you are a schneider. >> these are your web site. >> i am aware of that. i'm trying to differentiate the concept of the term rockstar and how we see it. we are not encouraging the drinking of the product by having that. ..

>> it's not going to be what you're going to do, and an

adolescent looking at that is impressionable. it's a very impressionable group of kids that have a lot of buys power. that would be my primary concern. >> do you agree it's not a healthy lifestyle to mix red bull and sleeping pills? >> one step further, it's not consistent with the our strategy. should not have been messaged. that will be addressed. >> again, it's part of the culture, and we're in this hearing dealing with that, and we're trying to be, obviously, clear about the message from the committee that we just want it all to end. it just has to end. we don't want anymore games to be played with regard to mixed messaging going on out there, and we want it done in a way that does, in in fact, you know,

protect people, and by young people, we are talking about 13 and 14, and 15-year-olds. you know, we're not pretending if they can't buy a beer or drive a car or do most things in society, that we're not going to be -- we might be treating them as adolescents, but society treats them as children, and we understand why because they are highly impressionable and accuracying an artificial line of 12 years of age, you know, basically defies what dr. sc dr. schneider talked about in terms of their maturity and level of growth. did you want to add something? >> yeah, one the issue with kids and stimulants is it's the beginning of an addictive pattern. there's two things addictive on

the same page. i think that is one thing that really appeals to kids and, certainly, we don't want to be -- i mean, promoting stimulants, seeking behavior, speaking other potentially addicting behaviors is not a good message. >> dr. spencer, do you want to get in on this? >> thank you. thank you. i think it's important to also realize we have representatives here of the major players in the industry, but every day there are minor players that are popping up, not playing by the same rules, and so even if we get the industry to come to some sort of consensus, we still need a level playing field that all players have to abide by. one of the most striking things that i hear when i had hearings in my legislative chamber in

suffolk county is the idea that these items are safe. i think that we have to be careful of the is a -- semantics with the word of "safe and natural," when you look at caffeine, it's in nature on plants and beans as a natural insecticide. the point of caffeine is to prevent insects from eating the plant. we take something that its function in nature is a stimlant, is to have a toxic impact, and we use it in a human model, and what i'm concerned about is when we hear testimony that the caffeine consumption has remained stable, but we see a massive increase in emergency room visits. although, we can challenge some of the visits, we still, when we see a number of such as ten-fold from 2005 to 2008, we hear twice

going from 2008 to 2011, there's something going on here, so if the caffeine consumption remains the same, there's a shift from soda and coffee to energy drinks, and i think that defies logic to not believe there is no some sort of cause and effect relationship when we see in alarming trend. thank you. >> and it is an alarming trend, dr. spencer. we thank you for that. it's clear what we're talking about here are marketing practices by these companies and other companies that are clearly aimed at children and adolescents, and what we're saying is, stop it. we're saying, stop it. we're trying to basically use these illustrations as a way of getting that message out, you know, that we want real safeguards put in place and there's no ambiguity that we're hearing from the outliers who

take advantage of any agreement we reach to make sure that those kinds of safeguards are put in place. ms. taylor, your testimony says that red bull believes in teaching moderation in consumption. this is an instruction on your tumblr site to pound the 20-ounce can of red bull and the question is, is that teaching moderation when you say "pound a 20-ounce can of an energy drink"? >> moderation, the emphasis is in the fact, again, 85% of the sales are in the eight and 12-ounce cans. this is not the language we see suited for our brand, and parnlly for the reason you pointed out, additionally because it's not really prompt for our pooing. the voice of our brand as the premium player, and it's an

excellent example of the nature of the commitments we are making today in drawing a clearer line, not a gray one, but a black and white one regarding language around rapid consumption. i will admit this conversation can be a subjective one and casual language common in social media, it will take scrutiny to determine what we're talking about here, but the example provided here as well as the example behind you are not on brand for red bull and covered within commitments made today going forward. >> ms. weiner, do you agree it's not the appropriate message to pound a product? >> we have not employed such language in our markets. >> right. do you agree as well, that it's not an appropriate thing to be advocating? >> yes. >> so would each of you agree to

remove any references that would be encouraging people to consume at a rapid right, your energy drinks? >> senator, we have done so, and i agree. >> yes, i agree with that. i don't think we have the language, but, of course, yes. >> okay. so let me just keep moving forward there. ms. taylor, would your company commit to putting social media researchers in place so individuals under the age of 18 are not consumed with unhealthy messages of your beverage while browsing media sites? >> senator, that's not an appropriate message for us to send for a couple reasons. red bull is safe for teen consumption. our target demographic, as you know, is 18-34. we're crisp about that, especially in the last two years since making a strategic shift, but the other reason is that we believe there's nothing harmful on our social media sites for that age bracket, and, frankly,

it's positive and aspiring, and now that we've made the public commitments made today, we believe the language that you pointed out will be changed. it will be crisp in our commitments today. to restrict the visitation of our sites from a teen population would send the wrong message. >> okay. that's important for us to know because, again, we're looking at 13, 14, and 15-year-olds a lot different than you are, to be honest with you, a lot different. they are a vulnerable target for any product, and we don't view them the same way as 18 and 19-year-olds, i don't think most people do. they are still in grammar school for the most part. it's a different audience. ms. wiener, would you commit to putting researchers in place so that individuals under the age of 18 are not promoted unhealth beverages while browsing social

media sites? >> no. currently, we have a caveat restricting 13-year-olds, 12 and under, that is, to not get involved. >> not 13, 14, and 15-year-olds? >> no, and another point to that, they are aspirational, but people don't look at the other side of the coin which is that the new -- 40 is the new 60, okay? this is a phrase you hear a lot amongst mature adults. my dentist watches, you know, the x games and can't get enough of getting my stickers. to speak to the point exactly, our independent panel illustrated no issue to us for the consumption of the products safely in combination, these key ingredients demonstrated as safe for the consumption of 13 to 17-year-old -- >> may i just say this. i know that 60 is the new 40, but having hit 60, i can just tell you that it's not accurate.

