>> the gentleman from d.c. is recognized. >> yes, i just want to call -- >> the question has been called. all in favor of calling the question say aye. all proposed? question has been called for. now i will call for the vote on mr. kerby's amendment, gr 22, the language in front you on the screen from all in favor of mr. kerby's amendment say i go. all opposed? the amendment failed. and mr. kerby i will come to you again. you have a second, gr 21? >> that's correct. this would also fall under that category of congress, and we can take out the also, since that

last one failed. we support congress moving to a one law, one vote system to streamline the process, prevent those huge bills with multiple laws included your. >> the gentleman has read his amendment. is there a second on the amendment? it has been seconded. the language is in front of you on the screen. is their comments or discussion on mr. kerby's bill? >> madam chairman? >> yes, mr. ward. >> i think the rules of congress, i know many states have internal rules in place and we can all have one subject matter per bill. what are the rules that you go by in congress? >> we do not have a rule that says only one subject matter per bill. what we seek to do is to limit it and narrow those bills as much as we possibly can, because i think in the previous speaker, prior to speaker boehner, that

was great frustration with 2700 page bills and having to pass it to read to find out what was in it. >> thank you, madam chairman. >> gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> could recall the question, please? >> question can be called, okay. all in favor of calling the question? all opposed? question has been called for. mr. kerby's amendment, gr-21, the language highlighted and on the screen in front of you. all in favor of mr. kerby's amendment to say aye. all opposed? the amendment fails. at this time we move to page six, line eight. the u.s. postal system.

we go through line 15. at this time i have no amendments to this section. is there anyone seeking to amend or discuss this section? we will let the record reflect that at 1:55 p.m., this section was agree to you and closed for further amendments. moving to line 16, reforming the tsa. through line 22. i have no amendments. i think everybody agrees on reform the tsa. anyone seeking to amend? at this time the record will reflect that at 155, this section was agree to and closed from further discussion, an amendment. now we move to line 23 of page six, immigration and the rule of

law. i am in possession of several amendments for this section. and i recognize the gentleman from kansas, mr. kobach, and they think we have your gr-8 as the first amendment that is up, iis that correct? >> that is correct. >> okay. i will not recognize the gentleman from kansas, mr. kobach. we are on gr-8, page seven, line three. the gentleman is recognized for 60 seconds. no, wait just a minute. we have the front row down here does not have this amendment. >> it is gr-8, anybody else not have it, please keep your hand up. the gentlelady from minnesota in

the back, over here. >> might ask for a codification on the page number and line number? >> by number three, i'm sorry. >> -- line number three, i'm sorry. >> mr. kobach, you're recognized. >> madam chairman, this amendment restores our platform almost the exact same towards we had in the 2008 platform, a call for national use of e-verify program. four states have adopted mandatory be verified. arizona, mississippi, south caroline and alabama. the results are truly amazing to the arizona law went into effect on january 1, 2008. over three period from '08-11 the illegal -- in arizona it dropped 36% that most people credit that to e-verify system which makes it difficult for

people to illegally get jobs. some return to the home countries but many went to bordering states where it is easy to break federal law and displace american workers. this amendment reinforces what governor romney has said repeatedly on the campaign trail that we must have a national e-verify system, unlike the current president week in the republican party are serious about jobs. we recognize that if you really want to create a job tomorrow, you can remove an illegal alien today. that is the way to open up jobs very quickly for you citizen workers and lawfully admitted alien workers, and i propose this amendment. >> the gentleman has spoken on his amendment. is there a second? the amendment has been read and has been seconded. the gentlelady from maryland is recognized for comments on the amendment. >> thank you, madam chair. that he shall like an american. i am a simple general contractor from maryland. a small business, a family business. the very backbone of this great

nation. we are law abiding job creators, and i'm opposed to this amendment. i believe that it is almost insulting to me as a small business owner that we would ask businesses to e-verify their employees before welfare benefits are not be verified. i encourage the government to mandatory e-verify section eight vouchers in any entitlement program given to people in this country before you come to small businesses and ask us to do the same as a mandatory requirement. at a small business wants to be verified, have at it. my friend jim the plumber, he be verified as all of his employees but don't make me do this before you eat verified entitlements. thank you. spent the gentlelady yields

back. does anyone else seek recognition for discussion on the amendment? the gentleman from arizona is recognized. >> yes, madam chairman, i present a gr 24, and i'm in the same situation as our friend from maryland. and with all due respect to mr. kobach, e-verify business, as you eloquently stated come increases the size, the scope and reach of government. it's an additional cost to business. it's a hidden tax as we been presented here, and it submits is too bloated government and hinders business success, and put the own is of law enforcement squarely on the shoulders of small businessmen. and it's just an additional wait that he don't want to deal with as a businessman. i presented that into your 24 in

opposition to e-verify. thank you. >> the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. >> i rise in support of this amendment. if we are really serious about stopping illegal immigration to this country, we have a simple solution for that. and that is to keep, it's a simple way to keep employers, give employers the tools they need not to hire illegal aliens. >> i thank the gentleman be. the gentleman from mississippi. >> yes, ma'am. when we certainly appreciate, we went to the same problem in mississippi two years ago, almost three years now since i was -- the first we adopted e-verify. we had the same identical concerns about small businessmen and women. we address those concerns. we found e-verify was able to be utilized in only minutes by the employers, and our experience with it is it's not been a cost to small business and not a

hindrance to the development of small business and, in fact, has proved successful in our state. >> the gentleman from illinois is recognized. >> i just simply have a question to the maker of this amendment and i think might've been addressed, but i was just wondering if this program would be a cost to the employer, or the cost burden would be by the government? >> mr. kobach? >> i'll answer his question and a couple of the others. the answer, no, it's free. e-verify check is free. it's borne by the federal government, the cost of electronic programming. the gentlelady from maryland said that welfare benefits should be either fight first. i would like to inform that they already are, title eight, of the u.s. code armory requires federal benefits in state welfare benefits respectively to be e-verify. the general and from arizona, e-verify replaces the i nine

system in federal law. so you would take, you already required by the federal government to verify. the i nine system is a joke. e-verify replaces that time-consuming process with a 32nd check on a computer that's why 95% of businesses who use it and the states that use it, like it better. >> the gentleman from delaware. >> icann general counsel to a company that uses e-verify across the board for all of our employees. it actually is a help to us. and it is much faster, certainly much more accurate than the i-9. >> i'm going to the subcommittee co-chair. >> madam chairman, i believe we have had sufficient discussion on this matter but i would like to call to question. >> question has been called to all those in favor of calling the question? all opposed? the question has been called for. we are now on mr. kobach's amendment, gr-8.

the language is on the screen in front of you. page seven, line three. all of those in favor of the gentleman's amendment will vote aye. all of those opposed? the ayes have it. the amendment is adopted. mr. kempton on gr-24, you're not recognize. does everyone have an amendment gr-24? >> madam chairman, in light of the last vote i would like to retract my -- >> the amendment has been withdrawn. we not go to gr-to make it is everyone in possession of gr-2? everybody at it? all right. we are not that page seven, line six.

gentleman from texas, mr. barton, you're recognized for 60 seconds on your amendme amendment. >> i would recommend we divide this into a strike and enter a second part on the insertion. the first part talks about human trafficking, comparing that to cattle. as a ranger and as a texan that is not nearly as demeaning as it is intended to be so i will recommend we strike that language. if we want the meaning to link which i would recommend second place inserting something based on what you've done with all of your extensive work in human trafficking. something like this as a moderate form of slavery, or something that is actually demeaning. so i would recommend striking the cattle and possibly inserting something else. it is demeaning. >> the gentleman has spoken on his amendment, and we are seeking a second. there is a second on the amendment. amendment has now been read and has been seconded.

mr. dee? >> thank you. i appreciate the maker of the motion working with the on this one and dividing this particular motion. i applaud the efforts of what they are trying to do. i think the jury did after traffic in human beings, i agree, we should remove the reference to cattle. i also think we should make no reference to slavery at this particular time. when people start comparing these people to enter of the past, slavery, i think that causes us a lot of concerns on this particular platform. i would suggest we leave the period there. i don't like slavery, but cattle doesn't work either stick this is offered as a friend and then. does the gentleman from texas except the amendment? >> if we do with the first one just strike it, we can tell the second one to answer something in its place. >> we can deal with it as too. we will divide the question. why have a motion to divide the

question? so moved. all in favor of dividing the question? okay, now we will take a vote on the strike language, removing the term as if it were, as if they were cattle. is there agreement? and do i have -- let me get the aye on strike leverage. removing the words as if they were cattle. all in favor? i go. all opposed? than the language has been struck. now, the insertion language, okay, placing them in slavery is on the screen in front of you. that would be the insertion ear so they divided amendment would be if your for putting that language in it would be a aye for. if you're against it and putting a period of after human beings it would be a no vote.

everybody clear? all right, here we go. all of those in favor of that insurgent will say aye. all of those opposed will say no. the amendment will read as traffic in human beings, and there will be a period. the gentleman's amendment is adopted as amended. and agreed upon. now we move the line 23. oh, wait. okay, gr-1 is the amendment we are moving to. and that is on page seven, line 21. and ms. sharkey from colorado, you are recognized on your amendment. >> thank you chairwoman. my proposal in adding this sentence i believe is what the

republican party stands for, and limited government. and i believe we ought to be proposing a private sector management for temporary guestworker program. this would provide incentives for illegals that are already in the u.s. to leave the country, apply for legal admission and eliminate the open border problem. private employment firms would run background checks, linked to specific workers to specific jobs, ensuring compliance with all u.s. laws is streamline the process so it works for both workers and employers. the numbers of permits issued would be limited by the actual market. the solution does not require amnesty, and it does not require citizenship. border security can be accomplished by a combination of technology, border guards and a legal guest worker program that actually works. the current program does not work for two primary reasons.

artificial quotas on the number of workers imposed by government committees, and not based on any connection to the real market, and implementation by a bureaucracy that is incapable of handling millions of cases quickly or efficiently. we as republicans believe in free enterprise. we know the private sector already works in similar ways across the nation. and for these reasons i support adding this text to this line. thank you. >> is there a second? the amendment has been read, explained, and seconded. is there discussion? mr. kobach? >> some of the accounts of this amendment are desirable. i would say that it is contrary to the eager for an amendment which is passed because the suggest an alternative system. be verified is managed by the governor. this is one area where we do

need the government to decide to a security clearance to come into the united states, who does not have a criminal record. we had horrible express before 9/11 when the visa express program is tried when private companies were put in charge of issuing temporary visas to the other problem with this proposal is there are no limits. at least complicated -- i just think this is a hold of a kettle of fish and is contrary to what we just passed with e-verify which is a system we have right now, and we can put in place right now by congressional action. >> i thank the gentleman. the gentleman from massachusetts. >> i call for the question, please. >> the question has been called for. all of those in favor of calling the question? all opposed? all right. on ms. sharkey's amendment, age seven, line 21. all in favor say aye. opposed?

