.. >> at the same time through unauthorized leaks of sensitive information, the government looks to the american public as

undisciplined and hypocritical. they characterized the government's position as alice in wanderland, and another quoted it to neither logical nor plausible, unquote. another leaked to nbc news prompted more question than it answers. our government finds itself in a lose-lose proposition. it fails to officially confirm counterterrorism successes and fails to officially confirm, deny, or clarify unstanuated reports of civilian casualties. our government's effort for the safety of the people risk an erosion of support by the people. it is in this atmosphere that the idea of a national security court is a solution to the problem, and the idea that for a long time existed only on the mar gyps of the debate about u.s. counterterrorism policy, but it is now entertained by

mainstream thinkers such as senator diane feinstein and a man i respect greatfully, my former client, robert gates, has gained momentum. to be sure, the national security court composed of a bipartisan group of federal judges with life tenures to approve targeted lethal force would bring some added level of credibility, independence, and rigor to the process, and those are worthy goals. in the eyes of the american public, judges are, for the most part, republicked for their independence. in the eyes of the international community, a practice that is becoming increasingly controversial would be placed on a more credible footing. a national security court would also help to answer the question many are asking. what do we say to other nations who acquire this capability? a group of judges to approve targeted lethal force would set

a standard and an example. further, as so-called, quote, targeted killings, end quote, become more controversial with time, i believe there are some decision makers within the executive branch who actually wouldn't mind the added comfort of judicial democracy on their decision, but you must be a realistic about the degree of added credibility such a court can provide. it's -- its proceedings would be exparty and in secret, and i suspect almost all government's applications would be granted because like a fisa application, the government would be sure to present a compelling case so at the same time, the "new york times'" editorial page has a targeted force of the lethal force describing it as a rubber stamp because it almost never

rejects an application. how long before a, quote, drone court, end quote, operating in secret is criticized in the same way? meanwhile, what about the views of the judiciary itself? i know a number of federal judges who would accept this unpleasant job if asked out of a sense of duty, but many, i suspect, want the judiciary have nothing to do with this. former judges like robertson articulated this view in emphatic terms. i can hear many in the judicial branch saying courts exist to resolve cases and controversies between parties, not to issue death warrants based on classified, exparty submissions. judges don't like arm's length exparty submissions because they know they are not getting two sides of the story. i'm sure they would like them even less if the decision they must make is final and irreversible, but in a more cynical way, i can imagine many

federal judges thinking, quote, we don't exist to provide top cover to the executive branch with difficult decisions. voice this speedometer -- responsibility on us, and you diminish both branches of government. next, the security court depends on large part of the scope of what it is the court will review and approve. i expect the constitutionality of the such court depends on that as well. here are three perm mutations, though there are more. first, a court to review and approve all targeted lethal force by the u.s. government away from any so-called hot battlefield against the terrorist including in the course of a congressionally authorized armed conflict inducted by the u.s. military. second, a court to review and approve targeted lethal force by the u.s. government away from

the hot battlefield, but only against a terrorist who is also a u.s. citizen, again, including in the course of a congressionally authorized armed conflict inducted by the u.s. military. three, a court to review and approve targeted lethal force by the u.s. government away from the hot battlefield against a terrorist who is a u.s. citizen, but only in instances not part of a congressionally authorized armed conflict inducted by the u.s. military. lo gist -- logistically, if this is proposed to u.s. citizens, an application should be very rare, hopefully not even one a year. it is also the case that as a result of fisa and other things, article 3 judges can receive highly sensitive classified information ex parte. in washington, d.c., the infrastructure for doing this

already exists, but, of course, limiting the court's jurisdiction to u.s. citizens leads to the inevitable question, the mother nation, why do our citizens deserve less from your government? on the other hand, if the proposal is to include all targeted lethal force off the hot battlefield, that is a different matter. in that event, in the current world environment, the judge will have planted the senior leader official of a national security agency from a large part of his or her job. to do that conscientiously and effectively, one judge or another on this court should consider getting an office in the pentagon or other agency and plan on spending a lot of time there, be continually available, every individual lant, and ask continueed around the clock questions, counterterrorism personnel, and executive branch lawyers to hear presentations,

to receive intelligence, probe intelligence officers for weaknesses in the intelligence, and ask lots of questions. this is not something to be done on the papers, as they say in court. next, it's the court's jurisdiction limented to u.s. citizens, there's the question of what the court is to decide. if one accepts the criteria for targeting a u.s. citizen in the attorney general's speech a year ago, it has several parts. first, the target is a senior operational leader of al-qaeda or associated forces who is actively engaged in planning to kill americans. second, the individual poses an imminent threat to the united states. third, capture is not feasible, and, fourth, the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles. starting with the last of these

criteria, this one is implicit in every military operation. this includes consideration of, for example, the type of weapon used and the elimination or min maization of collateral damage, and these manners are and should be left to the discretions of the military commander in direct control of the operation. along with the time, place, and manner of the operation. even if the overall approval of the operation comes from the president or secretary of defense, this particular aspect of it is not something that we should normally seek to micromanage from washington. likewise, there's also not much to be gained by having a federal judge trying to review these details in advance. next, there are the questions of feasibility of capture and imminence. these really are up-to-the minute, realtime assessments of the type that judge bates said

courts are, quote, ill equipped to assess the nature of battlefield decisions, end quote. indeed, i have seen feasibility of capture of a particular objective change several times in one night; nor are these questions one of a legal nature, by the way. judges are accustomed to making legal determinations based on a defined, subtle set of facts, a picture already painted, not a moving target, which is what we are literally talking about here. these are not one time only judgments, and we want military and national security officials to continually assess and reassess these two questions up until the last minute before an operation. if these types of continuing re assessments must be submitted to the article 3 branch of the government for evaluation, i believe we compromise our government's ability to conduct

these operations effectively. the costs will outweigh the benefits, and in that event, i believe we'll also discourage the type of continueed reevaluation i'm referring to. that leads to question whether the objective is, in fact, a senior leader of al-qaeda plotting to kill americans. of those i have identified, this one is actually the simpest and most sphraight -- straightforward, but it's the only one to be referred to a court, in my view, but it's not a question unique to u.s. citizens. whether an objective is a combatant and part of the congressionally declared enemy is a question we should ask in every instance. is it, therefore, really worth submitting to a court? other considerations: many like to draw distinctions between on and off a so-called hot battlefield. in my view, the distinction is becoming increasing stale.

on the one hot battlefield left since 2001, afghanistan, the u.s. is winding down operations while al-qaeda migrated to yemen and north africa. further, i can envision a lot of debate and uncertainty about what constitutes the hot battlefield. is it u.s. boots on the ground? if so, how many? why should that be the test? what about libya in 2011 for example? the distinction makes sense for developing policies, but i caution against the development of different legal regimes and standards on that basis. next, a minor point. the phrase "drone court" is a catchy phrase that sits on a bumper sticker, but it is the conceptual misnomer. the reality is not limited to up manned aerial vehicles. targeted lethal force can be and is conducted from several other types of platforms including

manned aircraft. there are the constitutional issues. again, this depends in large part on the scope of what we are considering. i agree with the analysis of the professors on this subject, article 2 of the constitution states that the president shall be the commander in chief of the armed forces. this is his burden and responsibility. he may delegate it within his own chain of command, but he cannot assign part of it away to another branch of government; nor have it taken away by an act of congress. article 3 is just as serious. they do not exist to offer legal advice or opinion to the president. they exist to resolve live cases or controversies. many refer to the fisa court by animal sigh to say that the court, too, is not resolving cases of controversies between parties.

it also authorizes surveillance based on classified, ex parte commissions, but this judicial activity has roots in the war requirements of the fourth amendments. what judges do is an extension of what judges do every day ex parte in the domestic law enforcement context when they issue search warrants. the idea of judicial authorization of lethal force against an enemy combatant, particularly in an armed conflict, has no similar roots in any activity typically performed by the judiciary. to the contrary, the idea is motivated by a desire to reign in the president's constitutional authority to engage in armed conflict and protect the nation which is the very reason it has constitutional problems. next, any requirement submits certain objectives to a national security court must contain

exceptions for the executive branch to act on its own in circumstances. again, is it therefore worth it? also, beware of creating the wrong set of incentives for those who must conduct these operations. a lawful military objective may include an individual, whether his name or his citizenship are known, and it may also include a location like a terrorist training camp or an object like a truck filled with explosives. by creating a separate legal regime with additional requirements for an objective, if the name or citizenship becomes known, what disincentives to we create for the operator to know for certain the identity of those to be present at a terrorist camp or behind the wheel of a truck bomb, or must the government refrain from an attack on what it knows to be an active and dangerous training camp if an

al-qaeda terrorist who might be a u.s. citizen wanders in. here's my bottom line, it's worth consideration for the democracy process, and i see certain advantages, but i see a number of legal and practical problems. as i said before, the advisability of the idea also depends in very large part on the scope of what it is the court is to review. if i must be labeled one way or another, i guess i belong in the category of skeptic. what is my at terntive prescription? i offer three things. first, continued efforts at transparency. as an important government interest in and of itself and not just to keep the press, congress, and the courts off its back. when it's back is against the wall. that is easier said than done.

transparency is hard, and the reality is it's easier to classify something than it is to declassify it, and there's huge democratic biases against declassifying something once classify. put ten national security officials in a row to discuss declassifying a fact, and they all say i'm for transparency and principle, but seven are concerned about sect order effects. someone will say this is really hard, we have to think about it more, meeting adjourned, and the ten officials go on to other, more pressing matters. last year, we declassified the basic of the u.s. military counterterrorism activities in yemen and somalia and disclosed what we were doing in a june 2012 war powers report to congress. it was a long and difficult, dlict process to get there, but

the white house persevered # and said publicly and officially what we were doing, and as far as i can tell, the world is not coming to an end. second, in my view, targeted lethal force is least controversial when it is on the strongest, most traditional legal foundation. the essential mission of the u.s. military is to capture or kill an enemy, armies have been doing this for thousands of years as part of a congressionally authorized armedded conflict, the foundation is even stronger. furthermore, the parameters of congressionally authorized armed conflict are transparent to the public from the words of the congressional authorization itself and the executive branch's interpretation of that authorization, which this administration has made public. lethal force outside and by the

military looks to the public to lack any boundaries. it lends itself to the suspicion that it is an expent substitute for criminal justice. third, the president and can should institutionalize his own process to the executive branch to ensure the quality of the decision making. in this regard, i will note the various public reports that the obama administration is considered doing exactly that. this brings me to my final point, let's not lose sight of reality that in this country we have, for some time, entrusted the president with awesome powers and responsibility as commander in chief, controlling the nuclear arsenal, and he, alope, has the authority to use. he, alone, has the constitutional authority with certain limits to deploy thousands of men and women in

the u.s. military into hostility on the other side of the world. further, as we entrust the president to conduct war and authorize lethal force against an individual, that presidential level decision brings with it a whole codray of national security advisers from the defense state, justice department, and the intelligence community, who, in my experience, bring to the table different per speck ties and engage in very lively, robust debates. i say only half jokingly that in 2009 in the then existing structure, one of the most aggressive things the new president could do to promote credibility and ensure robust debates within the executive branch was add to the mix as state department legal advisers, a certain progressive human rights professor from yale, give him access to the counter terrorism activity, and give them a voice and a seat at the

table, and over the last four years of the administration, harold koe, made me and others work a lot harder. now, those here ask, way about the future? coe is back at yale. the answer is that the president we end trust with the ultimate responsibility is legislated by the people and accountable to them. his legal and policy advisers are chosen just like a federal judge, appoint thed by the president and confirmed by the senate. if the senate is not satisfied that a nominee for a legal position in the national security element of our government will provide independent advice and follow the rule of law, it should exercise its prerogative to withhold advice to consent. these days, the senate delays the confirmation of the presidential no , nominee to at less. i am confident the man we elect to be president for the next four years, barack obama, is sensitive to these issues.

i also have a lot of faith in the new cia director, john brennan, a went to this university. after the first four years of the obama administration, i probably sat with him somewhere between 50 and 100 situation room meetings. i believe i know his mind and values, and in my opinion, john brennan embodies what the president talks about what he says aggressive counterterrorism policies, rule of law, and american values are not tradeoffs and can coexist. i finish with something i said a year ago at yale law school while i was still in office. as a student of history, i believe that those who govern today must ask ourselves how we will be judged ten, 20, or 50 years from now. our applications of law must stand the test of time because over the passage of time, what

we find tollerble today may be condemned in the further pages of history tomorrow. our national security and the people's faith in the government depends on this. thank you very much. [applause] >> we'll have a few moments -- >> [inaudible] >> yes, we have to have a few moments, is what i mean, of q&a graciously. raise your hand, and if you have a question, this could be a good way to start off the day's conversation. anyone with a question? otherwise, i'll go to general questions. okay. i see two. are any panelists? who's the other one?

okay -- >> david has no questions, i can't believe it. >> i know. he's saving them. he's thinking. >> hi, if the court were to be only reviewing military strikes as the purview of the aumf, what would you say to a hypothetical cia armed drone program having striked approve by the court, and wouldn't that, in theory, make it illegitimate because it would be approving both military strikes under the purview of the military armedded con flick, and, also, hypothetical, cia drone strikes by a civilian agency? >> well, i -- i represented the u.s. military for four years. i can't deny, won't comment on the terrorism activity of any other agency. in the permutations that i

offered in my prepared remarks, i outlined three very carefully worded. one was all targeted lethal force including as part of the congressionally authorized armed conflict by the u.s. military, all targeted lethal force against a u.s. citizen including as part of a congressionally declared armed conflict by the u.s. military, and then my third permutation was targeted lethal force against a u.s. citizen off the hot battlefield, and not as part of a congressionally authorized armed conflict by the u.s. military, so one of the points i make, that i am making, is that targeted lethal force is at its least controversial and on its soundest legal footing when it is conducted as a

congressionally armed conflict. i believe that's the case, and i've said that before. david? >> two questions. [inaudible] what is judicially reviewable, and you suggested, well, the operational leader who has planned attacked and intends to engage in acts, that's reviewable, but imminence is not reviewable, but as i understand imminence as redefined by this administration and set forth in the white paper, it's not a, you know, up to the minute assessment of whether someone poses an immediate threat, but rather, it's a categorical concept that certain persons who fit this category by definition pose an imminent threat to us, and so isn't that equally subject to judicial review

first, even if fees -- feasibility is different. second question, put aside courts with an internal executive process, what about having a devil's advocate position, you know, someone so you won't always have harold coe; right? you could always have a defined constitutional role of somebody whose job it is to defend life, and as least in terms of what's been leaked thus far, there's, you know, relying on harold coe who is gone, and we hoped someone else was sensitive to those concerns, but there's no one in that constitutional role. wouldn't that make it a more robust process? >> i have a couple of responses. first, my experience, as the gc

for the department of defense for four years, the application of what i think we would consider imminent, not necessarily what you would assume from reading that white prepare. by the way, i'm not a big fan of white papers because in my private, professional life, we don't give clients white papers because you don't know who authored it, who saw it, who signed off on it, and so i'm not a big fan of white papers, and i have been in situations, i have seen situations where we were looking at a military objective, but we accountabilitied that the threat was not imminent, and, therefore, not appropriate for the specific type of military force we've.

discussing here. we would continue to monitor or pursue other means, so i'm not giving you a whole lot of detail here except to say i'm not, in its application in my experience, the standard does not necessarily line up with how one might read that white paper. if i had to write it, i would probably write it a little different. sec, i like the idea of the devil's advocate, and it's something that i think could be made part of the process, could be institutionalized. within the military, you have special considerations. suppose you make the devil's advocate in 06 colonel, the objective is up the chain, and all the sudden the colonel is the devil's advocate in the face of three and four star generals or admirals, and he's going to

want to be sure there's no blow back or retribution or anything for his being a good devil's advocate, but i actually believe that a devil's advocate or something of that nature would be a good practice, and as a career litigator, you know, i'm accustomed to always making arguments, staking positions out expecting somebody will be on the other side who will take issue with everything i said, and that there's somebody in the middle that resolves the dispute, and as a lawyer in the executive branch, as a senior lawyer for a government agency, you don't have that luxury, most often in doing your own legal review, and i think it's advantageous, and i know i've been in situations where i sit around the conference table saying would anyone like to be

devil's advocate here among the 12 of you, and very often i have the role of devil's advocate if i felt no one else was so i think it would be a good idea. yes, sir, in the back. thank>> thank you. i guess my question is, i guess, what are the operational standard authorizations of proof before you authorize someone to be killed, american citizen, american res dements -- resident or not. is it, you know, effectively proof beyond a reasonable doubt? how assured are you, and how sure do you have to be, and how sure do your people have to be before you kill somebody? >> >> there is a standard that

we apply in the department of defense. i'm not sure it's public, unfortunately. i caution that we, lawyers in particular, want and think about these things in litigation, law enforcement terms because we are used to experience with dealing with evidence admissible in a court, hence terms like "proof beyond a reasonable doubt," "reasonable suspicion," per pond rains of the evidence," and what you do is not evidence, but intelligence, and i bristled when in those contexts, people would want to talk about evidence. it's not evidence. evidence is something that a judge admits into a trial proceeding because it meets certain thresholds appropriate for a courtroom. what we're doing is assessing

intelligence, and you want intelligence to be reliable, dependable, and you want to be pretty darn sure that you're acting on the appropriate level of intelligence before you make a decision, and because there's lots of things that in the intelligence realm, one is allowed to do that you don't consider in court, very often those judgments, in my opinion, in my experience, can be pretty reliable. sometimes they can be sketchy, but sometimes they are veryings very reliable. >> [inaudible] >> i don't believe it's public.

yes, sir, phil carter. >> [inaudible] >> that is a very good question, and i know there's a hot debate going on out there among people in this room on that very issue, and i -- i'm anxious to immerse myself what's written on the subject. i've only looked at it very quickly. i think the answer depends almost entirely on what are the existing threats right now? what's the threats streaming, and at this point, three, two

and a half months out of government knowing how often threats can change, i don't feel equipped to make that judgment. i know it's publicly available, but i think it depends in very large part on what the threat streams are, and for the four years i was in office, i thought that we made the aumf work. it's our interpretations were sustainedded by the courts in habeas litigations, and the congress, last year, or the year before last, in section of of the last year's nbaa codified our interpretation in the detention context that became a subject of litigation here in new york, but the congress codified it to all three branches essentially came to app appropriate interpretation of the aumf which i thought worked with the four years i was in office.

now there's a point beyond which you want to get at various threat streams, various organizations, various affiliates talked about, affiliates of affiliates, that the aumf is simply not going to work, and it was intended for a specific group that existed in 2001, and one of the things that i said in oxford was there's a point where that group has, that core group has been decimated so the enemy as we knew it in 2001 no longer exists. at that point, our national leaders, president and the congress, have a decision to make, how do you want to deal with the future threat. i think it would be unfair to simply ask the lawyers in the executive branch to just keep making this aumf thing work, just keep interpreting so you meet the existing threat and don't bother us in the congress with this. our national leaders have to

make a decision based upon the existing threats whether we want, as a government, a a country, a new congressional authorization to deal with existing threats or whether we revert to relicense on more traditional means for our counterterrorism activity. law enforcement, intelligence community, and the military for imminent threats, and so that's a judgment to be made with all these best available, most recent available intelligence at hand. i don't -- i don't know -- the "new york times'" editorial page the other day, the editor of the is a good friend and neighbor, and we debate all the time about these things, and i'm not just

sure how one can call for repeal of the aumf without knowing what the current threats are out there and appreciating that. yes, sir? >> [inaudible] >> the record preserved in what agency or several agencies, when is it vail to the public, 25 years, 50 years will it ever become available? >> i didn't get the first part of the question. what did you -- something -- >> will the written record of these determinations ever become available to the public? >> of interrogations? >> [inaudible] >> oh, oh. that's a good question. [laughter] people are not shy about making foya requests, and if they don't get what they want in foya, they

bring litigation. at one point, i suppose, years from now, internal deliberations classified by the government could become available, and the government can always, for the sake of transparency consider declassifying certain components of it, internal decision making, about counterterrorism. i think that there are other ways that we can promote transparency, pursue transparency without necessarily releasing any kind of run record of internal government deliberation. yes, sir? >> [inaudible] >> in five or 20 years from now? >> [inaudible] >> how likely is what? >> [inaudible]

