americans not familiar with classified lingo will hear that statement i think that there was no false collection of the personal information of hundreds of millions of law-abiding americans taking place at that time. after the director of the nsa talked about this, we wrote to the director asking for clarification. in the letter we asked if the nsa was collecting any kind of data at all on millions and hundreds of millions of americans. even though the director of the nsa was the one who had actually raised this issue in public. intelligence officials declining to give us a straight answer. a few months ago, i made the

judgment that i would not be responsibly carrying out my oversight powers if i did not press intelligence issues to clarify what the nsa director said repeatedly about the data collection. so i decided that it was necessary to put the question to the director of national intelligence and i have my staff send the actual questions a day in advance so that the director would be prepared to answer. the director said the answer is no, the nsa does not knowingly collect it on millions of americans. after the hearing, had my staff called the director's office on this matter and urge them to correct the record. accordingly, the office decided to let this inaccurate statement stand. my office made it clear in my

staff said clearly that this was wrong and unacceptable to leave the american people misled and we continue to warn the public about the problem of surveillance law over the following weeks with the june disclosures. now, given after those disclosures, there has been an effort by officials to exaggerate the effectiveness of the old phone records collection program in one way they do that is to inflate it with a collection of internet communications under section 702 of the fisa stature. it has produced some information of real value and i will note that at least on one occasion this collection violated the fourth amendment in a way that

affected undisclosed numbers of americans. the court also said that the government had violated the spirit of the law as well. so i certainly think that section 702 needs stronger protections for the privacy of law-abiding americans. and i think that those protections could be added without losing the value of the statute in the collection. meanwhile come i haven't seen any indication of the bulk phone records program that yielded any unique intelligence that was available to the government for less intrusive means. when government officials refer to these programs selectively and we have seen that on a number of occasions and say that these provide unique intelligence without pointing out that one program is doing all the work and the other is along for the ride, in my

judgment that is also a misleading statement. there have been a number of misleading and inaccurate statements made about section 702 and the program and its collection as well. last month, senator udall and i wrote that the nsa's official fact sheet contains misleading information that may protections for the privacy of the people much stronger than they actually are. the next day the fact sheet was taken down from the front page of the nsa website with the misleading fact sheet that was still up there and would still be of that we hadn't pushed to take it down to correct the misleading statements of the national security agency, that may well be the case. so how do you walk it through this secret law interpreted by a

secret court that has secret surveillance. the obvious question is what is next. a few weeks ago more than a quarter of the united states senate or the director of national intelligence and have a public answer additional questions about the youth of government surveillance authorities it has been two months since the signers of this letter, including key members of the senate leadership and committee chairs in the senate with decades of experience, we have made it clear that a quarter of the senate is not going to accept any more stonewalling or misleading statements. the patriot act reform legislation has also been a centerpiece of this effort that would require the government show demonstrated links to terrorism or espionage before collecting americans personal information and senators have also proposed legislation that

would ensure that legal analysis interpreting surveillance law is declassified in a responsible manner. i'm collaborating with my colleagues to develop other reforms that will bring openness and accountability with adversarial process in this operation of the most secret court in america. most importantly my colleagues and i are making it clear that we are going to keep the public debate alive. we have exposed this and we are holding officials accountable and we are showing that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive. and the side of transparency and openness is starting to put some points on the board and make some progress. many of you are now aware that

the nsa has a bulk e-mail records program that was similar to the bulk phone records program. this program operated under section 214 of the patriot act, known as the register provision until fairly recently. senator udall and i are very concerned that this program had a significant impact in privacy rights and the liberties of our people and we spent much of 2011 pressing the intelligence community to show actual evidence of its effectiveness. it turned out they were unable to do so and the statements that have been made have significantly exaggerated the bulk e-mail records program. the program was shut down and i was a big win for all who care about civil liberties and

privacy and senator udall and i wished we could have talked about it at the time and at least you know that there was an effort that contributed to a significant step forward. more recently when the annual intelligence authorization bill is going through the committee last year, it included a number of provisions that were meant to stop leaks that would have been disastrous for the public right to know. among other things that would've restricted the ability of former government officials, even about unclassified foreign policy and it would prohibited intelligence agencies for making anyone outside of a few high-level officials available for background reasons again, even on a classified basis. these provisions intended to stop leaks and i'm certainly against leaks as well. but it is clear to me that they would have encroach on the first amendment significantly and lead to a less well-informed public

debate on foreign policy and national security matters. this went through the committee process and the bill was agreed to by a vote of 14 to one. in the bill then made its way through the senate floor. at the time, myself and everyone else did not even know how bad or how flawed the bill was because in the course of the committee consideration, we could not talk to anybody on the outside. we knew it was fraud to take when people's pension rights without due process. but once the bill came out, it was eviscerated by all concerned, regardless of political parties come to the point where people who had been supported when even contribute

to op-ed articles and other communications about their views. i have put a hold on the bill to get discussion going within a matter of weeks all of this with the broad kind of language that the public would like to know. a few months later my colleagues and i were able to get the opinions, laying out what the government believes the rules are for the targeted killings of americans. this, of course, is not even being shared with members of congress on a classified basis, let alone being used to have a debate with the american people. i have said it before and i will repeat it here, i believe every american has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them. for a number of us on the

committee, we fought publicly and privately to get these documents and use whatever procedural opportunities were available, and eventually we got those documents and decided that this was the oversight that needs to be productive by intelligence committees. since then we have been looking at the documents over and working out the pertinent portion of those documents to be made public. i don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to protecting genuinely sensitive national security and information. and i have already told you that i think government agency needs to conduct secret operations. but they should not rely on secret law were secret courts. that is why i think that now we are at a truly unique time in

our country's constitutional history. the growth of digital technology and dramatic changes in the nature of warfare and the definition of a battlefield runs counter to everything the founding fathers imagine and those forces together make for a combustible mix. at this point i usually conclude in mentioning ben franklin and often joked about a ben franklin caucus in the senate. it is good enough for government work. anyone who gives up security -- liberties for security really doesn't deserve that either. that is certainly true. but today, i thought that a different founding father would be appropriate for wrapping up. james madison, the father of our

constitution said that the accumulation of executive and judicial power is the very definition of tierney. madison went on to assure the nation that the constitution protected us from our faith. so my question today is by allowing the executive to secretly follow a secret interpretation of the law under the supervision of a secret and non-adversarial court and occasional secret congressional hearings, how close are we coming to james madison's very definition of tyranny? i believe that we are allowing our country to drift a lot closer than we should. and if we don't take this opportunity to change the course

now, we and all americans will live to regret it. thank you very much. [applause] >> the senator's schedule is about giving back to the hill, but that is a fine statement for many very important ideas that embody a lot of work. so we will do two or three questions. because we know that he has to get back. i would also like to note for those watching on c-span as well as our video streaming that we will be on the website and in addition i just want to acknowledge that the senator is presenting a paper about

intelligence gathering written by our colleague, peter deuel, that is available on the web website today as well. knowing how time is tight, we will take two or three questions and i want to thank you for coming and thank you for an excellent statement. right there in the second row. >> thank you very much. senator, i was hoping that you could talk about some of the surveillance program through the funding mechanisms. >> i have not seen what the congressman is actually proposing. but the fact that this has made it to the floor of the house of representatives is unquestionably good. it is another step, as i have outlined in the march to a real

debate. we would not have had that seven or eight week go of it. we would have been, as i tried to outline, just chipping away and as i read of late last night, this debate will be on the floor of the house of representatives and later today we are going to see members of congress start debating the real issues. i assume, very early on a discussion about what i call the soft toys come where you can have your security or your liberties i don't think that is the case. i think that as elected officials we can have both and it is unquestionably very good for the cause that we are

outlining today. thank you. >> homages go to the center. >> please identify yourself. >> hello, i'm a student here. >> we are so glad you're here. >> thank you. i'm so glad to be here with you. i have one question. the department of homeland security does data mining from some publications and they stated that they have not yet adopted the notion of balancing privacy against other values, because that is a paradigm that results in a zero sum outcome and privacy is also diminished at the expense of security. so i'm just wondering what can we do about this as well as the nsa? >> are you quoting from this homeland security document? >> thing that it diminishes the importance of privacy? >> yes, there was a footnote in

the practice of principles. >> thank heavens there are students out there that read footnotes. [applause] >> john from my office will get that in about three or four minutes and you will see the following and i am stunned that there would be a government document as a matter of agencies to unravel what the founding fathers wanted to do. >> so i want to make sure. he is coming. one moment. >> thank you very much. thank you for those remarks. how concerned should we be that this information that is collected could be used to

influence members, certainly people in the business community. it is very important that we know what fund-raising activities are. are you hoping that this can be planned in a way and we support those who support the intelligence agency and fight those who oppose it? >> are plenty of ways in which you can envision how this would be viewed. and i want to tap the argument that is made on the other side. we are not listening to this today. we are talking about what amounts to is a human

relationship database. if you know from example that someone called twice after midnight, that tells you a lot about the individuals and i can have enormous ramifications. certainly ramifications in terms of employment and i can envision all of these things. this idea of metadata is not a big deal if not consistent with how you can extrapolate about people who they call in with a call from. >> snuck a gentleman in the front and a gentleman in the

back. >> earlier you said that edward snowden revealed some of the programs. are there still actual surveillance programs which have not been disclosed but you feel the public would or should be part of? >> that is classified. >> when you unpack the language of patriot acts, the authority of the government is essentially limitless and i cannot talk about how it is actually used because that is classified. i can tell you that the authority is essentially limitless. >> right there for the last

question. >> i think this is a very important amount of information. this is very much on the mark. >> only one point? [applause] >> important of the internet to our world is phenomenal and the internet is part of the freedom for people to communicate the u.s. government's ability to advocate and that it has been undermined. i would like to think that the administration didn't consider that risk would be part of the decision that will now be one in

the last comment that you have made some great references to our founding fathers and i would like to suggest that the secret surveillance state is coming. >> thank you for the case. i will make this a be paid topic. because they have wonderful work as well. what i wanted to do this morning was to say of our generation, this unique time in american history doesn't take these surveillance authorities, it has earned an awful lot about this and we are finding a way to show that we can secure both our liberties and our public safety's and i think that we will regret it because we do, in fact, we do expand on this date.

and we need smart phones that everyone has in their pocket and i am grateful that not everybody were reading their us while we were talking. but these can be used in this test the authority to do significant cell phone and this is a unique time in our constitutional history and for all of the great work that you and the senator have done. i very much appreciate this program and i hope that all who are here and all who are listening in or going to see what has been done. and that we will be starting a debate in a few hours. we haven't had this ever on

these kinds of issues. it couldn't come at a more appropriate time with these digital technologies that we have been talking about. thank you, everyone for having me. [applause] >> in a few moments, the preview of the 2014 midterm elections with charlie cook and publisher of the political report. in about an hour and a half, hearing went president obama's two nominees and a house judiciary subcommittee looks at how to deal with children were brought to the u.s. illegally. >> battle of the first lady, she

becomes the chief confidant and the only one in the world who has a job. so they have all done now. they are all strong as they accompanied strongmen to where they were. but i would say that that is their main role to the presidents original series about the first lady's examines the public and private lives of these women and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to ida mckinley. 9:00 p.m. eastern, starting august the on c-span. >> a look at the 2014 midterm elections with charlie cook, publisher of the cook political report. this is a little less than an hour and a half.

