

-- can you hold it up back there? maybe you have another meeting. go to it. [laughter] you know, the 80 cities that won't recover the jobs that were lost at the beginning of this recession for another five year, and i think they -- the mayors who have spoken have been fairly clear. this is a partnership. as an example, they should have passed the surface transportation bill in september they could have passed it years ago, but they can pass the surface transportation bill, the boxer-inhofe bill. if they just passed america fast forward alone, that's another million jobs in the next few

years. a million here, a million there. now we're talking about real money, as you've heard before. the fact is from our vantage point, we want to see more than just cuts. we want to see investments that pay dividends at the end of the rainbow. when you fix a bridge that connects two major ports or cities, you're moving people and goods. you're not just creating the construction jobs, but you're improving the infrastructure to grow the economy, and that's what we've seen that the congress can't seem to distinguish between as he says, as the mayor smith says, the good cuts and the dumb cuts. not investing in infrastructure, not investing in police and fire, not investing in cdbg

which has a 3-to-1 ratio of return is not good cuts. >> there are jobs in this country. we know this. the problem and challenge a that we have is we need, as you have heard, a partner in congress that will look at work force investment. we work very closely with our work force investment boards and our businesses because what we need and what the challenge is in our country today is to get our people equipped for the 21st century job, and yet we need a partner in congress, and my hope congressman kline, my congressman, the chairman of education and labor, will partner with us as we bring to

him a vision for our country's work force investment because that will help with all of the jobs, not just create jobs, but putting people back to work by equipping them and educating them so that they can have the jobs that are available today. in our own metro area of minneapolis and st. paul and my city as well, there are about 30 # -- 30,000 jobs available, but we do not have the people with the skills to fill those jobs. you can look all across america, and there are jobs. we just need congress to partner with us. partner with us and help put people back to work by educating them and equipping them for new jobs. >> you know, elizabeth kautz is the former president of this organization, a republican,

scott smith, a republican, both supporting as do the rest of the mayors here, work force development. the u.s. chamber of commerce, the afl-cio, virtually the entire business community understands how important it is for us to train people for the jobs of the new economy for the jobs where there's growth, and yet, this is another cut and another failure that the congress is engaged in. one last speaker, and then i'll do a couple spanish points. don recently reelected to his 7th? >> eighth. [laughter] >> oh, wow. >> let me thank him for his logical explanations of the problems we face, and in my opinion the logical solutions, but what we have not talkedded

about, i think, is important, and i want to tell a little story here of a congressman from the midwest who stood up just within the last year and told people in his district, hundred, a few hundred people there. the problem in washington today is that there's too many people trying to help keep the ship from sinking, and when the partisan politics reaches the point where they are actually not acting, i would say, rather than acting, but not acting in the best interest of all of us, we're all in the ship together, it points out the real problem here, and i think it's one thing not said, the logical thought process that most people use, certainly in our cities. if i had a countyman who said i'm trying to bring the city down and make unemployment go higher so that i can run for mayor or something, people would be outraged. they wouldn't care what politics. they wouldn't care.

they could be a democrat, it cob a democrat, they would still be critical of him or her. it's outrageous we have this period of time where congress believes they can do things or, again, not act, and therefore make things worse, and that will bring down the president and their party will take over, and in my opinion, it's the single most significant problem that we face, and that is to get congress, not to do something that's not logical, but to doing? that makes sense based on what all of the comments that other mayors have made whether it's infrastructure or reinvestment in the work force. all of those things, we all know from common sense that that is what we need to do. it's the politics, and it's the extreme partisan politic, and i hope that message goes throughout the country that people are fed up with that kind of thinking. let's move the country forward, and if you have a better idea, and you win the election, let's come back afterwards to work together. i know that's too high minded

and old-fashioned, but i'm an old guy and i remember nixon proposing things to help nainlds, and all of the problem -- neighborhoods, and all of the programs we had were not viewed, and these issues were not viewed as republican or democrat. they were america's problems, and we worked together to fix thementd. if that's too naive or too whatever, i apologize, but that is what i believe the vast majority of american citizens want. working together across the aisle and we don't have time to let our competitors go further and further by investing in education and work force development and infrastructure while we play politics. that is the message today that has not been talked bow, but it is the key one, and i hope the more this information gets out to the public that this is really the strategy that they demand from their congress people, independents, republicans, or democrats, go work together and find

solutions. >> you know, if we could have people in the back -- excuse me -- can we clear them out? you know, i think don, you used a metaphor that's particularly appropriate. all over the news we've seen the controversy the shame associated with a captain who jumped ship before all of his passengers were free and clear. the congress has jumped ship just like that captain. they -- [applause] the economy is sinking as we speak and they are sitting on a lifeboat refusing to throw out a live prereceiverrer to the

american -- preserver, and that's why we are here today. >> the conference of mayors talked about predatory lending and financing. we'll hear more about the u.s. conference of mayors' economic report. this is an hour and 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, michael, for having me here today, a special thanks to you in particular, a long time friend. he just gave me the conclusion, we were trying to puzzle over how long we've been in public service, and it's telling we have trouble remembering. i'm especially pleased to be here speaking with you today, and i have prepared remarks, and then i understand we'll open up for questions. especially, please, because my

own roots as michael indicated are in state and local governments. the challenges you face on a daily basis are the same challenges i face in ohio. we were colleagues and have faced the issues of foreclosures, of vacant proposes, tax delinquencies and the like over the years. difficult challenges. as mayors, you see how everyday consumer markets affect cities, neighborhood, and families. i'm here today because i want to kick off what i hope will be a very long conversation among us. my job at the consumer financial protection bureau is to make sure that consumer financial markets work for americans. we will benefit tremendously from the insights you share with us from the front line. we're determined to contribute to your communities in return. we need to do this work together. when honest businesses prosper, so do your communities. when your communities prosper,

america's economy can thrive in ways that are felt by all of our people. every day you see your constituents using financial products with the goal of achieving prosperity through hard work and sound decisions. mortgages allow families to invest in the home. student loans make it possible to finance an education, but these products also possess the potential to reek havoc on consumers and the wider economy. in ohio, i was the treasurer at the state and local levels, and in that capacity, i saw dealt devastate people's lives. a person gets sick, a spouse loses a job, a parent is swindled by a scam. sometimes the responsibility for debt resides with the individuals, other times with the financial service provider that ensnares the customer in complex products they do not understand. individual financial problems, as you know best, can quickly

become community problems. we saw that most starkly with the mortgage crisis, the foreclosure epidemic turned vibrant neighborhoods into ghost tops. i saw that first hand in ohio. as you know, vacant properties are not only eye soars, but mag inapts for drugs and crime. it is often a dead loss, need to be raised, and neighbors watch their property values decline, and parents worry about chair children's safety. the entire community is harmed. cities bear the bottom line costs of problems created by others. in this manner, predatory lending insults stable communities with the damage taking years and years to repair. i was frustrated with many who transcended boundaries and could not be addressed within our jurisdiction. the stories were appalling.

in an economy where budgets tighten, the resources available for consumer protection are not enough. that, too, was exas bratting for me. you feel like david fighting goliath with a few rocks and not even a sling. the good news is there's an eager partner in the new consumer bureau. we cannot always be everywhere we want to be. by joining forces with you, we hope to develop an early alert system so the same scam is not in several cities at the same time. i know how valuable your insight is and how vulnerable our communities are when ignored. when we saw real estate flipping scams exploding on a mass scale and could not get the attention of federal officials, we knew we were in serious trouble. one of the features is we have the authority to regulate these that proliferated among non-bank providers like mortgage lenders, mortgage servicers, mortgage

brokers, and payday lenders. you know who the predators are in your communities, and we want to work with you to identify them. we want to be a partner with you and financial institutions alike. too often important credit products like mortgages, student loans, and others are pep traited by jargon and fine print. we all see that. your citizens' livelihood are threatened by traps, and you have taken action. we commend you for the success successes. you awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to cities across the nation so far to fund and operate financial education programs and other programs including the summer jobs program as was mentioned. every community needs these program, and we would like to hear your feedback on what works well and what does not. we want to be a resource to you by producing financial education materials that you can share with your constituents. we launched a program entitled

no before you owe -- know before you owe. that clarifies the pitfalls americans face when buying a house, choosing college, or a credit card. we already are taking complaints about mortgages and credit cards with more products to come. we contacted the financial institutions on behalf of consumers if they have a complaint, and the institutions are expected to resolve and close all but the most complicated complaints within 60 day, but we cannot help unless people bring complaints to us, so, please, urge your constituents to use our services at consumerfinance.gov. also on our website, we've been soliciting stories about people's experiences with financial services of all kinds. already, we heard thousands of stories from across the country, likely the same stories you hear and see every day. a family is faced with leaving their home because of a fraudulent mortgage agreement.

a single mother takes out a payday loan that forces her to declare bankruptcy. maybe you found innovative ways to tackle the problems, raise these story, and if so, we want to hear from you. as we hear from you, we will work to share these solutions and approaches with others. together, we can work for consumers, a market place in which they do not have to worry about scores of financial products designed to scam and exploit them. every step we take that gets us closer to the system will have a positive impact on communities by helping honest businesses and consumers make the most of their opportunity. with you as an active partner, we can work together to improve people's financial lives and by working to protect consumer, we'll fashion a resilient economy and stronger country. thank you, and i'm happy to take questions and answers right now.

