security adviser brzezinski. live coverage begins at 11 a.m. eastern on c-span. [background sounds] >> this week live from london, the ceremony and pageantry of the state opening of parliament. until recently, parliament's official opening was usually held towards the end of the year with changes to their election rules, it's now been moved to the spring. and wednesday queen elizabeth will formally outline the government's priorities for the upcoming year. live coverage at 5:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. now, a discussion about executive power, the constitution and congress. you'll hear from several law school professors and authors who previously worked as deputy attorneys general in the clinton, bush and obama

administrations. this event was part of a conference that explored the workings of the federal government and the constitution. it was hosted by the federalist society at stanford university law school and runs about an hour and 40 minutes. >> be no? [inaudible conversations] testing. okay, welcome back. thank you for joining us for our third panel. you'll be happy to note that professor yu did get his photo shoot. it turns out, however, that vice president cheney did not recognize him. [laughter] so, but he'll still have that for posterity. this panel is going to be -- oh, first, i have to make an announcement, excuse me. two of our panelists, professor yu and professor levinson, will be selling their new books during the lunch hour. there'll be tables set up, and you can purchase them there and sign them. so that will be happening at lunch. this panel is moderated by judge

thomas griffith. he needs no introduction, least of all because you have his bio info in your packets. but he was appoint today the united states court of appeals by george w. bush in 2005, he has a ba from brigham young university, and his jd is from the university of virginia school of law. but most notably, he and his wife are the proud participants of six -- parents of six children and the grandparents of four. we're also particularly thankful to have judge griffith out here since he was at standford only two weeks ago -- stanford only two weeks ago. i don't know if it was us or the weather, but we're glad something could entice him to cock back a second time. >> -- come back a second time. >> thank you again. thanks to michael, e lan and barbara. although, elan, i wish you hadn't remarked i was out here two weeks ago in many light of mr. gray's comment, last panel that the dc circuit is woefully

underworked. [laughter] so good morning. for those of us who are familiar with gatherings of the federalist society, this is the obligatory panel on the part of the constitution that seems to be of the greatest interest to federalist society event organizers everywhere, at least when a conservative administration is in power. those three enigmatic and inviting words in the constitution, quote: the executive power, closed quote. as the moderator of this distinguished panel, i plan on being seen more than heard, but i do feel obliged to answer a question i know that my colleague and friend judge silverman would want me to answer before going further. what are you doing on a panel about the executive power? you see, my colleagues on the d.c. circuit for whom i have boundless admiration make two assumptions about me, neither of

which is correct. first, that my time as senate legal counsel predisposes me to side with the congress in disputes between the political branches. and second, that my association with byu and its fostering church means i must know mitt romney. [laughter] about that first assumption, the fact that i once had a statutory obligation to defend the powers of the senate when they were called into question and to advise the senate leadership how best the use those powers does not mean that i don't have an appreciation for the importance of the executive power in the constitutional scheme. now, you may think that the impeachment trial of the president of the united states an odd place to display such appreciation, but as those of us who were involved in the clinton impeachment will recall, the senate leadership was committed to show showing more respect to the office of the president than mr. clinton had. and so for judge silverman and like-minded skeptics, i assure

you that i have no bias here, although i do note that the powers of congress come first in the constitution, but we can talk about that later. now, as you've seen from your materials, we have assembled a distinguished panel today. departing from the pattern used by judge beya last evening, i will provide brief introductions to all the panelists at once and then turn the time over to them. in the order in which they'll be speaking today, we first have professor sanford levinson of the university of or texas law school. he has written literally hundreds of articles and book reviews, and if i can add something personal here, his scholarship on the second amendment was of special interest to this member of the panel that first considered the case that was to become heller. but we're not here to talk about that. professor levinson is the author of five books including one, "framed: america's 51

constitutions and the crisis of governance," which was referred to before. among his most recent publications on the the executive power is a 2010 article in the minnesota law review titled constitutional dictatorship, its dangers and design, an issue which he may address further today. next will be my friend, professor john yoo, of berkeley's law school. i first met professor yoo when we worked together as senate staffers. of course, professor yoo's name is virtually synonymous with the robust and muscular understanding of the executive power. he's published widely on foreign affairs, national security and constitution law and has served in all three branches of government. he was deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel, general counsel to the senate judiciary committee and a law clerk for judge silverman before clerking for justice thomas. professor tina way car is stand forward local. we're glad to have the strong

representation from stanford faculty at this conference and appreciate him being here. his research and teaching focus is on administrative law, executive power and how organizations implement regulatory responsibilities involving public health and safety, migration and international security in a changing world. in 2010 professor -- president obama appointed the professor to the council of the administrative congress of the united states. last but certainly not least, professor john c. harrison who is the james madison distinguished professor of law at the university of virginia. that's a virginia thing. [laughter] i guess the cavaliers are not well represented here today. laugh will have -- [laughter] so professor harrison's teaching summits include constitutional history and federal courts. professor harrison also served as deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal come and clerked for judge

robert bork on the d.c. sir is cut. he was on leave there the law school to serve as cowbs hour on international law and the office of legal adviser as the u.s. department of state in 2008. now, today's panel is titled czars, libya and recent developments, perspectives on executive power. but we after discussing the matter among ourselves, we took the prerogative to settle on a slightly nay rower theme of the -- narrower theme of the relationship between constitutional design and be executive power. and we've broken down this issue into three questions. first, how does our constitution distribute power that is executive in nature among congress, the president and the wiewr rock si -- bureaucracy? second, what are the benefits and problems of such a constitutional design. and, third, what might an ideal constitutional design look like? to give each panelist sufficient time, i will vigorously monitor the time limits.

we're going to ask each panelist to speak for ten minutes. rather than passing notes as they approach that time, i will simply announce when one minute is left, and because i favor the manner of chief justice roberts over his predecessor, i will not cut you off mid syllable, but will allow you to finish the sentence. [laughter] with that in mind, i turn the professor -- turn the floor over to professor levinson. >> thank you very much. i do want to thank the organizers. i think the two panels so far have been outstanding, i've learned a lot. um, ramped to -- with regard to the title of the original panel and go over that very quickly, and one of the reasons i think this might not break down on usually predictable liberal/conservative lines with regard to czars, i tend to share the views of my very good friend, bruce ackerman, that it is a very unfortunate development to have more and more czars appointed.

i do think that the reason for more and more czars is a failure by the senate, actually, to give timely hearings u and perhaps we can tab that. mike mcconnell alluded about that in the last panel. but i don't think the rise in czars is anything to be proud about. i disagree with the robust reading of the war power offered by harold coe, and i, therefore, disagree with a number of things that john has written. we could also talk about recent developments, recess points, things like that -- appointments, things like that. but i do woopt to -- i do want to go to more what we agreed upon is what we talked about, and i want to try to tie this to both of the panels that we've had, the one last night on,

among other things, line item vetoes and the one this morning because i do -- one of the things i found fascinating with regard to the second panel was the degree of radicalism shown by my good friend, mike mcconnell, who i think is probably not usually described as a radical. but i think that judge, professor, michael did touch on some absolutely crucial issues that are central to our particular topic. the degree of his radicalism perhaps can be ex'em prified by the extent to which not only he, but a number of the discussions represented the great debate in the 1960s in china over the issue of red versus expert. that is to what degree the state -- particularly if it is a modern state, and is last night

i do think even richard epstein, you know, waved the flag of surrender with regard to the existence of a very significant administrative state that will engage in a wide degree of rulemaking. and then as several of the speakers have articulated very carefully, the debate as well how should the rules be made and what is the relative trade-off between looking to land this kind of experts or to looking either at the demos, this is kind of the democratic critique of expert administration, or to adapt a little bit to the chinese analogy, it's not the demos at large, but a particular portion of the demos with the correct political values. and where politics is seen by

and large as the choice of values rather than the articulation of rational means-ends relationships to how you get there where expert knowledge can be relevant. but there's one other way in which i appreciated michael's radicalism and think that, actually, it doesn't go far enough. because michael called for two things. the first was basic reform of congressional organization which i strongly agree with. he has talked about the filibuster rules and other aspects of congressional organization, and he also suggested and several other speakers suggested the that it's time to return to the administrative procedure act and to ask if an act, basically, drafted inside mid '40s still serves us well 60 years later. i'm not a professor of

administrative law, i have no informed opinions on the adequacy of the administrative procedures act, but what i thoroughly applaud is michael's injunction that we actually look with a critical eye at whether the administrative procedure act really is fit for our present government. and what has become my hobby horse in recent years is that i think we should have the same spirit of critical scrutiny toward the constitution of the united states. we could have an argument though, frankly, i think it would not be very productive. i think at this point with regard to the debates about, say, john's view of executive power and the views of his critics, it's a little bit like the comedians' convention in which we can just shout out a number and, you know, you laugh or not. but everybody knows what the arguments are. i'm willing to stipulate -- something i, in fact, don't really believe, but i want to

stipulate forsake of argument -- that john gets it exactly right in his reading of what the 1787 constitution means. that, in fact, it was designed to create a president with the power of kings. now, what i would ask us to think about is even if, again by stipulation, perhaps there was reason to do that in 1787, does it make much sense today if we were designing a constitution anew? one thing about kings is that they tend to be dolts. there was no reason for the american revolution, frankly, other than that george iii was one of the most inept kings of all time with regard to responding to the grievances of the colonists. and if he had been more politically astute, if he'd accepted edmund burke's advice, for example, every reason to

think that we would have ended up like canada rather than a very bloody and destructive war that got us our independence. i'm not saying that i'm not glad we're independent. but if one is making analogies then, you know, certainly it doesn't -- there are a lot of things wrong with monarchies, and one of the things is monarchs aren't selected for their she gasty. so one of the questions that i think we ought to spend much more time talking about is whatever you think the executive power means. for purposes of this panel, i'm willing to defer to john whether i agree with him around. is -- with him or not. is the modern president likely to be somebody to whom we defer as much as we do across the spectrum of, say, commander in chief, chief economist, chief public health officer of the country, chief disaster specialist.

and, frankly, it seems to me that in the 21st century the answer is, no. that presidents of the united states are perhaps fairly extreme examples of not reds, but of amateurs versus experts. with regard to, say, the commander in chief power i think the last president in whom i have genuine confidence to be commander in chief was dwight eisenhower. and it's no coincidence. he actually was de facto commander in chief of the greatest military victory in history and a very important book that i read last year called eisenhower 1956, frankly, in spite of my own politics i ended that book relieved that ike beat stephenson for the presidency because ike was able to stand up to the military. because he knew something about

the military. since then we've had a string of amateur presidents, some of whom you might like, some of whom you don't. i'm not a fan of george w. bush and, therefore, i was horrified by some of the things that john wrote about presidential power. i assume that many of you in this room were no fans of bill clinton or barack obama in terms of their capacity to be commander in chief, but i think all of us are right. that you wouldn't select out these people to make the decisions of, um, peace and war, life and death. shift to the financial crisis, one of the most interesting books, um, on that, um, was written by a reporter at "the wall street journal" whose name i'm forgetting right now. and one of the points he made was that the decisions -- again, whether you liked them or not -- the decisions were made by the head of the fed, that is ben

bernanke, and the secretary of treasury, hank paulson, whom one can stipulate know something about the economy. george w. bush is next to nowhere to be seen in this book, and nobody in the review has suggested that he got it wrong. and, frankly, i'm more reassured by bernanke or other heads of the fed who i might like more than bernanke than, let's say, either bush or obama whom i supported with great pleasure. and i do think that there are so many issues of constitutional design i'll mention just one last before the gavel comes down. one of the things i found bizarre about last night's very, very interesting panel is the assumption that in talking about the line item veto, there's only one constitution in the united states. now, again, i'm going to stipulate that supreme court got it absolutely right as a reading of positive constitutional law that the constitution doesn't --

the u.s. constitution doesn't allow the land veto. what i think is just bizarre is that we don't even talk about the fact that most states have the line item veto. most states reject the unitary executive. the unitary executive is an aberration of one of the 51 constitutions of the united states. and i think that especially elite law schools, the higher you go up in the pecking order, the less likely the students or the professors are to know that there exists a constitution except perhaps in california where it's impossible not to know the importance of the state constitution. i think it's extraordinarily important to integrate the little laboratories of experimentation and to see how different a lot of the states are including, i suspect, structure of administrative law and whether there might be something to learn from that rather than to repeat what are, basically, now roped arguments

about how best to interpret, i think, the inevitably vague and ambiguous terms of the united states constitution. >> thank you, professor levinson. professor yoo. >> i'd also like to thank the federal society for having, giving me the chance to leave this city of berkeley and come to a more conservative place. [laughter] like stanford university. and i'm glad elan and the organizers were able to arrange -- i don't think there are real protesters outside including darth vadar because, a, they know me too well, they know i love the imperial side in all the star wars movies. [laughter] i always think it's unfair when the jedi knights just come along and try to fix everything. they're like federal judges and judicial review -- [laughter] they got robes, they have little clerks following them around doing their bidding. [laughter] and they intervene in all levels of government without any rift,

right? i mean, it's very interesting. i'd recommend -- someone's going to write a student note about this now, i'm sure. [laughter] but the other reason is because if you're getting protested by darth vadar, that means you're the good guys, right? i guess next time i'm going to get protested by someone in a curious george outfit who's going to accuse me of work anything league with the man in the yellow hat. [laughter] the last thing i'd like to say, it's a pleasure to be here not just with my friends on the panel, but i'm really glad to be on a panel that does not have -- one of the few panels today that does not have richard epstein on it. [laughter] i am finally going to get a word in edgewise with richard because he's just not allowed to speak until the question and answer period where he will rectify the imbalance, i'm sure. [laughter] >> oh, here he comes, here he comes! >> wait, professor, no questions yet. [laughter] [applause] >> one personal story, richard

and i have this podcast we do every two weeks. one we happened to be in new york, and i thought it would be fun to go to a jewish deli in new york. i still mispronounce it, carnegie deli where he proceeds to instruct the waitress on what all the sandwiches should have in them. [laughter] so that was a lot of fun. i actually very much enjoyed sandy's remarks, and i agree that the scholarship in our field is moving in this direction, more about constitutional design rather than sort of historical legitimacy or historical authenticity, and i just wanted to take what he had to say a little bit farther in that i'm not so convinced necessarily that even if western going -- if we were going to design a modern presidency today, that we would design one that's that different than what the original presidency was supposed to be. i think a lot of the problems we have perhaps with the

performance of the presidency today has to do with a lot of duties and purposes that we assume the presidency have which were not necessarily what the framers in 1789 wanted. and so we're having a difficulty reconciling who we elect as president and, sure, we can all say they have various deficiencies and the kinds of tax and duties we expect of them which i think should go well beyond the constitutional design. i was listening to sandy talk, i thought it was fascinating, and because of his talk i'm going to go out and buy his book at lunchtime. but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy mine, too, but i'm going to buy his. [laughter] it actually got me thinking whether the presidents he's talking about -- the good and bad presidents which i've been very interested in, would correlate with the kinds of qualities he wanted. it would seem to me that abraham lincoln would have been a president we have would not have wanted to elect into office. we were talking about, right, someone who was a loser. he had only won one term to the

house, he became famous by losing a senate race, and he was everybody's second choice. you couldn't have predicted beforehand that he would be good at the presidency, certainly to have expertise -- you might have wanted to elect george mcclelland during the civil war, and he did run in 1864, and he lost. on the nip side i was thinking what -- on the flip side i was thinking what president was most prepared for the domestic side of the presidency, surrounded himself with the smartest people, and the person i came up with was richard nixon. nixon was, many people think, a great foreign policy president, and think who he had working for him in domestic policy, george shultz, moynihan, and he had some innovate i ideas, but it doesn't mean his presidency turned out so well. that brings me to the point i was going to make in broader scope was i think part of the reason we have this problem is because i think the framers' design for the presidency is quite different than the one we expect. today we tend to focus on the

american presidency for at least equal parts for its domestic program. where i think the framers actually had a much nay roarer view for the presidency in mind, where i think framers really expected the executive branch to be primarily devoted to foreign fairs. and here i think we have seen in the last ten years presidents actually, despite george w. bush's presidency, trying to, actually, almost buying themselves in foreign policy. so in domestic affairs if you read the federalist papers, there's not a lot of discussion about the role of the president in domestic affairs. i think you would be surprised, the framers would be surprised to see the kind of president we have today in this area. just read some federalist numbers, they thought the president would be a check on congress, not someone who would be constantly urging and pushing congress to enact the president's program. so in federalist number 70,

alexander hamilton says that the president, a vigorous executive is necessary to protect against the igerer and high-handed come combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice, provide security against enterprises and assaults of ambition and anarchy which emanate -- i love this phrase, from, quote-unquote, the humors of the legislature. tom and i worked in the legislature, there's not a lot of humors there, but i guess that's why they elected al franken to the senate. [laughter] and when you look at the discussion of the veto power by the framer -- the federalist papers, it's not talked about as this sword to be used by the president to convince a congress to enact his or her program, it's discussed as a way for the presidency to protect its own constitutional authorities and to what it calls furnish an additional security against the inaction of improper laws, against laws that would be unfriendly to the public good.