>> this is the first one of these and i thought that we should just sort of get back and think about how we ought to look towards 2014. one way of thinking about it is sports analogy. whether it is for baseball, football, basketball, hockey season, you know, you kind of look forward to this season and you're not sure how which team is going to do or what the season will be like. you don't really know for sure and somewhat painfully we know that the washington nationals were struggling to get up to 500. and so we didn't really, you know, we kind of maybe overestimated a little bit of how the season would be enough who it is right now about midway through in terms of the next election. we don't even know what will be about. we could have feelings, but we

ultimately know that what we have to do is watch the metrics to try to tell us it will be this kind of election or that kind of election and i have quite a few of you that have told the analogy that tip o'neill used to talk about all politics is local. it is a state, district, what are the voting patterns and candidates and campaigns and the money, using debt formulation. i think that all politics are local except when it's not. and i realize that that is not

terribly profound. sometimes we have some times when all politics is not local. when there is a mysterious invisible hand and pulling down and you can't tell a republican in 2006 or 2008 at all politics is local. you could not tell a democrat in 2000 found that we can kind of have an undertow that was out there at all politics is local. so that is the first that this is going to be a micro-election and will it be a macro pushing one side or the other. and what do you think of the dynamics 2014? for me, i can kind of come up with two different scenarios.

this is what republicans had in 2012 and this pulls forward into 2014. the other one is that this is a typical second term midterm election. we have tough times during the second term. this is a midterm election where democrats have these two things. we know that looking back in 2012 is sort of still on top of a lot of our minds and republicans had some real problems with minority voters and younger voters and women voters and self-described moderate voters and do they repair the damage and do they have that in time for 2014 and

obviously we are still sort of young into this we have not seen that quite yet. and we are watching to see if those problems carry forward. one thing i have to say is that usually the dynamics of one election don't really carry forward into the next and is usually about something different. but we haven't had times when it has been repeated. you could look at 2006 which was a great democratic year. they are into one another. and i think you probably have to go back to this sequence to find

another time where the flow just sort of continues on from one election to another. i think obviously it could happen. the other one is this is a traditional second term or midterm election and we know historically that typically happens in the second term. in some ways it is the freshness and the newness and the novelty of a brand-new president and new ideas not so much, the energy, the focus. it just sort of starts unraveling. sometimes the team that selected the president actually moved on and then this is sort of in there. for a wide variety of reasons, they just tend to run out of gas. it doesn't matter whether it's democrat or republican in the

post-world war ii era. the second thing that typically happens is that things go wrong and you could have economic downturn like eisenhower had in 1958. you could have scandals in the nixon and ford administration were on contra and the reagan administration, although that actually monica lewinsky is another and you could have unpopular wars like vietnam where the johnson administration or the iraq war. we have economic downturns, scandals, you can have unpopular wars, because they have the tendency to have this happen at times. the third thing is that you could also have chickens coming home to roost. decisions that were made in

dynamics that were created during the first term. sometimes they kind of comeback and get it on the rear end and one of the things that we are obviously going to be watching very carefully with the affordable care act. including obamacare. we know that in 2009 and 2010 president obama's first two years in office became enormously polarizing and controversial and was one of the two leading reasons why democrats lost control of congress back in 2010. but it was affordable care and probably a little bit of the economy thrown in for good measure. then in 2011, i don't think that many people changed their minds during that two-year period of

time. the people who are going to hate it already decided they were going to hit. people that liked it decided they were still quite like it. at roughly quarter of american people were still undecided. that question as we go into 2013 in 2014 and part of it has been pushed back to january 14, as it becomes implemented, do we see it become controversial again, yes or no payment and that is something that what you ought to do is maybe do your own research and look at any impact on their own health care policies and have rates gone up or down or save stayed the same or what has happened in terms of deductibility is and friends and relatives and neighbors, anecdotally, what people are saying with a fair idea of what starts happening so what i have done is started watching us and we have this and it's a guide to

looking at the political environment in terms of looking at queues for is this going to be a republican problem that continues her a second term problem occurring again for another president or something entirely different. what i would suggest you do is watch some of the data. obviously watch the president's approval rating with this midterm election, which typically it is to a certain extent a referendum on the incumbent president. right now the president is at an equilibrium point where the disapproval numbers are about the same in the mid-to high 40s. so he is not an asset for democrats. but watch those numbers then yes been dropping since mid-january

or does that level off or keep going. but watch the overall rating. the second thing is watch public attitudes towards the economy. when the economy is perceived to be good or improving, people are a lot more forgiving than if they think it is not doing so well or getting worse and one of the things that really helped president clinton back in his second term, and today is monica's 40 birthday, but who is counting. [laughter] i completely lost my train of thought on that. [laughter] to guess i'm wearing a blue shirt. anyway, what i say that. [laughter] >> the economy was doing really, really well.

and as a result, i think that people are a little bit more tolerant than if the economy was getting worse. i noticed in my home state of we the anna that voters were always more forgiving when prices were up in the state economy was good and oil prices were down and they were less forgiving than some politicians who are not quite as funny in the state economy wasn't doing so well. so watch consumer confidence and roughly they are basically at or close to a six-year high. in which case the public was a little bit more forgiving, given the tough times that we went through. on the other hand competence and spending was down and it was clear what they drew from now. the third thing is the

affordable care act and one of the things that i am watching is the kaiser family foundation tracking this almost monthly where they ask a variety of questions with unfavorable attitudes. it is something like 37 or 38% favorable with roughly 45% unfavorable with 23% undecided. something like that. watch those numbers and see if they start changing the favorability go up or down and just sort of watching for any major changes their and i can give you a hint about where things might be going. this includes the ratings for the two parties. i have looked at a lot of data and is something we have not particularly paid a lot of attention to, but i'm really

starting to do so. because for republicans to take advantage of democratic problems, they really need to get their numbers and party favorable numbers of in the unfavorable numbers that are down. and that simply hasn't happened. there is what you have heard so much about over the last couple of years. if you are still very real. addressing the problems with minority women at the same time you can expect a neighborhood members to start coming down. a good characterization right now is the american people are not very happy with democrats. it's like democrats have fairly lousy numbers in the republican party has worse numbers. so watching those and then

finally watching the ballot tests. would you vote for this head of congress and there are some who talk about which party would you rather see control. it really doesn't make any difference. one thing that you need to know about that question is that it typically has for some bizarre reason, and i've never heard of vaccination for it, but it typically has about a two or 3.2 in favor of democrats when you compare what it is ending up being with the national popular vote of the house of representatives. for that reason, a lot of people and analysts don't like to look at this.

so it doesn't tell you how many seats they lose in the daylight are, but it does tell you which way it is flowing or is it lightly or moderately this way or that, which way is it going. so i would suggest that you sort of watch those kinds of metrics to get an idea as we get into this fall and as we get into the election-year that officially starts and watching those things to try to figure out for yourself in this is completely different and i don't want to just missed one other possibility. what if it is kind of all of the above? what if voters are growing and the novelty has worn off and there is, you know, not really trying to hit the mute button, not listening that much any

more. the same time, what if republicans haven't fit their problems. and you just sort of have a model of both scenarios. and right now, if i had actually to pick one, i think that is actually the one that i would pick right now. in terms of the house of representatives, but it's pretty unlikely and i think most people in the room would agree, pretty unlikely that republicans will lose their majority in the house. it isn't a huge number, but when you sort of look at where the congressional district boundaries are drawn in sort of the landscape, it targets how either party could pick up this and 17 seats. 93% of all the republicans in the house are sitting in a

district that mitt romney carried. 96% of all districts are those the president obama carried. so to a large extent republicans were very fortunate that they had that terrific 2010 election and it preceded the congressional district boundaries. so they were able to in a lot of states draw boundaries that were better than they have seen in a very long time. and that is something the democrats have done plenty of times for the previous decade where they had a chance in the thing about it is because of where these lines are drawn, it is really hard for either party to get a major switch, particularly for democrats to do it. another factor to keep in mind, and this is actually off to the races, a daily column from this

morning. during the midterm election turnouts, they are typically a little different from presidential election years. particularly when you look at the groups were democrats have done so well in recent years in presidential elections like young people and like women and light unmarried women in the minority voters, they have a tendency to over perform some in presidential years and then underperform in midterm election nears. and yesterday, stan greenberg who is a democratic pollster, he works with the democracy corps and it is part of women's voices and women's votes. they had surveys that showed exactly that, that among all voters, democrats were ahead by

one point of the generic ballot test. but among likely voters, they were down two points. specifically unmarried women that the democrats were focusing on enormously because the gap between democrats and republicans -- it was like 30 points or something like that. that is where they have turn out and obviously it didn't help in 2010. for some of you could be wondering if the previous midterm elections and how they did, but that is absolutely true. it was more of an election and it wasn't about that.