>> from the mayors, thank you, director, greatly appreciative of the comments, and we'll allow the rest of this time -- this period here now for questions from members of the counsel. yes? >> just say your name. >> from davenport, iowa. thank you for being here. >> sure. >> the amount of student loan debt in the united states, that total figure, and secondly, i think it's a shame on this generation, on the people our age who have allowed students in this country to have to go to into huge amounts of debt. it's outray outrageous. the greatest generation two years before us paid people to go to college, and yet we've allowed student, young people to have to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases in debt.

not unusual to find students with a hundred thousand in debt. it's a crisis facing this country, causing us not to grow. there's demand that could be created by doing something to help alleviate this debt. a suggestion would be you outright forgive at least a third of the outstanding student loan debt, require the students to be able to pay back a third by volunteering their time in non-profit charitable organizations, and then allow the other remaining third to be paid off over a long period of time with reasonable interest rates. can you address the crisis of student loan debt and how outrageous it is for this to happen in the wealthiest country in the world. we're the only ones to force kids to go in debt to get an education. thank you, sir. >> thank you for the question. this is an area of immediate concern for us at the bureau. as you mentioned. -- as you mentioned, the amount of student loan debt in the country

spiraled, especially in the last decade, approaching the level of the total credit card debt in the country. i believe we're around a trillion dollars at this point, and it is a concern. part of that is being driven, obviously, by rising costs of tuition, both at public and private colleges around the country, and that's something that's going to have to be addressed by actors at state and national level and universities themselves. for the bureau among our concerns are we think we've seen and heard stories that frequently young people and their families do not understand choices and alternatives available for them to finance an education. we find that people do not exhaust the available federal loans before moving to private student lopes, which have numerous different features that are less advantageous to the

young person or family or whoever is financing the education. we believe working with the department of education as we already begun to do we can simp -- simplify and clarify choices. point out things people need to know, the specific terms of the loan, what's the interest rate, how will that be affected and what will terms be done the road? we have a sheet put together with the department of education that is an attempt to simplify the market for people. the driver here in particular is the underlying cost of an education and the importance of an education for young people having opportunity in this country. it's a reason why we're a leading nation in the world, thee leading nation in this world for sometime is that we do so well with our higher education institutions, and their success with people so we have a mobile society and people can rise.

there's forgiving loans in terms of service by young people are things congress would have 20 look at, but i think there's a spotlight of the community movement to spotlight the problem, and i think it's going to get additional attention, but your pushing on that is important to ensure people do not ignore it. >> mr. directer, the consumers are our constituents. they live in our cities, so we're grateful for what you're doing, but it's a broad assignment, consumer protection. >> yeah. >> because there's a lot of issues that impact upon consumers. what are your top three focal point z as you -- points as you ramp up this new bureau? >> we do have three top

priorities. the other is one we've been at work on for a number of months which is know before you owe project which is to clarify for people what is often become a complex and confusing market for mortgages, for celt cards, for student loans, for bank deposit products. people don't know what choices they are making. they are not clear on what terms they are accepting, and we're going to continue to work to simplify that. that's a very important project for us. a second project for us is having a director in place meaning we can now embark on it is say we have a mortgage market, that was so broken leading up to the financial crisis, in which you have banks competing against non-bank providers, and some of the institutions may be regulated, closely soup sized -- supervised and closely watched

and others have no law at all. we saw that in the mortgage market. you had investors offering loans that responsible institutions, community banks, credit unions would not offer because they knew they would not succeed, and yet the loans were made, and the fallout was felt in the communities. for us, we now have the ability to regulate banks and non-banks to supervise and examine them on a level with one another. that's important. you can't have a market work if you regulate just part of it. the bad practices drive out the good and, again, the mortgage market was the classic example of that leading to a melt down of the entire financial system. that's a second priority. the third thing is we have to enforce the law, ensure everybody understands the rules of the road to be applied evenly to all institutions, big, small, bank, and non-bank, and we'll be in the marketplace to stand on

the side of consumers, protect them against fraud, and see they are treated fairly in the marketplace. that's a big agenda. that's a lot of work for us to do, but it's worth it to make a real difference for people if we can do it well. >> good morning, and welcome on board. >> thank you. >> mayor of the city of timber pines, florida. we have the everglades, and we have quite a few seniors all though the median age is 40, we have quite a few condos, and there's a lot of fraud with senior, and the advertisements that come over new technology, ipads, whatever, look so good that they look line a bon mid company. what can we do to ensure encryption -- tough to say no fraud, but help to protect consumers, and our city is 160,000 and they just had fraud

and blah, blah, and how do we certify encryption in the new technology event? >> so, when i was attorney general in particular, we saw and attempted to address scams and frowdz against individuals. many of them targeted against seniors. you know, seniors are often uniquely vulnerable, maybe they are failing a little, maybe isolated from their families, sometimes they are too trusting, and unfamiliar with the details of how the internet and cyberspace look. things can be made to look legitimate in that realm when they are completely bogus and intended only to exploit you. we are going to be working with state and local officials across the country because that is such a large problem and cannot just be dealt with an agency in washington, d.c.. often the front lines deal with the cyber and call it what it

is, cyber crime, not just scams and fraud which often makes it seem a little less than it really is. i mean, it's people reaching into people's pockets and stealing from them, so we also are going to be working with u.s. attorneys and federal prosecutors and also state and local district attorneys and prosecutors to address these issues. we are working on projects at the bureau to invail over the next few months including continued work with the task force that we have on mortgage fraud, but also mortgage fraud scams, home rescue scams, the foreclosure assistance scams that have been so prominent. basically any time any program in our society would lead to money for individuals, there's scams that grow up around it. you know, as an example, we're a new bureau to protect consumers. we already see scams around our name. you know -- [laughter] there's people adopting our name

and using it to try to get people's personal financial information and the like. internet crime, cybercrime was thee leading challenge for us. it's difficult to sometimes low kate the -- locate the source of the crime, it's anonymous, and people feel bold on the internet to do things. it's small we have to handle, but it's not easy. it's going to take a lot of people working to the. >> thank you. >> frank and then bill. >> director, again, thank you for being here with us this morning. let me give you a quick picture of what happens in city haul. so i have a resident of my city who shows upbringing all of their records. they are so angry at their well-known national lender who

issued a short term loan, short term being five years to pay off some debt, so they made payment for a number of years, had an 8% loan, seemed a little high, this plan was to get a second mortgage on their house. they had a family emergency, were out, missed a loan payment by two days. the lending institution, the national level lender kicked the interest rate up to 27.9% and wouldn't allow them to renegotiate. he said that's the terms. you missed a payment. you were late on a payment. that's it. how do we as mayors when we hear that sort of egregious action take place in the lending world, and it's not just internet

people trying to scam these people. this is a major lender. how do we protect those people from that kind of a lending program that would allow that to happen to the average american? >> this is a problem i've been grappling with for, i guess, six or seven years now, and what we've seen is that the servicing of mortgages was a kind of forgotten back water that in the middle of the last decade was a great business to be in because when the real estate market was hot, all it consistented of really was receiving the checks and making sure you allocated them to the proper account, not so hard, not very expensive to do. what happened when the real estate market began to go south was that became a much harder business to be in, and frankly, the people in that business performed at a rather poor level, and it continues. many of them have been

recognizing the need now to staff up. there have been legal actions that continue and discussions around settling the robo signing scandal, one indicator of gross irregularities in the market. we, as a bureau now going forward, have full authority to use three types of tools in addressing the mortgage servicing problems of the kind you described. the first is that we will be writing regulations that congress has required of us to try to clean up some of the problems in the mortgage market, both clarifying the terms so that, for example, the example you raised in particular is someone who had the kind of mortgage that had terms buried in the fine print, looked like an 8% mortgage on the face, but anything that goes wrong with trigger like a credit card jacking up of the interest rate to what is clearly an

unsustainable level. we hear a lot of those stories from the same people bringing their documents to you, especially now that we opened the consumer complaint line to mortgage complaints. we will be regulating ability to repay as an important consideration in issuing a mortgage. one would have hardly thought you'd have to regulate such a thing and would think the markets reflect that lenders want to know about the ability to repay a loan before making it, but that's how skewed some of the incentives became here. we'll be ragelating appraisals, many of which were bogus. there's already new regulations in place against spread premiums, steering people into higher interest rates than they are quale mid -- qualified for. regulating is one thing. supervising these mortgage servicers and supervising them closely, meaning the ability to almost -- compared it to an audit, to go in, examine the

books, ask whatever question, get the information we need to know how they are doing, what they are doing, and to fix problems with them. many of them can be fixed shorts of having to file a lawsuit, although, we also have the ability to enforce, and if we need to file lawsuits in order to enforce the law, we certainly will do that, and that's an important part of our tool backseat #* box, but in the meantime, i said one of the new things about the bureau for individuals in the situation, we are taking their complaints, and we are working with the institutions to get the complaints resolved. that has been a night -- nightmare. we have stories over the years, and you hear them too, people are into this trouble, and no one is available to ever help them. they call, they can't get through on the phone lines. when they do, they send the paperwork, it gets lost, and the performance in this realm is dismal over the years, and we are dead set on trying to make

that performance improve. i think it is starting to improve, but we have a long way to go. >> william? >> mayor, bill from north carolina. i was glad to see your appointment, and i like the top three priorities you've laid out, but i guess my question is given the resistance to your appointment, do you have the tools and the regulations in hand that you're going to carry those things out you talked about, or do you have to go back to congress to get things done? >> we have a robust set of tools. we couldn't exercise all the tools until we had a director, so that period of time was unfortunate because we got off to a delayed start, but we are off the mark now, and we are going full speed. i'm not concerned about the prior controversy because i think that when you get to talking to people in public life, both sides of the aisle, at all levels of government,

they are all representing the same people we're looking to serve, and they hear the same stories we do about people losing their home, people drowns in debt, and we all know more needs to be done to try to address these issues. my view is that as we do our work, which we now can do, and i don't think we need more tools from congress at the moment. over time, we'll see how that is. we'll win people over if we can do our work well. it's on us, and i'm happy with that. happy to take that responsibility, although it's a significant challenge. ..