the amendment is defeated. we now move to amendment gr20. take up 10, first. all right. our chairman says we need to take up 10, first, so we will take up 10, first. this will be paid seven, 923, the amendment is gr-10. does everyone have that in front of them? mr. kobach, you are recognized on gr 10 for 60 seconds. >> thank you. this amendment restores three provisions that were in our 2008 platform. we must complete the border fence that was ordered by congress but never completed. we must end in state tuition for illegal aliens and we must end sanctuary cities. century city as a result in the death of american citizens, many remember the three members.

i've represented the survivors in that family, anthony, michael and matthew were shot in cold blood by an illegal alien have been arrested three times by san francisco police bust -- but was released in every single occasion because they are a sanctuary city. one of the primary reasons of the romney rose past governor perry when mr. kerry was achieving first place in the polls was because of his opposition to in state tuition for illegal and it. as, i would quote from the romney website. mitt romney will complete a high-tech fence and enhance border security. he also said specifically we must eliminate the magnets for illegal immigration. as governor he will end in state tuition for illegal immigrants but we are a party, it's important we do not retreat from these elements that were in our 2008 platform. >> the amendment has been read and seconded. it is on the board in front of

you. is there discussion? spent madam chairman? >> yes. >> madam chair and, i ride -- i rise in support of this amendment. if we're really series about stopping illegal immigrants, or illegal immigrants coming across her board and terrorist come across her board, we need to construct the wall. secondly, sanctuary cities, cities need to comply with federal law, and so we need to end sanctuary cities, and in state tuition for illegal '80s but again we need to eliminate magnets that get people into this country illegally. thank you spent the gentlelady yield's back. is there further discussion? [inaudible] >> the question has been called for all in favor of calling the question say aye. all opposed? question has been called for. we are now on gr 10.

the amendment has read and explained and discussed, page seven, line 23, mr. kobach's amendment that all those who are in favor say aye. all opposed? the amendment has been adopted. at this time we move to mr. kempton with gr 20, same line of the text. spent appreciate your time, madam chair but i would like to thank mr. kobach for all his efforts on illegal immigration. it is a huge problem for arizona and i recognize that. and hope that he continues in his efforts. i would just make a suggestion to the same area, that we give consideration to those that are in this country illegally since

childhood, due to no choice of their own, and through him proper federal immigration enforcement. that we have experienced for decades. and i would just like to add a clause there that we recognize that it is a difficult situation that our country faces. >> thank you, mr. kempton. is there a second to mr. kempton's amendment? there is a second. okay, mr. erickson. mr. dee. >> thank you. point of order, madam chair. >> yes. >> is this the amendment, because his statement was different than the amendment. spent asking for clarification. she's getting clarification on that because we're trying to put it on the screen. >> i would think you might want to take some time to modify the amendment because i think his statement was more clear. >> okay. mr. kempton, let's do this. let's have you work to seek, see

if we can clarify and sectors aside for a moment. and then move to gr-20 five. do you all have that? >> madam chairman? >> just a suggestion. would you please define the word childhood? spent okay, mr. kempton, did you get that? okay. good point. good catch. does everyone have gr-25? okay, we do not. okay, in the interest of time -- [inaudible] let's set this section aside and move on. in the interest of time, we will not close this section. we'll come back to immigration in the rule of law, but while we catch up with a minute, and clarification, we will move on to american indians, page seven,

line 30, and open that section four amendments. i have no amendments for that section. are there any amendments? i am saying no amendments to that section. so the record will reflect that the section on american indians was opened and then closed at 2:18. district of columbia is now open. that is on page nine, page nine, line four. i have gr 15 from mr. perkins in front of me for a maintain to this section. does everyone have gr-15? mr. perkins and them is on page nine, line 19. everybody got it? all right.

mr. perkins, you are recognized for 60 seconds on your amendment. >> tony perkins louisiana. thank you, madam chair. as we've seen in the recent, recently the d.c. gun control law some of the most stringent in the country do not prevent criminals from engaging in violent acts. as a former law-enforcement officer and one who is an active supporter of the second amendment, citizens should be able to protect themselves. and what this amendment would do is insert on page nine, line 19, add these words, also to ensure protection of fundamental rights to self-defense, we call on the city council to pass laws consistent with the supreme court's decision in the heller and mcdonald cases. that's what the amendment seeks to distance the city has not come in compliance with the so supreme court decision. [inaudible] >> the gentleman's motion has been read, explained and

seconded. it is on the screen in front of you. is there discussion or comments? >> madam chair? >> yes. >> i'd like to offer a friendly amendment. after the word self-defense, add the words where everyone has a legal right to be. that is generally the standard for self-defense. >> let's see. >> clarification. i'm sorry. >> i suggest we had language after the word defense where everyone has a legal right to be. that is generally the accepted standard for the self-defense doctrine. >> has a legal right to be. so it would read also to ensure protection of fundamental rights of self-defense where everyone

has a legal right to be. then the, -- >> would you consider that a friendly amendment? >> no, i would oppose that amendment. >> you would oppose that. okay, so that would not be considered to be -- okay. okay, mr. boutin, your fine without? >> if i may just for the understanding of this body, i'd like to call on mr. perkins just to maybe get a 10-second overview of the heller and mcdonald cases. i want to make sure we understand impact of those cases and just have a little bit of background as to have the affect this particular amendment. and then one last question would be, why the focus on city council. i just want to ensure that is the proper body to reference in

this document. >> the gentleman has been heard. mr. perkins, i've come to you in a moment. governor cawley? >> i just a point before. i'm curious as to where the previous gentleman's amendment went. did you withdraw it? >> it was not accepted by the author. >> but did he introduce that as an amendment? >> no. he offered -- >> just not. we can move on. >> if you wish to add to his amendment, it does not accepted as further, he would have to write it. this section is still open. >> thank you, very well. mr. perkins. >> thank you, madam chair to both of these dealt with the second amendment cases. the heller case specifically dealt with gun control in the district of columbia, finding the right of citizens to possess firearms. the city of d.c., which has jurisdiction over coming up with the proper procedures by which people can have, possess

firearms as a drug their feet in doing so, still making it extreme difficult for law-abiding citizens within the district of columbia to possess firearms. >> the gentleman heels back. mr. minkow, is that explanation satisfactory? >> that easily suffices. thank you very much. >> you're welcome. is there further discussion? yes? >> i stand of course in favor of this but i also would like to very humbly say, thank you to mr. perkins for the incredible job he has done represented the family research council, standing up for all of us who know that hate crime can be represented by the left also, and being such an articulate spokesman. and i'm sorry the media did not give you the coverage you deserve, but i personally would like to thank you. [applause]

>> it is not applicable to the amendments point. well-made, missile. >> i'm worried about the language of mentioning these legal cases in this context where someone is trying to read this platform is not going to understand the significance of those two cases. >> mr. perkins, you have a response? >> well, both of those cases set the standard regarding implementation of second amendment rights of citizens i think it is applicable to policymakers, whether via the state or the federal level, or local jurisdiction of the district of columbia. it lays out very clearly the rights of citizens. so i do think that it is appropriate. >> were you seeking recognition?

>> yes. i think all she is saying, tony, she isn't -- she would like to do some rice what the decision is saying rather than just list the decisions because people who are reading it you are not attorneys may not know what you're referring to. >> mr. barton. >> may i offer a friendly amendment there that would have a parenthetical, which upholds the right of citizens to own and possess guns in washington, d.c., or something to that effect. tony, something that would explain that parenthetically. >> mr. perkins. >> knowing mr. barton's affection for firearms, i will accept that amendment. [laughter] >> can i suggest, i think or talk about the second library the fundamental right is to keep and bear arms which bears the land which of the second amendment. we can put that in place of self-defense, will that work?

>> yes. >> do you want to make that amendment? >> i will make that a part of my amendment. >> so the language, the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. will be the new reading of the amendment. is there further discussion of the amendment? mr. schoenbohm. >> yes, to answer previous objections for mentioning the supreme court cases. would it not be better, friendly amendment, to say with the supreme court decisions, rather than mention heller and mcdonald? i'm not an attorney but i believe they are certain law, correct? >> yes. >> i'd like to call the question, please. >> okay. question has been called. all of those in favor? >> point. did we have a lan which the gentleman and the front suggested and i think tony agree to? >> yes.

it's on the screen in front of you. >> no, that was the chairman's line which. i've talked about the gentleman down here. >> some type of parenthetical which would say which upheld the second amendment right to own and use arms. the right to keep and bear arms. >> hold on just a minute, david. i would need for you to remove -- she would remove -- spent i will remove it spinning and i apologize. i thought that mr. perkins had settled at with the language to keep and bear arms. mr. barton. >> can i work on that language for just a second? can they meet with tony? >> the second amendment of the constitution, is the cleanup or would you like further clarification? >> probably better clarification. >> okay, we will set this aside for one moment and allow the two of you to work. so the district of columbia, section will be satisfied, --

set aside while we work on the language for gr-15, page line, line 19. now what we will do is to move to line 22 of page nine. this is the federal several -- federal civil service. i have no amendments to federal civil service. no amendments or discussion. that is line 22 of page nine through line two of page 10. at 2/28 we will close the section on federal civil service. we now go to the future of space, line three of page 10. down through line 18, the future of space. i have no amendment on this section. in the amendment or discussion? seeing none, we will consider

this section presented and closed at 2/28 p.m. americans and the territories. that is line 19 on page 10. i have three amendments to this section. the first is gr seven, ms. newland, you're recognized for 60 seconds on your amendment. >> thank you, madam chairman. i have asked for an insert after and. we call on our leadership in the united states congress to introduce a constitutional amendment to allow, and then the same language continues, the full extension of the constitution with all rights and responsibilities it entails. this is a conversation, this is my fourth time on the platform, that was discussed in philadelphia's platform, new

york platform, minneapolis platform, and in tampa. the right for territories to vote for the commander-in-chief and president of the united states is a critical issue for all the territories. we have many men and women that fought in battle and have died for the rights that are upheld by our constitution. their inability to vote for the president of the united states and for the commander-in-chief has been a star point with the territories for many, many years. -- a sore point. i hope you'll consider this, the language that is inserted currently affirms the rights, we do not have a congresswoman that can vote in the congress. we really have no avenue to push this forward. we need your help to finally resolve this issue of disparity, of serving our country and not being able to vote for our commander-in-chief, and i urge

you to please vote for this. thank you. >> is there a second to ms. noonan's amendment? the amendment has been read and has been seconded. mr. bopp? >> i uphold the amendment. there is a constitutionally protected mechanism by which people in the territories can achieve the right to vote for president, have representatives in congress, both the senate and house, and that has becom states of the united states. it is a privilege only of states of the united states to be represented in congress, and except for the exception of the district of columbia that have special status, but it is not a state, they who are entitled to vote on a constitutional amendment for president, only states have that authority. we should not be deluding the exceptional position that states have in our union by extending

representation to people that do not live in duly constituted states of our united states. >> is there further discussion? the gentlelady is recognized to close on her amendment. >> yes, i would like to say that it's an extraordinary constitutional battle to try to become a state. this could be done but a simple amendment to allow the territories to finally vote. i will tell you that it is going to be discussed in the other platform, and i can tell you that in the territories, the reason that we don't have more republican representation and more republican voters these because they feel that we do not care about this issue.