that really wasn't a turnout dynamic situation but how many seats are they going to lose? and yes, that, you know, through most of the 2012 election cycles, it really did look like republicans have picked up two or three or four u.s. senate seats in that election. and keep in mind that we kind of have to have two mindsets in the house. the cards are dealt in each election by the previous election of what happens and then in the senate, because of this commotion of the look back and say, okay, what happened six

years earlier. so in 2012 we were operating off of this with the iraq war and president bush's second midterm elections and all the arguments that we talked about and we had a great election in 2006. so democrats did and they were overexposed in 2012 and they probably should have lost this, but a couple of strange things happen. you had a couple of people who decided it would be a really good idea to swallow candidates after pulling the pin and some other bad breaks here or there and we went from a situation where everybody thought that the republicans would pick up two or three or four seats and that is why i am a little bit reticent about saying that even though the dynamics are very similar, 2000 it was a great year for democrats and therefore in 2014, they are overexposed as he

walked through the numbers the open seat numbers, those that appear to be vulnerable, all of these things on enormously overexposed in 2014. and yet, a lot of this is going to be contingent upon can republicans fix their problems, both in terms of the macro branding problems on the right side, as well as problems like are they getting good people to run. are those people winning their primaries, and are they, do they -- what kind of campaigns with a run and that sort of thing. because republicans can talk about the senate for the last two elections, if you think about it, even though 2010 was a terrific year for the republican party and they did pick up a good number of senate races in 2006 end of the seven senate races, going into election day in 2010, republicans lost five

out of seven and in 2012 they lost eight out of 10. so it is sort of something that republicans have to get off their back and some of this is damage and maybe a little bit as technology and we are talking about that later as well. but we are seeing republicans, if they get their act together, they ought to be able to pick up about a few points in this election. as of today, they have a 19 of the majority of the senate. but they kind of borrowed this and they feel like they're going to lose in october that they are hardly contesting. so this number is going to be something that republicans will need. so certainly there are six opportunities out there, three democratic open seats that look more likely than not.

there are great seats that the republicans really have to worry about. i mean, if it is marked by mary landrieu in louisiana and to a lesser extent, north carolina, it would be the fabric that they would be looking at. can those tip over, or can republicans took those over in addition to the open seat in south dakota and west virginia and republicans and those in montana and so forth. were democrats had to deal with brian schweitzer not running. we have three democratically held seats that look like they are probably going to go over to the republican side and that is assuming that republicans hang onto all their own seeds and the thing about it is there is only

one republican seat up in the democratic leaning state. and that is susan collins of maine. so i guess she doesn't run for reelection or gets bumped off in a primary, i don't think either one of those are going to happen and the only other one that we are really looking at is where saxby chambliss is retiring. and that is where later today daughter of sam nunn is running in there about five or six republicans running on the other side and you can see you whether his candidacy is really sort of mattering only if republicans nominate -- i say this? and exotic or potentially problematic nominee and that is the term that i use with my wife and so anyway.

[applause] >> so if republicans nominate this, they hold out this hope. because georgia is shifting a little bit in the south. you know, virginia has become now a certified mid-atlantic state. it is a classic swing state in north carolina it's working its way to the transition and it is not as far along as virginia is. but it is getting less and less of a southern state every day. georgia is laid-back. but it is sort of moving in the same general direction and the rest just isn't moving at all. so anyway, georgia is not there yet. but if republicans nominate someone they can't reach out into the suburbs and do well

with the moderate suburban voters that are from other parts of the country that have moved into georgia over the last 30 or 40 years, then that would be one that they could potentially lose as well and that is really the only one that i am paying much attention to it all. and that is sort of where we are right now and you know, we are sort of raising lots of question and not coming up with a lot of answers. but it's part of the cycle and that is what keeps this thing interesting. it is all the different things that can happen and so when we just open it up now for questions or comments or accusations and there are microphones here and over there. just raise your hand in a nonthreatening way and a microphone will make its way to you. there is one right here and do you have one or?

okay, we'll we will start off in income over the next. >> okay. >> hello, thank you very much. i'm with pacific gas & electric. there has been a lot of speculation, could you speak about a? >> it's early in the morning and my five hour energy has not completely kicked in. you know, i should have mentioned that and i apologize. i think that you come up with a legitimate decent democratic candidate and you get 47%. you get that sort of thing and then the next is due in the next two or 3%. and that is very hard for two or 3% and part of it is that because mcconnell is a very polarizing figure, he probably

underperforms a generic republican because he has such sharp elbows and what democrats are hoping for is that we can kind of region and grab some of those moderately conservative women in the suburbs, the cincinnati suburbs, around lexington, to reach in and sort of go after some of these voters and maybe they are uncomfortable little bit in this way, maybe they are uncomfortable little bit with whatever the issues are, it will discard appeal this and beat it. so i think that this is going to be one that, you know, that i would want to keep a relatively low-profile early on and get my

organizational ducks lined up, raise my money on federal issues because she has had the equivalent of a presidential campaign on the other side. they are going to pounce on and just beat the daylights out of her we have a while to go, but certainly we fully expect it to be part of this and this is what i get for not having the proper commentary for leading a race out. >> okay, next question? >> i am from the american business idea and i look at numbers i wanted to talk to you

about the issue of turnout which you referenced earlier. some of the issues surrounding the trayvon martin trial, for instance, i'm wondering if we could see the mobilization on the minorities were very upset with this and you see some of these same issues with women on restrictions than it could affect the number of senate members. i'm wondering if you have any views on a? >> i think that if this case occurred in september or october of next year, i think the possibility of that really ratcheting up would be very high. but issues tend to have shelf lives and energy and focus tend

to have shelf lives and in politics, 15 months is a really long. lack of time. so obviously i think that we will have groups in the democratic saga that will try to bottle or capture that energy and keep it going. in fact, it's a very hard thing to do. it is like the reverse of the scene in jurassic park where you are getting chased by the dinosaur and they look in the rearview near it and they say objects may be closer than they appear. it is kind of the opposite of that. ..

clearly an event like that can really change things. the other thing i might say no is that when we talk about the difference between midterm election and presidential election turnout, the gaps i not as wide between african-americans between mid term an election. not quite as wide as some other groups which is one of the reasons why women's voice is focusing on unmarried women because it is an enormous gap. these are people that a lot of these folks do not follow politics avidly. and as a result it is a good

group for democrats to says that it is a very efficient group. they could move a bunch of numbers pretty quickly if they can get them to vote. when you have a group that has already voted in recently high numbers and african-american turnout does not trail white turnout by that much anymore, it is a lot harder to move those numbers forward, and i am sure you know of some terms of that. technical term that i don't, but certainly it is the case. >> good morning. patty ricci with target. could you discussed -- discussed the drama that is becoming the wyoming senate race. >> i think i am going to stop answering questions from this the corner ride every year. you know, there are a lot of reasons why incumbents drop primary challenges. sometimes somebody is old and

grown out of touch with the state. sometimes they have gone either too conservative or too liberal for too moderate and ideologically out of sync with the state. sometimes they might have scandals, something like that. i cannot really find any of those. aid would be i'm charitable to say that this is just about personal ambition. [laughter] but in my mind i am open to be persuaded that is not the case. [laughter] so sometimes silence is golden. over here is next. >> richard hall well from and

what. i had the pleasure of going back to shreveport the other day. i try to engage almost everyone i talked to about mary landreau, and no one wanted to talk politics of all. what are you hearing about those? >> part of the issue to my reference to my hometown. part of the reverence -- part of the problem is that nobody knows who bill cassidy is. you know, he is not known particularly in shreveport. and so i think that the race just has not really engaged at all. louisiana has not turned the corner and focused on the senate race. i think this is going to be a very, very, very big race that plan drew -- on one side of the equation she will be taking over the senate energy committee. dino, gathering a lot of influence in estate that has

historically had a lot but of late has not had as much. on the other hand, senator landreau has been the beneficiary of having either really weak opponents or really, really good democrats. and so she has never had had a tough opponent in a tough year. and so that is going to really, really tester. and i think this is, i believe, the toughest opponent she has had. and at worst for republicans it will be a level playing field in louisiana and worst. and so i think this is going to be the toughest election she has had yet to. i mean, certainly it is tougher than woody jenkins. it has turned tougher than suzie. probably a better year are not as bad a year for republicans as

2008. although 2008 and louisiana. but you get the general idea. in no, i think if i can know the outcome of just three states that would be one of the three the want to do along with alaska and arkansas. if i had to go to for our go to kentucky. but it will be good. she is going to have to run a better campaign and she has in the past because she has a tougher opponent. louisiana is a tough place for a federal candidate to win statewide. there really is. >> below. i am wondering why you write off the race with the recent governor's election. >> i didn't. i think i specifically mentioned it. i don't put it quite at the --

there are three democratic seats that are to have least leaning republican. and then there are three more, alaska, arkansas, louisiana that i think our top tier. and then go back a little bit and find north carolina. the speaker, i ran into him last week. you know, this is the first time to kind of run on the big stage. and sometimes state house speakers, senate presidents, sometimes they become really good statewide candidates and sometimes not so good. we have to let that develop. what does the legislature, what is the image of the legislature going to be like? that simply has not developed yet. we know that the first three are going to be hotly contested. north carolina may very well get

there. but it is not there yet. so it is clearly one that i am watching. you know, you cannot prioritize all of them as top braces. you have to make some delineations. so i put three ahead of that in terms of the really high races, but it is certainly one that we are going to be watching. and i don't think that hagen is terribly well defined in the state. i think that is true. you know, i think it is good news and bad news for her. the good news is she is not defined in a pejorative way. the bad news is she is not defined in a positive way. and she is not well defined. so that is something the she has got to do before they get ahead of momentum.