>> when you say this information, i assume you are talking about information about the products? >> promoting what you are trying to do which is protect consumers against fraud. there are ways in which you need to educate the public and obviously this is new and you are putting out as you mentioned a web site in you mention the hotline. are you going to require banks and credit cards and other lenders to put this information out? there is quite a bit of information so this information can be available to them? >> i see. we have not contemplated trying to require financial institutions to advertise their presence. a kind if you like that is our responsibility although one of the reasons it's important for me to be here and go out and speak aggressively about the bureau is so that networks like the u.s. conference of mayors and each one of you who goes

back to your municipalities all over this country and you run those municipalities and you are in charge of trying to address these problems that you will help create that awareness. we all know it is a challenge when you are in government and you think you have good things that you are you're trying to do that will help people, help people become aware of that. so we will accept all help from that. whether we would mandate, somehow provide information to customers, i don't know that is, i don't know that is the best approach but we will think about that. i think a lot of institutions will advertise these changes to people and understand that this is the way to channel some of their customers frustrations into a useful avenue. but i guess that's the kind of think i -- thing

emerged issues and i think there's a lot there but i've had people closing and i remember the bore myself, why they represent the lender and not the borrower and if you want to have a lawyer represent you as a poor, you have to pay another lawyer to do that. and i think a lot of the financial education that we are trying to achieve doesn't happen at the closing table because of that situation and there is a conflict there so that might be another area of concern that you want to address but i also welcome the appointment and i am very glad and would be remiss if i didn't thank the chairman for his leadership on the council. very much appreciate it. thank you. >> so, you raised a couple different concerns. in terms of, you know, businesses that outsource their call centers to other countries, you know, that's not an issue

for the regulation by the consumer bureau. i understand there is some attention being given by the administration and on the hill to try to in source jobs back from overseas because you can find lots

of interest to a borrower that are part of an agreement like what happens in the case of a late payment and the second thing in interpreting that is i would almost prefer refer prefer to do what we really mean it clause. in other words, if you are late, we are going to escalate and i think most of us if you your today's late, you can cure that default some way or another other thing going from 8% to 20 something percent and so, the freedom to contract obviously is something that is protected.

at the same time you know when we talk about the legal side of the talent on the bar were side rather come in exactly your agency is trying to goad help with is on the bar were side, the consumer side so i guess could you address the issue of the provisions in the borrowing agreement that need to be highlighted and then somehow, and i don't know how this would be done, but the clause in terms of if you are lately really mean we are going to default you and raise your interest rate? by the way, pat hayes from arkansas. >> for so i think consumers need to be aware that anything that appears in fine print you had better assume that they really mean it. it's in there for a reason and if it is in there, it has legal bearing and people can't afford to ignore the fine print. on the other hand it is not realistic to expect the average

consumer wades thoreau that fine print and understand everything that's in there so part of our project, it's a very difficult project in some ways is to boil out of all of that dance often legalese what are the important terms that the consumer needs to understand it needs to appreciate? and highlight those so that they stand out. because, and it's not all default by any means of businesses and lenders that there is all this fine print. much of it has been required over the years by one or another provision of the federal law. most of them well-meaning but often accumulating to the point where they got beyond any utility for people because you know two or three good pages of important information is going to be more accessible to the average consumer then 30 to 40 pages even if all that has bearing. we know that people lose track of it. they won't read it.

it's just too daunting for them and too confusing. and businesses should not want to compete on the basis of who can confuse their customer into making a bad decision. that is not a winning formula for the business in the long run. sometimes they can do with that in the short run. i think many of us hearken back to a model in our minds of the banking system and the lending system where it's all local people who know the local markets and know their local customers and it's all on a repeat basis where they are trying to keep you and your family as customers for years and generations. the market has changed in many respects from that. many of these institutions are larger. they get economies of scale and they can compete effectively that way but it's difficult to run those large institutions and it's difficult to provide that kind of customer service. and you know one way or another these businesses need to be able to focus back and on providing value to their customers, not

just a matter of price, not just a matter of fees but also in the matter of serving their needs when they have problems. and that has not been done effectively in recent years. i think it's undeniable so that is the focus for the bureau. >> thank you very much director cordray. great questions, great responses and this euro i think is a wonderful initiative and i really mean it. we will hear more about your progress and we invite you back at some future.. it is of great interest in what you are doing, with the bureau is initiating around the country. consumers are our constituents, the same folks and we care greatly about your progress with this bureau and that's success. we wanted to be successful because the first phonecall historically has not been to

this bureau because it didn't exist. it was in the mayor's office all across the country and we have eyes been put in a position, what do we do about it? now we have to somebody to turn to for that leadership and direction so we are grateful for that. >> i'm going to ask for the director to come out here for a couple of minutes and i would like to see if the great mayor from des moines, iowa, frank county will take over part of this meeting. frank? [applause] >> in an effort that we have got a huge agenda this morning to keep things moving along i see that jim diffley is here come the head of the regional economics at ihs global insight who will provide our traditional their traditional metro economy update. let me add that we finally added metro economies to the name of this council since we are now in

our 11th yearish thing these reports for this conference, so jim, i think i saw you back here. he is right here. i will put off the final results of the iowa caucuses until he has finished. [laughter] >> thank you mr. mayor. a pleasure to be here again and we release this report with the mayors today. it was a rough 2011, the u.s. economic recovery almost stalled out last summer largely due to a crisis in confidence in the political leadership on both sides of the atlantic. but the year ended strong and the risks remain again largely political by the way. we believe we carry enough moments them into 20 to generate economic growth and job gains across almost all metros in the u.s.. but this growth will be moderate. the economy still faces headwinds from high household

and public debt and slower growth overseas abroad. now the combination of excess debt, excess housing supplies, recession in europe and a contractionary fiscal policy will hold u.s. growth to modest rates. through 2012 though we expect 1.7 million new jobs to be generated. that however will barely be enough to dent the unemployment rate. we still remain about 8%, once you factor in growth of of the growth of the labor force. and it still represents less than half, 48% in fact, cumulatively of the 8.8 million jobs lost in the great recession. that is, we have only recovered less than half of the jobs lost during this recession. in this report we demonstrate the distribution of those jobs in 2012 across the metro come across the nation in the metro which i remind you, don't have

to remind you, it's counts for 86% of jobs in the u.s. in over 90% of the u.s. gross domestic product. we also emphasize the importance as households and governments across the nation tried to reduce their debt burden, retrench, over the export sector. which will be counted on is the key driver of u.s. growth going forward. in metros, we find generate 80% of all exports from the u.s. and they will play a pivotal role in that process moving forward. this is also document in a report released today. the maintenance and development of the metro area continued ability to generate this economic and to did be derived from exports are essential to the prosperity of the nation. thank you.

>> the full report is in front of you all. jim if you owe allow us a couple of twists -- the questions we'll ask anybody who is a question to keep them real, to the point and concise because again we have quite a bit on our agenda again and a lot to do this morning. any questions? >> mayor greg fischer from louisville. can you talk about the changing nature of jobs? they are not the same jobs that were lost and i assume they are coming back? >> they are precisely the same but we do see growth now vitally and higher-level business service jobs, professional services jobs, so it's not only low-paying jobs that are recovering. initially within retail trade but we have seen growth in the more higher value sector so that's important. >> another question?

[inaudible] >> realizing that outsourcing is not always beneficial. do we have any real numbers on how many jobs might be coming back from overseas or is this all and it total? >> it's all anecdotal in the sense that the size relative to the economy of the return is small. i would emphasize however that the importance is not so much how many jobs are coming back to that the flow is being stopped of the enormous numbers going forward as china becomes more expensive in u.s. corporations realize there are other factors consider -- to consider. >> any other questions? >> thank you, mayor. just a quick question for you. if you or me or what would you do to create jobs in your community based on what your findings have been?

>> i would emphasize the importance, thinking it will of what a mayor can do, what i would them besides the importance of the infrastructure both as it relates to business activity and household -- and make the metro and attractive place to live and do business. >> thank you so much. a quick update, and that's move on. as we are, we are going to get robert klein and jim rokakis and dave stevens if you gentlemen would move forward. we will set up for our next portion of our presentation. what i would like is the gentleman who are stepping up to the table to suggest to all of you, we have had over 1000 mayors sign onto the climate protection agreement. it seems that it's time we had

to discuss a little bit moving forward about sustainable cities and communities and the work that needs to be done in some of those areas. there are 40 cities around this country that have applied for and received regional sustainability planning grants so there is a lot of work going on and i would hope that staff would follow-up with mayors from across the country and let's share best practices, some of the things that we are doing in our cities locally to create a green economy and to transition into the 21st century in what jobs look like that makes our city sustainable. so i just would like to throw that out to all of you and i'm hopeful that staff is going to follow up so by june we have to have some good ideas to share on that front. so having said that, i would like to now move to robert klein

and jim rokakis and does all of your member barb walter moore meeting in june we indicated we would work on developing a model piece of legislation to address the issue of how we move a banded property through the system quicker so that we can lessen the tremendously negative impact of these properties on our neighborhoods around this country. gentlemen, in very short order. >> thank you mayor. i have been asked by dave to be crisp. 33 years in public life is a city and county official and the land conservancy and national conservation wanted to adopt an urban mission and something called a thriving community institute initially designed to set up a land banks all of her ohioan, land banks are becoming very common. there are quasipublic entities designed to take in distress tax foreclosed properties. we hope to have 13 in place in june in ohio.

wherever we go in ohio and have set this up in every major country we are overwhelmed by the problem of fake and counties. by goodfriend rich cordray who i've known for many years and one of the most -- finest public servants i've ever known. they are destroying values. there are crime magnets. they are taking away for many people. there are the single most valuable asset, their home. they're probably more vacant properties in ohio and michigan then there were post-katrina in louisiana and alabama, cities like cleveland the average home is on the market for from the thousand days before it sells and what it sells it sells for eight to 10% of the value of the scrap metal and i could go on and on with these depressing statistic so the answer is not only demolition but certainly many areas of demolition are critical. the problem is there is little money to deal with the issue. law grants have been slashed by 30% in the past couple of years.

local government funds have been slashed all over ohioan because it cuts at the state level so we are looking for a federal solution. the treasury department met with members of congress in ohio and michigan and have copied the qualified school construction bond model to help issue $22 billion worth of bonds in 09 and 10 to build new schools calling a qualified ervin demolition bombs. we are making a request to the treasury department to issue tax credits to do demolition in ohio and michigan to the most seriously afflicted states. this will require local participation. we have gone to the attorney general's to help fund to make these tax credits possible. finally i will say i was on a program on 60 minutes a month ago. i was lucky because i was on before meryl streep so everyone continue to watch but in that program done by scott pelley was entitled there goes the neighborhood. we don't raise money for

demolition you can do another one next year and there goes another neighborhood and there goes another neighborhood and there goes another neighborhood. a lot of these neighbors have a fighting chance but not as long as there are thousands and thousands of vacant properties waiting to be demolished. it's not a demolition only issue and i know mr. klein was the ceo and founder of safeguard properties the largest preservation firm in the country and wants to address some of those issues if that is okay with you, mayor. i will just pass the baton quickly. >> thank you mr. mayor and thank you jim for the comments. listing to the director over here, the majority of the comments were directed at the mortgage industry. let me just -- disclaimer. i can have any interest in the properties that are out there being foreclosed on or in default. what we do i would like to mention we are property preservation company. we perform approximately

