most part, we said, realm, we have to look at the other criteria, and we might be splitting a city if we nest, and if you look at the draft map, we nested a bunch. we got tired frankly. when we put the first draff together, we ran out of time at the very end, nested districts, and that didn't work. we changed it on the final map. i think the effects are cumulative certainly, but, yeah, i don't know. it's worth speculation. it's a very, very important point to raise. >> i had a question on what nate said about the commission going forward. the worry about commissions 1 partisans influence it at some point whether it's an expert commission or whatever, and the interesting thing about your experience and british columbia citizens assembly doing something different than you were, is the first round, the

partisans had not figured out how to influence what was going on. that is, they had not mastered it yet. i will say, one of my students who has extensive political experience and is now writing a paper on the commission turned to me cackling with glee and said i can figure out so many ways to influence these guys, and, you know, do you have a worry that as time goes on, the partisans interested in the results of this in every possible way and have more interest than anybody else find a way to game the system or do you feel you're insulated enough from it because they are not the decision makers that you can sort of keep doing a good job going forward? >> that's a real concern. we had considerations about that over dinner. it's a really great experience, and it's never going to be like this ever again because -- not to say you can't take the politics -- however you do it, there's politics involved, and by design there's a certain number of politics on the

commission. there's checks that we think are good in terms of disclosures, financial contributions, affiliations, you know, can you come up with a partisan and turn them into non-partisan over the course of ten years? that's certainly possible. you know, what can you do about that is a good question. you know, there's been media reports in the last few weeks talking about whether the democratic party had sort of conspired to try to fool the commission and put folks into the testimony who are not really who they said they were. i don't know if that's true or not, but, you know, we knew early on that a lot of the groups we're hearing from is where do the groups come from; right? i never heard the groups. not to say they are front groups, but if you're trying to do this process, you're going to say, well, i represent this coalition, even though, by the way, i could be running for the office at some point, but i represent this coalition or i'm with this community.

we figured out that pretty early that not everybody was being upfront about who they were affiliated with. to say we were hoodwinked by the democratic party is not accurate, but if that did happen, so what? if the suggestion was a good one and it made sense given what we were trying to do to the problem solving, and if that decision came from one source, that's fine. we'll take it. it could help us figure out how the puzzle pieces could be put together, but, yeah, i think that -- if you're a democrat or republican leader, you might be thinking about that actually. how do we get people on this commission -- we got ten years to figure this out and get our people on the commission. i don't know that you, you know, you can completely insulate this process from that kind of, you know, infiltration, but that from happening, but i think that, you know, those -- the audits, by the way, composed of

mostly of accounts, but they do investigation. they are careful about it, and dug into people's backgrounds thoroughly, and so i trusted that they can do a good job vetting people, but there's no question given the system and how it currently works, you don't want to change it if you like what you get it or game it a little. not to point fingers at anybody, but i suspect that will happen in the future. >> [inaudible] i was spectacle -- [inaudible] one question relating to what you were saying was how you evaluate community of interest arguments. so much of it is going context,

but how you balance community of interest parties, and i hope you write a book actually about your experience. [laughter] you know, something other people that would be wonderful to have somebody on the inside. as soon as you get there -- >> not while we're in litigation. [laughter] >> but just, you know, lessons not just for the redistricting process, but for others as well, and i've certainly been in situations where the balance, you contradict the arguments about the community of interest, and you were with 13 other colleagues, and so i'm interested, if you can, to give us a sense how those arguments were dealt with by the commission, and how you mediated between them. >> yeah. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, and community of interests is a slippery concept. we have at least one of our panel participants trying to give it a little more flesh this

afternoon. there's more specific language that came in terns of prop 20. it was a very interesting phrase, and still is an interesting phrase, and a lot of my colleagues on the commission, i think interpreted it more broadly than what the constitution said. i was pushing for it. this is local communities of interest, and hear are the examples. there may be various ways of defining a community, and i think that's fine to do that, and i don't think -- i don't think we had to lock into a single fixed definition. this is a community and this is not a community, but when you look at what the testimony, look at how the public looked at the term, how the commissioners looked at the term at the time, very broad. you know, the san gabriel mountain community of interest spans hups of miles. the coastal community of interest. the northern california community of interest.

those are common interests, and i think that's not the same common interest or related interest is not the same as saying local community interest as defined by the law, so there was imprecision in trying to do that, and there was certainly conflicting testimony, and there's always a level of conflict with any definition. well, my community goes from this street to this street, and some say, no, no, it's that street to that street. if you butt them up together, that's going to be a disservice to both. you have to pick one or the other; right? here's where the latino community ends versus the asian community, and where the line is drawn is on maybury street or another. pick one. i work in the area. that was probably the most slippery of the criteria we had to deal with. you know, i permly push to make sure we had some good definitions for neighborhoods, and i said we have the los

angeles neighborhood boundaries and define boundaries. let's use those maps. it'll be helpful. same with san fransisco and san jose, try to rely on some additional data, and i think that was helpful in some of the definitions. community of interest was very slippery, and for us, and i think there could be more precision, but i'm not going to second guess how other commissions were looking at it, and ultimately, we got to the same place once it came down to drawing the final maps, but it is not easy, and, again, could you rely more on empirical data rather than purely on testimony? sure, you can. this commission went out of its way to get public testimony. okay, if you think of what we set out to do, and i was spectacle when i heard the plans because i came on a little bit late in the process, and i heard people talking about 50, 60 here, and i thought, are you nuts? 50 or 60 hearings? i bought into the idea of interest. we better do a lot. no one's going to say -- well,

if i said, maybe we should do 20, i'd get shot down. let's do one refuel good hearing rather than two. it was not going to go that direction given where we were going and what people wanted to do. when you try it for the first time, and it's a really radically different kind of system, and you're trying to open it up, you may go overboard. that's okay. it was fine in the system, and if it was more democratic, all the better at this point, but ultimately still got to draw the maps. that's what's always tough. >> actually, nate just totally stole my question, but i have a follow-up along the same lines to ask you about. on community of interest, fascinated how you approach that. i guess what you said was really

interesting, but i wonder about one specific question which is one way of defining community interest would be to say we're going to look at demographic data and identify some group that we think there's underlying similarity, and we don't necessarily care about what the political preferences are. they may vote for candidates, but similar in an important way, and we define that as a community. that's a start. another is political preference saying these people prefer the same types of candidates, and there might be demographic difference among them; right? we see them as a political community. i wonder which you favor, what you learned about the process, and what's more important? >> yeah, that's good. i want to think about it more as i'm talking, but, you know, there is this sort of explicit prohibition against, you know, looking at incumbency and party data, and i suspect if we get into that discussion, you know, it makes a lot of sense to think

about, well, how does this collective, lack of a better term, actually sort of express its preferences; right? that might be along party lines, maybe along say based on race or ethnicity or something, pick your criteria, and it must be something different. i think that's worth looking at, and, again, i think with the luxury of time, i think with the caveat that we might not have looked at partisan data specific. i think that would have been taboo for us to look at it at this point, but would we have done more analysis or have a demographer on staff to do that? we had a lot of data in the statewide data base, and our team was very, very thorough in terms of putting autothe data sets -- all the data sets together, but there's no short of other data outside the census. could we look at other things? how do you vet the information? what if it conflicts with the testimony? again, in a lot of ways, we were

trying to have a people's process. i think that interest in opening it up to the public dominated our consideration. good or bad. i think the question is really one that, you know, i think in the future it ought to be dealt with more squarely, and i think we're sort of going through the evaluation process right now. it's something i've been raising a little bit, and i think i'll continue to raise it because we have the luck rights act of saying, well -- luxury of saying well, ten years from now, it's important to have this kind of data available to the commission, and once they figure out what they are going to do, maybe that's how they ought to do it. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] let's take our 5 minute break, and we'll start the other panel.

[inaudible conversations] >> coming up at this symposium, a discussion about the future of the voting rights acts. before that, though, a brief overview on the u.s. census and the redistricting process. >> joining us is morgan cullen of the national conference of state legislators. what is redistricting versus reapportionment, and why are states going through it now? >> caller: well, reapportionment really refers to the reallocation of congressional seats to states according to population, so following the census every ten years, you know, you take a population count, you figure out how, you know, the total population of each state, and then you reallocate the number of congressional seats based on that population. redistricting, the term "redistricting" has to do with the actual process of redrawing the maps.

>> it seems like every ten years when this happens, it's always a controversial thing when states go through this process of redistricting and reapportioning. >> caller: yeah, i mean, really the process of redistricting is inherently political, and the party that is in power, you know, often does try to use its majority to redraw a map that is advantageous to incumbents and the party that's in power, but there is a lot more that goes into it than that. you know, redistricting is governed by a body of state and federal laws, and so when drawing the lines, legislatures, you know, they're going to look at politics involved, but also look at things like equal population requirements. they have to comply with the voting righting acts, and they have to adhere to traditional redistricting principles. it is not just all about politics. >> where are the states now in regards to drawing congressional lines? >> caller: well, right now,

you know, 39 states have passed their congressional lines, and as you probably know, you know, seven states only have one congressional seat, so they don't have to redraw their congressional lines. florida and arizona are covered jurisdictions under section 5, so right now, they are awaiting preclearance from the department of justice before their plans are enagented. really the only two states now that have yet to finalize plans are kansas and new hampshire. kansas has passed their plans in the senate and just waiting for the house approval to pass their plans. new hampshire has passed their plans in the house, and they are just waiting for approval in the senate. most states have completed their congressional maps now. >> you mentioned section 5 and preclearance, what does that mean? >> caller: well, section 5 has to do with -- it has to do with section 5 of the voting rights act, and section 5 is reserved

for states that have shown a documented history of discrimination in their election laws. currently, there's 16 states that are either completely or partially covered under section 5 which simply means that they have to file for preclearance either with the department of justice or the dc district court before any changes can be made to their election laws, and that includes laws that govern redistricting as well. >> well that played a lot in the supreme court law in texas. where do things stand in texas with its redistricting efforts? >> caller: well, texas is a covered jurisdiction under section 5, and this round of redistricting, texas actually decided to go to dc district court instead of filing directly with the department of justice which is a much more time consumes process. the protracted legal battle that ensued created a lot of challenges for texas because

they had to delay their state's pry player by -- primary by three months in order to get things figured out. you know, the thick #* -- thing about texas and all eyes on texas right now because there's a ton politically at stake in texas right now and because of the huge growth that occurred in the state over ten years. texas grew by 4.5 million people and added four new congressional seats. the way things play out and the way the lines are ultimately drawn in texas could inevitably, will have a huge impact on the outcome in the 2012 elections. >> an update on state redistricting efforts with morgan cullen. thank you for joining us. >> caller: thank you. >> as you heard, texas is required under section 5 of the voting rights agent of 1965 to get advanced approval of voting changes from either the justice department or the u.s. district court. that case is still making its way through the courts.