>> make a hansen with. going back to louisiana you mentioned that this would probably be the first time that mary landreau would have a tough opponent in a tough year. considering how the public legislature has been very, do you think that can help lifter? >> i -- not really. the governor's numbers are not particularly good right now. i think that is absolutely true. in fact, i think i saw that there were around the same as president obama's. maybe a touch lower. but i don't think that the governor or the legislature -- i mean, i mentioned the legislature in connection with not carolina because tantillo says the speaker of the north carolina house. i don't think -- i just don't think that the senate race will be effective one way or the other by the governor of the state legislature.

you know, it is a federal race. it will be more washington oriented. you know, there may be a republican congress verses a democratic president or republican house verses a democratic senate. i just of think that that is going to be connected in any way so if mandrake its recent -- reelected i don't think it will be because of the governor or the legislature. i just don't think they are that connected. obviously they could be. >> good morning. study greenwood. thank you so much. thank you for the hospitality. back to georgia for just a quick second. i think your analysis was that the only way nine is relevant is if they nominate somebody exotic.

i just wanted to up ask if you think, if you considered michele none, she is a generational change, not a politician, ceo of the largest service organization in the world, the iconic family name. and if you also layer and the democrats have not really tried to win in georgia in a couple of cycles. they actually try and get somebody on register, the african-american vote and unmarried women, do you think that the candidacy could be relevant or you -- do you think it is only about the other side? >> i don't think that georgia is yet to the points where just are really strong democrat can make the difference. virginia is there. north carolina may be is there, but look at the presidential numbers in georgia. where in of blue jersey is a

liability still. maybe not as much as it used to be a while back, but is still is a liability. i think just being a fresh face to my new person, all of that, i don't think that changes the,. would you have to have -- and again, six, eight, ten, 12 years from now this may well, may very well be different. right now i think she really does need to have an opponent who, you know, a fairly middle-of-the-road person, relatively independent, just kind of looks and says, while, i cannot go there. i think -- i don't think we are quite there yet. all of these things are things that may very well help poor, but if republicans -- if this date is still a lot more republican than not to and i don't think that alone really gets hurt there.

it is -- just take a look at last year's presidential. it is a pretty good big sample pull of where the country is. neither side competed hard. and so it is a reflection of where the state was written. it is on the transitioning from red to blue. it is still very much on the roadside and will take awhile to get to blue. it is kind of like taxes. it just isn't there yet. >> good morning. the american survey growers. do skipped over social media. you mentioned it earlier. how will that come into play? how has that tract of the stuff that i think only birds do because i am appalled.

how does that track and how does that come into play? >> you're asking someone that turns 60 later this year. you're asking the wrong person. i was looking at that and thinking, god, i -- [laughter] it probably already exists. you know, again, and the wrong person. there are people that can speak far more eloquently and expertly than nine. it is something that is out there. innovation is not new. i can remember back when before there was -- how many of the remember the old kind of facts machines or you put it -- a piece of paper under lip and it was been around. you know, all of these things have revolutionized politics in different ways. social media is the same way.

but -- so all of these are innovations that are important. you know, i don't think it changes -- up the social media changes anybody's out use. i don't think it changes their political orientation in any way what it does is just speed up the process and the information and getting information out to people who maybe in some cases don't read newspapers, don't listen or watch cable news. they don't watch television news. it is getting information into a kind of crevices that sometimes political news is not normally go to. and it is something that i think republicans, you know, let me expanded from social media technology, republicans really do need to of kind of catch-up

in terms of the whole idea of campaign technology and at social media is a part of it. but if you think about it, the 2004 george w. bush reelection campaign was absolutely said of the art. to the extent that there was data mining, that there was mike for targeting, to the extent that that existed in 2004, republicans are right there on the cutting edge. but for all intents and purposes, the next eight years were pretty much lost on the republican party. and during that time remember in 2004, you know, republicans did not have it alone. you had it been campaign and the kerrey campaign that are also doing technology and social media and these sorts of things. they kept developing them through 2008 with obama and into 2012. and so on the broader technology side this is something that republicans need to really work

on. and elizabeth who works as a contributing editor wrote a piece recently where she was pointing out that on the democratic side a lot of this where the obama campaign developed a lot, these people have gone out into the private sector. you have private sector initiatives going on, developing cutting edge technology and databases whiles she was during the republican side. it is almost like a five-year stolen plan where it centralized and maybe not as innovative as it needs to be for as democrats are and that republicans might be well advised to sort of revisit a little how there are perching technology and not having something that is sort of a one-off of the rnc.

>> bruce mckay with dominion. the virginia governor's race, i instructed on what might happen in the future. do you expect that to be the case this time? >> i think the new jersey governor's race will be of absolutely no utility in telling us anything at all. the virginia governor's race is unusually -- i think it is going to be an interesting test. i mean, let's just start off with -- okay. virginia is a swing state. we know that virginia has a history of voting -- of electing governors of the opposite party from that -- from whichever side is in the white house. that is a tendency. obviously not concrete, but that is out there. this is an interesting test.

and then what you have this to candidates that are of, buy, and for their respective bases and a swing state where independent and moderate voters are getting more and more important. neither side feel the can is it that was sort of made to order to go after swing voters. and so to meet the voters between the 240 airlines are absolutely up for grabs. if you're a republican and wanted to go after between the 40-yard line voters, not sure you would have nominated camp kitchen valley. if you were a democrat and wanted to go after the voters between the 240's, i'm not sure you would have recruited a former democratic national chairman. and so i think in a really

interesting way this is a great jump ball situation where neither side has a natural claim on the other. just how people feel about national politics and about the two parties that may steer some of those moderate independents one direction of the other. keep in mind 40 years ago president obama had just taken office and and the democratic nominee had just won the nomination. and actually there was a couple or two that showed him ahead of bob macdonald. and then suddenly he started dropping. and i'm sure he must have been

-- [laughter] did i say something wrong? did i not shower this morning? what just happened? i just started dropping like a stone. and the reason was the president obama's numbers have started really dropping at that point. the democratic party had almost overnight lost the momentum that they had in 2008, a state that had gone democratic. and suddenly it started transitioning right out from under. and you saw that national dynamic really kick in. and so i think -- i would love to know who is going to win the virginia governor's race because not that it will tell us what direction the country is going necessarily in 2014, but it is probably the best in the care that we have. it is the biggest sample that will be out there this year of

swing voters and which way they're going. so i think it will be great. did i tell you what the wind? no. i honestly don't know. i think a lot of voters in virginia still don't know all whole lot about either candidate that think it's born to be particularly northern virginia voters. i think it is going to be maybe the last month or so when this thing really engages. maybe we will have to hand maybe, but they're is a good chance that we want all the way out. >> mary more. i work at grand garden. he spoke about technology and the impact on the races. can you address the changes that pollsters are having to deal with was making sure that the polls are accurate and how that evolution could impact the predictability of races as we

move into this next election? >> that is not a terrific question. let me give an answer that is pre 2012. then let me give an effective by 2012 lancer. because of the rise of telemarketing through the 90's and the last decade and voicemail, voicemail, caller i.d., all of these things, and i'm not even including cell phones, the effectiveness of market research and political polling has gone down. the response rates, how many calls you have to make before you did one completion. and at one point it was up in the 30's. it's in the 10% range.

the fully completed interview. what we had happening -- and this is before cell phones get into the next to another very very best pollsters -- ten, 20, 30 years ago. no matter how hard they tried it was a as reliable as it used to be. and then you introduce telephones. where the better pollsters were taking that into account and including cell phones in their samples, i noticed that stan greenberg poll, 50 percent of the sample was made up of people reach on a self phones which, by the way, is extraordinarily expensive to do. and so they are having to do that because increasingly how

many people in this room did not have a land line, raise your hand? that is a pretty good size number. so certain technologies like robo calling, you're not allowed to call cell phones. so you get into that. then you got into 2012. all these are problems going into 2012. then you had a unique problem. and that was that one of the things that happens as the response rate goes down, pollsters have to show that just the numbers statistically to make sure they have a pretty representative sample. we kind of know that the electorate is going to be 50 to 53 percent female. there are certain things that you pretty much can count on happening. race things. anyway.

they have to wait to make up for it because the response rates are so low. you have a growing division in 2012 about what is the 2012 electorate going to look like. and what you generally speaking had was republican pollsters saying 2008 when you had minority turnout jump of some much, young people jump of some much, some very unusual turn out dynamics. that was their results of first minority nominee for the u.s. presidency, excitement in the energy that was around barack obama. so you have republican pollsters who were assuming that 2008 was a one-shot deal and that 2012 turnout dynamics would look something closer to normal presidential turnout.

on the other hand you had democratic post it to the pollsters you were saying the amount know, we have under normal. the country is changing. it is becoming more diverse. these and people really are energized and are going to turn out yet again. so what we started seeing in the fall of 2012 between the two sides was a growing gap between what republican pollsters were getting and believed and what democratic pollsters were getting in believed. and part of what i was doing was e-mailing but talking back and forth. off the record. what are you seeing, what kind of margins. that sort of thing. and in a lot of these cases these are people that i have known for 20, 30 years. i knew, they may be right, they may be wrong, but i no they're not lying to me, which is not

always the case with pollsters, but in some cases. and there was an honest to god difference of opinion between the two sides. you had to kind of reconcile who was going to be right and you was going to be wrong. at the same time you have independent pollsters who had had screening questions that were designed to ascertain who is and it is not likely to vote. for example, historic plea asking people how much interest to have in the upcoming election , historically that has been a pretty good question to determine who is and isn't likely to vote. well, apparently in 2012 it did not work to read a lot of the traditional questions that have usually work to not. and so you had this sort of philosophical difference of what the electorate was born to look like that was going to affect waiting. on the other hand you have

legitimate people that did not have a thumb on the scale in any direction that or relied on traditionally that just wore bright. and so you have some results the poorer all over the map. and we are now beginning to see a lot more non-traditional poland. both the. there were during a a certain amount of live interview polling, but there were also going into ohio and dropping 10,000 rebel calls into ohio and waiting. i no you're not getting cell phones. i know, you know, we can try feet of -- we can try to correct that. the analytical models based on something other than just traditional live telephone interview in. and so what is polling today is

changing. is live interviews. robo polling and increasingly their starting to see line polling which i have always -- peaking get a sample on my. for example, going in, a sample. give them a computer in exchange for responding and giving this to five for 10,000 people around the country. so all kinds of things are happening. the traditional model isn't working as well as a use to it's based on the science. and now it's beginning to be even more of a makes them less