>> well, as i said, i -- i am a skeptic, and i think as we speak the world environment may also be shifting such that we may, in the future, rely, as i mentioned at oxford and here again today, on more traditional means of counterterrorism. it really is the case that armed conflict, targeted lethal force should be regarded as extraordinary in extraordinary state of affairs to deal with an existing threat that our government came to grapple with over 12 years ago, so -- or almost 12 years ago, so i think that there's a current debate

that deserves a lot of attention, and when congress in washington needs to have this discussion, but as i tried to lay out this morning, i see real practical and legal problems, so okay. i'll take one more question. yes, sir, yes mapp in the -- gentleman in the red tie. i'm sorry if i missed anyone who had their hand up. >> thanks to the remarks, mr. johnson. can you talk to the feasibility of the capture wing of the test? is that purely an operating question? is it fair to take political effects into account, and how do you create incentive for agencies to develop a greater ability to capture in the future? >> well, thank you for asking that because i filed to make a point i wanted to make earlier which is that when you talk about questions of imminence, feasibility of capture, those are not legal questions.

those are not nosily legal questions, and lawyers, judges don't necessarily have to be the ones to make those calls, and very often a military officer, some national -- some civilian national security official is fully equipped to make a judgment about imminence based upon his or her assessment of the intelligence, and so what i've seen happen is lawyers tend to believe that only lawyers can answer these questions, and a point that i think needs to be emphasized is that lawyers set the outer boundaries for things, and lawyers set the lane, the legal lane in which military leaders, president policymakers operate so lawyers can come to a judgment, and i've seen this countless times. lawyers come to a judgment that something or someone is a lawful

military objective, but there are lots of policy reasons, lots of military reasons why that individual should not be acted upon, even though he's a lawful military objective, and so the point i'd like to make here is that lawyers set the outer lanes in which there's a lot of judgments that get made by nonlawyers about how to pursue armed conflict, how to pursue counterterrorism, and so there are plenty of people equipped to make judgments about imminence, feasibility, and capture, not necessarily lawyers. we lawyers think we know it all, but we don't always have the best skill set for making decisions, so, okay, thank you, all, very much. i wish you a good conference. i appreciate the time. [applause]

coming up in just over 15 minutes, an event looking at the law and politics in the same-sex marriage debate. that's hosted by the cato institute. we'll hear from the president of the group, freedom to marry, getting underway live again at one o'clock eastern right here op c-span2 #. of course this and reaction to the supreme court's acceptance of two same-sex marriage cases. yesterday, they considered the constitutionality of california's proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage in that state. among the events covered are rallies in support of the proposition banning such marriages. as we wait for the cato institute to get underway, we'll show you as much as we can of yesterday's rally. >> welcome back, everyone. [cheers and applause]

first, i want to say you guys did an amazing job. thank you so much. [cheers and applause] i think our message was heard, what do you think? [cheers and applause] well, before we get started with the speakers, we have a great program. i first want to thank the many people who made this possible. as many of you know, there were a number of busses paid for to come to this event from all over. many of you rode those busses. i want to thank the gmc foundation that made a generous grant that allowed all the busses to come. let's thank the gfc foundation. as you see from the banners, this was a partnership, the national organization for marriage and many other groups

came together to support this event. i'm going to briefly mention a few groups that actually donated money also so -- to allow us to do this, especially for the busses, the thomas moore society, focus on the family -- [cheers and applause] the manhattan declaration, stanley research council, heritage foundation, john paul the great high school, gary hicks, the culture of life directer of maryland state council of knights of columbus. the cot lick diocese of arlington, the cat lick diocese of providence, christian union, only two more, human life international, mark tuly of the institute for religion and

democracy. [cheers and applause] also, i want to remind everyone that if you took pictures of what happened as we marched right by the supreme court, if any of you saw that in the beginning of the march, there was an attempt to try and block us, and we were able to keep going, kneeled down, and we prayed, and thank you for that. if you have pictures of that, please, e-mail them to mn@nationformarriage.org. if you have pictures, we want all of the pictures. also, there's people walk around that have petitions that will go to the supreme court, sign the petition. this is not an end. this is a beginning. [cheers and applause] it's my honor to introduce our

first speaker. you've heard a brief prayer from him before. he is someone who stood up during proposition eight, helped raise the money, helped get problem cigs 8 on the boll lat, head of the subcommittee on marriage of the united states conference of catholic bishop and the archbishop of san fransisco. comp -- come on, we can do better than that. [cheers and applause] >> well, my friends, my brothers and sisters, we are in this great fight, brothers and sisters, and right now, we're at the center of attention of the country. a lot of people are watching us right now. there's probably people watching us who disagree with us on the issue. i want to begin with words to

those of us watching us now who disagree with us. i want to speak on behalf of us to you. what i want to say is we love you. [cheers and applause] we are your neighbor, and we want to be your friend, and we want you to be happy. please understand that we don't hate you, that we are not motivated by bigotry. it is not our intention to offend anyone, and if we have, i apologize. i ask thaw you please try to listen to us fairly and calmly and try to understandous -- understand us and our position as we'll do the same for you. to all of us, my friends, brothers and sisters gathered here, thank you, thank you for your presence here, courageous support in defending this defining issue of our day. yes, it takes courage now to stand up for the natural meaning of marriage. why, really, are we here?

one simple republican. marriage matters to kids. [cheers and applause] it's a simple principle that kids deserve a mother and a father and society needs an institution that connects children to their parents. what could be more beautiful or even more sacred than a man and a woman coming together to create new life? marriage is the only institution that does this, that connects children to their parents and the parents to their children and to one another. now, sometimes that is impossible. sometimes due to circumstances beyond people's control, the ideal doesn't happen. those parents too, deserve and need our love and support. this is not about parents skills, though. we know that sometimes kids can do well in less than ideal circumstances. rather it's about rebuilding a marriage culture, and rebuilding

this marriage culture begins, and it certainly doesn't ends, but begins with preserving in the law the principle that children deserve a mother and a father. [cheers and applause] it means preserving the principle society does all it can and offer necessary support to ensure children get what they deserve. only a man can be a father and only a woman can be a mother. [cheers and applause] i find it hard to believe i have to stand here and say that. it's, like, anyone home? children need both, and no matter how happy childhood may be, god bless them and their parents, but no matter how happy, to grow up without a father or mother is a deprivation. this is not discrimination. on the con tear. marriage benefits everyone, those not married and it

benefits those who disagree with us on this issue. finally, i want to say to the nine justices on the supreme court i say, please, for the sake of the children, please, preserve the meaning of marriage in the law, a meaning common to every society since the beginning of the human race, for the sake of the children, please, thank you. which has >> it sounds like you are chaptered out. come on, we can do better for the archbishop. [cheers and applause] that's good. our next speaker is with the american principles project which stands up for core american principles as outlined in the declaration of

independence. >> hello. my name is gia, i'm 22, a recent grad, and i'm here to say today that the next generation, my generation, is not entirely on one side of the marriage debate. [cheers and applause] i'm here to speak out on behalf of millions of young people around the country who believe that the law should define a marriage as a union between one man and one woman. [cheers and applause] my generation must make a stand for the issue now. we can choose to stand and defend marriage, or we can sit back and watch as the definition of marriage is handed over to people who want to redefine it

because the truth is, my generation knows better than any generation before us how a generation can be devastated by the lack of a mother or a father in a household or by broke p marriages. i know from first hand experience that a mother and father are very important because for awhile, my mother was a single mother, and from that experience, i know that both male and female bring important balance to parenting that children long for and deserve. [cheers and applause] we don't have to look far to see that my generation and generations before mine have failed to protect the institution of marriage, and, in fact, many people in my generation have given up on the idea of marriage. i have not. [cheers and applause] the more i think of the

implications redefining marriage has for society, the more i'm convinced that the support for traditional marriage will grow over time. today, i ask the supreme court to learn from the experience of row versus wade. in 1973 when the support court heard row v. wade, the country expected support for abortion to growings but, instead, support for abortion dwindled, and i expect the same thing happens with support for traditional marriage. [cheers and applause] we have a choice, recognize the truth of the importance of our classic understanding of marriage, or we can deny it. we can either protect marriage and fiect for it, or we are hand it away to people who want to redefine it to undefine it, to separate it from the deep roots in human nature, but when we see hard evidence that traditional marriage is the best situation for children, why would we do anything but protect it? [cheers and applause]

so i am here today representing those in my generation who understand that it's okay to be countercultural to represent a view that might not be popular at this moment. it's right to support traditional marriage, and it is right to defend it. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> now we have one of our close friends who helped bring busses from around the country. i was just with him in memphis, tennessee at a great event celebrating family, the founder and president of the coalition of african-american pastors, reverend bill owens. [cheers and applause]

>> thank you, brian, greetings. my friends, every morning, i wake up, i look in the mirror, and i see a black man, and there is absolutely nothing i can do to change the color of my skin. i marched and many other thousands of people marched in this same location years ago on the claim that we were being discriminated against, and today the other community is trying to say that they're suffering the same thing that we received, but i tell you they are not, they are not suffering what we suffered. i sympathize with people who

face discrimination. every person should be treated with dignity and respect, but what they are going through does not compare to what we went through. there is no comparison, and for many years, the african-american family and communities have been under assault from all sides, abortion, single family household, poverty, and a failure to educate system, and i tell you today that every family in america can't take anymore. we cannot stand anymore, and for the other side to try to change the definition is marriage is devastating to all of our

families. [cheers and applause] perhaps you are not old enough to be with me in the civil rights movement in the late 50s or the early 60s, but i marched, and i'm marching again, and this time i'm marching to defend marriage between a man and a woman, thank you. [cheers and applause] >> we now have another great speaker and leader in the african-american community, leaders of one of the most important churches and the church of god in christ. do we have any members of the church of god in christ out there? [cheers and applause] we love you. i have the chance to spend time with him in memphis as i said and other leaders of the church were standing firm for the truth

about marriage. .. >> the means by which human society is stabilized, transmit, and correlates its values. marriage has always been the union of a male and female. [cheers and applause] and proceeded and out pace all

other social groupings. doma is illegal and should be upheld. [cheers and applause] doma represents the cohesive and necessary action taken by beleaguered but not seceded proponents of traditional marriage. are we defeated? >> no. spent i guess i'll keep rolling. true believers hope to encourage the correct decision by the courts, and to halt all actions related to marriage. we believe that married couples have standing as a class protected by law. and have been unable right to protect the institution and definition of marriage. we suggest the supreme court affirm traditionally married persons as an original class predicated on the undeniable the stoical reality, and then

rightfully affirm that doma seeks to protect marriage against confusing redefinitions. in the book, what is marriage, this quote has been stated. the revisionist proposal would harm people, especially future generations, of what their idea of marriage is but a we teach that marriage is about emotional union and cohabitation. without any inherent connections with bodily union on family life in the school. marriage has been well defined to our time. and ingrained through cultural patterns. marriage is strengthened physical sexual attributes as those based upon which sexual mentality function exists. that is, men and women go together. i know that's right.

[cheers and applause] we people of faith have correctly interpreted the constitutionality of traditional marriage. as based in law and as a fundamental liberty. the supreme court, come on, say supreme court. >> supreme court. >> do you hear us? all right. the supreme court is mandated to uphold the constitution. the original and explicit meaning of the constitution will be tested during this session. the court should be compelled to preserve constitutional and original character of marriage, thereby safeguarding marriage from any redefinition. for out all human history, and cultures we have defined marriage as being between one man and one woman your. [cheers and applause] that's right, that's right. that's right. come on, one man --

>> one man spent one woman. >> one woman. >> one cannot put commonsense aside. we should not alter the purpose and meaning of marriage. when we stop this action, the court will respect our differences. and that marriage is between one man and one woman. in my conclusion, let me say and let me tell you this, he of good cheer, the word of god says in romans eight and 28, and we know that all things work together to the good of them that love god, to them who are called according to his purpose. god bless america. god bless the church. god bless marriage. [cheers and applause]

all right. >> is relative place yesterday. we have a fully online at c-span.org if you'd like to see more of it. live now to decatur institute. expect any minute from now and in any minute tape and will get underway that will review the same-sex marriage cases before the supreme court this week. speakers include former republican national committee chairman ken mehlman who came on as a gay man and 2010. he will be joined by attorney and gay-rights advocate evan wilson, the founder of freedom to marry. with live coverage here this afternoon on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the cato institute. i'm walter, senior fellow at the

cato institute. welcome also to those were watching on c-span2, and on cato.org/events where you can watch online. how is my reception? can you hear me? okay. we are delighted today to bring together an all-star panel to talk about the fate of gay marriage, the supreme court, american society. a couple of our panelists are fresh from having the second day of the supreme court oral arguments. they have been kind of dramatic. i saw yesterday the transcript and heard the audio, and i realized that there were some extremely left wing and extremely right wing ideas on our current supreme court. that's justice kennedy. [laughter] and today would equally interesting, or so i hear, although i haven't seen the details yet. we will be starting up with a

discussion of how things went as when and how things went yesterday at the court. and then move into a wider discussion of what this all means for our american politics and culture. we're joined today by three wonderfully qualified panelists. at my far right is ilya shapiro of the cato institute, who is with our center for constitutional studies and in particular directs our amicus program which submitted a wonderful amicus brief to the court. next to me on the other side is ken mehlman, best known probably for been chairman of the republican national committee and running george w. bush's reelection campaign. more recently known for being a very outspoken and eloquent advocate of same-sex marriage. he is with kkr, financial firm in new york. and that my far left, on in that

sense, i won't call you a token democrat if you don't call me -- evan wolfson so often consider -- >> i'm the token trade guy here last night. >> the father of the gay marriage movement who has been working on it for a very long time as, can now see his work farther advanced than almost anyone would have thought. he is founder and president of freedom to marry. we will do it as a general discussion rather than with prepared remarks. i will throw some questions out there, and i should also mention, you've all got your cell phones on you. i don't even have to ask. i will mention that evan needs to label the early so he can go on fox news and today. we will respect that need, and if you are -- the reach of the

questions afterwards, and yet the question that you especially want to ask evan, ways more frantically than your neighbors are waiting. let me sit down with the first question, which is the obvious one. how did this morning's argument go? >> i was there. sorry i'm late. i guess it was a pretty good shoes for this bill that is telling back from the court. the jurisdictional are just made my head hurt. yesterday was pretty understandable, bad enough but pretty understandable at least for someone with legal training. today we have these very interesting facet in issues of what is the u.s. government is doing their first of all, because curiously the supreme court took this case at the behest of the u.s. government which, of course, agrees with the courts below. so it's effectively appealing a decision it agrees with, and is enforcing doma while not defending it in court. so is that proper? paul clement was there to argue,

representing the house of pr the awkwardly named bipartisan legal advisory group, flag, which takes three to two votes on every action that flag takes in the court. and so does the house of representatives have standing to defend the law given the u.s. government is not? there's a lot of discussion. ins can't seem to be saying the most concerning a bit about so go and reread it. but assuming they get past jurisdictional -- jurisdictional arguments seems like doma is not long for this world. before so-called liberal justices would probably strike it down on equal protection grounds but a lot of discussion about the inappropriate motivation of congress in passing fall by justice kagan and sotomayor, for example. justice kennedy spent all this time using both jurisdictional the and subsequently on what is

going to do, but if i had to place a bet, this prediction is worth what you're paying for, that he would vote to strike a doma section three on federalism grounds to go back would have a 4-1 decision that doma is gone. >> so let me start by saying, just things to decatur institute, that we all -- can't judge from the argument and can't really read the questions back and forth, both based here in particularly complex and contradictory. so that's what we all say and everybody immediately start telling you what they think is going to happen. and i really want to underscore that from both days, the mix of questions and issues, constellations of justices and crankiness on the part of some

justices, which you can do to get it is for feeling compelled to do something that they're not quite comfortable doing, or not wanting to do something if you like it should, and it's also sort of a gas, ma really makes it very hard to say on the basis of these two arguments exactly what's going to happen. and i think we need to take every prediction you hear and read and tweeted and re-tweeted very, very skeptically. at justices are going to go back and delve through a mountain of briefs in both cases, huge amount of evidence and arguments. they will as you all know be circling opinions and that's going to lead to challenges that some have that they think they're going to try to write it in a limited what this would or an attraction that way, and relies it may not be the right with the kind right let alone how the five may or may not come together to ask i think this is really an important reason for caution and all the prediction, including mine, that you're going to hear. having said that, let me say there are two things we do know very, very clear he untenable talk very quickly about the arguments.

one thing we know is that while the justices are doing their homework and going through the process, the best single way we can maximize winning the freedom to marry, and even getting at justices the courage to do the right thing as a deliberate now in the court, is to do what we've been doing, which is to continue winning more states and continue winning over more hearts and minds. are as many as four states that are going to be considering, that had begun considering freedom to marry legislation and could pass those bills into law before the court hands down its ruling likely at the end of june. the single biggest thing we can do to maximize the chances of winning are to pass those married to bills and continue growing the extraordinary -- that have stepped up over the last many weeks and months, supporting the freedom to marry,

including the extraordinary amicus brief in front of the court, but also in the public corporate all that is what creates the climate and the momentum that encourages and emboldens and helps justices to find the right constitutional and legal road map. the other thing we know is that clearly the freedom to marry has the momentum, and has the winning strategy. the strategy that has brought us to this moment of hope is the strategy that will bring us the freedom to marry nationwide, whether in june or in the round of work leading to going back before the court as soon as possible. one of the questions that came up in the court yesterday was, to point out that the supreme court got interracial marriage long before it got it right. it was actually only a few years before the best named case ever, loving v. virginia which the court struck down, that the courts got it on.