[laughter] >> well i don't know. >> in the same way 13 is not the new 18, okay? there's a big difference between a 13-year-old and 18-year-old, and so say that there isn't is to say that 40 #-year-old and a 60-year-old is the same, and whether you like it or not, certain things wear down more than you'd like to, and i like the -- twail, i really -- i like the ed markey1.0. i wish i could get that guy back, but i'm 2.0 now, and ed markey2.0 is in the majority of the senate which is a good thing. >> that is a good thing. >> a very good thing. honestly, we're trying to be pretty, you know, let's be honest about this. >> we are. >> 13-year-olds and 18-year-olds are two different species almost in terms of their level of

maturity, and just to lump them together and pretend that the 13-year-old -- >> i'm speaking -- >> that they don't belong with older kids is wrong. they are impressionable, and i just continue to be schaved by the willingness of the industry to want younger kids in with the older teenagers because that's really where i think the problem is, and in most people's mind, the industry is oblivious to the concern which the public has knowing they are targeted in the same way we know you want a kid hooked on cigarettes at age 12, 13, 14, or 15 #, when they are trying to do what everybody else is doing. >> our target demographic is 18-35. >> i understand that. we're trying to help you to help us to ensure that your marketing -- >> but i want to reassure you -- >> that it's not an earlier age. >> the point is to reassure you we have taken appropriate steps as a responsible company to

investigate ingredients with scientists that assuredded us they are 100% safe for the age bracket of 13-17. i want to reassure you. >> let me ask you, will you commit to going through the existing images on social media to erase images that promote unhealthy consumption of the energy drinks? >> that's a big task you want me to take on every energy drink company? >> just your company. >> okay, good, yeah. i would be pleased to do a review. >> okay. ms. taylor? >> the commitments made today are taken seriously, and can you repeat the request? >> the question is that you would be going through existing images on your social media to erase any images that promote unhealthy consumption of your energy drink? >> that would be consistent about the commitment of rapid and excessive. absolutely.

that's the commitment we are making today. >> okay. >> mr. sacks? >> we would be happy to do that. >> okay. would you put in place social media research so those under 18 are not bombarded with how to rapidly consume your products? >> we do not currently suggest that -- >> the answer is yes? >> i would say to the entire population our target demographic as well -- from 13 to 95, i say don't rapidly -- >> okay. ms. taylor? >> we will not include that messaging going forward. >> okay, great. mr. sacks? >> will do, sir. >> all three companies here today stated in your testimony and in previous communications to members of the committee that the company does not intend to promote to children. this question is for each of the companies. please respond yes or no. will you commit to placing a

label on your product indicating that the product isn't intended for children under the age of 16? yes or no? >> no. >> no. ms. taylor? >> we're not prepared to make that commitment. >> mr. sacks? >> no. >> no, okay. binden contract language to bind contributors and third party entity to promote marketing or sampling to children? ms. weiner? >> we have contracts in place that we are unable to modify. >> i'm talking about future contracts. >> future contracts? >> repeat the question. >> would you submit to concluding binding contract language in future contracts prohibiting distributers and any third party entity from promoting marketing or sampling to children? >> we're speaking of children 12 and under? >> again, under 16, i will say

under 16. >> we could not agree to that. we could agree to children under 12. >> ms. taylor? >> our distributers cannot market or sample on our behalf. if that's in writing and legally binding, absolutely. >> okay. >> going forward, we would be prepared to put in the contract with the distributers, not other third parties we don't know, that they should not market or sample to, again, children, but, again, as defined which is up to 13 -- 12 and under. >> some of the testimony today indicates consumers are confused in the marketplace on differences between sports drinks that contain electrolytes or rehydration in energy drinks that contain caffeine and other stimulants that are reported to improve athletic performance. the athletic associations have

both stated in letters to senator durbin and bloomenthal and to me they avoid athletes to avoid energy drinks and other stimulants because they could be detrimental to the health of athletes and are not effective forms of fuel or hydration. i ask for consent to enter those into the record. would you agree that the student athlete associations that energy drinks should not be promoted as sports drinks that will improve athletic performance for youth? >> yes. >> dr. harris? >> yes. i would also like to know what they mean by not promoting them as sports drinks because almost all of them are related to sports in some way. >> we'll get to that. dr. spencer? >> >> absolutely. >> mr. sacks?

>> i think there is a distinction in some of the energy drinks. we have a line of energy drinks called rehab that contain electrolytes at precisely the same levels as in gatorade and power-aid. there is a substantial body of science that confirms that caffeine at the levels that we have in our products do not have a direct effect and do not effect hydration. again, you do seem to have the product that has electrolytes in and energy drink that does not in which we don't market as a sports drink or having those benefits. >> so do you agree with the ncaa or the national federation of state high school associations who have stated in letters to senator durbin and to myself and blumenthal advising student

athletes to avoid energy drinks and other stimulants because they could be detrimental to the health of student athletes because they don't have large amounts of electrolytes in them. >> i don't know the drinks referred to because we have a line that's different. everybody's entitled to their recommendation, which we respect. however, we don't believe there's concerns of our product drunk by that demographic. it's safely consumed in more than 90 countries around the world, and we don't have any health that has been causally proven to be attributed to our products, but everybody's entitled to consume the product as they choose. >> the national federation of state high school associations are entitled to their opinion, but they are wrong? >> no, we respect the opinion and they are entitled to it. >> ms. taylor? >> with the information in front of me and what you read to us, i disagree, but if we give a statement on behalf of the company, we have to review that in greater detail understanding

the claims and compare that against the science behind our product. >> ms. weiner? >> i ask time to evaluate that and bring that to the committee for review. >> okay, i thank you for that. i think it's important we divide this question between that which has, obviously, included in the product, the electrolytes that high school athletic associations support and those which are caffeine -- >> senator, we make -- >> they have the boost, but not the ingredient that's preferred so i think we have to divide the question, and i ask -- each of you will have a chance in writing back to the committee to tell us if you would divide that question between the two kinds of drinks that multiple kinds of drinks you might be marketing, and i'll come back to you, dr. harris, so you can make comments on the issue of what it is that we should be concerned about in terms of these