so in one respect i think the reason why we have this disjunction is because we have presidents who feel now, today, that it is their role to promote an active domestic policy to, actually, in some ways integrate themselves with the activities of the legislature. and this is something that not only runs against the framers' design, i think it explains why president obama has been having the problems he's having in public opinion polls. because i think he got too close the legislature in the passage of obamacare and the t.a.r.p. or the stimulus and, in fact, he gets blamed for all of them even though much of those laws were written in congress. if you talk about the various shenanigans, i love all the names like gator-aid for florida, nebraska, the cornhuskers, i think. we all attribute those deals to obama, right? but they're not his doing. but because, i think, the president became too close to congress, too associate with the the activity of passing legislation rather than trying

to check congress, the president's opinion polls and his approval by the people sort of start to track the very low opinion we have of members of congress. at the flipside, i think, in foreign affairs this is where i think the framers did expect the executive branch to come to the fore. it's the only reason why you need to have an independent executive that's separate from the legislature. we could have a parliamentary system of government where the majority party in the legislature appointed the cabinet members who are going to execute their policies. but in foreign policy the framers thought you, one, ought to have something different was foreign policy has unique differences from domestic policy. foreign policy's unpredictable, it's very difficult for the legislature to pass laws in the anticipation of what's going to happen many foreign affairs. it's, there's more advantage to having one person act with what the framers call decision, frequency and dispatch because the national danger, the harm to the country might be greater, so

we might be willing to accept more errors by a single person in exchange for being able to act faster and more quickly. that's why alexander hamilton says war is the greatest challenge, war is that area of human lifer which is best suited to control by the executive. administration by the executive. so i think the basic trade-off between -- and i think this responds more directly to sandy's point, is you could have a government by legislature which we see in a lot of european countries who have parliamentary systems of government. but they trade off, it's very hard for legislatures to act quickly. they may make less mistakes, right? the more people who participate in a decision, the less likely they're going to make an error. ..

>> so to me i actually agree with sandy. i don't think czars are constitutionally problematic. i think as a matter of administration, it might be a bad the as policy but i think it's because presidents have taken on themselves to try to get so involved with the legislature, so involved with the laws that they need more and more people to access them by don't think it raises any great constitutional difficulty. libya, however, i think is a demonstration in the last few years about presidents actually have been trying to bind themselves to reduce the kind of the vigorous constitutional presidency that should offer a

national security in foreign affairs. for example, what struck me about libby is the claim that libya was not at war which i think what a surprise mr. david sims we're trying to kill him during the conflict. but also that we delayed our intervention for two to three weeks a wiki to get united nations approval. where the current administration thought it was more important get approval from the united nations than from congress. i thought i felt was a remarkable thing that the presidency trying to actually limit its own freedom of action by tying the fate of our national policy here the organization that is not even part of our political system. thanks very much. >> thank you, professor yoo. [applause] >> thank you very much. i'm very honored to be here and i want to first and foremost thank the organizers of the conference for this invitation. i salute barber, michael, gabe

and your colleagues are organizing this conference. i've had the privilege of having many of you in a class and i'm delighted to see you. i also want to congratulate all of you for being in the audience because there are many other ways you could have spend your saturday morning. for those of us are passionate about this topic, we couldn't imagine doing anything else on a saturday morning. my kids who are seven and five spend most of their saturday mornings sort of think about these very things. [laughter] that has turned into a dangerous thing. i'll give you one specific example. my seven year old daughter said to be when asked her to take out the trash, said of the, i think there's a problem with one ear doctors. you didn't say what kind of trash, you didn't say where i should take it, you didn't say how much they should take how i should take before coming back. i might have to change my strategy. i want to take just a few minutes to help not to take all my time, to make basically just to point. one point is to situate some of this discussion in all

beneficial context and the others to observe a little bit of history is evolving. and i hope in the process not so much to directly answer some of the questions that we should all the dress but at least for the put some of the scaffolding on the context of that we should think about these things. i want to start with the reagan administration because it's hard to find a better place in the last 50 years to think about a great deal of national level discussion about the roles of presidency in fort pierce, and in domestic affairs. i submit to the reagan administration stood for the proposition that it is a gross executive to play an important role in the country in both domestic affairs and international affairs. i would note that on the domestic side, just to emphasize that given john's interesting comment, many of the leading cases that we talk about in administrative law today, that you probably discuss if you take an administrative law. state farm, edf, costa, these are cases where the white house is trying to reflect particular

philosophy, particular approaches to how the law should be implemented in an approach is that not everybody agrees with but that as justice rehnquist says, and state farm, reflects the degree of democratic legitimacy, and interest that administration has in implementing the law. as much as they're consistent with the law, with the statutes in a different way. how, justice rehnquist asked, can we not expect elections to matter when the administrative state doesn't work? we still expect legitimacy to flow from the president at that notion is not just something that goes back to the reagan administration. it goes forward in cases like the free enterprise taste, but also goes backwards in time to i want to read a very little bit from some documents, the roosevelt administration and read some testimony from the truman administration that will show you that what was a foot in the reagan administration was in some respects not that new at all. to put this in context i want to

just note that all of us are probably heard about the battles at the roosevelt administration had with congress, vis-à-vis quarterbacking. what you may not fall so close is that a parallel battle just as intense at the time probably comparable to debates today about the affordable care act reflected the roosevelt administration interest and we organized the executive branch. roosevelt was clawing for a 40 to reorganize the executive branch, when congress let that down just as it did, interestingly enough, the roosevelt administration did not take another run at court packing but did take another run at executive reorganization. if you care more about exactly what happened you can read a book that i've written that is about to be published but it's not on sale today. but i want to instead draw your attention to very interesting set of documents that i found buried under stacks and stacks of papers in the roosevelt library, describe what roosevelt staff listening to the president about imports of reorganization.

i'm going to let the documents speak for themselves. i quote here, the guide -- the following is suggested, first, do those things which when done will reduce the difficulties of the president india with his multi-various duties and which will assist them in discharging his responsive those as a chief administrator of the governed. second, do those things which when done with finish the work of those administrators who have been chosen by the president to assist him in the discharge of his duties. is responsibly for the people is through the president. third, do those things which when done well advantage heads of departments in the discharge of their own responsibilities. then it has a note at the bottom that says historical note. this is what i found interesting. rooseveltaides were describing to the president the result of an effort that was undertaken by commission to see of the federal government could be reorganize and this is what the staff tells roosevelt. it is an interesting fact that few federal administrators have spoken to the whims of the

president's committee on administered management in terms of the interests of the president or the presidency or the administration, but nearly always in terms of the immediate and particular interests of a department or a per euro, as if it were safe tracking a couple of things to observe about this. number one, is the extent to which roosevelt staff understands the president to be chief administrator. my point is when the reagan administration put saddam it was not doing so on a blank slate. second, it's interesting that the staff are concerned about how even hand picked loyal political lieutenants in agencies might actually have a diversion of you, vis-à-vis the president of passover just a little bit to the truman administration and here's one of truman's agency officials testified before congress describing how he views his role as a presidential appointee. >> the department head must be regarded as an extension of the

president's personnel. is expected to carry out any basic instructions which the president may provide for his guidance. political attitude, which disappointed discuss an important role for the appointee to bear in mind, with much prevailing police on broad public issues, believes about the scope and magnitude of government activities, about the ends and means of government actions. my point here is that the truman administration reflects agency officials describing to congress there anything of the role of agency heads as folks who have not only an expert technical role, but also a role of engaging in political judgment. this is what i want to observe just in closing. clearly you're talking here about a long running effort on the part of presidents from both parties to figure out how to make sense of their responsibility, vis-à-vis a very large government. a large government that i might not at not listing some incidence of presidential efforts to get legislation enacted, has largely been created, entirely created by

congress it's a. that paschal made an effort to a large the executive office of the president, to create senior aides to the president that have responsibility for dealing with cabinet officials, people like terry hopkins in the roosevelt administration, john ehrlichman in the nixon administration, henry kissinger in the nixon administration roger porter in the george h. to the bush administration. but i also want to note that this discussion within the executive branch wasn't happening with it judicial backing. you look at the midwest or the case in 1915, curtiss wright, these cases almost household names for most of us are to reflect a judicial recognition of the special role of the executive in both domestic and international affairs. i will end by noting the passage of time matters and that to the extent of presidential powers change in nature, i would argue that it's partly something that is being driven by congress. and in part it's being driven by a competition among different congressional committees, to enlarge the jurisdiction of

particular agencies and resulting in a executive branch that often involves agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. these overlapping jurisdictions often plays the president in a strange quasi-adjudicatory role where the role of the president is in part to deconflict how to coordinate different agencies. important for us to recognize courts have a very important and central in our system. but when it comes to the issue of supervising and constraining executive power in particular i said that the courts also faced great constraints. some of those constraints are potential, from the clinical question doctrine, from standing constraints. and ultimately where that leaves us i think should be recognizing the courts have an important role but for the recognizing that the rule of law is very much in our own hands, and by that i mean in the hands of the people that are uploaded to executive agencies who always have the choice to say this is not what i signed up for, this is not what it means to be loyal to the constitution, i am leaving this job. and ultimately the american people will go to the ballot

box. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, professor. professor harrison. >> thank you. my presence here is an example of which michael just in time logistics. as a result of some travel difficulties but i don't want to tell you about, i arrived about 15 minutes before the panel was scheduled to start. so i am here, and in interest of last minute adjustments and spontaneity, i am going to substantially depart from what i was originally planning to say, which was largely about the war powers in a little bit, about sars, is said to more broadly about the topic we've been discussing and pick up from some of the things that everybody else on the panel has already sent. and the first thing i want to talk about by way of illustrating the centrality of the presidency and as a result the centrality of the identity of the president at any time

picks up from something tina said a few minutes ago about the way in which the truman administration and the roosevelt administration reconsider a number of important aspects have administered law. one of the things that the truman administration gave us is at almost certainly and potentially disastrously unconstitutional statute governing presidential succession. this is an issue on which both i suppose john yoo and i would have strong feelings because the story as president truman overruled the office of legal counsel but when ever the present of rules the office of legal counsel the result is disastrous to the constitution of the the presidential succession statute runs from the president to the speaker of the house, then the president pro tempore in the senate, then to the cabinet. for a long period before the recent change most recent change that was done under the truman administration about 1945-9046, when the statute was reconsidered and revise invite

essentials of modern warfare and in particular nuclear weapons, for the preceding 70 or 80 years after the change around 1880, the congressional officers have been taken out, and the line of succession went entirely through the cabinet. which was a very good idea both for policy reasons, because it made it impossible to change the party control of the presidency by killing the president, which now can't be done again, by the congressional offices are in the line of succession. and better yet and perhaps more importantly, it is at best highly doubtful, in fact what it is permissible under the constitution for the congressional officers to be in the light of the succession of the presidency. they are certainly not officers as referred to in the presidential succession provision of the constitution. so imagine that something very, very bad happens to the president and vice president, and that the speaker of the house and the secretary of state

are of opposite political party to the secretary of state being the president's party, the speaker let's assume being of the opposite party. and that they are bitterly divided on some major policy question. and someone advise the secretary of state, the presidential succession statute this is the speaker of the house becomes president is actually unconstitutional. i don't even like to think about what might happen under those circumstances, and it is harry truman's fault. and the point i want to make here is just, first, it's important thing to do and it's a fascinating story, but president truman, this is something particular to him, happens to believe very strongly that it was very bad for someone who'd never been elected to act as president. and so when the statute was revise right after world war ii he was adamant, even to the point of overruling, something no president should ever do, he was adamant that somebody who had been elected ought to be and

the line of succession. and despite the constitutional difficulties with the arrangement and despite the problem of changing party, president truman said well, i'm the president, and that's what we're going to do. and one reason we have that, and so much particular power in the president of the united states is of course we have a quite short, a quite spare constitution and one that is very, very hard to change. and put all of those things together and you have a great deal of authority still vested in the president, even if 200 years later as tenuous and, it's entirely possible if the constitution were strictly we thought, a number of changes would be made, but i think the single most important change that might well be made, to pick up what he was talking, would be the constitutional creation of an independent central bank. but that is not feasible simply because of the difficulty of amending the constitution. and the constitution is too hard

to amend. state constitution would be much easier to amend. we still have the original constitution. quite sure, quite brief as john yoo said, design for a presidency that does not necessarily fit with the modern presidential role and in particular, the role of the present as domestic leader. although i will say the idea of the president as legislative leaders began almost at the beginning. this is one of those topics where the plan went awry almost from the outset. jefferson was leader of a political party who was an influence with congress and with president truman was able to get what he wanted done. putting all sorts of important decisions like the ones about presidential succession, specifically in the hands of the president i will say that if he

wanted to justify the system we have, and wanted to say what is the role of the president come and we are thinking and that president be making detailed decisions about how to structure the bailout should the president be deciding monetary policy. quite possibly, quite possibly know. but one powerful argument that can be made in favor of the quite brief fair system that we had to put so much stress on the identity of the president is that you create table for the present that maybe somebody can do. and one of the things i think that specialist and separation of powers tend to underrate is the insight on which chief justice against the united states is built and part of the problem is that the opinion is, shall we say, i don't want to make too much of chief justice taft or i will call it will be and just leave it at that. but the fundamental insight of

miners is that it's the president has the power to appoint and the power to remove, chief justice taft had been president of the united states.gov to powers together were really all the president needed, and he might have been right because if the president can decide into his confidence, if the president can decide often in very technical areas like, for example, monetary policy, this is the sort of person who the general political tendency that i laid and the general political tendency that caused me to be elected should have in this role, and if the president can then take somebody out when he loses confidence in that person, even if he doesn't understand what has gone wrong, if he knows that something has gone wrong, well then, all the people really need to ask when they elected president is not do you know anything about monetary policy, you know anything about emergency management, do you know anything about nuclear

disarmament, but one, what is your basic worldview? and two, are you the sort of person who can decide which expert to trust? can decide in him all this confidence should be placed. do you have those fairly rare skills of management and assessment of other people that make it possible to be the president? i don't want to be pollyanna on this. if i were starting with a clean sheet of paper we would not come up with the constitution that we have if i were in charge. perhaps it's just as well i am not. but there is something to be said for what we have, and one thing that is to be said for what we have is like creating this central figure, by creating the presidency, and giving the president a task that a single individual actually can perform, it makes it possible for the spare old system, maybe even if we would replace it, and i would, still function. thanks.