scientifically rigorous than it used to be because i think you're going to be seeing sort of multiple methods of pulling being basically kind of thrown in a cuisinart and blended together to get numbers which is a lot of such activity. so it's tough. we are in a new world. in a previous life are horta's pollster. it doesn't work much like it did over a year. >> thank you. there has been some buzz on twitter. i know some folks that roping you can lay out your long you lay of the land for the next presidential race. >> i'm going to affect go right off this entire side. first of all, there should be a

disclaimer here that the accuracy rate, its zero. and my view, likely -- more likely to be accurate than anyone else's. maybe it's a little easier to look to both sides to reach each side separately. east side is a group of questions. us think about it. if you're going to do a little decision tree. hillary clinton yes and no. now, then there is hillary clinton, more likely to be no. if no then biden is probably more likely to be yes. and then you get into all these others. the conventional wisdom is in washington, she is absolutely --

mission room. i don't know if she's going to run and not. while i would agree with the conventional wisdom that if this is of 100 percent political decision the odds are probably very high. but i think it will be a personal and political decision. the personal side is, does she feel like running. does she feel to it? i personally think she was a terrific secretary of state. lord knows a troubled 38 times around the world. 400 umpteen thousand miles. it was like 119 days on the road. but that job really did take its toll on there. in that last couple of months, those were physically very, very

rough months. does she feel up to it? yes and no. and joshi look around -- again, i have no inside information whatsoever. she is -- maybe she's sitting there thinking she lost her mom a couple of years ago. when you lose your remaining parent never greater sense of mortality. she had a couple of people she knew well in the senate that have had a devastating strokes at distressingly early ages. dishy -- does that impact on the health consequences. you know, all of these things. it's going to be a political and personal decision. i would put it closer to 5050. maybe 6040, maybe 4060, but

something in the neighborhood. would just argue that the person will approach, though she really want to do this. the politics would argue strongly for a to do it. for biden, i think he desperately wants to run. i think realistically if hillary was running my guess is the odds are that he wouldn't. but you never know. you know once the democratic party has made a shift from the baby boom generation to the generation x, millennial. thank you. no, millennial is after that. what is immediately after baby boomer. it is next. once the electorate has moved with obama or the democratic party has moved to generation x,

maybe they might get back for hillary, but would they go back? don't know. and if hillary clinton doesn't run, i refuse to believe that we are ever going to see an open contest for a democratic presidential nomination with an all male field. so if hillary doesn't run d.c. christian gillibrand, amy coe the chart, elizabeth ward. who else might you see? and then i think there will be a compelling argument in both parties for someone who is not in washington, governor. and so you might say, martin o'malley and andrew cuomo, john hagan the upper. brian schweitzer from montana. you can see someone that says i

have never worked in washington. i'm not a part of the cesspool. you see that out there. i think you get allot of permutations of where it may go, but there are all built on big questions that have to be answered the front. and then on the republican party , it's a question of how many times you can cut out the center right to write. in the sense of -- and i don't know how one would exactly measured this, but ted crews, rand paul, rick perry, scott walker, marco reveal. chris christie, well i think chris christie would be a very, very formidable general election candid, and not sure how he wins

the republican nomination. any more than -- let's say on the democratic side come mark warner won the democratic nomination? a think there would be hard. chris christie would have a hard time. maybe it aside to. then there's jim bush it would be a very strong candid but i personally don't think you will run. he would like to : i don't think you will. you kind of enter into all these things. so that's a very long way of saying who the hell knows. it will be a lot of fun to watch who have are left out? of feel like i left out a bunch of people. i don't have my cheat sheet in front of me. tom harkin. [laughter] i think he is retiring. you know, the story that was reported that his wife said

you're not running. i have no idea where the true, but with the po was winning. you know the old adage that senators never win nominations. up until 2008 the last time -- the last u.s. senator to win the presidency was john kennedy and then you get to 2008 and had two u.s. senators. if i were a party and just sort of controlling for anything else, i would rather have a governor, someone that is not perceived to be a part of washington. does that mean that any governor could win, obviously not. we exhausted all questions. well, wait. there are twitter questions.

>> are we supposed to read names? show tasks, 2014, gop still in trouble. my question is, will it matter in a midterm election? i think the answer to that is it depends -- first of all, it is not that in a midterm election all voters are cold, white, male, and conservative. you're obviously going to have voters that their young your non white females. how many will there be? and keep in mind that in the house how many other going to be in what is called for, five senate states that make a difference in terms of the u.s. senate? while that happen? so i don't think -- yes,

republicans to the extent that they have problems in 2004, those problems just because of the nature of the turnout might be somewhat diminished by a different turn out makeup in 2014, but that doesn't mean those problems tollway. midterm elections are referendum on incumbent presidents. bill obama her democrats in 2014? that's what we look at polls for as i pointed out earlier right now he's at an equilibrium point with the approval rating, approval and disapproval ratings in the 46, 47 percent range. so we don't know yet. if i had to bet on his approval numbers being higher or lower

than 47% among i think there might -- i think epic silverside but one thing you have to keep in mind about president obama is because he has such -- is president obama or a stock in the stock market you would say he has a high floor and a low ceiling. he has a base of support that will approve of the job he is doing no matter what, but at the same time you have an equally strong level of -- opposition. his numbers don't typically foot to fluctuate, don't typically break out of the certain trading range that is out there. so his numbers have not gone as low as george w. bush's during tough times, they did not go to the high points.

so that is just if we knew what kind of job approval rating that president obama had in october or november of next year that could give us a clue, but we have to remember, where are that -- the key races are more senate and house, and the ones that are most relevant are alaska, arkansas, louisiana, north carolina, kentucky. those are the ones that matter. those are ones that are not on the sunnier side for obama, but the shady side, the lower side of whatever the national approval rating is. we have to keep that in mind as well. one more question. one more burning question right year. is there a microphone? yes. hang on. one more second.

>> danny ritchie, a college student. my question is, as far as i no there is no pending redistricting cases in florida and texas making a way to the court system. currently the maps are pretty not competitive, but if one was to get an overturned, particularly in florida, would you suspect that has any effect on the race for the house? >> i wish i had david wasserman, our house editor here to throw the lifeline to. i am not sure -- first of all, i don't know. i don't know -- i don't know which way it would go. i think i remember david saying that there were a couple of places that it would like to change. and so i don't really know. in the big scheme of things they're is a 17 seat difference.

and, you know, that is not pulling to be materially changed much buying court's overturning florida vertexes or anywhere else. so i would say what we will not likely have a significant national impact and i doubt if it would have that much more than a cedar to either. when i started my newsletter in 19841 of the things i realize is another lawyer. and so i very -- i am very careful about redistricting and lawsuits. that is is not where my area of expertise goes. i try to stay in my lane. i don't think it would make that much of the difference. thank you very much. first of all, i want to thank united technologies and greg and marty and all that terrific people at united technologies for sponsoring this together. the national journal, c-span for

covering this. we are going to have several more of these this year and next year. thank you all for coming. we have an exciting year. hang on a second. i am told -- zero, when in doubt read the directions. as a reminder we would love to your your thoughts and feedback on the event and encourage you to fill up the event's survey that was placed on your seat. you may give your completed surveys to any member of the national journal team. thank you again. there we go. thank you. >> in a few moments a hearing with president obama's two nominees to the national labor relations board regional less than two hours a house judiciary subcommittee looks at a deal with children who were brought into the u.s. illegally. and then the preview of the 2014 midterm election.

>> interestingly the war in the sense help the south korean unify themselves in a way that was not there before.

when the communists came down there were brutal. a lot of the south koreans turned against the communists in the north. that solidified, i think, they're sort of sense of national cohesion and identity. but had he waited it is possible that they probably would have -- it is possible that it would have disintegrated on its own. >> sixty years after north korean troops crossed the 38 parallel, year -- sheila miyoshi jager looks at a war that never really ended sunday night at 9:00 on afterwards, part of book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> president obama's two new nominees for the national labor relations board testified on capitol hill tuesday. the nominations are the result of a deal between senate democrats and republicans on the filibuster rules and presidential nominees.

a committee vote on the nominations is set for wednesday with a full senate vote coming as early as next week. this a little less than two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> the committee on health, education, labor, and pension will please come to order. today's hearing is the result of a bipartisan agreement that was reached to allow for a fully confirmed national labor relations board for the first time in over a decade. officially confirmed, fully functional board will be up to step forward for workers and employers in our country and i hope this agreement brings a new beginning for the boards of that we can ratchet down the political rhetoric that seems to surround this agency and instead let the dedicated public servants to work to do their jobs.

the nlrb is an agency that is absolutely critical to our country, economy, and middle-class. over 75 years ago congress enacted the national labor relations act guaranteeing american workers the right to form and join a union and to bargain for a better life. for both union and nonunion workers alike the act provides essential protections and gives workers a voice in the workplace , allowing them to join together and speak up for fair wages, good benefits, and safe working conditions. these rights insure that the people who do the real work in this country see the benefits when our economy grows. the national labor relations board is the guardian of these fundamental rights. workers themselves cannot enforce the national labor relations act. the board is the only place that workers can go if they have been treated unfairly and denied the basic protections that the law provides. thus the board plays a vital role in vindicating workers'

rights. in the past ten years -- ice 810 years. that transcends both republican and democratic administrations. the nlrb has secured opportunities for reinstatement for 22,544 employees who were unjustly fired. it has also recovered more than $1 billion on behalf of workers whose rights and pay were violated. the board does not just protect rights of workers and unions but our nation's employers. the board is an employer's only recourse if, for example, a wildcat strike or refuses to bargain in good faith during negotiations. the nlrb also helps no risk businesses resolve disputes efficiently. by preventing labor disputes that could disrupt our economy the work that the board does is vital to every worker in business across the nation.

