so what i'm going to do, i'm going to drop into my tv right here -- >> host: this is an ipad we're demonstrating on. >> guest: it's an ipad, and the application was built by a company, and so you can see this is live television over the air. >> host: there's maury. >> guest: what's interesting here is the question we always get, how can we derive revenue from this application? you flip through the channel, we have an interstitial which gives the opportunities to derive advertising revenue from the product itself. more interstitial as well. the country network is there. and that's going back to the food network. >> host: okay. and when does it pop back up? >> guest: pop back up here in a second. we've got some program divide information below to show exactly what you're watching. now, what's interesting here, i can tap the screen once, and i can actually hit this red button right here, and i'm actually

recording that show right now over the air. >> host: and it'll record onto your ipad? >> guest: yes. it records locally to the storage on the device itself, and when i'm finished recording my clip, i can touch the screen again, hit that button there and actually recording is now completed. >> host: is this market, is this product right here on the market now, and be so, what does it sell for? >> guest: it's not available in a u.s. market yet. we're commit today launch this year, they are ready to ship. they do have the product in europe. the european market has got it extensively. this is not the latest and greatest, but the next version of this will not have a telescopic antenna, but basically a small wire so it's actually ligher and actually easy to take with you as you, you know, within your -- if you're outside and want to pick up over the air television. why did you start the product launch in europe? >> guest: well, ciano's been in that market already, so we

basically brought them in to help us, and they definitely want to get into the u.s. market with their device, they want to see this succeed for broadcasters, so they were a great partner in stepping up, providing ten of these accessories for the show itself. >> host: and we've been talking to the folks at the mobile 500 alliance. and you've been watching "the communicators," and for the past five weeks we have been showing you our visit to the consumer electronics show in las vegas. if you'd like to watch think of these past shows or -- watch any of these past shows or "the communicators," go to c-span.org/communicators. >> coming up next, a constitution on negative political advertising and campaign opposition research. from a recent forum hosted by the new america foundation. then we're live with the closing session of the national governors' association's annual

winter meeting. and later, the senate returns at 2 p.m. eastern from its weeklong presidents day recess. of you'll hear senator jean jeae shaheen deliver washington's farewell address followed later by debate and a roll call vote on a u.s. district court judicial nomination. >> go to c-span.org/campaign2012 to see the latest video of the republican presidential candidates and president obama from the campaign trail. other features include a section for video of the candidates' views on major campaign issues and a social media link to read what people are saying about the presidential race. it's all at c-span.org/campaign2012. your resource for this year's presidential race. >> there are millions of decent americans who are willing to sacrifice for change, but they want to do it without being threatened, and they want to do it peacefully. they are the nonviolent

majority, black and white who are for change without violence. these are the people whose voice i want to be. >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 14 men who ran for the office and lost. go to our web site, c-span.org/thecontenders to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> can you remember the depression, those of you who are my age, when times were really hard and we left the doors unlocked? now we have the most violent, crime-ridden society in the industrialized world. now, i can't live with that. can you live with that? >> no! >> c-span.org/thecontenders. >> a look, now, at negative advertising in the opposition research process. you'll hear from two democratic political operatives who are also the co-authors of a book on the issue. they were among several speakers who attended a recent forum on

negative political advertising hosted by the new america foundation. it runs about half an hour. awd -- [audio difficulty] >> goes into these commercials, and one of the things i've learned in reading their fantastic book which is entitled, they're the authors of "we're with nobody." and one of the things i learned in reading the book was that oftentimes a lot of the due diligence and research that they do is for their own candidates, it's sort of a preemptive scrubbing, i suppose. michael and alan just published this book, and they are, they have been the beneficiaries of the highest, the most august stamp of approval in washington

these days which is to have been on jon stewart's daily show this week, so congratulations. they've both spent 20 years working for democratic candidates running state and national campaigns, they are partners in the research firm that focuses on such opposition work. michael has worked as a journalist in texas and mississippi, a director of communications and political adviser for the office of mayor of the city of jackson, and he's been a political adviser for the attorney general of mississippi. alan has worked as farmer, that's in the bio here. that often comes up at washington think tank events, so that's interesting. a farmer, a newspaper reporter, and an aide to mississippi attorney general and a mississippi governor. we're really pleased to have you both. michael and alan are going to give a short presentation, then we're going to continue the conversation. thanks a lot. >> well, first, thanks for having us today.

we are those guys that are out there, i guess, for lack of a better phrase digging up the dirt on these candidates. but, you know, having done this for 18 years just in a nutshell because we don't have a long time to tell you what we do, is when you start a campaign, we're the guys that you hire to go out and tell you everything you need to know about the person you're running against, but equally as important to tell you everything you need to know about you. and so we don't win a lot of popularity contests as you can imagine because sometimes the things we find on our candidate are, um, is damaging or worse than the guy we're running against. so we're going to show you a couple of ads and kind of explain those, how the stuff you see in these ads get there. you know, y'all are watching these things today and probably with a different eye than we do. when we're looking at these ads, you know, we're not looking at the great music and the images and the voices, we're looking at the sites, we're looking to see

where this information came from, and if these campaigns faye you that -- gave you that information. so i'm going to show you two first on a campaign we just got through with in november and then kind of talk about that for a second. >> u.s. supreme court will decide about health care, as it should. as attorney general i'm using our courts to lock up criminals. >> what's steve simpson been up to? bought a yacht the same year he failed to pay his property taxes. they even put a lien on his house. simpson spent $74,000, including 22 trips home. meant for disaster relief, took it to a nascar race and then wrecked it. simpson, living it up at our expense. >> this is steve simpson. this is his yacht. the same year he bought his yacht, simpson failed to pay his property taxes. his taxes were so overweight, they put a lien on his house.

simpson said paying his taxes was not in the budget, but buying a yacht was? and his public safety commissioner, simpson took a pay raise to 138,000 while cutting the state's highway patrol budget. dave simpson, living it up at our expense. >> um, obviously, this has a lot of negativity in it, as you can see. you know, in this 18 years of doing this, the reason i wanted to show this was for a couple of reasons. we have never had an opponent that had this many negatives on him. i had never seen this. it was like going into the campaign office every day and opening up a folder and saying, okay, what do we want to use today? what happens is these commercials were based on information that we had put together at the beginning of the campaign. so they were sent to the pollster which the process, you know, politics if you know is a very defined process iley. so -- ideally. so our information goes to a pollster, they do the questions, they see what resonates best

with voters, and then it goes to the media guys, and they put their scripts together. bill knapp and jay marlin did these ads. the poll questions will come back to us to look at, and we'll check those and make sure they're accurate and they kind of jibe with what we gave them in the report, and also the scripts will come back to us, too, one last time before they're produced to make sure those are accurate. so what you're doing is you're taking a 200-page research report or and distilling into it a 30 or 60-second spot which is always amazing to me because every word in those spots is a story unto itself, and you have to be so careful with those things to make sure it's not getting distorted and it's not somehow lost in translation. now, these things run, these two ads we'd already tested, so we knew what we were going to use. but anybody who understands campaigns know that they're incredibly fluid. they're changing by the day. so most of our work was done, you know, when these ads were

produced. but in july, like i said, this campaign we just got through with in november. in july there was a newspaper article, kind of an obscure newspaper article from the mississippi gulf coast about a priest who'd been murdered, and so we looked at that and said, you know, our guy used to be a judge on the coast. let's just out of, you know, just check it out, see if there's any connection with this guy, maybe he'd been arrested before. so we go down there, and we start looking at the records, and it turns out that our judge, mr. simpson, had previously seen an individual who, individual who'd killed the priest, he had come before the court on a child molestation charge, okay? he could have given him 14 years, that was the hack mum sentence. he gave him one, okay? so he gets out of jail. because he was out of jail, he had the opportunity to kill the catholic priest. this happened right in the middle of the campaign.

so, you know, you hate to say this is like christmas, but -- [laughter] you don't get these things very often. you don't, you don't get those willie hortons very often. so we had that. and to just continue this story, we weren't going to use it because we had so much already, and our candidate didn't, was afraid of the blowback of using this because we were talking about a murder, and we did have a lot of information already on this guy that we could use. two factors changed that. just so you guys though how these things go on and how they get on tv, and it's not just some willy-nilly process. two factors changed that. number one, our candidate was and still is the only statewide democrat left in mississippi, okay? and this election year we were going through a lot of change. republicans were mounting an incredible campaign to take, to take, to take both houses. we were worried about that because we didn't understand what the impact on our race was going to be even though our guy,

the incumbent, was very popular. most times with a popular incumbent you don't have to do much negative advertising. you know, you can just run on your record. but we were worried about that, so that was one thing. and we had considered that. and then two weeks out from the election i remember we got a call from a newspaper reporter asking us to respond to this incredibly outlandish charge against our candidate about misappropriating, misspending money that had absolutely no basis in fact to it. and i remember sitting in that campaign meeting and talking to everybody about it and finally the decision was made, you know what? let's just do this. and let's just make sure this is just over with. so two weeks out i don't have that ad to show you, but we did produce an ad talking about the catholic priest and our judge, and, um, we won with 62% of the vote, and we also had 30% of the republican vote which is pretty unheard of in a republican state

like mississippi. so the work we do ends up on tv. without us -- we travel the country, we work on mainly congressional campaigns. we've worked on, you know, races and research projects from presidential appointments all the way down to local school boards. so without the things that we do, you wouldn't have -- you could still have, but you would have less documented, factual information to go with. and the way we operate we don't give anything to a campaign that can't be documented. if we can't chase a piece of paper down and give it to them, it's useless to us. we talk to many people, many of them who you would consider just like out there and somebody you wouldn't take seriously. some of them have good information. but even though they give us that information, if we can't go somewhere and support that with documentation, then, you know, you're not doing anybody, doing anybody a service, and the

blowback from that can be worse than it would have been. so you have to be very careful on that. i'm going to turn it over to alan because i know y'all, most people have a lot of questions about the kind of craze is si things we do, so i want to leave some time for that. alan's got another one that has a segway to the current presidential campaign. >> yeah. when i'm listening to everybody talking about, you know, whether or not negative ads are good or a bad thing, i realize we're kind of outside the margin, in the margin, i guess, in that sense because our basic premise is that no one is fit to rule unless proven otherwise. [laughter] that's sort of like what we do for a living. so we, our -- and we're kind of negative by nature. i mean, michael gets on my nerves big time when we're traveling together, and the feeling is mutual. [laughter] this is just the way we roll. and is so we go out there, and we're looking for what's wrong. that's just what we do. and as we, if any of you saw us

on the daily show, the last question jon stewart asked us was who was beneath us in the political hire hierarchy of nege campaigning, and we were like, hmm. well, there were a couple of guys in a pickup truck that were harassing us, followed us for two days. we didn't bring that up in that case because the truth is we're pretty much the bottom level in that regard. it's just that's what we do. so we're out there gathering this information. and so if you're running for office, you know, we're just trying to see what are your -- yeah, we want to know your strengths, sure, but we really want to know your weaknds because if you've -- weaknds because if you've got someone leading you, their strengths are great, but their weaknesses can be devastating. so we always look at everyone that way. we look at, you know, what have you done wrong. and like michael said, we look at our own candidates the same way. we don't win any popularity contests because of that. sometimes we see that our candidate is the worst of the two. it's very disconcerting when

you, when the best thing you find this the campaign is that the guy threw a pipe bomb at a homecoming float when he was in high school, and he's your guy. that's happened to us. anyway, we roam around the country looking for these things to put out there. and the reason we decided to write the book, it was really two reasons. one was we have this vantage point that no one else has exactly, you know? these two guys roaming around the country in a rented hyundai looking for trouble. for political trouble. and, you know, we go everywhere. and we're in some l old courthouse in kansas one day, and then we're in washington the next. and so we felt like we had a lot of really good stories to tell really was why we decided -- why we started talking about writing a book just over -- you can imagine over 18 years wandering around the country just behind the scenes and politics. and the other reason was that we feel that -- we look at these ads, someone made the statement

earlier that it's not really our role to question or the media's role to question whether there was any truthfulness to these ads. that's one of the things that bothers us is, you know, fine to be negative, but you need to, you need to know when you watch that ad, is there anything underlying it? and often there isn't. and that really distresses us because the ads are so much -- especially now -- they're so much slicker and impressive, you know? when we were on fox news last week, they showed some ads and had us kind of critique them, and the one that stuck with me was, it was just -- i don't know what it was ab, to tell you the truth. it was really impressive, though, and i was against the guy when it was over because it had these great graphics and really cool music. it was really an impressive ad, but i looked at it, and i had no idea if there was any underlying documentation. so one of the things we wanted to do with the book was sort of

show people it is still possible to know what the truth is. and we're not trying to be lofty and put ourselves out there as, you know, the finders of the truth, but -- well, that is what we do really. finish and we want everybody to do it. we want everybody to question whether what they're being told has any factual documentation. so the ad that we're going to show. in just a second is actually an old ad. it's from 2004, and we don't generally name names in the book because we didn't really think it was crucial, you know? if it was some candidate for congress in 1998 got a dui, do you really need to know his name? the point for us was just to tell these stories about how the system works. and we didn't want to get into the position of trying to break it down to personalities because i think that just wasn't our role. we gather the information, we give it to to the campaign, they go out with it. but in this case the guy was, he

was tied so some notoriously racist groups that had donated money to his campaign, and they had done some really weird things, and it was pretty strong tough. so the ad, they ran the ad, and it was in kansas. and they ran the ad, and is so even though you could figure it out which is what happened in the book -- we never named him outright -- well, then a ready, actually a couple of people figured out who he was. and we hadn't really followed him lately. we tend to just go and do these things, and we immerse ourselves in these campaigns for a period, and then we move on the to the next kill. that's just the nature of the job for us. [laughter] so we didn't realize that this guy from 2004 is now secretary of state this kansas and is mitt romney's immigration adviser. so that, when that came up, we were talking to a reporter at

politico, and we were like, you know, i think we should just tell somebody this because even though we didn't make a point of naming this guy in the race, it kind of matters who he is now. and so we put it out there, and politico did an article about it. and, you know, the guy had an opportunity to respond. anyway, this is what this ad is about that ran in 2004 if y'all can go ahead with it. >> why are kansans turning from chris? look who's supporting him. people and groups tied to white supremacists gave kobach thousands. it's true. an extremely group hired kobach to file a frivolous lawsuit against the state of kansas. now the campaign won't return the contributions, says absolutely we're going to keep it. chris kobach, wrong for mainstream kansans. >> i'm dennis moore, and i approved this message. >> i have to say i do love

seeing the tag lines at the end because now when you don't see 'em, it kind of bothers me a little bit. you know, all bets are off about what's going to happen with the super pacs. and so that's pretty much our, i'd really rather open it fur questions now, so -- for questions now, so do you want us to sit over here? [inaudible conversations] >> is there dirt on everybody? has there been candidates that you have looked into and you report back saying this guy or this woman is totally clean? >> there were two, i think. that we remember. you know, everybody makes mistakes, and the higher you go in elected office, the more opportunities you have to make mistakes and the more scrutiny you're going to come under. so it's not unusual that we find