>> think you very much. [applause] >> this is a good start to the discussion. what i would like to do now is to open the discussion to members of the panel to respond to thoughts that they heard, expressed by the college. and then we will leave about a half-hour for questions from the audience. professor levinson. >> yes, i agree unexpectedly 95% of what john has just said. i want to touch on, you're absolutely right. i think one of the interesting questions is it's been 60 years. why is it that there's no serious discussion of this? because there are a few of us who have actually written about this, and i think part of it is because the legal academy and the legal culture at large is right at best, and regards this kind of issue as dull and

boring, and not worth our attention. but i think for the reasons that john sets out, it is very much worth our attention, and the brunt of the work i am doing these days is that the dull and boring issues that are consigned to high school civics courses, assuming any are taught any longer, are, in fact, at least as important and i would argue are really more important than most of the rights disputes we get into. because rights can change, for better or for worse. you will get different sorts of understandings about rights. but if our example you think that one of the unfortunate features of our political system is the extent to which the presidential veto has turned this into a tri-camera rather than a bicameral system, in part because it's not him possible to

override a presidential veto, but it turns out that 95% of all details are upheld, and we might have different sorts of results if it were a 55% or even what other spoke about, switching from majority of those voting simply a majority of the actual membership that said it. but these all strike people as boring. one thing that frustrates me about the legal academy is that we chop down forests to discuss the counterpart georgian judicial review and never talk about other difficulties in our system including bicameralism, and the veto. a couple of other points, it didn't we should proceed quickly, the lincoln problem. we've had 44 presidents, so much discussion turns out to focus as if it's an end of one. so the proposals are often judged about, what about abraham lincoln?

he captured the white house with 39.8% of the popular vote, and it was that election that triggered a war that killed 2% of the population. now, you may or may not believe the war was a good thing. i am ambivalent to the extent that i support this consultation. it is basically because of humanitarian intervention to overcome slavery. but quite frankly if one is an anti-slavery, one i do believe that something in the constitution described as a covenant with death and upheld should not itself have been ratified. but even independently of the war, say there have been 44 presidents and it would be good, and at the end of 44 is sorting not a very high end, but at least we might discuss the over all experiences we have had. john is right that presidents

are legislative leaders at least as early as jefferson, but one thing about jefferson that he didn't like to speak in public. so we have what my colleague jeff called the rhetorical presidency that arises with woodrow wilson, where, who really takes, makes the president much more into a cult figure. i do think that one of the very unfortunate features of our political system is the president serving as head of state, as well as head of government. and i also think a difference between 70 and 87 and today is that we expect presidents to be highly partisan leaders of their political parties. and that is taken into account with regard to theaters and appointments. so the only area we disagree on and what i thought were extraordinary remarks, is that i would trust more a president who fits the madisonian or hamiltonian notion of the virtuous person interested in

the public good, that a president who is always looking for the next election and where confidence is based on part of a vote in ohio. and i think that we really do need to talk about how one integrates the reality of the modern party system into an 18th century constitution that was drafted under what we in retrospect can regard as the almost lunatic assumption that they would not be a party system and that i would not end up responding to politics. let me just end by quoting james madison, in trying to get some credit for being madisonian myself. my favorite passage in ali federalist papers -- in all the federalist papers, when he emphasizes that we should learn the lesson of experience, and praises the revolutionaries for not being bound by what he calls names, or tradition, and instead

forging new understandings for a new world. and i don't spend much, if any of my time, founder bashing but i think they did the best they could for 1787. the people i want to bash our us today, who don't learn i think that all important lesson from the generation of the founders, which is to look at the lessons of experience, do what mr. jefferson, i believe in revolution every 19 years, but he did believe in conventions and actually scrutinize to the extent to which the constitution -- and it's not. >> this is a lot of fun. i appreciate sandy's comments about lincoln, and so i thought when i wrote this last book of mine, which is not on sale today unfortunately, which is about what makes a great and bad president if we do tend to focus on the great ones, particularly

lincoln, fdr and washington. what i wanted to do was restore some attention to the loser president. the bad ones. so actually if you were to look, and the federal society help me do a poll of 300 scholars. they do it every few years as to rank president of the outcome of the list, remarkably unchanged over the years but there's not a lot of fluctuation is on the apart or what to call you study. there's a fair amount agreement about who our great presidents and who are bad ones. the interesting thing if you look at the one-two at the bottom, they do tend of a high level of very accomplished people. to the worst president by unanimous of reclamation is buchanan. and so when i mentioned this at college audiences, some of the students start thinking buchanan, buchanan grants because they think pat buchanan might have been president last night but i am referring back to james begin with the president right before lincoln. extremely accomplished guy. senator, secretary of state, senator from pennsylvania.

done everything you're supposed to do. and be a good president. he thought president had no rights, not succession, to head off the civil war but another person i would put down in the bad presidents area, and there's no disagreement, this is madison himself. so i the medicine if you look at his presidency, it was probably one of the sports people to ever be president. but he actually did believe in executive deference to the legislation and his particular foreign policy and he left the country be run into the war of 1812, which action is probably the worst war we've ever been involved with from a strategic decision making perspective. this is a war where the united states is neutral between england and france. we make a lot of money trading between the two, which were always do during wartime. and we decided to declare war against the only country that has a navy and troops on our border. [laughter] and why chris because we want to invade canada which is an obsession, i do understand the obsession with taking over

canada. [laughter] all the smart comedians move here anyway. [laughter] >> for the doughnuts, john. >> we would've had universal health care a little bit faster though i suppose. spent and it was a disaster, right? our effort to invade canada, the british took the capital, burned it to the cryptic this is what happens when you congressional lead action in the area where the framers did think you should have biggest executive, not a deferential executive. >> i was thinking, t. r. had a very interesting point about exercise of executive power really a response to congress putting more and more responsibility come more and more duties passing broader and broader legislation but although i think, i wonder whether there's a difference between presidents like reagan and maybe a president like clinton, all those cases i think you mention are cases where the reagan administration was trying to deregulate. they were trying to use executive power to try to pull back the expansion of federal

regulation of the economy society as opposed to make a difference and a president who might use the regulatory power to try to expand beyond, or expand as fully as congress would like. so i wonder whether we can distinguish between those two kinds of presidential power in regard to reaction to congress. i think you're quite right, i think it's quite right that all presidents have responded to this phenomenon by doing some the things mentioned on the last panel, tried to centralize authority, trying to put cost-benefit analysis agencywide. i think the czars in that respect are just a response again to the presidency becoming excessively i think involved with the execution of legislative powers, involved with the administrative state, just an effort to try to control it. i can totally understand it. i think it's in the wrong way but i can understand why president do. john harrison, i thought that was interesting.

i admire his effort. as judge griffith was saying, every federalist society convention has a panel on presidential power, and also every federalist society conference in so many traces all the worlds ills to morrison v. olson, right? loss of the control of the removal of power. i think there's something to it. on the other hand, i wonder whether even if morrison v. olson had never happened and even if we lived in the miers versus the united states were they could remove any member of the executive branch, what it really cure the problems with had with the administrative state? would it really and able a president to really centralize control over this is enormous administrative state that we have now that is involved in every area of human life? in fact sometimes i worry that it would be such a discussion of such a demand on time and energy of presidents that they would spend so much time on this and they would lose focus on important things. i think which is like foreign

affairs, national security. last example i will throw out there is fdr. fdr actually signed all these bills creating all these limits. fdr was very much in favor of the biggest executive, but he accepted these limits when it came to domestic policy. and to place in these games of how do presidents do when they're in office, i would bet if world war ii had not have happened, that fdr would've been considered a mediocre president because a don't think that people will be the new deal really did cure the great depression. i think it was when he focus on foreign affairs and the coming of world war ii. and did violate congressional statutes to try to get us involved in the conflict earlier than congress want. that's when we began to consider him a great president. >> this is great stuff but i'm just going to be brief because i want us to get to the questions, but i want to just note this gives me a lot of great material for me to talk to my kids about. i'm still a little crazy here.

so the main point i want to make is i'm intrigue by the interest in we thinking what a constitution looks like, should look like, but i wouldn't just are just now to approach the task with much caught -- cautioned that there's a lot we don't know about how bureaucracies, how governments and how people respond to changes in structure. and even when we do know something i think it's important to recognize that in part the institutions we have are probably to some degree of data to we are as a people, to our structure. and to our history. so getting inferences or ideas for how things work in other countries i think should just be done with a lot of caution. and the second what i wanted to make was there's always a question of whether, when you observe the behavior of the executive branch, you are observing something that is a contours of a particular structure or set of legal decisions, or whether, in fact, observing a reaction to our larger social context, our technological context.

and if you think it's important in a discussion like this, to highlight how much the nature of the presidency has changed as the technology that allows presidents to connect with the public has evolved. think about how roosevelt used his fireside chats. think about the impact of television of the 1960 presidential debates. think about the impact of social media on the 2008 presidential election. so as we think again about this whole question of redesigning our reshaping or rethinking what we expect from the presidency, we should know that some of what drives their behavior really isn't located in the presidency itself. >> since we're doing, getting gone to one and talking about presidents and discussing some of the underappreciated presidents, i do want to say something, and this picks up on something a number of participants have been talking about, either the first or the second most important constitutional design of the also serve as a resident of the united states, and maybe madison is first, and maybe it's not, but if medicine is first, the second is martin van buren.

and buren created the modern political party. and he created the modern political party for two reasons. one, he didn't like the way the constitution worked, and two, it was too hard to amend the constitution itself. and so because he thought there was an overwhelming tendency for power to be centralize in washington, and for the elites who are in charge of the government, in particular the executive and the courts to get out of control of people, he designed an entirely new and an entirely extraconstitutional means of controlling the government. he committed the democratic party. which was supposed to be a way of keeping the bad things that he thought had begun to happen under the constitution from happening. it has had a lot of some anticipated consequences, some uninterested consequences but it is an overwhelmingly powerful consequences for the country. and one of them, once again, one

of the problems without a constitution that is so hard to amend is extraconstitutional means or para- constitutional means like the automatic supreme court opponents will be used to publish something that amounts to a constitutional amendment. and if you look at van buren's original design, it was a little disturbingly leninist. it's purpose was for only to exclude from the political process the people he thought were especially dangerous, the rent seekers would seize control of the national government. and he gave the blueprint for the party that controlled the government outside the constitution. and again, it has pluses and minuses, but the temptation to do that sort of thing whenever a constitution that is as hard to change as ours, it's going to be overwhelming. >> thank you. i think we're at a point now where we can open the discussion to members of the audience. so if you would please come to the microphone, and identify yourself, and direct your question at a member of the

panel. and we will reserve time for professor epstein to ask a question. [laughter] >> dean micki, chapter present at st. john's university law school. i want to put james madison back in the spotlight in terms of foreign affairs, and is like the panel to respond to what madison wrote about power of the president in the constitution. and he wrote in no part of the constitution more wisdom be found than in the clause which decides the question of war or peace to the legislature. and he goes onto explain why one man should not have so much power to take entire country into war. and i was wondering if any members of the panel disagree with medicine is a question of constitution interpretation? and then further, if any members of the panel disagreed with him as a matter of whether that is a wise clause of the constitution? >> everybody is looking at me, i don't know why. i think it's a great question.

i see you're reading from madison participation of the debates which, of course, take place after the ratification of the constitution. this is something people debate about, whether historians, jack here at stanford has written a very interesting essay about whether medicine is consistent between when he was acting as one of the framers in philadelphia and the ratification, and then once he became basically one of the leaders of the opposition to the washington administration, just the context in which he was riding. i think, one, his comment doesn't really address the issue we have today, which is where you have a large military that congress has created, voted for and maintains from year to year, at the president's control. and the president i think effectively has decision whether to employ in hostels or not. i think madison is what right when it comes to the idea

declared war and putting the country on sort of a mobilization or war footing. but what i don't think madison's, addresses, original understanding, is how congress was supposed to control the executive once it has already created this large military. in the time madison was writing, there was no standing military. so if any president want to have a war, they would have to go to congress and asked them to both army and navy for that were. the thing that changed the middle east, this does go to stand but also a constitution design, things have changed. made one of the biggest constitution change is the have the standing military that the framers were worried about. and congress, i think i'm has plenty of tools to stop the president from using it if it wanted to. i think what congress prefers is for the executive branch to make these decisions about war and peace, and gives the president the military to do it, and doesn't want to take any accountability or responsibility

or successes or failures. i think that's really what happened in libya. as a matter of constitutional design, i actually think, you know, the system makes more sense to me if congress creates the military, gives the president a fair amount of discretion in how to use it, and then congress has the control via the purse and the control of the size and shape of the military. i think that, i would worry about a system, some people read the quote that you read from madison to i would worry about a system that was biased, extremely biased against, in favor of inaction but i think people say congress is less warlike branch. this was professor john skerry of war powers. but i think one mistake with that is it failed to recognize that not acting can harm the country, too. we commonly think of words that

are bad for the country. the country can also be harmed by not going to war when it should, and i think the best example of that is the years leading to world war ii. when congress actually use its powers to really try to prevent the united states from assisting the allies. and i think to its credit, i think fdr tried his best to try to get around the law to help britain and france against nike germany. >> this is my opportunity to you when i originally prepared and in chains at the last minute. which is, it's important thing about the relationship between executive power and the legislative power to bear in mind that although we can think of them as antagonistic, they are, in fact, complementary to one another. and what the executive does is carry out decisions generally made by the legislature, and in turn the legislature creates a legal environment within which the executive exercise its

powers. and specifically with respect to war powers, i would go farther than john yoo in describing the kinds of controls congress could exercise in standing law if it wants to. it seems to me it's not just the size and shape of the military, but congress could adopt because it has the pakistan armed forces, congress could adopt a mission statement for the armed forces. congress could enforce that to the power to declare war by saying what the circumstances are under which the united states will be at war and which will not be were. and when it's not available, it can enforce those points furthermore by creating war crimes with its authority to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces. so congress has very extensive authority, not to micromanage, but let's say in considerable detail with respect to how the military is used. as a general matter, congress has not done so the one of congress' weaknesses been good to do so and to retreat to the position of so she did with john

and you see in the war powers resolution which creates a default against military action in saying all, only if we affirmatively say it isn't authorized to i think that's not an accurate description of congressional power as a result of congress' approaches they can not use the the powers i think they 30 have. >> again i basically agree with what john has just sent. i think if one were trying to envision drafting a 21st century constitution, one might, for example, accept the proposition that a president should be elected for a single six-year term, among other things, so that the president is running, doesn't begin running for the reelection a day after the previous election day. generally, i've been adverse to that but i find myself more than willing to accept that as a possible approach, if it is

combined with the ability to fire a president in whom one has lost confidence in voting no conference. that it does seem to me that one of the great bad features of the united states constitution is the rigid external presidency, because if we do have a president who we view as incompetent or just prone to bad judgment, which i think incidentally is worse than being a crook, or worse than running afoul of some lawyers leading of what a high crime and misdemeanor is. than it was quicker way to get rid of a president. i'm not sure that the california system of recalling the governor is exactly the best way to do it, but again i come back, we have one constitution in this country and they do provide a variety of solutions to the problem of political leadership

in whom one has lost confidence. >> next question. yes. >> eyed and communities of color and. professor yoo, i enjoyed your remarks. there was one point i kind of am getting stuck on. i just want to get your opinion. you sketched out the founders vision for a president whose role is domestic policy is very limited to assuming that that's true, aren't the stakes too high, aren't the stakes too high for domestic policy, the setup we have for the presidency? isn't it inevitable that you'll get a president who's very active in domestic politics? so does that matter that the founders had that vision? >> i think that's a great point, because we have a political system now where we call the -- hold the president accountable for everything. and we demand that the president solve unemployment. we demand that the president have the answer to the budget problem, even though those are things really which lie within the hands of congress.