so ever the court does in june, we have the freedom to marry winning strategy if we keep going to work. that said, i would very, very quickly say i think yesterday all the commentators would agree with complex, choppy, lively, engaged, hard to predict, and i think the immediate reaction today was very much, i was the sort of what ilya shapiro said, i will disagree a bit, i think it was clear that the chances of the court striking down defense of marriage act are far greater than not striking it down to an action think equal protection as well as federalism is very much in play. and what was particularly striking yesterday and today, and i will end with this come is that no one in court offered a reason to justify the denial of the freedom to marry or the defense of marriage act. what the opponents were pushing

was don't go fast, don't do it now, take your time. let's have a policy but in. absent with any good argument continuing the cruel and harsh discrimination against gay couples. >> the big one thing that paul clement kept talking that was uniformity. he never mentioned anything the own that because of course the federal interest is going to be different than the state interest but yesterday was all about child-rearing and coming in, social moral developments, police power of the state, it's a. this is different. so what is the federal government's interest? there was a lot of pushback. >> the reasons what i said the way i see it is your creek, saying uniform it was unable to tether to do any actual policy let alone legal or constitutional specificity about gay people. >> i just would make two points and i won't reiterate what you

are but i think evan mates and ones which i think are interesting from my perspective. first is i do think evan's point about why we are where you are today, i think is worth noting. what is in my judgment so galvanized the public is our stories. the story of edie windsor is an unbelievably compelling and unfair story. the fact that someone who did what we all think is the right thing to do, which is found a part costs that are left with a partner at at the end of a long life of commitment and love, and of support, who was faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. then you look at sandy angela got the plaintiff in the of the case, prop eight case. the terri case. and again, you've got folks who were trying to do the right thing and they are punished for. so i think those stories, those examples, these are not concepts, real stories but real

people, make a gigantic difference. i think that made a difference. second, i think is look at the panoply of the nikkei in these cases. it's not just that there was a large number. it's a cross-section of society. its military leaders. is religious leaders. it's business leaders. it's republicans and conservatives. it's leaders of excellent think tanks all making the case from the perspective of what it makes it. it doesn't happen from a linear perspective but it happened when suddenly all a cross society people speak out from the perspective and extremely. that's what do i thought was really interesting. 23, to evan's point, what's interesting to me as often political debate comes down to a debate between what i would describe as substance and process. this is not denigrate very important substantive questions are being raised opponents of

marriage equality. they ought to be discussed and there are important issue but will today precisely and we are to respect and respond to and listen to. that having been said, if you listen on to the lawyers in court, but the advocates speaking publicly on television and other places, what's interesting to me is where as maybe five or eight or nine years ago a lot of what i would describe as substantive arguments on one side, today they are overwhelming on behalf of the american equality but whether it's about fairness, whether it's about what's better for kids, whether it's about freedom. and when one side says fairness, freedom for better kids, and opponents say, process, usually the former is a lot more compelling to both judges and to the public. so those just slight additions to what have been excellent comments already. >> evan, i'd like to challenge your interpretation of one of the things that was said yesterday. you mentioned the case proceeded loving v. virginia, and justice greensburg kind of

pulled us out of the blue. loughlin versus florida, i went to the red blauser pku cannot believe -- web browser. but when she brought up that case, she managed three years before loving v. virginia. and on the less explosive and narrower issue of interracial cohabitation, it seemed to me and maybe i was getting the nuance wrong but she was praising the court for having taken off no more than it could chew, rather than saying it did not reach out to the more sweeping issue. she has written elsewhere about her feelings on -- certainly between then, there was a huge movement of the american public opinion which made loving v. virginia more acceptable. so was she right if i'm interpreting her directly speak with you are partly right. that case, you're right about the case. decay she was referencing was mclaughlin and that was that without hardly call it that much

explosive of interracial cohabitation rather than marriage. i think there were a little bit of peace but she was taking the peace that you are saying that the court in that case ruled on what was before it, which is cohabitation, rather than going further to address a not directly presented question of marriage. so you're correct about that. that case i'm referring to is called name versus name. rather saintly but it's all the same peace. but your point is correct. in terms of your larger point, however, what is the important point here is that the question of the freedom to marry is squarely presented in the perry case. the question of whether the court rules with regard to the freedom to marry nationwide or roles with regard to california or rules with regard to broader ways of looking at the facts, that was very much kicked around

in court yesterday. and were going to see what the court chooses to do. let me just say one other thing which is justice ginsburg has also pointed out that her comments some 30 years ago, i can't remember now, with regard to roe v. wade have been all but taken out of context. her point again was, she characterizes it now, is that it's not that the court should not rule on what is in front of it. it's that the court should not associate feel compelled to go beyond what is in front of it and try to settle broader things in terms of how cases are or are not connected. >> when loving was affirmed by the court or the loving decision occurred, 54% of the american people were against biracial marriage. when the decision was made when roe v. wade was made, 52% late ought to be some restriction when it comes to abortion. that number has basically not changed. whereas if you look at the data when it comes to the marriage

equality today, it's in a very different place. not only get a majority in support of it, but, in fact, in those states where marriage was enacted by court in massachusetts, connecticut, it's tough being a political issue. in the last election for governor of massachusetts, the republican and democratic nominee both supported the right to marry, the freedom to marry, and affirmatively. bragged about supporting it. so the evidence is that infects an issue the court is getting into does kind of preclude further democratic discussion and make it harder to develop a consensus. on this issue that has not been the case. we have essentially 20 years of decisions, and 10 years of very active decisions. and in those 10 years, regardless of whether the state is a state where it was legislative enacted or judicially enacted, -- [inaudible] spent i agree. i will take it one step further. when the supreme court struck

down race rejection and loving, i don't think bad actor, between 1964 and 1967 there was a tremendous change. in factbut, in fact, as ken said, some polls 64% showed 70% of the public opposed interracial marriage. >> what is a good nine or 16 states pr a good nine or 16 states prohibited it? something like that spent talking about public opinion. the supreme court struck down race restriction in the face of 54-70% opposition by the public. i don't think there are that many people here today who think the court should have taken a vote upheld bans on interracial marriage pu but the whole reasoe have a constitution in court is that some things are not polled and some things are not put it to a vote, and our safeguards and in particular the freedom to marry like many other precious and important things is a freedom that belongs to the individuals in love, as americans and exercising to be. that's why we have courts. court should not be making all policy decisions, but there are

certain decisions that are reserved to the individuals and protected by the courts and the constitution. and has forced the state question your right. one way in which a look at how do you set the stage the supreme court to do the right thing. it's an interplay between two critical mass. one is a critical mass of public support and momentum and so on that we don't want the court to just take those and then we would have rights. we would have votes. it's also the critical mass of states, which happening in the state. you look at where we were in loving, we are way ahead now on the question of freedom to marry here. entrance of public opinion than we were at loving. we are not as far ahead as when we were at the time of loving as you point out with regard to state. print every strategy all along, strategy that is parser and that will win is to continue that interplay of those two critical masses and also have the right justices. >> you've brought out very well the tension between public

opinion and the court, that is enough states, certainly we also have to keep it as a matter of principle. the states, as i understand it comparing about this morning's oral argument, justice kennedy was very interested in the federalism issue. and this is something that we've been obsessed with almost al qaeda because a number of our adjuncts, legal scholars and highly prized compatriots have signed a brief argument that doma float on federalism. i believe that -- flunked on federalism but i believe transit and others who art director with the legal project take a very different you and i'll ask you about that in a minute. but just to make clear what the stakes are on this, the brief will follow, and it was decided send the federal government --

one consequence was that it had to take it as far as given benefits, a number of other interesting things. would have been many of which conservatives and libertarians might like because they would be a new powerful constitutional argument for taking the federal out of various other areas they've got me keep it in either spend one or two panoply reactions already from left wing legal come to realize what a threat to a mass federal government it would be to help the argument accepted. there also might be some consequences, at least i would predict come and sing if the federal government cannot restrict the right of states to keep gay marriage legal. and might perhaps -- [inaudible]. am i right in guessing that? would you like to win on the federalist grounds if that's the only way to win? if everyone could react.

>> let's be clear, the federalism concerns that are there i think in this case are also very deeply entwined with the equal protection dynamic. so you can't always just treat each strand of the constitution, particularly when a law is kind of the targeting long that is being inflicted by the federal government, and in this case by the act of congress in 1996. so i don't listen to or introduce me as your far left, i'm not going to sign onto some broad mandate to sweep away federal power in the name of federalism. but i think in this particular case it's clear, and i think it's been clear from some of the questions, but where they're going to go with this i think is not clear. and i'm not ready to protect i might perhaps ilya that justice can have settled on federalism versus equal protection but i don't think that works that way and i don't think we know the answer yet. at in this case what happened was that several justices point out in various ways was that congress took an unprecedented

radical step of intruding itself into a domain that everybody agreed, where you are on the spectrum is traditionally historically and constitutionally at least mostly left to the state, and did so in a sweeping unprecedented way targeting one group of people to impose a particular policy outcome. that's an entwined of the to and it makes it very easy with a look at with federalism concerns or from a strict angle of equal protection to say what congress did here doesn't cut it, as justice ginsburg pointed out, hardly on the side of the spectrum you're talking about, is that this wasn't just congress saying, you know, for tax purposes we will look at this, or for immigration purposes we will look at the. this was congress saying, for all 1138 plus federal protection, responsibility and incidents of the freedom to marry, we'll have two classes of marriage and toshiba, it was marriage and skim milk marriage. that's the problem when you look at what the federalism lands or an equal protection let's. >> which raises the issue just

being too broad and effective cemeteries disillusioned by marriage or not. even more fundamentally the role of government in marriage at any level. why should we have to get a license from the government, a piece of paper, recognition, legal recognition is the only reason why we even debating equal protection and all this is because government is involved. so our first order as libertarians and classical liberals would be half of regime of common-la common law marriagd yourself out as a couple, have what our church, synagogue, you know, what's the word for wiccans? coven. whoever wants to bless and give you a second, that's fine. but once the government gets involved, there are these other issues. more specifically and technically on the federalism issue, i have a debate with john adler, a friend of cato on the role of conspiracy on reason magazine's website about the

role of federalism improv eight. were icy agree mostly with what can one say but this isn't an issue overstepped its bounds like the obamacare are you was that this is an issue of whether the prop eight case yesterday, a state in having this law, this marriage law or this institution can lawfully discriminate our treat people differently based on sexual orientation. it's not a slamdunk case by no means. that's not what i'm saying. that's what the issue is. the issue isn't whether federal court to do the want of making that decision or the executive. by definition since the ratification of the 14th amendment in 1868, if you have a state violation of an individual right here on equal protection grounds, i buy that much more strongly than i do a different are you convinced for the federal courts to decide that issue. at the state are not violating anybody's laws, fine. if they are as i've argued in my

brief, as cato has, then it has to make that ruling. on the doma case, that debate has played out on the conspiracy. nicholas, an adjunct senior fellow there has debated simply by saying, this came out at argument today, that, of course, the federal government has the power to define the term that uses in its statute to justic je alito said what if they used domestic couples that are certified or something like that. again you get down to the basic issue, not about the word marriage that has some sort of magic about it. it's the act of discrimination, treating different people different under the law. so that whole federalism in great acting has to collapse the equal protection. justice kennedy might not agree and i'm not 100% certain he will vote on federalism ground. but both kennedy and roberts seem to be very attractive to the federalism argument i think they might be have a decent.

i don't buy the federalism argument, but i'm not sure. i like it will protection argument but for weather on legal or prudential ground that the court or at least kennedy doesn't want to undermine all state marriage laws violate on an equal protection grounds on doma, we could have this sort of way station on the way to an eventual political resolution in most other states and the nation as a whole. >> we always wonder whether amicus briefs are having an effect, and one of them that seems to have least caught justice kennedy's eye is the conservative filing by -- saying that the lower court relied on social science, that the social science is as justice alito put, new than cell phones and the internet and is done by scholars with some usual failings of academic social science.

it points that they want to make their research is sometimes not very rigorous. and justice kennedy was swayed it seems by this issue. as ted olson or other, what would you say? >> to me, that was my biggest disappointment of the argument yesterday. the biggest missed opportunity in the argument, because in this case there is an extraordinary and one-sided record in part based on the important trial that occurred in which both sides at any opportunity to bring any witnesses to cross examine evidence. and at the end of that trial and with funds that resulted, it was clear that the social science data, the evidence, the witness testimony in favor of how gay parents are fit and loving and doing well, and the kids are doing well, and there's absolutely nothing to contradict

that from any reputable source whatsoever. that was crystal clear through this trial, and it was amplified ache in by an extraordinary array of friend of the court brief in which every leading public health and child welfare authority in this country has weighed in on the side of the freedom to marry and loving committing couples. so it's important that the justices, including justice kennedy, to the extent they are wondering, be reminded and pointed to the brief and evidence in this record, including the trial in the perry case itself, which very much a good by the way the trial 14 years earlier in hawaii where again the very same questions were first litigated, and the same findings in favor of gay parents and kids being raised by gay parents, and absence of evidence on the other side were made. the good news is that contrary to the drama we all feel about, argument is not the most important influence on how justices rule.

the justices will go back and look at the record, look at -- >> a number of those avatars of facebook that -- >> they will look at the front of the court brief, the clerks will digest the extraordinary -- go see these are not launched uncharted waters. this is not something that people need to worry about. gay parents are doing great. our kids are doing great, and it's absolutely clear that even if he didn't think that was true, the best way to protect kids is to provide their family with support and structure and stability and dignity that comes with marriage, rather than to punish kids for having the wrong kind of parent i was holding the import protection of marriage. >> any other reactions? let me ask another question if you were there. justice roberts was, it seemed swayed by one of the other arguments that was offered which is some of these doctrines were -- who had no way of mustering

majority support through the process. and he said if the are such minorities they're not in front of us today because look at all of these -- look at this stampede. this is not politically powerless minority. it is equally willin really. how would any of you have responded? >> this raises some problems in our jurisprudence more broadly. ever since we started by getting our rights with and that is footnote four were so much a more equal than others, the way the courts, supreme court in the lead of course have distinguished which rights apply to which crypto protected, and by playing different levels of scrutiny a point of departure to different so-called suspect classes, i don't know the answer to the question of whether whether gays are people who support gay rights are a

politically powerful or not politically powerful group for legal purposes. i think for, and the lessons of the word i think they are. how it's interpreted legally, these test change and they all, this scrutiny rubric often just depends on what the end of jacket of the justice who employs them mean. and so, no, this is part of raising the debate about whether we apply heightened scrutiny. a lot of this is semantic games. what we probably won't go into much of that. i don't think, i surely hope we won't go into that. >> and i would put it a little differently. i don't think what the court is doing properly in those analyses is talking about which groups are protected or who has more rights. i think what the court properly is doing is saying, there are certain classifications that the government draws that are more

suspicious than others. some are very suspicious but when the government uses race as a criterion, that suspect and requires the presumption of unconstitutionally a deeper examination. the court has identified other such suspicious classifications such as, for example, sex, religion, ethnicity, et cetera. and the argument here is that sexual orientation likewise should be good with suspicion. there are factors that the court has identified as factors court should look to in determining whether there is a suspiciousness to a government classification. and those factors include things like a history of discrimination. and in this case the degree of political power. now, nobody thinks that that's an absolute. obviously, we have an african-american president. we have many african-americans in congress. we have latinos are rising and emerging political force, et cetera, et cetera. but does that mean that race is

not a suspicious classifications government uses such criterion? most of us would say of course race is suspicious. women are more than half the public, but they are more than half voted if they so choose but does that mean that the classification based on sex is not suspicious? we would say no. and likewise as the head of freedom to marry, i want to say is have more power. i want to see is dismantling that uncontroverted history of discrimination and the fact that gay people have been targeted by ballot measures more than any other group and american history, and endure to this day, explicit anti-gay discrimination in the 30 plus states and the absence of protection at the federal level. so yes were great in terms of our ability to enter the political process and engage and persuade but does that mean gay people are not still this event in the political system and political process as the existence of so-called defense

of marriage act and the tonight of progress the freedom of marriage indicate? of course it doesn't address whether should be a presumption of constitutionality that the court ought to apply. spent we can get back to the legal issues, but i promise that have the program would be on politics and culture and so forth. so let me switch box. i think of all followed the public opinion poll in there, some were closer than others. one passing to me the other day reported to show ended i was reading it right, that although there has been a tremendous public interest on this, if you step back and averaged together the polls can you find that essentially stepwise know about 1.5 percentage point a year. whether ellen degeneres is on the cover of time or not. is this correct, if it is correct what are we all doing?

talking on about this issue when the public seems to be changing at the same pace whether she is on the front page or not. or is it not true? >> i think you look at at least did i look at those it interesting analysis, a republican pollster, president bush's pollster, senator mcconnell and others. he looked at all the public polls from basically 1993 forward which when they begin measuring public attitudes on marriage. what he found was 1993 until 2009 that was about a 1% increase a year, a lot of which could be attributed to demographic changes. from 2010, 11 and 12 there was -- which he believes anything he's right, is attributed to all the stuff people are doing. but the truth is in my judgment, what's happening here in washington is very important. at around the country is very

important. but the most important thing is i might call it the will portmac affect. and that is the power of people to recognize not only that a consequence of these cases highlight it's not a concert. they say it's real. edie windsor is been punished. is not about her somehow getting the quote approval of society. this is what just make hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially or lose her home or not. what chris and sandy faced and paul and jeff faced in the of the case isn't a concert. this is whether they can make medical decisions for their children. in only 20 states and one of them is in the hospital and the other make a decision about what their gear ought to be. that's a real do. and so it's knowing the people of come to understand these are real issues and real injustices, they have come to understand their happening to their neighbors, their children, their friends, their relatives. and so what this conversation has done i think is a whole lot more folks have come out and they have explained, and so no

longer thinking about this in terms of, they should be concert about those people. now it's a real think about my people. when you think about it that way it has a huge change in fact i think it's i think that's also made it a difference. look at a couple recent data points. the "washington post," abc news poll came out this past week, 64% of evangelical millennial, millennial voters, essential voters under 30, 64%. 81% of voters overall under 30 support the freedom to make it 52% of republicans between the ages of 18-49 if you put independently and republicans support the freedom to marry. the asked also the question of have you changed your opinion? 14% of voters have changed their opinion in the last decade. 12% have changed to be in favor of marriage, 2% to be against marriage. so for everyone voted that has changed to be against the right to marry, nine voters have changed to be in favor of the

right to me. those are big changes that i think this conversation is helping to inform. >> go ahead. >> just real quick on the pulling together thing to note is that whatever demographic you're looking at whether it's evangelicals, whether it's blacks, whether it's jews, whether it's everybody. they have you go the more support for it. so traced certain real extent opposition is dying off. unfortunate the one demographic, this is a bit of a glib comment, the one is over 55 and average age is 67.9. spent the on thing i completely agree with ken's point, i want to underscore, which is what also has happened over the last several years that part of this swabbing accelerating moment in and people change their hearts and minds in greater numbers as more people are talking in broader numbers and broader

swath of the public is people like ken mehlman and ted olson his biggest occupation to discard was not the perry case in my view, it was he is speaking out as a pillar of the conservative establishment and giving permission to others that respect him to think anew and to open their hearts and minds. we see more of more of that thanks to thank you, thanks to ted, thanks to others across the spectrum. and on the right side of the spectrum as well as in the broader general public. and has been part of this dynamic we've seen accelerating over the last few months, few years. >> let me ask ken, for all of the different different -- demographic groups, one that is a definite, 10 if you disagree, one that is negative is republican primary voters. so when a republican elected official would be elected official policy about this, how do you suggest they get from point a to point b. as far as

the republican? republican? >> first of our defenses don't agree with it. i think it depends on the primary go depends on the jurisdiction were talking about. so those congressional districts and states, i mean to me, i think the questions are a couple full. one is, where do the voters that you're speaking to stand on the issue? second thing you look to is how much they care about it. so where is the energy? where is with respect to the issue? and what's changed also in las vegas is the energy is our behalf of advocating for not advocating against pixie can be against something and not care that much, and that issue than is an issue that a candidate over summative think about but it's less important if it voters care a lot about. that's point number two. point number three is how do the voters feel after you've made a concerted are good on behalf of these issues? one of the things that i did in the last couple of years is due whole lot of point on this

question. so 79% of republicans believe that a same gender couple of double to visit their spouse and the hospital. 57% believe that if one dies the other shouldn't lose their property. 51% believe the federal health benefits ought to be available. more than seven in 10 republicans believe in the employment nondiscrimination act. the fact is the quote republican voter is not whether a republican vote is perceived to be if you in fact look at the dead in the last year and a half we had a group, not a group, and effort, if you go to website, project right-sided.com you can see some of the data. we have pulled 16,000 americans, a thousand of which are sent or center-right leaning. we found again and again and again strong support for not only these rights associated with marriage, but also when you blast concerted argument -- conservative leaders support even i. so when you explain to people

with dick cheney said, the level of republicans support is overwhelming. when you find the people that -- the when the chris christie and governor lepage of maine signed include gay and lesbian children, overwhelming republican support. a lot of this really is the context in which a friend and described a number of republican elected officials in the last year who have voted in the last two years can either vote for marriage has doubled. there are 203 republicans nationally and statewide that a vote for or cut out for marriage in the past year and a half. three lost because of it. there's not a single issue i can think of where doing the right thing and if one person loses, that's a pretty amazing record. that certainly isn't going any issue i can think of. and so to me when you look at all the data, it says that, in fact, the republican electorate is making not what some people think it may be. >> i'd like to move to questions from the audience.