products. >> well, i'm -- my issue is with the marketing that all of the associations with sports that we've seen today in the marketing does imply that products are good and enhanced sports performance, so i'm just trying to understand what the aba commitment is to not market these drinks as sports drinks, what that means. >> okay, pose the question to them, what is your concern? why don't you lay out what it is that you are concerned that they may not be pledging to do that you would like them to do. >> all right. well, the evidence is that energy drinks should not be consumed as part of sports, and that they become more dangerous when that happens, and all of the sports sponsorships that these companies promote in my mind seem to be promoting these drinks as appropriate for

sports, so i just want to understand that more. >> okay. >> could you divide the question, then, in terms of the types of energy drinks that you are promoting that you think are consistent with the goals that young athletes should have and those that are of concern to these high school associations? mr. sacks, she, you know, dr. harris has concern about that. >> the no relationship between your marketing and supporting sports and promoting your drinks as being used for that sports, every company promotes sports whether it's beer companies whether it's coca-cola whether it's pepsi, so i just don't get that. the -- on the other side, i think that what is said flies in the face of all well-establishedded literature and scientific research, that these drinks shouldn't be drank before sports or in any way dangerous somehow in connection with sports.

we have studies, red bull and everybody else has studies after many years that the drinks do improve performance, and there is no suggestion that the drinks are dangerous in those circumstances. we've had no evidence at all other than -- and, again, there are over 50 billion energy drinks cop souped in -- consumed in all circumstances for over 25 years. >> do you, the american beverage association says that energy drinks should not be marketed as sports drinks. do you disagree with the american beverage association? >> on that point, yes, we do. that was proved before we became a member, and what we say is, and our understanding of that is that was before they had understood that we had drinks like the rehab that contains electrolytes. secondly, we believe that that is in relation to not portraying sports, but it's compared energy

drinks to sport drinks like gatorade and power-aid that have electrolytes, and that's the distinction we're trying to draw, but that is not something we have endorsed. >> and ms. taylor and ms. weiner, do you agree with the american beverage association that energy drinks should not be marketed as sports drinks? >> yes, our position is we agree. we're a member of the aba, and sports drinks by definition in the industry, companies like neilson, ect., are defined as electrolyte beverages hydrating, and that's not appropriate for our positioning. >> okay, so ms. weiner? >> as with monster, rock star joined the aba after the rules were in place, and there's only four companies that agree to the rules, and i'd like to point out that there is no fda or regulatory distinction between energy drinks and sports drinks.

that's a business term. it's an industry term. that's not an accepted food and drug administration term. all rock star energy products are clearly labeled with the caffeine content, and there's no attempt to promote them as other than caffeine beverages, period. >> okay, well, see from our perspective, okay, if your members of the american beverage association, and these are voluntary guidelines, but mr. sacks does not feel bound by the guidelines, that's helpful to understand. if guidelines are voluntary, but individuals can make a decision not to abide by the guide lips, then it really does emphasize the line voluntary, and you question what the regime is that there is, in fact, compliance -- >> they are industry guidelines, currently in flux, and the association confirms that. they are not set in cement, no.

>> they are what? >> in flux right now. >> meaning the guidelines -- >> those particular guidelines of energy drinks in sports, only that one, because. fact it's -- because of the fact it's an industry standard, that's nothing to do with the food and drug administration, just a technical thing that something's on the shelf in the store, in the sports drink section or put it in the energy drink section. >> okay, so, no, i appreciate that there could be an ongoing vigorous discussion at the american beverage association now with regards to the standards. >> yeah, we have had them. >> given the new members that joined, but they are clearly standards they believed were accurate when they were put on the books, so i guess, you know, i'm going to bring the hearing to a close, but just to tell you this that we're going to be returning to the subject, and would be asking you to very

strongly re-examine your policies, especially when it comes to kids, and i'm not talking about the 18 and 19-year-olds, but the younger kids, and what your policies are, what protections you put in place because we will be revisiting this, and we are going to be looking for real results to ensure that lines are drawn, that will be protecting those who are most vulnerable in our population from being exploited. i would be encouraging each of our company witnesses when it comes to marketing children and adolescents not to rely on salesman -- semantics, but focus on safety, focus on those most impressionable, and make sure protections are being put in place and so that when we return, you will have a strong

body of evidence to prove to the committee that your actions are, in fact, for the protection of the young people of society. i got to rush over to the senate floor. i thank all witnesses for the testimony. this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> i want to thank the leaders of both parties for being here today to discuss what is a very serious issue facing the united states, and the fact i had a chance to speak to many of you and congress as a whole taking this issue with the soberness and seriousness it deserves is greatly appreciated and i think vindicates the decision for us to present this issue to congress. as i said last week, as secretary kerry made clear in the presentation last week, we have high confidence that syria used in an indiscriminant fashion chemical weapons that killed thousands of people including over 400 children and in direct violation of the international norm against using chemical weapons.

that poses a serious national security threat to the united states and to the region, and as a consequence, assad and syria needs to be held accountable. i made a decision that america should take action, but i also believe that we will be much more effective, we will be stronger if we take action together as one nation, and so this gives us the opportunity not only to present the evidence to all of the leading members of congress and various foreign policy committees as to why we have high confidence that chemical weapons were used and that assad used them, but that gives us the opportunity to discuss why it's so important that he be held to account. this norm against using chemical weapons that 98% of the world agrees to is there for a reason because we recognize there's certain weapons that when used

can not only end up resulting in grow -- grotesque deaths, but transmit to nonstate actors, pose a risk to friends and allies of ours like israel, like jordan, like turkey, and unless we hold them into account sends a message that international norms around issues like nuclear proliferation don't mean much, and so i'm going to be working with congress. there's a draft authorization asking for hearings and a prompt vote, and i'm very appreciative that everyone here has begun scheduled hearings and intends to take a vote as soon as all of congress comes back early next week, so the key point that i want to emphasize to the american people, the military

plan developed by joint chiefs and that i believe is a appropriate is proportional, it is limited, it does not involve boots on the ground. this is not iraq. this is not afghanistan. this is a limit the proportional step to send a clear message not only to the assad regime, but also to other countries that may be interested in testing these international norms that there are consequences giving us the ability to degrade assad's capabilities when it comes to chemical weapons. it also fits into o broader strategy that we have to make sure that we can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and diplomatic and economic and political pressure required so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to syria, but to the region.