so presidents have, i take your point. presidents have responded by trying to at least have more control over pass legislation, and over administration. and a always, but i've always wondered what he had a president who came into office and started saying all that stuff is congress' fault. and i am not responsible for, you know, what congress has done health care i'm i'm not responsible for the, v., c. and d. it's their fault. and venues, trying to get with my comments on the presentation i think this kind of like what reagan come all the discretion of action have on going to try to use actually to cut back on all the things congress is trying to get me to do. and actually uses it in a the regular fashion, or more limited to cover fashion your reagan was extremely popular for doing that. i mean, i think judge mcconnell was quite right when

you start today's administrative state as being so complex, prone to corruption, makes no sense to regular people. so maybe there's a space for president to do something politically that is consistent with the original constitutional vision. i'm campaigning on the domestic political platform of less. and uses powers that what. >> i appreciate the question, and i agree with the crux of your question. tobacco something john said. my view is the prominent legislative role of president in the domestic sphere happened relatively poorly after our constitutional framework was put into place but i would note also that at least since teddy roosevelt, i have seen historical support for a fairly prominent presidential role in administering government. it varies from presidential administration to presidential administration. the focus changes but the extent to the presence ambition to play cordoning roll is there. and with respect to john's

interesting point about deregulation versus expanding to the first is there's a black letter law would visit an extension -- a distinction. one can disagree with that but that i think is an important piece of the discussion. and second, the pattern of presidents being concerned about the national level implications of regulatory action is not a pattern can find to one party. i think it's very striking in fact something that folks are treated as an important moment in developing a presidency the following reagan and following george h. to be bush president clinton essentially kept the framework in place that allowed for review by omb of regulations and certainly that has continued to this day. >> i just want to make one more comment about this point, because john and others mention it but i look something up before i came. i wanted to use it. just like the law student in

class. so the question of what happens when jefferson becomes president and has heavy cooperation with the legislature, so john marshall, who personally did not get along with jefferson, was asked what did he think kevin was going to be like as president, and so he wrote a letter where he said, he thought jefferson was going to be somewhat dangerous as president. they said why? he said because jeff is going to quote unquote by himself in the house of representatives, which would increase his personal power, but marshall also thought it would lead to a weakening of the office of the president to do that. and the reason why i think actually came to fruition in the years after jefferson, which was if the president is so closely cooperates with house and the senate and uses the political party system to do that, we start, we might start to approach a system where congress chooses a president. in the years after jefferson basically the republican democratic party created a caucus in the congress, and they

would pick the presidential candidates for the party. you have a situation that the framers really didn't want which was congressional selection of head of the executive branch. >> i realize we're in the the area of constitutional design, so there's some sense of not being tethered to historical precedents come but i just want to ask you, professor yoo, a follow-up question. your talk, you're suggesting that it might be politically palatable for a president to say i will do less. is there any example? that seems to me to run counter, that, in fact, -- >> that sounds like something dirty. [laughter] >> now. isn't there a strong imperative to want a team, and, in fact, what we see in the constitution is an exception to that part with limitations? limitations? i wanted, i know this is all in

a design effort none of it is realistic but isn't or hasn't the least realistic thing with her today, that a president who would say i will do less would be successful? >> first, i think that's a lot of unrealistic things so snotty fair to pick one thing at. so, i think there's some scholars who are on this train to rehabilitate calvin coolidge. may be calvin coolidge -- [applause] may be calvin coolidge is an example, he comes in right after world war i. wilson does a huge bureaucracy which would become a model for the new deal state, but coolidge and office tries to do a lot to cut back on the sides of the federal government. people tend, -- but it raises the bigger question which is as sandy mentioned, there's certain contradictions in the office, at one of the contradictions is head of state versus being a

prime minister. we expect the president to be both exciting is what i'm doing is making a pitch for the president not to be prime minister and to be more of head of state. i think sandy, just someone i can take them once the president to be more of the prime minister and less ahead of state. would want more coordination between the president and the leadership of congress hiring specials, like in england, specialist to the cabinet. but i don't, i'm not convinced that's actually the way to go. i look at what's going on in europe these days as a good example, the european parliamentary model not necessarily being superior to ours which a lot of people, global science used to the same was true. >> part of what i mean by head of state is bands that play hail to achieve, and we see the great leaders picture on every post office and every federal office. and i think that also leads pernicious precisely because it becomes very difficult. i will quote a great texan, h.

ross perot when he was running before the presidency, he said the president is an employee. and if we don't like our employee, we should be able to fire him. whereas if you have bands and photographs of the extraordinary secret service details, the cult of the presidency, it gets much, much harder to see the president as an employee. and it becomes, you know, and a civil religious sense, sacrilegious to say that this is somebody that we would be well rid of. because he, or she, isn't up to the job. and it would be dangerous to wait for the next election. so in that sense i would like a somewhat more parliamentary system, but i don't know we have to go all the way to a parliamentary system. that's one of the reasons why i want a constitutional convention in order to have systematic discussions about what a

constitution and the 21st century should look like. >> quickly, i'm totally with sandy on having a constitutional convention. [inaudible] [laughter] >> here's something else that is not so likely to happen. it may or may not be possible for a president just to say less, but a political party can. and political parties from time to time do so. but if you're going to say that that function can be more readily performed by political party which doesn't have the imperial overtones that comes with the presidency, and to some extent you're going of a presidency that will be more prime minister ariel. >> yes, next question. >> good afternoon. i'm kevin douglas, a second year student at stanford law school. i have a question for i guess clarification based on something professor levinson said. it was basically the comment that the constitution doesn't work. i would think that judging an

institution working or not would depend on what institution is to countries when you said that, did you mean the purpose of the authors of the constitution are more modern purpose, or a more modern purpose? if it was the first, what purpose do the authors did you think were failing to achieve? and if it's the second, why would he be valid to consider a modern purpose, in calling the constitution itself a failure or not working? why would it be considered? >> wonderful, wonderful question. i encourage you -- [laughter] to send 400 pages trying to answer. very quickly, one can say that one purpose of the original constitution was to create a little our republican political order that would be as insulated from a democracy as possible. rightly and wrongly that has not really sustain itself as a

working definition of american political ideology. again with regard to originalism, there's a chapter in a book which is a wonderful part of the constitution, and i think one would you assess any constitution, whether it is the constitution of virginia or whatever, is to try to get a sense of what are its purposes. that's the function that preambles play, and then you just ask, well, to what extent has the constitutional allowed us to receive those purpose of the shifting to another realm entirely, i think it is relevant that right now congress has improved rating of 11% or so, i'm not sure where the president is today right now, but i think it's well under 50, in terms of an overall approval rating and i don't think you find great support for basic american political institutions. it's the military. military is the one and only

palooka institution that has the constant level of 94%, even the courts are i think most generous and looking the data, are only somewhere in the '60s. and if you ask specific questions certain ways, even supreme court say it will be under 50%. you know, i think that people, ordinary people to evacuate government the basis of output. and i think would be you are left, right and center, and the shoe really love the status quo, you are not going to find the contemporary american national government very satisfying. so that's another way of evaluating, it's the shoe, does the shoe pinch very? is not an original his theory, but one thing government is supposed to do is to create a relative sense of content among the populace, including the feeding that if you win

elections you can really do things. but one of the things that are extraordinary complicated national system ensures is that elections at the end of the day been much less than one might think. and that's something we should talk about. >> next question. >> my question is directed large to professor harrison, but anyone can answer. .. it was an attempt by congress to

constitutionalize an issue that is primarily governed by statute and that has congress concerning concerning -- control to record. it's simply a declaration about what the constitutional rules are and if you think that congress is wrong about those constitutional rules, which i do, then it's just another view of the problem, and that i think actually, that undermines i think the effectiveness of the 60-day deadline, and although -- i'm not much impressed with the argument that there were no hostilities underway because although we were in a position to shoot the libyans and they couldn't shoot back, seems to me it's sufficient condition for the annie forces to be an hostilities when it is permissible under the law or for the other country to shoot at them even if they don't have weapons that can reach them. the problem with the war powers resolution is it attempts to build its enforcement mechanism

into what i think is a flawed view of the constitutional rules and if congress had proceeded differently, not by saying this is our attempt to build out the constitution and to replace a vague notion the president can act only for a wild provisional well we will make it 60 days if they legislated it in a different format it would have been substantially more effective but they got into the reconstitution allies in this mode and i think it paid a price. >> i think this is the also an area with van buren that the idea that if congress against the executive or the like, just avoids what levinson have pointed out, that the party structure, the party system is really more important than the structures, that a republican congress was happy to give george w. bush a authority that

was actually based on the u.n. resolution. and, you know, i think if we are going to talk about checking and balancing, i'm not sure how one does it, but to rely on congress vigorously to assert its own prerogatives against the president of their party so to speak clearly doesn't work. the war powers resolution is based on a madisonian notion of the national government that hasn't been descriptively accurate since 1800. >> i was going to say i don't think people in congress want to fix the war powers resolution problems as a convenient symbol that congress was doing something about war powers is a way to avoid doing the things i think we all agree congress could do. to cut off funds are not pay for any these complex. libby i think might've been so small that you might've been able to wage the whole thing without a reprogramming money in

in the defensive department but kosovo was in. yet devote a -- the other thing is the political party thing, kosovo is interesting because in kosovo president clinton went to war. they went beyond the 60-day clock. the courts wooden adjudicative but the courts were controlled by the other party at that time and if you remember, we it's funny one of the 10 things in the contract with america that newt gingrich wanted to do was repeal the war powers resolution so you had a case where the congress of the different party actually went to add to presidential more power to repeal the war powers resolution which is hard to figure out as a political matter. students succeed on this one so he is not bragging about it now i suppose. the last thing i will say is i think that congress could easily achieve the war powers resolution results just to the funding power so if john was saying all the president needs

his removal power to run the executive branch i think congress can get most of its way through the funding power. the way to really get the executive branch to do what you want is to start placing writers on appropriation bills and start threatening to cut things off from the budget process and it could easily stop i think anywhere the executive branch would want to get into. >> next question. >> professor levenson, you talk about the difficulty but i can't think of anything more empathetic role to majoritarianism or that idea of the difficulty having been a referendum on the president because that would just be swayed by whatever the majority wants at the time or by not having a two-thirds majority veto because that could just be swayed by whatever the congress wants. i think the chinese exclusion act vetoed by grover cleveland as an example of a president exercising his you know, counter

majoritarian influence and having lived in california for many years i can tell you that the recall wasn't you know, we got rid of gray davis but it was not necessarily the most successful governor. so i am just a little bit perturbed by the suggestions and i think they could actually work against that counter majority problem. >> what you speak very much is the view that was dominant in the philadelphia convention because it was antis democratic with the little d. i think the most persuasive theme in the federalist is safe to mistrust of miss trust of actual government by the government. the philadelphians try to create a government by a virtuous elite and there is much to be said for that as a normative political theory but it clearly did not stick. i also think, and here i per tray the fact that being a lawyer, it's very important to talk about distributions and not

focus on undoubted examples of ends of one which are either very commendable or very awful. and, to decide, you know to try to get some sense of the lessons of experience over all, a lot of states have direct democracy. there are some horrible examples of direct democracy. they may exist more frequently than in other states in california but if you look at the -- in the early 20th century it is because of a basically accurate perception of california legislature was bought and owned by stanford and his friends and that it was viewed as a very important safety valve for popular government. you can say we have learned over the last 100 years that there are also problems, and we could

negotiate about whether it should be straight up and down majority votes. we have the elected judges which is a very exceptional aspect of american exceptionalism. the barn burners and the 1846 new york legislature rationally supported the move to elect a judiciary because they recognized again, altogether accurately, that the judges were friends of the governor whose job was to uphold basically whatever the governor and his legislative allies wanted them to do. you can say judiciaries have their problems but god knows so do appointed judiciaries and all i want and i'm delighted that john endorses this, is a long-overdue national conversation about the structural detail based on looking at the lessons of experience to try to figure out what might make sense. one last point with t. know who criticize what works in other countries, one of the reasons i

so much now want to emphasize the other constitutions is that on occasion it might be useful to look at germany, south africa or even france, but i am happy to accept a blinkered notion that we look only within the united states and we still find a lot of really interesting variations that could allow us to have a meaningful discussion in in the 21st century. >> your point is well taken and i appreciate that but i want to say it hurts what you said about stanford. >> one last question. >> rim at stanford and given that this is the federalist society, my question is that, given that the congress really hasn't done anything to resist executive power, what can a state or group of states due to prevent executive ranch and roads into the activities?