we're going to be taking questions from the audience now. remember we have an audience watching remotely. when i call on you, please wait to be called on in the first place. wait for the microphone, and a helpful person will bring you a microphone. don't begin asking the question into the microphone is saved in your hand. when you do, please announce your name and affiliation so that our readers know a bit about you. yes, in the second row. the one in front. yes. >> my name is eric. my question is, public image and everything but i think the other thing that hasn't been, talk a little bit about this, equal protection about like discrimination against gay people. basically answered the basic --

used to fire people if they are gay, or if you just don't like the kind of lifestyle is something. in terms of equal protection i think that's a very serious thing to do, even you talk about marriage. >> any reaction? >> i don't like discrimination laws in general. private or decisions to be able to hire and fire for whatever reason or no reason that they want. am not sure that the solution is to expand the number of lawsuits that are going to be filed on all these various bases. again, from what private or decisions to. but these issues here that we debated yet to enter the our what government does when it acts, and treat all citizens equally. >> i actually disagree with that point but i do think laws that say that places of public accommodation can places that are open to the public, not purely private but organizations, companies,

businesses, they welcome the public and can properly be prevented from discriminating on classification such as sexual orientation, race, said. is a long-standing american tradition of upholding those laws. by do agree with tracy, with the freedom to marry is even worse because it's the government that is the discriminator. a government that denying marriage licenses. nmi get all this commission is bad but most in holeable when it is directed by the government against any group of americans. and i just want to add one other thing which is my favorite moment or at least one of them from the argument yesterday when justice sotomayor asked the opposing side, the anti-gay side, apart from the conflict of marriage for a moment, can you think of any other context, inc. in other contexts, employment, other kinds of protection, housing, et cetera, is there any rational sufficient, good reason

for discriminating against lesbian and gay men? and even the opponent could not say. he said, i don't think so. he conceded there is no good reason for discriminating against a people. that i think it's actually powerful and shows how far we've come, but now we need to turn it into law. >> that was very good lawyering on your part. spent it actually surprises me that this battle is taking place on the marriage hill, rather than on, say, the adoption have. that there are more states that allow gay adoption that allow gay marriage. if the prominent interest is to have a union of a man and woman to raise children and the states interest is regulating procreation and only when a heterosexual can have accident pregnancies, et cetera, et cetera, shouldn't the focus then go write a child law and i marriage? is a curiosity to me. >> in western europe that often adopted the opposite, legalizing

gay marriage in the early stages, quite difficult for kids to become parents. i was asked the other day why this was. one reason may be israel and europe and much higher here. another one is figure out has percussion -- [inaudible] avoid having it in the united states of america. further questions? yes, the second row on my left. >> [inaudible] spent my question is how can you isolate same-sex marriage issues from morality, christian brothers and sisters? they said if you allow this what is going to stop you to marry your brother, i mean your sister? and the second thing is how can we address the fear? during september 11 i used to go

to national community -- [inaudible]. and after september 11 they -- me that every muslim in this country have bomb in a pocket. they can see there are 1 million men in this country. similarly they think that gays are very, very organize, very this and they're going to take over this country and in the going to have their own central morality, and country will go downhill. >> on the last point, look -- [inaudible] >> tiki community. it's on new york avenue. >> we need time to answer all the questions. you've asked your question. >> what is at issue before the court is civil marriage. and, in fact, we in our brief, brief of 10 100 by republicans d

conservative officials find, we make very clear that we believe and we believe it is correct policy of the sounds that clause does protect a church, synagogue, a mosque, organization from having to perform a ceremony they don't want to perform. the reality is that today, the faith community is divided on this question but there are some religious organizations have some faith organizations, some synagogues, some churches believe they [inaudible] members of the same gender and others should give to me it's wrong for the government to second-guess their decision. they got to make their decision and the government ought to respect that decision. the issue here is civil marriage, and that to me, it's interesting, i've noticed a number of polls a higher percentage of people who think that there's a constitutional right to marry, that support marriage. why is that? that seems counter to to us as washington people. it seems we. the constitution -- there's a

depth of insight i think that you have to consider there. what they're saying is i don't personally support it, but the law ought to treat people who pay the same taxes, conserve and symmetric and put their lives on the line assembly, this thing. that's we're talking about. civil marriage. whatever organization anyone is part of, private organization, has a right and should have a right to do what they want spent i agre agree with what ken just typical and one other thing you in your question, a question that is always thrown out, the specter of polygamy and always other kinds of whole horribles. whenever people bring that up, it's almost always an indication that they don't have a good reason for why loving and committing gay couples could be excluded from marriage so they try to change the subject and hope you will spend the rest of your airtime speaking about polygamy or whatever. ..

>> that's the commitment in life they make. >> in some ways, this is actually a tremendous success and tribute to the argument that proponents of a social conservative world view have made for the past several years. i mean, if there was a debate in the country in the 60s and 70s, is marriage a good thing? is it good for people to settle down and make a lifelong commitment to another? that was a debate. this is about the proponents of the traditional way of thinking are right, and we shouldn't take a group of people and exclude them from the traditional

approach. i think, you know, andrew cameron supports the freedom to marry not in spite of being conservative. it's true. i say it as a conservative and social conservative perspective. >> can i say something? >> yeah. >> it shows the danger and problem with government intruding into more and more areas of life. if health care was not nationalizedded, we wouldn't talk about contraceptive mandates. if the government didn't have a heavy hands in other regulations, we wouldn't talk about should catholic charities have the right to do adoptions and refrain from conducting them for gay couples. they should. i'm for religious liberty. the issue -- well, i don't want to repeat what evans said, but civil marriage as recognized by the government, the best solution would be for the government to get out, but as far as questions of morality go,

living together, getting married, that's -- the marriage license, the different issue then if you disagree if the morality is the -- i don't know, gay sex. well, that's, you know, that's a whole different set of cases. >> yeah. a long time ago western societies separated birth ser tiff calculates -- certificates and death certificates and coming of age, and to me this is a recognition that marriage is separated in the same way. more questions? there was one over here. yes, right by the wall. >> i'm john, and attorney, volunteered for the 2004 campaign, and i did that because of the opposition to judicial

activism, and, again, i must say i'm baffled by your definition of judicial activism now or maybe i don't understand it, but it seems to be the epitome of that, at least in the prop 8 case, overturning a democratically -- a democratic election based on the evolving standards of terms like equal protection. >> it's a good question that's one we thought about in our brief and a lot of us thought about over the years, and what i would say to you is i also don't like when courts step in and substitute their views and their will for that of the people either directly through a referendum or alternatively through a legislature. i do think as someone who believes not simply in judicial restraints, but in limited government broadly, it is the question and appropriate for courts to step in when a fundamental right is violated for an inappropriate reason.

they were sup jet throwing out the city of chicago and city of washington's ban on people having and possessing a firearm. i thought it was the right decision. i was also pleased, which was not popular in many circles, when the court threw out a number of elements of the campaign reform law. what was right about those is they said even though they were democratically enacted, they violated the rights, marriage is a fundmental right 14 times, and if you're a prisoner, according to the supreme court of 1987, the right of speech is taken away, the right to vote, and the right to select a spouse cannot be taken away unless there's a good reason, and what a number of us accountanted was proposition 8 does not meet that good reason. it is extraordinary measure, it is appropriate for the court to step in. >> that's exactly right. i was actually an intern on the 2004 campaign policy staff, a reunion for us here, i guess. judicial activism means the

speaker disagrees with the opinion he's talking about, an empty vessel filled with whatever the speakerments to talk about. i don't think courts should be activists or pass vieses. i disagree with chief justice roberts turning the individual mandate into a tax and upholding that rather than doing the job striking down a law he thought would've been constitutional. it's passivism or the helo case, not enforcing property rights. the debate is not about whether courts are restraining, upholding, striking down, overturning the popular will of the people, but whether they interpret the constitution correctly, and people in good faith can disagree about that, and that's what the argument is about so either california is violating individual rights in prop 8 or it's not, but it's not, you know, is it the proper role of the courts to say so? >> evan has to leave in a few moments. >> i am sorry to leave early, but thank you very much. thank you. [applause]

>> i'm craig olson [audience boos] [inaudible] i was baffled by you being against the petition of the marriage license. if -- i read into that you don't think that the government has any role at all in regulating marge regulations at all for example, inherent or parental responsibility for children, no license, no regulation, no responsibility? >> well, no, of course there has to be family law. people live -- they are not an

individual commune. they form families. there are issues with custody, with paternity, with, all sorts of things that inheritance, issues arise, but people living together and producing children predated the arrival of civil marriage in human history, and there are common law, codified law, bankruptcy, whatever else, that can take -- that can -- ought to exist and contract law, of course, because how most of the things ought to be handled is you sign a contract with your -- whoever you want to marry, spelling out what the rights are for 98% of the people, that would be a simple contract, and for others, they say, no, not this, add this, and something like that. that's fine. there's room for the operation of law, but that's different than saying that the sovereign has an interest in regulating who you can marry or who can

marry. >> roger, my question was for evan, but in response to the first question about the broader implications of the issue in discrimination more broadly. ilya in response to the question distinguished the private from the public, and one way this comes up is in the effort by private parties who have screw up -- scruples about gay marriage and participating in them. we have the case in new mexico right now about the photographer who declined to participate in the gay marriage and is being prosecuted for it. this is the kind of overreach that could put something of a break on momentum we have right now.

seems to me they are things we have to be careful about not to extend so far that it makes people like this, for whatever reason, may not want to, and yet an overreach of discrimination law is give us something of a backlash. would you care to -- >> sure. absolutely, that's a very valid concern. i think if you think about it, the truth is we debate the question of civil marriage doesn't affect that lawsuit by evidence by the fact that state doesn't have access to civil marriage. the reality is there's separate laws in states, and these are worthy of important debate and discussion, that define when you are allowed to say no to perform an event or a ceremony in the case of the photographer. antidiscrimination laws are separate laws. whether it's through judicial process in massachusetts or connecticut, or alternatively through the legislative process or referendum process, have all three now, and every one of the cases, the effect of civil

marriage does not in any way change whether that photographer could be sued or could not be sued. finally, i think whatever we do legally, there's always people who -- we live in a lee tige litigious society. that, absolutely, that sense, without question should be discouraged, but we ought to be thinking about the context in which it comes up, and in this case, a debate on civil marriage doesn't affect that particular question as evidence by where it happened. >> i should ask that cato is participating in that new mexico case on behalf of the photographer. >> argued two weeks ago, waiting for the opinion. >> yeah, and for those interested in the area, i've written at some length about how nearly all the horror stories that have come out and went up to states that did not have same-sex marriage laws. the problem is we libertarians know well it's with the

overwinning tendencies of discrimination laws. yes, fourth row. >> two brief questions. first, certain states, you have common law marriage. does the state have the right to declare people, whether straight or gay, married who have never chosen to be marrieded, and the second question is with the rise of states that have civil unions, is there a constitutional right by a state to create a condition that is not marriage for any reason or is this simply by creating civil unions in and of itself discriminatory? >> well, some states have recognize the dmon law marriage. you live together long enough and other criteria, produce children, hold yourself out as if you were a married couple, these sorts of things, you can be treated as common law

married. i don't think i want that to happen if there's no consent to wanting to be treated as married, but it's a complication of having a civil marriage regime and having prox mages, prepolitical, what common law marriage is, institution in the midst as well, and i think a lot of the issues can really be taking care of by common law. this came up today, you know, i think chief justice roberts asked, well, you know, does the federal law, how did you treat states with common law marriage, but some allow common law gay marriage, others doesn't. don't. it complicates injury dictional issues that abound. as far as the civil union is concerned, that's an issue in the prop 8 case that, you know, there could be -- i doubt the court rules this way given how the judges seem to be with solicitor general's half loaf solution, that is, part of why prop 8 has to go down because, well, california has civil

unions that don't differ in any other way than the name from marriages. there's ieght or nine states in that boat. well, if you have a rule saying that if all civil -- if -- grant all rights except the name, well then that's purely no rational basis, and that disinsent -- disincentivizes other states who don't want to give the whole hog with marriage. it should be common law based, and i don't think that, you know, civil union means that you have to have marriage as ultimately a tenable position for constitutional law. >> i think the question also brings in something that is not enough of -- appreciated about the history of marriage wall, as far as being a timeless thing, in continued flux, and halimony is a quasi ceremony law turning

up only in our lifetime, and in general, there is never to conserve or go back to, and there's a question here in the front, yeah. >> getting married is exciting and fun, and we all -- >> is it? good, i'm doing it in june. [laughter] >> yea, the benefits with the insurance, health care, visit a par near in the hospital and that stuff, but when it doesn't work out, the next day you wake up, are you guys going to have to go through the same horror of a divorce situation that we are? are the laws going to work just as equally with that situation? >> there was a cover story on "new york magazine" about that welcome o gay divorce, and a lot

of people favored gay marriage without having implemented good will for kids for that reason. they figured why let us have all the misery, and, you know, in all seriousness, if one takes the bitter, and logically one could not ask for commitment and then escape as the consequences of failed commitment, and so, yes, this has already happened and law nerds will love me, and when a couple goes on with gay marriage, and will not recognize them being married enough to divorce, thus leaving them -- >> suspect -- isn't there a court in texas that recognizes gay divorce, but not gay marriage? >> yes, i believe it's been in both ways, and makes a wonderful discussion which is more punitive towards kids.

stay with it. it's when they don't love each other or creating a separate divorce category because you deserve some rights. yes, more questions. yes mapp in this fourth row. >> hi, thank you. this is a question that relates back to app earlier question. i think, at least in my ear, the most heated moment on perry was when justice scalia asked ted olson when did the exclusion of homosexual couples from marriage become unconstitutional? now, dale carpenter start olson stumbled on that, and i thought he was, a, olson was extremely combative, unusually so, and, second, he did talk about our evolving understanding, how we deal with the constitution, over the changes in growth, when we, for example, increase our

understanding of sexual orientation, but, in any case, does any of you think that scalia landed a blow there, or did he just be cranky and demonstrate that, perhaps, he's not so much an originalist. as an opinionist. what was your take on that. >> well, i blogged about this up on cato's website now. i think scalia was getting at if one of these evolving standards of decency that the living constitution, when was it right? do you mean the founders of the country or even the ratifiers of the 14th amendment had in mind gay marriage? it's not the right way to frame the question, and i think ted did not answer it well talking about, well, it's when we began to accept gays into our culture and you understand equality, and i don't think that's right. that plays into the opposite trap scalia was laying.

the answer is 1868 when the amendment was ratified, not because i have proof or think that the ratifiers of that amendment had in mind gay marriage or any aspect of gay rights, but you look at, if you're an originalist, you do originalism at the right time, and we argue rights to equality under the law that are protected by the 14th amendment. we talked about state violations in the prop 8 case, and what is the meaning of equal protection and equality of the law mean? you look at that, and i think that either -- there's a right to gay marriage once the government, again, gets in the business in 1868 with the 14th amendment, or there still isn't that right. there's the only two possible answers. i linked to other discussions of this, josh blackman blogged about it and elizabeth, my cocouncil. >> i think i thought that ted's point was a good answer.

here's what matters. whether it happened in 1868 or when we came to umps the sexual orientation was not something people choose, today, is unconstitutional, and, to me, that's the important answer there. the fact is there is a fundamental right taken away from individuals based on an arbitrary characteristic which is to say by arbitrary, i mean one they did not choose, and they are denied access to it, and there's not a good public policy rationale for it. when those four things are present, seems to me the court needs to look carefully and argue whether the constitution's involved, and i believe it is. whether that happens 2341868 when the 14th amendment was massed or recently when we understood this fact that it was present then too, but we don't know, is less important than today, in fact, we know it's a violation. >> i think ted's and therefore, the answer are more of a proper, a correct layman's response from a legal term, i just want to hammer this point home with another analogy.

for example, segregation; right? brown versus board of education said the separate but equal is unconstitutional. does that mean that 195 # 4 is when segregation was unconstitutional, or was pleas sigh v. ferguson incorrectly decided and equal protection of the law extended in that way against the separation of the races in 1868? that's the type of analogy i try to draw. every time a court -- texas as well, and it didn't mean all those years of antisodomy laws were constitutional and then there was a switch and they became not, i think when a court interprets a particular provision of the constitution, that effect, but i think that is, right or wrong, they interpret what the provision actually meant when it was

ratified. >> we are running out of time. that has to be the last question. i thank the panel. [inaudible] [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] join us later today for the same-sex marriage question with an event from georgetown university. several attorneys who filed briefs will discuss today's supreme court oral argument. that's live at 4 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. this is the scene outside the u.s. supreme court where justices today heard the second of two same-sex marriage cases. today's case dealt with the legality of doma, the defense of

marriage act stating marriage is between a man and woman. one of the plaintiffs came to the microphone following the end of the supreme court session. here's some of what she had to say. >> what was going through your mind? >> i felt very serious, very serious, and listening carefully. i had things -- halfway deaf, but i had these on so i heard every word, and i really paid attention. >> edie, how do you think it went in there? >> what? >> how do you think it went? >> i took these out. >> how do you think it went. >> i'm not hearing. >> how did it go? >> oh, beautifully. i thought the justices were -- i thought the justices were

gentle, if that's the word, they asked the right questions, but i didn't feel hostility or anyceps of inferiority, you know, i felt -- felt very respected, and i think -- i think it's going to be good. [laughter] >> how do you feel in there and especially about chief justice roberts about the political power? >> as always, i think the justices accident -- answered all the questions asked, had good answers, and i'll top my client's question, i think it was good. >> again, we are hopeful they are. i'm not in the business of predicting what justices do, but we're hopeful they confirm the

decisions of the courts blow. >> anything stand out to you while in there to give you aceps of optimism? >> i think all the arguments stood out and gave me a sense and it went well, it was good. and the supreme court oral arguments from today available right now online at c-span.org. he's more of what you had to say of the issue. stay beautiful writes, what if they judged you for liking the other gender, wouldn't like that, would you? support same-sex marriage. aaron says i cannot support it under religion, but under the law of the united states, you have my full support. timely, tracy says today's top line looks reenforced after tuesday's clashes, few here against same-sex marriage today. we welcome your thoughts on the matter tweeting your opinion at hash tag samesexmarriage.