next from stanford's forum on redistricting, we'll hear from attorneys and law professors on whether they think section 5 is constitutional. this final panel is an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> we're going to start again. thank you, all, for coming back in, and thank you for still being here. one of my favorite philosophers is satchel page who is famous for many things including telling you to not eat fried foods. thank you for helping us with lunch along those lines, but one of the other things he says is let whosoever sit around recollecting, i'm looking up the line, and i think that's a perfect name for this panel which is going to consider redistricting, partisanship in the future of the voting rights

act, but i want to start a little bit with the past of the voting rights agent because i think it situates many of the debates today. the year that the voting rights act was passed, langston hughes published a poem called "long view negro," and it goes like this. sited through the telescope of dreams, emancipation looms large. turn the telescope around, look through the larger end, and wonder why what was so large becomes so small again. we are now roughly a half century away from the second reconstruction of which the voting rights act was the crown jewel, and in many ways the voting rights act has been amazingly successful, and so we forget what prompted the voting rights act to be passed in the future. when we ask why the first reconstruction, which was roughly twice as far from the

voting rights act as we are from the voting rights agent in the opposite direction, that is 100 years from the first reconstruction to the voting rights act, and now 50 years from the voting rights act to today, and asked why the first reconstruction failed. there were a number of reasons for that. one was the exhaustion of the national commitment to racial justice and its replacement by cynical bipartisan compromise in which the in's kept themselves in and the out's out. a second was a progressive belief and progressives used the word to describe themselves, but a progressive belief that ethnic politics was the enemy of good government and purging race from the political process is important. yet a third reason was the united states supreme court which in a series of decisions from united states against crook shank gutted the protections of

the first reconstruction and gutted the ability of minority communities to protect themselves to the political process. president johnson, when he signed the voting rights act called it one of the most monumental laws in american freedom, and then in the colorful johnson way called it the god damn voting rights that his congress could provide. he also was part of the civil rights act of 1964 that i think we just delivered the south to the republican party for a long time to come. partisanship and the voting rights act have been connected and intertwined in interesting and important ways. our panel today is going to look at those issues from a variety perspective, and i'll introduce the panelists briefly in the order they're going to speak. ellen cass is a professor of law at the university of michigan law school where she writes and teaches about election law,

civil rights, and remedies and equal protection. she's written major scholarships including one of the largest studies of section 2 of the voting rights act, and she has a contribution to the symposium here at the stanford law and policy review called democrats at doj, why partisan use of the voting rights act might not be so bad after all. before teaching, she worked at the department of justice. joshua tompson is -- thoferson -- thompson is a prom innocent leader of the organization, and he was co-authored the brief to the supreme court in northwest austin municipal utility district number one against holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of section 5 of the voting rights act, an issue that we know is about to return to the supreme court in a variety of ways.

finally, nina perales is the mention-american legal defense education fund, and in that role and other things, she supervised offices throughout the united states in the voting rights dockets. she is particularly prominent voting rights attorney. most recently, she was the last winner of the section 2 case at the u.s. supreme court for the plaintiff's side and in a case we discussed quite a bit this morning, and she is one of the lead lawyers in the current redistricting case working its way through the western district of texas, through the district of the district of columbia and the supreme court so it's a kind of trifecta. the panelists are each going to speak for 10 to 15 minutes, and then we'll turn to questions about changes in the world since the voting rights act, what the

changes portend and think about how the act is applied and, indeed, whether the act survives into the future, so, hellen? >> thank you. it's great to be here. it's been a great day so far. i want to thank alex and slipper. i didn't know that's what it was called, for organizing a really terrific event. i won't talk the texas case in detail, but i want to start there with a simple observation, and that is that much of the mess that's going on in texas would not have happened if john mccain was president of the united states, and that a republican, by which i mean a republican controlled department of justice would have almost certainly approved the texas plans by now, almost certainly as is. it wouldn't have stopped the litigation. there would still be much to fight about, but in that respect, at least some of that mess wouldn't have happened. the attorney regime of texas never asked the department of justice to approve the texas

plan opting instead going to district court thinking president obama's justice department would not view the plans kindly or favorably given the partisan implications and the civil rights objections raised from the beginning, and that protection was uncorrect, and the justice department has raised a number of quite serious objections to the plan. in i think important respects, texas dispute provides an impage of the last decade only with the republican and democratic roles reversed. pam spoke of one this morning, and there was a democratic attorney general thinking that the justice department, that george bush's department, would not look kindly on a democratically gerrymandered plan, and george bush's department did, indeed, raise objections in court. i don't want to explore the

statutory questions at issue in that case, but one of the things that's clear in the case is the department of justice positions in the case is the republican party had democrats in control at the time, the democratic doj would have approved that plan readily, and what i think both of these cases standing side by side show is something that we all know, and that's that democrats and republicans impose voting rights differently. democrats enforce them in ways that benefit the democratic party, and republicans do likewise. this corresponds to democrats writing an act more aggressively, but not always, and i think georgia versus ashcroft is the same to the contrary. what i want to explore here is the question of whether we should be worried about this, and whether democrats and republicans enforce the voting rights act prevents the statute

from operating effectively or as we hope it would, and in thinking about the question, i want to assume or i'm going to assume that the party of the sitting president stands to benefit from the enforcement actions taken by the department of justice. i want to be agnostic and ask you to be agnostic as well and ask you whether that describes any particular enforcement decision. i want 20 assume that's what's going on, and i don't want to make the argument that, in fact, democrats and republicans are necessarily seeking partisan gain when they make any particular decision, but what if they were? imagine, for instance, that attorney general perez says something to the effect that the didn't of justice's position in the pending texas versus united states is an effort to block an aggressive republican gerrymander, and we use the voter rights act as a convenient legal hook to purr back against it. now, he, of course, never said

any such thing. he said quite the opposite, but assume he said it and it describes what the department of justice was up in in this case. should we be worried? what i want to suggest or explore is the idea that maybe not. maybe we should not be worried, and maybe it should not be a problem like in the case of texas versus the united states. in pursuing this claim, we have to part company with many commentators, many in this room, who viewed voting rights act as distasteful or even destructive. i'm going to push on the notion not just that the voting rights act is benign, but rather that the practice actually helps facilitate the act in important ways. to do that or to develop those plans, i want to do two things. first, i want to briefly look at two objections to partisan use

of the voting rights act and knock them down and raise a broader point about the practice more generally. two objections there. there's others, but two objections. one are the claims brought forth when the statute is used for partisan purposes are frivolous and factually are unsub stanuated and manufactured to serve distinct ends. the disputed underlie the claim, not racial, and that those unhappy with the districting plans suffer as members of a political party, not as members of a racial group and assert a racial claim under the voting rights act is factual era. related to that is a second objection that it's not just era or factually wrong, but it does affirmative damage, that the recasting of a partisan dispute in racial terms racializes the dispute and gives rise to what

the statute was meant to address in polarization. it makes things worse as a consequence, and in a nutshell, what i want to say is that i think they fundamentally mistake cause and effect. california side, redistricting is a partisan process or almost always a partisan process, but it's achieved or it's done through what are rates base a moves in most jurisdiction. it relies on close connection of race and party in most jurisdictions. it's not an accident that georgia democrats unpacked african-american districts to achieve the ends of their partisan gerrymander. it's not an accident? texz that republicans are achieving partisan ends by moving latino voters all around the state and where they draw. . .

in a lot of these cases we might need partisan motivation to explain the rules. the claims have been raised, even if they are not always successful. so i want to just have partisan motivation at least in certain kinds of cases like assuming what is going on. it is not the top of what it is

often assumed to be in providing push back the partisan districting lives at themselves provide connection between the party. but i want to also suggest or ask a broader point about partisan voting rights act. it may present officials and an additional sensor data helps us see the ways in which the mission underlines the voting rights act has in fact involves an expanded over the years. the statue proves repeatedly that we put into place when local majorities were unwilling to much less enforce the voting rights. and it continues to serve the important functions in fighting discrimination in various forms, but it also does something else. it provides a forum to dissolve dispute resolution mechanisms by which it sets forth a complex

substitute of procedures to which specific parties hash out and resolve competing claims about minority participation in the major recovery system. and to think that function is important. there are other ways they can assess the questions of equality here in the political process. and i think the value of voting as a revolutionary mechanism and lies not simply in it majority to other forms of dispute resolution or even in its historical resilient to which i think is actually significant. rather, i think its value lies in the fact that it operates as a tolerable form of dispute resolution. and i really do need tolerable. i might be more generous and say it they are in effect give in many situations. but the point i want to make her a tolerable is actually good

enough because tolerable captures the role it plays. it is tolerable existence simply because of the excess can rely on it and this is the point i can convince u.s. by empowering the ways in which it would act would be recognized to believe the local officials of political coverage against a majority that may not be so willing. they are powering msn some local officials to underline the statute. on the larger literature and wave power can be elected for prescription it offers computing questions about equality.

there's a dispute here and the republicans are controlled the process. the democrats are trying to get as many as possible. and very quickly the question becomes how many points will be allowed in the midst of this fight. it continues now with an open-ended way about what equality might require within a much more limited inquiry about what the voting right requires. it is disputed hotly and we won't see revolution to it. but the world is not eliminating the controversy by giving norms and procedures to which that claim is going to be litigated and resolved. it has to comply with the voting

rights acts are not going to be opposed. in texas namesake to respond. that conversation continues. we can assume that everybody is motivated by partisan name. and still the voting rights act is performing an important function, a vital function and performing the procedures and rules in which the debate occurs. it's a way of hashing out the claims of equality to ask why distillate channeling. i think it allows the participants and claims they are making for all that has been generated that might otherwise when they are debated. and it enables others to think about the statue too frequently

in negative terms as a constraint, as binding us to the max if you look to prevent us from doing things that might otherwise do. i think it has an affirmative quality that is important to recognize, not simply to give us a more complete picture of what the statute does, but it also gives us and makes us aware of what would be lost. one of the reasons i think the voting rights act actually so vulnerable today is because it is too often perceived as too narrowly. there's tons of today. i've participated in people in this room participate how it is as a constraint and whether or not it is still needed in those ways. and what i want to suggest a close with this thought that it is more than a constraint. it's more than a constraint vocal power. even if that congress actually evolved and developed into shooting away at nonexisting drive, even if that were true

what is the critical function in healthy localities assess results to these issues come issues recurring and unavoidable come issues like influence latino voters in texas and questions that are not amenable to a permanent solution book, not again and again. and the reason is not that racism has necessarily underlie the resolution all the way melby underlying the resolution. but because the discrimination of the voting rights act in the first place in our long-standing efforts to address it have shaped the political landscape in enduring way. the result is that all public officials, even of goodwill are not news to confront the complex issue and i think the voting rights act provides critical assistance in helping them through this in ways that are actually not constraining, but frankly empowering. i have more to say, but i think there's assistance to do more

than bolster the regime validity. it provides an independent basis for us whether or not it's fair. >> thank you. i'm joslyn thompson. i just want to thank flipper and alex for inviting me here. i'm a last-minute replacement for abigail stenstrom thernstrom. she's probably forgotten more about the voting rights act than i will ever know. but nonetheless i'm going to try to develop a few things i think she was supported and that is the section five of the voting rights act is unconstitutional and the courts will find it unconstitutional. my thesis is not that the voting rights -- section five of the voting rights act must be yours always unconstitutional. it is that is constantly unconstitutional. section five is the 16th amendment romania powers and requires to achieve preclearance as originally understood.

because the remedial powers must be current proportional may be disputed over in northwest austin and concurrent proportional. so in other words section five must be a concurrent proportional remedy for minorities. and when section five was passed in 1965, we were 100 years after the 15th amendment. we were in a true state of discrimination, disenfranchisement of african-americans in the south is just as common in northwest austin were called to mayoral candidate who persuade voters to shoot in their tracks and african american missile voting. at that time, and time, mississippi had 7% african american registration rates 19% while white voting was well over 50% higher.