i want to emphasize once again what we are envisioning is something limited. it is something pore torsional it will degrade assad's capabilities. twaiment, we have a -- at the same time, we have a broader strategy, allow syria, ultimately, to free itself from the kinds of civil wars and death we see on the ground, so i look forward to listening to the various concerns of the members here today. i'm confident those concerns can be addressed. i think it's appropriate we about deliberately, but i also think everybody recognizes the urgency here and we have to move relatively quickly. with that, to all you here today, i look forward to the excellent discussion. >> [inaudible] >> i would not go to congress if

i was not serious about consultation in believing that by shaping the authorization to make sure we accomplish the mission, we will be more effective, and in so long as we accomplish what needs to be accomplished, sending a clear message to assad, degrading capabilities to use chemical weapons, not just now, but also in the future, as long as the authorization allows us to do that, i'm confidence we'll come up with something that hits that mark. all right? [inaudible conversations] >> thank you, everybody. [inaudible conversations] >> i am. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you, guys. thank you. >> remarks from 25 minutes ago. of course, c-span brings you reactions or comments following that gathering this morning. later today, the president leaves to attend the g20 summit in russia, begins in sweden, landing there tomorrow with meetings and then off to the

summit thursday, returning to the white house on friday. >> the state house element is one of the most iconic and recognizable symbols of the maryland state house, but lesser known fact is that it's not the first dome to cover the billing. when the billing is completed in 1779, it's topped by a small undersized coupe la which is decried for problems, leaks because it was hit by the cur cane in the 1770s, and in the 1780s, it's contrary to laws of modern architecture. in 1785, less that two years after congress is in annapolis, construction begins on a new dome to the state house. they, of course, have to first dismantle the original, and that takes 12 years to complete it. the construction on the exterior begins in 1787, it's the largest wooden dome in the united states

built without nails held together with joints and strappings which really is truly an architectural masterpiece. in the 19th century in the war of 1812, the dome is a lookout, the tallest point in town, with a view of the river and bay so we have tremendous documentation of william, a naval hero, going up to the state house dome using his excellent glass to observe troop movements on the way back and forth, up the bay in september of 1814. >> more about maryland's state house as booktv and american history tv look at the history and literary life of annapolis, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2 and sunday at five on c-span3. >> up next, a discussion on voting rights in america and the impact of the supreme court's recent ruling striking down

section 4 of the voting rights act. this is part of the naacp's annual convention held this summer. it is just over two hours. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you, ms. brown, and to the distinguished panel, i thank you for joining us this afternoon. i serve as the senior adviser to the president and ceo and senior director for voting rights for the naacp. we are all gathered here this afternoon in a moment in our country that many of us have never found ourselves in. we know we are still in the midst of the most aggressive attack on voting rights that we have witnessed in more than a century. we know that that attack on our

voting rights, on our democracy, is one that is very coordinated, well-funded, and targeted. i'm so proud to stand here as a member, as a lifetime member of the naacp and to stand here today with many of our allies who you will hear from this afternoon and our partners, and you'll hear from elected leaders across our country about what we can do to ensure that we preserve our most fundamental rights in our nation, the right to vote. now, i know many of you are thinking about shelby county versus holder, and you'll hear from attorney ryan haygood with the legal defense fund this afternoon about shelby county

versus holder, but as you're sitting there, i want you to know that we have a strategy and a plan to move forward to ensure our nation's most sacred right to vote is protected in our country. when the u.s. supreme court decided in an activist move to invalidate and rule unconstitutional section 4b of the voting rights act, and put in place in the hands of congress our precious democracy that we know here today that it is up to us, each and every one of you in our nation, in our country, in our states, cities, and communities, in your organizations to ensure that congress hears from you, so our strategy and what we must all

focus on is a two-prong strategy. one, we must focus all our attention on sending a very strong signal to congress. they must hear from you. they must see you. they must feel your pressure in hearing that the american public only expects one thing of them, that they move swiftly to ensure that section 4 is put back in place and that we don't simply receive a patch work of a section 4, but that we have in section 4 that not only looks at those places and jurisdictions with egregious discrimination practices historically, but also that we bring to the table those discriminatory practices that are happening in states that were not previously covered under section 4. second, we must focus our energy at the state level. we must make sure that we are

defending the right to vote, particularly in states where there is now no preclearance, no protection, no coverage. we must draw a very fine, but very strong line in the sand, and we must say very clearly and boldly that you are either on the side of democracy or you are an extremist. congress and every governor and every elected official from the mayor to the school board members to the election officers will have to make a decision, and the american public will be there to send a very strong signal that if they fail to act or if they choose to move into the direction of the press in vogue, that the american public

will take that to the voting booth with them. that is so important. finally, as i close today, it is vital that as we work to ensure we are protecting voting rights, make sure we are a standing voting right, and it's so important that we are looking at how we correct century old wrongs like felony disenfranchised, and you'll hear about that this afternoon and hear from those who has, himself, a personal story about the jim crow disenfranchisement, but you'll hear from state representatives who was a champion in expanding voting rights in the state of delaware. that is so important we hear

from the elected officials like the mayor benjamin who champion the expansion of voting rights so this afternoon i say thank you. we have an amazing panel, but we also have work to do so this panel is not just about hearing good ideas and about the work that we're doing, but also we truly are doing the work, and each and every one of your seats, there's a comprehensive tool kit. it's 9 o pages because it's a lot of work to be done. you will also find guides as well as papers issued by the naacp, and we encourage you not to just read them, but utilize them. i'm honored to now give the stage and podium to the distinguished ms. brown who is a wonderful organizer first, hailing from south carolina, who

sits on the national board of directors of the naacp and serves as the president of the a. phillip randolph institution in our nation. thank you very much. [applause] >> you can do better than that for the senior adviser to the president and ceo of the national association for the advancement of colored people. she's been doing unbelievable work across the country. she may be young, but i tell you what, don't pick a fight with her. if you get in one, i'll be on her side, and she doesn't need the knife, okay? again, let me say good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for attending this panel this afternoon. as we take a look at what's before us, i'm excited. i look at who is going to be presenting to us. to my vf left is representative