1 million inspections a month on a nationwide basis. we do eat -- work in each one of the mayors communities. we are we the ones when the loan defaults we will try to maintain the property as best as possible. i also want to follow up on what the mayor said, like the director, we are out there on the ground boots on the ground. we see the actual devastation that is -- vacant properties have on the community in the country. that was probably from our point of view seeing what is happening. the greatest cause of what we see is what the mayor mentioned a moment ago is the time it takes for property once it is abandoned, once the mortgage or is in default for whatever reason. private foreclosure, just give up and move out of the property. and quite a few states that property will sit in the foreclosure process for two years which means it's sitting there, it's vacant. nobody's living there. will take two years to be able to go to foreclosure and do what

it needs to do. in those two years the only consumer that is being heard is the next-door neighbor. the value the property goes down. of the things you have heard about properties deteriorating a large chunk of it is due to to the property sitting out there for years. in ohio it will take two years once they foreclosures filed until the foreclosure simply. a matter how much we maintain the property for the bank it will deteriorate. it will get vandalized. it is going to be used by drugs -- we see it on the ground first-hand. that is my opinion the most prevalent problem in why these properties are deteriorating. jim introduced a bill in the ohio senate that would actually, not only abstract, maybe not the right word but accelerate properties that are vacant and abandoned. you want to keep the occupant in

the property for however long it takes. it doesn't do any good for the city, doesn't do any good for the neighbors and it doesn't do any good for the mortgage company. it is deteriorating day by day and there's nothing they can do. their hands are tied because the foreclosure process takes a long. in the pass the bill that was introduced -- it was a draft bill introduced in the ohio senate addressing that issue. we have been in touch with communities around the country. every community we have spoken to down to the level of code enforcement, these vacant properties are sitting here for months and months and years. we have seen in the foreclosure process, for three years, it's vacant, sitting there, the mortgage company cannot -- because it is tied legally because they have not taken possession yet so it's a catch-22. who is maintaining the properties? we do the best job we can but

it's going to get vandalized. we see it being on the ground, this is the largest cause we can see up part properties, communities around the country. there are other -- but the vast majority that properties are deteriorating is because they are sitting over there for months and years without anybody having possession on the property. this is this is a state-level issue obviously. that needs to be addressed somehow and i believe this is a bill that is being introduced in the ohio senate is a model example of what can be done when you shorten the process, vacant and abandoned properties. this is not kicking anybody out of their homes. this is property that is arctic on, people have moved out for whatever reason. what needs to be done to either reoccupy the property sell property or get give it back into use. one other comment before i

finish, what jim said about demolition. demolition is a factor we see on the ground deteriorating these neighborhoods but demolition alone is not going to do it. you have to demolish and rehab. he have properties that you need to demolish and property they can be rehab. you have to do both at the same time. futures demolish a property, we have parties that can be put in affordable housing and reoccupied. you have a demolition that has to be done and at the same time focus on the rehab of these properties. thank you. >> before we pass the baton yet again let's quickly ask does anybody have any questions specifically about these vacant abandoned properties? >> mayor fisher again. i would ask you to think about one thing and that is the maintenance of the properties while they are in this limbo land. the weeds are growing six feet tall and when you're in a strong property rights states if we as a government can't go on the land sometimes to take care of

the so this is an issue that needs to be addressed as well. >> quickly, i think is a little bit of a fallacy because every mortgage deed allows the service or to actually take action to collect his collateral interest. they are required as a mortgage service or when property seems to be vacant to take action to go in there and maintain the property. we do millions of these every single month. we have been doing it for 20 years now. we are not successful 100%. we do have a right to take action when a property is vacated but it's limited action. it's a very limited action on what the server server or bank mortgage or can do. it is a catch-22. we are not doing enough and i think we need some help from the legislature. >> one more question right here, mayor.

>> or any of the legal experts working on the whole issue of private property? because what we have all the time is laws restricting us from being able to take property that has been selling quite for many many years. the laws are not on the city side. they are on the owner side and the owner is hurting the property values of everybody else. there is a think a fundamental issue of property rights that we need to have some of the legal geniuses start working on because i can deteriorate an entire block value on purpose deliberately and be protected by the courts. they flip from llc to llc which starts the legal clock running all over again. because of this preoccupation with people's private property rights, we allow entire neighborhoods to be penalized and so what i would like is for people who are a lot smarter than me who were legal eagles to start working on ways to take

property from people who are purposely gaming the system to the expense of all the other people who are working hard and playing by the rules. it is wrong and it should stop. somebody has to figure out a way around our love affair with private property because it's not private property. it's a purposeful, diminishment of everybody else's private property, so who can we turn to to change the laws? ..

one is the challenge all of you are dealing with on a daily basis its families in trouble, servicing errors that you've taken through your office is on a day-to-day basis. it's in negative equity, all these things are up front and center in your mind. the other side of this is the future of housing finance. how are we going to make sure people can borrow money going forward with? this comes down to a couple of rolls i'm not going to go into detail. i want to offer myself as a resource and you can contact me directly to educate to further

the qualified residential mortgage provision under the dodd-frank legislation. the qualified residential mortgage provision as part of something called qualified mortgage and without explaining it thoroughly i just want to say that if the rule goes into effect as is, access to home ownership for qualified workers within our communities could be severely restricted. the proposed rule today which is proposed by six regulators working together puts down payment and loan to tell you restrictions and to who can get a qualified residential mortgage in your communities. the down payment restriction, which there is a data in the packages you all have as we would be glad to talk about the walks through is literally a direct attack at first-time homebuyers, african american borrowers, latinos demographically across the country. it impacts firefighters, health care workers, schoolteachers, middle-income americans who need

to work in the cities who will be restricted from the qualified residential mortgage simply because the down payment standard. one thing you should know, and i know time is -- we are exceeding on the schedule, so i want to make this as concise as possible. one thing you should be aware of is dodd-frank did not ask for anywhere in the legislation for the regulators to identify the loan-to-value to hard why you're the minimum down payment or the debt to income ratio in the rule the regulators put that in above and beyond the dodd-frank act and having been involved in the process it was intentional to leave the salt because as you well know, first-time home buyers to attract your communities the above have high levels of inherited wealth or income to say look for a 20% down payment and if you can't recruit schoolteachers to your communities because they can't buy a home because restricted by access because of this qualified residential mortgage that has a direct impact on the quality and vibrancy of your own particular

cities that you are responsible for. we like a lot of things in the dodd-frank legislation and a lot of things in the qualified residential mortgage. it talks about owner occupied, fully documented, ability to repay, fully amortizing mortgages it eliminates all of the exploding neutron mortgages that exclude many of the communities and auction office of prime balloons, extended term limits all of those are eliminated. i think it's healthy for us to get the rules of the road to but to put the down payment barrier in place for your communities is going to have a direct impact and i am joined by people like mark, the national urban league and la raza and the center for responsible lending and others that we join together and lead to a meeting with congressman frank with this document with all of their logos to review this with him. this can only be stopped by your active involvement by notifying

regulators and senator don evin is here today you can ask him to make clear that we support these protections and product quality but we are concerned about access for the workers of our community to grow in the disparate impact of this. so that's the overview and i leave again my offer to help in any way i can if you or your staff want to reach out to me personally and i would be glad to talk about it. >> any questions for mr. stevens? yes. >> i'm the mayor in california. thank you for your comments. as a realistic practitioner myself i see it firsthand in terms of the difficulties in obtaining the home mortgages at the current pace. although we understand the need for oversight and also some safeguards in place. nevertheless the access and as we mentioned is truly limited at

this point. we have i believe the pendulum swung too far to the point now the lenders are limiting the true legality of people trying to take a homeownership into their standards right now, but i also think that there has got to be a way to make it more balanced. where access is available and in safeguards in place. so how is it that you can advocate on behalf of the consumers and the mortgage applications applicants in order for this to move forward? because at the rate we are going, there is so limited in terms of the funding available or making it available to the average borrower and that is what is in terms of the vicious cycle we are saying that we are not getting the inventory supply a limited and we are not making

use of the current really good marketplace right now. thank you. >> i completely agree and there are ways to do this. i think as you know which is a prime source of financing for homes in many of the communities that you served. allows down payments for borrowers as well as 3.5% for the loan not all are using the but of that credit portfolio for a whole lot of other reasons that we need to work through to create certainty in the financial system so that these financial institutions will come back in and again to lend again and part of this can come from us working together through the private and public partnerships to make institutions feel comfortable going into communities and lending to the policy and there's a lot more to talk about in this area but you're point is accurate and i think we can play a role and be an active voice to try to help bridge the barrier and my brac rounded the administration

coming into this i did so to try to bridge the very year so we need to work together because you are on the front line in the urban communities where we have to gain recovery and make sure we have responsible access for home ownership and that is the challenge. >> thank you very much and i appreciate everybody. now we need to move on. we are working on models of best practices to encourage homeownership and a number of cities have flourished in the housing programs, philadelphia is one of the great cities to do that, but we have comments representing some of our realtors. holly, welcome. >> good morning everyone. i would like to give a brief overview of the housing or eah.