how did these states achieve rapid disenfranchisement of blacks? at the time was primarily done through that receipt testing bush section five of the voting rights act basically outlaws. but more importantly, it was a continuous effort by over 100 years to change them into voting for this is to disenfranchise african-american. the literacy tests, for example, would ask things as ridiculous as the examples or how many bubbles are in a soap are and ask african-americans to be the content of the beijing daily. so this is the state of affairs in 19 x defies and proposes a remedy to gain 15th amendment rights. it is keen at that time as an extreme temporary remedy initially to have for five years. chief justice moore and come on

the section five was first up for constitutionality called and exercises that would not have been appropriate absent the unique circumstances present in the jurisdiction. in the descent they describe section five by providing some other states do not pass the state lacerate up state constitutional amendment without being compelled to date federal authorities to prove their policies. so distort by government has to wonder any distinctions around the constitution to state and federal power, one of the basic premises on which her structure of government would be founded with the federal government was certain pacific ltd. and all other powers should be reserved to the states respectively direct to the people. so despite the rampant intentional discrimination going on at the time section five was adopted, the supreme court, the

president and the justice department recognize the temporary need but recognized it was an extreme remedy that only justified at the time it was passed. and i argued that it was a congruent and proportional response to discrimination in voting in 1965. section five of the voting rights act was constitutional in the past in remains constitutional person sometime after that. and sometimes good legislation produces good results, which section five undoubtedly did. immediately after section five of the top did, mississippi, which as was previously set in 1960 or has 7% black legislation , jumped to 50% in three years. alabama was 52%. more importantly is the situation continued to improve over the years of section five is enforced. to this date now where the covered jurisdictions in the south, statewide legislatures are 31 to 45% african-american,

a previous one-party system has evolved into a very two-party system. but the reasons why i decided that the time change income of the reasons why want to argue it is unconstitutional are twofold. one of the covered jurisdictions cannot be distinguished from the entire jurisdiction in terms of discrimination are recurring and secondly that section five does not address modern voting problems. so the jurisdictions -- the jurisdictions currently covered are not currently jurisdictions that generally are the most egregious voting rights. in 2000 domain allegations of discriminations are coming from florida appeared in 2004 the main allegations are coming from ohio, neither which are covered jurisdictions.

registration and turnout enough this race in covered versus noncovered room is indistinguishable. they are single-digit percentage points. preclearance denial is a valid basis to which judge the discrimination occurring. preclearance denials have dropped from 4% 2.2% despite the increase in requests for preclearance. findings of intentional discrimination by the federal courts since 1982 have been 24 findings of intentional discrimination in voting. 11 have come from covered jurisdictions come in meaning 11 from uncovered jurisdiction. more section two cases are brought in noncovered states. secondly, it does not remedy modern voting and i think this was exemplified at it than i players recur from the brendan morrison is that current

complaints of discrimination are basically across the country. they are not generally found -- they are found in noncovered states, but they not exclusively found in the states. we heard wisconsin mention. rhode island, minnesota, new hampshire. but the claims of discrimination nowadays are legislation problems, voter identification problems, maladministration, heiress and tabulation, reliance on old technology for balance design. these things not only are they not difference and covered versus noncovered, but at times exacerbated by section five preclearance formula. because this -- if a particular place a long voting lines, if a particular polling place has outdated -- outdated tabulation

machines, it behooves these jurisdictions not to seek preclearance. it behooves them to keep the current status quo in place. it will not have to anon does problems and this exacerbated the problems that are most often cited as cases of discrimination in voting. but there are a lot of other problems with section five that the supreme court and scholars have talked about, including the coverage formula, which has been in place since 1972. how it differentiates between state despite a constitutional framework of equal fallacy between the states. it's been argued it's caused politics in the list can go on. so i believe that section five is unconstitutional and will be obviously coming before the supreme court in the next year. all of the justices@nine to at least some of the complaint that i have laid forth and i expect

it to be ruled unconstitutional. >> i have a power point, but i have no object. >> ask and you shall receive. >> hello, everybody. take a deep breath. this is a really good panel because i don't agree with anybody on it. [laughter] >> nina, i thought we were cocounsel. >> we are cocounsel. thank you very much for bringing me here. i want to also thank the university, the law school, whoever the slippers, want to thank alice ian and especially because this may cocounsel she has done the heavy laboring on a number of weeks that we've done during this time. now how do you go forward? the right button goes forward. okay. i don't agree. let's talk about texas

redistricting. here is my position. republican versus democrat, out motivated thinking. this is a reflection on the reality and i think it's going to become a girl says it is tempestuous. i think where the real issue is and people need to be paying attention and some latino population growth, latino political mobilization and the challenges of both political parties and operated leadership of both political parties. this is latino population growth between 202,010. it is very similar to the population growth from 1990 to 2000. the red bar at the latinas. green is african-american. yellow is other non-hispanic and the smallest growth is white a low non-hispanic which we call anglo-saxon. if you combined both decades of

which by the way we have again to single congressional state, but these have grown by 5.1 million go has grown by 1.1 million. so it's just that. these are some of the south texas districts that are currently latino majority, which is one of the districts they showed during the trial. we will see from the west 16 overpopulated by 60,000 the best mark the love of my life and litigation and overpopulated bemis 150,000. congressional district 20. overbite 13,000. henry cuellar out of their way to 153,000. hidalgo county, 88,000. corpus christi to brownsville texas. lovable cb 2,743,000. if you had the overpopulation of

these existing latina's, reporters of additional latino majority district. so this presented an enormous challenge for redistrict receivers deep the increased number of latino opportunities. so here's the seventh district and the one we propose to which runs the senate to southeast and an idea that the leadership thought was a good idea and incorporated a version of it in their congressional maps that the state has. this is vigorously opposed by the democratic leadership because he goes and gets latina site out of the district of the current anglo congressional incumbent. alex, were dicicco? what is his name, alex? telesat loud. yes, sir. in the new district? the new district is the 36. he was not included in this district that moved in and ran it did not want to run in the

majority district he was going to a strong primary challenge under the latino community. let's talk about dallas-fort worth latinos have grown quite a bit. and with anglo population of dallas county went out by over 200,000 in the decades. here you have a lot of latino population that runs east-west, which is why you see a the states enacted plan carving districts north and south precedes the district skipping from the south and nec district skipping from the north and the one i want to point your attention to his district 26, which is hot that is heavily suburban anglo county and has kind of what we call the lay people down into latino areas of tarrant county. they may say well, it's really still about partisanship, is in it? because they want to try to break up. but i want show you how

carefully this time carved through tarrant county to pick up the red areas, which i latino citizen voting each majority what there is compared to green areas, which are african-american citizens voting age majority groups. the lighting bolt only gets latinas and leaves african-americans in another district where they are voted by a looted islam. this is not -- i know you will care about congress. anyone here from texas? hello. where you from in texas? [inaudible] we are going to talk about the county down in south texas. this is the house map. you don't care about the house map, but i do. look at the orange district in the middle. we call it little nemo. last night district 3360.4% hispanic citizens voting age population. it is next to another hispanic citizens voting age majority district hc 34 and it also

shares a portion of the hidalgo county with hc 32 which is an anglo majority district. keep your eye on nemo. it's gone. look what happened in the state now. they showed the latinas suffer into hd 34, as many as they could in the minds disappeared and broken. 30 years. and this was what was done in the map. if anyone needs a definition of retrogression, that is retrogression. here are the outliers. 7778 is the district that is just barely latino majority, that represented unknot the latino candidate of choice. how do you protect that candidate of choice? 80% latino county? you go and get most of his

latino precincts behind a latino spanish adding legislation minority district in a very heavily latino county. you've got to let these antlers. i did another one of just the helpers for you. these hackers do not run a year they put them as originally tried by the redistrict yours, but they do line up well with concentration of blockers voting into population. here's a failure to add a new house seat. it is that the state did not did. the rio grande valley is a very, very heavily latino area and very impoverished. it was enough overpopulation. there is enough overpopulation and existing districts to create a whole new district. right there inside two counties and the state did not do it. we propose which you see is the

purpleish things on the bottom and that was the additional district that the county had enough population for but was never drawn. what's at stake? that's in cameron and hidalgo county. that picture was taken by one of my later witnesses who at the cdc trial unexpectedly begins to weep on the stand when he told the story of the priest of having to get the last rites to the little boy who was burned in the fire and prevent ambulance could not come because the streets were not paid. so when we think about redistricting maps and lines and colors and numbers, that's what it's about. that's a difference between him and another seat the valley compared to now. sosa three ring circus. what did you call it quits to try to do? we challenge the redistricting plan syntax is.

it's been a long road since july. we went to a very compressed discovery. lots of exchanging of things, we try to take on the first work day after labor day. we tried in mid-september he did a trial brief amended more briefing in another trial and by that time the state of texas is underway with this lawsuit in the washington d.c. federal poured seeking preclearance from the core. i have to disagree with alan here. i think the doj still would've object it. as doj objected in 2001 because they did find retrogression. i think we would've gotten objection in the senate. but in any event, texas shows to go to court and file in an unsuccessful motion and we just tried that case of january 17 until the day before yesterday

and in the middle of all that, this is appealed the court. the circus is that we have to have elections and we have early primary election and they are typically held march 6 or the first week in marriage. the back of deadlines come and clean under the military voters in the precinct realignments and all that bring us into 2011, which is why the district in texas, united states wondering, true and plans as early as it did in november was because we had very early election to line. the political parties are getting a lot of pressure on the district court in san antonio because then he told their political conventions in june. part of that need to collect those delicate. besides nominating people to run on the ticket, the also select delegates for the convention.

so a lot of what was being done in november in texas was about drying up to make sure we could stay on schedule somehow. we will see if we do. there is now a new april 3 primary date, which we may or may not be able to make. will try. so one of the things that you've heard people talk about racially polarized voting. there's a lot of racially polarized voting in texas and it's not just a general election. we cannot put a label on what's going on here. what's more important to us in many ways is the racially polarized voting that goes on within the primary. so because of that, nonincumbent say very upset about losing the primary to latino challenger. for example, not just in the congressman would propose an additional district proposed by the democratic leadership and democratic incumbent come in the same thing happened in the house. we still have an anglo incumbent in a district that is about

47.5% voter registration and we propose putting in a few more latinos. islam folks outside it will put them inside and bump them up 50%. it was the most aggressive opponent of that? the incumbent. they're also non-latino and some latino republican incumbents who are concerned about the burden name latino system which translates into pressure to change some of their policy positions. if your district is 40% latino or 45% latino or 48% latino, you cannot ring around before everybody. that is not going to work. so there is a pressure there to change the policy positions to seek out more at your latino decisions. and so there's some reaction and you'll see it in the texas plan of trying to draw districts that have some latinas than them, but not enough to change the outcome of the election for an incumbent

who doesn't want to change policy positions in the general election. right? susie lots of different fracturing in the plan to meet the fans. so that's why you can see i always say a pox on both houses with respect to democrats and republicans. so this is basically what i just told you. and the potential largemouth flexibility that latinos in texas have with the partisanship because it's a fairly conservative state so we haven't had exactly the same experience to california. so there's a lot of mobility here, but people are completely sure how to respond. what was he right now on th wase part of both political parties is what was he right now on the part of both political parties is not to by reaching out. we have to respond by being inclusive of both geographically redistrict ricer fracture, fracture and preserve it. but latinos have done, we been litigating a lot since july in

just the states. we have fun together into coalitions to try to accomplish the litigation and also there's a lot of awareness. don't be fooled. there's a lot of awareness on the price of latinos at the voting rights act is being opposed by both political parties to serve their own political ends. why is the price still reporting this as democrats versus republicans? because they are very, very confused and not really paying attention. they haven't recognized the increasing mobilization of the latino community. they're very distracted by democrats versus republicans. nobody is really paying attention to what's going on the court, so i read stuff that's completely not reflecting what's going on in court, both in the media and sometimes in the academy. and also you get a lot of political operatives really about democrats getting screwed or it's really about republicans and i don't think it's about any

of that. and then of course at the end of era has outlived and is very vibrant and really helping us. so i'm not going agreed that it outlived its mobility, particularly because they think it very strong case. i showed you some pictures of what it's about. my son is 15 years old. he came at me today. he's going to vote. not before where 18. he will be voting in this decade and it's not just my own interest in capturing an undiluted vote. this interest that might cancel also casts an undiluted vote. so that is where we're going. i think it's going to be greater latino participation primaries and general. i think we're going to to present a tremendous challenge with our population growth. i think both political parties will have to wise up and stop pressuring from the start

reaching out. what is the ideal for latino parties? both are knocking on your door saying he wants your vote. i will do what it takes to get your vote. and hopefully that will call the latinas they should vote little bit of both local parties. >> so i want to give the response to each other and then we'll take some questions from laura as well. so i don't know, maybe start and kind of reverse order. nina, is there anything more you wanted to ask of josh or alan? >> adult thing to i have any questions. [laughter] >> okay. >> same. >> i guess you all have answers.