if we are in the forefront of this issue, we have the ability, and porter because finally achieved a governor and a legislature that is now republican, and all the territory to make a statement and pick up a tremendous amount of voters because these areas are basically very conservative, catholic areas. and if we keep on letting this go from one platform to the next platform on and on because this issue will not die, it will be brought up again and again, we don't get in the forefront of this and stand for what republicans really believe in, then i'm afraid that the territories will feel that we have turned our back on them again. >> mr. connolly, you were seeking recognition. >> simply to call the question. >> question has been called. all in favor of calling the question say aye. all opposed? question has been called on gr seven.

ms. noonan's amendment, page 10, line 22 presented to you, by which is on the screen. all of those in favor will say aye. all opposed? the amendment is not adopted. same section line 26, mr. smart from american samoa, you're recognized for 60 seconds on your amendment, gr-20 three. does everyone have gr-20 three? mr. smart. >> thank you. brenden smart from american samoa. would like to reinsert the platform had before it went to subcommittee. just changing the original language instead of saying they come to put the pacific territories, it should've flexible to determine the minimum wage, which that should say has instead of has. has restricted progress in the private sector. as some of you know, the minimum wage issue when it came up a

couple years ago calls on one of our canneries too close to we're now in the process of getting somebody to move back in to that facility. if it goes up without some serious consideration we may lose our other cannery. if that happens we have no private sector jobs, which then, the next sentence that -- >> okay, mr. smart has presented his amendment to you. the language is being put on the screen. is there a second to his amendment? the amendment has been seconded. mr. colley, you're recognized. >> thank you, madam chairman. the language that the delegate referred to was removed because we could not achieve consensus during the subcommittee process it subsequent to that in discussions with the delegates from the other territories this is i believe a grateful language and as such the subcommittee would have no problem with its inclusion. >> okay. mr. schoenbohm.

>> thank you very much, congresswoman blackburn. yes, i was the one who asked for the language to be removed because the minimum wage was an issue that bothered me. when delicate smart convinced me of the terrible plight that exist in american samoa in the pacific, and that this is specific to the specific territory, i almost didn't get that out, i now am in favor of come entirely in favor of their amendment. >> the question has been called. there's a second. all in favor say aye. opposed? the amendment is before you, gr-23. mr. smart's amendment, it deals with page 10, line 26. the language is on the screen. it follows word stability. you see the insertion but as highlighted. all in favor say aye. all opposed?

the ayes have it. the amendment is adopted. mr. schoenbohm, you're recognized for gr 9-a. >> thank you very much. i just want to mention, you're done such a fantastic job. i think you should continue this to conclusion out let this gentleman watch you. [laughter] [applause] >> here, here. spent it's really amazing, amazing how you move things along. i would ask my colleagues here and other delegates to understand that in the united states virgin islands we must they customs duties on goods that are brought from the u.s. mainland. we are the only u.s. territory with -- where the circumstance exists and it is driving the cost of goods, medicine and

food, and it's absolute out of the question. and the middle-class and poor suffer the most. i've asked for the inclusion of this language that all unreasonable economic impediments must be removed, including unreasonable u.s. customs practices. i'd like to insert the united states or u.s. customs. so it is quite clear. >> i thank the gentleman, and his time has expired. is there a second? the amendment has been read. it has been seconded. the line which is highlighted and on the screen in front of you. is there discussion? question has been called. >> did ask for one modification. >> the question has been called. it is not debatable. all in favor of calling the question? all opposed? division? all in favor of calling the question, show your hands.

all opposed. [inaudible conversations] >> i call point of order, madam chairwoman. i suggested that united states or usb place in front of customs to make it clear. it's noncontroversial. >> we have called the question, and so now we're on the amendment. are we allowed to do the insertion, or do we need to retract wax i would seek unanimous consent to do the insertion. consent is granted it is there any opposition? the action will take place. u.s. will be inserted. mr. schoenbohm to close. is the language correct on the screen? >> yes, it is. united states or u.s. >> okay, the language is

presented on the screen, highlighted. mr. schoenbohm's gr-9-a, page 10, line 27. all unreasonable economic impediments must be removed, including unreasonable u.s. customs practices. all in favor of this addition as the amendment has presented say aye. all opposed? the amendment is adopted. at this time is there any further discussion or amendment to american territories? no further discussion or amendment. the record will reflect at 240 time at the second american territories has been closed. at this time, we will move that through. we're going back to page seven.

okay, the gentlelady from maryland, ms. szeliga, you're recognized on your content. >> thank you, madam chair. i have an amended version of the. can you come back to me. is probably on its way for distribution, please. >> it's on the screen. amendment 25-eight. spin we will highlight that. spent i didn't keep a copy of its i have to wait to see it, there. i'm sorry. it would be line seven on page seven, line one. after encourage more lawbreaking carried. spent okay, ms. szeliga, you're recognized for the inserted language or explanation. >> if i get -- if i could get a copy of that language from somebody, that would be helpful.

thank you. thank you very much. this, this amendment will come as the body spoke previously about the mandatory use of the either five program, dashing either five program, and i strongly supported making sure that the government would check on the lawful presence of those people here who are getting any type of state or federal entitlement. this amendment ads that link which. we support the mandatory use of the systematic alien verification for entitlements, the s.a.v.e. program, and enter -- and internet basis that verifies the lawful presence of applicants prior to the grand if any federal or state government entitlements, and i think i have the irs in there. do you see the irs in the version i gave you? i don't know if any of you recall the report out of

indianapolis, but there's been a case with the irs has sent checks of tens of thousands of dollars to those people who are not lawfully present in our country who file fraudulent tax returns. so i don't see the irs language up there. >> ms. szeliga, it is not in your amendment as was written and handed them. i've got a copy of it in front of me. okay, what, the amendment is now on the screen in front of you, as written and as submitted spent if you like to add a word, please let -- >> any federal government entitlements or irs refunds, please. after entitlements. thank you. so be moved, please. >> the gentlelady has presented her amendment. is there a second?

the amendment has been seconded. is there discussion? mr. kobach. >> i worked with the gentlelady from maryland and dislike which, this is good language although federal law requires denial of benefits. some states are currently breaking federal law, and the save system has been developed since a federal law went into place of this is a good reminder to the states that we want you to be either find those benefits, and the federal government, the irs has been giving income tax credits to those illegal in the country. >> is there any opposition to the amendment? anyone seeking opposition? is there further discussion? >> i'd like to call to question. >> ms. timken has called for the question. seconded. all in favor of calling the question? all opposed? the question has been called. we are now on ms. szeliga's amendment as presented.

the language is on the screen in front of you. it would come at the end of line one after the word lawbreaking. all in favor of this amendment, gr-25-a, please say aye. all opposed? the amendment has been adopted. okay, mr. kempton, on page seven, line 23 on the subject you are now -- does everyone have -- >> madam chairwoman, i'm going to withdraw that due to difficult a language. >> you're going to withdraw that. okay. gr-20-a has been withdrawn. there's no further an amnesty immigration in the role of all. is there further discussion or

amendment? seeing none, at 2:45 p.m. we have now approved and closed this section. we go to page nine, district of columbia. mr. perkins, you're recognized for cleanup language. >> thank you, madam chairman. i think we have language that clarifies. this is how it would read. page nine, line 19, insert also to ensure protection of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. we call on the governing authority, should be of the district of columbia, to pass laws consistent with the supreme court's decision in heller and mcdonald cases, which uphold the fun the right to bear and keep arms for self-defense. >> do we have that language on the screen? okay, they are adding it right now. as they add the language, the amendment was previously

seconded. we set it aside. is there further discussion? [inaudible] >> let's wait. if i can ask you to please hold until we get the language so that everyone can see it and read it. mr. perkins, i will yield to you to reread it now that it is on the screen and highlighted. >> also to ensure protection of the fundamental rights to keep and bear arms, we call and city council to pass laws consistent with the supreme court's decision in heller and mcdonald cases, which upheld the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. >> further discussion? the gentlelady is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. i agree with the clarification of the heller and mcdonald case in the language. my only concern would be that it's going forward before, this

body meets again. there is another case that renders heller and mcdonald not the most updated case, how would we, how would we be able to interpret that? >> we, the case that is in the record now, what we have before us would be the heller and mc donald cases. gentlelady from delaware. gentlemen. >> responding to the question, previous question, you'd is also responded to, the heller and mcdonald cases are the cases that are known throughout the community interest in such things as -- >> the gentleman from d.c. >> i would just like to stay for the record that the d.c. delegation supports the language and we would like to move to question. >> the question has been called. >> one more question for one more point. >> the question has been called. all in favor of calling the question? all opposed?

the question has been called. we are on amendment as amended. governor, i recognize you. >> this is tactical. the written amendment says governing authority, not -- that is tactical. that's no problem? okay. >> okay. >> just to clarify. >> the clarification has been made. the clarification is agree to by the sponsor. we're in the posture of calling for the vote on the amendment as amended and presented. we are now on mr. perkins amendment, gr-15 as amended and presented and on the screen in front of you. all in favor of the amendment will say aye. all opposed? the amendment is agreed to, and is added. i have no -- one more for d.c.,

okay. gr-26. to you all have gr-26? everybody has got it. okay, mr. bopp, you're recognized for 60 quick seconds. >> thank you, madam chairwoman. with respect to my amendment, is page two, historically a republican platform as opposed stated for the district of columbia, and that plain statement is in the subordinate clause, beginning at line 20. however, the remaining additions to that statement contain two propositions. one is that there are quote, constructive alternative means of representation that should be considered. i have no idea what is in mind

there, and if there are specific proposals we should have them rather than endorse them in such a big way. the district columbia does have a nonvoting member of the u.s. house of representatives. so it has representation. and secondly calling for federal tax exemption for long-term residents. i'm a long-term resident of indiana. i would love to have federal tax exemption. we are calling for some sort of tax break because people have lived all while in d.c. you know, my view is that our party has been clear on this proposition, and that we have opposed statehood. the district already has representatives, that is, the democratic party is vying for the federal government. so they have plenty of representation in congress, and we should not delude that by these vague statements. ..