blpg >> now a portion of this morning's "washington journal" looking at the role of the cia in the syria civil war. >> host: welcome back to the washington journal, steve, the senior adviser at the u.s. institute of peace. >> caller: thank -- >> guest: thank you for being here. they had conflicting information about whether or not the u.s. is training the syria opposition inside the boundaries of jordan. look at what he had to say and get your reaction. >> well, let me say we have always been clear that the

nonlethal assistance to the opposition includes equipment and training and to link syria citizens with the syria opposition coalition and local coordinating councils. you know, so i can say that much. >> what's that mean? >> it's good english. there was no dangling participles. [laughter] >> are we training syria directly or through jordan -- >> i'll tell you, again, our nonlethal assistance to the opposition including equipment and training to build the capacity of the civilian activists. on other issues, i don't have anything for you, but it is clear we are providing the kind of nonlethal assistance to the syria opposition we discussed. >> host: steve, help us read between the lines there. what was he saying? >> guest: well, for almost 18 months, the u.s. picked a clear boundary over level of support

they are preparedded to provide. they insisted they will provide only nonlethal support and only to nonleal actors, and i think jay carney affirmed that. at the same time, we're hearing more and more stories about u.s. policy creeping beyond the boundaries of the white house to include much broader@and even some were coordinating with allies in providing weapons to the syria opposition, and i think that reflects a recognition on the part of the white house that if we want to arrive at a point where we imagine negotiations between the regime and opposition, if we want to arrive at a point where we imagine an end to the violence and killing in syria, we are going to have to take additional steps to those that the white house outlined, and we have to do so in ways that puts more pressure on the assad regime, and i think what we are seeing is a white house anxious

to reassure the american public that we are not about to rush headlong into direct intervention in syria while at the same time leaving the door open to doing more that would help us achieve broader r policy goals. >> host: here's the new "new yok times" from march 24th, syria rebels expands with cia aid. what is the cia doing in the country? what role are they playing? >> guest: as far as we know from the media, the cia is helping to coordinate the work of allies in the supply of weapons to the syria opposition. we are not playing a direct role in the provision of weapons ourselves, and these are increasingly fine distinctions, but they are distinctions that continue to matter. the reason that's important is because if the u.s. were not involved, the weapons would be moving into syria without any controls or regulation or any way in which we could try to manage who they were going to.

no one underestimates how difficult it is to bring weapons to those groups that we think are more trustworthy than others. that's not an easy job. if we are not playing a supporting role on the effort, what we find is a wild west arms bizarre with no one coaling -- controlling where the weapons are going and with many of them headed towards groups we prefer to see on the sidelines, the more radical is line -- islamist groups. now the hope is because the u.s. is hoping to vote the -- vet the groups that receive the weapons, we can perhaps mitigate movement of the arms into hands we would not want to see them in, and move them in other directions. >> host: where are these weapons coming from that the cia is helping to channel to the correct people? >> guest: there are two principle providers of weapons to the syria opposition right now. the government of qatar and the government of saudi arabia. most of the weapons move into

syria through turkey, but we have, and this is where the problems begin, large numbers of wealthy individuals in the arab gulf who are funding weapons, purchases, by armed groups on the ground in syria without any oversight or any regulation, and the hope is that as government become more involved in the management of supply chain, those private channels of supply will no longer be needed and can be controlled, so even though this is a very difficult and risky moment for the united states, i think on balance the assessment has been we're better off doing what we can to manage weapon flows than letting them happen without any controls at all. >> host: are there not countries, though, that want to be controlled? that are contributing to weapons brought into syria? >> guest: i don't think so, not countries. i think we have turkey, which is exercising a degree of control

over the movement of weapons into syria. we have the governments of qatar and saudi arabia which are also willing to participate in these collaborative arrangements, but there are private transactions happening, and these are where we are really concerned about what might be moving and who it might be going to. >> host: what about the role of the soviet union, russia, and iran? >> guest: well, when it comes to the regime side, there's no question that the volume of weapons moving into the question vastly exceeds anything the opposition is receiving, and these are moving on what might be considered a state-to state it basis. the russians tell us they are simply honoring existing weapons supplies contracts with the syria government. of course, what they are doing is making it possible for the assad regime to continue to kill its own citizens. the iranians bring weapons into syria almost on a daily basis,

flying over iraq to do so, a source of some tension between the u.s. and iraq, but these are provisions, again, coming directly from government which have insisted that they are playing inappropriate roles in the support of legitimate government. >> host: you said earlier the cia playing this role about trying to control the influx of weapons into the country is one of the first steps to negotiating. this is the story in the "baltimore sup" this morning with the headline, "eric lee names opposition serian government," and what does that mean for a step towards resolution in syria? >> guest: overtime, the opposition has been gaining legitimacy within the international community and taking the seat at the arab league is a big step in positioning the opposition to sit across a negotiating table as an equal partner of the syria regime. for a long time, the assad

government has said we will only negotiate with equals. we will not negotiate with the opposition. if the opposition establishes its credibility as an alternative to the assad regime and the community continues to give it the recognition that supports that role, then we might find ourselves able to have a more effective negotiating possibility. >> host: first the arab league, then what? >> guest: there's a couple next steps. the one that the opposition is most concerned about is the seat of the syria government at the uniteds nations. after that, they would be delighted to have the keys to all the various syria embassies handed over to them. the opposition does not yet, for instance, control the syria embassy in washington. i think it would like to see a gradual movement in the direction of recognition as thee legitimate government of syria, and the arab league move is the

first step in that direction. >> host: all right, jack from minnesota, independent caller waiting, thanks, jack, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. by the way, greta, could you give me a little more than 30 seconds i got last time i was on? i admit i made a horrible error of using the "i" word, and i'll try not to do that again, but let me say that this fellow seems to be a nice fellow, but another apology for the on ward going of the imperial project of taking over two-thirds of the oil supply with the ultimate goal there of being the takeover of iran. the fact -- the notion that this guy that we've just put in, this hido who received 35 out of 49 votes from the syria national committee is a representative of the syrian people of assad is

ludacris. one on a blog referred to him as a right wing draft dodging texas islamist. american teens from syria trying to avoid the syria draft. the notion that the united states gives a solitary dam and have human life and this country invaded criminally a sovereign nation called iraq and was responsible for the deaths of a million iraqis, three million injuries, four million in exile, the fact that this nation cares at all about human rights when we tortured people all over the world and have one of the citizens, the guy that exposed all of our crimes including the -- >> host: okay, so, jack, we got the point. i have to leave it there. steve?

>> guest: i find a great deal of the statistics and the great deal they use to support, quite out of keeping with my open view of the conflict, and george was not imposed on anybody by the united states. he was elected by the syria opposition. we have nothing whatsoever to do with his election, and i think what we have seen is an effort by the syria opposition to begin to move beyond some of the -- the factional conflicts that have brought it into disarray over the coming months, and bring people into office who have technical expertise and capacity to build an effective opposition infrastructure. it is the case that he is not well known in syria, but what we need from the opposition right now is a leadership that has the capacity to effectively manage the relationship between the international community and the syria opposition, and i think

george, if begin the opportunity, might be able to help the opposition in playing that role, but as part rest of the concerns of the caller, i'm afraid we see the world so differently that e don't find very much to connect with in his comments. >> host: all right. from twitter, $17 trillion in debt, and those who want to go into syria should fund it privately. >> guest: we have made such a modest contribution financially to support for what's happening in syria that the notion we need to counterbalance critical foreign policy prior sigh against our efforts to achieve some degree of debt relief at home is one that i find quite troubling. i would hate to think that in order to deal with pressing economic res, the u.s. should simply abandon any kind of international engaugement or should retreat from an effort to try to shape outcomes in syria in a way that will prevent some

terribly destabilizing and violence consequences from emerging that will ultimately cost a great deal more to deal with than if we are able, in some modest way, to contribute to a more rapid end of this conflict. >> host: the "baltimore sun" story i mentioned, the lead paragraph, an opposition seated as the legitimate government of syria tuesday, and the coalition's outgoing leader promptly put missile defense batteries against syria war planes. these are located in turkey according to the article. >> guest: yeah. the syria opposition has -- is very concerned about the gem's -- regime's use of air power against civilian targets, and the single biggest deterrent through the opposition's ability to establish a distinguished presence in liberated areas of syria is the vulnerability of syria air power, and the

opposition has long been pushing for some kind of no fly zone that creates the space to organize, build government institutions, and begin to establish itself on the ground, and that view has that from the senate recently from senator carl levin who came out recently in support of a no [laughter] fly zone so it's not that much of a surprise to find the -- it's a no-fly zone, so it's not that much of a surprise to find them supporting the opposition, and it's fallen on deaf ears in washington and elsewhere. >> host: back to twitter, an individual says there's no upside for syria to use chemical weapons. opposition began in london, trained by us, funded by arab monarchies. >> guest: i'm not entirely sure what the question is. i suppose it concerns largely whether this is an authentic opposition or not, and i think we have to recognize that the

syria who came together and to move syria on to a different path, a more demographic path have broad support in the country. it's not an artificial or an em pose thed opposition or not an opposition that is operating to advance the agendas of gulf monarchies, but one in need of resources, and i think it's taking support from wherever it can find it. >> host: were chemical weapons used? >> guest: there's no con confirmation chemical weapons were used. the opposition and regime traded accusations about an attack in the north last week in which each claimed that the other used chemical weapons. there have been investigations ongoing. they have not yet concluded that any chemical weapons were deployed. >> host: we have cia on the ground. how is it that we don't know one way or the other? >> guest: i'm not sure what the role of the cia is or if they are on the ground and where

they are. >> host: okay. >> guest: i think we may sl -- have cia presence on the ground in jordan, according to the agency itself, they support the efforts of the jordan government to manage spillover from the syria conflict. we may have cia presence on the ground in turkey, again, playing a coordinating role in providing support to the opposition, but we have never seen as far as i'm aware any clear information about numbers, about mission, about location of where the forces are, and we are really trying to speculate about what they are doing. >> host: all right, ivy in georgia, independent caller, thank you for waiting. >> caller: thank you so much, i really appreciate being able to get on. i have a question about the use of the word "opposition" and "regime" because syria in and of itself is a minor that-majority nation, and that it's not just

sunni and shia, but there's also orthodox christians, jews issue and all the groups, are in a sense, they formed a government, the assads took it over, and you have orthodox christians and the al whites support what we call the regime against an opposition that is predominantly sueny so in essence, we're trying to create some kind of rule that addresses the schism throughout the arab world, and there is no side that can win. >> host: steve? >> guest: i'm not sure i share that view, but syria's not a majority-minority country. 75% of the population is sunni. collectively, minorities constitute about a third of the population of syria. the alowites, 10 to 12%, kurds 8%, and christians are a much

smaller percentage than that, and i'm not sure we can view the history of the assad regime as having been -- as having origins in some kind of multisectarian, multiconfessional understanding in which the assad family took over and co-oped. this is, in fact, a regime fallen under the assad family, heavily controlled by the minority, and other minorities including christians tended to support the regime, i think out of fear of what would follow the removal of the assads from power, but even among the christian minorities, there's a growing recognition that they place future in syria the risk, and we're seeing increasing movement within that minority, within the christian minority towards the spormt of the opposition, and the opposition itself even though it's ma majoy

sunni has representatives from others, and we need to be very careful, i think, in how we talk about this case and be clear about the demographic effects before we make those kinds of claims. >> host: greg in ohio, republican caller. >> caller: good morning. could you please explain to me -- [inaudible] >> guest: u.s. institute of peace is a congressional funded conflict resolution institution. it is located in washington and been in existence since the mid-1980s providing a variety of support for a wide range of conflict resolution activities in conflict zones around the world. >> host: and c-span's washington journal did a show from the u.s. institute of peace awhile back and talk about its

role, how it's funded, and the folks that work there. if interested, go to our website, c-span.org and find it there. doug has a question about the organization on twitter, so the u.s. institute of peace wants u.s. to go to war? what gives you the moral right to use the word "peace." >> guest: the u.s. institute of peace is not about advocating that the u.s. go to war. what the u.s. institute of peace is concerned with is deporting efforts to bring the syria conflict to a rapid close to do so in a way that maximizes the possibility that the end of the conflict will move syria on some kind of a pathway towards intercommunal reconciliation, a democratic future, and we've been working closely with the syria opposition to develop sphrat jis for the post-assad period that we hope will avoid

outcomes like violence, revenge killings, sectarian and commune violence, and what we try food -- to do through our modest work is create the condition that are likely to avoid some of the more disturbing outcomes that are possible from the kind of cop flights that we see in -- conflicts seen in syria, but we're not about advocating war for anyone. >> host: how much money do you get from congress? >> guest: around $35 million a year from congress, so no one should overestimate the role of u.s. ip in any of the efforts. we work hard with lots of money to leverage our influence and our opportunity to make a difference on the ground in conflict zones. >> host: gary on twitter, nothing we do in syria preventings it from becoming a death trap just as occurred in iraq and afghanistan post u.s. intervention. address that, but then if you

could, could we use the libya model to go into syria? >> guest: i think that's a possibility that syria could move down a very dark, very violence path. it's a real one. i don't think nip who is -- anyone who is involved in work in syria underestimates the possibility, but that does not release the obligation to to do everything to prevent that from happening, and suggesting that's inevitable and there's nothing to do to prevent it from happening, i find to be a position that i simply don't share. the libya model, i think, is not available in the syria case, and it's not available simply because the intervention in libya happened with the support of the u.n. security council, and it happened with the participation of nato and with a wide variety of other countries, and we simply have not seen the u.n. security council able to

produce the kind of agreement on syria that authorized the intervention in libya, and in addition, i think want u.s. is firmly opposed to the kind of direct military intervention in syria that it participated in in libya. it recognizes the complexity of the syria case. it recognizes that there is very little interest among americans in a direct u.s. military role in syria, and i think it also believes that the u.s. can advance its objectives in syria through less direct, indirect meanses of support for syria opposition. >> host: boots on the ground? >> guest: i think that's a very unlikely possibility. >> host: all right. daniel, texas, democratic caller. >> caller: thank you for taking the call. i wonder why you think it's appropriate to support that tied to al-qaeda, pointing to a new s article saying syria rebels tied

to al-qaeda play key roles in war, and advances made by the rebels, and it's a misnomer to call them "rebels" as many are fighters from algeria, libya, and other people in the middle east sent in by nato and cia. why is it appropriate to arm them, and are we creating a situation where the blowback here is inevitable, not just to the syria people suffering at the hands of the death squads, but murdering them, raping them, and lewding the country, but are we creating a monster in the same we we did in the 1980s in afghanistan which came back to haunt us for decades in the united states? >> host: daniel, what's your experience with this? you sound like you follow it closely. > caller: i am, and it hurts to see someone advocating for greater u.s. intervention and destruction of syria. if we look at a historical analogy, another would be the contras in the 1980s where the u.s. government sent out propgan to to say, well, they commit

massacres, but here what we have is a group of foreign fighters in syria that have been documented as creating bombings, raping women, destroying villages, looking through the bombings, and where they are active, and it hurts me to see that people can come out, people from the u.s. institute of peace, which since february of 2012 have been advocating intervention. their board is stocked with exnational security director, exdefense department people, people from the u.s. defense industry, and they are advocating war because they see profit here. the ultimate goal is taking down iran and hurting an ally of russia and china. >> host: get a response, a lot there. >> guest: monumental misinformation about syria on the part of someone who claims to follow the conflict closely because the number of mistakes and ere r roar -- errors in that statement were numerous. the terrorist organization insisted on the exclusion from any kind of effort to form a

unified military command in syria. there's no evidence whatsoever that nato or any other u.s. forces are engaged in support, and many of the activities that he attributed to those groups in syria are actually taking place at the hands of the regime, and the notion that it is those fighters, which, by the way, the foreign component of which represents a very small minority of the rebels opposing the assad regime in syria are those responsible for the kind of conduct that he identified is simply wrong. now, there is no question that there are rebel units that have been associated with abuses with torture, with execution and inappropriate deattention, with a tax on medical facilities. there are abuses happening at the hands of the opposition, but the claims that were made by the caller are so far off base that i -- i don't find them to offer any kind of credible sense of what's happening on the ground in syria, so, if indeed, the

caller following syria closely, i encourage him to broaden a range of sources. >> host: what's the role of iran in the conflict? >> guest: iran is thee most important supporter of the assad regime. it is providing training. it is providing weapons. it is providing money to the assad regime. informed, because the syria army was poorly trained and poorly equipped to undertake the urban warfare that increasingly came to define the syria conflict, the iranian government sent a number of its lead revolutionary guard commanders and besiege commanders, its most militant radical forces to train loyalists of the regime in how to conduct urban warfare. iran is playing an enormously important role, and i think we can actually recognize that without iranian support, the assad regime would have likely fallen a long time ago. >> host: secretary of state

kier kerry met with iraqi prime minister to talk about the use of the air space. what's happening there in the conflict? what role is iraq playing? >> guest: iraq is in a very difficult position, and the government, which is led by a shia political party, has been very quietly offering support from the assad regime, largely indirectly by permitting iran to use iraqi air space to move weapons into syria, but it does so with some considerable risks because iraq's sunni population supports the opposition, and iraq's kurdish population also tends to support the opposition, and so if the malaki government were to adopt an open role in support of the assad regime, it could risk reigniting sectarian conflict inside iraq. we've already seen some violence

spill over the border from syria into iraq. that could accelerate if the regime playing a more active role in support of the assad government, and so we're -- we are trying to do everything we can to persuade the iraqi government to end support for the assad regime. corvee, -- soft, however, we have not had success in that effort. >> host: let's listen to what secretary of state kerry said about meeting with iraqi's prime minister. >> and i made it very clear that for those of us who are engagedded in an effort to see president assad step down and to see a democratic process take hold with a transitional government according to the geneva communique, for those of us engaged in that effort, anything that supports president assad is problematic, and i made

it very clear to the prime minister that the over flights from iran are, in fact, helping to sustain president assad. >> host: we're talking about syria, the conflict there, the world of cia is playing, and steve of the u.s. institute of peace is our guest, and maria in woodbury new jersey, independent caller, you're up next. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: a couple comments and a question. i think we have to look at the fact that the cia is nothing more than a front for a global gangster, is what i call them. if you look at their actions and not what they rompt to do, it's always the same mo. always the same fabrication, and they are using israel as a performer, cloning of powers, and we have to get back to listening to washington and jefferson who said no foreign intervention, no close friends,

no stated enemies; otherwise, all the intervenges got us is bankruptcy and hated around the world, and we need to bring everybody home and protect our own borders. the question is this, when is anybody going to have to guts to go after the foreign agents in the government, including the people from britain? thank you. >> guest: i'm not sure i have anything to say about that. i think it's a world view in which there's no recognition whatsoever of the extent to which america is part of the international system in which globalization and other forces have given us a very direct stake in things that happen far from our borders, and the idea we have to retreat behind our own borders and avoid foreign entanglements i find quite puzzling if there's any real concern for american security underlying it. as for the other claims, i certainly respect the caller's right to hold the views, but i find them to be quite bizarre, frappingly.

>> host: wild and wonderful on twitter, should we remove one oppressor so install a faction that would just oppress a different group of people? >> guest: i suspect the comment concerns the possibility that an islamist government could take power in syria. i think it is entirely likely that under any scenario islam would be a more prominent part of syria politics than in the past, but i'm not sure we should conclude from that that an islamist government would necessarily repress syria's nonmuslim minorities. we had a number of statements from the syria muslim brotherhood from others in the opposition committing to a government which is inclusive, committing to a civil state, committing to a government that recognizes the equality of all of syria's citizens, and so i would like to think that there are opportunities to bring about a government in syria by syrians

which is not oppressive or authoritarian. >> host: what about sharia law? there was a story in the "washington post" recently that parts of syria that have been controlled by the opposition groups have installed, implemented sharia law in those areas. >> guest: what we are seeing is a large variety of local forms of govern nans emerge in liberated areas where state institutions have collapsed. it is not clear whether any of those will survive the reconstruction of a syria government and a syria state or how they would be integrated into a future syria government, and i think there is particular concern about building institutions based not on the kind of interpretations of sharia law that some of the local groups implement now, but on civil law and on much more inclusive, much more pluralistic ideas about how syria should be governed.