>> i think that is a really interesting question. the one point that i would make about the premise of the question is i actually think congress has done a good deal to resist executive power. the best example we talk about at the wire is watergate or what happened immediately after watergate. i think you can teach a whole class about the seven or 10 statute that congress passed immediately following watergate. now what strengthens the question is of course that is not the typical thing we see from congress but even today for example with respect to budgeting we are living under a statutory scheme that does look like congressional reaction of congressional power. >> i also -- probably john is most infamous or famous depending on who the speakers are, with regard to trying to write about a lot of attempts by congress and the previous administration to resist what was regarded as overreaching by the executives and that rot forth the signing

memos that we could certainly have argued about i think unproductively for the last hour and a half, but it does seem to me that it's not so oblique. if we had more time we could talk about you know, so session as the ultimate mode of resistance. my governor has flirted with that idea. [laughter] >> i think we have the a winner for most unrealistic comment. thank you are very much. [applause] >> before we congratulate our panelists, i've been asked to read a very important announcement from the organizers i've been asked to inform you about a panel that is not in the printed schedule but may be of interest. during the next period, 12:45 until 2:00 p.m. the federalist society faculty division will host a panel on preparing to become a law professor. the panel will take place in

some brownout, in my pronouncing that right? room 301. that is the room directly above the auditorium and can be reached by taking that outside stairwell or the elevator to the third floor of this building. panels will include professors barnett, mcconnell and liberman otis. law students and graduates are considering an academic rare welcome to attend. feel free to bring your lunch from the lawn of two ram 301. the panel will start no later than 1:00 and will conclude in time for the affordable care act debate. if you'll join me in thanking the panelists for a lively discussion. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> it is very significant this "new york times" exposé of the most highly classified documents of the war. >> i see. i didn't read the story but the main that was leaked out of the

pentagon? >> sir, the whole study that was done for mcnamara and then carried on after mcnamara left by clifford and the peaceniks over there. this is a devastating security breach. >> coming up fcc chairman julius genachowski talks about how wider broadband access can translate into job and business opportunities for african-americans and other minorities.

>> when it comes to privacy for and citizens corporate liability and the ability to share information, when we look at protecting more critical infrastructure good enough just isn't enough. >> federal communications commission chairman julius genachowski and other fcc commissioners discuss how wider broadband access can translate into jobs and business opportunities for african-americans and other minorities. they are joined by national urban league president marc morial whose grief we issued a report on the subject. this is about an hour and 45 minutes.

>> good afternoon. my name is valerie wilson. and vice president of research for the national urban league policy institute, and on behalf of the national urban league, it is my pleasure to be the first to welcome you here this afternoon for the release of our report connecting the dots, linking broadband adoption to job creation and job competitiveness. we are very excited to be joined by several vips this afternoon who have made time in their busy schedules to be with us and for the first half of our program, we will hear brief remarks from our distinguished guests, beginning with ncta ceo and president and former fcc chairman michael powell. he will be followed by the national urban league president and ceo, art morial followed by fcc chairman julius genachowski, fcc commissioner mignon clyburn,

and fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. that will leave the remainder of our program about 45 minutes, for us to delve more deeply into a moderated discussion about how strategies were connecting broadband to job creation and urban communities can be accomplished. we will have a panel of esteemed individuals who will be introduced a little later. so without any further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce and turn the microphone over to ncta president and ceo and former fcc chairman, michael powell, to offer some welcoming remarks. [applause] >> good afternoon. as you heard my name is michael powell. i and the presidency of the national cable and telecommunications association and it's a great honor and a pleasure to welcome all of you to our home here at the ncta

headquarters. at promises to be an exciting and productive afternoon. you know in the cable industry we really get the privilege frequently of working with a lot of terrific hardener's on great policy positions and on worthy initiatives but none are more fascinating and fantastic to work with then time warner cable and the national urban league. time warner cable is not only an extraordinary member of our sissy asian, a leading innovator in the cable industry, but a company that has demonstrated by a strong sense of corporate social responsibility and committing to make the lives of ordinary citizens better. and what can you say about the national urban league? they seem to be involved in all things worthy all the time. chairedably by marc morial, my good friend who is with was with us here today as well. so we are going to talk this afternoon about really fantastic

research efforts that attempts to draw the connections between broadband adoption and job creation to the african-american community. but really is encouraging to me is the connection that adds more significance to that. draws the connection between adoption and the american light. anyone hoping for a life filled with honorable work, personal and family prosperity, education for their children, a better life for their children, know that road passes through the digital age. and absent the tools and the literacy required, the promises will never be fulfilled or fully realized. this is a subject of great personal passion for me, because in many ways this will be the first time of the three great

economic ethics in which african-americans may truly and genuinely have a chance. like many of you, during the agricultural age, my ancestors were enslaved and picking cotton for other people. during the industrial age, and we they were segregated by jim crow laws, rules of separation that never really allowed that community to enjoy fully the promises of that dream. and as we enter the dawn dawn of the information age, that prospect looks right and potentially very powerful for our community if only we can seize it and do what we need to do to make it real. i can tell you one thing, the cable industry is committed to that fight. not only are we proud to be the industry that introduced broadband to the american public, we have invested over $185 billion over the last decade to reach 93% of american households. but we also woke up and record

nice to not good is not enough. we need to try to get more american citizens adopting the service, using these tools in order to bring about the promises that we talk about and so we are embarking along with partnership with the fcc and the connect to compete initiative, dedicated effort for the cable industry to try to drive adoption through low-cost offering two kids on the preschool lunch program across the country. so i am sure as an industry we are all in and intend to stay there. we are going to have the pleasure of hearing from leadership of the federal communications commission and as a point of personal privilege is a former colleague i will tell you it is a real testament to the significance of this effort and its import that the entire commission would be here today. not only under the great leadership of my friend, the chairman, and julius genachowski who is always given voice to this issue.

is joined by outstanding colleagues in minion colleague -- minion clyburn and robert mcdowell to understand this is a mission that crosses all party divides and whose significance cannot afford the usual difficulties of the process and i'm thrilled to have them with us here today. [applause] i think we will have a fruitful discussion on this report. i'm very much looking forward to hearing the findings and i will not preclude them. with that i have the pleasure and a privilege to introduce a great leader, a better friend and a real committed advocate for great causes, the presidency of the national urban league, marc morial. [applause] >> thank you very much. ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. let me thank chairman powell for

his kind remarks and for really laying out why this is important. let me also thank chairman genachowski and members of the commission. let's give them another round of applause. thank you very much. [applause] i just apologize for arriving late but i just completed another conference call on stem education, which is dominating so much of the discussion in education and workforce circles and that is a good thing. i am also late because i got a new piece of equipment that i do not know how to silence or turn off. so i apologize if it rings. we are proud today, the national urban league, through our policy and research arm, the national urban league policy institute

headed by chanelle hardy to join with time warner cable in releasing this very important report connecting the dots. and, this report in some way, like so many reports, reaffirms what we already know, but gives us insight into information that we may not he so aware about. thirdly and importantly, we hope that this report sets a path, outlined steps, points a direction that we need to go. in our infancy, the national urban league and its affiliates had as our tag to assist african-americans in the transition from rural america to urban america. from an agrarian society to an industrial society.

and our work in the early 1900's was predicated on that, helping people connect to jobs and opportunities in the burgeoning automobile, glass, plastic and steel plants of many of our northern industrial city's. today, we are now exactly two years into our second century, 102 years old, and our work we believe is to help people transition from an industrial economy to and information and knowledge he based economy. from an urban economy to what might best be characterized as a global economy. so our work is the same, but the steps we take in the 21st century are indeed different.

this important report contains some good news, but it also contains some not so good news. so what is the good news? the good news is that the gap between african-americans and whites when it comes to broadband adoption, is narrow. narrowing i think significantly and we are on a think a very important role. and we need to celebrate that as good news. it is okay to clap. [applause] but within that, what we find is that those that make less than $20,000 a year are locked out, and they are left out. those with less than high school attainment, broadband remains elusive and in some cases

unaffordable and the gap remains unacceptably high. we must commit. we must commit as a nation, as regulators, as private industry, as public officials, as civil rights leaders, to close at gap because broadband access to technology is an essentiality of american life in the 21st century, and essentiality. it is no longer a nicety. it is now a necessity, and we must reaffirm that it is indeed a necessity of life, a necessity of progress, a necessity of quality of life. so, while we celebrate the good news, we point out it's -- this not so good news.

there are a number of important observations that focus on this idea that broadband is about jobs and it's about economic empowerment, and that is, that african-americans lag behind when it comes to our participation in technology and information-based industry jobs. we underperformed our percentage of the workforce and our percentage of the population. secondarily, when it comes to the very important issues of entrepreneurship and business development, a central objective of the work we do at the urban league, african-american participation in this sector is paltry and statistically very small. these are things that we must

work on, and we must work on them not simply because fairness dictates it, a sense of equity dictates it, but global competitiveness for the american economy to caves it because of the changing workforce in this nation. so we suggest a number of things. in the workforce area, the nations broad with print documents and again commending the commission for developing a national broadband plan, a blueprint, a roadmap, a set of affirmations and principles, the nation's workforce investment act, which is the nation's blueprint of our job training and workforce development, is outdated, outmoded, stale, and a relic of the 20th century. we need to revise that workforce

act in a way that encourages investments in a kind of skill that the broadband economies of the 21st century require. the kind of skills that the manufacturing renaissance that is beginning to take place in this nation requires. the kind of skills that all of the new industries in and the information technology sector requires. we need to rewrite the workforce investment act. we need to refocus our work and our investment in workforce into assisting people in the acquisition of the kinds of skills that they need to work for the businesses of today and tomorrow. we don't want to train people or give them an opportunity to acquire skills and meaningless certificates that are

unmarketable and in the 21st century economy. we have very important work to do. we have got to revise our thinking when it comes to job training. let me say this. while everyone is mindful, mindful, of the fiscal constraints of this nation operates under, no nation has ever gone wrong by investing too much money in its own people. not the romans, not the greeks, not the ethiopians, no ancient great society. we must reaffirm that, by investing in the skills enhancement of people, there is a return, not only for the businesses that they work for, not only for the individual, but for the nation at large and for the economy of the 21st century. when it comes to business, it is important that as a nation we

try to grow the participation rate of african-american and other businesses owned by communities of color and the information technology sector. how can it be done? to focus on where we have had growth. this is a place where the business leadership of this nation can play a crucial role. african-american business in the last 10 years has had the greatest success in the business to business sales market. less in the business to consumer market, but in the business-to-business sales market or the business to government market. hence why improved increasing strong commitment to supplier diversity is so essential. my colleagues at the national urban league, madura wijewardena. please stand.

chanelle hardy and dr. valerie wilson. they did all of this work to put this report together. [applause] i want to thank them because i have had an opportunity to join them. so we are excited about this report and we want to thank time warner cable for having confidence in the research capabilities of the national urban league and the national urban league policy institute to compile this report. we ask you to take a look at this report and report both the good and the challenging, and the steps that we can take to improve things in this nation. i also am proud that we have in and the urban league movement 97 affiliates around the country. those 97 affiliates ladies and gentlemen serve over 2 million

people a year in workforce training and after-school programs and housing programs. in a few minutes you will have an opportunity to hear from my colleague, allie braswell, standup allie, who is the president and ceo of the central florida urban league in orlando and serves the greater orlando area. [applause] again thank you so much. it is my extreme pleasure to present to each of you, the chairperson of the federal communications commission. i want to thank him for his leadership, thank him for his commitment and let you know mr. chairman and the other commissioners, on these issues we are the wind beneath your wings so we want you to soar high but you will never be like icarus. you will never go too high. we will be right there with you and the members of the commissions the ladies and gentlemen please create chairman julius genachowski.

[applause] >> thank you marc morial, thank you so much for those great remarks and for the introduction and for this report that you have just described as being released today that shines a light on this incredibly important issue, both the good news and the not so good news, the opportunities and the challenges. i have had a chance to previously report and i can tell you that it will make a real difference in our work and in our collective goal to close adoption gaps, unleash opportunity for all americans. it's a privilege to be here with both my colleagues on the commission and you are right, i think michael said this and

there aren't that many events that we all come to together. this is a lot about -- [applause] it says a lot about the importance of an issue to have both commissioner mcdowell and commissioner clyburn here. we do need to all work together on the gaps that both my predecessor and speakers have spoke about and we talked about in the broadband plan and the broadband adoption gap and this is a great sign that we will continue to make progress together on this very important issue. it is great that we are doing this announcement here at ncta, with michael powell here, with time warner cable here. the cable industry has made a decision to commit to helping

solve the broadband adoption gap, to unleash opportunities through broad and for all americans, to throw itself into, as michael said, the connect to compete initiative and i want all of you to know that in committing to connect to compete, and cta and the cable industry are taking a stand for consumers and taking a stand for our economy. now what is connect to compete? connect to compete is an unprecedented coalition, private company, nonprofit groups, working with government to tackle the challenges underneath the broadband adoption gap. there isn't a single simple reason for it, which there isn't a simple solution to it.

our work supported, confirmed by the work of the national urban league as done today, indicates that there are three main barriers to broadband adoption. cost is one, digital literacy is another, and relevance in the search for undervaluing the benefits of broadband. we are working together to tackle each of these three challenges. the cost of one of the most important parts of the connect to compete in initiative is a commitment by the cable industry to roll out $9.95 a month brought and to all families in their areas with kids on school lunch programs. it is a very big idea, highly complex, not easy and not something you can just say yes to. it requires real commitment, real investment of resources on the part of all the companies in the cable industry and we should all be grateful for the work that they are doing.

[applause] on digital literacy, which is also part of the connect to compete in initiative, libraries across the country, along with companies like best buy's geek squad and others, will be teaching basic digital skills, working with organizations like the national urban league and others and the fcc was composed using savings from universal service universal service reforms to increase digital learning in schools and libraries and of course working on other measures to tackle the broadband adoption and other broadband gaps. in today's report, it does cover many different strands of the broadband adoption issues, but in some ways, i see it as focusing on the third barrier to adoption that i mentioned before, the relevance -- the relevant gap, the undervaluing of brought and, to many, and the

report reminds us that at the end of the day, connect to compete is not just a broadband adoption initiative, and it's not just an education initiative and not just a health care initiative for public safety initiative because broadband is all those things but what they national urban league report reminds us of is the connect to compete issue and you see it when you look at airport today. 77% of african-americans have use broadband to search her jobs and programs like essential florida, urban league's job training program which we are going to hear about shortly, are something hearts as a penance in very high numbers find jobs through digital skills training. why is this important? without digital access and digital literacy, finding and

landing a job is virtually impossible in this country. almost all job postings on line and that's certainly true for fortune 500 companies and almost all job postings require on line applications. so if you don't have on-line access and on line skills, you are way behind the curve in having a chance to participate in our economy and a chance to be eligible for the jobs that are out there that are being created. digital literacy is increasingly essential in the job market, more than half of today's jobs require some technology skills. a percentage that is projected to grow to over 75% in the next decade. if we don't tackle the digital literacy problem now, we run the risk that michael mentioned it in his remarks, of this age of economic opportunity following a

similar depressing path of the prior ones. that we know it now and it's a testament to the importance of this in the wide recognition of this is such a diverse multi-stakeholder group to come together as they are committed to solving. as mr. morial said this is good news and not so good news. we are seeing progress in the percentage of african-americans coming on line, getting broadband at home, but we are seeing strong ongoing, lingering problems among the lowest income in that community and other communities and overall we still have too many americans who are not hard heart of the broadband landscape. still about a third of americans don't have broadband at home. having this many people do not part of the broadband economy and on the wrong side of the digital divide is not good for

those people and it's not good for her country and the ability to compete in the global economy. the 21st century having one third of americans sitting on the sidelines should be as unthinkable as having one third of our country without electricity in the 20th century. millions being left out of jobs, left out of digital learning is not just an economic issue. it's a civil rights issue. we need to close the broadband adoption gap and make sure every american can enjoy the benefits of high-speed internet. it's what the report is about and it's what our work together with the national urban league and other community organizations, ncta and the cable industry, is about. is a core mission of ours at the federal communications commission and it's why we have focused together the fcc on broadband developing the first national broadband plan, modernizing and reforming major universal service programs, focusing on updating the fund

for rural america, the low-income people, for schools and libraries. is why we are focused on unleashing spectrum for both licensed and unlicensed mobile broadband use. is why we are focused on removing their ears to broadband buildout, to unleash investments as quickly as possible and wired and wireless infrastructure all over the country so that broadband is both ubiquitously available and ultimately accessed by every american. i want to thank again the national urban league, mayor morial for the work you have done, your team. i know you have been working on this for sometime but remember the first time he said we are working on this reporting is said to me, will you promise me that if it's a good report you will come and help me launch it? and i said yes. we looked at the work you have done and i'm just so proud of it and it's making a real contribution to this important national challenge. michael my friend, thank you so much for what you personally are

doing and what the cable industry is doing. you are completely right. you are also right to recognize that there is work that we can all do together to extend extraordinary opportunities and new technologies to all americans. thank you to my colleagues were working together in a spirit of cooperation of the real progress for all of americans issue. [applause] and wait, there is more. i am so pleased to introduce commissioner clyburn who i was going to ask ask to come up and speak next. commissioner clyburn absolutely as someone who in almost every single meeting i have with her, raises issues around those people and our communities who are going to be left behind if we don't do something about it and what i admire of commissioner clyburn is the consistency of her commitment to these issues and also the

breadth of her willingness to tackle hard issues and to find solutions wherever they are to make drug arrests. it is a privilege to introduce now, commissioner clyburn. [applause] >> thank you so much mr. chairman for being so kind. there is a lot that he left out. he still comes back for more so i appreciate that. good afternoon everyone. president morial and president powell, thank you for this invitation and for your willingness to host such a significant event. since 1910, the urban league has worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of african-americans and today it has continued to empower deserving individuals through job skills training, education, entrepreneurship training and broadband adoption.