thus being more madam chairman michael to question. >> question has been called. all in favor of calling the question? >> aye. >> all opposed. the question has been called. we are now on the amendment as presented. all in favor of mr. bopps

amendment say aye. all opposed? the amendment is agreed to and is added. i have no further amendments to the b.c. section. is there any further amendment or discussion? cnn.com, the record will reflect at 2:53 we have closed this section. mr. chairman, that completes this section and i will call on mr. cali for any comments on the section. >> madam chairman, i would like to thank you for the expert way in which she handled the proceedings today and take on behalf of the subcommittee for being the briefest of all of the sections. [applause] and i hereby call for the adoption of the government reform section of our resolutions committee. >> all in favor of adopting this

section. >> aye. >> all in favor. >> mr. chairman, we have completed this. i am a firm believer in having a 3:00 chocolate attack every day. i think it is good for a the soul so i will deal back to you a and hope you'll give us a break. [applause] >> alright, ten minutes. enjoy the chocolate. live now from the national press club here in washington. leaders from a number of latino organizations this morning are

holding a news conference to discuss public policy initiatives in advance of the republican and democratic conventions. participants will present recommendations to party leaders, congress and the president. this is expected to start in just a moment. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> my name is hector sanchez in the chair of the hispanic national leadership agenda and the director of the council for latin american advancement the 30 most important national latino organizations in the nation. with members across the business, healthcare, labor, education and the civil rights sectors nhla is a uniquely proficient to all agendas on behalf of the latino community

as a whole. i would like to introduce some of these organizations and the leaders today and will be available to respond to some of the questions you will have. jim ferg-cadima with the educational fund. brent wilkes with a united citizens with the national puerto rican coalition. jose calderon, yanira cruz on aging and the hispanic opposition of colleges and universities. michael with the media coalition and a.m. nine rosarior. alisa diaz with the national council. i'm going to ask the representatives to come in the front to answer some of the

questions when we are done with the presentation, please. the importance of nhla and the timing of this agenda is unique. the latino community has been the target of constant attack. they have been making the daily life for some of our families unbearable. so, today we are together in unity and solidarity as nhla to say enough. and after the constant violation to the labour rights, human rights and civil rights of the community. enough to all of the humiliation. enough to the suppression that is taking place in the nation and that is excluding latinos from the space process. the enough to the educational system that excludes latino children. enough to the hate crimes against latinos in the nation.

enough. >> [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] this is the work of nhla more important than ever. we are a coalition that is going to hold leaders accountable for their actions and policies and

the impact they may have in the community. it is very clear that the latino votes have become a decisive part in the national elections and will only keep growing. both parties need to learn of the latino vote and i want to repeat that. both parties need to earn of the latino vote. nhla has already met with the policy platform committee's of both the rncc and the dncc. we will be traveling to tampa to the rnc convention and from there we are going to the dnc convention to ensure the republican and democratic leaders are both for hispanic public policy agenda recommendations as priorities for the next congress as well as for state legislators. we intend to hold them accountable for progress or lack

thereof in lining this agenda. we will issue a report outlining what issues have been advanced and which ones have not. this report will inform the latino voters in 2014 and 2016. both of the convention through the 2012 elections nhla plans to meet with republicans and democratic leaders on capitol hill. the white house and the president and government from me to support the commitment we are lining here today. by adopting this priority, party leaders have an opportunity to gain the political support from the community and keen organizations around the country. in nhla we have a number of committees and working groups with experts in each one of the areas that we will present today and create recommendations for the entire nhla body. these committees are education,

civil rights, immigration, economic empowerment, government accountability, and we are going to hear some of those recommendations today. you have copies of the public policy agenda in case you want to take a closer look at those recommendations. in the case of economic security and empowerment, it is clear that the latino community received the most by the recent recession. the example is the median household being latino the lowest are around 5,000 in comparison to light more than 100,000. we recommend the following. access to capital for latino entrepreneurs, preserve and growth opportunities for the latino businesses to federal contracting and subcontracting opportunities. provide phase to sustainable ownership and combat predatory lending practices. defend the right to collective

bargaining for the workers remember the latinos are the mostly working-class and support the equity in the workplace among others. now i would like to introduce james ferg-cadima to present policy recommendations on immigration and education. [applause] >> good morning, folks. my task is to go through the education priorities selected as a consensus body. there are far many more today. those can be found on line in the report or in the reports that you have here in the audience. but, to walk through the two main items i think both parties should have in mind as you move forward are the k-12 education. there are three separate conversations around k-12 education that are going on whether it is the authorization of the luxury secondary education act, whether it's the flexible the application of the department of education approved around the state which will last

the next two to four years or whether it is the federally supported state consortium where the states have broken up pretty much into different camps to discuss very important education topics. any of these tavis are critical outcomes measures of success. we must ensure on behalf of latino communities that progress is measured. student progress is measured through multiple measures. we must not abandon a rigorous accountability system for all students. we cannot mask data that shows disparities for english-language learners, migrant students and of course students of color, so the data and the subgroup data is extremely important. we may not -- we must not drop to a percentage point approach which many of these are considering. we must of accountability for all students, all schools, not just the bottom of the bottom. federal accountability that attaches to the lowest performing schools essentially the bottom quartile of all schools is critical. we must have every truck factory

in the countries. those have power less than 50% be held accountable by federal actors. finally, any school that has a substantial but persistent achievement gap must count for the federal accountability. without these three critical components, any deviation from 100% accountability is untenable for the community. we must invest and in very the college and a courier for a curriculum and standards debate going on around the country that's critically important for the next generation of assessments. teaching models and outcomes for all students. last, we have failed and we must solve the issue of diagnostic assessments for the english language lerner's upon entry into a school and also as they progress we must have flyable indicators of the utility to listen, speak, read and write english. these are all critical opponent's heavily invested in reauthorization and flexible the application that's been approved and the consortium conversation

going on around the country these are critical. as to the federal law and programs for education it is absolutely essential the federal government continue to fund and extend key federal serving education programs that meet the needs of latino students whether they are pre-k programs such as head start and evening start. whether they are k-12 programs such as title three of the elementary secondary education act that affects and improves education for english-language learners or title one elementary secondary education for migrant students. as for, which there's a tremendous amount of programs that make a difference including trio. and then of course increasing investment in the hispanic serving institutions these are the call which is where our latino students are attending in the attention. less subtle education vocational training schools are important as well in the modern climate, so we have looked to the enforcement and implementation reva three c's a share of the

investment act so it helps people learn new skills but also learn adult basic civics in the modern economy. so these are tremendously important topics and include on behalf of latinos these are the priorities and measures of success in the years to come. [applause] i've also been asked to cover immigration, so let me go through the top wines of the immigration recommendations we are making to both parties. i think in the years to come a measure of success as to the immigrants include the following topics. we must maintain a fair and orderly path to deferred action from removal. if today is known as dafca. this will only exist for two years. it's up to the next administration and white house and a half and in order that is fair to all potential

applicants. but temporary solutions are not enough. we must enact the gerry and give all of the undocumented students the path to the legalization and of course the citizenship. however, immigration doesn't just affect young people and you've, it affects the vocational community. we must enact comprehensive reform that offers undocumented immigrants and the path to legalization citizenship through the families and allow workers to enter with the rights and protections that safeguards the entire work force. that is essentially -- its essentials, its absolute and cannot be regarded as from the politics we will see in the coming campaign the of kind measures of success are comprehensive immigration reform in the next congress with the next white house and congress to get this done. last, in the wake of the states like arizona with sd 1070 and older around the country the supreme court has spoken with clarity in the wake of arizona the supreme court case that

upheld federal preemption in the state immigration law and shut down most of arizona's law. we must curtail, find ways to curtail state and local enforcement of the so-called state immigration law or local immigration lawyer. these type lead to racial profiling and unnecessarily strained relations between police and local communities. from our perspective, any of those proposals are nonstarters. with that we will hold both parties and branches of government to these standards in the years to come. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, jim. - stifel cruz line the vice chair of the leadership of the nestle was the director of the league of united latin american citizens. i'm going to talk about civil rights and government accountability this morning and i have to say talking about civil rights we believe this portion of the agenda is critical to ensuring that the rest of the recommendations in the agenda are actually

available to the community because without aggressive enforcement of civil rights, we do not have a level playing field the community can't to get a vintage of the opportunities and education and the economy and health care many of them business opportunities and the other parts of the agenda because the playing field isn't fair right now and there's too much discrimination and a lot of it is intentional. the federal government, congress and the administration are the primary recourse for the community for fairness. with aggressive enforcement of the civil rights law we end up being discriminated against across the country at the local, the state and often even at the national level. we've got to do something to make sure our community does have fairness and that is the principal role of the civil rights is about. starting with voter identification requirements and other voter suppression efforts we've seen an incredible effort by states in this election cycle to try to suppress the latino vote. it's probably the worst of what we have seen in a long time.

my organization started out fighting against the jim crow law, and it is heartening to see many states trying to reenact the law is designed to do the same thing basically to suppress the latino votes from voter identification to third-party groups like the national hispanic leadership agenda to keep them from engaging in the process and to not write throwing latinos off the roads because it is possible they might not need voters were citizens and yet using the database is the verso outdated they've turned up to the 100% inaccurate. we need to make sure the voter suppression is stopped. we need to support legislation on the constitution amendment to bring an unlimited corporate money from influencing our government. the more money and government and corporate money influences our e elections, the last the latino communities and other communities have the right to say who gets elected. we think it's important to change citizens united and to

make sure that the power lies with the people of vote. we need to safeguard the continuation of the census bureau data collection efforts which is indispensable to the enforcement of civil rights and fair allocation of federal funding. we know that if we don't have good data we are out of sight, out of mind and we can't prove there is discrimination taking place and right now there are efforts to present to the to prevent the census bureau from collecting the data on the community. we are opposed to that and hope to defeat it. we also encourage the communications and query to the extent in effect of hate speech media and support of the fcc policies to expand and promote media ownership and diversity. this is one of the ways people are using to keep what he knows from realizing the american dream. using hate speech on radio to denigrate the community and riling up others against latinos and preventing opportunity and we are continuing this against

media hate speech enforced. the extreme cases baguette policed and most of the governors can say anything and get away with that and thanks to the efforts by many of the leadership organizations just by putting political pressure against the shows are we able to get some of them off and i think that we need to do a better job of enforcing that and in terms of diversity of media ownership we've gone backwards in this area and the ownership was 20 years ago and we need to change that considering this country is soon to become the majority minority population we can't go backwards we have to go forward. we've to support efforts to ensure that part of justice and department of labor and equal employment opportunity pursue violations of the voting rights, civil rights, workplace safety employment laws. these are critical that they don't do their job, then unfortunately we've seen that these discriminations will run rampant throughout the united