eah can help address housing issues. it's an employer provided benefits will only helping me to an employee's housing need also business objectives such as record what, retention, or simply helping to revitalize the neighborhood around the business. there's a variety of different benefits associated with the most common ones are the homebuyer education, counseling and financial assistance. the way that speech can be used with everything we've heard today to help carry out some of the goals of all of the speakers today. for instance, homebuyer education. think of it as it can be offered on site at the workplace and a lot of times employees do not have the time to go after work or on weekends to go to these workshops. a lot of education as required by a lot of loan programs, government loan programs to employees cannot to get advantage of these because they

simply cannot attend these sitting of having a workshop on site during the lunch hour at the workplace it's a great concept and it's going to get consumer education to the masses easily. another option is financial assistance. this can be grants or loans and structured for a business objective. for instance if a lot of employees or the employers have problem with retentions they will train employees and then they will lead. this is particularly for hospitals and nursing staff turns over a lot. there's costs associated with training employees. you can use eah as a five-year forgivable loans of the employee would have to stay with the employ year for five years and then that would be forgiven. employers can also target neighborhoods, so if there's a neighborhood that meets the revitalization they can say i only want my employees to purchase a home with in this neighborhood and i will help them out with financial assistance if they do that. how you all can help is these

programs can be leveraged with state and local programs and not only the loan programs that state and local localities have but also eah programs. i have a handout that gives a listing of several state and local programs that all are already being implemented philadelphia and baltimore have matching funds will match an employer's contribution up to a certain amount of leverage and employee with an employee is getting for the down payment or closing cost the city of baltimore works with the johns hopkins university. johns hopkins university gives up to $17,000 to its employees to help. the state of illinois and italy has a matching program the tax credit for employers several of the employer implement a eah

benefit. this now has a pilot program. this isn't coming from the housing agency. it's coming from the planning agency because they want to help reduce commuting to the district of columbia to reappear working with select employees and give up to $20,000 to help an employee purchase a home in a select communities in detroit. what you all can do is i'm working with the u.s. conference of mayors and the council to see how more cities can get involved in this. two things that the national association of realtors is doing this year is one is having employers and housing forms are not the country, and we are working with the mayors and the states in the conference of mayors to coordinate the forums. this will be where everyone in the community gets together including the mayors, housing authority planning agency, non-profit organizations which are particularly important, the real-estate industry and lenders. they will get together and learn

about employer assisted housing and what they can do in their community to implement the program. next week there will be a forum in las vegas. we will have participation by the mayor of las vegas, henderson and more floss' vegas and in april we would work on planning to have another forum in dubuque iowa, and the mayor is participating in that as well. i welcome you to think about this to possibly help in your community to help with the work force housing issues and if so, you can get in touch with me or dave and we would welcome your participation thank you. >> thank you very much. we are running short on time. we have more of the more of the chemistry council and more of cisco and mary kay leonard both here to provide some announcements. thank you.

>> thank you come and mr. mayor for the invitation to come and address this. we want to introduce ourselves. i'm with the american chemistry council and we want to tell the story to you of the cattle industry and how important it is to the national economy and the metro economy. the chemical industry employees nearly 800,000 in the u.s. and high-paying manufacturing jobs that are on average $82,000 a year which is 43 prisoner higher than the average manufacturing wage. in addition to these jobs there are 5.5 jobs created for every job in the industries and in jobs supported by household spending. the chemical industry is present in each of the 50 states and the natural communities around the country. it is a major exporter. in 2011 we exported nearly $200 billion in the chemistry experts hitting a new record. they have been trending up thanks to shale gas.

i want to transition jury briefly i know we are short for time and talk about the tremendous opportunity that shale gas has brought to the chemical industry and affecting sector in the country as a whole. president obama highlighted the gas and opportunities that have presented history in the jobs report. the chemical industry in particular stands to gain as they view high amounts of natural gas also for the fuel and power and the stock. given a tremendous number of investments announced along the gulf coast to capitalize on the new natural gas and supplies. we estimate about 17,000 new high-paying petrochemical manufacturing jobs can be created from use of this additional ethane and additional 80,000 indirect supplier jobs and 85,000 jobs associated with the household spending. so it will 182,000 american jobs

generated by taking advantage of the methane in the ground to produce a value added products. thank you. >> i want to quickly introduce myself and we are kicking off a partnership with the council for the joint publication of articles. really particularly focused on economic growth in the core, the most distressed areas of the city. just a few quick facts. in what we would call the inner city, which is that part of the city that has 20% property rights is about one-tenth of 1% of the land mass in this country and has 31% of minority poverty in this country. in the years from 98 to 2008 when in fact we were growing jobs the region around the cities grew over 6 million jobs.

the inner cities actually lost 300,000 jobs. and the recent research we just did with small businesses within your inner city, 71% of those small businesses are undercapitalized as compared to their peers outside of your inner city these are distinct economy is the need distinct strategies we will be sharing a lot of information about that in places we've been working as diverse as new orleans, detroit, chicago, philadelphia, new york city. quickly what we do in those cities and the information that we will be sharing with you we help identify the growth industries that can be specifically suited to the industry. we help cities along their economic leverage whether that is the work force development infrastructure improvement as well as collaborate with the key private sector actors like education institutions and

hospitals where in fact the top employer and 66 on the 100 inner cities across the country. this past year. and finally than working around aligning some of the small business development. so we look forward to working with you throughout the year. thank you. >> thank you with very much. we've heard that the united states is behind the rest of the world in terms of connectivity of the internet. but in fact even the u.s. michigan state economists that shows the cities of the most valuable economically with those that are not in the largest but the ones that were the best connected in the economy which is a change from where things were years ago. and in the last meeting in this conference you heard from the mayor of chattanooga about how they were providing a network in the country so that they could create a quality life with the

availability for residents to make a living and as a result they've been able to bring back some of the younger entrepreneurs who've moved to new york and california and bring them back so they can actually be in chattanooga and still make the same kind of living the use two in other places. >> - actually glad to hear yesterday especially the things we have developed in terms of future economic strategy mentioned including the connectivity venture been wrested the global opportunities and we are working quite a while now i guess trying to come up with a strategy to ensure the viability of the american cities and one of the things we are looking for more volunteers, cities that would like to work with us to create demonstrations or pilots of what the future growth might be and that will help your cities showed the way for everybody else and that's really the short of its. thank you. >> thank you very much.

i will see everybody in orlando. >> [inaudible conversations]

he argued that american policy towards japan in 1940 and 41 was rather provocative and perhaps in a juvenile way he said we are putting things in a rattlesnake and eventually the rattlesnake will strike back. >> nearly a half century freedom be trade remain unseen. saturday night on afterwards macron book tv editor and scholar on the former

president's evaluation of executive branch decisions starting with a second world war right through the cold war with the soviet union at 10:00 eastern and this weekend jeff charlotte there will be the inevitable cries. it's time for a change and so on and so on. we will hear all of those things and many more but we will hear nothing that we have not heard before.

to let our opponents stand on the status quo while we seek to refresh the american spirit. let the opposition collect their $10 million in secret money from the privileged few and let us find 1 million ordinary americans who will contribute $25 to this campaign a million member club that members who will not expect special favors for themselves but a better land for us all. the pentagon has released new initiatives to assist victims of sexual assault on the military. defense secretary leon panetta outlined with the military is doing at this 20 minute briefing

think you for showing up. it could meetings of the white house this afternoon. >> good afternoon. when i sworn into the office of secretary defense one, i said that i had no high your responsibility than to protect those who are protecting america. our men and women in uniform were put their lives and the line every day to try to keep america safe. we have a moral duty were to

keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor were. that's why i've been so concerned by the problem of sexual assault in the military. sexual assault has no place in this department. it is an affront to the basic american values we defend and a stand on the good honor of the great majority of the troops and families. as leaders of this department, we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of our own people. these many of these women were who are willing to fight and to die as necessary to protect and

serve our country. entitled to much better protection. their families and dependants also sacrifice and served and so for that reason we have to spare no effort to protect them against this crime. the number of sexual assaults in the military is unacceptable. last year 3,191 reports of sexual assault came in the. but i have to tell you that because we assume that it's a very underreported crime the estimate is that the actual number is closer to 19,000. one sexual assault is one too

many. since taking the office, i needed a top priority to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assault to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career and to hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable. in all of these efforts will work closely with the military and civilian leadership of the department. i've discussed the subject with the service secretaries, the chairman and vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in all of the service chiefs who. the latest meeting as recently as last week. it completely shares my sense of urgency and commitment to addressing this problem as members of congress with whom i

can consult regularly on this issue. to ensure that this issue received proper visibility in the tension within the department to star officer, the air force major general was a poignant to serve as the director of departments sexual assault prevention and response office last august. the general has done a great job coordinating the effort to address the serious and complex problem. there are no easy answers but that makes it all the more essential for us to devote our energy and attention to try to confront this crime. over the holidays we announced new policies that provide greater support for the victims of sexual assault.

the first policy gives victims who reporting sexual assault an option to quickly transfer from the unit for installation, to protect them from possible harassment and remove them from proximity to the perpetrator. second, we will also require the retention of the written reports of sexual assault to law enforcement to be retained for a period of 50 years. the reason for that is to have these records available so that it will make it easier for the veterans to file a claim with the department of the veterans affairs and a leader date. these policies are the first of a broad package of proposals the we will be presenting in the coming months many of which will require legislative action by

the congress. today i want to announce some additional steps that we are taking. first, i've directed the establishment of a dod sexual assault advocate certification program which will require our sexual assault response coordinator and victim advocates to obtain a credential aligned with national standards. this will help ensure that the victims of sexual assault receive the best care from properly trained and credentialed professionals who can provide crucial assistance from the moment an assault is committed. second, i've directed the department to expand our support to assault victims to include military spouses and adult military dependents who will now

be able -- this was not the case before -- they will now be able to find file confidential reports and receive the surface of the victim advocate and sexual assault response coordinator. in addition, we are going to ensure that the civilian stations abroad and dod u.s. citizen contractors in combat areas receive emergency care in the help of a response coordinator and victim advocate. third because sexual assault cases are some of the toughest cases to investigate and prosecute increased spending for investigators and virgil giunta tickets to receive specialized training. we are also putting in place one integrated data system. the data systems frankly were

spread among the various services. we are going to put them together into one system in order to track sexual assault reports and monitor case management so that we will have a comprehensive database or information available later this year. finally in addition to our focus of taking care of victims' and holding perpetrators accountable, we've been focusing on what more can we do to try to prevent such sexual assaults. our leaders in uniform come officers and enlisted are on the front lines of this effort. they have to be. we must all be leaders here. for this reason, i'm directing an assessment due in 120 days on how we train our commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders on sexual assault prevention and response and what

we can do to strengthen that training. it's important that everyone in uniform be alert to this problem and have the leadership training to help prevent these crimes from occurring. these are important steps. but i want to be clear that this is an ongoing effort that will remain a top priority. there is much more work to be done to prevent this crime, and we will be announcing additional initiatives over the coming weeks and months. let me close by speaking directly to the victims of sexual assault in this department. i deeply regret that such crimes occur in the u.s. military, and i will do all i can to prevent the sexual assault from occurring in the department of

defense. i'm committed to providing you the support and resources you need and taking whatever steps are necessary to keep what happened to you from happening to others. united states military has a zero tolerance policy for sexual assault. and we will hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable. i expect everybody in this department to live up to the high standards that we have set with respect any military force where the promise is to help each other and to leave nobody behind, that promise must begin by honoring the dignity of every person on and off the battlefield. thank you.