it's like nina was such a force here. i want to back up to something joshua said. i think one of the difficulties is the constitutionality question and the claim that one of the covered jurisdiction of noncovered jurisdiction out there are inclusive. they think kim made a point about the term that i think the numbers are misleading and a heavy regulated system and a nonregulated system. and i think one of the themes of that debate obscures this file, i would be really concerned actually if the covered jurisdictions continue to have

the regulatory regime and a place that is shielded and blocking all sorts of stuff. this point is out there. that thing and someone said they continue to look the way alexa 1965, it would be crazy to do anything with ssm because i wasn't doing a very good job and i think we agree. >> ibis say two things to do. first, it was the situation in 1965 that authorized the sea. the court at that time recognizes the remedy congress at the justice department did. i not think anybody here is that the opinion that the state of the south is that there was in 1965. and i don't think anyone here would argue that discrimination is absent in 2012. so the first point would be if it's the remedy this section five is not justified by the

current time despite the existence of some discrimination but more importantly what the state of the house today there's so many black elected officials are present this that the discrimination that would need to occur to disenfranchise blacks at the rate that we saw just a fine section five would have to be done by the black elected officials themselves and would have to be done on the back with legal organizations like now back in the naacp and all these other organizations out there fighting for the rights of minorities on the basis and i just don't see that the deterrence effect is being covered today is justified given the state of race relations. >> the thing that has puzzled me for a long time is this sort of

question of who should decide when section five usefulness has outgrown and what is it that makes section via such an extreme remedy? as i understand, the argument that people in section five remedy focus on is that they can't put the plan into effect until it gets cleared. as the quote, joshua to have to go with their patent to washington. is the problem that only a few states have been selected out for this? was a problem that somehow federalist jurisdictions should be compelled to put the burden on voters who have been denied their rights to go to come forward? i've never figured out whether it's the burden of proof for the timing issue that people think section five is an extraordinary meaning? i think it's difficult to figure

out about the preclearance regime. i understood what they thought was extraordinary 1965, that it was tough without any proof there is any thing wrong. i never understood how that translated into the regime been extraordinary. i wonder if the panels have a speculation to buy that seems to be the same thing the court focused on. that was the timing of those cases where there's an objection, presumably the plaintiff would be able to challenge and in many cases would be out to challenge cipro. so section five is the timing of burden of proof. it hasn't change the ultimate outcome nearly as much as people in section five would seem to assume. and just tried to figure, what is it about section five that seems to drive the pre-chorus

justices to this kind of pairs of them of federalism revival? >> i think he said it appeared as a reversal of a word and of proof that presumption is not doing some thing that we think you're bad until you show up. otherwise and i think one of the names i would hope to pull out of this is the notion that there's actually value in the jurisdiction themselves, that this regime is only a constitutional sense provides the framework for which they don't have to take responsibility. >> i wanted to mention that i thought it was an interesting dynamic in the most recent supreme court appeal that we just did, where first, you know, i had the sense that the supreme court was a little indignant that the texas court had drawn in turn plans for departed from legislative plan and especially

because texas was presenting a really germanic departure from what had been in that good even if that was in effect. but when we got to a day of argument, i sensed a very different dynamic among the justices and it seemed that maybe time the briefing was done, they made it and realizing that there was something seriously wrong with the plan. and when chief justice roberts said the texans request the legislative plans, which is sort it all out later, chief justice roberts took the initiative to save these plans are not to be cleared. we need to get some kind of feedback here on the clearance. i do sense that maybe there was an explicit recognition and it was important for exactly the reason we had in front of us that day. >> yeah, and this is a question that comes out of joshua's comment, which is joshua's point is we would not design section

by the way it was designed if we were designing it today. and certainly i don't think would be to federal district supreme courts again. so if you were designing section five today, where you are trying to designers seem today to protect latino voters, how would it differ from the regime that we have in place? >> i think the problem is a ticket off off the radio when it had litigations definitive the administrative process because it would've moved much faster. the doj is needed again -- i mean texas probably could've gone on the senate plan right-of-way. they would've had a much better sense of clarity on what you may not have been objectionable in the other two plans. and not only detected spikes

although she is very slow, they rejected the idea of going to trial in november, which would've given us his decision to avoid this kind of crash and burn we had in december. but even though the district party of columbia was sayber. but even though the district party of columbia was saying you know, you could not go to trial in november. they said no, no, one emotion and that's just more and more and more. so not sure there's anything wrong with the structure then by the legal team that causes prices. they want to cause a crisis of ignoring supreme court. >> that seems to be a candle to, which is better plan into effect even though it hasn't been precleared. >> which in effect that constitutional. >> but that didn't work either. i know there is a lot of publicity on the supreme court decision striking down texas,

bad, bad. i was thrilled because that was the decision that texas could not put into effect and the word attrition the runs are score do not core to navigate the texas plains are not limited as the day of the tree for me. >> anita bryant is here every day. >> exactly. today we are not voting under the texas plan. >> i think this is also one of the consequences of the voting rights act is in its initial understanding of recidivism and it's a pre-effect existing systems that they could make every speech has a history from 1865 to 1965 is anytime you want season court to come up with ways and oklahoma now has a few days to register and they

recognize in that case you can't do that and redistrict team. the existing plan is rendered unconstitutional immediately been a census number drops, so you have to have some new plan put in an assisted by which you now have not just not the one party system in 1965, but essentially not the two-party system with three competing entry systems in place that access. you're guaranteed there's going to be purgation in the plan can't be used, so will have to be interim plan and that creates all sort of dynamics that we can see earlier in the prior people, which is even what this is done in the political process? two into a political access to an federal judges clearly are not politicians in the same way that state legislatures are. we find ourselves really an extraordinary complicated

dynamic in and makes you wonder how the supreme court will do the very nature of the complications when it comes to think about the constitutionality of the act and how to force it. >> it's time for the question now, so it could focus on questions in the folks who bring their own microphones. >> yeah, i wanted to ask a question about the recent supreme court decision of the potential effect on the arguments about constitutionality in relation to the fact that censorship burden somewhat other parties in terms of the preempting essentially the district court with respect to any potential violation section by the current plans. i mean, it sounds as though the court is doing a lot to decide

it cannot let us get involved. but they do have to actually get involved. my understanding is they have to take the texas plan and say well come you can't take the new cuts. yesterday some income which does change the bow. and i wonder if that affects the beginning of the 5000 cuts in section 540 think it potentially could contribute to it being strengthened. and i think with respect to texas voting rights and litigation, it's really the whole story when we meet section five. it gets a little complicated but timing sometimes that texas became covered in 1975 with an objection of one or more statewide reducer plan and everything since 1970. section five remained one of our most important roles to prevent termination and i don't think the supreme court this point

what the majority in the supreme court can take that away from us because it is so vital and so important in with the 2006 decision, files the mark of intentional determination in the last round and i think we've got a really good case unintentional discrimination as well. so, i nodded doom and gloom person on section five. i mean, i walked out of the argument quite sure that we were not going to have the constitutionality taken away from us. i believe that the supreme court will not take that away from us. have things become a lot more murky than the decisions when you get into a situation where you have defending primaries and the need for local courts to draw planned? yes, things are more murky and will just work it out as we go. >> i have a question addressing the theme of the future

redistricting. there was a wonderful discussion about the texas case. maybe we can address all panel members from different days. for surely the rest of the country is deciding mike texas. but in many ways it is. we have tremendous latino demographic growth and increasing latino political participation in many, many places. and in california as we heard significant asian-american demographic growth as well. we have partisan -- partisan conflict and incumbency protection is a major political value in the redistricting process certainly everywhere as we do in text as, maybe not quite as extreme. it seems to me the texas experience has been sort of disastrous for the in a party of texas and kind of a debacle for

the state that goes to make good government standpoint. what is the lesson that she would draw from the texas ongoing taxes litigation and political redistricting experience for other states, which are not states like texas, but as some of the same issues in the future, including playing out of this redistricting process in the next few years. >> i mean, there is one very easy lesson and i think that is many of the legal constraints operate credibility to promote the most overreaching. that is site being that if texas had not overreached quite as much as they are to have to get precleared see their friends the department of justice are from the bbc or if not from the bbc, and supreme court. i think the numbers in texas,

was that 80% or 70% of the overall population should be the growth of latino populations and fewer latino opportunity districts the last time around. and so, you know, this question of what you just go to fire does the system push you back? that seems to drop out of this going forward. at some point partisanship to protection becomes so grotesquely dominated that the system will find some way of snapping back at that and that was worth my withdrawn this kind of indoor marginal, incremental either partisanship that will not be picked up nearly as much by the legal process.

>> i will only add that i think annoying with section 20 it also cover those cases about discrimination and push back from the texas legislature in that section five is no longer needed to combat those institutions. >> i would like to answer that because having eliminated the case in 2001 until 2006 we ended up, but it took an awful lot out of my life and that of his life, one of whom i had in the middle of all of that. [inaudible] [laughter] i was further burden shifting of section five because hopefully if it works right, it's a lot of planning before going into effect because yeah, there are so institutions that are there to litigate section two, but it is overwhelming to be one of these cases and certainly i've been feeling really overwhelmed

in the past few months, even with the team i had with the advanced health and all the focus working with other plaintiffs teams. i prefer to section five and think it's still necessary probably been having in texas so far. just one last thing. i think it's interesting that the one section did overreach and whether they are operating under the assumption that the regime is said over and they had both were not ready to express themselves. >> yeah, i wondered about that myself. it is necessary to create that much. >> now you mentioned at the end that having more respect did not might lead to the latina station of both political party

platform. what do you hope that will look like? >> well, i hope it would be less race baiting. that would be the start. you know, when you look at latino voters, tino voters care about a lot of the same things that other voters do as a state of education, but one thing is the number of people that latino voters -- the number of latino voters have documented right now and the number of latinos -- latino voters in the last year talk about immigration reform. so just to focus in on that issue, which i don't think it's been well addressed by the leadership of either political party right now. i would hope that there might eat reflecting latino voters are thinking about.