helene, representing the third district, been a sitar for voting rights ?ait, and was a primary sponsor of the hazel d. plant voter restoration act, a delaware state constitutional amendment which helped restore the voting rights of returning citizens. let's give the representative a hand, please. [applause] next to the representative is mayor steve benjamin, the first black mayor of columbia, south carolina. [applause] a state suffering under voter oppression, brother benjamin, brother benjamin. next to him, mr. ryan haygood, he is the political

participation group and attorney in the supreme court shelby county versus holder case, powerful, front, and center today. [applause] finally, yes, and i get the pleasure of sitting next to mr. desmondmeade, president of the florida rights of restoration koalation in florida. we -- >> [applause] that's right, applaud them for sure. to fact measures like gun reform, education reform, and health care reform, we must have the ability to elect candidates of our choice. this session will focus on the proactive agenda necessary to advance the rights to vote in our nation. this discussion will address and continued attacks on voting rights, impact on policy

changes, and movement on the local, state, and national levels to protect, to advance, and to expand access to our democracy. now, this being said, let's gib. we will start with the recent supreme court ruling on arizona versus ipca and shelby county versus holder, which invalidated section 4 of the voting rights act. ryan, the naacp legal defense and educational fund was involved in the recent supreme court case, shelby county versus holder, which invalidated a key provision of the voting rights act. please discuss, if you would, the national political impact of recent supreme court decisions, particularly that one, shelby county versus holder, and what do these decisions mean, and how are the decisions going to impact voters moving forward? >> so thank you, all, for coming to this important conversation.

i'm ryan haygood, director of a voting group, founded by thurgood marshall, one a part of the naacp, but it was at a time when southern legislators, in particular, challenged the tax exempt status of the naacp, and so thurgood marshall made ldf a separate organization, and we work closely with the naacp, and we work closely. at director, i lit cay -- i late gait in pry promises and low promises with respect to african-americans. we are in the moment. i like the frame in an important moment. we are celebrating some

significant historic accomplishments in our nation's history, the 50th anniversary of the march in washington in august, vote r rights act in a few years, and 50th anniversary of the passage of the civil rights act, 50th anniversary of the brown versus board of education, and what that means. they are historic markers representing water shed moments in the country east history where we had to confront the way in which we embraced high ideals and very, very low practices, and these markers are also important not simply because of the historic importance, but because they inform where we are in the modern era, and so as we are recognizing these important historic markers and thinking about the way in which race still influences the way in which one, blacks in particular, and latinos in particular, can

have access, full access here to democracy, reminded of the way in which there's a consider distance to travel. trayvon's case here in florida brings to mind recent challenges we face. a few weeks ago, the supreme court in what was really a devastating decision, struck a core part of the voting rights actment folks here know the voting rights act was born from the horrific conditions that existed in alabama more than 48 years ago. there was a march over the edmond bridge that connected selma, alabama to montgomery, bamtionz, led by john louis and other courageous americans, many of you nodding your head, peaceful protesters wanted to show the world the importance of full inclusion in our democracy, and particularly, for african-americans who were locked out for nearly a century, began a march over the bridge and there we know that they were met by alabama state troopers

who did violence to what was a peaceful protest. john's skull was literally fractured, and it moved this country to action just a few months later. lin don johnson, the then president, pushed through the voting rights act, and it became the culminating piece of federal legislation for the civil rights movement. the voting rights act went a very long way to remove so many barriers that for a century kept black folks out the political process. there's a core provision of the voting rights act which is section 5. section 5 applies to all or part of 15 states that had ha long history of discrimination in voting, and what section 5 did is required these jurisdictions with the worst histories of discrimination in voting to submit all voting cases to the federal government before they could go into effect with the theory that based on the history in these places of intense, of per sis tent and adoptive

discrimination, the places had to show whatever voting measures they were seeking to imple. were not discriminatory before they went into effect. well, section 5 was accompanied by another provision of voting rights act that was mentioned in section 4b. that is simply to provide the places where section 5 would operate. section 5 was a requirement that required certain jurisdictions to submit all voting changes for preapproval before they go into effect. section 4b applied section 5 to all or part of 15 places. the supreme court, just a few weeks ago, considering a challenge out of shelby county alabama struck as unconstitutional section 4b voafting rights act. they left in place section 5. essentially, the spreerm court struck the places where section 5 applied, but it's a lot like if you have a car, but you don't have keys to drive the car.

[laughter] section 5 is the car. section 4 is the place where you drive the car. if you got not keys, you can't drive anywhere, and it sits there, and it's useless even if it's a nice car and in the past, you enjoyed the car. the supreme court took the car keys away from the voting rights act. here's why it matters. there's two critical things to understand as i talk about this case. the first is that what the supreme court did was an extreme act of judicial activism. four times over four decades the supreme court has upheld the constitutionality of the voting rights act against challenges. every time congress reauthorized the voting rights act, what they did from time to time, there was a constitutional challenge that followed from some jurisdiction, the supreme court would hear it, and the supreme court rejected the constitutional challenge. this is the fifth time the supreme court considered such challenge, and it was the first time the supreme court struck as unconstitutional a part of the

voting rights act. one, the supreme court's decision as a significant departure from its own prior precedent. in the past two years, there's been more constitutional challenges to the voting rights act than there were in the previous 46 years of the history of the voting rights act. this is significant because it speaks to the idea that what is true about our history is that whenever we have seen periods of expansion of our democracy, they've almost always been coupled very swiftly by attempts to scale back democracy. we all know that the election of president obama as the nation's first african-american president was a significant development because it represented a significant expansion of our democracy. african-americans turned out in historic numbers with latinos and asians and won the election the first and second time largely because of the expanded caffeine -- access to the ballot and young

voters outside of the south. as we see expansion of the democracy, we also saw very precise and coordinated and intense efforts by many democracies, by many jurisdictions in the democracy to scale back access to the ballot box. we saw this happen here in florida, for example, where the florida legislature sought to pass a law that would cut in half early voting, early voting period in half. this is significant because in 2008, better than laugh the african-americans in the state voted during the early voting period and one-third of african-americans voted in that last sunday during the early voting period before the election. that last sunday, folks here know that that is because african-american churches in this state had perfected a program instituted called get your soul to the polls; right? that's a program you go to church, do your spiritual duties, hop on a bus, go to the polls, and just do your civic

duties. get your souls to the polls. florida sought to pass a law that cut the early voting period in half and did away with the sunday, the last sunday before the election as a deal in which you could go early. because florida, parts of florida were covered by section 5 of the voting rights act, that was a change that was required to be submitted to the federal government for permission, and essentially, a host of organizations intervene in the cases saying the reason why the three judge federal court in washington, d.c. should not approve the measure is because it's harmful to black voters in florida. ..