>> i'm going to ask you to join me appear on the questions. she knows these issues. >> given the magnitude of this problems we announced today appear to be changes in the margin was the core reason that the defense department hasn't been unable to contain this problem and also could you explain why the u.s. and israel postponed the defense exercise? >> on the first problem turning to the major general who also respond to that it's been a difficult time for communities and states and law enforcement to deal with this in the free nature of the crime here in the nature as well here with the victims' hesitate to report these crimes there's pressure

not to report it but concerned about how it impacts on your career and so it is the result of that and the difficulty of prosecuting these cases too often these cases go unreported. what we've tried to do is change the mind-set here. that's already begun. talking with the service secretaries and the service chiefs it's clear that they share the concern that is reflected and what we are seeing are more reports coming in and what we are seeing are more prosecution is taking place. but this has to be a continuing effort. the most important thing we can do here is to try to train leaders at the command level to make it clear that they are aware of this issue and that everyone will enlisted and officers alike are able to say when they see the possibility of these situations either developing or beginning to occur

they would take steps to stop it. that's the best way to try to maintain some kind of a zero tolerance policy. >> i want to reiterate what the secretary said. every week we have said hundreds of new military members and every week we have to try to infiltrate them to the surface core values that you take care of each other that sexual assault is a crime and that is why training up front beginning with basic training all the way it to somebody's career is very important as well as training our officers. i look at it as a try at between the commanders, investigators and prosecutors making sure that the commander builds that command climate where somebody feels comfortable in coming forward to say i've been a victim of sexual assault and that investigator knowing what he or she must do to investigate that and that prosecutor to take that strong case to trial. >> the question on the exercise the administer approached me and

indicated that they were interested in postponing the exercise. we looked at it and determined as we always do this is as i think about this is a member of the exercise about the 12 exercise we've had that in order to be able to plan better and to do this so we will be able to conduct an exercise but it would be better to postpone it to have planning efforts that would lead up to the exercise and to get it done. so we are both committed to making the exercise of ocher but we thought would be better if we postpone it until a later date in order that we could plan better for the exercise. >> mr. secretary, both of you spoke about holding the perpetrators accountable, yet the prosecution and the conviction rates are pretty low.

do you agree that there has to be more aggressive pursuit and prosecution of perpetrators and how do you go about getting that done? >> for successful prosecutions to take place to have to have good evidence and they have to be able to nail the case in court, and oftentimes as you know, these pieces come down to one person's word against another. and so what needs to be done is to make sure that evidence can be gathered that people who are victims will report quickly so that the evidence can be gathered quickly and early and of those steps are taken, what i want to ensure is the prosecutors to cases seriously and take the cases to court to. oftentimes there's a hesitancy because of what i just said. we've got to make sure that prosecutors are as aggressive as we feel we should be to ensure that the signal is set that

anybody who does this is going to be held accountable. >> i would add to that that is why we are so intent on getting the specialist training for investigators as well as our trial counsel to be able to handle the cases because they are difficult to present to us last interview victims of sexual assault to build the best case how to take forward. >> 19,000 is a big number. do any of you have data that shows whether this is a worse problem of the jury than it is in the western society and if i could ask a separate question has iran's threats caused you to make any changes in the disposition of u.s. forces in that area? >> the 19,000 figure was an estimate that we did based on a survey back in 2010. now that wasn't 19,000 people that came forward that says i've

been a victim of sexual assault but based on 100,000 samples. we got about 2,000 positives that said they had been assaulted in the previous year. as we took the services at that point in time and came up with the estimate of the 19,000 we think that is a good number. prior to that in 2006 when we did the first survey the figure was an estimate of the 34 the house and, so we are starting to see it come down. in another couple years and we do this every four years we will do another survey to find out hopefully that is on the downside. >> how does it compare with the rest of society? >> i don't know that anybody has a sample or survey that says this is what we have state to state or by the united states to be quite honest with you. >> with regards to your question i've been reading some of the three ports in the press and i just want to make it clear that we've always maintained a very

strong presence in that region. we have a navy fleet located there. we have a military presence in that region, and we have continually maintained a strong presence in the region to make very clear the we are going to do everything possible to help secure the peace in that part of the world. so the answer to the question is we obviously always continue to make preparations to be prepared for any contingency and were not making any special steps at this point with the situation why? because we are fully prepared to deal with that situation now. >> do you link this to the

current war, and if i could add there are reports from iran some lawmakers saying the president sent a letter to the leadership asking is that true? >> we haven't seen a spike but we have seen an increase in the number of reports. we started taking reports with our options restricted and unrestricted back in 2005 so since then the number of reports of steadily tracked up. that is always a bad thing. that means someone is a victim of coming forward and willing to say i need help with the sexually assaulted. you have to look at it both ways and i'm looking for it that weakening it can also look at it in the fact that this more people are maybe now perhaps aware of what sexual assault is. the stigma may be to the report is reduced so we want them to come forward to make that report to us. >> with regards to the -- we

have always made clear with the policies are with regards to iran both in terms of not attaining the nuclear weapon and also not closing the street. our goal has always been to make it very clear that we would hope that any differences we have and concerns we have can be peacefully resolved and done through international law and rules. we abide by those international rules and we would hope that iran would do the same. as far as communications, we have channels in which we deal with the iranians to continue to use those channels. >> i can't comment on that. >> is diplomacy still a viable option with iran? is this something that the u.s. is seeking to engage? >> i think that is always an

option to try to be able to pursue diplomacy. you know, making it very clear that in order for that to work it takes to to the able to engage. and we've always expressed a willingness to try to do that, but we have always made it clear that in terms of any threats to the region, in terms of some of the behavior that they've conducted in the region we will also be prepared to respond militarily if we have to. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> and then they seem surprised that they're putting people on food stamps and they think it is just an accident of nature. there's no reason we can't compete. you are doing it here. making bmw and sending them around the world. we can manufacture -- [applause] this idea we can't manufacture, that's wrong. we can compete, companies are coming here in the right to work states. by the way you want states to

have more jobs, make them the right to work. >> candidates get their message out meetings -- [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you know, there is a role for every one of us in life. it's just finding out where it is. >> find more from the campaign trail at c-span.org/campaign2012. the supreme court ruled today that an alabama death row inmate should get a new hearing after his attorneys error caused him to miss a critical deadline. justice ginsburg wrote the opinion for the court.

quote, abandoned by the council he was left and represented a critical time. here's the supreme court oral argument in that case from october. >> case 1063 mabel's versus thomas. >> thank you mr. chief justice and may i please the court. two factors distinguish this case from those in which the court has found them lacking to excuse the default. first, the state itself had a direct hand in the extraordinary events leading up to the people in this case. second, the actions of the attorneys which rise to the level of abandonment are not contribute to the agency law and principals may be a deterrent to the client and for those reasons the default issued in this case is not fairly attributable and

the contrary decision under the circuit should be reversed. >> you talk about the state's role i assume you're talking about the failure to take action after the return of the notices to a expect to treat mr. chief justice to i would couple that with the fact the state initially set up the system for the representations to the defendant's that rely extremely heavily on the system out of state council to represent defendants in alabama to respect putting that to one side with only one of the three notices have been the term? >> if only once in the out of state council that would be a different case. what is remarkable is the case the notices come back to the return december left for the envelope and the clerk does nothing. what's extraordinary about that mr. chief justice is the system in this case relies on the out of state attorneys. >> who says that they rely --

you have a local attorney, and you have to have a local attorney for the case, don't you? you want us to believe the local attorney has no responsibility for the case at all? is this really will the law requires? i think there is an obligation when he gets the notice he is one of the attorneys for your client and he got the notice. that one is not returned. >> he feels to object to the new york lawyers who are working with him. why is the state responsible for that? >> first the record shows it is not attributable to mr. maples because mr. but were disclosed in a relationship apart from the facilitating the mission of the out of state attorneys. >> explaining to? how can the clerk be expected to know that the local council really isn't taking any cards?