.. the people they know that a majority of these rebels are extremists. they are uneducated. they are paid mercenaries who come in and do whatever they want. they are paid to do these things and commit worse atrocities than the assad did himself and in fact the question is what business do we have in syria?

that's an important question i think everyone needs to ask themselves. what business do we have in syria? the financial system and america's falling apart. everybody knows that and everybody feels that except the billionaires and million errors and it's interesting to note that those billionaires and millionaires have quite a stake when it comes to wars and they always seem to be pushing for these wars and i just don't understand. i don't see how your guest and i have to commend him on his ability to speak so well. he is just a very eloquent talker but he is not addressing the issues. it seems to me like your guest is trying to avoid the biggest problems here. >> host: let's give him a chance. >> guest: let me try to respond to your questions. first of all a majority of the fighters in syria are syrians themselves and i think the

figures i have seen suggest that 80% of the members of the armed coalition are civilians who picked up defense of their home bilichecbilichec k their home community when they came under attack from the assad regime and a very small percentage or the remaining percentage can consist of defectors from the syrian military with foreign fighters numbering around five to 10,000, somewhere between 60 and 80,000 fighters altogether. so while many syrians have stories to tell about their own experiences i am not sure that those captured the overall situation. when it comes to the question of what is at stake in syria, i think that's a fabulous question because we do have to be careful about the underlying reasons that justify american interests in this conflict and in part what makes syria so important for the united states are the potential consequences in the event that this conflict not

only continues that leads to the spillover of instability and violence into the broader middle east and to the extent to which it might in fact even threatened the post-ottoman order in which iraq perhaps areas of turkey, lebanon, jordan and even across the syrian israeli border could all become zones of conflict creating an area of instability and violence that could continue for many many years. and which could pose very direct security threats to the united states and would certainly put the entire arab east on the very very unfortunate trajectory. and if we have any opportunity through the kind of very limited measures that the u.s. has taken thus far to prevent that sort of outcome from happening and to open up possibilities for syria to move on to a more peaceful trajectory then perhaps potentially but with no

guarantee even on to a more democratic trajectory than it seems to me that this is a direct interest of the united states and its it's one of the core reasons i think why the u.s. is involved in the syrian conflict at all. >> host: given all that you just just said, then why isn't their international support for going into syria like there was for livio? >> guest: the two main obstacles to a security resolution authorizing some kind of intervention with russia and china and russia is really the key out there and i think russia is preventing, is opposing a u.n. security council resolution in part because of how it perceives syria in relation to its own strategic interest in the broader middle east. and it views syria not only as an important strategic partner but it views the potential loss of the assad regime as shifting the balance of power in the middle east in ways that would

undermine russian influence and undermine russia's interests. >> host: someone on twitter asks is in syria a proxy war with russia, iran and iraq? >> guest: i think syria is a path that could transform it into a proxy war. i think that is a very real possibilipossibili ty and it's one that we should be concerned about. i don't think syria is yet a proxy war blood levels of foreign intervention are increasing especially in support of the regime. we have to recognize that the external support of the opposition pales in comparison to what has been provided in the regime. >> host: go ahead and finish. >> guest: and that in fact one of the possible pathways for this conflict is that it could indeed become a proxy war. >> host: on our line earth line for republicans often in columbia south carolina. >> caller: hey, my name is austin and what i'm really

struggling with is some people people -- [inaudible] i want to know how we are planning to fund everythineverythin g we are dealing with syria like this $60 million whatnot and i just want to know where we are pulling that from? >> guest: the u.s. has provided the bulk of funding for syria in the form of humanitarian about $400 million. the vast majority of that has come out of the state department's current budget. that money has gone largely into international organizations through the united nations and the international red cross. a small percentage of that funding has gone to syria and humanitarian organizations with local networks for the distribution of aid. in addition there has been a

provision of somewhere between $10,200,000,000 of funding for nonlethal support to nonlethal elements of the syrian opposition. we have provided training to local civilian administration councilmembers and we have provided training and support and equipment for civil society groups who are part of the peaceful opposition in syria and that money also has come from the state department's regular operating budget. so what is happening by and large is that rather than seek increases in funding from congress for syria, the administration is using its existing budget and drying funds to try to revive support for the work that wants to do in syria. >> host: scott, in maryland independent caller. >> caller: there are a few problems with what mr. heydemann said and i respect his position but i would like to clear up

some facts. it is the most effective and strongest on the ground and that is no doubt. if people want to google that in fact check that right now they will find that is the case and he is just wrong about that. going further i just want to say that there are a few logical flaws with this whole argument about how assad -- [inaudible] there are emotions and their problems and we don't necessarily see eye-to-eye but we see a peaceful democratic process. that is what assad is calling for. assad is calling for a political solution. assad has called for elections.

what is wrong with elections in syria? >> host: let's get a response. >> guest: i didn't make any statement that all about the effectiveness. i said foreign fighters were a minority among those present in the oppositiooppositio n. that is true. i made no claims about the effectiveness. it is as the caller suggested a very effective part of the overall opposition and that is unfortunate. one of the reasons it's been able to outperform other operations of the assad decision is because it has access to other weapons that the other groups do not. with mr. assad's repeals for reforms and elections the single single -- and there isn't any reason to take seriously his statement about his commitment to reform. he has made the statements repeatedly ever since he first rose to power in the summer of the year 2000.

he has acted on none of them. the opposition is rightly suspicious that these calls for reform are in effort to distract attention from his own violent repression as began as a peaceful movement seeking political reform and economic reform in syria and in light of the mistrust of the extent to which his own claims to reform have been repeatedly shown to be meaningless, i think we have to be very careful about investing too much weight. one example, the turkish government tried very hard for a period of the year to persuade resident assad to act on the commitments he made for political reform. every single time they encouraged him to do so nothing happened and at the end of the day what drove the turkish government into support for the opposition was its sense of having been betrayed and lied to by president assad himself.

so yes, president assad is making a number of reasonable comments about reform. i don't think we should take those comments seriously. he has given us no basis. >> host: steve heydemann with the u.s. institute of peace thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you. >> let's begin with what doma is what is the defense of marriage act? >> guest: it's interesting we talk about the signing back in 1996 and it tells you how much things have changed. in 1996 the defense of marriage act was a reaction to some of the early state action notably in hawaii toward same-sex

marriage. why massachusetts ended up being the first to legalize up of members of congress and people across the nation became concerned about things moving towards allowing same-sex couples to marry. so members of congress passed a law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman and critical is the provision that says federal benefits can only go to married opposite couples even if you happen to be legally married in massachusetts and new york and in today's supreme court cases you can't get benefits. >> host: what were the constitutional arguments for and against? >> back in 1996 there was a lot of frankly more traditional religious cultural societal arguments about why marriage should remain between a man and a woman and frankly back then

there were state constitutions that advocates were trying to use to say that same-sex should be allowed in various states but no way did any -- there was no federal push for same-sex marriage at all and what the federal officials were trying to do at that time was to put a stop to it and ensure that if one state that allows same-sex marriage the federal government would have to honor it and other states would need to honored. >> host: how did he get to the supreme court in 2013? >> guest: it's interesting because it does have to do with that degree of the provisions that federal benefits only go to opposite couples. a woman by the name of edith windsor lost her partner of many years. they have been married in canada and that marriage was recognized in new york state and when her partner died, edith windsor got socked with a pretty high tax bill for state taxes that she would not have gotten if her partner had been --

>> host: the newspaper is reporting this morning that she will be in court today. >> guest: yeah, i talked to one of her lawyers yesterday and she will be there. her health i understand has been a bit touchy but she is ready to roll and will be there and i think that's pretty exciting for people on that site. >> host: who will be arguing for that site? >> guest: a woman by the name of roberta kaplan from new york feared she will be representing edith windsor. we have a long lineup beginning with a woman by the name is vicki jackson it was a harvard law professor for the supreme court to argue that the case could not be decided on the merits because the federal government no longer is defending this section 3 of the defense of marriage act and a bipartisan republican dominated house member has come in to defend it. the question is, can they do that? do they have what is known as legal standing to do that? >> host: as we are talking people are heading into the court right now.

they get this line going in and you folks have to set there? >> guest: many people were lined up last thursday for these cases and with the court officials will do is eventually they will let the men out of the cold and they get in and they start lining up inside the building. >> host: who will be arguing on the other site? >> guest: well the main advocates against the federal government and against edith windsor's claimed is a man by the name of paul clement and many of your viewers are familiar with him. he was illegally are challenging the obama health care law last year. paul clement is a former solicitor general under george w. bush and he will be representing the house members and the republican dominated house members arguing bipartisan legal, i forget what it all

stands for but he will be representing it today on two counts. one to say that yes the supreme court justices have jurisdiction here and guess we are allowed to bring this in and on the merits saying congress actually was right back in 1996 to pass this law and it still constitutional. >> host: how much time does the court dedicating to doma and how will it break down today? >> guest: today we have an hour and 50 minutes scheduled in the first 50 minutes will be on the procedural question. for anyone in the courtroom or anyone listening later, what they will hear will be mostly procedural questions about who is able to challenge this and there are two questions actually. one is canned the house of representatives a bipartisan legal adviser -- bipartisan legal advisory group, does it have legal standing to challenge at? the other issue is once the federal government says it

wanted to defend us this which the obama administration said in february of 2011 ,-com,-com ma does that complicate the case? does that essentially make the challenge go away? so as i said jackson will be arguing that both of those elements actually deprive the supreme court of jurisdiction of whether section 3 of doma should be struck down. and then the last 60 minutes on the merits. >> host: interestingly paul clement, first roberta -- vicki jackson and then the deputy solicitor general to say even though we are not defending this law, then will come paul clement. there will be a short break and paul clement will come back to the lectern and argue the merits of the case in the house.

>> host: so, how does yesterday's argument on composition eight impact or reflect on today's arguments on the defense of marriage act? >> guest: just to remind people what happened yesterday it was a challenge to california's proposition 8 which says that only, marriage should be reserved for just a man and a woman. and the courts in that case would uphold california's law or make it riders to the nation. the signals were very clear yesterday. the justices didn't want to go anywhere near any kind of natural rule for same-sex marriage one way or another and they were almost looking for an offramp to say we are not going to argue the merits of this. having seen that resistance in that half when he case the other day i think we will similarly see no suggestion that they want to rule broadly. this is actually a narrower question for them today. first of all all of the lower courts who have looked at this provision of george doma that

restricts federal benefits to opposite married couples have struck it down and justices appointed by a democratic president and by a republican president have believed that this is not fair, that it's unconstitutional to have this kind of limitation. remember who it affects. it affects people who are legally married in the united states and the district of columbia that do allow same-sex marriage and i think generally the justices as lower courts justices have already indicated it's unfair. i'll also think this would be an easier question on the merits if they get to it. >> a live look at the scene right now outside the u.s. supreme court where a little earlier today the justices heard the second of two same-sex marriage cases. today's case dealt with the legality of doma the defense of marriage act, and states marriages exquisitely between a man and a woman. the plaintiff edith windsor came

to the microphone following the supreme court session. >> i felt very serious and listening carefully. i heard every word and -- >> how do you think it went in there? what? >> how do you think it went? >> i think it was great. i think it went beautifully. i thought the justices were gentle if that is the word i want. they were direct and they asked all the right questions but i felt, i didn't feel any hostility or any sense of inferiority.

i felt very respected and i think, i think it will be good. [laughter] >> ms. kaplan how did you feel in there especially with chief justice roberts and some of his questions about political power? >> the justice asked the questions that were expected to ask and we had good answers. i'm going to doubt my clients question. i think it was good. again we are very hopeful and we are not in the business of predicting what any particular justice will do but we are hopeful they will a firm decision of the courts below. anything stand out to to you while you were in that they gave you that sense of optimism? >> i think all the arguments stood out for me and gave me a sense as i said before as edith put it, that it went well.

it was good. >> lets take a look at what some of you have to say about this issue. >> host: in our last hour of "washington journal" on wednesday we take a look at recent magazine articles as part of our spotlight on magazine series. this week miseducation in the atlantic magazine written by our guest garance franke-ruta. why we need success in higher education hasn't led to more female leaders.

thank you for being here. >> guest: thanks for having me on. >> host: let's break this down first. how are women performing in higher education? >> guest: women are doing extraordinarily well in the higher education environment. since the 1980s they have been the majority of college graduates than they are now the majority people with college educations in the united states of america and to pass men in the last few years. in the last couple of years and over the last decade they have passed men in terms of masters masters degrees and ph.d.s acquired as well so the female population is doing extremely well in education and they also get higher grades. >> host: how are they scoring? >> guest: on average higher than men. >> host: what was the role of government at making in making that happen? >> guest: well, the programs instituted in the 1970s to create a quality within the higher education environment so what i was thinking about was this article which is sort of an ideas article rather than a

strict thought based because it includes hypotheses of mine. and because the government took this role and continues to regulate higher education -- it examines universities and creates an environment of regulated equality for women. women have walked into the system and they have flourished in this environment of equality and then they leave and go out into the big bad world which is fairly in regulated and if anybody has complaints it's up to them to handle and no one is sort of looking out for them. >> host: so what is happening to women after they leave college or graduate school school of? >> guest: well immediately we see part of it is related to the careers they choose but even with their background women start out making less than men. they are far less likely than

men to negotiate their first salary on these kinds of deficits have a cumulative effect over the course of their career. and then you know, we see that they fall behind more and more over the course of their careers and obviously the challenges of balancing children and work but even without children we see that women fall behind in the professional arena and my hypothesis is school does not necessarily prepare people for the work place per se and the kind of human interactions that are demanded by the workplace but rather for the kind of keep your head down, step-by-step work by the school. >> host: you even talk about how dating and how that leads to

a lack of female leaders. i want to read to our viewers what you wrote here. to be female in our culture is to be trained from puberty in the art of rebuffing. rebuffing gazes comments touches propositions and proposals. what are you saying here? >> well you know i have worked over the course of my life in regular media and we see there is always great debate. why aren't more women speaking up and so on and most of the time they say no. the idea that women may be more likely to say no to them doesn't seem particularly odd if you think about it more broadly and i think even how i think the gender dynamic of heterosexual courtship, training people as women are trained from an early age to focus on themselves and to rebuff whereas men are

trained to just go out there and just like you know almost as if they are see who gets the best job and shoot for the person he was never going to go out with you. >> host: so if someone says no, so be it? >> guest: it's just part of the game. and we we see it over and over again that women are much less likely to recover from professional reductions. if you say no to a woman she is much less likely to pitch again. that kind of persistence, so i wonder if the kind of emotions that women have learned to listen to, to listen to their own fears and away because they have to to stay safe in the world and in order to handle this sort of massive attention that women sometimes get has an impact in the professional arena. >> host: is there a role for government to play in the professional arena?

>> guest: government technically there are antidiscrimination laws. very few people try and file suit because it's really just on them and you know, generally speaking people feel like they don't want to step into the arena because it's so damaging. i think women who go to law school or business school wind up getting trained and the art of pure personal relationships and recognizing an argument is an argument of not taking things personally and recognizing how to negotiate and is a skill and how do we impart those skills to the liberal arts theater as well and the programs. >> host: we want to get our viewers involved in the conversation. if you have a question for a guest or a comment on her piece,

education is an area where they are succeeding but when they leave their few female leaders. democrats (202)585-3880 and independents (202)585-3882. we will take your tweets as well at twitter.com at c-span wj. inside your pc without the side bar story. listen up ladies and there are four books that you feature. of course lean and by sheryl sandberg has gotten a lot of attention lately. what roles are these books playing in the conversation? >> guest: cheryl's book has been huge. it's been everywhere. it's been a success of facebook proportion in terms of penetration of the competition. you know, it's been interesting watching the conversation about her book because people, there is been so much resistance to her message on the part of women and again this is i think part of this disconnect where people

are like you know why can i go into the workplace and be at accepted as i am? that is not what the workplace is for. it's not your family. the work places a place of work and recognizing you are there to learn and grow and do certain things that are outside yourself. and so you know, people obviously, the book is doing well and there are a lot of other women who are interested and thinking intentionally about their careers and thinking maybe have i been hanging back unnecessarily and asking people to lien and which is to identify those areas and things that they would do if they have the guts to do them. >> host: bone calls, rhonda and glenford ohio democratic caller. hi there. >> caller: good morning. i agree with the woman who is speaking currently.

i have had issues in the small town that i used to live in and it took me three years to get anywhere. every phone call, every question, every government agency from federal to state to local does not take women seriously. the league of women voters. i have contacted numerous people and it's like what's in it for you? they do not take women seriously enough. i was educated and there is no education for women. federal down to local women are not taken seriously at all. >> host: rondo what can be done about a? >> caller: i think there should be more advocacy for high schools, more education out there to empower younger women to say one person can make a difference whether it's male or female. you can make a difference.

there is no positive reinforcement for women and for young women to know that they can make a difference. >> host: okay. >> guest: i think one of the things that has been proposed is to decrease that isolation you are talking about. again we see this if you look at the historic movement and you'll get today at the time it was young women who are prevented from being part of an institution like some educational institutions of the idea was to open everything up. the institutions were formerly open at that point in time that women go on in their careers and become individually isolated in the workplace. and cheryl's idea is to create a lean and circle for women to come in and. >> intentionally about their careers and the struggles they are facing. >> host: don and republican -- oklahoma, republican.

>> caller: just to cut things. i apologize in advance but one of the things that is a little bit more positive at least what i'm seeing as is the bill advances that females are much more powerful in the marketplace and they are doing really well. not to say there are challenges and difficulties but i think overall specifically from my generation -- [inaudible] >> host: john what professions come to mind when you say that? >> caller: will, you mentioned how women are being trained to develop the skills so maybe that's just my personal experience given that i'm an attorney.

i don't know. >> guest: what we hear about women and lawyers is especially in the firms is about the hours required to make partner are clearly incompatible with having small children. some have handled this by developing longer partner tracks for women who want to work fewer hours. >> host: nancy in d.c., democratic caller. >> caller: good morning. i just wanted to say to sue the author, for her comments, they are very honest and i think they are right on point. i handle sexual harassment cases and pregnancy discrimination cases and as an attorney, there is this sort of idea that somehow women get put back because they are taking care of young kids. i have a young child but i will tell you the men in my firm have no problem taking time off and

it's never questioned. i know lots of women in their 30s who have kind have been terminated from their law firm jobs because they are women having kids. the men who have kids, who go to soccer matches for go with their kids don't have that problem. somehow it's oh you have young kids, the concept is still a huge gender bias and that is what is part of this. it's really educating not just women but men and men who hold those powers over women argue no unfair and not even-handed and how they treat subordinates. that is all i wanted to say. >> host: nancy have you been reading these books and

following the conversation, sheryl sandberg's book lean and? >> caller: i appreciate what sandberg is doing. she is in a vacuum but they think that it is on women but it's also on men and it's also on the whole power structure. it's about having maternity leave and having equal pay. it's not just about we volunteer for this position. let me tell you i know a lot of women, but the bar is run by women. the fact of the matter is that who is at the head of the big law firms? its men. >> host: all right. >> guest: yeah and one of the things that we see, obviously there's a tremendous opportunity for women in this country and i think that's the whole point of sandberg's book is to take advantage of those opportunities for women in the united states.

but if you look sort of on average for women the question of equal pay for example a lot of the issue is like i say if women don't ask and women just don't. part of the reason is women are perceived as more negatively if they are demanding for themselves. that does have cumulative effects over time and we also see that women are less willing to state that they have high ambitions for themselves for the future when they are young. this sort of broader kind of self deprecating approach that a lot of women have. you see this in the political arena too which is why we have groups like she should run to encourage women named even though republicans are saying this and getting more women in their party you have to asem because the women will not put themselves forward sometimes. they hang back a little bit because they feel like they want someone to say it's okay if for you to do this.