states and it's been heartening to see in the last four years more aggressive enforcement that has been a huge difference we need that to continue. we also enact legislation that cracks down on the authorities involved in racial profiling so this is something that we are extremely concerned about a special the efforts by the states to police immigration and the laws even though it is not their authority. we've seen that becomes an excuse to target people of color especially latinos as we have to prevent racial profiling of the local and state level and provide sufficient funding to cover justice acts this is critical for our seniors maintaining against women at this is a bill that is before congress right now. there's no reason not to extend it and especially in putting protections for undocumented immigrants and victims of domestic violence we can't back up on the violence against women act. we also increase efforts that cost the federal government to ensure languages as above the standards are carried out in the conduct of activities including

performers like the u.s. department of homeland security and other federal assistance such as state courts. we need to make sure the government is accessible to the communities and we are disheartened by of the english only legislation that's out there trying to close the door of opportunity to the community by denying them access to the government across the nation. finally, we need to nominate and confirm charges that demonstrate records of preserving order extending civil rights legal protections that reflect the growing diversity of the country and this is critical to have. the court of last resort for our community to sustain our rights as guaranteed in the constitution for many examples we have to go to the court to keep our rights in place and the only way we can do that is to appreciate role in this regard, and sustain it. i'm going to talk a little bit now about government accountability. one thing that's important about a government accountability not only are the government employment opportunities greater employment opportunities for the

community, but we have to also make sure we realize the fact the government can only serve the community as if it reflects the diversity of the communities and when you look right now only 8% of the federal government is latino and you need 60% of the population hispanic. that 50% is the highest gap of any community in the country. it's incredible and unfortunate something we have to work on and change because what we have seen some of the agency's especially like the department of education which is under 4% of the health and human services under 4% those agencies are so vital to the organizations and communities and yet they don't have latino representation to be able to effectively serve those communities. that has to change from some of the recommendations we have and would substantially increasing the number and the federal work force, including senior positions through expanded recruitment and staff development creating a pipeline of candidates for all levels of federal employment this is an area of our organizations are

going to help of because we can help be that entrée to our community and get the job out -- word out about the opportunities. the tangible increasing of the hispanic this is something we can't help out with this is up to the federal government to hold their own hiring managers accountable and there's been too little about. we need to aggressively enforce the goals they put in place of the managers can continue to get along and go along and continue the same thing without facing repercussions. finally, we need to support improvements on critical issues such as contract building increase in federal contracting goals for small businesses, standard and proof of an equal access to grants across federal agencies, so the key areas we can work to try to improve government accountability. now without further let me introduce yanira cruz. [applause] >> thank you, brent. good morning. >> i'm here to speak with you a little bit about health, which is a critical element across all

of our society, in particular to the latino community. in fact, it is an area that affects each and every one of us every day. so the bottom line is that if we are unhealthy, we are unproductive and it affects -- it affects important aspects of our life. whether we are patient with chronic disease or a family member or caregiver who takes care of their sick loved ones, we must work to drive down health care costs in the nation. we also need to reverse the disparities especially among latinos. for the work of the national hispanic council on aging we see the issues of health at the heart and root of everything we do. we know the chronic diseases don't occur overnight. several stages take place before a person's health goes down the road of no return. promoting and creating access to affordable preventive care and

services is key to promoting health equity as well as helping bring down general health care costs. a health care system with all the people as costly as one individual with chronic diseases. at the core of nhla's health policy recommendation is the access to care particularly access to preventive care. that is why we believe that a solid first step is ensuring a prompt and full implementation of the affordable care act. while the affordable care act is not a silver bullet it is moving us in the right direction. it's addressing the factors that lead to the health disparities especially among those that need health care. children, pregnant women and latinos seniors. the affordable care act does a wonderful job of offering affordable care to these groups especially older adults by eliminating pre-existing conditions and protecting them from health insurance company

abuses. in terms of seeing yourself, we applaud the affordable ^ for strengthening medicare by e eliminating the waste of fraud and abuse impact in the system. increasing relief for seniors who are in the so-called is also important in this matter and providing increased preventive benefits such as free screenings and annual checkups. there are other parts of a lot we would like to see strengthened. one example would be finding a way to implement the act to provide patients with affordable and accessible long-term health care insurance plans. while there is a long way to go to perfect the law, the affordable care act has proven that our country could not delay any longer on improving the quality of health care and health care access for all americans.

.. patients have the tools and information they need to make informed health decisions. closely tied to this is the diversification of the health care workforce, creating opportunity for young hispanic latino health care professionals who serve their communities is not only gratifying, but another important factor in addressing

health inequities in our society. the bottom line is that as a matter of public health and commonsense we must take action ho ensure that community has the tools and resources it needs to be healthier. healthier communities can focus and other important issues to make the country stronger, and it is with the spirit that we have set forth these policy recommendations. we believe these recommendations will help move the needle significantly if implemented. therefore, we strongly urge policymakers to consider them and work with us to make this a reality. and our next speaker will give us -- >> thank you. thank you, yanira. [applause] >> thank you. this is the latino -- again, jose calderón, federation but it is our to be here with you i want to thank all of you for being here and taking time from

your very busy schedules to be with us to present this really incredible agenda that is representative of an incredible effort by the 30 leading latino organizations across the nation that have come together to make sure that our community has a voice, as one single voice, and that policymakers across this nation are listening to what that agenda is and what that voices. ultimately at the end of the day we want through this agenda is that policymakers, public officials about this agenda and understand that there is no america without latinos. there is no american success without latino success. we know from the work we do day in, day out across cities, across downs, across our nation that our success is intertwined with the fate of the latino community, right? so when we have growing, thriving america we must have a thriving latino community. on that front we actually have some very good news to share with you. we know that we have the fastest

growing number of small business owners across the nation, latino small business owners are thriving, are working very, very hard to revive our communities, our cities and our towns. at the same time our labor force is also very, very strong and it's helping to expand and rebuild our cities. we also have an increasing number of latinos going to our colleges and universities come and graduating with high quality degrees. those are great stories we also need to communicate for the public at large. but if we're to build on the successes, we have to build on the successes and get our country back on the road to recovery, we must invest in the latino community. we must invest in the latino community. and that support is outlined in this agenda, in the 202012 nhla hispanic public policy agenda you're so again, this campaign to ensure that this isn't about, that this is carried out by our policymakers on both parties against today. we will not ease until we have

met and secured commitments from both republican and democratic leaders. and ultimately see these policies enacted. so this is the first debt. and so i'm here to share with you that as hector mentioned, we will be at the rncc. we will be at the democratic national convention as well, too. as far as the republican national convention, we are bringing the same message to them. on monday, august 27 at 2:30 p.m. we will be at the center in tampa, florida, to present this agenda to republican leaders. who will be convening therefore the convention. and we look forward to that conversation. similarly we will be at the democratic national convention on tuesday, september 4, from 10:30-11:30 in charlotte north calendar. this information will be on a website but i will encourage you to join us and make sure that we speak with one voice, as one

community. and make sure that these leaders hear us loud and clear. right again, this campaign begins today. thank you again for being here for the launch of the campaign, and we look forward to your questions and answers. thank you. [applause] >> i would like to ask all the leaders that are mentioned at the beginning to please stand, to help us answer some of the questions. some of your -- some of you are experts. >> as i mentioned in the opening remarks we have 30 national latino our decision. with expertise in a number of feel. we come together to debate. we come together to strategize in national public policy agenda. now we'll open it it up for questions.

in english and in spanish. >> so yesterday gop unincorporated in your platform their support for immigration laws like the one in arizona. and i was wondering if there's legal ground to talk to the republicans, if we start from this point, you're going to talk with them in the rnc convention but i mean, is there any legal ground to talk with him? we have this kind of signal, and in spanish it would be -- [speaking spanish] >> i'm going to ask him to answer some of those but just an opening statement, one, i'm partisan but extremism at the

republican party is reaching on a number of issues, particularly immigration. as i said in my opening statement we are here to say enough. we are here to say an open dialogue to see how we can move the nation forward, but as i also said in the opening remarks, we are here as an aggressive coalition to we're going to move the agenda forward, make sure with our mission -- [inaudible] [speaking spanish]

>> i think the platform that you mentioned is just the tip just the tip of the iceberg. i think there's extremists in all parties, not just two major parties but across the political spectrum. that doesn't necessarily foreclose the conversation. not every party is filled with extremist. there are moderate voices. there are people without a reasonable dialogue in every party. but this debate cannot be a based on what is politically expedient, but must be have based on what the supreme court has handed down. so any of those platforms must be refreshed, reviewed and matched against what the supreme court just ruled. in arizona v. united states. again, where the federal government has significant power over states that choose to go there. you are future cases to be had, future they wanted to be had here, but as of now, just because some has an extremist platform doesn't essential to present from presenting this.

find commonsense solution. >> thank you. i'm corresponded for the hispanic outlook magazine. higher education. i'm going to go to both conventions i'll be interested on your approach with different parties use. i mean, so are you going to emphasize different things? and your presentation, and what kind of a commitment are you looking for? and by the way, i just think you've got to watch the spin on the supreme court stuff. there were 14 points in 2010, and the supreme court did not -- they didn't say the whole law. i think you have to be careful not to spend it so that you're vulnerable to people saying oh, my god. >> it would be important to connect the latino vote in my

opening statement. they will probably have to decide national elections were 70% of population right now, we will be 30% of the population by 2050. we will put a suitable not only now but in the future. almost 30 latinos that you see any national hispanic leadership agenda are connected to our communities either we have members, we have chapters, with councils, with committee-based organization. we are a vibrant community and we're in touch with every town in the nation, and we're in constant communication with our community to inform what is happening in the nation, and in the communities, you mentioned something about the -- [inaudible] >> i asked what kinds of -- [inaudible]

>> so i'm a, i think is worth reading for size what hector was saying regarding sort of the voting power of the hispanic community, we also want to be, beyond bringing this agenda to policymakers, we want to bring this to the committee. it comes from the community because we represent the grassroots on sunday to levels. but it's important that we have and engaged, you know, voting community as well, too, that they're informed around these issues, that they're voting as a result of these issues and that they're voting for the best interest of themselves, their families and their communities. in terms of commitment, we expect, we expect both parties to follow suit, to follow suit on this agenda. we think, again this agenda we will present a full plate of what this agenda is to both the republican convention and also to the democratic convention. both parties have a stake in the well being of our community, and both have to respond to that community so it's critically important that we don't hide anything from one group and the

other. both parties are accountable to our community so that's really the answer to your question because it's critically important that we send that message at all times. >> question in the back. >> i guess i'm just trying to get a sense of come if you do not get the commitments are looking for come as where the gop already put on the platform where they stand with immigration, what's the next step in? you said you're connected to your communities. does that mean an active campaign against certain candidates? >> let's channel this question. this is our consensus, recommendations and of the occasions where both parties do not rise to the occasion and to have an example you pointed out, a platform that disagrees with one of our core principles. what we will do with this, if this becomes the metric come it becomes despite what we'll do, congressional scorecards injuries to come.

the next crop of folks get elected and sent to congress, we will look to them that they somewhat the party platform was in 2012, we will look at the actual votes their record on the floor of the house and the senate. we also look to agency to see what they do with the regulatory power and we will look to the white house, the next white house to see what they do with the power that they've just been granted by the electorate. so this is what drives, what we look to in the future. this puts those parties in those two to elected officials on notice. there are multiples -- multiple ways these can. at the d.r.e.a.m. act is not connected there are lesser included forms such as daca that we will look to, this is to guide and put all future elected official on notice of what's important to us. >> i'd like to respond to that as well. i'm with the hispanic association of colleges and university. i think we will continue to work with both parties, i would say we work significant on the d.r.e.a.m. act with senator

durbin, and in senator rubio this last time around, it was apparent he was trying to bring forward some sort of d.r.e.a.m. act. so again to emphasize the bipartisanship, whomever is want to come forward and help us with this platform, that's what we would do. [speaking spanish] >> yeah, we must keep everybody accountable on the issue of the their action, for example. they are and gratitude that you don't have an answer from the romney campaign of yes or no. have been probably 10 different interviews in which we cannot get an answer to a simple question that is important for a community. and in this process we are going to be very strong collaborating with india to make sure that the message is clear and loud. you have a question.