things on people, especially in congressional races. but every now and then you do find someone there's really nothing there, and, you know, even though we're very negative by nature, we're always thrilled by that. it kind of restores -- because, you know, we kind of dwell in all this negativity, and it's nice to find swb who arrest -- somebody who's there to make the world a better place. >> when we hear about oppositional research, i think people tend to think of guys sifting through the trash of some candidate as opposed to the public record. but i'm sure it's, i know it's a mix. but sort of how do you -- what percentage of y'all's time is spent, you know, combing through the record when you say mistakes, maybe the mistake is supporting a program that maybe cost taxpayer money to arguably be wasted. is that d but then maybe the mistake was, you know, something more in your personal life. what's the kind of balance

there? >> you know,. [inaudible] we're not going through somebody's garbage, you know, i don't want to get in there. most of our days are spent -- they're long, and they can be boring sitting in a courthouse going through minutes of some or city council minutes and just looking for that one little tidbit of information. you know, it's not -- it was discussed here earlier, it's not really most often the silver bullet that kills somebody, it's all the shrapnel that adds up. overlooking for -- you're looking for an arse that that w. be looking through records. alan, i remember, found himself on the front porch of this guy's trailer on the north carolina/south carolina state line, and the guy had a shotgun because he was worried smub was going the -- somebody was going the kill him for talking to us. we talk to ex-wives, ex-anythings really make pretty good sources. [laughter] but it's a combination of those things and, again, if we can't

back the information up with documentation, we really don't have much. >> and at a certain point in the process you mentioned that you hand off the information to a campaign, and the advertising people. do you feel that, um, do they come back to you, and do you have sort of the right to sort of sign off on the end product, or are there occasions when you feel something you might have found got sort of exaggerated or blown out of proportion in the ultimate advertising that you see on the air? >> it varies. yeah, sometimes when we finish and turn in the report, they're done with us, and we just move on. sometimes they will keep us close by, and like michael mentioned earlier, they'll poll, you know, they'll run the poll questions by us. but it's rare that anyone says, shows us the ad and says is this truthful or whatever. by that point we really have usually moved on, or they've, you know -- but hopefully it's based on it. we have seen a couple of cays where something has come up, but, you know, we're print

journalists by training. and so to us when everything has to be distilled the to 15 or 30-second sound bites, we always cringe because it's like there's so much more that need to be told to put it into context. so that's probably why they don't ask us about the ads. >> i can relate to that. let's take a question or two from the audience. here in the front row. >> elizabeth brownstein, retired historical writer. i spend a lot of time researching for accuracy. do you people have a staff? do you have a pork? do you use the internets? i'm just intrigued that the two of you might be doing all of this stuff. it seems incredible. >> we do mainly do it ourselves, and we enjoy doing that because it allows us to go to these places where these people are from. but in general we start off like everybody else does on the internet, and we build a foundation, and it gives us a road map.

but as you know, the internet is notoriously unreliable, so we have to go to where these people are from, and we go into their towns, and we get the information we need, and we're out before anybody really even knows we're there. however, the name of the book is "we're with nobody," and that came from two different, for two different reasons. number one is every time we go into a courthouse, we're raising red flags with a clerk or somebody who -- we're going to ask for tax records on an incumbent congressman, so that's raising, you know, red flag right there. so the first question we always get is, who are you with? our answer is, you know, we're really not with anybody, you know? we're with us. the second reason is because when we're doing this, we are -- we have to be extremely objective. we can't get caught up in the passion that most people get caught up in politics because we have to research our guy with the same vigor we're doing his opponent or her opponent. so if we're not objective and if we don't look at him with the

same scrutiny, then, you know, we end up with a stilted report, and it doesn't do our campaign any good. we do, you know, we'll do as many as 10 or 12 campaigns in a season. go to these places and work with them, but, you know, we're in and out pretty quick. and, you know, having done it for 18 years, you get it down to kind of a science, and you know what you're looking for, and you know how to do it, but it changes. it's fluid like everything. what are people upset about in a current environment? that's what we also look for those things. a few years ago we're looking at campaign contributions from enron and looking at whether anincumbent had passed he is to help giant corporations. so really a lot of it depends on what people are upset about at the moment. jobs now, obviously. so, yeah. >> in the back.

>> hi, my name is jonathan, i'm independent. i'm curious, you mentioned that you two are pretty, oh, not -- you deal in the muck of the issue, and you mentioned that you're both pretty shot bitter, but -- [laughter] oh, item, -- i can't -- >> we enjoy it. >> you look at the dark side of everybody's past, and you look at kind of the underbelly of the system. and i'm wondering if you see, is there a connection between kind of the increase in kind of looking, the negative advertising and people's perception of government being, um, not -- perception of government not working for them and kind of do you have this 9% congressional approval rating, do you see those two as connected, or dueck that kind -- do you think that kind of connecting the two kind of skips a whole other thing that's separate? >> well, michael may have something to say about that,

too, but my answer would be there's certainly a connection, but is the connection, is it only between negative advertising and voter dissatisfaction, or is it just increasing knowledge about elected officials whether it's from advertising or news reports or whatever. i mean, we just know everything about everybody now, and that's never pretty. and so, you know, i don't think you can blame negative advertising alone for people's dissatisfaction with government. i think we just know a lot more, and, you know, they -- the old adage that, you know, you never would eat sausage if you could see it being made. everybody sees it being made now, and that's part of the reason everybody's a little disenchanted. ..

>> you sat in on the campaign meetings, you could have responded by denying what was said against him, proving that it was wrong, but you said we'll pull out the dead priest thing instead. so i wonder how that comes to be that you don't care about discrediting what was said. instead, you bought something even dirtier and worse. and, alan, what concerns me the most about, i admire that you try to find truth behind what you put out your clients because it's so important, but a concern

like in this newt gingrich thing that they said he supported the one child policy in china, which is totally untrue, is there no legislation, is there no boards that have to be passed before these things come out? no retraction necessary to make such a broad sweeping and damning statement of fact, and let it sit? how can newt gingrich doesn't try to say something against it? >> i'll try to explain the reality of the political world here real quickly. we did challenge it, and we did get, there's a story in a newspaper, but a few things happened there. number one, the story is in the newspaper. okay, so the guy sitting on the witness stand and the attorney says, did you ever rape your wife or something, even though it's not true, it's still out there. so we still have this paper. the second thing, as edward in

this business does you're not going to get a fraction of coverage, free media as you all know. you are just not going to. and so our fear again was its unknown was going to happen with this republican onslaught was on its way. and at the end of the day, yeah, we did, the democrats did. we could've been in a lot of trouble if we didn't believe -- and we didn't know what would happen. in a campaign, you want to leave all your cards on the table. you don't want to come back at the end of the day, and sake man, if we'd only done that. do it if it's true. do it if you can back it up. everything we have weekly backup. we feel good about. >> the answer to the other question, no. i thought this might come up in the discussion about, maybe we start have the ahead of us, a discussion of commercial

advertising first political advertising because they're completely different animals. there really is no mechanism for calling an unelected official to task, or a campaign to task, or uttering an untruth potentially. there's freedom of speech, and so you can't -- where she would get sued in false advertising if you did it, you're protected in many, many ways but a much greater level. this is frustrating to us also, he does we want everyone to rely on the truth. i doesn't always happen. the media, or the other campaigns are the most likely to calling it being untrue. québec and the last question. >> in terms of saying that "we're with nobody," if you're researching for the opposition, aren't you really with somebody? >> , our reports go to different

-- we do work for democrats and we have worked with some republicans. in elections, primaries when there was no democrat, we won't do that. >> i was just going to ask him and how do you wind up with his candidate versus that? are they choosing you? are they searching your? >> the political universe is pretty small. you team to work for people over and over again. same campaign managers in which for the most part, they go from campaign to campaign until he reaches certain age inside they want to do something different. so yeah, we end up, a lot of word-of-mouth and working with the same people. >> thank you, michael and alan. thank you very much. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> the national governors association wraps up its three-day annual winter meeting today here in washington with a discussion of its policies. leading the discussion are the groups cheer, nebraska governor dave heineman, and vice chair, governor jack markell of double. the next meeting will be held in williamsburg, virginia, this july.

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>> [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, if you would please find your seats we are going to in two minutes. [inaudible conversations]

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>> governors, i'll call this meeting to order. thank you for being here. on this final session, we will focus on our association and committee policies. this year we have talked many times, we redesigned our policy process to more closely align our policies with governor priorities. we are asking each committee to provide a report today on this policy, and we will be voting on those policies. the pocket in front he reflects those policies as adopted by the executive committee and the standing committee, committees, recommended by the special committee. they will require a vote of two-thirds of those who are

present. and we'll first go to the chairman of the economic development and commerce committee, governor brownback. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. is a pleasure to serve on this committee and leading it, jay nixon of missouri was the vice chair of it, did a excellent job. got a hearing on it saturday, and in a pretty extensive discussion yesterday. what we have done with this is gone into three key policy areas, hearing on commerce, infrastructure, and public finance. committee recommended option but in g8 membership by three policies. focus on commerce and economic development, general on to finish up and innovation, trade and investment, tax and radio toward matters. number two addresses transportation and infrastructure, and a neutral manner, major issue on the transportation funding that is coming up in front of the congress and so that we as a group come in g8 can speak out on this and edc three, affirmed

the importance of public finance state authority and financial services regulation, consumer investor protection and financial regulation. this is making sure that we don't get moved out of this area, no our ability to do public financing harmed by federal laws. so man up of the committee, i moved the adoption of our policy recommendations, would be happy to answer any questions. is very second? >> second. >> thank you, governor nixon. any discussion? all those in favor, please say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes habit. it's been adopted. we will now go to the chair of the education early childhood workforce committee, governor beebe. >> mr. chairman, in an effort to keep things on time i move to adoption of the report we talked about yesterday. >> okay. [laughter] that was pretty brief. is there a second to that one?

>> i second that. >> is there anyone who'd like to ask governor beebe any questions? seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. those opposed, no. good job, governor beebe. it's been adopted. we will now move to the chair of the health and human services committee, governor branstad. >> thank you very much, governor heineman. yesterday governor quinn and i moderated age age as committee session on innovative and sustainable strategy states may pursue to improve overall health of our citizens. while improving service delivery. read opportunities cuts these items with two very distinguished guests, dr. howard koh, was the assistant secretary for health at the u.s. department of health and human services, and ms. laura jackson, executive vice president of wal-mart blue cross blue shield, each of whom provided great insight on how steps that states

can take to meet increase the health care needs of our citizens while reducing health care costs, and i guess i would challenge other states to join iowa with the goal of becoming the healthiest state in the nation. that's one of the things we have focused on. the committee also improve interim policy out hhs two, which has to do with the temperate assistance for needy families. so i would now move for the policy hhs to, the update. >> is there a second? all right, thank you. any discussion? all those in favor, please say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes habit. it's been adopted. we will now move to the chair of the natural resources committee, governor malloy. >> i will try to make this as quick as possible. we have three policy,

environmental protection policy focusing on water resources, our energy policy outlined some of the activities governors have undertaken energy clean up, and called for congress to encourage environmental, environmentally responsible secure admission and affordable production and use of energy. and, finally, a policy, natural resources policy that lays out our priorities for the bill, land and water conversation, to secure rural schools and community self-determination act, tax program and the clinic of federal facilities that all of these issues may be acted upon by congress, and we now have position, we'll have a policy that will allow us to take position in support of what governors have previously outlined. >> second? >> second. >> any discussion on natural resources committee? seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. all oppose, no? the policy is adopted. we are now going to move to the

co-chairs of the special committee on homeland security and public safety, governor o'malley and governor need. have you flipped a coin who is going first today? >> go right ahead. >> governor need first and then governor o'malley. it is that what he said? been a key agree to it i guess. yesterday we very good discussion with respect to our committee. we discussed three items, hhs three i, for i, five i, and mr. chairman i would also note i think we had nearly if not all attacks across the country that were there, great representation we are. also most of the governors who serve on the council of governors there. so i will turn it over to governor o'malley. >> governor o'malley? >> thank you very much. governor, we had a great conversation yesterday and we know that will continue that today. a number of us, governor branstad, others on the governor's council will be

meeting with our dod friends later on today, and we will follow that up. the policy matters are very straightforward and simple. there are i think three of them, one simply outlining principles on homeland security, emergency management to another with regard to armed forces, and another on public safety. this could be a huge win for first responders to our country, because of this organization, mr. chairman, the d block and ability to make real interoperable communications. so i move all of those policy matters, and asks my co-chair for a second. >> i will second. >> there's been a motion and a second. any discussion? seeing none, all of those in favor please say aye. opposed, no? policies are adopted. we will now move to the policy report of the executive committee, governor markell. >> so the nga has a

long-standing permanent policy that focuses on relationship between states and the federal government. it highlights the limited authority of the federal government, and the fact that all other powers are reserved for the state in the executive committee reviewed the permanent policy and made some -- so that policy really deserves a cornerstone of the work that the nga does for all of our other policies. and in addition, the executive committee is recommending adoption of a health policy that reflects principles to guide our discussions on national health policy. so i move we adoption of permanent policy and health policy. >> is there a second? discussion? seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. opposed, no? the policies are adopted. we are moving at rapid speed

here. [laughter] ask you to be on time, and i appreciate that. we now need to move towards a major step in allowing our policies with our priorities. there's one from osha we need to make, and i would ask governor jack markell, our vice chair, for that motion. >> i can speak very slowly if you like. >> it might help. >> i want to thank all of the committee leaders and committee members were working to improve the process. i especially want to thank governor heineman for really doing a great job leading us through this effort this weekend, for the months leading up to the. but with the adoption of all these new policies, which incorporate many of our long-standing priorities, i knew that they officially replace all of our existing, other existing nga policies. >> is there a second to that? thank you. any discussion on this one? i think we've hashed all these out. all those in favor please say aye. opposed, no.