>> host: just recently this was put out, memo by democracy corps quinlan rosner research, democratic organization talking about the urgent policy agenda for unmarried women. and if they see these voters especially the unmarried women who form a quarter the electorate and were critical to obama selects in the 2012 election are on the edge financially placed -- face pressures every day and are focused on economic policies that affect working families in fiscal pressures. it goes on to say democrats need to reengage these voters, these unmarried women in order to get them to vote again for them in 2014. >> guest: yeah and you know voters again one of the issues that comes up over and over is women don't know enough or they don't feel that they are qualified to vote. which is i mean wow. >> host: we are talking with

garance franke-ruta who writes for the atlantic magazine national political reporter and senior editor. she wrote the recent piece in in the atlantic and there it is on your screen. why isn't better it education giving women more power? if you go on line you can find it there and read it. le monde lamont in new york, independent caller. go ahead. hi lamont. you are on the air. one last call for lamont. are you there? let's move onto franken somerset kentucky, republican caller. >> caller: i am a college professor. i appreciate your guests concern and insight. i would also like to make sure everybody remembers that most of our leaders are actually in the k-12 classroom in a public school and also a private school system and that entails including a lot of female leaders in the classroom as classroom teachers. i understand your point on being a mom and the struggles of juggling being a mother and a professional woman but maybe the

young people could consider being an on line higher education professor like at my college where they can stay at home and teach classes from their laptops at home and still take care that family needs. most of the men in my college are classroom traditional teachers and we have seen more and more women who preferred to stay at home with their families and children and teach classes on line. i will be quiet because i have to take off to a class. >> host: frank before you go can i ask you a quick question? i want to get your take on the state newspaper out of south carolina that has this headline. south carolina college board shorts on women. it says that amory is one of three women on the 16 member francis marion boorda trance -- trustees and she is in danger of losing her seat to a man. she has to run for re-election against the board's chairman and amory is one of 98 candidates being vetted. what do you think the impact is of women on these boards at

college is? >> caller: yes maam. full disclosure my wife and i are in the same dr. education program at kentucky university and i want women to sit on the board so i want women to have the same access to leadership roles that men have. i am the father of the young boy and my mother's date at home when i was growing up and i want my wife to have the same professional opportunities that i was given as a young man 25 years ago. i've been in higher education for a long time. i preferred the classroom setting because that is where the real leadership can be engaged with the future of the next generation of leaders coming on. i also want women to be in the classroom as well as the boardroom as well as in the ceo and senior vice president positions. >> host: the state newspaper notes that 51% of south carolina's population, 51% of south carolina's population of women and 59% population of

women in south carolina's public colleges and universities. what did you hear from that caller? >> guest: well i think the question of working at home is interesting about flexibility that we have also seen study showing that people who work at home, that they do enjoy that wonderful flexibility but they are less likely to be promoted and that may just be a result of out of sight out of mind and people are not seen as being a leader in the institution if they are isolated in their homes even though they are doing the work and it's a results-based workplace. so i think we are still learning about the impacts of what it does for an institution to have people working out of their houses. >> host: kiki on twitter says the u.s. hasn't evolved in creating pre k-8 childcare for working women. work is no longer a luxury for women, it's a necessity.

joseph st. john indiana, democratic caller. >> caller: yes, first of all i am first generation born in mexico when i was nine years old. it's one issue that we had throughout the united states and we bring our ethics and i think that's important to realize. the evolution of women and leadership is important in the divided states. what has happened here in the united states is that we haven't given women -- [inaudible] i am going to say this lightly, we are the leaders of this country but we haven't given them this opportunity because of our cultural mentality.

that is our dna and it's part also of the dna of the law. to start to implement a law that defends women in that sense, that is another step that needs to be taken. i thoroughly believe and i am constantly in favor of women but unfortunately they have to be conditioned at an earlier age to let them know that hey look don't yourself down for those idiots out there. and the male chauvinischauvinis t pigs are going to say who the heck is this guy? it's something we have in our culture that unfortunately young ladies or young adults -- [inaudible] >> guest: i appreciate the caller's remarks. i lived in mexico when i was

little and i read nice there are major cultural differences in the world and how people think about women in leadership. one of the things, one of the questions that comes up i think there was an idea at one point in time if we would have this feminist revolution we would open these institutions and everybody could go on and not argue about things anymore. we are learning that's not true and they think what we are seeing and what i personally believe is that a lot of these things are sort of, the way people relate to each other re-create some of these dynamics with every new generation and so it's not, it's not a question of fixing a problem once. it's a question of ongoing dynamics that need to be managed on an ongoing basis possibly forever. >> host: on that point here's an e-mail from the kisses mimi could suggestion? encourager daughters to join a

debate team in school. we have a lot of examples of successful women with debate backgrounds, hillary clinton, sonia stoudemire and others. it's a great way of learning how to advance ideas, reason have constructive conflict and learn success. on twitter we have to address men taking the same responsibilities with their children. >> guest: yes and i think it also shows that fathers are spending a lot more time with children than they did in the 19 60's and mothers are spending more time with their children. everyone is spending more time with their children but mothers are doing more housework and the real -- difference is the amount of housework that men and women do. >> host: john in johnsville ohio, independent caller. >> caller: my entire working career was with a major corporation and at the management level i had to mentor both men and women in various

offices around the country. and this is strictly an observation of my own through the years. i find that men working for men are being managed by men. it's not an issue and women being managed by men was generally speaking not an issue. but women being managed by a woman they are more what i call caddie or hurt the feelings of the woman manager. women are their own worst enemies with other women. and you see this and the women in the office will come in and say things like oh did you see her hairstyle today? or when she put out a memo no open toed shoes in the office because sometimes the office ladies would have to walk into the factory. that became a big uproar but if

a man had done that, i don't know, it was more accepted so women against women is a problem i believe in the workplace. >> host: any thoughts? >> guest: you are looking at the first person to suggest that. >> host: on twitter my experiences women spend more time on getting the job done and men spend more time trying to get promoted. guess who guess who gets promoted with that strategy? the one who wants to get promoted. >> host: you write on the sidebar in your piece about these books that have come out recently won one being lean and by sheryl sandberg. these women are talking about how to get a raise and the conclusion for each of these books is ask for one and women are not doing that? >> guest: women are less likely to ask for raises and less likely to negotiate. their salaries in the beginning when they have an opportunity

when they are in these job situations and consequently we have a work place structure where they do what they can. they will pay you what you who are worth but they also pay you what they can so what you say yes to us what they will pay you. women will say yes at a lower number or maybe just not push for a higher number. >> host: crystal spring pennsylvania ,-com,-com ma republican. >> caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. what you just said really makes a lot of sense. my daughter at age 39 became chief counsel for an energy company. she did it through her own intellect. when she was younger when she first got out of law school she was very astute and learned very quickly how to work in a man's world. she did not complain.

she did not whine. she worked and she proved herself and this is where most women make the mistake. they want the best of both worlds and no one can have that, neither men nor women. instead of complaining about it, get out there and do the job and prove yourself. there is no reason why you can't. >> guest: well one of the things, some of the people who i spoke with in the article were talking about was something called tiara syndrome which is where women will do a really good job. we live in a meritocracy and the school system may be a meritocracy that the world is more complicated and people make selections in the workforce for all kinds of reasons in addition to just sort of you know measurable effort and so

sometimes women expect that their work should be reported to cause they have done a really good job. sounds totally logical that the job should be rewarded as sometimes it takes more than just doing the work. it takes letting people know that you have been doing it or certain types of relationships with colleagues and our people in the industry and so on and the idea of this tiara syndrome thing or the idea that if you do good work someone will put a tiara on your head and you'll be rewarded with a gold star just does not happen. and this is not the classroom. >> host: intellectual -- what is that? >> guest: it's a term and one of the things i have seen is a lot of women who feel like they're not getting what they want to be in their career. something isn't quite working right and they feel that there's something wrong and maybe if they get another degree that will fix whatever it is. they will finally have the

authority that they feel they lack in the workplace and they will be recognized the way they feel like they are not being recognized. and i think this goes back to how women are trained to really just focus on themselves and if they can get themselves right somehow the world would notice them. again, it doesn't really work that way. >> host: the headline in "the wall street journal" yesterday college grads may be stuck in low-skilled jobs. if you get the college degree that you are not earning what you used to occur in with a bachelor's degree. so going back and getting more degrees in this economy, what role does that play? >> guest: it depends on what the degree is. this is a really clear pathway for a particular change in jobs and getting a masters in economics to work or a consulting firm or something like that. sometimes there are other degrees in particular and

the question becomes where is the new edition addition of 20,000 or $30,000. >> host: when you look at occupations and those that are predominately female here are the numbers from the bureau of labor statistics for 2011. speech language pathologist, women make up 95% of that field. they make up 82% of elementary and will schoolteachers and 82% of social workers. 76% of events planners and 71% of psychologists. from dce, an independent caller. >> caller: i'm so sorry my voice is coming and going back to the young lady, it's very interesting, she seems pretty young and i'm not saying anything about being young but it's the experience. back in the 70s we went through that and i am an

african-american that i started in public service. when you saw a problem like what she is talking about then, you could go to your supervisor or your manager and you would sit down and talk to them. most of them are white men and they were very willing to listen to you and as a result of that within you had affirmative action and upward mobility and you understand what the civil rights movement was for women, for african-americans in 1981, the way to pay for lawyers to get involved in cases. you started building up mobility so it was based on your personal experiences and oftentimes that experience took a lot of suffering. a lot of us just had it naturally. education which would be a part of that and that on the job training. i would say in 30 years that we have the civil rights movement and we have laws and we can say

how they originate and so forth. each state agrees to come into agreement under the united states of america. okay? and if we respect these rights. now in 2012 and from 1971 to 2012 when you have these women who have been successful and they are publishers. they are government, the highest echelons of government and so for them to turn around and say after we have created these civil rights based on all of our experiences, for them to say the first year of the woman and that was several moments in that year that failed. this is the result of it, what you guys are discussing now. i would love to be in a position

where i could sit down and just talk about it or even write a book about it. i think it's great but being able to talk about how we got here and how we created created these laws in the hope we don't have to regurgitate because a lot of money and a lot of -- went into this and that is what i would like to pass on to our daughters and sons. >> host: how old are you? may i ask? >> caller: i turned 60 and i started at 21. i walked in and saw the a problem and that men were very open to talk about it. they wanted to know and do you know what? they still want to know today. >> host: thank you. >> guest: yeah well obviously i don't think anyone is saying there is a failure and that is not what i'm saying. i'm just saying that there is a a -- we are seeing with women at the highest level and the professions and in leadership positions.

sheryl sandberg says when you see something, it's a worrisome thing because companies that are flat for 10 years tend not to grow again. i think there is just a recognition that it's worthwhile having this kind of conversation again openly and i want to address that more broadly. they should be a conversation between women and while there is an aspect of sort of isolation might be talked about early, by bringing women together a lot of conflict happens between women and men in the work and men mentoring women as well. >> host: maine, a republican. go ahead. >> caller: hi, how are you doing? you seem somewhat successful and what you're doing and i just wondered how did you get there?

>> guest: well i went to college. and you know, i don't know. there is not a clear pathway. >> host: you have been in washington. >> guest: i've been in washington d.c. now for 15 years >> host: covering politics? >> guest: covering politics and reporting for the "washington city paper" which i like to think of as in the magazine world. >> host: and -- [inaudible] >> guest: i've the sideline of putting issues related to women as an intellectual hobby. i came to deceive because i decided i didn't want to go to medical school. >> host: the washington times that of peace in the paper about the role of military women. this is how it breaks down. in the army there are about

74,000 women and they make up 13.5% of the total force. 19% of the total force of their forces women and that's about 63,000 about 17% of the navy are women and 7% of the marines are women. that's about 14,000 women and this comes from the defense department in the washington times yesterday about military women and also we told you earlier that president obama has nominated his secret service director, a new secret service director and she is a woman. it doesn't need to be confirmed by the senate. jacksonville florida -- julia pierson an appointee for the secret service. ah, democratic caller. go ahead. >> caller: thank you.

i'm going to try to cover a large amount of area in as few words as i can. women have always been nurtures and if you look at all the jobs, if oil is down to women who are in nurturing positions and let me speak a little bit about money. in america, men make 6000 times the lower paying wage and that includes bonuses. women do not speak up. and this is a problem. >> host: and that is at the heart of your speech. ..

there is a lot of pain that will result. >> host: the conversation will continue. yet that is written a lot of pieces about women in the workplace. that conversation. get to the website. you can follow our guest. garance franke-ruta. twitter. that is our handle. thank you very much for talking to our viewers. >> guest: thank you for having me on.

i appreciated. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the supreme court took up to same-sex marriage cases this week with oral arguments now complete, two members of the legal teams for the plaintiffs are about to weigh in on what happened and what is next. joining them, other legal experts to have altered and because briefs in the cases. this is a live picture from georgetown university law

center. there the host, and we expect live coverage to get underway shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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

[inaudible conversations] >> waiting for this event to get under way. we will hear about oral arguments for members of the legal teams. if you would like to hear the oral arguments on both of the same-sex marriage cases argued this week before the supreme court we have them for you right now on our website. again, we are waiting for the legal teams and a couple of legal experts at georgetown university law center to talk about those cases, hollingsworth v. perry and united states v. windsor. this event schedule to get underway shortly. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [silence]

[no audio] >> well, we wanted to bring you this event live. we are unable to. a government official in charge of health care innovation says he is the king of lower health spending as a result of changes in the way we pay for health services. he was one of the speakers at a forum hosted by an organization called catalyst for payment reform who have set a goal of having 20% of payments for health services being tied to value by the year 2020. by now the vast majority of payments are simply tied to individual services provided as opposed to patient outcomes. this is just over one hour.

>> welcome, everyone. they fuel so much for coming today to hear about our nationals or card on payment reforms. well, everyone is dialing in to join. i will briefly showed the agenda on screen. of you have folders in front of you or those of you who are online can see the agenda on your screen. this shows you the variety of perspectives we will hear about other results of the national sport carmen and the reform, and before we get formally started want to go over a few housekeeping issues. so those who are joining via webinar and are in listen-only mode, if you have questions you want to pose to the speakers at the end of the briefing, please put them into the chat box.

we will be monitoring that. we will also introduce each speaker in a moment. those of you who are in the room who have questions, take note of them throughout the briefing in at the end we will have time for question and answer. we will reserve all questions until the end because we have a packed agenda and want to make sure to hear from each speaker and a lot tougher questions at the end. those of you who are listening on-line can gain access. we're posting the url for you to find. you can also go to our homepage. you can find links to those materials as well. we are recording the webinar today, and so if you want to afford the link to colleagues and let them listen in to it later , the slides will be shown and the audio will be recorded as well so that people can hear this presentation again another time.

so let me just tell you a little bit about catalyst for payment reform and are : strategy and that will introduce each of the speakers and we will started. an independent nonprofit organization who works on behalf of large private employers and state medicaid employees and retirees agencies who all have a shared goal of changing the way we pay doctors and hospitals looking get better value for our health care spending. as you can see, on the screen or on our website, we have a wide variety of members, including, as i said to a private employers as well as state agencies who are buying on behalf of medicare beneficiaries and others. together we have a shared strategy. we want to see changes to how we pay for care so that we can get better value for our health care dollar and there are two ways that we work. on the one hand we have organized all of these purchasers test for the same changes at the same time so that we can move the dial.

the other is to try to highlight the importance of payment reform and the urgency of action and the score card is part of what is helping us to that today. we came up with the goal by the year 2020, wanting a least 20% of payments to be value oriented today's scorecard report will oppose track where we are in a press. before we get started, i want to introduce the speakers quickly and say something accused. i will say the first. i want to especially thank the california healthcare foundation and the commonwealth fund for supporting this project. i want to thank our partner in executing the project of the national business coalition on health, and it helping us gather and analyze the data from health plans we will be sharing. particularly want to thank the health plans who were brave enough to share data with the celebrity gain insight into how we spending commercial dollars in this country and the methods we're using to pay for care. want to thank the speaker soon

will introduce and especially want to think that cpr staff especially one who you will be hearing from. and thank you for your interest. so in addition to myself and andrea, you will also be hearing from some of the leading experts in the country on health care, and health care payment reform in particular. dr. blumenthal. after we present -- prevent the results you will hear the employer perspective for dr. golden and janice boyd, a director of dow chemical company. you will hear about the health plan perspective from both elizabeth caron and joe hall, vice president of payment innovation. then the dr. joe phillips to share that public-sector perspective. then mark smith, dr. mark smith of the california healthcare foundation also share his

perspective on a providers are responding to the challenge, and then will go to q&a. thank you for your attention and interest it. without further ado, we will handed over to dr. bloomenthal to share his view on payment reform. >> are you going to be changing the slides? avenue. can you all hear me? great. so, i am very pleased to be here . all said? great. i am pleased on behalf of the commonwealth to be here. my congratulations to the catalyst for payment reform and folks who led the creation of this organization and project. it is very important work in part of my brief remarks will be to say what may be is not

apparent to many of you, why it's so important. this is a unique time in history of our health care system. you might say the the future has arrived. for decades we have been warning , the collective group of people, the pattern of care delivery is unsustainable. that lack of sustainability has now become apparent in the debate about the federal deficit and the role of health care been causing that deficit which will not be tolerated for much longer we are at a fork in the road. we have facing tough choices, those tough choices will cascade upon us over the next three to four to five years as deficits continue to mount and spending is done -- is perceived as beyond the means of our

taxpayers support. the rule of choice we face is between rationing and re-engineering. taking bids away progressively from employees, for medicare and medicaid beneficiaries, from all the consumers of health care country. that is not ultimately a solution because it leaves a different kind of an sustainability which is inadequate health care benefits for most americans. the other option is to every engineer health care. payment reform is fundamental to that, but premier reform makes possible doing the right thing. it does not assure that it is done, but it clears the deck to make clears the way, if you will that enables creativity to thrive in the pursuit of more effective functioning of health care systems. city affordable care act has made major progress in that

regard. the tool kit of reform is full. the master of many of these tools. they sit on his desk for the most part. they are numerous, maybe even too numerous, and it is up to us sort through them to figure out which one of the works and which one of the doesn't. one thing is absolutely clear, payment reform will be one of the critical elements in this tool box. the commonwealth fund commissioner of the high-performance commission to crack and issued a report about building a better functioning u.s. health system. the eddy was the we could do both, have a more affordable and better system at the same time.

three major strategies figured in the recommendations, first was payment reform and the largest amount of savings over a trillion dollars over ten years were associated with payment reform, a trillion dollars to build public and private sectors as a result. that is one of the commodity, trans that catalyst is trying to document and to stimulate. so, the question is how to get there, how to move forward? is pretty clear that we can do so of that work through the public sector, but the public sector is only half the bill. the other half of the bill is paid for by the private sector, and that is where catalyst is playing its role. i like 40 hearing the presentation and to continue to track the progress on the way toward clearing the underbrush and making it easy to do the

right thing. >> thanks, dr. blumenthal. so, to share with you -- sorry. thank you. to share with you the results of the national score on payment reform i will provide some context. i apologize in advance for taking you on that tore at breakneck speed so that we have a chance to get through the results and also hear from the other speakers in the time now we have today. so, the project at the california healthcare foundation and commonwealth fund in support was entitled tracking the nation's progress. it has two components. we will vote -- mostly focus on one to but i wanted to share that there is a national scorecard as well as a national compendium.

the national scorecard is an aggregate view of how the dollars being paid to doctors and house models are flowing to defer payment methods. it is based upon data that is self reported, in voluntarily provided by health plans, not designed to be an academically rigorous study, but it is a descriptive summary of where we are today based upon the data that the health plans provided. the national compendium on payment reform which was just launched today will be a searchable, sort of all data base of different in a reform initiatives across the country in a district -- descriptive manner. and you will see that it has started to be populated by the health plan provided data it to us in the scorecard. all this work was guided by a multi stakeholder national advisory committee, and we think the committee members for providing us with a lot of guidance throughout the project. obviously we have to be clear on what that means. for the purposes of this project we define it as payments that

promote or leverage greater value for patients, pay yours, providers, and purchasers. what is not a mere reform is any payment model that is independent of quality or value. you will hear the term several times today, value oriented payment by which we mean. that reflects the performance, especially the quality and safety of care the providers deliver, payment methods that are designed to spur efficiency and reduce unnecessary spending and if the payment method only addresses efficiency we do not consider it to be value oriented as to include quality component. so as i mentioned to the national advisory committee help us define the scope and the metrics we use in the scorecard. we partnered with the national coalition on health and its evaluate project and team to collect data on a voluntary self reported basis from health plans. that just ended a little over a month ago, so this is off the press.