in some ways, as was advised, this is not too similar to what we are charged to do with the fcc. for rule 257 of the communications act, directs us to identify and eliminate through regulatory actions, market entry their ears for entrepreneurs and other small businesses and the provision and ownership of telecommunications and information services. under the chairman's leadership, we have acknowledged in our increasingly aware of the fact that many things we still -- at the fcc can be expedited through coordination with private industry. nowhere is this more true than with broadband adoption. giving americans connected at home and in their communities is in everyone's best interest. for young children it provides a window into their future as computer and internet literacy are essential fields that they can't learn early enough.

for older students, it opens up an entire universe of research and learning resources facilitated outside of their local schools and libraries. for jobseekers, it allows them to search and apply for job openings of upward of 80% of the fortune 500 companies and smaller companies as well and for seniors, it offers a wealth of new hobbies, adventures and an immediate link to their children and grandchildren and friends. we are a great and rich nation, but currently there are millions of americans without access to basic rock band services. i have heard stories of individuals traveling by bus, just to logon and scout away for employment. i've been told of a student hiding overnight in a public library in order to finish his homework and i have seen first-hand, as i know you have,

some at computer terminals inside of her public libraries. collectively, we recognize that we must connect the dots and this is why i am enthusiastic about this partnership with the national urban league. we are already seeing the results of aggressive engagement with the narrowing of the broadband gap for african-americans, as was said. student gains gains wisdom initiatives in chattanooga and training assistance in central florida that we will hear more about. i'm also encouraged by the positive reviews of connect to compete, through which chairman genachowski sees the power of relationships between community organizations and the people they serve. these on the ground and in the neighborhood preach the benefit of connectivity in ways that corporations and government cannot and they have become vital partners in our efforts to

get lower income families and seniors on line. the urban league's on workforce training, education modernization and forward-looking ideas regarding economically distressed businesses are prudent and well received and i commend mr. morial once again and his incredible team on their attention and energy on these initiatives. further i want to also recognize time warner cable research program on digital communication that has supported this research and research on broadband. i had been and will continue to be a willing partner through the urban league in the smart approach to broadband adoption and i thank you for your invitation to be here this afternoon. at this point, i would like to yield the rest of my time to the distinguished gentleman from virginia, mr. robert mcdowell.

[applause] >> i am glad he didn't say x. tang was gentleman. good afternoon. how is everybody? well, good. many thanks two in cta and it's always difficult to follow in the eloquence of michael powell. what a great speaker and what a great leader for his organization. many thanks to the national urban league as well and lots to talk about regarding your study and i look forward to studying it very hard and learning as much as i can from it and also time warner cable. thank you for all your support in this effort and other efforts as well. as many of you know, last fall the fcc completed a monumental task by reforming the high cost portion of our universal service program, and earlier this year in january we worked on the reform of our lifeline linkup

program. we repurpose the high cost program to support broadband while adhering to the budget for the very first time. not only was with our effort historic, but it was bipartisan and unanimous as well and that is something you don't hear much about in washington d.c. so i think the chairman and my distinguished colleague, the lady from south california, deserve a lot of credit as well. [applause] now our reforms will help ensure the subsidy supports applying high-speed internet technology to those americans who are currently underserved by any broadband service. although our overhaul was a major accomplishment, the fcc has much more to do it to implement the reform and in rescuing the funds failing contribution methodology, that is who is going to pay for these subsidies and how? and just a little while ago we launched an effort to try to do

just that. with that in mind i look forward to continuing our collegial work on the issues at the fcc and hopefully with two new commissioners as soon as possible. and i agree with our host today that in addition to expanding broadband deployment, another key component to ensuring academic and career success for americans is improving the broadband adoption rate of our country, increased broadband adoption will help grow americans economy as well. and today, we do have before us some good news and we will talk about the less greater news as well, but all too often folks only focus on the bad news, especially in washington d.c.. so i do think there is a time here to celebrate some of the good things especially with the urban league finding study today that the adoption gap has shrunk substantially to between 2,092,010 and of course more needs to be done and more will be done. simply put, let us all work together to ensure the day when there is no gap comes sooner

rather than later. one way to close that gap is to examine, respect and encourage already existing market trends. american consumers are choosing to come to core as they purchase wireless services over fixed wireline offerings. already more than 30% of america's households are wireless only for their phone service. let's connect that powerful.with another fact. minorities are more likely to use mobile devices than whites according to a pew research study. furthermore, minorities are more likely to use their mobile devices for internet access and when we take a step back from these details, we can see an encouraging trend more clearly and that is that the internet is going mobile and american minorities are leading the way. i think this is actually very

encouraging. as government adopts policies in this area and as the private sector invests in innovative -- all of it should work together to determine how we can strengthen these natural market trends. we should avoid adopting policies that may have the best of intentions but ultimately backfire or undermined the very goals they seek to achieve. allowing consumers to me conform choices in a competitive marketplace best served the public interest. this maxim holds especially true when we examine even more good news. when it comes to the ability to access the world's most valuable commodity, information, american consumers have never been more in power. market lead leaves and computing power and decreases in cost have spurred the most advancement. for example, in 1965, m.i.t. had

its own computer. that was actually a big deal for university to have its own computer back in 1965. it cost $11 million in today's dollars. and it was the size of a house. today, the microprocessor in your mobile device, whatever you have right now and i don't know what everyone has in this room, is at least more than 1 million times smaller, 1 million times less expensive and more than 1000 times more powerful. that equates to more than a billion fold increase in the amount of computing power you have in your hands per dollar. so who in here can remember the first -- some of you are lying by not raising your hands. [laughter] so if we put all this another way, who could have imagined that at the time of the first

millennium in the summer of 69 when america was still an fresh morning over the loss of dr. martin luther king just a year earlier, that all americang african-americans, could have far more computing power in their hands than an entire apollo program for just a few dollars a month. all within less than a lifetime. within the next 25 years, experts estimate we will enjoy yet another billion fold increase and the processing power for the same dollar. exponential increases in capacity and decreases in cost have resulted in more information being shared with more people and that helps all americans, including people of color. cisco estimates that by 2014, fewer than 24 months from now, the internet will be nearly four times larger than it is now. it would take more than five years for one person to watch the amount of video that will

cross globalize networks every second in 2015 and i hope one person doesn't have to do that. but put another way, during each second in the year 2015, 1 million minutes of video content will travel through the internet. these developments of our all the more astounding when you consider that the first use of the strange word internet and "the washington post" was on september 26, 1988. who can remember that date? and that was in the far back financial section of the ads, government contracting ads. keep in mind for every job the internet disrupts, it creates 2.6 new jobs. how far we have come and how fast, all due to nationally evolving market trends. if we encourage these trends rather than create obstacles that may impede them, i'm optimistic we will continue to enjoy the fruits of the greatest

explosion of entrepreneurial brilliance in human history. the cycle of investment, innovation and competition will continue to grow the economy, create jobs and improve the human condition, unlike any other time in our history, if we allow it. thank you for inviting me to this terrific event today. thank you for unveiling this terrific research. it is very very inspiring. your thoughtful and scholarly work will provide many in the private and public sectors with salient statistic that will you great benefits probably for years to come. your contribution is an important component to a multifaceted effort to ensure that america continues to lead the world in the 21st century, so thank you very much for having me. [applause] it is now my job to introduce fernando. is that the game plan? without further ado, fernando

laguarda who is the vice president for external affairs and policy counselor. that is a very long title. time warner cable and the manager of this wonderful research programs that thank you so much for doing this. here he is. [applause] >> thank you commissioner mcdowell and thank you to all of the distinguished speakers into all of you for being here today. welcome to the second part of our program. my job is to introduce our next speaker and also to tell you a little bit about the research program. when we launched the time warner cable research program on digital communications in february 2010, our goal was to foster research dedicated to increasing understanding of the benefits and challenges facing the future of distal -- digital technology. it individual research, not-for-profit such as the urban league, are eligible for

stipends and just so you know the deadline for the next round of stipends is november 12012. we have two goals. first we are excited about the future of this incredible technology and the future broadband in particular but of digital indications in general and we want to find ways that it can be of value to our customers. ..

>> i think today's event shows that we're making progress. so it's my pleasure now to introduce the director of policy at the national urban league policy institute, one of the office of the report we are discussing today. madura will give an overview of the report's findings. [applause] >> thank you for that. first of all, a very big thank you to president powell and to mr. morial and chairman genachowski and commissioner clyburn and commissioner mcdowell for taking time away from their very busy schedule to come down here. and also a very special thank you to fernando and the whole team at time warner cable, for supporting us for a long time.

almost 12 months now. and supporting other research in this area. had been a very special thank you to neil for being such a great friend. so i'll be very quick. the focus will be the pale come but the basic storyline is that there are two major achievements in broadband adoption that we must celebrate. they are two major problems in broadband adoption that we must address, and our strategy is to leverage or to utilize the achievements to design solutions that efficiently and effectively address the problem. so what are the achievements? and mr. morial just mentioned in earlier. there's undoubtedly a narrowing of the broadband adoption gap between african-americans and white americans. in 2009, the gap with 19 percentage points and in 2010, it was 11 percentage points. and all these data we step on

the shores of research at the joint political and economic studies. and we did their own analysis. so over, you know, through difficult economic times, the gap has narrowed. to which the other achievement? the other achievement is, in african-american communities there is an extraordinary drive for private enterprise, innovation and for business creation. and here's some data. african-americans much higher users of the internet than anyone else to look for business opportunities online. between 2002-2007, and 2007 is the most recent data, african-american businesses have the highest growth rate, 60% growth rate compared to 18% for the national right. and then we, looking at her own research, the high-tech for

african-american business have the best survival rate. small business, most don't last too long but high-tech businesses did. in fact, they had the best survival rate between 2004-2008. so those are the achievements. a narrowing of the gap and an extraordinary interest in private enterprise. so what are the problems? there are two major problems. the first one is, as was mentioned earlier, there is a continuing and a stubborn gap in broadband adaption. mostly for high school dropouts, african-americans, and to lesser extent, for households can african-american household less than $20,000 a year. in those communities, about 30-35% a top in a. and the second one shows the most striking, less known, is the engagement that has great interest in private enterprise, and yet detraction is not so great.

so in 2007 there was population, african-american population was 12% of the population and information sector. in 2007 there were 6% businesses but those businesses only generated .23% of revenue. 12% of the population owns 6% of the businesses which generated point to 3%. so that it is very clear. what is our strategy? the four without we must appreciate that. these solutions are not easy. we have to be efficient and cost-effective. and the economy is not some kind of an equation where you can plug things in and it dumps out at the end. it's a lot more competent than that. so we thought some guidelines would help. in the first guideline is that one size fits all doesn't work. solutions must be the needs of communities, must fit the needs of industries, of the market and technology. number two, we have to promote

business to business enterprise. business activity. that means the emphasis needs to be on production. and number three, we have to be cognizant and we have to address underlying -- meaning just because you have new technology doesn't necessarily mean that there's a firewall from the past. so looking, taking those things together can we have three basic ideas, those solution. one of them is job training must be closely linked to what the industry needs. that means must have a job placement component attached to it, reengineering that. and must deal with -- people who are not community college ready, need to address them. and also provide soft skills. number two, private enterprise must grow in african-american communities. and their the leverage is with great interest, a great interest

in broadband to drive that engagement. and then solutions like providing fast trac approvals for businesses. in some of these areas access to revenue and capital. and, finally, issue is much more long-term solution, the pipeline, the education pipeline needs to be more efficient and effective. and here our data will show that the problem is not so much interesting going to college or sam but rather completion. because the data show that equal numbers of african-americans and other groups enter college, but completion rates of those. so the idea, our solution is that you reach kids at middle school or even earlier, and then provide the fundamental skills that will enable them to not have to go into remedial classes. so those are the three concerns. so there's just a little glimpse of solutions proposed, and now i

invite chanelle hardy, who is michael author, and also the senior vice president at international urban league and the national director of the policy institute to introduce three great people of action, who are the cutting edge of implement some solutions but also some other solutions, where they can discuss how some of these ideas might be implement it, might be executed. to create jobs, growth and prosperity. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. we are so excited to have all of you here today. 2012 actually marks the 50th anniversary of the national urban league's policy institute, formerly known as the washington bureau of the national urban league. and for those 50 years we've been serving as the research policy and advocacy arm of the large and strong national urban league movement.

the national urban league policy institute and the movement together are a today. we bring together our research with our learnings from the field to develop practical solutions that can be immediately applied to address our national challenges and opportunities in areas of jobs, education, housing and health. because our mission remains timely and urgent, economic empowerment for african-americans critical and we're going to meet the needs of the 2.5 million served and address the lingering 50% unemployment rate in order to help those people to reach the promise of the american dream. it's also larger than transit and american committees. if america is to be globally competitive and if we're to thrive in our changing world and to create an environment where innovators, the future innovators no matter where they are located are able to contribute the products and services that will continue to provide solutions for the future, this conversation

remains relevant. so we are pleased that this report offers solutions to consider and we hope it goes to an on -- how all of us can work together to realize the promise of broadband technology. so i'm going to add my course of thank you to our distinguished speakers today, for the sport of time warner cable's research program, after all of you took time to come. so i will asked to join in a are three panelist dick we have fernando laguarda who is the vice president of time warner cable. we have josh gottheimer who's the senior counselor to the fcc chairman, and we have mr. allie braswell who is ceo of the orlando central florida urban league. so if all of you will join me at the pale, we'll get ready to start. we are going to -- [applause] >> we will use the rest this time today to dig into the report a little bit.