>> they are taking the microphones around. no, i want you to take the microphones around. >> this is a question for nina, but i guess also for pat since your cocounsel. someone argument -- i grew up in texas, and cooper will actually. down by coca-cola. someone argument out there in text as under proposed redistricting plans that will no longer be white democrats. and one response that i am tempted to have today's and your senior powerpoint is that this is the consequence, it might just be unfortunate, but an unavoidable consequence by democrats are going demographically more slowly and the majority of white voters are identified with the political

party. so it's a similar situation of being african-american. do you think that's the right response to give, either politically or in terms of the facts on the ground or do you think there's a way redistricting can evolve in a way that will ultimately lead ta way that will ultimately lead to the piece by for politicians of the democratic party and offices? >> you're exactly right. i promised myself i wouldn't say any more. so i think that is right. [laughter] i will say something that takes us one back level of attraction, which is a single member district is going to have the consequence is seeking groups and maybe nick is going to talk about this later. but it is going to have a consequence when white democrats are interspersed in

overwhelmingly white areas, which are heavily republican overall. it's not that there are no white democrats. it is a function that white democrats are not supposed to be sufficiently large and geographically in a place like texas. if they did, you would be getting a whole lot like africans must be part of the state and there's a whole lot has white democrats in abilene. and it is the function of the fact that we single member districts of groups that are geographically dispersed and that sends are going to find harder to relax and groups that aren't and that is true for democrats. it is true for asian americans in new york city with her 6% of the population, but it's

impossible. and not the 30s and an integrated committees, but heavily integrated to they're too small for her part to connect you her part to connect you can't connect chinatown to the eisai come easy using a driver here and drive it there. it's tough to do because just across so many districts to get in line. and i think that is a function of the district that is not a function of how the systems are drawn wednesday that the decision. >> are from cloverfield sera from austin universalized white democrats. but there aren't enough white democrats across the district. so. so that is why it's incredibly dangerous to focus on the incumbent papers x number of white democrats in congress. what you have to do is look at the district. if that is the district where they are conjoined the outcome of the primary in such a way that latino president rather

better presidents in the world is not able to nominate a candidate of choice, but somebody else takes a look at that, in this case the leadership of the house and senate, do not see that as a valuable thing. >> cannot just jump in on that last point. i'm what you been saying, nina, i about what extent we should use the party versus race. get your absolutely right that the parties definitely want to protect their incumbents. but you have to get fewer interest is incumbents they are and will behead 12 white democrats in congress in the south right now. and you have two veteran texas and for the congressional delegation. so avoid doggett is term limited. when his district clips,

depending on how they will come when he resigns it goes that way about it this other white democrats and as the personnel really does look for highly correlated waste authority, then you get a different dynamicuthon you get a different dynamic than the one you're suggesting. your absolutely right that they have greater power when they can operate but it's the critical group that both parties concord. what you see is the future in texas? you know, it's going not directly that win california, but it's getting closer and closer. and then that is part of a larger question, which is to you think 10 years from now you will be making similar arguments about percentages and the population of these districts that she would walk particularly 50% to see that district?

t. think it sort of extrapolating out in the same circuit districting arrangements which are pushing given what she know you know about texas to be asking for in 10 years? >> well back to the first point, i work for latino voters and i try my best to achieve whatever the result is that enables them to achieve their goal, which is to nominate and elect candidate of choice. i don't make judgments about who should represent latino voters. latino voters want to nominate and elect a person who is purple with green spots, you know, someone who is african-american and latino, anglo, it's their choice and that is the date that i view it from. as to what district camino, what the numerical cutoff is, we as a pretty functional analysis. we have lots of election data available to stripers districts that enable latinos to nominate and elect the candidate of choice and there's typically not

a great contest with that although we know we have to fulfill requirements. .. voting in the areas of concentration >> if i can just jump in for a second i think one of the fundamental differences between california and texas which in texas you are moving in some

very important ways towards a system right now that there is a political party and there's a non-white political party. that's not the case in california at all. that is the democratic party in texas is a multiracial multi-ethnic so because they guess so badly at the prop 187 is becoming remains an overwhelmingly white political party but with complicated the last round of redistricting i don't think anybody said anything overtly. one of the republican members of the legislature said they were hoping to create a system in which white people looked at the political system and fought as a party for white people and that's not for white people, so those dynamics are very different in the two states in terms of partisan realignment and that has a different set of facts. >> that's what you are saying, right? >> i think whether or not there's political diversity in the community in texas is

largely up to the republican party right now. the republican party gets its act together and start reaching out to the largest demographic of their state which many republicans believe there are a lot of latinos who can vote republican because they've seen an alignment with certain positions of the republican party. i think that texas is that a tipping a point in terms of what political parties are going to do with all of these latinos. are democrats going to continue to fracture, fracture to preserve the last shred of incumbents who may not be preferred candidates or start knocking on doors and say i believe in comprehensive immigration reform or some republican version of comprehensive immigration reform? i don't think we are going to split off or maybe there isn't just one feature of splitting into a party of brown and a party of white. that's like a christmas carol.

people are either going to be weeping, the movie won, the story. >> i was thinking like silent night. >> no -- i can't help but that's what i'm trying to say the republican party is going to be weeping over its own grave because they couldn't reach out to the latino voters and it is horrible scenario comes out to have a party of one race and another which is pernicious or we are going to see more people reaching out and doing what they need to to to have a healthy political system in texas. >> i want to make a quick comment because that's exactly what happened in california is the party was capable of changing its rhetoric and i guess i have to disagree is a party of lights if you look at the last slide i had. >> it's a democratic party in california isn't a single race party as well.

>> they chose not to incorporate on the issues so i think texas may be going the way that california did in the 90's in the sense that at that point latinos were 35% republican, and that shifted completely among because the policies the party pursued, and their inability to change the policy. >> luckily the minority groups in california are part of the multiracial party, not the parties are multiracial. >> we have this same problem of the democrats not wanting to incorporate the representation in their districts and term limits ironically fit that otherwise we would be in the same position having to litigate some give the panel could address the bailout position of

related and whether he thinks if we assume maybe the voting rights act or the section is somewhat in trouble from the constitutional perspective if you think that the court would be willing to use the bailout as a sort of sitting construction changing those requirements for the subdivision to bail out in order to kind of constitutionally save the civilian right or section 5 of leased and whether the what harm the deterrent effect if we somehow brought in the requirements to the bailout. >> i think it is almost a remedy of the jurisdictions that have received the bailouts all of them in virginia, all of them represented by the same civil rights attorneys that sought the bailout, and does anybody know

how they ended? do they receive the bailout? they were bailed out. i don't see it as de long-term solution to the constraints section 5 places on the jurisdictions. it's almost heavily contested with every jurisdiction, and is almost never available. >> i guess i see that differently. i think one of the difficult questions is why restrictions don't bailout. i think it's understood that many are eligible to bailout and it's a difficult - because on the one hand all of the language joshua quoted and yet the same time there are jurisdictions that seem to be going along not taking advantage of that and i think it is a curious thing. my prediction is the court will see the numbers that have increased but have not increased enough to think that it's become

martelle agreed that. i would urge the court to think about more there is a reason they are not bailing out because they find it to be useful. i know there are several that say no. i'm not sure what to make of the language because i think it is the position to say the system works for us. we could bailout but we choose not to and as long as it is there i think from the doctor all point of view it is critical in terms of saying the burden is there and get out if you want. if you don't that might get back to the point of who is going to decide this. maybe let the jurisdictions decide for themselves. >> fees' guice preemptible lot fy was going to ask. given that the democratic party in california is losing percentages and the republican party is losing percentages and

the independent sar increasing, and i've learned that is due somewhat or largely due to the latinos becoming independent. independent have no political voice in california. and so, my question is do you see a way if that's an accurate hypophysis our scenario a way for latinos to achieve significant independent political voice had hit its independence have really no voice of all. >> the question isn't really about whether you have a statewide race or how you might express' your state wide voice and the question of redistricting is always went be drawn so people can come together and whether the voters are going to act as swing voters between democratic and republican candidates or whether they will mount their own

candidate, i don't know but i think the question is much more limited than that >> it looks like elvis just left the building but perhaps you can answer it which is lots of people are independent, but their actual voting behavior is quite predictable any way that is they don't register with a political party but in the partisan elections the good for the republican or democrat in which case their position is going to be effectively the same as any other voters. >> [inaudible] spec the top two primaries that's going to sort of solve itself by they will be participating and if they're both independent and share the

point of view that it is being structured across a variety. estimate one would think speaking to the point part of the reason is neither party is speaking to the interest of that group so if we think they were to change positions and in fact these are incorporating issues that they feel are not a part of the political discussion then that would change. we know what the independent screen but especially immigrant groups it is a reflection of the fact that neither party has been dealing with of the things most important to their daily lives. >> you mentioned some of the discriminatory intent. i was curious what you thought about the rest of the decisions in particular all of the abundant language in the opinion about how if you are combining to the cultural elite forces you economically separate groups in the district that district no longer counts as a vow that remedial district so you showed

charts and graphs with the the on the racial composition of the districts. but i was curious if you look not only at the latinos to see the numbers but also it could be cecile economic, cultural, income similarity in the different districts were basically my collecting that side going forward. >> when we do litigation and we are proposing a district especially that might be new, we have lots of testimony in addition to the demographers who might talk about salary from a more quantitative point of view we do have witnesses and i think it's a good idea to bring in the witnesses from different parts of the district to talk about similarities or differences or what it is really like on the ground with their there's a particular mall over here that the folks over there who go to. i think it is tremendously important to give the court a rich sense of what it is you are proposing to put their.

i am very much in the same point of u.s. pam with respect to some of that language. you kind of had to be there with respect to that case and sort of understand what was going on in finding a violation over here and what that meant about the southern district of their and the fact that nobody was defending that district, so nobody did put on evidence on whether or not people at one end or the other end had anything in common. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> over here. >> so, i have a question for the panel. i read in the student notes in the journal earlier this month about comparing the fallout to the fight to have voting

districts that are represented and part of the backlash for the integration is you have the school decrees that allow them to get out like the bailout provision. you get out of the court supervision and then they go back to even more secretive than they were before. and so, my question is centered towards this idea of if we get rid of the voting rights advocate we get rid of section 5, and we have a history of what has happened in our schools. are we worried that the same thing is meant to happen? if we get rid of section 5, and for josh in particular, you know, going back to the analogy pam made earlier today if we are interested in the deterrence and in keeping people from getting murdered, what is the life without parole equivalent? that will have a substantial deterrent effect for the harms you but not much else to alexis

in parts of the south and in other parts of the country. so i would appreciate if we could have responses to those questions. >> it's indisputable that there is from section 5 and that section 5 may present and i agree with what the professor said that a lot of jurisdictions no they can get something cleared without having a big political, but section 5 was and remains an extreme remedy that completely distorts the constitutional process of the government, and that extreme remedy can only be justified under extreme circumstances and only was justified under extreme circumstances. so why don't -- i am not as pessimistic of the state of racial affairs in america to think that with 40% of southern legislation being african-american or the presence

of legal representing african-american rights or latino american rights that we can reasonably believe that we will return to a system of jim crow section 5. therefore i don't think that the extreme remedy that is section 5 can be constitutionally justified. as said in the majority opinion for the unanimous opinion. the remedy that is section 5 must be justified by the current political or the current data and he was skeptical of whether that was there. some say it's not there that the data was only present but isn't justified by the record in 2006. >> i guess two things would happen. maybe more actually.