confirming these nominees is widely important because in the absence of senate action the board will lose a quorum in august and will be effectively forced to shut down which is more than an administrative headache but a tragedy that denies justice to working men and women across the country. it affects workers like a union call minor and west virginia who was refused a job when the company purchased the mind where he had previously been working. a nlrb with panels including pope digress and republicans has ruled twice that the new company's refusal to hire dave and any of his fellow union supporters was illegal and violated their rights under the national labor relations act. but they had been waiting over eight years for a justice. three of his co-workers said lea passed away during this time. dave has a 16 year-old son who has needed several surgeries for a life trending heart condition.

his son's health care costs would have bankrupted the family if the surgery's had not been covered through the state's program. dave is currently doing odd jobs to make ends meet in take care of his family. keep in mind, twice the board said he had been unjustly let go however, without the enforcement of his reinstatement remedy from the board he will be forced to live on $500 a month and retires like many other miners to just wants to go back to work. he has attempted to find other mining jobs, but when he interviews in the company finds out how much union time he accumulated, that pretty much and his chance of a job. let's be clear about why he and the other miners were not hired. it was because of their previous union activities. that is against the law. it is not fair or right and illegal. that is why we need a strong nlrb.

today's nominees molpus restore the board to its full strength and capacity. they come from diverse backgrounds, deeply steeped in labor and employment law. the experiences serve them well at the board and they deserve to be confirmed the strong bipartisan support. i look forward to hearing the testimony today and to moving them expeditiously through this committee. i might say that under our agreement that the committee will meet in executive session tomorrow to the vote on these nominees. with that will turn to our ranking member, senator alexander. >> thank you and welcome to the two nominees. thank you for being here. the hearing is about nominees whose job it is to be judges, not advocates. that is what the board members of the national labor relations board are supposed to do.

the national labor relations act talks about the job being to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce which suggests a higher level of impartiality. former senator baker used to tell the story of the mountain judge in tennessee who when the lawyers appeared before him one morning said, just give me a little bit on the facts. give me a little bit on wall. i had a phone call last night in pretty well know the facts. that was the kind of impersonality they had in that county in tennessee at the time. that's what we hope we don't have at the national labor relations board. we want you and the other three nominees if confirmed to be -- we want people to be able to approach you in no way that causes them to believe that you

have not decided the case before they come. i know you know that, but that is what for me this hearing is about. i want to make sure the board's mission is carried out without any private agenda such as increasing unionization rates without regard for employees' freedom to choose whether or not to form a union. we have plenty of affirmation about you. we have the committee application which all senators have received yesterday including both public and private financial information. we distributed it to all senators biographical another affirmation about your writings. today we have the opportunity to ask questions. today we received the government's ethics information. all senators have. we will have a chance to the not only discussed today but vote tomorrow and then i am sure there will be written questions that will come to you from

senators and i would hope that you will be mindful of the fact that we hope to proceed to an up or down vote sometime next week. you want to make sure that all senators have a chance to see what the result of this hearing is, what the result of the markup is and what your responses to any questions that might come. the more rapidly you could get those in the better. but don't expect there would be a vote in the senate in any event before next week. senators would have the time to make the decisions. senator harkin referred to the fact that this proceeding is a little unusual because it comes as the result of an agreement. the agreement about any president's ability to use recess appointments. three federal court that found that the president violated the constitution by making recess appointments to the nlrb when

the senate was not in recess. one was a county case, january of 2013. one more recently was the fourth circuit case just last week on basically the same issue and then a related case in may of this year. the third circuit court of appeals. three to zero. and the combination of -- i don't intend here to really get the whole issue. we have had plenty of debates here and in the committee and floor. it is a very important issue. under our constitutional separation of powers and checks and balances the president has the right to nominate and the senate has the power to advise and consent. the founders did not want an imperial presidency and created a check on the presidency and that is one of the most important and certainly the best known check that we have.

i would think after these three courts' decisions and after the senate's rejection, the nomination of to nominees or the president's withdrawal, i should say, at the request of the senate because of the recess appointment question, i think it's fair to say that any president in the future would not make his or her recess appointment power at a time when the senate was not then recess and that the senate, not the president would decide when and was in recess. hopefully as a result of this discussion that issue is settled. i think that is an important issue. now, the actions, the unconstitutionally appointed nlrb members have taken while there have left quite a mess for citizens who rely on this agency. more than 1,000 cases decided

when there was not a valid form. the law by those three appellate courts. that leaves thousands of employees, unions and employers in limbo wondering whether they should comply with a particular decision. moving and on these nominations, hopefully we will have a vote on the senate floor shortly which may result in an ability to put a stop to that uncertainty and misuse of taxpayer resources. most important characteristic, when i will be looking for in this discussion is impartiality. in recent years on afraid the nlrb has been moving away from that level playing field with that impartiality. the number of policy changes and reversals of come out of the nlrb under this administration have caused, in my judgment, great confusion.

one labor law professor recently said in a major university if she can't even use the most recent text book. chester resort to handing out nlrb decisions instead for tests . efforts of rulemaking that have been stalled by the federal courts. they have gone into the legal obligation to withhold dues from paychecks even when there is no foul of the collective bargaining agreement in place. the validity of arbitration agreements and employment contracts, the illegality of numerous well-intentioned employee handbook provisions, the rules governing when there is no collective bargaining agreement in place, these are things that were sought to change as well as other presidents and rules. the intent seems to me to tilt the playing field in favor of organized labor which is not the directive of the statute, not my

definition of impartiality. fairness and impartiality is what we should all be looking for in any nominee. i look forward to today's questioning and thank you both for your willingness to serve. thank you. >> thank you, senator. we will proceed to our testimony. both your written testimony will be made a part of the record in their entirety. i read them over last evening. exxon statements. and so we will start with ken hirozawa and then nancy jean schiffer. just proceed. take five to seven minutes if you would. then we will get into our questions. so served as chief counsel to the national labor relations board. before joining the nlrb he was a partner in the new york law firm

gradstein reef and the guinness. he advised clients on a variety of labor and employment law matters. also served as a field attorney for the nlrb from 1984 to '86. received his b.a. from yale university panegyrist doctorate. nancy schaefer has associate general counsel from 2000-2012. prior to that deputy general counsel for the united autoworkers. earlier in her career she was a staff attorney in the detroit regional office. she received her be a from michigan state university and her dodgers doctorate from the university of michigan law school. again, congratulations to both of you. you have sterling records and careers. in we are just fortunate to have you willing to serve on the nlrb. please take five to seven

minutes. them will open up for questions. >> chairman, ranking member alexander. members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i am honored and humbled to be considered for a position. this is something that i could not have imagined as a young feel attorney with the board nearly 30 years ago. it has also been pointed out that if i am confirmed it -- i would be the first asian-american member of the board which, of course, would be a great honor. it is a tremendous honor to be introduced by one of the greatest champions of the american worker in the history of the united states senate. thank you for your kind remarks. if i may i would like to start by telling you a little bit about where i come from. my father was born and raised on a sugar cane plantation on the island of kawai and what was then the territory of hawaii.

he and most of his brothers and listed in the u.s. army during world war two and went to school on the gi bill. my mother grew up on the other side of the tracks. her father and grandfather were surgeons who came to live from japan and helped to find the japanese charity hospital in honolulu. my parents met at the university of hawaii, got married, went to grant school. my father then took a job as a research chemist. he had a long and fulfilling career with many scientific patents to his credit. one of the distinct memories i have of my father's time that the company has nothing to do with science. everyone -- every once in a long while he would pack a suitcase with enough clothes for couple of weeks and take it to work. the reason was there might be a

strike that night. as a salaried employees you would be responsible for helping to keep the plants running for as long as the strike lasted. naturally this was very interesting to oust. he did not in view it with any trauma. it was just part of the job. my mother also had a long and fulfilling career as a teacher and beloved member of the community at the workers school in michigan. they're both retired and are unable to be here today. but it was because of their examples of decency and generosity and their respect for the values of hard work and playing by rules that they passed on to their children and i have been able to achieve a half. thanks, mom and dad. i was born and leno and grew up in michigan. at nyu in addition to getting a

terrific legal education i met lynn kelly, a lovely young woman from minnesota. we have been married for 25 years, and she is here today with our two wonderful children. after it judicial court ship i started my career as a field attorney. after a few years i left to go into private practice but not before gaining a deep appreciation for the importance of the agency's work and a deep respect for the quality and dedication of the agency's employees. so after over 20 years as a partner with the new york city labor and the bonn a law firm had decided to return to the agency when mark pearce asked me to serve as his chief counsel. the three years that i have spent at headquarters had been a tremendous learning experience and have given me a deeper

appreciation for the staffs talents, professionalism, and commitment to fairness and the goals of the national labor relations act. if i am given the opportunity to serve i think that might decades of practice as a labor lawyer both within and before the agency will serve me well. i think ellen also be helped by the prospective gain from my 20 years as a co owner of a small business. with my partners i had to deal with the challenges of making apparel, paying the rent, providing health insurance for employees, and staying competitive in our market. i have had to discharge employees, and then know it is always difficult than ever taken lightly. i believe that these experiences will help me to see all sides of the workplace disputes that come before the board. back when i was a boy in the

region to a once heard another employee described as nonpro union upper management, dedicated solely to advancing the policies and purposes of the national labor relations act without regard to the identities are alignments of the parties. that has always struck me as an act turn of phrase for an employee of the board. and that is what i will aspire to if confirmed as a member of the board. i pledge to dedicate myself to the fair and evenhanded enforcement of the commands, consistent with the purpose of maintaining industrial peace. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to your questions >> thank you, ken hirozawa. in new york sparked tight, but i

did not realize how smart you ordinary woman from minnesota. my wife is from minnesota. >> best thing i ever did. >> same thing for me. >> welcome. please proceed. >> thank you, chairman. ranking member alexander, members of the committee. i am honored beyond words to be here before you today as a nominee to be a member of the national labor relations board. first, i would like to introduce my husband, gordon smith, who is here today and without his support now would not be. we will celebrate 32 years of marriage next month. our daughter, amelya, and her husband grant could not be here today because they both just started new jobs in california and our son michael is here with us in spirit. i grew up in a small town in southwestern michigan 30500