with some questions i'll ask the panel and it will open up to audience. a few you want to think of some questions that you might have, we'll have a few minutes to address that towards the end of the afternoon. so as cash -- commissioner mcdowell mention it was good to hear good news in the midst of our steady stream of recognizing the problems that we face inside the beltway. and so i want to start with ally who will talk to us about the successes we're seeing on the ground in florida. so allie county of inserting unemployed individuals the senate for workforce innovation, you're connecting the dots by bringing together job sourcing with the job training, and then job placement. and can you tell us a little bit about how the program is working and the effect you have seen? >> thank you for having us here, and to all of you have gathered, good afternoon to the center for workforce innovation came about in february right after the

president, president obama said we need to repair for the new economy, green, new types of jobs. and from that being in the field we were listening and hearing of different types of things that were going on and we needed to create a new strategy to workforce development. far too many times they were doing investment, teaching how to dress for success, but we are leaving the soft skills off the table. we need to adjust the attitude. we needed to adjust the attitude that when he went into her, you were prepared to go and engage an employer and obtain a job and then retain the job. so we looked at it, we wanted to bring back a holistic approach that would reverse engineer people into opportunities of jobs that existed. we surveyed our community and we found out that one of the local media outlets have said there were thousands of jobs. we validated that, that were available. but the challenge was if you place the job in careerbuilder, would you be the individual that

would lead to 26 keywords and get to the top of the selection. we found was a vast amount of talent within the central florida area that would not necessarily rise to the top but they were incredibly talented people. second, we saw demographic where we traditionally struggle with the underemployed and unemployed. they didn't have access to the local opportunity to on grandson cells into jobs that were available, especially around technology jobs. when you take that and bring it together, we look at how can we create a public letter to the comes together to provide expertise training that allows these people to gain that foot in the door and have experts deliver that so been there judging and watching these people, and then they are placing them into apprenticeship model that allows them 90 days to assimilate into the culture, begin to gain additional technology training and move forward. that really was the center, which is a private public

collaborative of an apprenticeship to work that allows people to be able to leverage and opportunity through the urban league, and why the urban league? because as you heard stated, there are 97 affiliates and we are interested in communities that we serve. why the public-private collaborative? we want to bring experts to the people. far too many times demographic that were traditionally served are not on the way to community college. they're not on the wiki for your college so he to come up with innovative ideas to help them get there. when you look at what we've been able to do through our launch, june 2010, around culinary, and where we're going with broadband, where we're going with utility types of operations, you're looking at an opportunity, number one, look at utility industry, it is agreeing workforce but it's also time to be bring in people of color and others into industry. when you take a look at the culinary, i'm in orlando to anybody been there?

so one of the jobs that are causal if they will come hospitality culinary type jobs. we have over 15,000 opportunities that turnover probably at a rate of anywhere from 60-70% in certain industries. so we came up with programs that were true. the first program, and i will yield to my colleagues here, the first program is through a culinary arts program a partner with an industry partner, marriott corporation to deliver job training to people from underserved, and a community where we were right down the street whether actually going out and improving talent for korea. in doing so we brought subject matter experts, executive chefs in the we partnered with our local faith-based community, the first baptist church of orlando, and we parted with job placement organization, or one that was providing the soft skills training because we needed to prepare these people to take the jobs on. we also need to overcome a fight the of and poverty. when people have been receiving

benefits, they're not ready to go out and take a job or take ready to our be told what to do. we had to prepare their mindset. long story short, we graduate that klesko 100% graduate, 72% placement. after 54% replacement. we are looking at our rob and often. i listen to my colleagues who were doing broadband training in the carolinas come in atlanta, and we found programs that we could take anti-together. one of the great things about is we have directv. that's the cable industry. [inaudible] [laughter] >> we have time warner in areas that i lived in and i applaud time warner -- [inaudible] >> for taking the time to make an investment into this incredible research. i'm already geared right not to be meeting with networks. that's our cable provider in central florida to begin talk about how do we tie this together around our broadband peace. here's the key to success for

us. we are 90 certificate. we are not generating class that you get a certificate and you go out and market yourself. our guarantee is there's a job opportunity if you complete the course. we have some stringent guidelines about attitude, around aptitude and around attendance for you to complete the course. but when you walk out, because the partner is at the table, the party been taking a look at our talent that we are bringing through the process so that when they come out they actually go to work to our challenge has been around this content industry to believe that it is true. i've had a chance to work with madrid and the team here, and trust me, they have proved positively but i'm telling you the truth. but, you know, what? i would just tell you the compelling story and i will close. when a young lady looks at you a night and says if you haven't given me this opportunity i would not be able to go to work and do something i really enjoy. board you see a young woman of the 54 saying i had to retool myself like to go to work and i

don't mind driving 40 miles to go to the job. that's what the end result is, and i think the to broadband technology opportunities, because i'm one of those rare breed, i'm one of those high touch high tech guys. might greek came from in a condo university online. -- my degree came from university online. allows people who are working anywhere from eight to 10 hours a day to plug-in, gain additional knowledge to move ahead, and i'm proof positive also from a veterans community that we can we engineer ourselves, we can retool through collaborative efforts and make a difference by allowing us the opportunity reverse engineer, positions that exist and continue to move forward. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, allie. and i know that madura can set expectations for spicing the solutions are not easy and they are competent. so sometimes they are as simple as saying if we actually find jobs for people and been trained him to take those jobs, we will start to see some improvement

and economic empowerment. so i'm going to go to josh now. josh, in our 2012 national urban league point, 12-point plan on jobs we talked about the importance of public-private initiative. so we were extremely excited to see the launch of the connect program and see the way the fcc is leveraging its ability to convene partners to the table, to try to solve some of our broadband adoption challenge. i'd like to just get some of your thoughts on whether that project is and where it's going. and what you see a some of the opportunities ahead. >> thanks for the question. and again, thanks are having us here today. and of course the national urban league has been a beacon in this area for many years. madura has been a good friend to the commission, also in research and the work is done in the support i think will make, continue to make huge difference in the space. and chairman powell, thank you for having us.

you know, and james, i don't know if he is here, somewhere, who has been helping drive, bring together when i think is clearly a one-of-a-kind opportunity to healthy 100 million americans, a third of the country, not adopt broadband, start adopting. and we know firsthand, this is not, you don't adopt broadband for the sake of just having a pipe into your house with connectivity. it's what's over a pipe which you can do with that connectivity and the change that can happen, whether as you pointed out, education, getting the job skills you need, to look for a job, to find a job, now we know that to get, to apply for a job, in nearly every space from entry level all the way up, you have to apply online. chairman genachowski talked about this before, but the fact

that target and wal-mart now you have to apply online, or at a digital kiosk, is telling that if you are not connected to your on the other side of broadband divide. the report put out today by the urban league shows this as well, that african-americans had an increasing rate are applying for jobs and looking for jobs online. and what that tells us is that if you're not connected, you are left out of this economy. we can't afford to have americans left out of the economy. so on the public-private side, what happened here is a case of good government but also good citizenship that were. you had people from the cable industry and partners like best buy, and careerbuilder and microsoft and discovery, and across the board, many, many partners who said we know those three obstacles of why people aren't going online. the cost, why i need, and why it's so important, and visual literacy. and i'll tell you, chairman

powell had a vision here of what we need to do, and so did others of what we need to do. and so did the industry the and the cable industry came together and said listen, this is coming this is our business so let's figure out how to do this in a practical way where we can help school lunch eligible families and help students, because we know if we can help children, they can get online for education. their parents could get online to get those job skills and to find a job, and they could teach their grantors because we know kids teach their grandparents, and they also can communicate with her grandparents. so if we can get into those homes and start there and help lift people up and get them connected, the world is our oyster. and what you will do if subtly give, we know if a child has connectivity at home, they have six-8% higher graduation rates. they are alone is the reason to do it. we know that 80% of teachers now

give internet-based homework. so if you are one of the 50% of low-income or minority's who's not connected at home, and we know that 80% of teachers giving up a homer, well, you do the mouth and you realize if you're not connectedat all, you are suddenly following -- falling behind to get to get the same opportunities. the child is not getting the education, and suddenly we see what happens with the cycle there. they are not getting the medical help, the grandparents are getting medical help, and you're not connecting to govern in the same way because you're not able to take advantage of all those resources. put aside what you can do for fun online, and put aside connecting with friends and families which is so important, you are just left out. from the competitiveness standpoint as a country and if we want to continue to lead the world, you know, the cable industry and the hotel industry overall, make sure that 95% of the country of an opportunity to

be connected with high-speed internet home if you wanted a cup of is that 109, the third were not connecting even though it is there. so what the chairman genachowski spoke, chairman janet houseguest -- chairman genachowski has focused on, what chairman genachowski has focused on is the access and the adoption, making sure it is there, but also making sure people adopt so we can close all these gaps, we can make sure that divide closes. because if we don't, and if we don't figure this out we are all going to be shaking our heads and saying i can't believe we miss this. i can't believe where korea and, 90% adoption rate, i can't believe we let singapore, cingular, i can't believe we let some of these other places pass us by. so we are looking in the mirror now, we should not let that happen. we see we are the envy of the world when it comes to connectivity. from access. let's just make sure we're the

envy of the world when it comes to adoption. the public-private side is critical to this because let's be honest, government is not the solution to everything. government could be a very important place in a role for government to put and then there's places where government should be the facilitator and really should help bring people together. the private sector such an important role to play here. we have seen in this case, both tackled of digital literacy working with libraries him to make sure that we and the school to make sure we knock down that barrier, dealing with the lower costs connectivity and also with lower cost devices. and to make sure we prove the point that jobs and education and health care. so over all our approach, no somerville, it will take everything. i cannot come in the cable industry enough, and the chairman enough, for the leadership here. this is hard stuff. the technology alone, believe

me, this has taken months of sitting in a room and bouncing ideas, pushing and pulling, and it's not easy because these are tough problems, but they are committed. and i really can't say enough, how important that is. >> thanks, josh. asserting the national urban league is a committed partner of this effort, looking forward to seeing all of the promise of, of what happens next. i want to go to fernando now, and talk about business-to-business interactions and how that can strengthen entrepreneurship, which we talk about in the report. one of the statistics would talk about at the national urban league is a statistic that says if each small business is able to hire a single employee, we can reach full implement them which is a pretty inspiring statistic. and then you consider that, a vast majority of the black on businesses that were stored in recent years are a single employee business. so as a vp of external affairs

and as head of the research program who has seen so many good ideas coming in, what are some important learning that you can share with us about how businesses can support the growth of entrepreneurship for the small business? >> thank you, chanelle. and again, i'm impressed with the effort that the authors have made with this paper. i'm very appreciative to ncta for hosting us here, and i was scribbling furiously notes as all of the speakers were speaking, because i was learning even as i was here, ideas that connect to the paper. and what really struck me was president morial's comment about the big idea. and that is broadband is about jobs, because it's true when you talk about gaps, the for adoption problem in terms of air years, the cost of technology and access, relevance and literacy, this report makes for

a compelling case in connecting relevance to jobs. and economic productivity. and i think that there's a lot to think about there, and there's more work to be done, more research, so i'm writing my notes about more questions that we can try to get scholars to think about. and why does that matter? it matters because the community that we see is so poised to take advantage of broadband, as a tool, is so ready for it. and we see long-standing community partnerships with organizations that are trusted, respected, and have competence like the national urban league, and others, the league of the national -- strong partnership connecting technology centers. and other organizations that have national competence and also deep local roots. why does that matter? it matters because there is

tremendous opportunity for broadband to provide real, real engine of growth for economic development in communities. and when we talk about adoption, we are frequently focusing on, i guess, you know, using the internet for what? for surfing, for getting information, entertainment, other things like that. they are deeply relevant to consumers. but broadband is also an opportunity platform. and when you look at the material in this report, talking about how the african-american entrepreneurial community is poised for growth, looking for resources, broadband offers that. it offers connecting to suppliers and vendors. it offers connecting to potential employees and business partners. it offers in a sector that has

been growing services to government and the business-to-business sector, a really key tool for businesses to perform. and the cable industry has seen tremendous growth in business services over the last several years. it's been one of our, on the business side, one of our most rapidly growing areas of our business. and so, there's the question about what drives successful partnerships. well, mutual interest drives successful partnerships. so, as business service providers, we are interested in doing more, to reach more customers in the business sector. as we just heard in the findings today, and as i'm sure the national urban league will continue to emphasize, there's a business community that is hungry for the opportunities that broadband provides.

and so there's an opportunity on the business side that i think can be leveraged through partnerships that are focusing on, talking about the benefits of broadband, educating consumers, and making digital literacy more available. but also showing that broadband is not just about entertainment and information. it's about economic empowerment. and so i think that's a wonderful area for future research. it's also a great area for business development, for the industry, for my company, and it's a tremendous and promising area for civil society to look at. what kind of engagement can foster new partnerships in the business sector? because that's an engine for development in the community. and that's a real value out of the report, and it underscores president morial's comment and his point, broadband is about jobs. i think that's a great take away from the report today.

>> thank you, fernando. so a question for any of the panelists. one of the things we noted we talked about one size fits all solutions not been effective if we really are able to identify who those non-adopters are. and as commissioner clyburn reference in some of her remarks, we really know that population tends to have an income of $20,000 or less a year, intends to have have less than a high school diploma. so what thoughts and ideas do you have about how we can target our activities, resources and solutions to that particular population? >> across the 97 affiliates, a lot of our affiliates have computer labs, and one of the two highest instances we see visitors coming into those labs are digging additional education through training, or to come in and look for jobs. and it's because their incomes are sometimes cost prohibitive

in terms of being able to access the internet from home. its collaborative efforts like that, so i applaud the ncta. i think some the other things though is to get young people into much are you a but as you heard president morial speak about stem, s.t.e.m. education and extend that board, a lot of times about what a child gets to high school, they've already predetermined where they think they will go. then we get to college and we realize that's not where we are headed. i was supposed to be an english major i ended up being an i.t. guy. so figure that. that when you start to look at exposing young people to the internet back in third grade, fourth grade, elementary school, and beginning to help them shape their ideas of where they may or potentially could be, we can bring about a change. and that begins back there, but if they can't reinforce it after hours from school when they go home, it's that additional education learning that needs to

take place there. that's why you'll hear a lot of the urban league affiliates started s.t.e.m. academies, afterschool programs and then begin to extend the footprint of exposure to common on the high level executives, not to the executives, to the people who are also working in call centers. i think one of the greatest advantages of the broadband technology is that you can be in a call center while sitting in your living room. you know, and that through technology they can dial out, that 1-800 number is going somewhere in central florida in a home and being able to employ somebody that is doing telecommuting, when telecommuting is probably am at my company here in d.c., i never would've made it to florida. you know, they were so bent on the need to drive around the beltway from annapolis to rockville, and back every day, that that caused my migration back home to florida. so broadband even causes southern migration.