>> i wonder since you say that this is basically to put people on notice, the officials on notice about what is important to the hispanic community and to the hispanic groups, what should we take from the fact that there's a deal mission of abortion from this agenda? and what will you tell the conventions about a constitutional amendment on abortion? and particularly the issues of rape and incest? >> well, i will invite up some experts. >> i'm asking this to how the issue of abortion. >> i think honestly this agenda is a consensus agenda. the way to go about developing this is, it has to be substantial agreement by all the organizations. every position in your, and some of the organizations that we have on this political spectrum range from very progressive to very conservative. so what you see in this document is amazing because all these positions vetted by a broad coalition of organizations. and so if you see something

missing it's perhaps because there wasn't substantial agreement on the issue. this doesn't mean every single organization is working on these issues. i know we are very focused on making sure that there's opportunity for women to be able to make their own medical decisions. but that's our organization. the consensus positions which are here. we will each individual work on our separate and that doesn't stop there but i think what's important, this document is not just for the policymakers. it's for the community as well. because we want them to be armed with the information they need when they talk to their representatives and ask for positions on issues. they've got a great talking point in the book to start with, and understanding what the key issues, the impact success of our community and get a better sense of how that member is going to respond to their interest. so that's why it's not just something that we're going to be distributed at the two conventions but we are getting it out to all of our member organizations across our citizens. we will make sure the community

is informed about the issues as well. thanks. >> have you requested come have you been granted an interview with candidate romney or his vp, ryan, for your agenda? and if not, who is your partner out the republican party, or who is going to be the partner when you present that agenda? >> as you know they are very busy now with the republican agenda. i mean, the republican convention starts on monday, but this is part of our strategy. we're not going to request a meeting with governor romney, we're going to request a meeting with the president. were going to request a meeting with the leadership of both parties to make sure we have these conversations that we engage in these debates but it's going to be part of the process. he is very important, the role the media plays in all this

conversation to make sure the nomination is important on where they stand on central issues for the community. >> who is your main contact right now? [inaudible] >> we are talking to a variety of people. i prefer not to give a specific number is but i can tell you probably that we contacted up to 10 to 15 different people within the party, and to make sure that we had these conversations. we are trying to be very open about the dialogue. but we've been very, very aggressive. august the when we go to rnc to our number of officials we need to discuss, and were going to talk about those officials that we confront in having this conversation. [inaudible] >> no meeting is set up yet.

>> a question. my question is, without specific benchmarks, how are you going to hold people accountable? because as an example, i was part of image in 1970s. we got access to the transition team's personal file. we had a lot of clout, including federal people, and without all the hispanic and black resumes in the do not consider file, and we actually pulled them out and reclassified them. we pushed inside, but we had help outside. like where is the pressure going to come from? one of the benchmarks when you say you've succeeded in what you did to? >> invite one of my colleagues has made a chair of community, a working group could share some of those. eric, if you want to join us. >> let me give you one specific example when it comes to hispanics and the federal

government. opm in july released a report that shows that in the last year the increase of hispanics in the federal government has only accounted 2.1%. .1% might be a significant number for a gymnast to win a gold medal. but it's not really a number to be very proud of if you're trying to increase and really make the federal government, according to what president obama said to represent what america is all about. so there are all those metrics of there. we will use them and we're going to be thinking about maybe we issued the report that we issued in 2006, in which at that point during the president bush administration they had gained 2% increase in hispanic inclusion in the federal government, and we gave them an f. loss. so there certainly are some data out there that we're going to be

utilizing. and once again because we are a nonpartisan organization we are really going to look at this from the point of view of what's important to the committee it and one thing that is important to the community, just like every community in america, jo jobs. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] >> hispanic national bar association. >> another question here. [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

>> so in terms of come he's asking in terms of some of the meetings that we may have in this case, in the context of the presentation. it's part of for agenda, and it's creating enforcement, a serious issue for our community but this seems -- it seems we meet with the sector estate, we are going to continue with this strategy to have a meeting with all the secretaries of the state to disclose -- discuss those specific priorities in the case of this case of maybe immigration, health, education. and when we have this

conversations. question? >> could you talk a little bit about the road you expect will young latino voters to play, those between 18-24 or 25, what factors you think will affect the turnout at the election at the polls? and what are you doing to a fact that turnout? >> so some of you may have seen the recent hispanic pew study that just came out earlier this week. specifically addressing the amount of large number, the growth rate of the young adult, i believe it was 16-24, and that just sort of supports the whole expansion rate of the hispanic population being the largest already minority group as it grows but will continue. simply emphasizing the importance of our agenda, the importance to both parties, the importance to the president of the united states, whomever that may be in reaching education

goals. and imports of the foe, the hispanic vote. it's only going to continue to grow. many of us have small children and we're emphasizing spanish with them, the language would probably continue to grow so i think it will only be more and more important for politicians ever companies, all sectors. >> yes, eric rodriguez. i only do this in english. maybe hector can translate for me. look, the the latino vote issued, 15,000 latinos turning 18 each month. half a million every year. it's going to be huge. the issues that affect them are things that we know. there's voter suppression issues. lots of mobile events take place whether foreclosure, unemployment, et cetera. there's lots of movement. registration and mobilization is going to be key. and i think there's a number of organizations around your that have voter registration drives and efforts that will be get out the vote work to all of which

will be crucial i think to the accountable questions that will be raise. we know there's lots of energy amongst latino voters and young latinos who are about to turn voting age. and they're paying a lot of attention to issues whether it's a d.r.e.a.m. act or the issues we've been talking about. so it's a critical time for us to be as engaged as we possibly can be. and i think we're hopeful that the latino vote, the youth vote will turn out in large numbers this year your. >> a number of the members -- [inaudible] the national table in which we call voter registration, voter mobilization, voter protection. we have a clear message. the latino community is under attack. participation is down so we need to vote in historical numbers. we need to elect latinos. we need to remember this is not only about presidential. a lot of the border suppression

come from the state. a lot of a lot of antiworker piece of legislation come from the states. it's very important to participate in high numbers. >> my question is, are you disappointed with president obama's failure to attack the immigration issue as he promised? are you disappointed with the way he has handled immigration enforcement? >> okay. anybody interested? >> we've been favorite aggressive -- [inaudible] >> excuse me? yes, yes. and we have been very, very public on the issue. we were very disappointed that the promise of immigration reform didn't come true. we have been asked an aggressive with the president naturally with the number of -- with the administration to make sure we

get immigration reform constant pressure and this is very well the common. i think it was almost one year ago when they requested a meeting with administration. ..

the end of the 287 gee programs and the justice department got involved in arizona which is positive for us. there have been steps in the right direction being that we have been asking from the onset of the administration so certainly it is a mixed bag. certainly happier with the way the administration has moved on immigration over the past few years. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] >> that is pretty much it. >> one more question and you want to take questions, one more question. we answered everything. we are going to head to the republican national convention and after that the democratic national convention. we are here to collaborate. with the republicans we are going to ask why credentials to go to the republican party, why there was no help to help us get our rooms and the beginning of a more intense collaboration. we are here to answer any questions you may have. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. weeknights watch the public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can get our schedules at our web site and you can join the conversation and social media sites. >> the congressional budget office released a revised budget and economic outlook this morning indicating a projected $1.1 trillion federal deficit in 2012 and continued slow growth.

douglas ellen bork --elmendorf is entering questions on our companion network c-span. we will be live with a nasa update on the mars rover curiosity which landed two weeks ago. coverage from the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california will start at 2:30 eastern today. joe biden told a campaign rally this afternoon. in renaissance eiffel. c-span will have live coverage beginning at 3:00 eastern. >> speaking for the president but really for the future. with the birth rates going and demographic changes i am speaking from the future to the present. multilingual, multi-cultural, mexican. i am one of the mexican hoards and i am here to tell you everything is going to be okay. thank you.

everything is going to be all right. i have proved. tacos. what am i going to talk about? i gave some titles and one of them should i talk about the oracle? i will talk about tacos but let me talk about what gets me the most notoriety talking about inconvenient truth. after mexican is what it sounds like. people ask questions about mexicans and i answered them. it doesn't matter what the questions mean. i have answered questions on everything from what the mexicans have so many babies to what part of illegal don't we understand to why don't mexicans pay taxes? they do. we are actually supporting social security because of all the undocumented folks paying into the social security system with fake social security numbers they will never get back

to why are mexicans always so happy? i have answered all that and more so. >> see the rest of these remarks tonight. this is part of a larger conversation about art, journalism and raise from the aspen ideas festival. all starts data cockies the 9 c-span2. >> assessing the state of the u.s. political system. we will hear from stanford university political science professor fiorina and prof. harvey rosen who is former chair of the council of economic advisers during the george w. bush administration. and the seminar in colorado, an hour and a half. >> good morning. the second day of our dysfunctional political system.