people. my mother was a home economics teacher and my father was a pilot. he taught people how to fly. that was his passion. they were both raised on dairy farms in central michigan. my grandparents' farm was designated a centennial farm from for 100 years by the same family in 1982. my grandparents are in the michigan farmers holophane. i spent my summers on the farm. i helped and showed cal's in 4h and once at the michigan state fair. it was my dream to go to law school. my parents supported that dream and a time when their friends thought it was a waste of money to send their daughters to college and all. when i went to law school to the university of michigan i did not know that i would become a labor lawyer. while i was there are represented to women nonunion

university workers in a management review process. the first describes to me how she made less than a male colleague who was doing the same work. i only talk to her on the phone but jen letter on her behalf and she got a sizable salary increase. i was amazed. next time represented a woman who had worked in her apartment for 20 years but was passed over for a supervisory position in favor of our recent graduate who happened to be white and male. she was neither. after a hearing before a faculty committee she got a promotion and i have fallen in love with labor law. after law school i worked at the detroit regional office of the national labor relations board region seven, the busiest regional office at that time. i conducted representational lectures and served as a hearing officer and investigated and prosecuted on labor practice cases against unions and

employers. i filed briefs to the board, trip ticket line in junction actions against unions in federal court. while there i receive the certification of commendation from general counsel john irving . never one second during my work at the detroit regional office that i think that one day i would have the honor of being considered to serve as a member of the board. i love working for the nlrb, and large part because i had the opportunity to work under the tutelage of regional director bernie gottfried. he was revered in the region. there is still immemorial symposium every year in his honor. he had a deep knowledge and understanding of the law and was open to and respectful of all the points and positions presented to him. he made sure he knew every fact and aspect of a case before you made a decision on whether to issue a complaint. most importantly he cared deeply about the impact his decision would have on the workplace.

he knew that real people would be affected by what he did, and you worked hard to make sure his decisions or fair and honest. he was a role model, and i will strive to follow his example, should i become a member of the board. i also worked at a private firm in detroit and then became a staff lawyer for the international union united autoworkers. i served as deputy general counsel for two years handling the day-to-day administration before coming to washington d.c. to join the general counsel's office where i advocated for their positions, including before congress. my work on issues over the years has given me a deep appreciation for the work that the board does and how important it is taller involved among workers, employers, labor unions, and their communities and how much it matters that disputes give

resolved fairly and in a timely manner. as a result of my work as a board attorney and a litigant have been repeatedly impressed with the dedication of the agency's staff with a sense of pride, purpose, and hard work. i can assure you that i understand the importance of this office and how critical it is that board members be neutral arbiters of law. if i am honored to serve as a member of the national labor relations board i pledge to live up to the example of my formative mentor, bernie gottfried and will approach every decision with an open mind , give every position very serious consideration and always be guided by the mission of the agency and the impact the decision will have on those affected. al afford to work in of my fellow board members to develop a collegial and productive deliberate process, to learn from their experiences and points of view and to fairly and faithfully enforced the law.

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to your questions >> thank you very much, nancy jean schiffer. we will start around of 5-minute questions. and first of all, i want to again of for the record the tremendous background the both of you bring to this nancy jean schiffer having worked as a regional office so many years ago and ken hirozawa being with the -- mr. pierce for all these years as his counsel. i think it is clear the you both bring a tremendous background and a wealth of information and knowledge to this position on the nlrb. i just have a couple of questions. i will start with nancy jean schiffer. as you pointed out, as the council for the afl-cio, you counseled for their positions. that is what a good lawyer does.

so in the past -- and i might make it clear for the record the you and i work together on issues in terms of labor law, specifically you have advocated for a bill i sponsored call the employee free choice act. this legislation at three major provisions. it allowed workers to choose -- to form a union through the use of sign authorization cards rather than a formal election. secondly, it created a mechanism to insure their workers to form the union or will to get a first contract through binding arbitration. third, and strengthened the remedies available when there were violations of the national labor relations act. i have been involved in these issues for most of lyondell life both here in the senate in an ounce before that. i felt strongly for this legislation. many of my colleagues to the

lead as to what like to make it clear that i would like to see these reforms enacted. and speaking for myself. i would like to see these reforms enacted. a lot of my colleagues would also. i want to make some things very clear. nancy jean schiffer, could the board, the nlrb, implement any provisions of the employee free choice act and just described by using its rulemaking authority? >> they could not. it would require congressional action. >> again, want to make it clear for the record, congress would have to pass a lot to make these changes. >> the provisions require congressional action. >> which of course i hope we would do. i think some of my colleagues on the other side of that issue. never really get to the merits of that. i won't bore the people here in the committee with of the ash.

ken hirozawa, the current board has been criticized by many of my colleagues on the republican side as being excessively partisan or somehow out of step with previous boards and boards traditions. i know that chairman pierre says proactively taken steps to foster more collaboration and i met with him periodically about that. how would you respond to that characterization of both the board, the accusations, but also the chairman's actions. had his efforts led to more consensus based decision making? >> i think they have. he has made tremendous efforts in that direction. it is important to recognize the value of having a diversity of viewpoints.

that is and has been very valuable. but it takes some work to override that a consensus. he has taken the lead in encouraging discussion among board members, both formally and informally, both before and after formal votes in order to try and arrive at a result that everyone can live with. one of the concrete things he has done is reinstituted case meetings which all members of the board said down face-to-face to discuss cases. that is something which of the history of the board has not been the norm. he has also participated in and encourage members to participate in 1-on-1 discussions with each other of legal issues that they

may not at least start out seeing eye to eye on. >> thank you. could you both maybe tell us a bit about -- some people say the board only protect the rights of labor unions and union workers. could you tell us about how the board protect the rights of non-union employees? >> the board has -- well, for its entire history the act has always protected the rights of employees to work together with each other to address their terms and conditions of employment regardless of whether they're is a union involved in not. and this goes back to the early days of the act. they're is a supreme court case from the early 60's, washington aluminum which made it very clear that employees there in a non unionized metal

shop where there was no question of union representation. there were just getting together to try and address the freezing conditions in the shot. and the board granted them a remedy. the supreme court said that the board was right. does not matter whether you have a union and not. you are protected by the act. >> anything to add? >> section seven protect workers' rights to engage in activities for the mutual aid and protection which has been interpreted for those kinds of activities with or without the union. when i was at the nlrb and the detroit regional office in the early 70's at the case for a group of workers who worked for our credit card company at that time data entry passed around a

piece of paper at their tables and wrote down a list of grievances and wanted to meet with our supervisor. they did not want to have a union come but they wanted to me with a supervisor about the list of grievances. they all got fired. they ended at the national labor relations board, and there was a case on their behalf. it will workers to engage in activities for mutual aid and protection. it they're right to do that was protected by the act. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman the question about the free choice act. >> let me ask a similar question about what we call a right to work law, section 14 be. our state of tennessee, we strongly -- the right to work law. we strongly support that and has

been the primary driver to the expansion of our auto industry over the last 30 years and it includes both the general motors plant which has united autoworkers partnership, and includes plants like the sun and folks like and which cannot and hundreds of suppliers. so it is important to us that the right to work will be protected. i will ask the same sort of question. has to do with the secret ballot. do you believe that it can be changed, freedoms granted to workers can be changed by members of the national labor relations board, or does that require action from the congress? >> would you are describing is

in section 14 be. it is statutory in cannot be changed by members of the national labor relations board and would require congressional action to make changes. it is fairly straightforward in the act. >> yes. absolutely clear. right-to-work is a matter for congress and states to decide. the board has nothing to say about it. >> does that then mean that you would not consider it an unfair labor practice if an employer in i'm not right to work state sought to expand in a right to work state? >> i think that as a general matter fed wouldn't make it a

violation. i think that any case that might come before the board would have to be considered on the facts of this particular case. and it is very difficult to draw a conclusion from of broad hypothetical. >> that in and of itself would not be a basis for a violation. there might be a violation given additional circumstances and facts. >> it would not be. >> not the way that you just said it. >> is not of far-fetched example. we just had a pretty big argument about the nlrb acting general counsel's actions with boeing, the boeing case which sent shudders through employers all over the country. let me ask you one other question and go back to the

impartiality thing while you have been one of the senior members of the afl-cio and a time when the national organizing director said the labor board should be closed for renovations until a new governing board could be appointed by a new president and director says it is time to shut the board down and closed for renovation. you have testified for what we call the card check legislation. you have been of very prominent and effective advocate. you wrote a 2008 article in the afl-cio newsletter referring to the union movement as our movements. no, you have made some statements to reassure employers of your impartiality, but what can you say to employers who will come before a board that might include you? the move from the position of

advocate. a pretty fierce one on behalf of labor to an impartial -- how could you pressure an employer and when they come before the board, if you're on it that it will do that. >> it's an interesting way you pose the question because it reminded me that when i went from the nlrb has a feel attorney for the nlrb to private practice, clients that would come before us when i was assigned their case, have know that there will be an advocate for me. you just came from the national labor relations board. appreciate that these are two different roles, advocate and neutral arbiter, but i believe in the act. i want all litigants to come before the board to feel that they have been dealt with fairly

and honestly. you mentioned that in your statement, and i'm committed to that. i think it is important that that happen. that's what i will do. i will not come -- a have no preconceived agenda. i will approach the cases that come before me with an open mind i will carefully consider all the facts, the positions of the parties, have the opportunity to engage with the experience and background of the other members, the other nominees for the national labor relations board. we have some diverse backgrounds opportunity to take a vantage of the experience and knowledge of the career staff people. i want to make sure that decisions that i reached a debt and a fair manner and an honest manner. >> my time is of.

would you like to make a short answer? >> if i might. a just want to show you that i have a very clear understanding of the difference between someone who is an advocate and someone who is an impartial adjudicator. i have had experience in both roles. i think that i have been able to up to act appropriately in both roles. i promise to you and all of the other members of the committee then i will do my absolute best to look at every case that comes before the board and partially and fairly and without regard to

who the parties might be. >> thank you. >> in order of appearance. ..