[laughter] i would say though, one of the things you look at is when you start thinking about, especially young people, when they can have access to technology, and even though you've seen the african-american community bridge the gap in terms of consumer usage, we need to have that gap bridged also in terms of production and creation. and producers of technology and business owners. one of the ways to do that, i would encourage the commission as well as the broadband companies is to invest into the creation of business opportunities for african-americans to participate in the growth of broadband adoption peace. by doing that we then create centers, like the center for workforce innovation, that are plaguing kids in. one of the big challenges that are are reaching out. the reason that i am an i.t. professional that came through this path and over on my high-tech side, is a xerox

engineer came to a sixth grade classroom with a box, a light bulb and a rubber hose but he turned all the lights off and on, but the liable under the box and he said he will show light all over the world. we did have classy terms that my son has because my son would say really? we would say yeah, right. but what he did, a young kid was introduced to fiber-optic technology, and that was in 70 something. [laughter] but what i want to say is that inspired me to go after a technology career. when we make that investment back in our youth, through s.t.e.m. academies, through s.t.e.m. related, we begin stimulant activities, we begin to grate a path would. so what you have to have access, so i applaud the ctc program and being able to have that as an access point. and you know, that's something i'm excited about because then it also bridges a collaborative

opportunity between school district and 20 days partners speak cannot build on that? >> police. >> as much as we like to solve things in washington, this is one of those things that gets done on the ground. you will not win connectivity here, you will win connectivity, a, by working with the right partners who have people like the urban league and the lack and 4-h and united way and a list of others who are in the communities on the ground, how the relationship and are trusted, right? and it's the schools and it's the parent teachers associations and it's the parents themselves in getting the word out and making sure they know they can take advantage of opportunities like connect, but make sure they know what the benefits are that they get their children online and show them the benefits. i think we're all going to live are vigilant in this country and the next five years i think that

of us can't even begin to imagine what classrooms are going to be like a few years there's been little innovation in that space. and the textbook space, we've been using the same traditional print textbooks for generations. very little innovation. some of the pedagogy has changed, but basically the form of government has been a one size fits all. with technology and with broadband, and being connected in the classroom and out of the classroom, suddenly every device, if there's one of them, every device will become a personalized learning experience that we targeted to that child and will teach that child how he or she learns the same substance but it will move it around and make it much more interactive and exciting. and we will do those experiments on the book and be 3-d, and we will be blown away by how we teach and learn in and out of the classroom. and when your child has trouble with the questions at the end of the chapter, like we used to have with the workbooks, new

chapters will appear magically to help make sure that before they come to school the next day they understand that subject matter. this is not star trek. this is here, right? but it will not work without the connectivity. because it doesn't work at home. so you can't just have them connected at school and give the rate to make sure schools on my brisket connected, but the demands on the infrastructure will only increase. and you know this because you on the ground, you see this, but it's there, making sure the kids were children, children or students get some form of tablet and the connected, the connected but also if they get the broadband at home. if they don't have that they are cut off. that's why companies like yours are doing this sort of work i know in part to make sure that, and it's good business. once they get connected, hopefully they will buy other stuff from you but also they will stay with you because if they're not online, what you are online you don't want to give it up because the windows and doors it opens. and that's what this is all

about, getting people connected, engaged. because if we don't, again, they are left out of the economy, out of the jobs, and the education, s.t.e.m. or otherwise, and that is what we we are worried about and concerned about and why we should do this. but it has to be done on the ground with the people who know, the people who have relationships come and we realize that. and i think the company is better as well. >> i want to pick up on something josh said about, talking about kids. one of the interesting things that i sing, out of pew recently, sort of reaffirms probably something that is not a surprise to people in this room which is the number is around 95% of kids report that they go online to do different things, different activities. so kids are online, right? now, it may not be easy. it may not be as convenient. some of them may not have broadband internet access at home for different reasons, but

kids either being asked to do homework that way or their final way to go online to do different things. so they are being exposed to the technology into the platform for different reasons. so i think that there is that coming, where we are seeing, right now we've got people who may never have used internet or broadband, don't know why it's important but we have this sort of next generation coming along. i think it's important not to solve for yesterday's problem, so let's keep in mind what we're doing, that we've got young people coming along. they are internet-savvy. they are broadband connected in one way or another, and we also need to solve for their challenges as well. so i think the point about engaging them where they are engage in education, instead which is something my company has prioritize as our philanthropic commitment and initiative, is so important. the gap, when you look at minorities, 30% of the country's population, 10% of the s.t.e.m.

the workforce, that is a major gap. and again president morial referred to in terms of economic developer in our growth. i think it's so important to focus on the. so i just wanted to make an aside about it. point about one size doesn't fit all, it's so important in the report. everybody here knows it. so what does that mean? what it means i think is, what's the opportunity? the opportunity is to remember ed, and what can we do, because we know one size doesn't fit all. we know that. so what that means is the value of information sharing is really high. because even in large companies, you know, we are struggling to find out who are the local partners or job training? who are the local partners for helping us with the digital literacy? we know some names. we might have some history, but sharing that information is so relevant -- >> we will solve this because it's very exciting.

>> i hope you are. again i put my finger at government because i think that is a role. >> in the fall as part of your efforts, by the way, when you put, call an 800 number, or you will be able to go online and butchers it could code and you'll find years digital training is. where you can get help with health care, and -- >> this is the hard work you are referring to. >> its community based organizations that are part of this, schools and library's. that's what you're talking about. the tort of young people are coming and they're touching because a lot of it are getting in school, if they're not getting it on. but we still want to make sure that as they're coming, we are not forgetting about the 100 million who don't, because seniors need to get online, and you know, regular working folks need to get online. and we have to help make sure that happens, ask the children to as well. >> you have to strike a balance.

i mean, when you think about it, the majority of the people, center for workforce innovation are people who probably fit in the economic footprint of $20,000 below. and you know, you can have all the devices in the world and all the connectivity, you could even have the 800 number but you still have to get it to them. and i think that's where, when industry wants to make an investment, that's where you can invest back in the committee based organizations that are on the ground. a lot of times keeping those doors opens -- open and making it happen, is the difference to get that on grant to hire a because i think to the urban league programs that we are done, as you are present talk about 102 years of improving people and giving them access to jobs that pay living wages, one of the ways that's going to be for the future, and allow the point about engineering for our kids, because it is my 16 year olds expectation that we'll have better internet that we have

today. i'm just telling you. >> we are working on it. >> he's already, well, dad, you know, when are we going to start doing it across lasers? so he's a geek. sorry. >> geeks are people, too. but, you know, to your point, it is being able to hit every level of the spectrum, being able to reach down as well as being able to hit the expectation of where the kids are coming and take it. but we have, if you want to talk about where's the investment, invest in the people, invest in the opportunity to get on the internet, invest in the organizations that will do the at rich. it's not just broadband. i see a college or from epa who is probably looking away at this point, but i preach this to everyone who will listen. and that by leveraging innovative ideas to reverse in geneva i do jobs that broadband has to be a key component, we can then change our economic growth. we can lessen dependency on government because you can start

to put that in the organizations that can extend it forward to community and begin to make change. that iraq together is what i am a plotting here, because that's a private public collaborative that's got to happen. you want to shrink government and it is back in the organizations that are delivering it every day. you empower them to be able to empower the communities that user. you want people to be able to purchase your services. let's empower them with income so they can move to living wages instead of just surviving. $20,000, to think we still families and americans making less than $20,000 is a challenge to us as americans to reach down and grab each other by the arm and pull a so. that's what i do with on a day-to-day basis, and my other colleagues across the urban league movement is how do we leverage that? the epa, we're innovative. we're looking at brown's field technicians and. how do we bring to bring people into that and create leverage to brownfield training program to really train people from the local community on new technology. a lot of people say well, how is

cleaning up a contaminated field, trusting, i have read the course outline and thought maybe i just need to go back to school. because everything was involving some type of online connectivity for data, for data processing, and sharing. but the beauty of that is, these young people, and the people i can be retooled will go off and start businesses. they will be able to move forward and. i think that ties together the entire strategy. >> it's a very good conversation and the hatred and interrupt by want to make sure we get a few questions from the audience before we get ready to go but i think the point that you all are making also is right in line with the thinking around the theme for the national urban league this year which is really how to reconnect education and employment together, and prepare both young people and workers who need to retool for a new workplace for the jobs of the

future. so i think being able to reverse engineer, seen with the jobs are and being able to bring that to the classroom helps to answer some of those question. are there any questions from the audience? can you identify yourself? >> good afternoon, maxie jackson. two quick questions. earlier we heard the desire to take advantage of trans to address challenges so i'm wondering about youth, and going off on something you alluded to. are there any programs addressing how we can take youth and the momentum in terms of using media, social media, et cetera instead of being consumers but producers? and then secondly, how do they fit into the equation, historically in terms of digital literacy in some of the work you are doing? >> let me say just two quick things and then you can move on. in terms of youth, i would encourage you to look at, i'm going to make a shameless plug,

www.connect to my and liza.com. that's the website for our engagement initiative to reach young people and connect them science, technology engine and a. there's a lot of great ways that you can use that platform as a tool to find opportunities to think about, help young people think about themselves as creators of science and technology and not just as consumers. there's a lot of activity going on there, and we at least, that's the connection function, we have taken on to try to make it easier for people to find its opportunities in the committee. so i would look to examples like that. and on hbc, it's a great question. engaging with the academic community, first of all, i think part of what we're doing to our research program but i think also being more flexible about those engaged in so that we're talking about research come we're talking of internships.

we're talking about exposing students to careers, to jobs. that's something that industry can do, and that we are interested and excited about doing more of, but it's also summit i think that can be highlighted and shared again, going to sharing best practices, what one company does with what the cable industry does to engage with hbcu's is a small part of a much bigger solution, and i think all of us have a role to play spent i've also just mention if you look at the report as a case study of our s.t.e.m. academies in chattanooga, tennessee, which talks about a program that provides additional education and also there's direct applications with robotics and things like that that students are exiting able to put the skills to work. and started to address one of the challenges which is a the don't recognize the opportunities that a s.t.e.m. career and take the right course work at the right time in high school, you'll get to college and not have the opportunity to

pursue that career. that's another example. >> another question? >> thank you. to the panel, and to the national urban league for putting this on. and executive director for the american justices pick the stories have been compelling, and as i'm listening and hearing opportunities, i'm wondering if you all could share with us what are they meaningful ways that we are creating conditions, teacher, teaching level. because we could give kids access to equipment. we can do all kinds of wonderful stuff, give them opportunities but i also know that teachers teach on a day by day basis but if they are not equipped with the right kind of skill sets to really inspire and to teach our children in the classroom. the connectivity is a major missing piece. i wonder if you could share some of the things you all are doing with the teaching profession.

>> i'll start. i just had, in orange county police was there a program called leadership orange. i had the privilege of going over to one of our brand-new high schools. every single classroom as a smart board, has internet connectivity, has the ability not only connect to the web for research but also has the ability to connect for programs. and so what they are doing is having teachers would have been educated come on anti-some of the more passionate educators. i think is an operative to invest, teach the teacher. i know one program that is going to be doing that this summer at oak ridge high school in orlando, they are rolling out a modeling simulation piece of technology, a flight simulation program that teaches science, technology, engineering and math through an application of learning how to fly. they are also teaching history to this application. i had an opportunity spend time talking with one of the creators

of this, but they are letting something the kids are interested in and teaching. where they will teach instructors is there bring them all together at oak ridge across five different high schools in that region to start teach the teachers. i think new teachers are going out with that expectation of that's the classroom i'm going into. and china students are expecting that because i think your point earlier, i wonder when, i note that one of our high schools the brand-new high school, the administrator invested in every child will have and i've had. textbooks will be loaded to the i've been. they are mostly textbased but i do for today you can actually of martin luther king actually giving the address instead of your being told to reading the words of the interest. and that's what, you know, i think that's how you engage our kids get our kids live in and i had -- ipad2 world. >> i think, building on a point

you made which was very important, the technology, they are tools. if we, the teachers have to teach, and i think that, you know, whether it's smart boards or interactive digital tablets, those are all at the end of the day you have to help teachers make their lives easier so they can spend more time teaching. and it's going to be, it's a transition. some of the new teachers may understand that it some teachers we now get trained that has to be part of the equation. you can't just do this. if you just put the computer in the room and don't teach the teacher how to incorporate it or how to use aspects of it, it would just sit and collect dust in the corner of the room. you know, so we have to make sure it's never seen as a replacement for a teacher, but as a way to cut back on the teachers spending time, taking attendance because the tablet checks you in when you walk in in the morning.

that's just to save you time so you can spend more time teaching or being a more effective teacher because you have more data information but none of us has got lots of data and information, that's why -- that's why when you're running lines of business at time warner you have data, right? why aren't teachers getting more pointed data about student government and what they are succeeding, who is doing well, those are always just to make it easier and that's what these things are, they are tools to help make us more efficient and smarter so we can compete spent if you want to see a program here in the local area, and i'm probably going to make sure, go to howard university, hpc you, howard university, every student will walk in and pick up a laptop, unser, and apple macbook and put, i'm a pc guy, but they will pick up a macbook and they will do their and higher class on that screen with the teacher is allowed to teach. but here's the beauty of it.

they are also putting that macbook at home and as a part of the program they're requiring prepared to come in and interact with a student. so if you want to see, and then to extend it further, the teachers that are coming out of howard university are interning in this type of a program. so they're beginning to educate the teacher straight out of college but i was so moved by the program when i thought about three years ago, i find out that the minister at howard university graduate they came to the internship dealing with those kids. they roll over to the southeast. this philips high school we have nights graters doing robotics type string in ninth grade. so proof positive. if you make the investment in teachers, are given the tools, they will use them. we have been placing -- if i could make one of point. you can't say this school doesn't need it because, you have to be equitable.

we don't close schools because they are in neighborhoods that we bus kids to differ, that's going back a long way. we need to take technology and brought it to every single school. mega- schools equitable. students will learn. when you look at the african-american centric schools, the school setting the african-american communities that are not funded well and don't have access to technology, kids don't perform well. but you make those investments are you end up moving the students out, then they perform well because they're given the opportunity to grow. so we have to make sure that they are equitable investments into all of our schools. >> that is a perfect segue into wrapping this up. first, let me ask everyone to get an applause to our panel. [applause] >> thank you so much for your insight that you shared. and i'll just say by way of preview, this will not be the national urban league's last foray into broadband and tech issues.

and also, we will, we have recently released our state of black america report, which also provides a wealth of data on these issues, as well as our education and employment a point plaintiffs i encourage you to look at all those resources. our panelists will be able to stick around for a few more minutes, so if you have questions, i encourage you to come up and chat with them. and thank you again for coming out and learning about our report. >> thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] and here's a look at some of our live programming today across the c-span networks. the house starts at 2 p.m. eastern with several noncontroversial bills with recorded votes after 6:30 p.m. the senate also begins at 2 p.m. eastern with work on a bill preventing student loan interest rates from dublin in july. around 4:30 p.m. lawmakers will turn to three judicial nominations with the votes expected an hour later you can watch the house live on c-span, and the senate live here on