which way out, this is the twenty-first institute programs and i don't remember being as excited by polish speaker is. this morning, with harvey rosen has a ph.d. from harvard and academic in public service. he has been a member of the department of economics at princeton since 1974. professor rosen was deputy in the u.s. treasury department and deeply involved in public service and academia. he was very much involved in mentoring students at princeton. he has been a recipient of numerous prestigious awards. professor harvey rosen. [applause] >> thanks for the kind

invitation. i have been here for years, they have been telling me how wonderful these events are. now that i have seen it firsthand i know it is delightful to be here. across the entire political system, indicated that the u.s. protocol setup is dysfunctional and even -- i was asked to talk about that. got some water. if you want to know whether something is dysfunctional the first thing i'd better figure out is what is the function? i would like to know what the function is. i went into my own original load and checked the constitution which is article 1 section 8 congress has the power to pay the debt and past welfare and congress has power to impose

taxes. the founders took these issues seriously including the issue of the debt. george washington said as an important source of strength and security share public credit. we may be cherishing it a little too much. it is pretty clear things are not working when you look at the budgetary numbers. another indication things are not as functional as the complexity the we have been producing. it will be of little avail to the people if the laws made by men of their own choice or so voluminous that they cannot read or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

the most natural explanation in washington d.c. is too partisan and nbc wall street journal poll showed 92% of americans believe there is too much partisan fighting between the two political parties. an alternative view is the congress is as partisan as it has always been. congress is partisan by construction. congress is built to fight. think about it. every committee has a minority staff and majority staff. a share and our ranking member. it is a feature of the system, not a bug. if that is so, we have a system where we say the adversarial how does anything get done? in a generic way this is the question concerned by economists in the 1950s that eventually won the nobel prize for. one of the results is the

impossibility theorem which stated it is hard for democracy to work and hard to get consensus but then listed some circumstances under which it wasn't that hard and one of them is disagreement. if everyone agreed it won't be a problem. lots of disagreement, fundamental disagreement about government but we had this disagreement before. this is a political issue. i am just an economist and getting into this -- two distinguished political scientists and one of the most successful governors in living memory. there was a guy who survived the johnstown flood of 1889.

and really a remarkable event in his life and spend the rest of his life studying floods. and he died and went to 7 and orientation, st. peter saying to him they had a conferences, and this guy said an expert on floods. happy to give a talk. luckily we have a discussion next week. it will be well received. one of those will be noaa.

here i go. the question was politically have disagreements. hard to get agreement when you do know common-sense or how you get it. one view is only the white house has the leverage to make it work. they are elected by everybody. and members of congress to say i am here and want a subsidy for one of your constituents. the president can provide cover, members of his own party and in this view the structure is the failure of leadership and in this concept of george w. bush and exclusively talking to republicans. president obama talking with

democrats. and both parties to work together and lyndon johnson. one caveat, same old same old, the gerrymandering issue. i like this framework of thinking about it because gerrymandering is in the framework nicely. namely this conduct wasn't gerrymandering. you have safe speech. is it the bride you paid to bring you a long. how many of your constituents have bought off? more and more and more. in this context, somewhat worse off than the past because of gerrymandering.

if we have a problem that is functional or tracking to each other, what can be done about it? to think about in terms of budgetary issues, most of my discussion about the idea will be framed that way. and if we just passed the right set of rules, we could fix it all up. lawyers are legislators, pass a law, you can fix these, discuss these proposals and might be a bit of my economic advisers and kind of the in-house economic focus.

and characterize the job. it is flushing roaches down the drain. and to the sink, and they come from congress or agency administrations and west wing colleagues and flush them down and get them out of sync and come back up again and flush it down and that is the job. when people say what did you accomplish in washington? see all the roaches are flushed down the sink. what are some of these ideas i am skeptical about? the campaign finance reform. the underlying theory is too much money in politics that legislators don't worry about the public good. a writer named howard

gonestoddard, i will tell you his take on that. put simply the champions of this idea in the government is just awful. we are a democracy. we should have a good government. the only explanation is people's political choices are corrupted by partisan interests. why have democrat elected -- democratically elected officials on it so wrong? they were misled. conservatives see the liberal mia as a source of information for liberals. each side strongly believes that democracy would work better if the public got a good deal less from the other. much of the energy behind campaign finance reform and the desire to restrict political speech and legitimate or otherwise assumptions by the public. this raises interesting

political legal issues which i won't get into but as a dollars and cents kind of guy, how do we know there is too much money? let me quote again, $4 million spent in the 2010 congressional election. that is a lot of money. on the scale of the economy. those lessons file 430 members of the house and 37 -- many managed to cut the primary. four billion among perhaps a thousand candidates campaigning in a nation of 300 people. it reminds us to get a sense of scale. 2011 super bowl advertiser has to spend $2.6 million for 30 seconds. and the election these days.

and $7 trillion in the two year term. 1750 times the amount in the campaign cycle and senatorial candidates combined. erase to the public. why so little? on campaign -- on campaigns -- this goes back to another question. let me quote from robert samuelson, it is easy to blame but problems on its special interests and obvious solutions. solutions aren't always obvious and the most powerful contingencies are not those with huge blocks of voters. at the american petroleum institute.

what about the correlation between dollars and winning? you all know just because you see a positive correlation, donors give candidates -- contradictory rather than the other. causality can be directional. the guy who wrote economics is not only a popular writer but a very serious hard-nosed empirical research. despite anecdotes', the most exaggerated and that is $100,000 on campaign spending, 2.3% of the vote. it is not at all obvious that

money is winning elections. at the end of the day common sense tells me a few stray too far you won't get elected. a wonderful piece last night talk about the fact that there's a disconnect between small people and the elite and i found that compelling. on the other hand let's face it. from new york, mitch mcconnell from kentucky, constituents had a certain view. how about another idea? this was a conservative line-item veto. the ability to veto certain spending was an undesirable for beryl expenditure. you want to get under control,

ronald reagan asked for it. the president wants to have a line-item veto. yesterday someone mentioned laboratory philosophy, it would work and a number of states have implemented a line-item vetos and have for many years. some interesting research on whether line items do that. be -- you know what he found? not very much. anything you care about, level of expenditure or borrowing seems to have -- it is not clear what the results would generalize but i thought they would adhere is why i think they

are. president and congress are sparring with each other about different things, building a new dam in alaska and the proportion, you name it. all the line-item vetos strengthening in the president's hands promoting his interests. you might care about not having them -- if the president really wants your vote don't give up. i am not surprised the results don't change very much. what it does is all the power in the government. this notion that the main problem is poor. it is infuriating about crony capitalism but if you look at the numbers the real problem is the real problem is entitlements and they don't appear as line items in the budget. they are on auto pilot which is

why they're called entitlements. is not going to pop up on other problems. we have lawyers at work here. maybe we just need something tougher. and if you don't like that. what about the deficits. it is declining annual deficits, in five years. it is across the board. the legislative default line, according to senate republicans win is past somehow the culture and the constitution, the first thing we did is ignore it. they start with a numbers, it

will work well. how do we get something serious? and the constitution. a balanced budget in the constitution and bus services and constitutional amendment. i don't think that will work. let me give you a good reason. and forecasts on how the economy will perform. we don't have clairvoyance working in washington. the performance is really hard, the congressional budget office, and the constitution without even knowing. that is assuming the technicians on political views, and if true, you can't count on it. the amendments will be written,

so we more or less understand it. at the end of the day domestic products and more of the concepts and that congress was in the system. in the last 48 hours, what is the task? let's cook up an obscure example. do we really want every time the government produced the budget to have -- on whether they are raising taxes or not but what about loan guarantees? guarantees a loan is the outlay but it depends on the probability to be paid and honest people doing all the

time. it will have to get done. we want people from the supreme court arguing this for the guarantees. what is the government? congress could circumvent a little by creating corporations authorized to make benefits but are not part of the government. that may is privatized. when they did that in 1968 they wanted to get their debt off the books so it looked like there was money to fight the vietnam war. the state and local governments all the time, special districts but might have been 40,000 of them. special districts are entities that were set up with the state government before.

when the congress circumvents all laws what do we do? we roll our eyes and shake our heads and move on. what if they violate a constitutional amendment? can a single citizen go to court with an injunction to stop government activity? do we want the courts more involved? i think it would be a problem. the bottom line is no matter which will adopted based on political will and its consequences. all members of congress with a democrat or republican have strong incentives to spend more and tax less unless the economic environment changes. as lincoln put it in his first debate, public sentiment is everything. with public sentiment -- there

are constitutional amendments and shaping of the rules and the constitution like we would not reduce gaming, it would just take different forms. cedric hayek, had a more felicitous way of making the point i was trying to make before with my roche metaphor. the past of economics demonstrates how middle of a know about what they can design. leftwingers want to bring -- rightwingers wish to scale down the size of government. after i heard a story about comments like this where budgetary issues were being discussed, the organizer got up and said i can't take this anymore. i am opening of the bar right now so that i can offer -- thank

you. [applause] >> thank you. next speaker is craig barn. he was an infantry officer and trial lawyer. he was an international mediator plying his work in no less a place than the balkans. he is a playwright and founder of colorado common cause on the national board of common cause and author of an incredible variety of intellectual pursuits. one of which is an example in search of the lost worlds of women in archaeology. trilogy of plays in elizabethan

england and passionate book called democracy at the crossroads. craig barnes. [applause] >> thank you, governor. nice to see everybody here. nice to be invited. great pleasure to be in vail. it is nice to be here. i appreciate the invitation. and thank you for spelling out the most articulate, and persuasive argument against campaign finance reform like and imagine. in the middle part of my early

career -- the things here -- an honor to be on this program. in the middle of my early career i began traveling back and forth to moscow negotiating nuclear issues with the soviet academy of sciences. after that i find myself in the ethnic cleansing dispute in the caucuses in the war between armenia and azerbaijani and a negotiator for the united states government in the caucasus and international rivers. i came home from these travels the flaming patriot for the rule of law and the due process and freedom of press and not ideological legislation. i have already won cases in american courts and a lot in the colorado legislature can even have a weekly newspaper column. i ran for high office and organized citizens lobby and introduced sunshine and some

such concepts of legislation and lead experiences firsthand and i thought i knew it and came home from these years of foreign experience convinced the difference between u.s. politics and the politics of asia or russia as wide as the grand canyon. conclusions that i see every day coming in part from the contrast between the current futile culture in the soviet union post soviet union and latin america and political experiment we initiated on this continent in 1776. through most of history wealth and power go together. as well grows its owners tend to surround big government and concentrate wealth even more. repeated story is guelph mushroom blossoms out and the

narrower population too thin to support the heavy crown and the whole thing troubles over. democracy looks like a pyramid with masses of people and their wealth at the bottom supporting government at the apex. speech by traditional governments around the world is the opposite. the wealth of the top and the base quite narrow. think of a mushroom with a gold glow on the top. that is the usual thing. charles dickens describes the limited wealth of people who hold a gold crown in at tale of two cities with images of madam lafarge holding it up. whether we're talking about ancient persia and ancient james ferg-cadima and egypt for rome. the english and french monarchies follow as the people the crown grows fatter. madam lafarge's people grow

thinner and search for crime while marie antoinette retreats into the woods on the ground at her side. and pushing -- they grow rational. eventually the way to the crown grows too great and madam lafarge releases the stem of mushrooms and the mushroom falls over. those are the revolutions we saw in the arabs spring and russia in 1917 and france in 79. to protect against revolution the wealthy responded by administering hemlock to socrates and crucified jesus and burned joan of arc, excommunicated copernicus and galileo and driven and hutchison to the congregation in the nineteenth century. in every case the crime was