the policies adopted. we're in much better shape now. we do have a look at a time but i believe governor greg moore would like to give us a little update on the council of governors, so we have an opportunity if you would like to do that, governor. >> i just want to remind the council members that we are due at the pentagon at 3:00. with heavy predating it in the senate room at 2:00. and it's a very important meeting. mr. guerre, if i might in light of our conversation over the course of the last couple of days, once we have concluded that meeting that i'm going to suggest governor branstad and i report back to the body as a whole with regard to the issues that would bring to the attention of the secretary the net at that point. >> and let me just update. we now have over 40 governors who signed that letter. they're still an opportunity this morning, pretty much at this stage of the game, we are trying to get those governors who were not present, and so i think that number will climb before your meeting this

afternoon. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> governor branstad? >> i don't have anything to add. i just want to say that i'm really proud to see all the governors stand together on this very important issue about the national guard. >> all right. any other issues while we are moving at this warp speed here this morning? this is great. okay. you would just passionate you didn't want anything to say? you were just kind of -- okay. now, we -- he is going to invite us all to hawaii. that would be good. let me just say, you know, i didn't anticipate we're get done quite this quickly but i did tell staff, you know, it was entirely possible in what we were going to do if it occurred. well, let me make sure everybody understands, because we do not want to be late for the president, okay? we do need to proceed from this room directly to our buses, as

i've indicated earlier. and we will leave fairly probably, probably sooner than we anticipated. i would ask all those who are present here in the audience to wait for the governors to exit before you move out, because again, we've got a policy here today, trying to get everybody down to the white house on time. with that i want to thank the nga staff and all of you for attending, particularly our governors only meetings. is very, very instructive the last few days to get your comments in a very candid and straightforward manner. and we appreciate that. and we are adjourned, and it's now time to head for the buses. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> today is the final day of the national governors association winter meeting. the governors will spend part of the day in the white house with president obama. they will be talk about ways to improve job growth and strengthen their partnership with the federal government. it will happen at 11:20 a.m. and we will have live coverage on c-span2. governors are planning a news conference after their meeting with the president. next nga meeting will be held in williamsburg, virginia. that will be in july of this year. congress returns today from its weeklong presidents' day recess. senators will start the day at 2 p.m. future with and a ring of president george washington's farewell address. later centers will consider a judicial nomination for new york's state. live coverage here on c-span2. coming up this evening,

booktv.org brings you live coverage. >> this is a seven-watt solar panel with a little battery packs of this collects the power and then you can charge your ipod, cell phone, all that stuff directly. >> what you're seeing here on this chip, you are seeing an area that has 165 million wells, each of which can sequence a small piece of dna. the technology itself is using two cameras. one that looks out and one that

looks out the i. so we know exactly what the person is interested in. >> tonight, a fifth and final visit to this years consumer electronic show in las vegas with a look at the newest in technology and the latest innovations coming out of the industry. at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> you were watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays between live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy this. every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website. you can join in on the conversation on social media sites. >> attorney general eric holder said he is not satisfied and can't be complacent and protecting voter rights at the justice department's black history month program. he is about to keep changes and aggressively enforce the voting rights act. following his remarks, a panel

of women and the justice department talked about the contributions of women to law enforcement and the legal profession. >> good morning, everyone. good morning and welcome to the 2012 department of justice african-american black history month observance program. my name is richard toscano, the director of the equal employment opportunity staff. it's an honor to join attorney general holder, our distinguished program speakers, doj as a component, and all of you as we acknowledge the contributions of asking americans to our nation, and to the justice department. to begin a probe them, i ask that you please rise for the pledge of allegiance. leading up is reciting the pledge of allegiance is ms. danny pate, direct of the departmental secretary's office.

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> please be seated. thank you, dana. at this time i would like to formally welcome our distinguished speakers. first we are grateful to have with us our attorney general, the honorable eric holder, jr. welcome, attorney general holder. i would also like to extend a special welcome to our program speakers who, today, three dynamic panel discussion, will address a number of topics pertaining to the national theme for black history month.

black women in american culture and history. first, today's panel facilitator, ms. suzanne bell deputy director for legal management, executive office for u.s. attorneys. next, our panelists. first, ms. maame ewusi-mensah frimpong, acting deputy assistant attorney general with the civil division. next, ms. jamila frone, deputy director for recruitment and outreach, office of attorney recruitment and management. and, finally, ms. kim white, assistant director of human resource management division, federal bureau of prisons. our sincere appreciation to each of you for participating in this important program. as previously mentioned, the national theme for african-american black history month is black women in american culture in history. this theme invites us to reflect on the strength and resilience of american women throughout our nation's history. it acknowledges the very

important roles of african-american women have played and continue to play in our local communities, academic culture institutions, and here in the justice department. it also reminds us of the continuing struggles that we still must overcome to achieve equality in all aspects of our lives, including in the workplace. today's program provides another unique opportunity to highlight the rich diversity of our nation, and efforts of the justice department to embrace diversity and foster work environments where everyone's voice can be heard. leading the department and its diversity management efforts is the honorable eric holder, jr. the first african-american to be named as the attorney general of the united states. [applause] >> attorney general holder embodies strength, understanding, tenacity. and more importantly, the

american spirit that provides millions of people, regardless of the background, the opportunity to achieve their dreams. his commitment to equal justice and opportunity for all is unwavering. and is evident in the sport that he provides to all the justice employees serving in the united states, at home and abroad. as we acknowledge the contribution of african-americans, and we commit ourselves to breaking down barriers to opportunity, we take comfort in knowing that attorney general holder will be guiding our efforts to achieve a more perfect union by enforcing the law and defending the interests of the united states, according to the law. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the honorable eric holder, jr. [applause] >> well, good morning. thank you, richard, for that kind introduction. i was like the events within.

he always comes up with different and wonderful things to say about me. some of which is actually true, but i won't tell you what was not. i want to thank you and all your colleagues and equal implement opportunity office, and across the justice mission of division, for all the wonderful things you have done to make this black history month celebration a memorable one again this year. i want to thank all of you for joining us. let me also thank dan and each of her distinguished analyst for the participation this morning and for helping to make today's program so special. each february millions of people across the country come together to observe black history month. and to celebrate the extraordinary contributions that generations of african-americans have made in shaping, securing and in strengthening our nation. throughout this month americans of all races and backgrounds are called upon to reconnect with one another, and to rededicate ourselves to the principles that lie at the core of everything that we must stand for.

and in particular, all that we fight for here at the united state department of just. over the course of two cities, and even within the span of many of our lifetimes, our nation has made remarkable, once unimaginable progress with a struggle to ensure equality and opportunity for all citizens. there's no question that we have come a long way since the days when segregation was the law of the land, sit ins and freedom rides captured our attention and around the country to the cause of the civil rights. and when the young preacher from atlanta lead millions in an extraordinary march on the city, not far from where we gather here today, shared his dream with all the world. like some of you, i remember those days quite well. i will never forget the terrible tragedies as the great triumphs that marked the civil rights movement. and i believe we all have good reason to be proud of the dramatic improvement that this movement and in very real ways,

this department helped to bring about in the decades since. at the same time, it's impossible to deny the true menace obstacles and the persistent problems that so many americans still face. despite decades of struggle, even in america's most vibrant and prosperous cities, there are far too many communities where the doors to learning and job opportunities remain firmly closed. we have the promise of equal justice is unfulfilled. and we are thousands of children are growing up at risk, and that's why as we gather to celebrate black history month, we must also seize this moment, not on to reflect on how far we've come, but also to consider how much farther we still have to go. this year's theme, black women in american culture and history, shines a light in particular on pioneers who fought for freedom and women's rights. rosa parks who helped people,

sport and ignited a national movement for civil rights. vivian malone, my late sister law, with the help of attorney general bobby kennedy integrated -- and my angel whose words educate and enrich and inspire us today. the stories of these and so many other women in civil rights champions have helped to define the united states as a nation of ever expanding opportunity and truly limitless promise for every citizen. and even today, in 2012 their central work of seeking and securing justice for all americans must go on. as members of this department and as servants of our fellow citizens, each of us has a special role to play in advancing our nation's history and progress, and america's ongoing work to live up to the principles that over the last three as many of the dedicated professionals in and beyond this great hall helped to advance these efforts.

because of you, this department is moving aggressively and i think effectively to make real the promise of a fair and just america. we have restored and we have reinvigorated the work of the civil rights division whose mission remains essential and as urgent as ever. we have taken significant steps to ensure that across all of our components and and offices in this country and throughout the world, all americans have an equal opportunity to serve and to thrive in this department. although i am proud, proud of the record of progress that we have achieved, this is no time to be satisfied. i am not satisfied. we cannot and we will not become complacent. in particular, we cannot ignore the growing drug use of concerned i've been hearing from americans in communities from coast to coast who feared that some recent changes in state voting laws may signal the decades of hard earned progress now hang in the balance.

these citizens understand and appreciate the fact that without -- throughout our nation's history, more integral to the success great american experiment than the ability of a diverse array of citizens to participate in our democracy. fair and equal access to the ballot box represent the cornerstone of our system of governance. president lyndon johnson may have put it best when he signed the landmark voting rights act into law in 1965, and he observed the right to vote is quite simply our most basic right. that's why this department and specifically the sub rights division, and the voting section had taking meaningful steps to ensure integrity, and transparency in the aggressive enforcement of the voting rights act. we are, for example, continuing to subject proposed change to a thorough and fair reduce. and so as long as i have the privilege of serving as attorney

general, this work will continue to be top priority. all of this is really only the beginning. advocates and his allies we must remain vigilant in safeguarding the civil rights of all americans. every day we must dedicate ourselves to the vital efforts, and to our common cause, insisting that this great country lives up to the highest ideals of fairness, equality, opportunity and justice for all. today as we pause and on our nation's past and to reaffirm our vision for the future that we will share, and together we must build, we're fortunate to be joined by distinguished panel of senior department leaders from the civil division, the office of attorney homeland management, to the federal bureau of prisons and the executive office of u.s. attorneys. we will take part in them wide range of conversation about the opportunities and the challenges facing african-american women, in legal and law enforcement professions. i would like to be able to stay

and hear the wonderful insight people be staring but passionate people will be sharing. i will have an opportunity to see all the great things you will be talking about. i applaud the remarkable work that day and all of you are leading. i'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate with you throughout this month and the work that you do every day. keep up the great work, keep focus on all the great work that remains to be done. thank you very much. [applause] >> again, we are so fortunate to have had attorney general holder today him and throughout the course of the year, when held special observance programs. at this time of it like to introduce the facilitator of today's panel, ms. suzanne bell. ms. suzanne bell is a career senior executive serving as the deputy director for legal

management in the executive office of u.s. attorneys. since 1995, suzanne has held a number of important positions in the justice department, including deputy director for the office of attorney recruitment and management, and assistant u.s. attorney in the central district of california. a strong advocate for diversity, she helped draft the doj diversity management plan, and cursors as a member of the doj diversity councils executive crew. i'm very pleased that suzanne could join us today, and be part of this important program. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome suzanne bell. [applause] >> thank you, richard, and good morning, everyone. it's my pleasure to facilitate this morning's panel, to sing was doj women. given our thing, it stands to reason that we would have a panel of notable women to lead the discussion. your programs provide a summary of their professional histories, ballmer want to take a moment

and share some professional and personal highlights that may not be fully reflected in the writer. kim is a woman of first. kim was the first african-american woman in the federal bureau of prisons to become a member of the bureau's executive staff, to become a regional director, and to be appointed to the position of assistant director for human resources management division. she is also married to a wonderful man he also works for the agency, and was an avid basketball and audible player throughout high school and college. maame ewusi-mensah frimpong is milestone for both the private and public sector experience. first, while pat morris, a san francisco law firm, she represented pro bono an inmate in the california prisons he was claiming excessive force by two correctional officers. despite the odds, now keep in mind, that juries typically are unsympathetic to inmates, and in this case the inmate did not have any permanent injuries. and generally there are very low recovery and probable cases.

but can't 11 maintain a very -- while a trial attorney in the civil division, she and a group of attorneys represent the united states in a groundbreaking international trade on against can. many things about the case were novel including the fact that the u.s. have never had a dispute in this forum. they were up against private counsel from canada, or private counsel for canada that were well seasoned in international and commercial arbitration. maame was responsible for a key part of legal argument and the opening statement. they prevailed against the odds. finally, huge -- she was as possible for the civil division consumer protection branch from a small but effective office to a larger more nimble branch that was more proactive in protecting consumers. she did everything from conducting focus groups with the attorneys in the branch to becoming the dag. she saw the branch to a significant management change and expansion in case load into

new cases, and the strengthening of the branches ties with united state attorney's offices, government agencies, and consumer advocates. one of jamila's professional highlights asserted as a matter of the attorney general's diversity council executive staff. our next highlights reflect lessons -- her next highlight reflects life lessons that shaped her self image and were. jamila spent part of her for some and lost go backpacking through europe with friends, and studying at oxford university. she learned much more from the troubles and the coursework. for travel this summer showed her that she was more than just a girl from washington, d.c. she truly began to see herself as a citizen of the world. in her last year of college to participate in an independent study and prepare to thesis on misogyny and sexism in rap music at as a child of rap music era,

she loved the music, but as times with us or by some the messages that objectified when. jamila's lesson from this is very little is 100% good, or 100% bad. this view has shaped her approach is as she handles her cases. locum, panelists. [applause] >> it is with good reason that we reflect on history and organize a special programs. history serves as a compass or map for us personally, culturally and socially. in the words of dr. john clark, history is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. it is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. history tells a people where they have been and what they have been, where they are, and what they are. most important, history tells

the people where they still must go and what they still must be. the relationship of history, the people, is the same as the relationship of a mother to a child. our celebration and discussion of black history and black women will be both national and personally scope, using the code as our friend, let's start with the personal. maame, who serve as your map or compass? >> thank you, suzanne, and think you are one for coming to the celebration. before answer the question i want to acknowledge to people who are also served as a compass and map form and are here today to support and, my sister and husband. thank you for coming. they along with hundreds of serve as a compass and a map for me, orienting in the right direction, personally and professionally. i think the person that comes to mind especially with my team is my mother. who immigrated to this country with my father shortly after they were married. before i was even a gleam in her

eye. and she was a practicing physician in ghana before she came to this country budget to basically do her turning over again when she got here. and as i think my sister will agree, my mother is not one to dwell on her struggles. it wasn't until i and the working world and saw difficult it can be as a black woman to navigate professional circles that it relies how hard it must of been for 30 years ago as a black woman and especially as a foreigner. so i admire her so much for that, and that gives me a lot of courage and direction. what i learned from her is compassion, integrity, professional excellence, how to simultaneously be a wife, mother and a professional, and how to do it all with class and style. >> thank you, thank you. jamila, to serve as your map? >> when i think about kind of a compass as an instrument that point you in the right direction and a map been what shows you what the terrain will look like,

where you ultimately end up, i agree with maame that family is so much of that for me. my mother, my sister, my daughter who's sitting here today, several years old. but also think about kind of how i got to where i am in terms of law school and entering practice attorney. and for me it was my high school counselor, dr. george of poker. i grew up not far from here in washington, d.c. it and went to public school. and in my teenage years i thought it was a foregone conclusion after i graduated i would stay in d.c. and go to college. and there are many wonderful institutions here in washington. but it was my counselor who said you know what? and about the university of virginia. i said i don't know anybody in charlottesville. you know, i wanted to stay close to my family, close to my friends, and really in my comfort zone.