>> a couple things on the clerk's perspective, first we did think it is well known in alabama that under this unique system out of state attorneys were doing all of the work in the cases and local council were simply facilitating their ignition. second -- >> mr. garre, is their anything in the record on that point on the alabama system generally? >> a couple things, your honor. we do have the amicus brief to that expressed that anecdotally. i would say the state of alabama in its brief opposition to the court a few years back in the case specifically talk to the role of the of state attorneys under the system and thus far as i could tell didn't mention the local council once. so i think it is fair to say that it is known that the out of state attorneys here are doing all the work but even as the court -- >> you are begging the question which is how is the clerk supposed to know this? this is and functioning in the clerk's office to send out

notices and receives back mail that is returned. there has to be some local council that those work. how was he supposed to know the difference between those that do and those that don't? >> it will be to acknowledge general knowledge of the system but beyond that what they know is this come to of the three notices returned go to the out of state attorneys which ought to be an extraordinary event. >> even if the local council is as you describe it and nothing in the records establishes it, even if he uses a function surely the function would include when he gets a notice that we make sure that the people who the real work know about the notice. >> of course but -- >> in which case the local council didn't perform and that is his own affidavit makes that clear. i think what is important to the state itself it must not have viewed --

>> i didn't you read use it to be a systemic ordinarily the local council would serve. he would have the notice and in this case mr. butler made it quite clear from the outset he wasn't even performing that role that he intentionally performed was the out of state council to let them do the work but the state itself -- >> you said he made it clear to the outset of whom in the record? >> the affidavit, your honor on page 256. >> does that mean after the fact, right? >> that's right, your honor. >> did he tell the clerk of the court that was the case? on the record he's the council record, right? of the council record i don't even do so much as to the notices of the guys to or during the real work. did he tell the clerk that? >> the state itself, your honor, lost not have viewed because when the issue in this case occurred the state sent a letter directly on death row in alabama. >> even before that in the rules he said the rule 32, the notice

that went from the prosecutor did not go to the local council, right? >> they did not notice to all of the record. i would say to mr. butler. he didn't do anything because the role beyond facilitating the mission. some of the prosecutor had a filing in connection with the motion. did prosecutors said that to everybody? >> he did not speak out of state council and the be told that occurred the contacted mr. maples treacly in prison which would have been unethical if the state had known or believed he was represented by the council. >> but back to the line on what

the state has prosecuted this seems to me the state as the prosecutor was recognizing that he had no counsel that said you better file to see how much time you have so it's just for him. >> i absolutely agree with you. i think that is further evidence that everybody knew that mr. maples didn't have a local council or any meaningful sense. >> where does the constitution say by the way that you have to give notice? that every judicial action has to be noticed? the federal rules don't require notice, do they? >> the constitution doesn't say that. >> and the rules don't say it. you don't have to give notice in the federal law. >> the post conviction order and the capital case with at least implicate a due process interest and receive a notice that it's reasonable -- >> they are different? >> if you're going to go to jail for life you don't get notice but if it is couple -- >> is either a rule or it isn't

a rule and if it is for all criminal cases, the federal rules are unconstitutional, you are saying. >> the interest of the individual there could be no greater interest of the individual than receiving notice in the capitol case with the individual's life at stake. we don't think this court has to find a constitutional violation. it has to find -- >> once you're in court and have a lawyer it is up to your lawyer to follow those on the court. that is the assumption of the federal role and it seems to me perfectly reasonable assumption. i'm not about to hold that they are unconstitutional simply because an extraordinary requirement of notice which is not required by the constitution has gone awry. >> year he didn't have an attorney that was serving in the agency's role in the meaningful sense. that is laid out in the amicus brief and laid out in our case which didn't simply just

reasonably reliable with legal counsel wasn't performing in alabama. >> your case it seems to me turns critically on butler's role. how much in addition to what he did or didn't do do we have to do to put him in a position he was in fact represented in your view? >> i think that the ordinary rule of the local council, which would have been at a minimum for the notice in the proceedings would be meaningful relationship. the relationship that professor describes your is when you look at the alabama ruled they put the elma is on the old state council to associate the local council. that is page 365. the out of state council did that. he wasn't involved in that transaction. >> where do we look to see that it's the standard practice for a local council throughout the country to contact the old state council when something like this is received? >> i remember a case from the federal system in which a local

council appeared and did exactly what was your, the out of state from the defense attorney who then tried the case for a year, got sick, and the judge said to the local council, on a new are going to take over this file and try the next six months and the local council said i only signed up to move the admission of this. the judge said that's too bad you're the counsel of record and you have to take over the case. i don't understand that what is alleged to have occurred here isn't that far out of the ordinary. >> i think mr. butler is simply saying i'm going to allow -- i'm going to facilitate your out of state attorneys to represent you with that is my role. he had, quote on quote camano rolph -- >> he can't define his role as a lawyer to it once he appears before the court and says i am council of record, he has a certain responsibility. it isn't up to him to see what his responsibilities are. if they don't extend even to

forwarding the notice, even to making sure that the people who were doing the legwork in the case note that the clock is running, my goodness i can't imagine what his responsibilities. it isn't up to him to define it. >> that is exactly the point. any responsibility. but in the case they just have those responsibilities, too he abandoned and this is what mr. butler did was an excusable but there's another factor that place here and that is the confusion of the court itself created when it said the order that by the term directed that all counsel of record receive it and that is what the order said on page 225 in the joint appendix. >> before you get to the court i would ask you about what the state attorney of the prosecuting attorney in new. did the prosecuting attorney no that these individuals from new york representing this person? >> they certainly knew they were the council of record in the proceeding. i let my friend answer that question. we know that when the default occurred it took the extraordinary step of taxing the

water directly to mr. maples which would have been unethical if it believed it was represented. .. one, he is represented by counsel in new york. to, they did stop get the notice.

three, the local attorney is not going to do anything, and conclusion, they likely knew he did not get the notice, but they are asserting that this is an adequate state ground to a bar him coming in to 80. is that the correct posture of the case? >> that's true. >> all we have to decide is under these circumstances the state attorney's knowledge of all those facts mean that the state cannot assert this is an adequate state ground. >> right. and that the the state actually -- >> all of those facts. >> of course we don't know. >> but we know what action it took, and that was an action that a soon to did not have meaningful action -- council. >> let me ask you this, if i may. i don't know the brief has covered it. it may be in there. do you know, in alabama and/or nationwide, and how many capital cases there is no appeal?

>> i don't know that, justice kennedy. there was a system in which it would allow for appeals, not only in practice, but post-conviction. several extraordinary features, and we think ultimately they help to facilitate the extraordinary and shocking events in this case. >> the new york lawyers did not abandon mr. maples prior to the time that they left their law firm in new york already? >> that's right. >> so there conduct prior to that time would be attributable to him, right? >> part of their conduct was sitting of their arrangement with mr. butler, where he would show up as counsel of record, but not really do anything. why aren't the consequences of that arrangement entered its maples as well? >> welcome i don't think there would be treated. ethical we're looking for is whether the fault itself as the reason to maples. but the out of state attorneys

did is left to the representation without fulfilling their duty to notify the court or mr. maples. mr. maples was in alabama under the reasonable belief that he was represented by counsel who would appeal if an adverse decision -- >> mr. gregory garre, kaj comeback to justice kennedy's question? this was not an appeal. the question was how many cases where is there no appeal. he had been convicted and appealed. >> the direct proceedings are over. he had appealed. to the state supreme court. did he seek here as well? >> did for. >> and this was a post conviction. >> it was. but they set up that system and allows for appeals. the cat to private. >> but i do not think that it is extraordinary that there be no appeal. >> are not aware of any state that does not allow appeal in first conviction proceeding. >> allowed, but it would not seem to be extraordinary that it was not sought. >> in this case there was a

direct appeal. then there was a proceeding that we're talking about here. the trial judge waived for 18 months, so you would think there is some merit to the underlying claim. in the statistics on whether or not -- on how often an appeal is abandoned or not pursued in these kind of cases? no statistics? >> that this is -- the statistics i am more of other hideous claims are in a material sense often successful. here we think the underlying claims are quite serious. the question of the case is really not who shot the victim but whether mr. maples was going to be convicted for capital murder while murder that would result in life imprisonment. >> i am aware of the allegations >> and that think going back to the clerk's actions year, one of the things that exacerbated his chain of events here to be

served. mr. butler did say that he saw that that order directed at the out of state council would be served which greeted at risk of a likelihood -- >> the have two questions for you. is this state the only one that does not appoint counsel in a post conviction capital case? >> well, i believe that alabama may appoint them. they do not provide for a point man in all cases. i believe george is in other states. >> but the vast majority do. >> absolutely. >> in capital cases. >> the vast majority do. >> i thought there were two questions in this part of your case. the first is, we have to decide that the abandonment, which is a term, is caused -- >> yes. >> in a -- to excuse a

procedural bar? >> read. >> so we have to decide first whether we extend. >> well, i think the independent grounds that the court concludes that the state's own actions -- >> that is the due process. yes. those who would have to decide. >> we have to decide the first question. what we extend to this type of situation. >> i just want to be clear on this. there are independent grounds. >> i'll understand. >> but with t-shirts to the attorney, that's right. >> what is the line between abandonment and just plain negligence? >> the line established by agency like going back. >> so if this local council simply goofed in not advising that he will ever doing light work in the case why is that abandonment? >> well, i think it is actually

more of the situation very disclaimed any meaningful role at the outset. the rule would be leaving without notifying new york or that -- the core or their clients. >> could we find that there was an abandonment against the law firm of sullivan & cromwell continuing to represent mr. maples after the two young attorneys left the firm? >> the court could. >> does the record show that they did not? this was done purely by the two attorneys? is there a fine new high court? >> we think that is the better reading of the record, and i am happy to explain why. most importantly, we think it is irrelevant whether he was represented by the law firm in the fictional sense. he was to resign by individual lawyers in that proceeding. they were the ones that he agreed to have represented. alabama courts may specific findings. his lawyers, it to that after the fall.

>> in practice the law firm, these were people. wouldn't it -- the law firm have to have some involvement in giving them permission to provide this representation? amin, usually something like a pro-bono committee and higher level, can sets the junior associates just go ahead and say we want to spend a lot of our time defending a man on death row? wouldn't they have to get some kind of permission? >> i think one would ordinarily expect that demand we are not condemning the actions. at the outset of this litigation there were individuals from the late your well familiar. they dropped out of the case. >> we know about his role. drexel we go is with diaz said. it's not clear what his involvement was. he said on page 302 that he was -- they were waiting for their

action. we don't know what his involvement was. >> we don't know. we don't know. it is just that if we were to find the exception applied that we would have to remember this case. >> of course we think that the courts should find that the holiday exception. >> in that regard there is one aspect of holland which you don't address which is that holland contrast to the statute of limitations issue with perfect taxes to federal court with the procedural bar and said that the state's procedural bar had interests in federalism that we have to be cautious of ignoring is the procedural bar because of federalism. if he were to extend holland and the way you want to, how do we justify ignoring pluralism in

the situation? >> there are those distinctions. holland recognizes that conduct that amounts to abandonment is external to the client. they in themselves recognize that the external conduct is not attributable to the client can be bases to the cause for the federal as an interest the discipline not interested in the case where you find that the attorneys' actions are external. if you look, agency lot going back to the justices' time, the principal and professional standards of care, you would find it of course abandonment must be external, dislike was set in the concurrent opinion where someone is not active in any meaningful sense it would be grossly inadequate or unfair to attribute the conduct to the client. that is the principal. >> could we go back to the state of the record? you have said a few times that the record is skimpy on various important matters. would you go further and say

that the record is irretrievably corrupted, tainted by conflicts of interest? >> i think there are conflicts of interest that are laid out in the legal ethics briefs. though representative of mr. maples up to the argument and decision. but i think for purposes of what this court would do, i think the remand would be appropriate because if you complete, as we think you should, that abandonment of council will be an external factor in the movie appropriate to remand before the proceedings. we don't know what these other attorneys are doing. the record does not show that. >> but we do know we are not council of record. >> absolutely not. >> the two who were listening counsel of record or not representing him, and they had not told the court. >> there were enough counsel of record. mr. bible never agree to have anyone else represent him. the alabama court specifically found on only that they were of counsel of record, but there were not authorized to practice in alabama.