the fis is that you see in the southern legislatures would likely disappear because they are from the minority districts in lots of places and it's the voting rights are keeping that there. they made a reference to the voting and one of the differences you see uncovered in the jurisdiction is that it's more polarized and i think that's going to play out more effectively without section 5 in place to be the guard against that. and i guess the sort of fall back that it could take care of it if she had more strength you can keep playing these cases are a worry that when section 5 goes down it goes down doctrinal me with the analysis i think applies to section 2 on the chopping block and it seems easy to make the claim on the regional differences but i can write that. i know what it looks like so it's not an end. i think we're looking at a

different school analogy is a fascinating one and one of the things that's interesting about the school analogy is not just the school getting out of the desegregation but that and it's interesting to bailout for the supervision and a certain things through useful for them skepticism and ought not to be that there's a reason that they are federal regulations that actually causing it to be good and in powering to them. >> section 5 is struck down that the entire games of the second reconstruction would be rolled back now i don't think so far signed it into place and enduring and the american consensus on the right to vote

changing the power. do we think that there will be lots and lots of low level discrimination that's the, the panel that's been about the congressional redistricting state legislative. people what that stuff carefully. but what it doesn't prevent changes in polling places in the elections. i had a case in arkansas where they moved the polling place in present ten times most three years. several times outside of the district. will there be more restrictive practices? yes. well states come up with restrictions on a visit he pellets? yes. will there be more voter ied laws? yes. will there be a lot of redrawing and annexations of the man as elections. it doesn't exist than in the world in which it does and that

will require and put a huge burden on the very few lawyers who do voting rights work who i hope to see many of the wall in the future. so we will take a break here and come back for the next panel and what, five minutes? ten minutes. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

the vast majority of consumers are okay with this concept that the social networks and companies like google provide free services like web based e-mail and mapping service and search services, and they do that for free because they are able to sell them on a personally identifiable information about the things you do on the internet. first of all this is hardly my view with respect to the concerns about the change in the privacy policy. you add 46 state attorneys general objecting i don't think they are in europe by the way those are states with which you ask. you had congressional leaders and the democratic and republican party objecting. 60 consumer organizations from the united states and europe

objecting. >> book tv with a look at pearl harbor what part of the constitution was important to them and why. today's first prize winner selected the 14th amendment. >> technology as a potential to

undermine the constitutional protection if the courts are not careful. ♪ >> i have no clue. spec i have no idea what that is. >> what is due process? >> the basic concept of due process is fair play that when the government deals with people they deal with them in a procedurally fair way. islamic it used to be fairly simple thing. the 14th amendment states shall not have any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law to meet today

with so much technology held we establish fair guidelines to access information and location through gps online and more? >> intellectual property owners have said that someone who commits piracy stealing are copying a illegally a movie or a piece of music if they do it three times, they should be kicked off the internet and that might have seemed pretty reasonable a few years ago but now you can't even earn a living if you can't go on the internet. and so the kind of process that is due before you kick somebody off the internet might become much higher because it's such an extreme punishment. estimate due process as digital age is guided by the electronic communications act which is passed in 1986 and hasn't been

updated since. in 1986, salles phones will try and. >> few people had ever heard of the internet. we protect wiry and electronic communications while in transit. it also limits search warrants for the communications. title to protect its communications held an electronic storage and title iii tiffin and chosin electronic communications without court order. but time the epa is showing its age. today's all funds are loaded with data and over 360 million people have access to the internet daily. it doesn't even mention how e-mail should be predicted. >> in an electronic world if you get through the e-mail or hot mill if they decide to give that information there's nothing you can do about it. now people are saying so much of my private life is in the hands

of google. i should be able to insist the government get a warrant. ischemic the justice department argued in court that some users have given up the privacy of their location and information when they voluntarily give up that information to the carriers, and just this past april but also argued in court to have access to some e-mails and secure information without a search warrant. in 1986 they deployed actual police resources in order to track someone but with today's technology the government can come under anyone with ggp is enabled device or any cellphone connected to a wireless network. in early november 2011, the united states heard the case of antoine jones. the case was deciding whether warrantless gps tracking violates the fourth amendment. the case is still under consideration by the united states supreme court. >> gps and cell phones where you can basically track anyone anywhere they go and so the

question is can the police or federal agents tracked a month or two and follow everywhere they go? the governor argument is you have no right to privacy when he wore on the street in a fact that the fourth amendment protect your right to privacy at home. they can't listen to your phone calls, but the notion is that once you get in your car and drive out on the public street a plainclothes officer can follow you, so the government view is since you have no right to privacy or you drive, we can use this technology to follow you everywhere and track you. >> they should meet to get a warrant and that is the precise question before the supreme court in this case. we are not saying we shouldn't be able to put a gps tracking device on a person's car. they should meet to get a warrant to do that meaning they should have to have and so since

they have probable cause engaged in criminal conduct and checking the location will provide evidence of that criminal conduct. the alternative which is what the governor is asking for is that they be able to do this anytime they want, to anybody they want without having to justify it in any way, and we think that is dangerous, and the danger of this practice we think grows exponentially with of the supply to more people. estimate the shouldn't have to get a warrant and that is true for the information because the location is obvious to anyone that is walking by you on the street. the idea that you could say you can't know i'm here without getting a warrant, that doesn't make any sense. so i think people who are creating an issue of the location issue are fighting a

laws for a long time. >> now congress is being pushed to update the electronic communications act by major corporations and other concerned individuals. islamic growing up in the digital age, technology is constantly evolving and it's everywhere we look. our e-mails come on 90 - and information privacy are at risk. there's little question is the laws must be updated but there are different views on the act. congress must act soon to protect our information but also keep us safe in this digital nation. this week on two and a producer, director car [rollcall] be discusses his latest documentary film about the life and death of his father, former cia director william colby.

c-span: why did you do a documentary on your father? >> guest: you might have asked that question ten or 15 years ago when he was alive, and i was down in washington, d.c. making documentaries with a cruise and other people. you might think why didn't i interview my father then, but he's the kind of person that as you know, you can talk to him about a few of the lives and gadhafi or the drones and involved in the debates of the time because his son asking him personal questions, his motivations, and not the operational but other more personal, emotional information he just wasn't forthcoming. so i thought it would be very frustrating. and then there's another reason i made it, which is i was watching wolfowitz your' coverage of the fall of the twin towers on line 11, and he asked james baker how this happened. and james baker said i traced

the specter beckley to win colby retial the family jewels of the cia when he testified before the pike and church committees, and that just decimated america's ability to conduct covert action, and clandestine activities around the world. i thought well, i guess my father is relevant. and then two weeks later i saw photographs of cia operatives wearing turbans and sporting beards and riding with the northern alliance on camelback and horseback and in northern afghanistan against the taliban. i thought that looks like oss so i thought maybe there's a story here. c-span: you're father lived in what years? >> guest: he lived 1920 to 1996 born as an army brat, really never lived in the same place for more than two years, spend and very informative years when he was a young boy in tientsen china which was really just before the manchurian invasion. he had a taste for the orient. he understood the military. he's the kind of boy that you would find on the edge of the parade ground saluting and watching soldiers go by.

c-span: i wrote down quote from your documentary. "my father was the coolest character i ever knew he quote what did you mean by that? >> guest: well, what i meant is that as a boy i grew up understanding what she had done and who he had been. he was not the braggadocio. he was the opposite of the great zantia as you remember. he was kind quiet, self-effacing. he had opinions but he wasn't pushing them on you. and his favorite expression when he would argue and would get in an argument about the war just about everything but especially the vietnam war. as you get your point across, he would get this and of course she knows a bit more about than i did, but you know, and that he is a fair enough. as if all i respect your opinion just give me an opinion shot as well. and i always remember what about him he wasn't pushing. and as i say, not great centime not physically aggressive and bombastic and ruling with an iron fist. c-span: what were the major jobs he had in his life?

>> guest: first was probably being a terrific song to his military father and his mother, who believe it or not, father treated with sitting bull of the minnesota territory. so, she grew up on army bases. he went to princeton at the age of 16 on a scholarship and never looked back. he wanted to be in the spanish civil war fighting on the side of republicans but he was too young. then he went into s.s., parish a bit behind enemy lines in france and occupied norway fighting that troop trains. then he went into being a lawyer in new york. he told the american offer me a job in the general counsel's office. and he looked at me like i've got nothing against cancans. i liked canned food but i can't see spending my life like that, so he joined the cia, which was just forming at the time. and then went to italy, where he worked on influencing the elections so the christian democrats would win and the communists could lose and then on to vietnam and that's another story. c-span: when i first met you today the first thing out of my mouth is my goodness you look

just like your dad to read to you get that often? >> i can't help but i guess. but, you know, she was a creature of washington as well as from other places. he loved the give-and-take of d.c.. you look around the world these days especially in america and there's a contentious and people are at each other's throats but i still feel that washington is a place people touch each other and you can have donald rumsfeld and patrick leahy in the same room once an ally of and i think he wanted to live in that where we could have this course and mabey disagree, but really come up with the best sort of solutions for today's problem. >> we've got some video in our archive. you're father back in 1989, talking to a group in terms of the center here, and we use this before we show some of your document free to establish what he looked like. as the mikey lived nearby and drove by one day and he said you

know, this is the silliest thing i've ever seen. here's a secret intelligence agency on the parkway with a great big sign pointing to it. for god sake at least take the sign down and we to get down. he did have quite a lot of influence. and for 15 years, we pretended that that building wasn't there even though every pilot on his way out of the national airport used the cia because it was so obvious. >> what did you see there? >> i saw brutal honesty. he's not afraid. he's not afraid of you physically certainly. he's just not afraid of the american public. he's afraid of the enemy in terms of what they can inflict upon us but he's not afraid of us. i interviewed him for the film and he said what are we ever enough? for meaning in terms of setting up policy. if we have a drone of policy or

policy of being in 18 to 20 countries now we don't talk about, then i don't want to reveal operational details but let's talk about that policy. let's see what we can and cannot do, what we should and shouldn't do and as he said if you don't like the policy, then don't pass it and live with the consequences but i think he didn't fear us. >> what was the phoenix program that he was either in charge of or involved in? >> the most controversial thing he was involved in is he was called back in 1968 to vietnam by president johnson at the time, and i remember my sister brought him a fur hat and he had been assigned to be the chief of the soviet-bloc division, the mood biggest secret assignment you can get and he was all excited about that but then lyndon johnson called and said we want you to run this program. and there was a program of really a little bit of what is

going on come a lot of what's going on in afghanistan and what went on and anbar province and iraq which is part of the town like general mcmaster the head of intelligence for afghanistan. if you go into the cell and secure at least one section of the town and make it livable for people and then billed out through there and once people can go to work and raise their children and by their rice and whatever, then secure some stability for the place and then start using your intelligence, and that's what the phoenix program, the overall program specification. get with the villagers. it's not a shooting war between us and some guy running around in the trouble. it's kitchen of the villagers and what are their needs and then learned through them. and phoenix was the kind of tip of this year. that's where the villagers help identify who the vietcong were and the north vietnamese and they would go out and interrogate them and hopefully turn them.

he would say it's fun to kill bin laden or a couple of other higher-ups' but you don't want to be killing the mid level guy. you want to capture them and interrogate them and maybe best of all split them, get them to work for us. c-span: they were the south vietnamese were supposedly communist and involved in the fighting in the government. how long was he involved in the program and when did it lot in the controversy? >> the war had gone badly in terms of the conventional attack and general abrams came in and said we have the war and we are going to conduct offensive operations and make this a people' war so he started being effective and the program as i said, that of this year there are some abuses. you and i go out and say this guy in fairfax would say we are here. he's my cousin and i think that he is hanging out with the taliban and we ought to interrogate him and maybe get rid of him.

are you selling a grudge, is he really taliban or not? so it's difficult to corroborate the evidence. so he suffered for that. 29,000 vietcong were suspected sympathizers were killed as for a lot of people come up the north vietnamese general said after the war they heard us. it is destroying their infrastructure. i think that it was set up with the war and they saw these pictures of people being beat up, tortured, etc., bodies laid out in mass graves and the harvick. why are we there. so connection the united states and appointed to be the director and went to the hearings. c-span: by the way, what was, what you can remember, what were his politics? >> it's fun using what were his politics. i would say that he was a liberal. jfk kind of and garment

extremely active in world war ii. he drank the milk of fdr. he was a democratic activist i would say labor lawyer truly, conducting the activist rallies and supporting of the downtrodden workers and i think of going into the cia a lot of people were pretty liberal and they were liberal like jfk. the tricky part comes at the end when it all starts to go sour, and i think that he stayed being liberal kind of under the covers and then emerged when you see him in the clips you have where she's very open and very willing to engage with the public and no longer the clandestine officer. >> what's didn't your documentary and before we do, how long is it? >> phyllis 104 minutes long and 35-millimeter playing in the local theaters and will be held nationwide shortly to reduce a

104 minutes. c-span: when did you start working on it? >> guest: i was inspired by the 9/11 story that i think i started working in about 2,005, so it is to years of editing with my editor in new york, the daughter of the famous charles guggenheim as my producer along with david johnson in l.a. and in extraordinary man of archival footage and so it is a trip down not just memory lane, but american foreign policy from world war ii and onward. c-span: how long have you been doing documentaries? >> guest: since the 70's i will have to admit. i couldn't just come out of the box and make this movie. when you see the film i had to be very careful with what i said and how i said it and in terms of accuracy i am dealing with the most important issues america has ever faced so i did a lot of homework. c-span: here is your mother talking about the documentary.