but i took her advice, and i applied and got accepted, and went only two hours away, but it felt like a world away. and i remember so clearly the drive down, my mother and my sisters and i was growing away, because i was only think about what i thought i would be missing out on. all those comforts, my home, my friends, you know, all those things. and not focusing on everything that i would ultimately gain. and my years at the university of virginia were rich. i had more fun. i learned more. it was the first time i ever experienced racism the first time, firsthand. it equipped me and gave me the tools that they need. i would not exchange any of those moments, and for that i honestly have to thank my high school counselor. >> okay, okay. kim, who serve as your map speak as well, you know, i've heard it said that you teach a better

sermon with your life than with words. and so the woman who really epitomizes the compass for the bureau of prisons was a woman by the name of an asset patent atoms. vanessa, born and raised in washington, d.c., went to gettysburg college and graduate with a degree in political science. once you graduate she looked for a job, and during that time it was during a recession. but she finally found a job working for the national alliance of business. and while she read to success during the greater time for it was her boss who saw something in her that he thought would be better served elsewhere. now, it just so happens her boss happened to have been a former federal inmate who encouraged her to seek employment in the bureau of prisons. in which she did, apply for position, was accepted as one of the first wave of women following title vii of the civil rights act, and then ended up

working in a mental institution, way far away from washington, d.c. near el paso, texas. and as i'm sure you can imagine, she walked into an environment that was unknown, unfamiliar. and not been many people look like her but she was willing to take on the challenge. little did she know what the challenge would really encompass. and what she found were people that were not very welcoming. she felt ostracized and alienated. as a matter fact, her first day she showed up with pink bangles and her is, big 1970s hair, and red fingernails. the warden greeted her and said, i'm not even going to tell you how i feel about women working in prison. so the ceo set the tone. four months into the job, she found is one of the most difficult jobs she had. and while she was really questioning what she was doing, she never could have imagined

how things could have gotten work, but they did. shakeout assaulted by inmate, staff came to her rescue. she was well cared for, and as soon that she would not come back to work. she came back the next day with a black eye and a cracked rib. and the staff, who thought she was long gone, really gained a lot of respect for her and showed her unyielding support at that point. now, from their she assumed positions of greater responsibility. she started as a teacher, worked at a federal prison in north carolina, and he was during that experience working in yet with mental health inmate, that she decided go back to school and get her masters degree. once she achieved that she went on to position of high responsibility of an ultimately was appointed as the first woman of color to the assistant director position within the bureau of prisons. during that time she led the organization to achieve great

heights, under adult correctional association certification. and it was the first time in the bureau of prisons history under her leadership that all federal prisons were accredited. tremendous woman, wonderful compass and a good friend pick one of the things that she showed me was when things get tough, expect them to get tougher. but exhibit tenacity, perseverance, have faith, and recognize that when you have purpose, there's very little you can't do. >> okay, okay, all right. let's shift and broaden our discussion to focus on black women culture in history. in preparing for this value mentioned because many of us know about the accomplishments of a few prominent women that you really want to talk about the unsung heroes. >> there are so many famous black women in history in every field, from literature and

science education and law enforcement, and the legal profession. but black women, both past and present have advanced and enrich the lives of every american. not just african-americans, but every american with their contributions. and each of us probably has a black woman that would can think of in history who we admire for their talent, or for the courage or their innovation or their strength. and you know, think -- shirley chisolm, dorothy height, the list goes on and on. attorney general reference them, are righteous and wonderful, fantastic women in history. and from a historical perspective, there's a trailblazer for me he why didn't learn about until well after i graduated from law school and was practicing an attorney. her name is charlotte rae. how many of you i shall dance have heard of pasha i see a handwaving in the back.

i see a few. my daughter says she has. [laughter] i did not know about this one but and i will tell you all a bit about it. charlotte rae was the first african-american female lawyer in the united states of america. and the first female lawyer of any race to practice right here in washington, d.c. she graduated from howard law school, my husband's alma mater, in 1872. and after graduating she was admitted to the d.c. bar and opened up her own practice. so gone that. 1872 she goes to law school, graduates and opens up her own practice. aand african-american woman here in d.c. she was truly a pioneer in the legal field. but sadly she was unable to grow and thrive in her practice because of the sexism and racism that she faced. so in 1879, she moved to new

york and was a teacher in brooklyn. she dead that intelligent died at the age of 60. now, i learned about a lot of important people at uva, undergrad as was in law school, but she was not one of them. and i think about not just her, but there are countless other women, african-american women, that are not recorded in history. and, indeed, every day we, at this table, and you as well, we are able to do our jobs and to forge the department's mission because of very quiet heroes. people who do what they do without fanfare, without fuss, and make it so we can sit here today with a nice suits and our microphones and do our job. and for me today it's really about honoring our every day to day unsung heroes.

and we all i'm sure work with people whose jobs don't necessarily get the accolades that either they deserve or that we think that they should get, but who make it possible for us to do well. and i have several of those unsung heroes, that i have worked for and worked with, and that who i work with even today. and one of them is a woman by the name sue hunter. now, suzanne used to work at the office so she knows very well. so you can attest to the phenomenal woman she is but and i would just be gone or just a bit. before i talk about sue, someone once told me that the definition of a team player, a true definition of a team player as a person who is driven to work very hard to achieve a successful out, without any regard for ego, or individual recognition. that is the sue.

she is the epitome of a team player. she gives unselfishly. she pitches in without being asked, and always looks out for everybody's best interest. los.. that we work with every day.

people in our families, people in our communities. in our places of worship. and for me, the challenge and the charge here today is to look not just back in the history books and study those who those amazing contributions, that is very important but to also look around us and go back to our offices and see those quiet heroes. those who fix our copy machines and take out our trash and protect us and take the time to thank those men and women without those in my opinion this is what this is really all about. and those contributions -- no, no way should be taken for granted. >> outstanding. outstanding. [applause] >> well, kim, you opened sharing

the story of a phenomenal woman in corrections and her impact on you and i think you want to tell us more -- tell us more about other african-american women who the field of corrections. >> people view corrections as one of those unsung professions and so we have a lot of women who i believe have made tremendous differences of color as well as all other women and minorities in the bureau of prisons but in particular given the theme i'd like to talk about some of the women who i think have made just a tremendous mark on our organization. and dr. clark words ring true, history is a compass and those accomplishments are those milestones along the journey of success. and while there are references to african-americans in state and federal corrections dating back to the early 1900s, statistical information

concerning achievements of african-americans was really largely uncharted. the significance of keeping statistical data, though, became very apparent following the passage of title 7, which as we all know guaranteed employment opportunities for minorities. and this one law really served as a catalyst for the changing diversity in the federal prison system. and while history shows women serving in a variety of capacities within corrections, typically, in the early years, there was only in clerical and administrative roles. and while women did perform at the level of wardens in leadership roles, in many respects those roles were relegated to either female prisons or prisons incarcerating juveniles. following the passage of title 7, women began entering the correctional environment in significant numbers and started

to make a difference in a variety of roles including correctional officer, line staff supervisors and others. and while it's really hard to go back and track our progress because typically, statistics about us were included in larger groups, either in the african-american group or in the group of women, we do have some milestones that i think are important to share. for instance, the first female officer to work in a male facility didn't occur until 1978. we really don't know when the first african-american woman started working in federal prisons because of the issue i raised earlier. but we do know that the first african-american warden was appointed in 1971. it wasn't until 1981 that women were appointed and one woman of color by the name of gwen sizer. the first african-american regional director was selected in 1981.

and it wasn't until 2003 that a woman of color was selected for regional director. and that happened to us in may. the first african-american assistant director working in our central officer headquarters was appointed in 1977. the first african-american female of color was appointed in 2007. one of the first women of color to lead a penitentiary -- this is the highest security facility in the bureau of prisons is an individual who happens to be in the audience today. helen marbury, who was appointed to the u.s. penitentiary in terre haute, indiana. she was the second woman of color to be appointed as assistant director. the achievements of these women symbolizes a gateway for women of color in our field and our representation has increased

over time. overall in the last decade, we've seen a 10% increase in african-american females in the bureau of prisons. and between 2000 and 2010, the numbers serving as wardens has doubled. currently, african-american women account for about 30% of all female supervisors in the bureau of prisons so it's good we have a nice rich base to draw from. and our numbers have shown significant increases in the ses ranks as well. african-american women, i believe, have a unique cultural experience which is invaluable and intrinsically relatable when working in a correctional environment largely filled with minority inmates. and i believe we continue to make progress and impact on a daily basis. you know, for a long time it was believed that corrections was not work for women. it was too dangerous. or there were privacy issues that we had to take into account

working cross cross gender but a lot of those actually have been debunked. as a matter of fact, most research reflects that the presence of women in prisons normalizes the environment and actually when we reach a threshold level, a saturated level reduces violence. just the opposite. now we also do know women are just as likely to be aggressive in the environment as men but we typically use different skills in dealing with conflict. the one thing that i'd like to share with you, though, are the characteristics that i believe led to these great achievements within the bureau of prisons. and i think the thing that kind of weaves us all together when you look at anyone who succeeds -- these women we talked about had purpose. they knew what they were called to do. they wanted to make a difference. and they did whatever it took to make a difference. they were resilient. they had a pioneer spirit. they were willing to go places nobody wanted to go. and sometimes do things nobody

else wanted to do. they developed a network of support and exhibited exceptional people skills. they demonstrated high levels of excellence and self-development and they focused on honing their knowledge, skills and work quality, really, who cares if you have to do more, know more, or be at the institution or wherever you work more? it only increases your value, preparedness and ability to laugh. they honestly assessed themselves if they had weaknesses they built and if they had a deficit they went and got. they all had good mentors and that was a true support systems that was key. and they're mentors were as diverse as the world is, and they knew it's not who you know, it's who knows you. they exhibited impeccable speech. they knew how to speak in small groups and they knew how to entertain audiences of thousands. they were flexible. they were constantly looking for

positions and opportunities whenever they appeared and took advantage. they never compromised on their values. and they knew that all things -- the good things, the bad things and the ugly of things work together for their good. they had faith in something greater than themselves and they had faith in themselves. they reached back, they reached to the side and even up to help others. and i believe that given the examples that have been shared today, the history that has been made, we need to continue to recruit, main and mentor keeping our eyes on diversity and our compass pointed toward success. [applause] >> thank you. >> well, when i was trying to balance, you know, how much historical information, how much personal information we should share and talk about -- i went

back to one of your emails and you said, you know, our celebration of black history must be personal. and i thought, oh, yeah, of course, it has to be. and in that email you also indicated that you wanted to share the story of w. johnson longtree. talk about the ways that she was a civil rights pioneer? >> happily. you know, one of the things that i was thinking about when i wrote that email about black history was personal. when i was in law school, the route my entire time at law school, when i would walk especially the main hall of my law school, i could really feel the presence of all the people who had gone before me, who had made the way for me and i felt that presence very heavily. and i often thought what would it have been like the first woman, the first black woman or one or three and i was one of 25. and i probably wouldn't have said it at the time, i think the men and women served before me

served as a compass and a map. and their presence helped me make a lot of decisions. i made a lot of decisions based upon the fact that i did not want to take for granted the doors that they had opened for me and i wanted to make sure that i walked through those doors and held them open for somebody else. and i recently read a memoir just as the presence those people spoke to me and i want to share with you justice in the law. it was about a woman in the military, the legal profession and the ordained ministry of the methodist episcopal church. her memoir was very powerful and i recommend it for anyone who wants a good read. she grew up in north carolina as the daughter of a domestic and the granddaughter of a sharecropper and through the kindness of family and friends she was able to attend college at spelman. and one of the themes that runs throughout her story is that

there were people who saw her potential and helped her and encouraged her and mentored her and there's one very touching episode in the book where she discusses her time at spelman. and when she started at spelman, she and her mother, to make ends meet were living in the home of a white family and her mother was working as a domestic and w roundtree was the nanny for the children. at some point, the dynamic in the household became negative. and the family accused her of being a thief. and they kicked her out of their home and she actually was arrested. she had at the time -- one of her professors, actually a white professor mary may neptune who was a beloved professors of her and mentored her and found her an attorney and was able to get her out of that situation and he had no source of income anymore and this professor on her meager salary pulled together a personal loan to w roundtree

enabled her to complete two years left of school and as we know spelman is not cheap and the professor didn't really have any real promise that she was going to get paid back. and all that she told her was that just please pass it on. and that's what she did. she paid her back and she also passed it on throughout the rest of her life and i think something that i know all of us on the panel share and many of you in the audience is that people who have done that for us. and who have encouraged us to pass it on. i know for myself in terms of my career at the department, one person i can think of seen my opportunity and give me the opportunities is my assistant attorney general tony west and i'm really appreciative of that. [applause] >> all of us should be -- should be grateful to people who have given us those opportunities and seek the opportunities to other people. so she -- after she graduated from spelman, she taught for a few years and then she ended

working up with mary mccloud bethune, the renowned woman and after working with mary mcclown bethune she entered the military and she was one of the first black women in the military. she rose to the rank of captain in the women's army auxiliary corps. so when women first entered the military they were in this auxiliary unit which later became a real unit of the army, the women's army corps so she was a trailblazer in that environment. later on she went to howard law school and she was one of very few women in her class and it was a very male dominated environment and it was difficult for her and she was at a time when she was able to sit on dry runs and the arguments of the brown versus board and the companion cases and it was a very rich environment and when she graduated she and another one of her howard law school mates, julius winfield robertson formed a law practice here in washington, dc.

and she had a very distinguished civil rights career here in washington, dc. one thing that struck me and especially in light of what we're talking about concerning unsung heroes and it's just the heroes that we don't always hear about is she and her partner brought a series of cases before the intrastate commerce commission which helped to catalyze the desegregation of trains and buses in this country. and one of the cases that she brought which was very meaningful to me was a case on behalf of the aim woman name sarah louise keys who like her was a private in the women's army corps. she was in the military. she was traveling on her first furlough home on the bus from her post to her home. and she refused to give up her seat and move to the back for a white marine. and she was arrested for disorderly conduct. and w. roundtree and her partner represented her and actually brought a case before the

interstate commission challenging the segregation on buses. and at the time the interstate commerce commission prohibited segregation by sate laws but it permitted private carriers to have their own systems of discrimination and segregation and she took that head on. and despite the odds which were incredible because there were a lot of decisions against them they eventually won and that combined with all the supreme court cases that we know about, orders from the attorney general of the united states eventually meant the real desegregation of the bus system, which is an amazing, amazing accomplishment. and not only did she have a distinguished career in civil rights law, she also practiced every other area that her community -- she lived in anacostia needed. from criminal defense to family law and she excelled in all of those areas sxafs pioneer in all of those areas. and it really makes me think of, you know, what i said about walking through doors that people opened for you. you kind of only hold those doors open for those behind you

if you excel and i think we've all sort of talked about that. kim's comments talked about these women in corrections that really excelled if you're the first and the second in an african-american environment, it doesn't help the people behind you and she like so many others made sure that she excelled at everything that she did. and she created a path for african-american women lawyers for generations to come. and towards the end of her life, she felt that law did not enable her to help her community in all the ways that she wanted to help her community. and so that's when she entered the ordained ministry of the african methodist episcopal church and she was one of the first black women to be ordained and yet again a trailblazer toward her later years and to me her story contains really two powerful lessons for us which reminds me why it's so important for all of us, whatever our color or creed or race or gender to celebrate african-american

history month and why this year's theme of plaque women is so important. first of all, i think that everywhere that she went in her career she was an outsider of one form or another. and every place she brought incredible vision. and to quote the bible she literally had to call things into being that were not. she saw incredible injustice and had to imagine the justice that was possible and that is something that we can all learn from. and that's really to me the story of african-americans in this country and the whole american experience. and that takes us from slavery to people like w. johnson roundtree to my mother who embraided recently that you have to imagine the possibilities that you don't actually see in front of you. and the second big lesson i think we learned from her is that especially for those of us at the department of justice, she reminds us what it means to be an advocate not just with your words but your life echoing what kim said earlier.