>> it is up to you to produce the effects of a justified or reverse the case. we don't have these facts. you should have done the facts in the first place. if the record does not show the things they you need to show to get this case reversed the case should not be reversed. >> the petition for an evidentiary hearing. just according to the court of appeals, it believes that coleman versus thompson applied in the abandonment situation. whether core rate that kind of legal area will be appropriate for the court to send back and say, no. that does not apply in extraordinary cases of abandonment or attorneys' actions are not attributable to the client or agency. >> when did you first make the abandonment clinton? >> talk to all we have argued -- >> was in the first made in the request for rehearing?

>> i think explicitly. two points. >> well, then your late. >> all along they argued that the attorneys' actions established cost. the district court for the court of appeals address that. >> and abandonment. that is an abandonment. the attorneys' actions established cause. that does not mean abandonment. >> we think this falls squarely within the rules. the party makes the claim below. the may decline here that the attorneys' actions established cause. we can make new arguments. particularly given that sullivan & cromwell had been involved early in this case, it would make it appropriate for this course to raise the petition for the hearing. we think properly before this court. if there are no further questions at this time would like to reserve a reminder of my time. >> thank you, mr. gregory garre

mr. john neiman. >> thank you, mr. chief justice, and may it please the court. advocating a least three principles that are incompatible with the way our justice system works. first, maples is asking this court to hold that due process required not just actual notice to the target record, john butler, but something more than that. >> let's say that that the notices are sent out. all three of them come back. that's even go further and said the prosecutor knows it that no one representing mr. maples received notice. what happens then? >> in that case, your honor, it would be a much more substantial argument. >> i know it would be more substantial. my question is, what happens? are you prepared to acknowledge that in that case mr. maples had been abandoned by all of his lawyers. was known to the prosecution, and therefore the failure to

file the notice should not constitute an adequate grounds. >> i don't think that the return of all three notices would justify necessarily a finding of abandonment in toto by all lawyers. it could signify a number of things. i think that it would raise questions about whether the clerk had a due process obligation to do more under jones verses lowry. >> what is the return, when you get a notice of return, it just says no longer at sullivan & cromwell. >> customer your honor. it just means you get the wrong address. >> and the only thing it means for sure, these lawyers are no longer here. >> yes, your honor. >> endo none that would be an indication of abandonment. >> absolutely, your honor. the presumptions generally is that the clients face the firm. that's correct.

the clients certainly can move firms. >> i think we're blurring to the shoes. i think we're talking about notice and the clock's ticking from a certain date that no one knows about. they were preparing for a hearing before this judge. they were not anticipating that he was going to rule without anything further. >> that is correct, your honor. they certainly were preparing for an evidenciary hearing. in fact, prior to my friends statements will we know, base to 28 mabel's expressly alleged that they were preparing for the evidenciary hearing. >> not on the record and all. a free counsel of records, two of them -- let's go back to the first issue. the state to share that it did

not regard bubbler as in the can't resist because it did not even send a response. isn't that so? >> no, your honor. i respectfully disagree with that assessment of how you'd read the service. under alabama law in a pleading or an order may be served only one council of record. so, for example, that answer was served upon. >> what about the notice that he had lost and if he wants to go to the federal court here does to do something about it. >> that is correct to your honor. the state's attorney in that instance decided to send a letter only to mr. ripples.

>> and at the point that if this was represented that that would be improper. to say that a notice alone. so the state's attorney must have thought that maples said been abandoned by his lawyers because they did on notify any of them. >> your honor, the record does not reveal why mr. hayden decided to send the letter to mr. maples alone. >> she did not have to send the letter. the letter had no legal effect. it was just above by the way, your time has expired. what to the lawyer do. it was in the required notice that he had to get to a lawyer or to anybody else. that is correct. >> so he just made this extraneous volunteers statement to maples instead of to his lawyer. i don't know what the approves.

>> at that point in time the state case is over. it was hard to clear. >> why did he do it then? just bloating? will was the point to mackey must've thought there was a problem, right? >> honor, he certainly was aware that mr. maples lawyers had failed to file a notice of appeal. his letter revealed that he was very aware. >> was less surprising? >> at the justice kennedy after adversary how often appeals live from the denial of the state post conviction remedies which your honor, i agree with my friend that we do not have statistics. i think it is fair to assume that for the most part one of rule 32 petitioner loses of the trust is there going to appeal which particularly in a capital case. >> that's correct. although there are some instances in which a capital petition or someone on the throw

decides that they want to invoke the prices of the courts and are ready for the sentence to be carried out. >> i have two questions going back to the very beginning. when the notices come back no longer as sullivan & cromwell, that is just as if it is said functionally wrong address. >> not quite. i think that the notice saying that person is no longer sold indicate person's no longer at the firm. >> it's pretty clear that they did not get the mail because it was set back. >> that is correct, your honor. >> one other thing. a tangential points. could this state of alabama under your loss wave would you alleged to be the procedural faults? if you thought there was

substantial merit to the underlying flams even though you have taken the position that they ultimately should be rejected, could you have simply wave the procedural and allowed the appeal to perceive? >> and adopted the law makes the crystal clear, your honor, but certainly knew of no law the suggests that the attorneys general of alabama necessarily has to assert every single potential events within his or her arsenal which has alabama ever waved lack of timely appeal in the capital case? >> i am not aware, your honor. >> if we go back to the chief justice's initial question, let's assume that the two letters went to sullivan & cromwell and came back as they did and that the letter to butler came back. with their because in that situation? taste use the state's procedural

rough? >> perhaps, your honor. it would depend on what the letters came back. >> well, we know that both lawyers in this case did not move to another firm. both of them took jobs that precluded them from representing this defendant. so i don't know how i define abandonment other than a a tickets out or i can work for you anymore. >> the argument in that case, your honor, would be substantially stronger because death, of course, is an external factor. >> so you except this idea that there is a distinction between malfeasance and abandonment. >> your honor, i think we would be prepared to recognize that in certain cases and abandonment of a plan to buy an attorney would terminate the agency relationship between the

attorney and client. >> okay. so then the only thing we're talking about is whether on these particular facts there has been abandonment or not to write? >> that is correct. >> from your perspective. >> system error. but one thing i do want to stress, my friend has suggested that an evidenciary hearing or further devonshire proceedings unnecessary at this particular question because we don't know what role did their attorneys have sullivan & cromwell played in the matter. >> we do know they were not counsel of record. we do know that the only to council of records were no longer representing him, and he had no reason to know that there weren't, but there were not command the could not. the only tune out of counsel for the two who disabled themselves from representing of by taking other jobs. >> in your honor. >> there was no one from sullivan & cromwell other than those two on record.

on the record they abandoned him and there was no substitute. >> disagree with that. >> row, the argument is that on the record and not is determined to survive for the out of town council, but it is not determining the for the end of the thai counsel. the fact that he is counsel of record does that count, but the fact of those two are does count, and only when you combine those two does the men have no council, right? >> system your honor. there is that inconsistency in naples argument. on the one hand the other lawyers at sullivan & cromwell were not his attorneys because there were as counsel of record, what color was the counsel of record, but he was of his attorney. >> the notice of inquiry is supposed to be as pragmatic one. ria said the question we're supposed to ask ourselves is, is this was a lawyer would do if they actually wanted to accomplish notice, if they actually wanted the person to get that letter?

scientists contest to, if you were a lawyer in an import litigation and the sendoff and import mother to two lawyers mon-khmer principal adversary as well as to a local council be a thing may not be involved in the substance of the litigation, you don't know for a fact, but you think there is some substantial likelihood that he is not particularly involved. the sender of this letter and you get it back and test yourself, hot, should i do anything now? what would you say? >> your honor, i suspected in those circumstances i might well personally do something else. of course my prerogative as solicitor general of alabama are quite different from the prerogatives of a clerk in northern chile alabama. durbin -- nobody knew that

letter was coming. that is an important letter for death row person to get tell us so justice scalia is right to that effect. you get this in six wallow, you would have, but that is the question that we have to ask about the clerk as well. the question for the clerk is, if he had really wanted the person to give notice what would he have done? >> -- i disagree. actual notice is the due process. the arguments you're making a pushing the court to consider rules that would have far

reaching effects, such as a rule that places upon at clerk of the court a constitutional obligation to serve council with important documents in the case similar to the constitutional obligation to serve the initial process. whether you have an obligation to push this matter in this way. this is a case where to no-fault's of his own, now, when his attorneys moved the filing in out of town appeal, why wouldn't you just consent to that? if he did not receive an effective assistance of counsel why not get a decision on the merits? y plus this technical argument?

>> there are several responses. first at least that the rule 32 stage at the notice of appeal deadline it is a jurisdictional one and the state to oppose the motion, but there was not much that the state could have done even if it had consented. >> no possibility. no extension. >> the holding of the alabama court is recognized by the 11th circuit. there's no opportunity where there is good cause for an extension? >> there is opportunity, but with a court healthier.

>> well, this goes to my earlier question. if the state of alabama had told the court in all the circumstances we think there should be in out of town appeal granted, are you indicating that the state court said, well, that is a good idea but we can't do it because it is inappropriate in these circumstances? >> that seems to be the holding of the court of criminal appeals >> does this state oppose the out of town appeal? >> system your honor, the state does oppose the out of town appeal and press the procedural bar and a federal court. the state had every private of to do so, in part because this court recognized a case where as the petitioner and other the could have showed that he lost his right to appeal to apart of his own, the state had the power to do that