>> sometimes it was difficult to ascertain who we were and where we were going at a certain point in time. one evening we went to the theater, and i recognized a couple that we had dined with the night before coming and i started to say how or you. was in that pleasant this evening, and my husband took me aside and said, quiet, quiet, we don't know these people. we don't know these people? well, we did know these people. there were times when really i didn't know what role we were playing. who are we tonight? spec we would go somewhere, a family trip on a weekend, a family picnic in the back and he would meet somebody and have a

conversation, deliver something. he and my mother and the family left town, drove of north and went past the radio for a picnic. that wasn't a lie. sometime later one of my dad's friends said you know your mother has a lot to do with your father's success. they were a great team. >> the family wasn't always lead into this world of his. beginning of course with his cia code of the need to know. he never had to really tell me anything. i suppose that is the cia but a suburb and a but even so, during one rather high-ranking officers

say my husband tells me everything. i was a little jealous but i thought no, it couldn't be. they don't tell us everything. they tell us very little if anything. c-span: why did mamma agree to do this? >> guest: it's interesting when i set out doing these interviews i thought well i will obviously call up my dad's old friends, and got me about three or four interviews. i did 85 interviews until 45 or in the film and i started saying i need to talk to people like schlesinger, brent scowcroft, hopefully donald rumsfeld from the generals, admirals. how am i going to do that. he had been the cia director before. c-span: and brent scowcroft is a national security advisor. >> guest: you can say hi and he was a baby. i didn't agree to enter these i

probably took five days to write those and track them so i started interviewing people and almost as an aftermath i said i will interview my mother. and then it changed because she brought the human element. she brought the underneath. what do we to do, she's keeping him to a high standard. she is referred to the cia as catholics and action just like the fbi especially in the early years because the of the moral compass and they certainly operate from a moral point of view or of least you hope they do. religion, morality is part of the mind set and is mine, too. i went to georgetown, so i was. and they made you think. we were taken as boys to the march on washington, the tent city and the priest would say what you think? is this legal, should they be

here without a permit? is there a greater cause at work here? what do you think? the best education i ever got. but to your point, my mother lived the life. she was his partner. she may not have known very many secrets or any secrets of all, but she supported the member of the club. she wasn't a member but she supported the membership just as we all did. i remember once i had been in indonesia and i said i met mr. x, fantastic guy, wonderful, says nice things about you, too. never repeat his name again. so what i took by that is welcome he's obviously operating in deep cover, part of my job is just don't mention his name and people would come to the house sometimes and i would think that

who was the general and then you'd see the general on the front page. or who was the bicyclist can buy and he would exchange notes with and send them on his way with a package of money whacks? it's always something else going on. everybody has a touchstone and things are not what they seem. how much of relationship did you have with the cia and the project? i would ask about a different biographies or if they had any material on footage or any archival material or any unclassified material coming into the eventually give me a book about classification that they had reacted commesso no officials cooperation at all and i prefer that. c-span: here you are the documentary talking about your father.

>> he's in good shape, the exercise pushups, jumping jacks, legs going up and down. he called me sport when he liked me and when he was annoyed coming your his friend. listen, friend. if you had really done something badly he would get the belt out. certainly believe in corporal punishment. around friends he could be relaxed. frankly he didn't have any friends. he had people he worked with. he didn't have a lot of romantic ideas about. he saw it for what it was, dirty business. c-span: how tall was he? >> guest: willhite around five foot eight. she was perishing into norway he was 5 feet 8 inches and he could

ski. c-span: how catholic was he? >> guest: very catholic growing up. after he leaves the cia then took another turn but as you can see from that clip, i see some provocative things about him that the same time to me honest things. she was friendly with people in the agency, but it was a club and there's not a lot of room for the outsider, the insurance salesman to sort of be part of this quick. they like to talk to each other. they are all cleared with 200,000 people in the washington area right now that have a top-secret security clearance. i'm sure they mingle with the bridge club or the soccer game with other people but when push comes to shove, they are on a

team and i think it is quite compartmentalized and that is what my father's life was like. c-span: why would we not -- you remember the cia it could be part of the informational the misinformation. >> guest: that's why all the first own came to visit my father and was accusing him of being a part of the plot that killed jfk. my father was a very patient person but i think that he ended up throwing oliver stone out of the house, and i know oliver stone and i would throw him off from too. she could be a war. it makes you think there's only to people that were not involved in the jfk assassination according to stone. himself, oliver stone and harvey oswald. c-span: your family had five kids. where are they and what is their

age group? >> guest: my older sister died but my others are here in washington. c-span: and what do they do? for the essey iowa? >> guest: a bomex of government business. c-span: are you where you fit in the fight? >> guest: himes in the middle, have an older brother and sister. c-span: when did you know you were going to be a documentary and? >> guest: that's a good question. i was either going to be a diplomat and then maybe an art dealer and never cia because my father had the top job. how could i ever be a clandestine officer and he encouraged us to move in other directions. his father had been a writer so i started writing and then i made a movie about an artist named gene davis who was here in washington and painted and people liked it and kept going. maybe should have done something else but i liked having a point of view. c-span: cony document ressa viewed on? >> guest: a lot of profiles.

so the question why i never interviewed or profiled my father earlier but i think when the subject is right there in front of you it's a little harder. i did a story on the artist and it triggered a long time ago my thinking on my father because he was an abstract expression painter in the village in the 1950's and 60's when i did the film everybody had a different thing to say, that he was kind of a bastard, abandon his wife, the most charming person from a wonderful, have a drink with him any time of the day, and in a way i saw different aspects of my father's a that is why the movie is called the man nobody knew. c-span: canniest he worked for the cia? >> guest: say from 1950 to 1976. c-span: and how long was he the director and in what years?

>> guest: he was director of the cia from 1973 to 1976 and he came in after schlesinger who only been there for 15 weeks and then he was looked around with that saturday night massacre where schlesinger went to defense and was appointed by nixon and then when nixon fell, ford kept him on for short time but the crowd around four comer rumsfeld, schlesinger, cheney, kissinger, scowcroft, i think they saw that my father was giving away too many secrets of the cia which you didn't need to do at that time. c-span: one of the issues are of vietnam is a man on an named diem. what role did he play in your father's life? >> guest: ziem was in the

early 50's and 60's and his brother were catholic. they both controlled the country very strongly, very eerie parallels and my father was tasked as the head of the cia station to be in constant contact with the special forces who was really kind of a fixture in the strong and of the relationship with his brother, and things started to unravel because we started with a pacification program earlier. counterinsurgency and all, and it seemed to be working. but then the american military got impatient with special forces being used in a sort of advisory role and building villages. they wanted to go out and fix and kill the enemy, so he got in hot water and was a catholic and a buddhist country and he and his brother, especially his brother went after the

buddhists, and then set himself on fire and killed himself. the huge incident slashed all around the world and his wife didn't about either, she knew, saying that the buddhists were barbecuing how the government was following but my father was a believer in the government at least it was stability over chaos. but then there was a to instigated in part by americans and certainly the u.s. ambassador of the time and then things really unraveled. it was a succession of generals in charge and never had the confidence in the vietnamese people c-span: ziem was the president of the south viet nam of what years? >> guest: in the 50's all the way through the 50's and 54 all the way to 63 when he was killed in the coup with his brother. c-span: said john f. kennedy was president when he was called?

>> guest: john f. kennedy died only three weeks after the assassination of president diem triet c-span: you're is the click of your mother and tim weiner of "the new york times" talking. >> november 63i was at mass that morning. and you're father came into the church, little flower in bethesda and said pray for the diem soldiers, prefer the souls of the diem brothers. they have been murdered, which was a shock. a terrible shock. bill stayed for the mass and we prayed fervently for president diem and his brother. what was so difficult about was that in hindsight, an immediate hindsight we have to -- we americans have to realize that

we boresome share in this tragedy. i -- not personally, but saw how things went wrong somehow. this was an extraordinary moment of presidential carelessness and the result was a president and his brother, with their hands tied behind their back and the bullets in their head. and a shattered illusions which is that we were building a democracy in vietnam. it was only three weeks later that john kennedy was killed. lyndon johnson said when he found out what the role of the united states was we just got a bunch of thugs and killed them. the u.s. responsibility for diem' death was actually clear. once that was done, it became

not the south vietnamese war against the north, it was our war. the albatross was around our neck, and it was always from then on. c-span: who was the last gentleman? >> guest: the last gentleman was hugh tovar, a legendary cia station chief operative in indonesia, laos, extraordinary individual. really cut out of the same cloth as my father to be a tremendously loyal, diligent, extraordinarily intelligent, extremely well connected, just a judgment and the sense of history. can you imagine cheri picking the jury this in america to study their history, speak the language and sent them here? and they'll get to know the generals, they'll get to know the police. actually one of my dad's friends, robert myers, former deputy chief of the far east

division and publisher for the new republic and many other things in washington, one time told me -- i said well, what about the diplomats, don't diplomats do a lot? and he says diplomats aren't worth anything. the only people you really need to talk to and want to talk to in these countries are the military and the police. it gives you an idea of what kind of realpolitik, harsh world we are talking about. ..

>> should it happen or should it not. c-span: in that group, henry cabot lodge was the running mate in 1960. you had the george bundy, he was a republican of harvard,. >> guest: he was a big favorite. c-span: and you had robert mcnamara. here they are sitting around, and i remember from the film

that bobby kennedy was against it. >> guest: bobby kennedy was against a botched crew. he did not want a crew that happened to unravel. for them to be taken out and die. he airily said that it is not like in south america or a rock where we can control. he thought the whole thing would go south. when you hear that, you think that they would reconsider the two. i think lodge, as he said, having been the existential running mate of nixon, he was complementary in his own right. he set things right the way he wanted to do it. c-span: how long had he been there when the coup took place? >> just a few weeks. jfk ruefully noted that once as a reporter on a trip. c-span: whose idea was it to make him ambassador of vietnam

from the united states? >> guest: it was john f. kennedy's idea to have him be the ambassador to reply on 10. c-span: would john f. kennedy have gotten out of vietnam and he had been reelected? >> strangely enough, my file there thought that rfk and his behavior, even though he was on the campaign and saying we were going to get out of vietnam, it was a moral -- he thought that robert kennedy was someone he could work with that would get out of vietnam gradually. i think he thought that robert kennedy would never approve several hundred troops in vietnam and he would've thought a quieter war, kind of like what we are fighting in afghanistan now.

c-span: back to your documentary. your fathers roll and your deceased sisters point on things >> he was called to serve and he did it. he didn't capably. he did it capably. >> guest: she lost the center of her life. it was very hard for her. a year or so into his being there, my sister catherine became ill. she had epilepsy since she was a child. terrible seizures she developed.

she developed in wrecks yet nervosa. it was awful. my mother took on the suffering of the system. she would make it go away for my father. there couldn't be any other way. everything for the mission. one evening she was writing him a letter in vietnam. i saw that she was a woman, not just my mother. she was lonely. she did not sign up for this. but she did. c-span: how well did you know your sister? >> guest: quite well. she was only two years older. she was not a sociable, she had epilepsy from an early age. she was different. she was the odd duck.

very bright, spoke four languages, went and lived in israel. extraordinary. she had to come home because they found out she had epilepsy and they said they couldn't care for her out there. she said the medication was fine. in a lot of ways she was a lot like my dad out of all the siblings. she was a redhead, spoke all those linkages, intensely curious about the world. a fighter. c-span: what year did she die? >> guest: she died in 1973. c-span: if you see the documentary, it played a major role in their lives. how did you see it as her sibling? >> guest: it's a hard thing to say, but i think that once she was dead, she was over and forgotten. i think my father's way of dealing with the world -- his

daughter dies at the same time you're going before hearings of the senate for your approval and confirmation as cia director -- and they are grilling you about what they call an assassination program in which you, personally are the architect of a program that has killed more than 29,000 vietnamese, be it that they are viacom or sympathizers. he was a tough character. c-span: does the committee or the public know that he was losing a daughter during that time? >> guest: i don't think so. the people in the white house might have known. but my father wasn't anyone to ever seek a pass or your sympathy for his predicament. c-span:

>> guest: there was a gentleman who was my father's best man at his wedding. my dad could be sitting across from you just like we are right now. he could be talking about a donkey or the weather, and somebody could be sawing off his right arm and he would not so much as flinch. c-span: i was starting to say, more on your mom's anguish from the documentary. >> guest: people would turn to me and say, your dad was a murderer. my immediate reaction used to be -- you don't know what you're talking about. then i found myself thinking, what was he? who was he, really? >> it is a very difficult theme.