we know what wins the day in the courtroom is not how much you believe your arguments or the passion with which you believe the arguments but how well you can persuade someone. how effectively you can persuade someone and she had to effectively persuade people every day of her life with how she lived. and she had to persuade others that she was -- that she mattered, that she belonged and that she was a force really to be reckoned with. and most of us at one time or another will experience being an outsider or we'll have a family member who's an outsider. we'll be called upon to create justice where there is injustice and we can all draw upon our strength and inspiration from people like w. johnson roundtree and the other women that have been celebrated today and i certainly hope that i can live up to her legacy and the other legacy of the other women that we celebrate today. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> please join me in another

round of applause for our very distinguished panelists. [applause] >> i believe that their remarks, their thoughts, their perspectives really added value to helping us talk about today's theme of black women in american culture and history. and so we're very grateful for their support, for their participation in the program and, of course, their support for the justice department. once again, our appreciation to attorney general holder for joining us today, suzanne, maami, jamila and kim, we have a small token that we would like to present you at this time. please come to the center stage. okay. [applause]

>> before we conclude today's program, i would like to thank dana page again for her support of the department special inferences program. [applause] >> mr. johnny carpen for providing sign language interpretation services for today. [applause] >> special thanks to all of our component eeo offices for their ongoing programs to acknowledge african-american black history month and their ongoing activities throughout the year to foster diversity and inclusion and everything that we do here at the justice department and finally thanks to all of you for joining us for today's program, for our programs throughout the year and, of course, for all the oj employees who are watching today's program on the justice television network. we greatly appreciate your participation in today's program. thank you very much. and have a good day. [applause]

>> president obama has asked the nation's governor to meet with him at the white house today. governors are here in washington for their annual winter meeting. the president is expected to talk to them about ways to bolster job growth and improve their partnerships with the federal government. we are planning live coverage of that in about an hour, about 11:20 eastern here on c-span2. congress returns today from their week long president's day lees senators will begin the session at 2:00 eastern today with the annual reading of president george washington's farewell address. and later this afternoon, senators will consider a judicial nomination for new york state. we'll have live coverage of the

senate, of course, here on c-span2. >> michigan and arizona hold presidential primaries a tomorrow. rick santorum is spending his day in michigan today. and c-span3 will have live coverage at his fop at heritage christian academy at kalamazoo, michigan. it will be on c-span3. who's proven himself responsible. vote for president johnson on november 3rd. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers. dukakis not only opposes the death penalty he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. one was willy horton. >> the accusations that john kerry made against the veterans who served in vietnam was just devastating. >> randomly shot at civilians. >> we can all-point to an outrageous commercial or two or

three or four. but on average, negative commercials are more likely to be factually correct and negative commercials are more likely to talk about issues. >> will 2012 go down as the most negative campaign cycle in history? a new america foundation discussion looks at current and past political campaigns and their impact on american culture. watch this and past panels on campaign ads online at the c-span video library. search, watch, clip and share. it's what you want when you want. >> the nation's governors have wrapped up their annual winter meeting here in the nation's capital and one of the sessions over the weekend focused on the public and private sector efforts for eliminating childhood hunger. agriculture secretary and former iowa governor tom vilsack talked to the group for about an hour and 10 minutes.

>> all right. the meeting of the national governor's soles workforce committee is called to order. i thank everyone for joining us. west side some more filter in as the -- as the regional meetings conclude which have just been going on. i'm the governor of arkansas and i'm glad to be joined by governor bill haslam from tennessee and together i think we both enjoyed this committee over the course of the last seven months. a bit of housekeeping, those of you that have your cell phones on, please put them on vibrate or silent or something else so that we have one of our own with us, the secretary of agriculture is a governor, too, or at least he used to be governor. so he can appreciate what's going on with most of us, better perhaps than most folks involved

in the federal government and we're grateful that he is here. briefing books for this meeting were sent to governors in advance and can be found in the blue binder before you and they have the agenda and the updates. you have joan the staff director. she actually does all the work and the fact of the matter is they all make all of the members of the nga look good, nevertheless our own shortcomings because they are so confident. we'll hear from three distinguished panelists and after the formal remarks of our panelists we'll have the opportunity to have a discussions, questions, answers and comments. i'm looking forward to today's discussion and i think most of the folks here will be as well. as governors, one of our greatest and most solemn duties, i think, is to promote education and well-being of our nation's children and one of the impediments to that is food insecurity.

10% of the children in the united states today are about 8.5 million children are food insecure. and that means that at times the quality, the variety, and the quantity of the children's meals are, in fact, inadequate. this is a serious threat for every state and not only does hunger threaten children's health it undermines the economic vitality of our states because hungry children have a much tougher time learning. i'm personally involved in this topic and have devoted a substantial amount of time and resources to this issue in our own state. freedom from hunger is a fundamental and basic human need. as governors we're uniquely positioned to draw attention to this issue and most importantly bring people together to end childhood hunger. we have the bully pulpit in our perspective states to be able to call out attention to it. lack of proper nutrition to school year or summer months condition a cycle of poor performance. numerous studies show that when a child's nutritional needs are

met the child is more attentive in class, has better attendance, demonstrates fewer disciplinary problems and shows improved academic performance. properly nutrition children have better acaddition experience and the students and their entire community. governors across the country are working to eliminate to end childhood hunger. the narragansett meeting in 2010 an organization called share our strength talked to me about childhood hunger in my own state which at the time which had the nation's highest percentage of children classified as food insecure. that was then and is still unacceptable to me and undoubtedly is to all other governors. so when i was approached in 2010 we immediately signed on and started a no kid hungry campaign in arkansas. and through the work of no kid hungry campaign we made significant strides we're improving access to the programs that provide nutritious food for

children and indeed for their parents. that means down the road our kids will perform better in school and have brighter futures and most importantly, it means kids will have enough to eat and won't go to bed hungry at night. the campaign has cost arkansas little to share our strength, invest in private monies to develop an infrastructure. we built a coalition of local hunger groups, state and local leaders, business leaders, chefs, parents and others with strengths to share. the hunger relief insurance is the lead nonprofit agency and my wife ginger who is the most popular person i think in the state is committed to leading this effort. with generous support from corporate partners including wal-mart, tyson and the midwest dairy council, the no kids hungry campaign is working to participate participation in federal food and the nutrition program including school breakfast, summer meals and after-school meals programs as well as enrollment in the

supplemental nutrition or snap program. it's working. the snap caseload was increased by twill 2009 in july 2011, did this by training volunteers and staff at more than 50 local agencies in snap outreach. 2010, we served 263,000 more meals at summer feeding sites this we did during the previous year. we did this by coordinating the efforts of our state agencies and increasing the number of sites where kids could get a meal during the summertime. we've added 71 additional after school meal programs in the first month of operation served an additional 88,000 meals. under my wife's leadership, arkansas's launched the eat healthy place mark challenge to sport a new breakfast in the class pilot program. incidentally, anecdotally, one of the impediments to breakfast in the classroom was the stigma. and more often than not a lot of young people who were eligible and needed the breakfast in the classroom were reluctant because

of peer-to-peer stigma and pressure. and so by providing it and making it available for all the children, notwithstanding their social status or their economic status or their eligibility, it removes the stigma and creates a greater opportunity for greater participation. we have to make it a priority in this childhood hunger and it's our responsibility that our kids and their families have those resources. by making sure no kid goes hungry, we can elevate not just that basic need but also that educational opportunity and that learning achievement. i'd like to ask our vice chairman, governor bill haslam from our neighbor -- my neighboring state and the great state of tennessee for any opening remarks that he would have. >> thank you, governor. [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> okay. i promise to share back, mr. secretary. what i was trying to to say this is my third nga meeting and i observed we primarily do two things. we brag and we steal. we brag about how well we're doing and we steal good ideas from other folks. and i think governor beebe just gave us a little taste of that. today we plan to do both. this session comes at a very important time for us. congress in 2010 passed the healthy hunger-free kids act to which we authorized our nation's child feeding programs. we had the honor today of being joined by agriculture secretary and former iowa governor tom

vilsack and the roles they would play in addressing childhood hunger as the states and the federal government look at the child nutrition law. we'll also hear from representatives from two major companies who are leading efforts to partner with governors to solve childhood hunger issues. i think one of the opportunities we have today is to understand better how we can create and leverage public/private partnerships or maybe it's as simple as partnering with wal-mart or dominion to address child hunger issues. with that, i would -- i'll go ahead and introduce our very first honored guest. he does seem to be a downward trending career path. he's the secretary of culture. at one time avenues governor and even before that he was a mayor so you're definitely heading the wrong way career wise. but anyway, he is the 30th secretary of agriculture and was appointed by the president and sworn in, in january, 2009. i think one of the things he's working on is revitalizing our

ruler communities and i'm fairly certain your states are like tennessee and that our biggest economic challenge tend to be in our rural areas and i think the former governor understands that well and i think it's one of his well placed priorities as well as conserving our natural resources and what he's going to be talking about today, providing a safe and nutritious food supply. he's targeting childhood hunger and obesity. both of the things we know are both of our issues to our country. prior to this, like i said, he served two terms as the governor of iowa and before that was a state senator and a mayor of mount pleasant, iowa. so mr. secretary, on behalf of the nation's governors be welcome or maybe more appropriately, welcome back. >> governor, thanks very much. it's really an honor to be here today and i know how important these meetings are and certainly appreciate the opportunity to be back at the nga. it's a great organization. and it is a great opportunity

for us to talk about common goals. we obviously share with governors a deep concern about the future of our children and as governor beebe, nutrition is an important aspect of a child's first years. it's important that children receive nutritious food and we're doing our best at usda to make that happen. and i will tell you that when i was first asked to take this job by president obama, the first set of instructions and directions he gave to me immediately after he offered me this opportunity was to make sure the children were well fed. it's the very first direction he gave to me. we know the statistics and they are startling, not only do we have youngsters who are food insecure and living in food insecure homes but we also have nearly a third of our youngsters at risk of being obese or obese so we have to deal with both of those issues and we've been very aggressive at usda. the governor mentioned the passage of the healthy hunger free kids act. we've been spending the last

year since its passage enacting the rules and regulations that will govern that act. this is the first update in meal standards that's taken place within the last 15 years. it's the first noninflationary increase in reimbursements for schools in 30 years. and we estimate over the course of the 10 years of the act, roughly $3.2 billion will be provided to schools to provide better access to meals and more nutritious meals. we also recognize the important role that states play in the administration and oversight of these programs which is why the bill provided for nearly $100 million to states to defray administrative expenses. it's designed in part to better correlate the standards for these meals that youngsters are receiving at schools with the dietary guidelines, the new dietary guidelines based on recommendations from the institute of medicine. so you're going to see more fruits, more vegetables, more whole grains, more low fat dairy. you're going to see less sodium,

less sugar, and less fat. it's also expanded efforts to try to make the program more streamlined. the use of direct certification is making it easier for schools to administer the program, hopefully saving resources. we've also provided for an expansion of the program to include foster care children, which does address in part some of the concerns that we had about youngsters who are sort of in the -- in transition, whether or not this program would be available to them. the foster care child expansion allows that to happen. we've also been working on a pilot base with a number of states to see whether or not there are ways in which areas that have significant high levels of low-incomed families might be able to get by with not even having an application process because 80 to 90% of the youngsters will probably qualify anyway. again, saving some resources for schools. part of this act also encourages more physical activity and i'd be remissed if i didn't acknowledge the first lady's

efforts with her lets move effort. as we see it's not just calories in it's calories out as it relates to the obesity issue. providing transition time for schools to comply with these requirements. this year the extra reimbursement will kick in beginning next school year for those school districts now living up to the standards. we have made some encouragement for schools to participate in the u.s. healthier school challenge. there's a small monetary reward for schools that comply with the standards of this challenge. it requires better nutrition and i would encourage the governors here to encourage their school districts across the down apply for participation in this program. it is a very good program and it will encourage expansion of food programs for children. this bill also takes into consideration the caloric

content based on the age of the children. so we're very much involved in this. we're also involved in trying to make these meals a bit more delicious. sometimes good food has been not necessarily presented in the right way. so that's why we enlisted chefs from all over the country and our chefs moved to school programs to come up innovative and creative recipes to make good food delicious as well. usda.gov is the website where you'll be able to find those recipes and, again, i would encourage schools in your states to take advantage of those new recipes. in addition to the healthy hungry-free kids act, the president's budget also includes $35 million request to congress to create a competitive opportunity for the purchase of cafeteria equipment. >> we know that in order to encourage and improve meals and the expansion of meals that some schools will need take a look at the possibility of preparing meals at school but don't have the equipment but we're hopeful that this grant will tricep over

10,000 schools to provide equipment. let me just say a couple of things about the times when school is not in session. this is one of the critical periods of time which we all face and that's the reason why we have begun to partner with faith-based organizations to try to see if we can expand the number of summer feeding sites. youngsters are obviously in school for somewhere around 180 days a year but they're not in school over the weekend and they're not in school during the summer vacation. we've expanded significantly the number of participants in our summer feeding programs at usda. we will continue to do that continue to try to provide resources for that. but it is fairly clear that we have to reach out to the nonprofit or private sector to assist us. we have to figure out ways in which we go to where the youngsters are as opposed to having youngsters come to where the food is. in my small town of mount pleasant where our children were raised i know during the summer that i could find most of the kids in mount pleasant in one or two places, at the ballpark

where the little league games are taking place or the swimming pool so we need to figure out ways where we can have mobile food activities where it would provide nutritious snacks to youngsters. we're also heavily engaged in trying to improve the messages that we send through our vending machines particularly through schools. we'll be forthcoming here in the very near future for the standards of competitive foods in schools. and despite the concerns about baked sales, we're not going to limit bake sales at schools. we understand that's important. but if you have a vending machine, we want to make sure the nutritious choice the easy choice and we found from our research that indeed, youngsters will react favorably to nutritious snacks and they'll continue to buy from those vending machines. we are also going to continue to work with schools on nutrition education. i think it's important as schools have been facing

difficult budgets they're looking for ways in which they can streamline course selections, unfortunately, sometimes that involves selection education and sometimes we're trying to have folks to provide educational opportunities for to youngsters. there's no reason why the cafeteria workforce can't provide some degree of assistance in this area. and we know that there are a number of schools that are actively looking at this type of concept. we're also working with schools to make it easier for them to link up with producers in their area, giving schools greater capacity to use geographic preference in the selection of foods so that if farmers and ranchers are producing food in the local area, that that could create a new market opportunity for them. still keep the wealth that's created by them in the community and at the same time provide safe and nutritious food for youngsters. let me just -- let me just

finish by saying that we are very committed to working with the states as best we can within the confines and restrictions that congress has provided us in the healthy hunger-free kids act. the snap program is always one that we are working obviously well with states. we've seen a rather significant increase in the enrollment in snap and part of that is because states are doing a better job of outreach. i want to commend the governors for their efforts in outreach. we've seen as a result people learning about these programs that they're beginning to sign up for them. i will also say -- i'm proud of the fact that the error rate in this program working with governors across the country is at its lowest level in the history of the program. and that the fraud rate also working with governors and states is at its lowest rate in the history of the program. so we continue to try to maintain the integrity of this program but also does, in fact, get to the folks who it needs.