they would have harmed millions of minority voters. in texas, the state legislature sought to pass a photo id measure recognized by federal court as the most discriminatory measure in the land. it would not allow for the use of student ids, but would allow for these of concealed handgun licenses. we represented black voters who only had a student id, and we just those student ids privilege to vote but couldn't vote under texas new law. the voting rights act, section five in particular, rejected texas photo id measure as discriminatory. what the supreme court did, from its opening point, the supreme court decision ultimately reflects their proximity to the harm, or put it differently, the

distance from the harm. because what we know about the voting rights act as we think about our history as we recognize the moment in commemorating certain important watershed moments after certain laws, is that those past practices inform our present it in very recently the supreme court, a significant departure from its own practice in shelby county case did not think about the ways in which voters of color, black folks in places that recovered by section five relied any material way on the protections provided i section five of the voting rights act. >> thank you, ryan. [applause] >> as rights are taken away, -- [inaudible] i'm sure that each of us now are stronger on the clarity between section four and five after that review, so thank you so much for that.

now, representing states who are only partially covered by section five on this panel. what does the outlook look like now, you know, in your states since the change? >> that might just be me i don't know. that may just be me. i'm not hopeful to see a great deal of help in our state legislature, or from our members of congress, many of them came from our state legislature, to try and provide some type of remedy. i don't know what they're going to do. i just know that if someone is going to take a role in help write new laws, i would rather it be -- i would rather it be the naacp lf -- ldf, rather than

alex. it's so important that we understand our role, that is not our responsibility to be the eyes and ears in the community. and whether ryan and his team have crisscrossed the south, meeting with elected officials and community leaders to try to make sure we all understand exactly what's happening in our various states. south carolina, in other states around this country. we saw over 80 new laws pass up, new bills filed a just this past spring, trying to again in an unprecedented effort from the 237 years of the federal republic, trying to restrict access to the ballot. i will tell you that the shelby case has only emboldened folks, and you're hearing some here. pretty incredible statements from elected officials that many of us, even in these times in which we live on are still

shocked by some things that some folks will say about what they plan to do. to try to make sure they continue to restrict access to the ballot. all that being said, the responsibility is ours. it is up to us to make sure we understand the impact of both federal and state law, excuse me, state law and judicial activism on what's going on in our individual states, making sure our people understand what they need to do to vote in our respective cities and states. and engage in a very aggressive education campaign to make sure folks, i will tell you one of the tool of adversary is confusion and. people don't know, people don't know what the rules are. they don't know if a certain type of id. they don't know if they can continue to vote early. they don't know, of course they will get that piece of mail like they do in some communities

where if you show up and you've got an outstanding traffic ticket, you might be taken into custody. i mean, all the old tools that were once used, i assure you, will show their faces again. so it's up to us to make sure that we take not only the responsibility to make sure that as they put these roadblocks up, if you have to have an id, it's our job to make sure people in our communities get ids. until we're able to work it out on the macro scale, we'v we've o handled on a micro level and make sure that we remain true to the promise of the 140 year-old organization, people put, put laws, whether they are de facto in front of our face. it was important that we continue to move forward. we go through it, over it, around it. but it's going to require us and i'm glad to see this wonderful participation here, a good crowd. let's take this to another level and continue to be active and

the reality is i'm not sure what's going to come out of washington, d.c. i'm not hopeful, but i will tell you that in washington if you are not sitting around the table, then you are on the table, okay? and that's just the reality. that's just a reality. >> two points i would like to make. when it was passed in florida -- [inaudible] that the voting rights act provides us with a mechanism to prevent any kind of voting changes that would impact minority communities in a bad way. and now, or because of the recent supreme court ruling, now we'll have to wait until after an election has been completed. win 1355 was introduced in florida, because there was a free clearance requirement, once the department of justice agreed to review this bill, florida

removed a lot of the damaging portions of house bill 1355 because of the requirement. now because of the recent ruling, florida doesn't have to remove anything now. they have free reign to do exactly what they want to do it and it is clearly so -- because of the recent supreme court decision, our governor has now filed -- vowed to resume his version that they attempted to do prior to the 2012 election. so now they're going to resume because basically -- [inaudible] >> can you give us an example of the purging? >> well, you know, when you think about it, the first bit that should pop into your mind

is bush v. gore. we've seen what happened when florida wrongfully removed thousands of legally registered american citizens from the roster under the guise of them being disenfranchised. this past election, the primary focus of our governor was on so-called immigrants, illegal immigrants, which we know is a travesty because there's nothing illegal about being a human being. and so they were attempting to purge thousands of individuals. i think about 90,000, 92 92-100,000. the aclu, naacp and other coalition departments filed suit and were able to obtain an injunction to prevent the governor from continuing purging. now the state has filed with the appropriate courts to have the case dismissed in light of shelby.