[inaudible] one has to take it on faith and trust. that the right thing is being done, and perhaps, for the greater good. it is very difficult, i find, to explain. c-span: where did you do these interviews with your mother, and how many days did you spend with that project? >> guest: i did interviews with my mother twice on camera in a studio like this. very comfortable with cameramen,

terry steele, who was one of my oldest friends. she is a very congenial person. she is very vivacious. she liked being interviewed. c-span: what year did you do this? >> guest: i did this a few years ago. greg guggenheim would also record it. we would just talk about things and her life and -- a lot came out of that. i like the starkness of being in a studio where you can concentrate your thoughts like this. the studio that you have. it enables you, if you're a good question or like you are, it focused you on your attention. maybe things will spill out. you are dealing with somebody who was my daughter, and my mother in some ways as well. it is hard not to crack. it is like peeling an onion.

you have one layer, it looks like the next one. what is that little blemished? is that leading me somewhere? practicing the art of deception -- my mother wasn't, but certainly my father. c-span: what year did your father died? >> guest: 1996. c-span: is your mother still alive? >> guest: yes, she is, absolutely. she's doing fine. she came to the opening show in washington last friday. c-span: your mom never looked better -- she looks better with age. i told her that. i do q&a's. anybody who's watching and coming to the theaters on the opening weekends, i'm usually there and we do q&a's. people grabbed me and said, my god, your mother is

extraordinary. she looks more beautiful now than she did in her younger years you it is just her experience. >> guest: i didn't put in the film, but while i interviewed her, we were talking bout iraq and afghanistan. she said, where is my sacrifice? would've i -- what am i being asked to do? if we are at war, give me something to do. maybe i should ration or go visit the virginia hospital or wrap bandages. what is my sacrifice? c-span: a quick clip. seymour hersh asked why you talk to him. >> i did learn from people inside the agency that there had been documents called family jewels. i had your father's phone number and i called him. he didn't lie to me. what he did was if i said there was 120 cases of wiretapping of

american citizens contrary to the law in america, he said my number is only 63. it was a question of numbers. he did not back away from the question. that is one hell of a story. c-span: a little bit more than what you might imagine that he said. if you trace back what he said, he said that he was pivotal to the publishing of that story. my father was the source, in some ways, to that story. the leaker at the top. now, you might say, my god, why would he do that? i think he was doing what he's that he was going to do. he was going to keep the good secrets and let out the bad secrets. there had been wrongdoing. 697 instances of stagnation plots -- experiments on human guinea pigs.

torture, double agents on american soil. these were not -- this was not legal. these are things that needed to be revealed as past indiscretions and wrongdoing and illegal acts from the eisenhower administration onward. what he was not going to reveal the names of agents, and he wasn't going to reveal other operational details or histories that probably would not have served us well. c-span: this goes back to what you said about jim bakker on 9/11 saying that colby was responsible. people to this day -- >> guest: people to this day think it we were never recovered from my father spelling the beans. we set up a culture of the congress being overly zealous in its intentions to what the cia is up to. robert gates, interviewed as

well. he doesn't like being on the front page. they should not be in the news at all -- not referred to. they are a secret organization. gaetz is not in this documentary. you said you did 85 interviews, 35 or less, what are you doing with the rest? all the other material is going to come out as part of the expanded dvd and also follow a program that we may do. so keep tuned in. gaetz is an extraordinary person. he has a deep understanding. and he also told me that he had the support of a very strong president during his contentious hearings, which were about i wrong contract. my father had little or no support in what woodward calls in the film, the accidental [inaudible]. c-span: when is the dvd coming-out? >> guest: next summer. c-span: i will show another click. this was a surprise to me when i

watched it. let's run it and you can tell us about it. the mack are not sure he ever loved anyone, and i've never heard him say anything heartfelt. by the time i turned 30, i came to understand the man that nobody knew, or at least i thought i did. >> when he said, i want a divorce, i was really knocked over. very surprised and shocked. i said that we are catholic and we don't believe in divorce. so there goes that catholicism -- i don't know. he was a dedicated public servant. who gave his best to his work,

and i think that we had a good family life as long as it lasted, i must say that he was -- i guess i would say he was a complicated person whom maybe i did not know as well as i -- i would hope to think that i did. c-span: when i was watching, it did stop me dead. i didn't know -- but i wondered why in the world would she cooperate with you. up until that point, it is all very censored. >> guest: she has curves. she has character. my mother is an honest person. i think she's not afraid to face the truth, and my father changed -- in my opinion, after he was thrown out of the agency. i think if you watch the film closely and study him, he is a soldier. he took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments given to

him by the president from eisenhower onward. the one it came time for the president, in this case, to ask him to lie and mislead congress, he could not do it. moral or otherwise. he sided with the constitution. his obligation was -- he knows the law. it was a very big law out there. article one. congress has an authority. we cannot speak falsely to congress or to the american people. c-span: he was fired in 1976 by gerald ford. was he given a reason by the president? >> guest: no. just going 32 times to testify on capitol hill. i think he had lost control of that process. i think congress was having a witchhunt by then.

he had lost a lot of authority as director of central intelligence. i think the white house just wanted to get a handle on this, so they put in george h. w. bush, who was a friend of a lot of people in congress and he was a politician. congress is made up of politicians. they could deal with a politician. c-span: we found this from peter jennings newscast on the fifth month of the year, 16th day, 1996. it's about a minute and a half. >> the body of william colby was recovered from a marshy area of the river. he was a congressman who masterminded operations and spent years repudiating. he went missing 80s ago.

>> colby's wife, sally, continued until the end of hope he was alive, spoke to reporters after identifying his body. there was not much that is left to be done for him. he fought the fascists and the communists, and you can see democracy taking hold around the world. >> there is no indication of foul play. >> colby, a lifelong spy, was the perfect under creditor agent. traditional gray man, so inconspicuous he could never catch the waiters i in a restaurant. he was fired as cia director in 1970s after advocating a retreat from coke and dagger operations and continued raising eyebrows. the president issued a statement praising colby, who ably led the ca through challenging times. sally colby echo those thoughts

not far from the river where her husband was found. >> the children and i are very proud of him and very proud for what he accomplished in what he wrought to this world. >> jack smith, abc news, washington. c-span: jack smith is the son of hard case man reporting that. what was your relationship with your second life? c-span: cordial. i would see him and her and i would visit washington in the 1980s and early 1990s. here and there. every few months. have dinner at his house. i kept up with my father on the telephone and saw him in los angeles or new york. whenever i was in washington at the time. c-span: how do you think he died? >> guest: i think, as the corner reports, he over exerted himself and had a heart attack or stroke while he was paddling

his canoe in the mid- evening after he had a few drinks and feasted on his favorite meal. i have to say, in my opinion, i thought back to a conversation i had with him a few months before he died. i called him up and we were talking. i said your old friend judge teeter was found under a bridge in bilberry, vermont, where he lives. he has alzheimer's. he said oh, that'll never happen to me. i said really? he said yes. one day you'll hear that i was walking along the go path and fell to the sea. he didn't want the aarp card. he never accepted the senior discount. that angered me once. i said you would get a discount if you took that on a flight. he didn't want to grow old. c-span: no evidence of foul

play? >> guest: there were no evidence of foul play. c-span: what was your mother's reaction? >> guest: she was saddened. she didn't receive the flag. but she was sad, really, that he was gone. she admired him. c-span: do think anytime he took off? >> guest: i think he was done. i think he had done what he was going to do. c-span: what if he was here today and watch what was going on and spent the last 10 years and i rock or not quite -- last

several years in afghanistan? >> guest: i think he would find that very favorable. i think maybe the question would be these persistent drone attacks and other such things. the germans, to him, would be perhaps not the most efficient way to deal with our enemy in the field. it is one thing to take out bin laden in a raid or to take out a senior al qaeda official. but when you start taking out these middle officials from above, it is antithetical and i think my dad would link maybe he were capturing that fella and interrogating him and turning him. remember, -- a. guy from sonoma county, california, he grows a beard, goes to pakistan, and in two or three years, even counsel

with the enemy. do you think we can recruit a few more people like that? i think my father highly valued human intelligence. their relationships. just like you, brian, and valuable relationships in washington. you can't trade goes. when it's brian on the phone, they know who you are. they can trust what you're going to say. i think my father would like with the british system is. they don't higher hundreds of people and there's a crisis -- they call the old boys back into the business. c-span: in 1996, april 5, just a few weeks before he died -- >> the chinese will tell you the reason they neighbor pakistan having a capability is because the indians do. the basic argument is that we will forswear a nuclear capability if the indians will. the indians will tell you they can't swear it as long as the chinese have it.

so you have that [inaudible] to chance problem. they pass the ball around and continue to develop this capability. they all just saying that i'm doing it for my own protection because these other guys are doing it. c-span: did you ever hear that old baseball at its? there he was talking about something that was still relevant today. >> guest: yes. [laughter] back in the 80s, now you have george schultz, henry kissinger, calling for american unilateral nuclear assignment. that is like something that we saw in the 80s. he was very active. he liked to have influence. as long as he could have his voice heard, that was not. c-span: you live where today?

>> guest: i live in washington dc. c-span: are you married? young children? >> guest: yes. c-span: are they interested in this? information on their grandfather >> guest: yes. i think so. c-span: would he want folks to get out of this? >> guest: i think i want people to understand what sacrifices are being done for their sake by people like william colby. there are thousands of women and men in cia and special operations command who are the william colby is up-to-date. tonight there living out of an airbase or pakistan or yemen. we need to have the american people behind them. and then we have a president who is selling the secret war. my father would not want that to happen. for something to go awry, a couple of drums doing out of control, a bomb going off in new york city, suddenly [inaudible].

who is the sounding board? general petraeus? he is probably one of the most respected men in the army. c-span: who talk to you? >> guest: nobody really try to talk to me. i talk to dick cheney and henry kissinger. cheney was working on his book and then had a heart ailment issue. kissinger never really nailed down. by then i was arty pretty far along on the film. c-span: the most label new thing in your film? >> guest: i would say honestly -- honesty is really the shell of my father's forthcoming testimony before congress was really revealing to me. it shows push and pull that all these secret operations are now under the [inaudible]

c-span: the name of the documentary is "the man nobody knew", who is william colby, we are out of time. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you very much, brian. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q. and a..org. q&a programs are also available at c-span podcast. upcoming guests on q&a include general marsha anderson, discussing her life in h