the snap program is a remarkable program. roughly 46 million people currently receiving snap benefits. >> the interesting thing about those benefits, only 8% of the people receiving snap benefits are on cash welfare. only 8%. 92% are not. that means that you're providing resources to senior citizens, to working men and women and to children. and to people with disabilities. those four groups basically make up the 92% that are noncash welfare and a lot of these recipients of snap are isn't it a fact children. for every dollar invested in this program, 1.90 is generated. it just makes sense, obviously, if more food is being purchased, more food has to be stocked, shelved, packaged, processed, trucked and if you look at the supply chain it's employment all along the line. it's one of the reasons why snap is used during difficult economic times because 97% of

snap benefits are basically spent within 30 days of receipt. so it's a program that's important to maintain. it's a program that's important to ensure the integrity of the and we are very conscious of that. but we've enjoyed working with the governors and we appreciate the states' efforts in better outreach and look forward to the opportunity to answer any questions that you all have. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i'm really gratified about your sensitivity to emphasis on the summer feeding program. for the reasons you stated, it's an area that all of us need to extend as much help both in private and the public sector as possible. i recall an article or at least a chapped from the book the outliers which i know you're familiar with that had a chart demonstrating the three demographic groups, economic groups. and they're relative test scores and they tested these grade

school children at the end of may and divided them -- or classified them with high income, medium income and low-incomed children and the scores in those three groups in testing in may in virtually every rate group were relatively the same. there was very little difference between the test scores in all three groups at the end of the school year. they tested the same kids in august after the summer had been completed and there was a marked difference between the test scores in the low-incomed students and the medium and upper income students. and part of that can be attributable to a number of reasons totally separate and apart and new information and food. but to the extent we all believe that a kid that's hungry doesn't learn or a kid that's hungry doesn't progress or a kid that's hungry might indeed regress then there has to be an element of nutrition and food insecurity

during those summer months that contribute to some of those statistics. so your attention -- the department's attention to the summer program is greatly appreciated. and i think all the governors recognize that the more we can do and the more the private sector can do and as i indicated we're going to hear from them in a little bit. but they've been wonderful in terms of trying to augment that summer issue. a question that i have and then we'll -- i'm sure everybody else has some questions, i'm a little bit concerned about your -- what's in the bill with the minimum price. for the school lunches that are paid for by children who don't qualify for the free and reduced. and as i understand the bill calls for a 2.46 cent -- but you gradually get there, i guess, with the incremental increases. i'm worried about whether or not this can have a chilling effect on some of the feelings that might be above the border line whether or not we'll see a tropical in participation in the

school lunch program. i also worry about the relative difference in the cost of living. an $80,000 a year job in manhattan has significantly less buying power than an $80,000 a year job in kentucky or in arkansas or in some of the other places. and a static figure that doesn't take those differences into consideration also creates a problem. i wonder if you have any plans to monitor and watch whether or not there is a chilling effect on participation and whether or not there's going to be any consideration given to the relative differences in terms of the effect on families. >> governor, that's a great question. and i think the reason why congress included this was that based on experiences in schools, what we were finding was that the school districts were basically using their free and

reduced reimbursement to subsidize fully paid meals and that was a concern that congress needed to address and attempted to do this in a very gradual way by -- to the extent that meal prices had to increase for full-paid students it would do so over a period of time and not increase dramatically in any one year. and the theory is that perhaps by doing this, you'll actually have the resources -- adequate resources in that program combined with the reimbursement level increase to provide more nutritious food for all youngsters. you know, clearly we'll monitor this. what we don't want is we don't want to discourage participation in the program. at the same time, we want to make sure that folks who need the help get the help. and the folks who may not necessarily need as much help don't get as much help. because we don't want school districts basically using the

money from the federal government that's supposed to subsidize the free and reduced lunch folks from basically short changing them and providing a lower cost meal for those who can afford to pay. our reimbursement levels do change based on the geographic area and i'll certainly look into that issue that you've raised. and we'll certainly keep an eye on it. but rest assured the goal here is not to discourage participation. it's to make sure that the resources are used in a way they were intended to be used. >> well, i think it's incumbent upon all of us to be able to provide you information so that if we see decreased participation or the negative effect of this we don't expect you to find it all out that we do our part to try to communicate that information to you and certainly we're going to instruct our people in our state to give us that data to see if there's any trends in that regard and we can share that with you and i'm sure the other governors will too. governor? >> yeah, governor, i think you're uniquely positioned to understand the kind of push/pull of between the federal government and governors about

us always wanting more flexibility within different federal programs and i think one of the concerns we've had with the healthy hunger-free kids act is maybe the flexibility that is or is not built in there. i think the act requires i think five -- an evaluation or inspection every three years and i think the governors had written a letter saying, boy, it certainly would help us in terms of costs and our own control over the things to have it every five years if the program merited it. if it had shown the schools did not -- or needed a level of attention obviously we'd do it every three but having that flexibility to choose between 3 and 5 based on performance i think we think makes sense and mirrors maybe our larger concerns as we work at the federal government about added flexibility. obviously, there's a cost factor to us and an increased inspections as well. so i guess our question is there

any more flexibility you can give us in terms of the frequency of inspections? >> governor, that's another good question. and it really somewhat depends on what congress intended in establishing this requirement. our read of congressional intent and we're governed by that is that we have a three-year requirement and we would have the discretion to actually provide for less than three years if we saw a particularly bad actor. our reading doesn't necessarily indicate that we have the discretion to provide a longer period of time between reviews. and i think if you look at what congress has done in this act, you can kind of understand why they wanted someone to be looking and to ensure that this act was being followed that the nutrition standards were being lived up to, that the physical activity efforts were being met. having said that, i do understand the concept here and it's one as a governor i

supported and used for a variety of inspection and review processes. what i can commit to you is that i'd be more than happy to go back to our appropriations folks to see whether or not we can get clarification on this interpretation. i know that the nga has a slightly different view of the congressional intent. we think we're probably right but it doesn't necessarily mean that congress can't change its mind and provide the flexibility. so what i would be willing to commit to you is i'll make an effort with our appropriations folks to see whether or not we can either get from congress an acknowledgement that your interpretation is correct in which case we would work with you or give us greater flexibility than they intended initially. >> it wouldn't surprise you to learn that we think we're probably right, too, would it? [laughter] >> no. but y'all deal with legislators. you know how that works. [laughter] >> questions or comments or

suggestions or ideas from members? yes, sir. >> mr. secretary, thank you so much. >> colorado down here on the end. >> we know each other than somewhat. [laughter] >> thank you for all your work on this. i think the school lunch programs are a breath of fresh air. we're trying to in colorado and i think in a lot of states are looking at the amount of sugar that kids get and you mentioned soft drinks and working with the competitive system with that but i would encourage you also -- and it's amazing. we have -- we have a 9-year-old in public schools and the amount of sugar that they get every day just for succeeding in a little competition, it's a level that's hard to imagine how they can even with their hyperactivity they can work it all off. but we're trying to make sure that every place -- every communication that comes into your school districts from state government, from federal government all begins talking about, you know, trying to really look at the calories coming in at the same time we're trying to also look at how do

we, you know, make sure they don't skip gym and they are active when they're out on the playground so i just wanted to plant that seed. >> governor, a couple things. first of all, hats off to the industry, the food industry. they are also sensitive to this. and they are beginning to respond and react. canned fruit and frozen fruit that's available to students now you're seeing is being formulated is less sugar and we'll probably continue to see that. there are examples of less fat and less sodium as well and low fat dairy products being made available so the industry is responding to the concerns. i will tell you that we are engaged in every one of our programs to try to be consistent. our wic package now contains more fruits and vegetable opportunities. we are reformulating standards in terms of how things are packaged, for example, canned fruits and the syrup that's use, it now has to be light syrup. we're also in the snap program

working with an innovative and creative effort in massachusetts which it's a two-year research project to see whether or not point of sale incentives to work to encourage snap recipients to purchase more fruits and vegetables. the way it works is, the snap person takes their card in at holyoke massachusetts they may buy apples or oranges. the grocer gets 100 cents on the dollar based on the price but the card is basically formulated so that the snap recipient is only charged maybe 60% or 80% of the purchase price. so they get a discount. and we've got a research team looking to see if there's ways in which that will encourage. a lot of folks want us to use the snap program to restrict what people can buy. the problem is that there are 300,000 items that can be purchased at a grocery store. and i'll just give you one example. if you had to choose between reduced sugared shredded wheat or sugared shredded wheat for

your child, which would you produce? based on -- which would you purchase? well, based on your question one would assume you would take the reduced sugared shredded wheat. the problem is by reducing the sugar, they've increased the sodium and on balance it's probably not as nutritious as the sugared shredded wheat. how do you formulate an ebt card that will be able to distinguish that type of situation. so it's a little harder than most people realize. but we think maybe point of sale incentives providing incentives may be at least some answer to that issue. >> other questions? governor? >> mr. secretary, we have in mississippi delta found some poor areas as some have referred to as food deserts where you don't have large grocery stores or large selection of fruit and we have talked about some new innovative ideas -- when i was a child we had these remarkable

things called gardens. and people could actually grow their own fresh vegetables. i spent a great deal of time in one. and so we're encouraging someone particularly in elementary schools for teachers working with our mississippi farm bureau to begin a gardening program. i think it's remarkable that the children might actually be able to learn where vegetables come from. and so any assistance -- we're not looking to the government for that. we believe that we can actually do this on our own. but any thoughts about that or do you know other states that may have tried similar projects such as this? >> absolutely, governor. there are a couple of things. first of all, the first lady's garden gets a lot of attention as it should at the white house. but a companion effort at usda so-called the people's garden and we've started a people's garden at usda facilities. we now have close to 1500 people's gardens across the country and across the globe actually in some of the embassies.

we've donated nearly 900,000 pounds of produce from those gardens to community kitchens and to food banks. we have a program called know your farmer know your food and it will be coming out at the end of this month with a report that basically talks a little bit about how a community could set up a community gardening program which would obviously be applicable to schools. i can tell you that governor hickenlooper's denver schools have some very interesting garden programs. and that they're using the produce to really produce delicious food. i will tell you also on the area of food deserts, a couple of things. number 1, the department of health and human services and the treasury department and usda all have programs to try to provide help and assistance to grocery stores that are located. there's a wonderful foundation from a fellow -- jeff brown in philadelphia who runs a -- a shop or safeway, he established

a foundation to help communities evaluate why they have a food desert. .. >> so there's a lot of activity going on in this space. if you take a look at our

website, your folks will be able to locate communities and states that are working in these areas. >> if i could just chime in. we have now, half the elementary schools will have their own gardens this spring. one of our best chefs in the fancy restaurants got his team to start this. now it's naturally spreading so that each school, i think by the end of next year we'll have every go and dinner and then we'll try to roll that out state level. it's part of their curriculum. they are science class, all kinds of stuff. >> i was thinking about the science of the photosynthesis. if are a mirror, hopefully that's the correct term, remembering back to my scientific base. but i think being able to get outside in the fresh air and trying to work, growing of food, to learning the science of that process is just remarkable. i'll certainly look to denver but every business that i talk to has jumped at the opportunity of getting out and helping from equipment owners to farm bureau.

>> if i can add just a point to this, and there's another reason to do this for governors. and it's in addition to the nutrition issue, in addition to the education issue. and that is, if you're looking at the future of this country and you are looking at the future economy of this country, there's no question that biology is going to be extraordinarily important in our future. and that the bio economy, bio-based economy is rapidly expand and creating new opportunities, particularly in rural areas. so youngsters if they have a better understanding of how food is produced, they will understand that agriculture is something that is unique, is exciting, it's challenging. and will get more young people getting engaged in the sciences that support agriculture, which in turn will allow us to expand bio-based economies. you to make plastics, chemicals, fuel, a whole series of things from bio-based that creates a new job opportunities. >> mike pierce believe the guard was a character builder.

thank you, mr. secretary. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, governor beebe. i just want to let you know i planted a garden in the back of the governor's mansion as well. mr. secretary, i appreciate your comment to this point but i think there's broad agreement about the program and what it's going to do to help our young people. i had just a couple questions followed up on what governor beebe has asked. i know that governor nixon and i had written a letter i think lester on death of this committee expressing a similar tone of concerns about the purpose of the implementation of the program and then the final rule that was adopted address some of those concerns. but not all of them. our folks in virginia just have a few ideas implementation concerns that i just want to see if you give us an update on --

the three year versus five issue. but there's also a requirement for certification of the benchmarks in the final role that 95%, have to be certified by 2013, and the question i think you had responded in a letter to the committee earlier that there were some technical assistance or grants that might be provided to the states for the purposes of the certification process, and i just wonder if you give us an update on that, what kind of certification help might be available. than a similar question, as far as the timeline. i know that, i think the final role calls for the standard for lunch to be in place by july 2012, and breakfast standards by 2013-14. and at least there's some feeling in our state this is going to take a fair amount of training and so forth in order to get that, not only of the state level but the local level. and whether or not there's some flexibility in those timelines

and whether not there's going to be some assistance from usda to help us with the training portion of that. so if you could, secular, address that. >> sure, governor. i think congress is aware of the fact that there's going to be the need for assistance to states to administer, which is why they basically allocated $50 million in each of the first two years of the bill to provide to freight administrative expenses. that's going to be distributed based on a formula basis, and i can get you and your staff the specific allocation for virginia, perhaps before i leave, but if not i will get it to you tonight, if i see tonight at the white house dinner. and so that money is forthcoming and it's going to be made available. the timelines, you know, we did adjust the timelines for breakfast, given the fact that this was an area that was perhaps not as, it certainly wasn't as uniform among all states in all schools. some schools offer breakfast,

some don't. some offer a limited practice. so we did make some adjustments on the timelines for breakfast. we believe that this is not an impossible task we're asking schools to develop. we did create some degree of flexibility in terms of fruit and vegetable, and portions, so forth respond to some of the concerns to folks that we're being too restrictive. so we did change that in the final role. we will be happy to work with folks, be happy to provide as much assistance as we possibly can. there is a tremendous amount of information that is available through usda for schools, everything from the portion sizes to recipes. i mentioned earlier there's a recipe contest, we have hundreds of recipes that will make it easier for school officials to produce nutritious food. we are also, as i said earlier, the president's budget does include resources to try to help with school cafeteria equipment

needs. we recognize that there's some schools that obviously would like to do a better job, but to do that they need equipment and budgets are tough. so hopefully congress will give us permission to use of these resources in that way. so if there are individuals specific technical issues that schools are having trouble with in virginia, please let me know and i'll make sure that our staff gets in touch with your education folks in your folks who are dealing with this. >> thank you. >> one more question. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. i really question, the department has been extra and helpful for, particularly as we done some gardens, and even the education i got when we did with our government. so on that level it's been tremendous but the one area of caution as you're doing the rules and regulations, is just to be mindful of territories versus states. which in many cases has cost us

concerns in terms of making sure that the definition of a territory or state includes the territory, or a separate definition, sasha doing the rules and regulations that we can fully participate. the department has been extreme helpful in other areas, always one to make adjustments, but as these rules and regulation are done, it helps us tremendously, particularly in the territory as far as rules and rex. that is a very important point, and it also can even be further a finer point can be place on a come even within states when you've got native american reservations and settlements that there's an area that we have to also be sensitive to. and you know, one of the things i found and i mentioned this earlier to the western governors, you know, the western governors i think have a real keen understanding, appreciation for the relationship between states and tribes. i will play when i was governor of iowa i did not quite fully understand and to look at this

job, and in g8 might want to take a look, an effort to reach out, particularly for governors that are not necessarily have a lot of tribes, to better understand because you can get yourself in the same kind of circumstance and difficult if you don't understand what the relationship should be. so it's a very, very important point. >> mr. secretary, thank you for being here take thank you for your attendance. thank you for your attentiveness to the concerns that have been raised. we know you're busy, and we know if you need to go, we will miss you, and going. but if you like to stay we would love to have you stay. it is your choice. you do whatever you want. >> i apologize, but the national cathedral has a service that i would like to attend. >> understand, understand. >> i am praying for congress. >> thank you for being with us. [applause]