and in total 57 plants participated this year in providing data to evaluate the data collection platform that the national coalition on health hosts. the total plans represent 67 percent of the market. as you will see in the methodology in your folder or online, not every plant answered every question, and so we provide the total number to answer each question. let me be clear on what the score card is and is not. a voluntary survey of health plans, descriptive discovery of the state of health care payments and the u.s. today and as you will see from the results to my call to action for all stakeholders kill other employers are plans and providers to make progress when it comes to changing how we pay for care. the scorecard is not to be academically rigorous. all of you have it in folders.

if not, you can buy debt of our website. >> thank you. i am excited to be here to share results from you. the front cover of the scorecard will help you answer three questions. how much of commercial payments are value oriented. what is the breakdown of the value oriented payment and how much put providers of financial risk so that their performance and what proportion of payments is value oriented? if elected to target in the upper left or at the bottom right the results show that about 11% of health care dollars we spend to their value oriented , which means they are tied to performance and quality and designed to cut waste. this means about 90 percent of the payments were made and other traditional fee-for-service or other payment methods that do not reflect or support quality. each drop on the right hand side of the page represents a payment reform program that exists in

the private market today. that makes up just under 11%. these represent a wide range of payment reform programs that are currently being used and are shared risk of a share payment -- excuse me, at shares savings, bundled payment, fee-for-service , pay for performance and other methods. you'll also see that each is color-coded. a light blue programs offer a carrot approach which means there is a financials incentive and a physician can learn more if they meet certain quality and cost savings. an example of this is fee-for-service for paper -- pay for performance. pay for perform programs that offer also the stick approach, a financial downside. performance targets. these are the mitt reform

programs considered the risk. an example of this type of payment reform program is bundled payment. as you look toward the center of the page you will see to transparent bubbles. one is like and what is dark blue. these numbers tell us how much the value oriented payment is at financial risk or not. within the 11% of payments that the value oriented we found 57 percent but providers at financial risk for performance if they did not meet certain quality thresholds or cost goals . the other 43% offer a carrot approach where there is just a financial incentive for added payment per riders. finally, in the lower left-hand you will see three bars. what we wanted to do was understand the experience of the local level of value oriented payment. so what we found is that of the total payments made to house polls today 11 percent is value

oriented and coincidentally, of the total payments made to both specialists and prairie care physicians on an outpatient basis, six percentage value oriented. it so now i will move to the inside of the scorecard. here we have identified five metrics that provide benchmarks that we can track overtime as payment methods change. the first in the upper left is the attributed members, and we wanted to find a way to determine how far reaching is the impact of payment reform to help plan members. the best way to determine this was to find out what proportion of the health plan enrollment is attributed to positions that have a payment perform contract or are involved in programs like accountable care organization. as you can see, today to percent of commercial enrollment is attributed to providers of such contracts.

the next item in the middle of the left and saturn page, one figure that we will watch over time it is that health care delivery and payment reforms aimed to emphasize more primary-care, the portion of payments to specialists versus primary-care physicians. we found that of the total of patient payments, the scorecard found 75 percent of those of pension payments were geared to specialists. value oriented payment includes two components, payments that are designed to cut waste and improve quality. non fee-for-service payments are a step in the right direction because they move away from traditional fee-for-service and addressed the waste and, said of the value equation, but if those methods do not also include quality than it is missing half the equation. here we found that of the non

fee-for-service payment methods to 35 percent of them including quality component. cpr believe that transparency is a critical building block to payments reform. what what -- walk through each metric but i want to highlight the first and the last. 98 percent of health plans offer a cost calculator which allows of plan members to determine their out-of-pocket cost. however, as you will see, the last nine churches that knowledge to% of total enrollment actually use those tools, so clearly we have a gap between the presence of the tools and the use of them. our last metric is on hostelry admissions. we selected it as an indicator about quality and efficiency that can be tracked over time as a potential correlation to changes.

9 percent of hospital admissions are real admissions, within 30 days of a discharge. the commercial market. at a gas failed to go through all of these sides on an individual basis. now we're at the last sight here which is the compendium. the national compendium has gone live and is currently populated by voluntary submissions from health plans and is the first in the beginning of creating an on-line catalog and payment reform initiative around the country. with that i will turn it back to suzanne.

>> there we go. >> while we pause i will provide some concluding remarks. we have made a fair amount of progress. some are retiring one and 3% of payments. we commend all the stakeholders yet made that progress. together you can see if this is a call for action and not just to the health plan that providing the data but employers , providers, and all stakeholders. these results give us important insights into the state the payment we did not have before. at least we have a sense of where we are, and there is no

doubt my mind that these preliminary findings will keep the conversation moving. looking forward to each year increasing the proportion of health plans participating and even putting a regional scorecards that will affect a fair amount of regional variation. so without further ado i am looking forward to the hearing and will turn it over to dr. calvin to start with the employee perspective. >> thank you. im bob galvin from someplace you've never heard of, equity health care. we represent a billion or billion and and a half expenditure in the country. today the vdt things, put this

in context. obviously these results are disappointing. that the focus. that is what i would call the triumph of transparency. it is just simply get to know, and if you look at the slides, about 15 years ago several large employers and private purchases got together and said what do we know in private sector? what can we do with our greater flexibility and speed tell perform the system. we came up with this plight -- guide path that had three principles. we had a measure. secondly, you had a pair right. everything had to be transparent . everyone had to cboe was going on in every part of the sector.

and that's why i think it's an important day in terms of payment. in context of what it means, i think it means two things. first of all, it means that -- i think the first thing it needs -- >> adobe to cut this. >> extraordinary people can do extraordinary things. i just want to call up to two people. this started in my office about five years ago. we sat and looked at a number of pieces we got back and saw they displayed everyone talking that there were displaying quality. about one or 2% looked like it was paid for quality despite the report having to about eight years earlier. we said there was way too much talk and way too little action. so i just said, please, do something to catalog this. it started out with a blank

sheet of paper and came to what it was today. took this at an early time. an extraordinary bandit women. it is not only a start very people but an extraordinary band of women who did this. it shows you how important innovation is in health care. this did not exist and so i think it is important. i think the other thing it means is that i can go to my slight, when we first did the logo this was on the left. you could basically see that we created a map of the u.s. and that put these on the with medical of humor saying that we need to shock the system. i think what today shows as we are out of the intense curious. we have polls. we took the deep temperate -- defibrillator off. one-and-a-half 42% of a 10% or whatever number you can choose his progress. that the that is positive, although we have a long way to

go. let me talk a little bit about what is next. acting that cpr is obviously going to keep going. the company is important to. we have to remember that this is what that glidepath status to, a simple equation that we are about his value based purchasing and it a value based system and it was simply defined as quality over cost. and so will we need to do is make sure of we don't just focus on volume. 10 percent becomes 15 percent becomes 20 percent and we're actually getting what we want and the quality that we get is actually fell by patients and consumers and that the cost is actually going down and more affordable. i would end by saying that cpr in addition to being catalogued, i hope it will become the watchdog because i think what many of us in health care like about it and what attracted to us is there a trick -- is there is a true north and our field,

patience. if all this payment reform does not end up in more affordability and better quality care, i think we need to keep resetting the compass. i think the cpr is off to a great start and congratulations and thank you for showing up. just moving north is not enough. we have to focus on true north. >> now we will hear from janet wade. >> it will take just one second here. >> thank you so much, suzanne. what i wanted to do. my name is janet boyd with the dow chemical company. what i wanted to do is give a reality check to this whole process and let you know that you can do it, too. it is not just and fair the purview of special companies.

and for dow, and i will start with my first slide, we started on our venture to try to deal with health care for our employees and we also have a retiree program. mostly with the thought in mind that not only do we need to manage costs, but we do have to have a result, and that result has to be a healthy employees and healthy retirees and their dependents, and if we get it to the point, then we really have not succeeded. right now, you know, we are facing roughly $750 million worth of cost trying to manage health care for our entire population. with that in mind, we have set up nearly one decade ago what we called the dow held strategy and four pillars you see on this latter representative of what we focused on. first was prevention. second was quality and

effectiveness. third being held for, system management, and the final being the advocacy. and that has to be quite important.. but what we realized, we started putting together our strategy was that this was not something we could do alone. we did start seeking help partners. and cpr has been a very important partner, as i will be showing to you on this next slide. we have established four basic new programs, mostly in the context of our work with cpr. the first is exciting for us because we were realizing back particularly around 2010 when we started working with cpr that our incidence being managed through see section was way over the ideal. it was in some of our areas,

almost 50%. as many of you know, when you're talking about see sections verses normal vaginal delivery, the cost is very much a high, of in terms of doctors as well as hospitals. so we started working in 2011 as we started partner in with cpr on trying to get a handle on this. and we do track those, you know, the actual data. to the point that has already been mentioned so far, tracking the date is critical because until you really feel comfortable with the metrics that you really don't know whether you are succeeding or not. and so we found out, overall -- the overall c-section deliveries which were starting at the beginning of top 11 at around 44 percent, at doing some

management that we did of the course of 2011 were down roughly to 39%. a 5% difference. it is not overwhelming, but it does show that things are moving in the right direction. interestingly, at the beginning of 2012 we started partner in with aetna to come up with a payment system in which we don't make a distinction that the position level between cs section delivery and vaginal delivery. the physicians are paid the same our data on that part of the program is still out. sort of fuzzy right now, to be frank. we are a little bit worried, and it does mean, again, you have to have the data and you have to look the data carefully. and at the end -- the year has already ended, but we're just now putting together that

information and will probably have to make some adjustments because i do not think we feel like we are getting enough out of that program as we probably need to. the second program that we're working on is directly with the cpr tool kits that you can get access to. it has helped describe standard language that we use for data ownership, transparency, and value pricing in both our rflp as well as our contracts. this has also led to up more discussions with our vendors, including aetna, to make sure that we are tracking the process correctly as well as making sure that our value payments and transparency initiatives are working well. finally, we have instituted a patients entered medical home program in midland which is our headquarters. what is exciting about that is, again, we have developed a good metrics. if the metrics are achieved in then we share the savings 50-50

with the co-finders. thank you very much. >> thanks you very much. now we will hear about the health plan perspective which i guess is a good segue to elizabeth, -- elizabeth curren. >> thank you. i have to say, is a privilege to work with such progressive health purchasers. on behalf of aetna, but also as a health purchaser with over 30,000 employees worldwide we commended cpr and the associated health purchasers for their work in demanding transformation of the industry from pay for volume to pay for it value. putting pressure on the industry attract and increase the percentage running through value based contract models is suppressive and a tremendous achievement as we have heard today, but the measure of success of these efforts can that be in the calculation of

spend alone, but rather we must come over time, be able to quantifiable demonstrate total medical cost management, improve quality of care, an increase patient engagement. that is a lot of what we're focused on. aetna believes collaboration is the fastest way to promote. that means we have a dependency on ensuring readiness. looking at it from several perspectives, philosophically, chemical reengineering perspective which we heard from dr. blumenthal, technology adoption which hat stands to change our health care is delivered in the value based contacting recognizing and rewarding providers to make these critical investments.

in an of itself a contract model will not singularly change the industry. aetna seeks to increase accountability within the industry by helping providers leverage technology and evidence based clinical guidelines to improve care delivery and manage complex population health data across a care delivery team. many providers have tenaciously stepped forward to chart -- chart eight challenging course of changing health care is delivered that many others have yet to take a first-ever. and so we have an opportunity to collectively collaborate, ensure that the radical transformation not only continue but that it proliferates throughout the industry and in a sustainable way. the health purchasers represented by cpr compete every day of the cost and quality of the products and services that they're going to market. it is not too much to expect the same our medical system.

through increased cost and quality transparency we introduce competition to the medical marketplace and through alignment of a financial incentive for both consumers through benefit design and network configuration and providers through value based on attracting we can drive meaningful change. thank you so much. >> thank you. now we will hear from joe hummel. >> it just takes a minute for them. >> i will introduce myself. vice-president of payments innovation, and i am so delighted to be here today. i want to star with a review of some statistics. and they have seen this before, but it is important for setting the foundation for what payment reform is so important. i think you are where we have about 800 estimated billion in waste annually, and two-thirds of that is tied to unwarranted,

unnecessary, and inefficient care. on top of that we spend twice as much as any other industrialized nation yet and yet we performed last next-to-last on quality television see, and access. this does not just happen -- have an impact on our economy. we still have tremendous variation in compliance with evidence based guidelines when they are even firmly established so for this reason we think payment reform is important. we agree with dr. blumenthal that it is not a silver bullet and am not here to tell you that if we implement payment reform the world will be rainbows and ponies of lollipops, but we think it is an important piece of the toolkit. why is this such an important piece? the reason is because it is not

just what we pay for. it is what we don't pay for that drives our current quality status and cost. we pay when people come and for a sore throat and treat that sort throat and send them home, but we don't pay for that kind of pro-active population health whole-patient care that really makes the difference, where a position supported by a team is becoming a champion for that patient, helping that patient navigate through the system and importantly, we don't pay for the critical political intervention that does not have a c pt code, that does not happen when the patient is in the office, but have a significant impact on cost and quality. so as one of the largest insurers, we feel we have an obligation to step up, and we feel that we are not there yet as the results indicate, as i

will let knowledge, will we have had a longstanding commitment to to value-based payment. we currently have 70 percent of our conditions occurring in a hospital that as their payment increases tied to their performance against quality benchmarks which actually include the maternity metrics that we're discussing. 50 percent of our physicians, primary care physicians participate in pay for performance and also just launched a really comprehensive primary care program that coupled clinical intervention. so we are committed to partner in with our providers. policymakers. we support the transparency that catalyst for payments perform is promoting. we support the transparency for a couple of important reasons.

we think is good for holding this accountable another key stakeholders. that is a good thing. transparency is important for other reasons as well. transparency is critically important because it starts a dialogue. your having a dialogue today. let me let you in on a little secret. change is hard. and unless we can be transparent about where we are and discuss some of the challenges, we are not going to change the system. is going to require a village. there are things that every one who is a stakeholder is to do. we're going to get to the point where we've beat and we would say exceed that cole the cpr has put out there, just to give a couple of examples of some of the things that have to happen that we need to recognize, new partnerships with providers. recognize the skills and values. providers need to adopt

processes and technologies that support population health. employers need to embrace payment models that are not tied to specific services or enrollees and adopt benefit plans that create an alignment between our members and these newly transformed providers. the work force readiness that will be necessary to support the change. it takes a village. we applaud there efforts. thank you. >> thank you. and no we will get a chance to year but the public sector perspective who has all of you know is an epic of of this. >> thank you. it is a pleasure to be here and be representing a few folks that

are committed to working with other payers and employers and providers to help get us out of the health care system. so it is very happy to be here in name very impressed with your product and congratulate you on an important piece of work. i often wondered, there was a time where employers did not pay that much attention. sometimes we make investments. people don't pay attention. it is good to hear the you're paying attention on the commercial side. it is critical, and this is a great product in the want to get the name of your graphic artist. conceptually it is a beautiful and really nice piece of work. we have a lot going on. and some of it is we have

programs. on the program side we had some value oriented programs before, but the affordable care act brought us a whole bunch of new value based opportunities that are really available for almost every segment of the delivery system. i think the good news is from my perspective it is starting to happen. it is not happening because of anything that we're doing right now. it is happening because they went to medical school to deliver a fragmented expensive care. medical school, a nursing school, patients in their community in the fact is that the way they do that, responding to as things you're doing, the public sector. they do things in a synchronized and coordinated way which is

what i think is happening. these other programs that we have operating now that we think support providers, actually do what they want to do which is to provide that great care. a lot going on and we're working hard and save results. innovation side, again, a team of people working to provide alternative models to different segments of the delivery system. different models of care working in the q delivery level. it is about learning how to deliver this carry new ways. so we're working on the care delivery side and the payment side at the same time. all the models together, participating providers to establish collaborative spreads and best practices. so there's a lot of opportunities for providers to do a million different things. working hard to make them successful, try and identify

early results and share those results. many of these programs are intended and that takes you for participating with us on instances such as working together with different markets recognizing that the best formula to success in transforming care is for players to provide a simple, straightforward proposition to providers to support them which is exactly what we're learning how to do in the industry. primary care initiative, a working very closely with private payers, large employers. racl models, trying to coordinate there as well. all of these models were actively engaged in working across all paris to make that samples of the providers know what they need to do.

all of our models basically, all of those three out comes to making sure that we are looking at the experience of care, looking at the health outcomes and looking at cost. there is no dichotomy. reelected for all three. a great example. something that is working directly. providers are responding. we're thrilled and excited of the lotus seven up there. we think changes happening. it's on the way. on the way up there, not here. we have a debt change some here, but in terms that we are getting better to support providers out there in doing this new work. as we look at participation in this new model we have more than

50,000 providing care and beneficiaries as a result of these new models. of course every hospital is deeply engaged in value based purchasing because they're paying attention to things like readmission rates and paying attention to their outcomes from the care standpoint. they're actually paying attention to the cost of care. so everybody is deeply engaged in we should not replace the fact that we are on the road already to improved health care and better outcomes and we believe in a low-cost system. we have more than 250 organizations between their share savings program. more than 4 million medicare beneficiaries. the medical home programs. lots of stuff going on command we are starting to see results, not just because of any one

thing that we are doing, but because the health care system is responding. providers, doctors, hospitals are responding in doing things that they did notying attention before. as a result trends are down and we are seeing examples. medicaid spending skill of beneficiaries. thirty day in 2012. we are tracking this of a monthly basis. learning to see results much more rapidly and will we can see is that we work on admissions is paying off. 70,000 admissions in 2012. beneficiaries. hospitals, and an interesting example going back to the question, when you start looking

, there's a way of dealing with it and everyone as no their is a way of dealing with that. and as we engage sell to the partnership we have seen dramatic decreases light from 30 to 35%. so great stuff going on in the delivery system. we are just pleased to have the opportunity to look with dual and find the best ways to support the raiders and reward providers and drive them to improve care and sustained the outcomes of we are after. i looked anxiously for it and how these numbers change overtime. >> thank you. we will hear from dr. smith and i will share with you that we are partnering together to put together a california scorecard up in the reform. the first of all we hope will be

several scorecard so we're all to do to get down. not the market level at least the state level. >> thank you. and the happiest to be here. the most grateful for the work the you have done. i am by no means representative of providers which, of course, is a heterogeneous group. right with reinforce something. first payment perform is important. second, it is not a silver bullet. the reason it is not a silver bullet is it is a symbol of what is important to pay the bills but there has to be somebody else to receive unemployment that. that is why the response of providers to the kind of initiatives yard about is important. at the good is important to note that providers are responding to the anomaly in the ways you have heard, but i was purposed to

chair a committee entitled best care at lower cost, and we identified payment perform as a very important environmental prerequisite for building the kind of system that we need. there are two other things we sell more important. one was culture in the other was organizational capacity. let me talk about the recent developments in both of those. on the cultural and we have turned the corner of providers recognizing the feasibility, desirability, and the fact that it is inevitable. certainly in the course of my career ten years ago people would get on their high horse and say how dare you. i've been the medical school, it independent professional. what do you know about surgery. those days are over. we have been building with the orthopedic surgeons. we have seen organizations