>> one they are want to say to underscore brother meade and mayor benjamin's point is that what was really lost, really, really harmful to black folks in the shelby county case is the notice that we used to get, right? it used to be the case if you're in a place that was covered by section five of the voting rights act you have to submit all of the change to the federal government for preapproval, right? so there was this opportunity for the voting changes, whatever they were to be closely scrutinized to make sure they were discriminatory. having lost part of the voting rights act that prescribes were section five applies means we -- in the way that we did. now come on the day that we lost the shelby county case and the texas attorney general within hours of the announcement of the decision said that he would immediately move to implement taxes on the idea measure which i told you earlier was previously rejected as the most discriminatory voting law in the

country. so he said he would immediate move to implement texas is photo id law. that's a statewide change. he made national headlines and came to learn about that in the newspapers. but what's really important in this moment, to the point that have been made is that we now rely on you all to become our eyes and ears on the ground in this city and county places that won't make the headlines, but where the black vote is under fierce attack. there was an example very recently in mississippi, a small town, 2000 census showed the black folks had become a majority of the city. they were poised to elect for the first time in the city's history some other candidates of choice to the city counsel. there they elected their candidates at large, black folks who are trifle long time in the city to elect their candidate of choice and whatever successful. but here's the contact.

2010 census you black folks are about to elect the candidate of choice in this election, they are now the majority of the city, so what do the good people do to prevent this from happening. they canceled the elections. they just said you know what, looks like black folks about to get someone in, we just don't hold the election. now, this is a make national headlines because it's in a very small town in mississippi. there are many sit in across the country which present the protection of section five. in this example in kilmichael, section five was still in place. it was applied in mississippi under section four b. so kilmichael had to submit this voting change to the department of justice. and, of course, the department of justice said you know what, this is a discriminately change. you need to hold the election. and what happened? they elected african-american mayor for the first time, three members to the city counsel. so we are, and mayor benjamin

sport, we are relying on activating unit as our eyes and ears on the ground. we have created an e-mail at vote at naacp else d. f..org. visitors on your seat. we're encouraging you all as you about things, particularly the local and county levels can as you about proposed changes to e-mail those to us. because we are prepared to respond and want to know what's happening in places where you live locally. >> thank you for that, ryan. in your state what does it look like no? >> we were not covered under that section, so nothing -- >> nothing impact of the change. >> no. >> with that change, while we witnessed strong turnouts that were being described, whether it was souls to the polls are the kinds of pieces that help to generate large turnout across the country during this past election, moving forward we know that the battle for voting rights and the election reform is being waged in several forms. but it is in our state, the

courts, is it in congress? take a look at a follow-up to shelby versus -- we know congress was creating a new formula in section four. now, what with the formula look like is the bigger question because just because it's been gutted doesn't mean we standstill. you heard that term from every single speaker. what does the new formula look like to make the remaining section until we can win it back, and we will win it back, and to we can win it back look like for folks? i know you just described activism on the ground, but the real point coming from state, local, federal, what does it look like? >> so, i think as we think about the outreach work in light of the sprinklers rolling in the shelby county case, and as we think about the significance of the decision and how it really makes vulnerable millions of minority voters across the country, there's also an outrage that should be visited upon

congress, right? so in 2006, when congress consider whether to reauthorize the voting rights act, they held 20 hearings over 20 months. they heard from better than 90 witnesses, and ultimately, congress ultimate compiled a record saying in 15,000 pages which spoke to the ongoing need for these, the voting rights act protection in the places where it was applied. the supreme court striking as unconstitutional a provision of the voting rights act is surely an affront to congress itself. it's a lot like, if you had a patient and if you were a doctor, and you had a patient who is suffering from high blood pressure, and for this patient you prescribed whatever medication would help to lower the high blood pressure, i know folks here don't suffer from high blood pressure. this is a hypothetical. but if you're a doctor that a

patient suffers from high blood pressure, you prescribed the medicine and the patient started to get better over time, but having gotten better, the patient now decides hey, doctor, i'm feeling better. i think i will check myself out of this treatment are i think i'll take myself off of the medicine because i feel better. and the doctor, appropriately, explains, it turns out, my dear friend, you are starting to feel better because we prescribed for you some medication to deal with that problem. well, what the supreme court did here was stabbed in the place of the doctor, which was actually congress. congress was the body that decided what kind of medicine was required in those places that our democracy, discrimination was the most intense, the most persistent and the most adaptive overtime. it was congress' role to say what kind of medicine was required for the high blood pressure, or here for the voting discrimination, and to say for how long it should apply. it's not up to the states decide

when they're free of racial discrimination or when they're feeling better, not having as high blood pressure. it's still high, it's just not as high. and the courts stepped in the place of congress and made that call. but it's not the courts decision to make. so congress in this moment should become and i think is somewhat serious. because it's an affront to what they do, and the homework they did. and so the senate is holding a hearing tomorrow. the house is holding a hearing in washington, d.c. thursday, and they're going to tackle some of these very issues. and i think what congress will do is begin to hold hearings to understand where determination exists, where it's the most persistent, and what is required in response of the place where discrimination exists, and the way that it has as we know in those places at work covered by section five of the voting rights act. >> thank you. mayor benjamin? >> yes, ma'am. >> you just heard a description

of what congress is going to be doing with hearings and so forth. but in this room where firsthand knowledge that congress will be -- [inaudible]. really, really low. so what do you think you can tell us that we can do when congress is home on the recess to put the fight to them, to make them understand that folks are not just accepting what happened as the supreme court level, but what they expect congressional members to do in our to protect voting rights speaks i think ryan's point is interesting and maybe, maybe highly effective, that you have to speak directly to congress men and women, and i think they should see the court's role as infringing upon the separation of power. that might get some folks who may not be philosophically aligned with you, at least aligned with the fact that it is

their decision to make. some actually find a bit of relief. they may have always wanted to do, but didn't have the heart to do it. in the inner room, i think it's important that we give up speed, if it's a 90 page document and, understanding where you are in your own community, being organized. whether it's to your state branches or the branch of which are active or different groups, church groups, fraternal, organizations of sororities that you're involved with. just start organizing and putting together some type of construct. you may have a very active branch right now, but you need to get in a robust conversation with other people who share your ideas, whether progressive, nonprofits, that share your ideas, or certain lawyers who have been very involved in civil rights issues, some younger lawyers, we had a table full of

folks who have everybody but you could possibly imagine, but many of them have been very much involved in just protecting the rights to the franchise, understand exactly what it meant to earn that right in south carolina and, and to keep it. but i think in the interim we've got to make sure we're organized and, of course, that organization needs to manifest itself in the central message to the members of the united states congress, of what we expect from them. >> i would just say to mayor benjamin, i think this is an opportunity to your question to impress upon our federal elected officials, that they should make respond to the shelby county decision a top priority but it was a very good article in "usa today" last week that contained a poll that showed that americans were overwhelmingly opposed to the supreme court decision in shelby county. we know, like officials here,

they will be responsive to a very active electorate. so we've got to be contacted our members of congress to urge them to make this response to the shelby can decision a top priority. it's also an important opportunity coming up in the 50th anniversary commemoration of the march on washington, the national action network and a host of other or decisions are planning a march in washington saturday, august 24 in washington, d.c. and members of congress aren't paying attention. so think there's an opportunity now for organize buses and bus as a people to say in this moment what the supreme court has created for us a breach, has made us vulnerable in ways that we have, we have to quickly find our way to some protection, that members of congress have to respond and only the way congress can. we have a role to play for sure where we have to record stores, be on alert.