>> all right. we now are going to be joined, in fact, stay where you are i think. the cameras have adjusted to the point that you don't have to relocate. but her next panel is comprised of two organizations, and to folks that represent those organization to i will introduce the first speaker, and then our esteemed colleague from virginia will introduce the second speaker. our first speaker is julie gehrki from, senior director of the walmart foundation. she leads to business integration team and the walmart foundation has funded initiatives focus on education, workforce development, economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, and health and wellness. the company has pledged $2 billion, billion with a be, to fight hunger. through 2015.

in july of 2011, the walmart foundation was again named the top corporate cash contributor by the chronicle of philanthropy. walmart foundation made more than $390 million in grants to chair will causes during its last fiscal year. prior to joining wal-mart, she worked in the nonprofit community issues of antiracism. just and program evaluation in kenya, tanzania, taught english in eastern europe, and just a bachelor degree in religion from rhodes college, and a master of arts and public service from the clinton school of public service at the university of arkansas. thanks for joining us, julie. please allow me to express my own personal gratitude, and gingers gratitude, for wal-mart generous support of no kid hungry campaign in our state. and a host of other issues that you all have support in our state, and really around the country. dedication to young people and a

commitment to improving their lives is not something that we take lightly and something i think all of us are very grateful for. governor mcdonnell, if you introduce our other special guest. >> thank you, mike. i appreciate the opportunity to introduce my friend, daniel weekley who is here. i appreciate the flexibility of this committee to share our strength initiative which is very, very successful initiative around the country. daniel weekley is here as vice president of government affairs at dominion resources he doesn't know what but i'm going to announce his $2 billion here. [laughter] where dan is responsible for everything all the congress federal, state and local government relations. e. silva number of other prominent position with the dominion, primarily in the northeast over the years. he is very active in the public service arena as well, serving on numerous boards throughout

the state of new york, massachusetts, connecticut, and others, including the independent power producers of new york. he's very active in benevolent orchestration in clean be on and on the board of directors of the theater in hartford, and the treasure of mitchell college in new london. he's past chairman of the united way of southeastern connecticut where he helped raise $9.3 million during a fund-raising campaign. he has a masters degree in finance from marshall university and a master some i use be in pennsylvania. dominion has been very active in our challenges that we have given the business community for support of the food banks, and dan has helped to lead, outlay that ever. also a personal know. the sector is that there but off a no child hungry campaign in virginia last year, part of share our strength effort in virginia. it was a tremendous kick off with the guests were

mcdonnell, vilsack and jeff bridges. we are not the source of the press conference i might add. but he was terrific. and a great kickoff of course in virginia and i appreciate the ongoing support in this area. so i present to you dan weekley. >> julie, i think we will take you first. and if you don't mind, we will take your presentation and then dan, yours and they will opened up for questions or comments. >> thank you, governor beebe, for your kind introduction and your leadership on this issue. we're really proud to partner with you in our no kid left hungry campaign. we're thankful for this committee. over the last three years, wal-mart has seen jobs and becoming come to the forefront of our customers minds, and really of all americans. in the time we seen sharp upticks in a people rely on government assistance, and we've seen a pronounced paycheck cycle where our stores are busy as paychecks are released for

government, release. these our customers and we see them struggling, and we want to help. that's why in may 2010 we announced a $2 million commitment to hunger relief across the nation. it is made up of three major elements. first, $250 million worth of cash grants that are being made across all 50 states. second, is $1.7 billion in food that is being donated to food banks across the country. and third, a commitment to engage our customers, our associates and our corporate colleagues in the fight against hunger. we've pledged $2 billion but the real power of this is the of i'm with our business. we are able to bring much more than philanthropic dollars to the table because of our company's core capacity. most obviously as the nation's largest grocer, we have a lot of food to donate to this. in just under five years would move from donating 9 million pounds of food to food banks each year to over

257 million tons of food to food banks annual. we are really proud that over 45% of this food is things like milk, dairy, produce, items that food banks need and low income individuals want. we also, because of the on the, have expertise to land. our preparing food banks with a logistics expert across our business help them read about truck routes to save miles of gas, to be outline different things for efficiency, and to really make sure that the food across the whole supply chain is safe. alongside these corporate assets, we can invest in philanthropic models that are scalable and replicable across the nation. the secretary talked about the importance of breakfast, and we supported a group called breakfast in the classroom, that is bringing together teachers, nutrition specialists, school

administrators, and the hunger community to bring breakfast into the classroom because we know that while 20 million children eat lunch on the free or reduced program each day, only 9 million of them eat breakfast. we also are what with programs like the wide, which are moving with the expansion of after school meals program to be year-round providers using some of food and after school food to make sure kids are taken care of when they are out of school. but it's more than feeding people. it's also about nutrition. in a recent study released, 85% of low-income people rated healthy food as a very important to their family. yet only half of them felt able to put the food on the table each night. we want to ensure as a corporation that people don't have to choose between healthy food and affordable food. and we want to make shopping easier. that's what the company has recently unveiled an icon that

identifies what was typed, nutritious content and lower content of sodium and sugar. to make it easy to identify food that is good for your family. and the foundation is supporting this through nutrition education programs. like share our strength cooking batteries, which teaches people to cook on a budget such as passionate helping meals for their families. while wal-mart and the walmart foundation can do a lot, we can't do this alone. it's a core part of our commitment of building partnerships because we know this will be solved independently. and we need the governors across the nation to continue making this a priority. your power to convene state, nonprofit, and corporate partners to really put this issue in the forefront and put together in one plan to move these numbers is a central. and where you're taking leadership we are seeing results. you've talked a bit about the no

kid of the campaigns in virginia and arkansas. each of those states in the first year added over 100 summer meal sites last year on. so the numbers can improve. we're also seeing the growing utilization of the universal and classroom breakfast. we funded a work in five districts last year, and in just those five districts, over 10,000 kids were added to the breakfast program. this is an important investment because it increases educational attainment while decreasing hunger, obesity, tardiness and behavioral problems. we are also seeing a growing number of states simplifying and streamlining programs to make sure those eligible are enrolled. your leadership and voice to get programs like these in the forefront takes steps, particularly to utilize the federal dollars available. are absolutely critical to making a difference. at wal-mart we are proud to be part of the growing team

focusing on this issue. we feel like it's an important step to helping healthy lives and end hunger. thank you for having me today, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. >> thank you, julie. and thanked wal-mart and the wal-mart foundation, and be sure that you spread the word that all of us are grateful for your commitment, both substantively and financially. it's really important. dan is doing great work, too. dan, why don't you tell us what is going on? >> thank you. and thank you for the kind introduction. and thank you to the governors on the committee for allowing the opportunity to speak to again, i'm dan weekley, dominion resources. dominion is one of virginia's largest corporation. we're also a large electric and natural gas utility serving various parts of the country. it's a privilege to speak to today. before i begin, the biggest part of my comments, i also want to take the opportunity to thank the nga for having their annual meeting in the state of virginia

this year, and more specifically at williamsburg. i'm aware governor mcdonnell and the first lady and their staffs are hard at work comes with afford using all of you in waynesburg in a few months. dominion is a sponsor of the no kid hunger campaign in virginia which was launched in june 2011 by governor mcdonnell, the federation of food banks across virginia, and the share our strength organization. we are also very pleased that secretary vilsack was able to attend that event as governor mcdonnell already mentioned. before i really talk about the no kid hunger campaign in virginia i just want to give you quick background on the philanthropic activity that dominion resources is involved with. first of all we're a large energy company. we serve about 69 customers in 14 states. one of the things we have learned from the very beginning is we need to have that strong connection in our communities where we have customers, and just as important where our employees live and work. so we recognize where a part of that commitment. we would come back and say we

have a corporate responsibility in each one of those communities. when we get similar to all wal-mart, our philanthropic activities it through our foundation which we call dominion foundation, that we approach it from a very decentralized approach, even though we are headquartered in richmond, virginia, and have those operations in many states, we actually give the ability to donate and what activities to get involved with it in each region state through employee led groups, which we call community investment boards. they decide, they live in those communities so they decide where those dollars are spent. they have a better purview of the landscape than we do, many hours or hundreds of miles away. so we give them as much spectrum to say what is important. they go through a process and come back and make presentations to us and say these are the things that we want to get involved with. but at the end of the day, the

decision with them, we think the model that has worked very good for dominion. and their overall mission is this, it's their job is to improve the social, physically economic well being of the communities that they are involved with. and to take for an example in 2011, dominion resources, we donated about $21 million across our system. and that takes in about 1300 501(c)(3) organizations across our blueprint. these contributions were centered in the areas of funding environmental organizations, education institutions, cultural and community development groups, and health and human services providers. i'm also proud of her company's matching gift program. we have about 16,000 employees, and, of course, a number of retirees. we have in matching gift program for both employees as well as retirees. again it's about all getting dollars into the committees. if the folks think it's

important enough to invest their own money in these communities, social activity, the company will match those dollars. now, turn specifically to the topic at hand, when i look at what dominion donated -- >> you've been watching some of the governors meeting from yesterday. you can watch the rest of it online at the c-span video library. we take you live now to the white house where we will hear from president obama shortly, and first governor heineman at the national governors association winter meeting here in washington. >> for an exceptional evening last night. but jack and i also decided that the reason we hear today is not to hear from jack or i got budget from the president and the vice president. and so in the spirit of governor beebe, we agreed we're going to keep this short, and it's now my pleasure to introduce the vice president of the united states, joe biden. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you all very much. the good news is you're not going to have to much from the vice president. but folks, look, one of the things first of all, i had a great time last night at dinner. had a chance to have some real conversation with a bunch of you, and you know, for all the differences that we have politically, i think there's a sense of inevitability about america. my dad used to say no matter who's in charge, no matter how long they are in charge, the american people are so much bigger, so much better, so much capable than any governor in either party can be. there's an inevitability it's coming back to a lot has changed. a lot of you came in the same time we did. we came into office and we were in freefall. the middle class was and still

is just clamoring to just hang on, just to make it. and a lot has changed but a lot has changed. and what most has changed is not all better go with 23 months, consecutive months of private sector employment over three and a half million jobs, after losing over eight and half million jobs. we disagree on some of the policy prescription but there's two points i want to make to you. one is that a lot of, and it had a chance to be in a number of your state, democrat and republican, i know some states are fair and better than others but some states are doing just fine. some states are late to the beginning of the recovery here, and it varies from state to state and based on your economies and based upon what you have relied upon in order to generate economic growth for your state. but one thing i think i heard last night from a whole bunch of you, at least a dozen, democrat and republican, that certain things are coming back. manufacturing is coming back in

the united states of america. for real. one of the points i want to make he is there's a reason for us to disagree on policy but i don't think there's any reason for us to be doubtful that there's an inevitability that america is regaining its strength and leading the 21st century economically but i'd like to put a couple things in perspective. the governors have heard me say this one were out in california with vice president she of china. we were in a situation in estates were our economy is three times larger than the next become in the world. were larger than that for economies combined. we're better positioned than any nation in the world to dominate economic the first half of 21st century. we are better positioned -- [applause] not because of us. not because those in office, which is better positioned if you just look at the hard numbers, look at the problems facing the countries and regions of the world faced relative to ours.

secondly, we are also in a position that if we get our folks a fighting chance, i guess i was saying this to the president, i think the american people are just tired of being target is to be the expression of the civil rights movement. they are sick and tired of being sick and tired that i think the american people are tired of being tired. they are tired of being told how bad things are. they are tired of trying to deal with things that they're ready to get up and they are looking for a, looking for all of us, democrats and republicans, to let them know that we think, we think as well it's time to just get up. just get up and start to move. and ladies and gentlemen, we will disagree on a bunch of things, but one of things i think we all agree on, we need a better education system in america. we are ranks 16th in the world that the gadget will be that way if we're come into the percent, toledo in congress into is not

possible. we have made great strides in terms of being less reliant on foreign oil than we have anytime in the last 16 years. we're in a position, a long way to go, a long way to go but we have to figure out the places he can cooperate here. the american people are looking for us to cooperate. that's what you governors do best. you cooperate with one another. you know we have to get things done. ladies and gentlemen, i just want you to know that in terms of cooperation, we are open for business. the president is open for business. i'm open for business. we have a better idea. we will push that idea. the bottom line here is the american people as i said, they are ready, they are convinced we are able to take back what we lost. they are convinced were able to lead the world, and i would like now to introduce to the guy who is leading our efforts and looking forward to working with all of you in an effort to do that, president barack obama. [applause]

>> thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you so much. thank you. please, everybody have a seat. have a seat. thank you, joe, for the outstanding work you're doing on behalf of the reagan people every day. i want to thank all the memories of my cabinet and administration support here today. i want to thank dave heineman and jack markell for the outstanding leadership that they have shown as they have chaired and co-chaired the nga. i'm glad he's see that everyone has recovered from the while time we have last night. [laughter] it was wonderful to have all of you here. and i always look forward to this event, because governors are in the frontline of america's recovery. you see up close what's working, what's not working, and where we can take it. and the thing that connects all

of us, no matter what part of the country we're from, certainly no part of what part we belong to come is we know what it means to govern, what it means to make tough choices during tough times. and hopefully to forge some common ground. we've all felt the weight of big decisions, and impact that those decisions have on the people that we represent. i first addressed this group three years ago, and it was the moment, as joe mentioned, when the economy was in a freefall. some of you were just coming in to office at the time as well. hundreds of thousands of americans were losing their jobs or their homes every month. businesses were closing their doors at a heartbreaking pace. our entire auto industry was on the verge of collapse, and all told, the prospects of us going into a full-blown depression were very real. today, there's no doubt that enormous challenges remain, but

the fact of the matter is that over the last two years american businesses have created 3.7 million new jobs. manufacturers are hiring for the first time since the 1990s. the auto industry is back. i recovery is gaining speed, and the economy is getting stronger. we've got to do everything we can to make sure that that we sustain this progress. that means we've got to strengthen an american manufacturing so that more and more good jobs and products are made here in america. it means we've got to develop new sources of american energy so that we're less dependent on foreign oil, and the yearly spikes in gas prices. and it means that we've got to make sure that every american is equipped with the skills, the education, that they need to compete for the jobs of tomorrow, as was the jobs of today. that's what i want to talk to you governors a little bit about. no issue will have a bigger

impact on the future performance of our economy and education. in the long run it's going to depend, determine whether a this is stay here. it will determine whether businesses are created here, whether businesses are hiring here. it will determine whether there's going to be an abundance of good middle-class jobs in america. today, the unemployment rate for americans with at least a college degree is about half the national average. their incomes are about twice as high as those who only have a high school diploma. so this is what we should be focused on as a nation, this is what we should be talking about and debating. the country to out-educate us today will outcompete is tomorrow. that's a simple fact. if we want america to continue to be number one and sustainable one, we've got some work to do. now, in the last three years,

the good news is we've made some important progress. working together. we have broken through the traditional stalemate between left and right by launching a national competition to improve our schools. and i think army has done an outstanding job saying we've got to get past the old a dog is, whether the dog was on the liberal side or the conservative side, and figured out what works. we've invested but we've invested in reform. and for less than 1% of what our nation spends on education each year, almost all of you have agreed to raise standards for teaching and learning. that's the first time that's happened in a generation. democrats and republicans to try to fix no child left behind. we said that if you're willing to set higher more honest standards, then we will give you more flexibility to meet those standards. earlier this month i announced the first in 11 states to get a

waiver from no child left behind, and i hope that we are going be adding more states soon. i believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level. and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact. i realize that everybody is dealing with limited resources. trust me, i know something about trying to deal with it tight budgets. we've all faced stark choices over the past several years, but that is no excuse to lose sight of what matters most. the fact is that too many states are making cuts to education that i believe are simply too big. nothing more clearly signals what you value as a state than the decisions you make about where to invest. budgets are about choices, so today i'm calling on all of you, invest more in education, invest more in our children and in our future. that doesn't mean you've got to

invest in things that are not working. that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to break some china and move aggressively on reform, but the fact of the matter is we don't have to choose between resources and reform. we need resources and reform. there are two areas in education that demand our immediate focus. first, we have just got to get more teachers in our classrooms. over the past four years, school districts across america have lost over 250,000 educators. 250,000 teachers, educators have been lost. think about that. a quarter million educators responsible for millions our students, all laid off when america has never needed them more. other countries are doubling down on education, and their investment in teachers. we should, too. each of us is here only because at some point in our lives a

teacher changed our life trajectory. the impact is often much bigger than even we realized. one study found that a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. one teacher. one classroom. and a great teacher offers potentially an escape for a child who is dreaming beyond his circumstances. the point is, teachers matter, and all of us have to recognize that. we've got to put our money behind that. we want to help you every place that we can. at the federal level we've provided billions of dollars in funding to help keep hundreds of thousands of teachers in the classroom. and the cornerstone of the jobs plan i put forward in september, a chunk of which has gotten done but a chunk of which remains undone, was to provide even more funding so that you can prevent further layoffs and retired teachers that had lost their jobs. i would like to thank those of you in the room who voiced

support for that ever. congress still is in a position to do the right thing. they can keep more teachers in the classroom but you've got to keep the pressure up on them to get this done. the secondary in where we have to bring greater focus is higher education. the jobs of the future are increasingly going to those with more than a high school degree. and i've to make a point here. when i speak about higher education, we are not just talking about a four year degree. we are talking about somebody going to community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door, handling a million dollar piece of equipment. they can't go into a less than some have some basic dream. beyond what they received in high school. we all want americans getting those jobs of the future. so we will have to make sure that they're getting the education that they need. it starts by the way with just what kind of expectation on the

ground rules we are setting for in high school. right now, 21 states require students to stay in high school into the graduate, or turn 18. 21 states. that means 29 don't. i believe that's the right thing to do, for us to make sure, to send a message to our young people, you graduate from high school, at a minimum. i urge others to follow suit of those 21 states. now, for students that are ready for college, we've got to make sure that college is affordable. today, graduates who take out loans, leave college owing an average of $25,000. that's a staggering amount for young people. americans now own more in the student loan debt and in credit card debt. there's only more of americans out there, so much to offer who are saddled with debt before the even start out life. the very idea of owing that much money puts college out of reach for far too many families.

so this is a major problem that must be fixed. i addressed in the state of the union. we have a role to play here. my grandfather got a chance to go to college because americans and congress decided that every returning veteran from world war ii should be able to afford it. my mother was able to raise two kids by herself while still going to college and getting an advanced degree because she was able to get grants and work study while she was in school. michelle and i are only here today because scholarships and student loans gave us a good shot at a great education. and it wasn't easy to pay off these loans, but it sure wasn't as hard as it is for a lot of kids today. so my administration is trying to do our part by making sure the student loans program puts students before banks, by the increasing aid like the pell grants or millions of students and their families. and by allowing students to cap their monthly loan payment at 10% of their income, which means

that the repayment schedule is a manageable. congress still needs to do its part by first of all keeping student interest rates low. right now they are scheduled to double at the end of july if congress does not act, and that would be a real tragedy for an awful lot of families around the country. they also need to extend the tuition tax credit for the middle class. to protect pell grants and expand work study programs. but it's not enough to just focus on student aid. we can't just keep on at the federal level subsidizing skyrocketing tuition. tuition is going up faster than inflation. faster actually that health care costs. no matter how much we subsidize, sooner or later we're going to run out of money. so everybody else is going to have to do their part as well. this is not just a matter of the federal government coming up with more and more money. that means colleges and universities are going to have

to help to make their tuition more affordable. and i have put them on notice, if they are not taking some concrete steps to prevent tuition from going up, then federal funding for taxpayers is going to go down. we've got to incentivize better practice in terms of keeping costs under control. and all of you have a role to play by making higher education a higher priority in your budgets. over two-thirds of students attend public colleges and universities, where traditionally tradition has been affordable because of state investments. and that's something to every state takes pride in. that's the crown jewel in fact of our economic system, is by far we have the best network of colleges, universities in the world. but more than 40 states have cut funding for higher education over the past year. this is just the peak of what has been a long-term threat in reduce state support for higher

education. state budget cuts have been among the largest factor in tuition hikes and public colleges over the past decade. so my administration can do more. congress can do more. colleges have to do more. but unless all of you also do more, this problem will not get solved. it can be done though. jack o'malley, where is jack? are right. martin. where is martin. sorry. [inaudible] >> right, right, right. [laughter] martin and maryland is doing some outstanding work. he worked with the legislature to keep tuition down by controlling costs and cutting spending on college campuses, and you're seeing a real impact from the flagship at the university of maryland all the way down. and a lot of you were starting to experiment with this as well. we can't allow higher education to be a luxury in this country.

it's an economic imperative that every family in america has to be able to afford. and franken i don't think any of this should be a partisan issue. all of us should be about giving every american who wants a chance to succeed that chance. [applause] >> so let me -- let me wrap up by saying, you know, a few was to go i held right here in this room and in the agile and one of my favorite events, and it is the white house science fair. we invited students from a lot of your states him and they showcase projects that covered the full range of scientific discovery. we have a group of kids from texas, young latino women, who came from the poorest section of texas, and yet were raining country and winning rocket competition. they could only afford one

rockets of the couldn't test it. and they had to get it just right. and their parents ran bake sales so they could travel to these events. and you had a young woman he was from long island, had been studying mussels and one of the and oceanographer. one the intel science award. while she was homeless. her family had lost their home she was living in. out of the car and her family, on their families catch her and still was able to stay focused and achieve what was just remarkable. there was a kid, decatur action got the most attention was a young man named joey of arizona. that's because joey let me fire off an extreme marshmallow cannon.

we did it right here in this room. we shot it from here. we pump it up. it almost hit that light. i thought it was a lot of fun. and while they can was impressive, joey left a bigger impression because he had already printed out his own business card. he was 14 years old, and he was handed out to everybody, including me. [laughter] is on the shortlist for a cabinet post. [laughter] under his name on each card was a simple motto, don't be bored, do something. don't be bored, do something. don't be bored, make something. all across this country, there are kids like joey you are dreaming big and are doing things and making things. and we want them to reach those heights. they are willing to work hard. they are willing to dig deep to achieve. and we've got a responsibility

to give them a fair shot. if we do and i'm absolutely convinced that our future is going to be as bright as all of us want. so, this is going to be something that i want to collaborate with all of you on. if you have ideas on how we can make our education system work better, i want to want to live in today and arne duncan will want to hear them for the rest of the time that he is the education secretary, the rest of the i am president. thank you for your time, everybody. [applause] so i think we will, we will clear everybody out almond and then we're going to take some questions. >> congress returns today from its weeklong presidents' day recess.

>> there are millions of decent americans want to sacrifice for change, but they want to do it without being threatened, and they want to do it peacefully. they are the nonviolent majority, black and white, who

are for change without violence. these are the people whose voice i want to be. as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 14 in the rain for the office, and lost. go to our website c-span.org/thecontenders to see video of the contenders what a lasting impact on american politics make can join them and the depression, those of you in my age, when times are really hard and we left the doors unlocked? now we have the most violent crime ridden society in the industrialized world. now, i can't live with that. can you live without? >> no. >> c-span.org/thecontenders. >> russian prime minister vladimir putin is running for a third term as president. he last served as russia's president from 2000-2008. he spoke last week to supporters in moscow. russia's presidential election will be held march 4 with recent

polls showing mr. putin widely expected to win. his remarks in moscow were about half an hour. ♪ bee ♪ ♪ [cheers and applause] thank you. there is no other alternative. thank you. thank you, thank you.

dear friends, it is so nice to see so many women out here at luzhniki stadium come in sports, and politics, in show business. women, men, are the greatest single driving force, motivator. women, speak up. i want to hear you. there are so many real men here today, strong willed, ambitious, goal oriented. it is on your shoulders that this country stands on. are there any men like this here in luzhniki? yes. well done. >> have you noticed women seem to be more active. hey, ladies, speak out. >> guys, why don't you show us what you are capable of? to. >> ladies, i think we've outdone the guys here. we have been way louder.

>> dear friends, right on the stage in front of you, in front of this whole big country you will see people who do care about how we will live in the future. dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a brilliant reporter, tv personality, mikael. [speaking in russian] >> translator: happy holiday. happy day of the fatherland. this is the most appropriate day for us to have a rally to support our candidate, because 12 years ago, had he not done what he did, we would not have a fatherland to speak up. as a matter fact, it was almost gone then.

the solution to the russian issue was only a few months away, and it would not have been a fatherland. today, we do have a country. today, we do have an opportunity ourselves without playing to anybody else, to choose their future. let no one have any doubt, russia will make the right choice. our opponents, our opponents are hoping for collective amnesia. they are hoping that the people have lost their memory. amnesia is not subject to political discussion. amnesia is something you take to the doctor's office. they want to bring us back to a point in time that occurred 20 years ago. they want us to repeat an attempt at national suicide. that will not happen. the victory will be ours. the enemy will be routed. here is for putin, here is for

victory. [speaking in russian] >> translator: thank you. and now, please give it up for a coal miner, the chairman of russia's independent trade union of the coal mining industry. [speaking in russian] >> translator: dear muscovites, dear citizens of russia, we have gathered here today to determine our future, that of our children and our grandchildren we need a strong russia. we need stability. we need development. we need prospects. we are a wealthy country, and we can be a prosperous russia. all the ethnic groups that live in russia constitute one single family. and we are here today to say that we will not have anybody boss russia around and give us commands in our own house. we want to live peacefully with our neighboring countries. we can see though that things

are not smooth and calm in europe, or latin america, countries are being destroyed in the middle east. we all know why it is happening. it is a creeping war for the resources and wealth of nations, especially small nation. we don't want revolution. we don't want wars. we won't let anybody disrupt our peace. we are a peaceful nation. we want peace all over the world. we need a strong russia. we need a strong skilled and knowledgeable leader who understands the life of the people. we do have a leader like that. his name is vladimir putin. [cheers and applause] [speaking in russian] >> translator: on behalf of thousands of coal miners, i am calling on you to come to the polling station on march 4, and to cast your vote. for thousands, russia's been part of this world with its complicated and difficult history. we will not let anybody define

our future for us, only we by coming to the election on march 4 can determine the future of this country. russia has been in and will be a great country with our president. our president is vladimir putin. thank you very much. [speaking in russian] >> translator: well put. it is such a happens that we have an opportunity to live in moscow, this wonderful city of ours. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the mayor of moscow, sergei. [applause] [speaking in russian] >> translator: good afternoon, muscovites. let us greet and welcome our

friends who are watching us in parts of russia. array. never has luzhniki seen such a massive crowd that has gathered here today to express their political will. the will to make the right choice. a choice that will determine the future of this land by every single one of us. and it is not an accident that there are so many people here, gathered here today. moscow has always been the arena of the most important historic events, and we have a reliable historical memory. and we know what can be the

outcome of promises given by politicians, sometimes that outcome is complete and published of the people and complete destruction of the country. and once again, we are being asked to go to the barricades, destroy everything that has been done, and to start from scratch. let us say whether or not we believe those petty politicians. no, we do not. but we do have a candidate for the post of president who doesn't just pay lip service, who works hard, works like a horse, who has regathered russia again, who has force all countries of the world to show respect for russia. we know this person. yes, this is vladimir putin. and i know him very well. i have known him since i used to work in siberia.

i know him now that i work in moscow. i know how this individual treats ordinary people, how he treats regions. i know how he makes decisions. i know how the buck stops at his desk. he is a real man. he is a real leader. he is a man of his word. we will give him our support, friends. [speaking in russian] >> translator: this country has a leader. this country has a future to look forward to. and here in russia, we have everything for that. we have wonderful supremely talented people. we have vast mineral resources. we have a giant amount of lead. ..