>> this is an opportunity for employers and employees to get their disputes resolved and to make sure that this is a lesson in history for unions. i just want to say that i am so delighted that we have to very qualified nominees. this is so great. i want to start by saying that i was very impressed by the wide range of experience that you have starting with the second circuit in the experience he had in the private sector and working directly with them and in addition to your role as chief counsel it is a private

attorney experience and this will affect her performance as a member of the board. >> this is also part what i described in my opening statement. from my experience as a field attorney, not only am i familiar with the quality and dedication that we have in the field, but i know from personal experience the reality on the ground and i know how cases are investigated and this is part of the hearing and i to have a practical understanding of how that process works.

in my work as an attorney in private practice, i am familiar with what lawyers and parties appearing before the national labor relations board have to contend with and what makes their job easier and more difficult. and i think you'll make it easier at times having my experience. >> i appreciate that. but let's just ask this question as well. >> i also have an opportunity to work with a lot of management attorneys.

>> i very much appreciate it and i wanted to ask because it seems little shocking to me. in 2013 we were talking about equal pay for equal work. but according to the department of labor, women earn 77 cents on the dollar. pay equity is an important issue for american women and the congress has taken good steps bypassing the lilly ledbetter fair pay act and i'm also proud to have you been part of mystery that no matter what congress does, the reality is that a fully functioning part of this is pay equity and this is essential to protecting the games that workers have achieved through collective bargaining and that is increasingly important because now union membership is 45% women and on target for women to make up a

majority. it helped women workers who are pursuing equal pay for equal work. >> we have no specific jurisdiction over equal pay claims. when these workers for each outcome we want them to be able to engage in discussions and collective actions about these kinds of issues and one that is able to provide that level of protection for workers so that they can learn about what is going on with their coworkers and be knowledgeable if they decide to do so and take collective action about those issues. >> i see that we are out of time

and we will will have to simultaneously. and thank you for your willingness to serve. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to comment that you are about to vote for confirmation and you have a melodically subject and i just want to make that comment. >> thank you. >> you are also the chief counsel, is that correct? during the time that the health care decision was made? >> that is correct. >> could you explain to the committee why the chairman decided to undo decades of this and the health care case? >> senator, thank you for bringing the subject up because it is a very important issue with good reason and there is a

lot of discussion. it has been my privilege to work with chief counsel of the border. he was a member on the specialty health care decisions. buy services arend by the ethical standard that included attorney-client relationships and so i am really not in a position to discuss his particular views on not other than what has been expressed in detail from the decision. >> in light of that answer, let me ask your answer to that

question. in regards to acute nursing facilities and all manners of this, like bergdorf goodmans or macy's. >> sooner just come i understand the distinction. the trouble is that in my capacity as counsel to the chairman at the time of that decision, he was in the chairman, he was a member. the my duty is to advise him what i think we have discussed, and i really can't go into what my personal views at the time may or may not have been.

and of course i cannot be in the position of prejudging any case that might come before the board in the future. i think what i can say is that specialty health care is the controlling decision of the board in my view of how board members should do the job to show great respect and apart from and only on very rare occasions. >> excuse me for interrupting, but i want to make sure that my time has run out. you can't give me a statement on those two cases, in your testimony you referred to this. you talked about your father packing a bag and going to work as he anticipated 80 strike.

is that correct? here that is correct. >> like a hardware store or at a manufacturing company, automobile manufacturing, can you imagine how disruptive it would be if all 35 would've been in this? >> that would make labor relations much more concentrated >> effectively opened this within the same entity. it would be terribly disruptive. >> i have a time for one more question. >> concerning that you are affirmed, do you think it would

be appropriate for you to ratify those decisions before the united states supreme court? >> that is a question that the board may have to decide. >> you would be one of those board members? >> that is right. it is something that i would have to consider. i haven't given a great deal of thought at this point. if i were to become a member, it is something that i would need to discuss with my colleagues in arrive at a sensible conclusion. >> in the interest of this opportunity. >> i agree that this is a question that is very likely part of the new board. as i stated, i do not want to become a board member with any

agenda. i would not be in a position to indicate position on that now. i have not been privy to all of the circumstances and the number of cases is where they are in the process. i would not be in a position to answer at this point. >> thank you very much. i. >> it is a pleasure chatting here and i want to say how hard and i am to have you here today. >> this is particularly true to my own home state, my state of

wisconsin. wisconsin is a manufacturing state. during the great recession, i would say even in the years and perhaps decades prior to that, the manufacturing sector in wisconsin and certainly throughout big portions of the country have taken a real hit. and when companies closed or cut jobs, and help to enforce employer's duties to bargain with organizers and to try to achieve the best possible outcome. there as a result workers rights are realized.

there are many middle-class families in my state and across the country that would be fine. i have a very broad question looking at the board at 60,000 feet. and i would like you to comment on the role do you see the board plane vindicating the rights of working families and employers, but also the role in strengthening an economy that has gone through a lot in recent years. >> as chairman harkin pointed out in his introductory remarks, the board has a unique role in giving american workers a place to come in order to make sure

that their ability to have something to say about the conditions that they work under is protected area and that is something that is crucial to having a functioning economy. and that is something that i think has proved its value over the 75 plus years of the board's existence and continues to be crucially important. >> indicates that.

>> when it is able to function in an efficient manner and be able to expeditiously resolve labor disputes for the parties, and when people can have clear rules about what they are supposed to do, guidelines and having certainty with that. that promotes this and it does help our economy. >> i know the board looks at individual disputes and it oversees elections. but given this broad look of the situation, what do you think the greatest challenges are and what are they facing as far as businesses and workers in the 21st century.

and how are you qualified to help address these challenges? >> is a member of the board, and the capacity of enforcing the act, that would be what i could do. but i know that the challenges are great and trying to work in the economy to keep up with the technological changes and the advances their, trying to keep up with the workforce challenges and demand, all of these are very difficult problems and certainly a lot more that i could imagine. but as a member of the board, my role would be to effectuate the purposes of the act to the extent that that allows people

to have a labor dispute so that they can resolve and compete and meet these other challenges and that would be the role. >> the challenges are great and the fact is that the board's role is actually pretty narrow. the act is pretty specific in the rights that it confers and the power that it gives the board. so there is a tremendous amount to be done in the board's role covers what in some ways is a very small part of that. all i can say is we all have to do our part.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank you for your willingness to serve. afterwards the soviets had a trade union that had been imposed over europe and it was a one of the people that i most admired at the time during my service in the senate. and they got me involved in this in solidarity it was a privilege for me to go and meet with

others. we helped get them the materials that they needed to keep up with the effort. to formulate the national endowment for democracy, which is very important to him and to us. one time he's over at the international labor organization and he said, we need you come over here. he said that they have a resolution against the and if it passes, we have to pull out of this, which would be catastrophic to the world. so at his request, i flew over there and he took me to the delegations and i left before the vote and we won. i admire him as much as anyone i have met in politics. wayne franklin, he said to me one day, he said senator, if

only you were good and domestic policy like your foreign policy and i was saying untranslated precisely the same thing as well. although we are all worried about whether we will have the ability to be partisan in this job and it is a national concern. we are told of your credentials and i can say that thinking about you, sir. in terms of your resume, i have serious concerns about your ability to be doing justice because it is very important that you are a part of this. i will not name names, and they

won't let their former employment how their judgment when it comes to resolving disputes between labor and management. needless to say i don't think those promises here were kept. we have spent the vast majority of your career working for unions and you have spoken favorably in the unions positions with regard to public policy. given all this, how can you be sure that once you are on the board, how can you be sure that he won't become yet another union partisan and you will treat all people who come before the lord very objectively? >> thank you for the question.

and i appreciate the concern. the concern, that he would have that concern. as i said, i started at the detroit regional office and i had an exemplary role model there. while i was there i was a skilled attorney and my job was to fill the mission and that is exactly what i did and i became an advocate and i understand that this position is different. we will have the ability to have a full board and we will have varying backgrounds there.

and on behalf of the chamber of commons, i think that i have made the suggestion and we really need to do this sort of straight up we just really need to do it straight up. that is exactly what we did. we are very knowledgeable about the law, and that is how we will look forward to have this kind of engagement at the board and develop a productive relationship with the other nominees. >> thank you, we appreciate it. >> i had the liberty of asking just one question. >> sure, go ahead. thank you so much.

>> when it comes to the nrb engaging on rulemaking, in 2011 the board finalized to rules that were controversial in the first was the rule requiring all employers to inform employees of their rights of the union and the second was the ambush election school, which would have greatly accelerated the pace of union certification in both of these roles have been invalidated by the federal court system today. and i have three questions. first, as chief counsel, chairman peers, what role did you have in development of the substance of these two failed rules and do you believe that these rules represent good policy and finally deeply that the board's limited history with successful rulemaking should consider whether to engage in rulemaking in the future.

>> thank you, senator hatch. i understand that the rules have been the subject of a great deal of attention. and i think that from that experience, both the rulemaking in the litigation following the issuance of the rules, there are lessons for the new board to learn. because i was chairman and chief counsel, naturally, i spent a great deal of time discussing the substance of those rules

this includes my role as counsel with respect to the rulemaking. and the employee rights notice, the litigation, i should say, we understand that a petition for a hearing has been filed earlier this week. but the new board will have some serious issues to consider and to decide what, if anything to

do in the future concerning that rule and concerning the rule about representation of case procedure and also the remainder of the proposed rule. >> the third question is in regards to history with successful rulemaking, it should give board members powers considering whether to engage in rulemaking in the future. that is not asking you to make a determination. >> i would say yes, it is something that a reasonable person in that position would

have to take a very close look at and consider carefully. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank both of our nominees not just for your testimony today, but your willingness to serve as well and your commitment that is demonstrated. listening to your life experiences as well as professional experiences, this is a remarkable tribute to the american experience and we tend to see that on a regular basis in this room. but today especially noteworthy and we are especially proud of the service so far and we hope to be proud as well. sometimes we get caught up in washington and the back-and-forth in the national

labor relations board and we need to remind ourselves and i represent pennsylvania and we have about as difficult set of chapters in our history when it came to labor-management disputes. we have no way of resolving differences i think it is important to remind ourselves throughout the finding