freethinking. the danger freethinking -- to power. first half of the eighteenth century philosophers began to feel this was a pattern of contrasting wealth and good government. a virtue they said. by the time we get to tom paine in 1776 he writes in common sense we should put crowns and titles in europe and bonfire, kings have nothing to do but give way places, charge rent and the worshipped in the bargain. there is no moral sentiments in aristocracy. the american constitution offered largely by james madison was intended to drive a degree of separation between wealthy and the wealthy in government. they would allow reapportion of non aristocrats to some extent

madison's extremism in 1789 more people had access to education and more socially mobile and participate in some degree in elections. to some extent also, madison and his fellows failed. most significantly the constitution created a nondemocratic not elected supreme court and exercise veto power over the right to be a human being. democratically approved child labor laws. over a woman's right to vote. over income taxation. over democratically approved campaign finance laws in the last six years. they installed corporations to the lives of human beings and created corporate money with age and unleashed a flood of unknown sources and a match and

inanimate with any number of the russian mafia. to influence the so-called elections. they are important exceptions. and the supreme court has been a tool of wealth. in the last 150 years in corporate wealth which has been and still is constant opposition to democracy. no coincidence values like social equality and economic opportunity for legal doctrine of habeas corpus for trial by jury, try to force habeas corpus in russia. they do not have a word to enforce fairness in russian court. don't have a word for fairness

in russian. the russian revolution change the players but not the culture. they have massive inequality. the government that forces inequality by sending challengers to siberia. this practice in tune with most of history which is why democracy and the american democratic experiment is such an anomaly. unfortunately however classic. carthy -- plutarchracy has embraced pseudoscientific ideology endorsed by alan greenspan rush limbaugh and rupert murdoch. this ideology is the cause of our current dysfunction in our discussion. when i grew up in a wheat field in eastern colorado we gathered together in the summer to help

each other bring in a and air-conditioned ditches and each other's cattle when we got out, driving stocks to county fairs and take it with you. the story propagated by many in american politics is margaret thatcher put herself in 1987 there is, quote, no such thing as society. that changed the american story from a search for a common good in the community to individual freedom. contrast margaret thatcher in 1987 in the federalist papers in 39 and 1788 saying, quote, we made the find a republican been a government which derives all powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people. directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.

the great body of society. not from a favored class. otherwise a handful of radical noble's exercising their oppression might aspire to take over. a handful of tyrannical nobles he worried about termite conspired to take over government. that is quite different from margaret thatcher saying there's no such thing as a society. madison's republic was rooted in the idea of a common good that seeks the general welfare and there is such a thing as society. margaret thatcher notwithstanding. government by the rich, madison's favorite class of tyrannical nobles. there is no security for the general welfare and by the author of the constitution the opposite of democracy.

today americans stunning demographic is 400 people, ninety million americans. 400 as much wealth as ninety million americans. americans -- wall street ceos in 2010 received a bonuses of $90 billion. greater than the gdp of many countries. creating an unimaginable gap between ceos and the rest of the american population forcing foreclosures, in 2008 the bold mushroom toppled over hand american people prompted backup. by 2010 no one learned much. they went on paying extraordinary bonuses as if they did not notice the base of their support was shrinking.

another stunning figure. six members of the walton family far richer than the combined wealth of 1 hundred million americans. not that they are bad people. but think of what that resources gives to somebody. with literally unlimited resources they can pick and choose when to run the legal risk of hiring thousands of illegal immigrants, when to fight against equal pay to women all the way to the supreme court of the united states leaders will whether millions lobbying congress to repeal foreign corrupt practices act. if they beat that down they can turn to mexico for illegal illegals. such cases equipped with such resources the 18th-century philosopher is right. luxury is the enemy of virtue. luxury is the enemy of

democracy. the u.s. chamber of commerce and the coke brothers and karl rove plan to spend as noted $1 billion in this year's election. the las vegas casino owner says he will spend $100 million to do whatever it takes to see barack obama. washington the rumor was circulating two weeks ago was billions were used to buy up all the television ad time in the fall. they are buying it up now. that means that obama and other candidates will not be able to advertise. that seems like a destruction of democracy to me. destruction of free speech. in 2005 vice president dick cheney started the oil and gas lobbyists, $715 million persuading congress to exempt hydraulic fracturing from the

clean water act. that seems like a massive amount of money exempting a special few of our wealthiest in the operation of government protections and therefore the destruction -- in 2009 in the spring the fight over the health care bill helped industry spent $1.4 million a day in the first nine months lobbying against health care reform bill. seems like the amount of money on available patients. the uninsured, 4 or small business all of whom had an equally great interest in health care and an amount of money that overrode in the ordinary person's ability to affect the degree on that count as well. if ordinary people don't count that is destruction of

democracy. warren buffett with an income less in 2011 of $62 million paid taxes at 17.4% and mitt romney paid taxes of 13.9% and every school teacher were and working-class americans paid taxes of 35%. romney declared by tax law to be less able to handle taxes than their secretary. if that seems to you like a system that favors the rich disproportionately financing schools and bridges, libraries and roads on the backs -- you would be right on that account as well. as far as i can see there's more moral or read it -- for this reason of sound economic reason why capital gains or taxes on capital should be less than taxes on labor. what is the inherent dignity of

managing investments compared to the inherent dignity of working a shovel or raising children or nursing? yet this system she lived as a result of countless years and million-dollar lobbies insured capital gains as sacrosanct even to the point the american legislative exchange council today lobbied the wealthiest corporations and taxes on capital gains put together. corporations need more profits to invest more and create more jobs one must answer or ponder why corporate profits are at record highs cash accounts in the trillions are those corporations not creating jobs. eliminating capital gains will give more profits and increased the golden globes of the mushroom but it will not according to the last ten years create more jobs. it is hypocrisy it seems to us

to grow democracy. you would be right on that account as well. the final analysis my own experience negotiating in the soviet union and 15 years in the soviet union, central asia struck me that democracy -- constitution and values. those values we should treasure at the base of its most of all, high regard for the common good, truth telling at every level of society. nonviolence and respect for human dignity and equality of opportunity. those values cannot be written in the russian culture. they're not written in the central asian culture and absolutely fundamental if democracy is to succeed. the one issue of integrity or

truth telling. imagine if your mother has a heart condition and you have to go to the hospital and bribed her into the hospital. when she gets in the hospital have to negotiate with the doctor. that is corruption in a practical sense which slows down the progress of medicine in that culture. imagine if you're a scientist -- scientific results and your greatest asset and you won't share them with anybody because that is your assets and you will hold on to it but you can falsify it and try to make up reports as they did in the soviet union about a five your plan. education and the lot in the legislative process not founded in truth. what happens is the figures are mixed. then you could be described as mexican politics and russian

politics and chinese politics. the constitution -- the common good depends upon integrity. the extent to which one injury or allows us to disregard integrity the whole process is in jeopardy. the ultimate source of our dysfunction. talking about this function. study after study is wealth disparity. huge wealth disparities. a little wealth disparities. the problem is 1%. i am not talking about 1% 99%. huge wealth disparities the source of problems. when we have that wealth disparities the result is the population is helpless and cynicism and mistrust. this trust and demise the inability to get people to

participate in politics. with a they are unwilling to protest for encumbers the fact they live in a society that can never see the stepping stone of the other side and a bigger way to come. never could see the way to become the rich man because the gap is too great. that mistrust be serious intense hostility. a whole series of problems like teenage pregnancy and obesity and lack of social mobility and limited life expectancy. the greater the degree of the wealth gap the greater each of those become. you need to know the degree of the wealth gap and he will know where you stand compared to the rest of developed countries in terms of being expected -- all you need to know is where you are because the wealth gap

undermines trust and creates dysfunction of american -- to restore government will function in the u.s. therefore we need to come up with a way from the grip of the very wealthiest and return government to the will of the people. with the state corporate money out of politics and to do that we have to amend the constitution. declare corporations are not people and money is not speech and limit the power of the supreme court. more significantly than any of these measures we have to revive our understanding of the personal capacity and compassion and generosity are part of are genetically programmed human makeup. fifthayn rand was not right. humans wolf survive together or not all.

participation by the greatest numbers, opportunity spread through the greatest numbers and education possible for the greatest numbers karens history on its head. traditional classic nexus of wealth and power is in the long run and stable, and unfair. they don't have a word for fair in russian but we do. democracy is flawed. and by the superrich by the super pac slogan and the nondemocratic supreme court. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. tom kroanan is from whitman

college from 1993 to 2005 and acting president of colorado college where he now holds the mcyou professor of american institutions and leadership. at stanford and was white house fellow. a prolific author and much in demand as a speaker and board member and commentator he recently wrote a will written book on leadership. tom kronakronan. [applause] >> thank you, governor lamm, and thank you for my inclusion in the seminars. thank you, harvey and craig, for excellence opening remarks. some random remarks about the

american political and constitutional system. the american presidency and colorado and expectations we had in a democracy. let us begin by saying the profits of gloom about the disfunction malady of our elections and the system have been with us from the beginning and let me share with you one observation about the election of 1880. if thomas jefferson is elected, suspected individual, the french marseilles will be sung in christian churches and we will see what and daughters the victims of legal prostitution. that was said by the president of yale university. the horrible things that would happen if jefferson was

selected. we tend to hear this every four years about the prospects of the political season. this is our 57th presidential election we are in the midst of right now in 2012. twenty-one times we have peacefully transferred power from one political party to another. this is a singular achievement. no other nation that i know of has had regular elections, figured out a way to transfer political power from one political party to another. presidential congressional separation of powers as both of our previous commentators have suggested, has its drawbacks. it is slow for one thing. it is slow to embrace certain

things people think should be embraced more quickly. it has a tough time solving issues of inequality that we talked about a moment ago. there's a structure and a foundation rather than value document in many ways we have to survive the values underlying concerns and principles. we have campaigns that are very sensitive volvo i think comparing it to a cereal company or a soap company the amount of money seems rather small and the stakes are much higher in the public square and the selection of leaders. it is a strange device that we have invented the day.

even the vice presidency would not be quite the selection designed in the same way. a lot of compromises were made in the constitution back when we designed the presidential congressional separation of power system. we need at a conference like this to take -- to celebrate that it has worked on many occasions. for a moment i might sound like the chamber of commerce commercial on behalf of the presidential congressional system but looking back at the past 70 years the system rose to the occasion through world war ii and under roosevelt and congressional leadership over to successfully executing and completed and the won. to pick of several presidential administrations working with congress over the past 65 years the harry truman year marshall plan we talked about yesterday

and the g.i. bill came about under the harry truman period. the interstate highway system we can be reminded about because it is two blocks away. we have interstate highway 70 which is a product of the 1915s legislation eisenhower and congress put together was an incredible achievement and took many years to be completed. took a long while to get part of a final picture here in this region. the interstate highway system is an example of the common good and doing something in a community way. d. johnson era civil rights voting rights act, incredibly important. the nixon era clean water act and clean air act and china initiative was an example where the system worked with congressional leaders