mayor benjamin sport, we are to be eyes and ears on the ground. we have to be like section five was. we have to conduct our federal elected officials your we should try to get our bills to washington, d.c. on saturday august 24 to purchase the in the march on washington, to symbolize to the world and let your elected officials in and particular how we need for them to play their role in this moment. >> i think you're absolutely right. [applause] spin absolutely right. and i think the response on the 24th of august, and that one day in particular certainly will change with a decision that came out with the trayvon martin decision. so folks are not sitting silently any longer. they want to show support for creating change that impacts folks directly. now, there's been, you represent a particular sector of disenfranchised voters. you gave us some stats that kind

of rocked me just now about the level of the disenfranchisement. i will repeat some of those, and if i'm wrong it's because my fears are failing not my heart is willing. desmond said that nationally an estimated 5.8 million americans are denied the right to vote because of laws prohibiting voting of people with family convictions. 5.8 million. and when you break that number down and take a look at communities of color, you know where the wait is for those who are no longer allowed to vote. 4.4 million are no longer incarcerated. they did the crimes, maybe, maybe not. they did the time, most definitely, but they still can't vote. somethings wrong with that picture. now, desmond, what do you say about touching the marginal community? what can folks were not a part of that community do to help the

disenfranchised community realize they're not standing alone in their struggle for the right to vote again? >> well, first of all i would be remiss if i did not publicly acknowledge my gratitude to the naacp inviting me to be on this panel. you asked -- [inaudible]. in order for us to really understand the impact that -- [inaudible] or the community, minority community. i think i will briefly give you my history. in 2005 i stood in front of the railroad tracks, hot, humid miami day, and i was waiting on the train to, so i could jump in front of it. so i was reasonably safe from prison. billy thing i owned was a closer my bag. i knew my mother didn't raise me to be in that position, but there i was that eating. and i was ready to end it all.

i checked myself into a substance abuse treatment facility. after completing the a with a homeless shelter combat while there i enrolled at you because, miami-dade college. i ended up graduating at the top of my class -- [applause] i was encouraged to pursue a higher degree, so it's able to obtain a bachelor's degree. once again i graduated with highest honors. and this afternoon iced sipping from the -- i sit in front of you as a fourth year law student. [applause] >> and while i do appreciate the applause, my story does not have a happy ending. because i am one of the

1.54 million floridians who were disenfranchised. and because of that, not only can i not vote, but i'm severely restricted in where i could live. i am severely limited in the type of employment i can get. so even though i'm getting ready to graduate law school, even though i contributed over 10,000 hours of community service, and i've advocated on behalf of the homeless and foster care and concerned citizens, the state of florida says to me that i can't even sit for the bar. so i can't practice law, number one. and i was recently married to a very beautiful woman with five beautiful kids. i'm severely limited in the type of roof i can put over their head. now, to put some more numbers, i know you mentioned the national numbers. you have to understand, he tests it when he was talking about the expansion of certain rules and the reduction of others.

between 2010 and 2012, in a span of two years, florida went from disenfranchisement, a little over 900,000, over 1.54 million. that is 600,000 increase. now, the significant part about that is that prior to 2010, the average amount of individual who received the rights back numbered around 48,000 a year. in the first year that our current administration came into office, the amount of people whose rights were restored was 52. so while you've seen an expansion in the amount of people that are being disenfranchised, you saw a drastic reduction in the amount of people whose rights are restored. so not only am i being told that i am not a good enough citizen to participate in the one redeeming quality that shows

that i am a good citizen, but it also impacts our communities. today, right now, there are people in the city getting arrested. today, there are people who went to court, got convicted of a felony. now, a lot of times when we hear felonies we conjure up these crazy images of murderers and rapists, but the reality is, florida incarcerates approximately 70% of the individual for incarcerated are there for nonviolence. so in florida you can get someone convicted for driving with a suspended license. [inaudible] burning attire in public of the most recently a gentleman and a show of love for his wife, h he released 12 red blends into the air. that's a felony in the state of florida.

[inaudible]. the insane people, the psychopaths who commits these atrocious crimes, they are serving a life -- [inaudible] felonies in which you are spend your life in prison or death. so they don't even qualify to be considered to have their rights restored. but, of course, the opposition will try to conjure up i guess the willie horton type experiment. but anyway, in florida, because it's so easy to get disenfranchised, every day people are getting disenfranchised. what does that mean? what it means is that every day minority communities are losing their voice. let me put this into proper perspective. whenever you have city officials are county officials and the have to consider the minority

community, and so let's say coral gables, if i am the mayor of dade county and have to decide what i want to do, what i see is a third of those people can't vote anyhow. .. >> even if i was malcolm x

reincarnated, as a politician, i cannot afford to show too much compassion for those people. because it's these people that's going to put me in office, and i need to cater to them. you guys with me on this? >> yeah. >> now, let's take it a step further. because, and this is a touchy subject, but let's be real with it. to show further indication because i know that when gun control measures started being debated, you know, one of the things that one of the organizations that i'm affiliated with, one of the things that we did was that we got the clergy from around the country, and we descended on the white house, and we said, listen, you cannot have a discussion on gun violence without talking about you urbann violence. and, basically, our efforts were rebuffed because, as we were told, there's not enough political capital to discuss these issues. now, it might sound farfetched,

but then when you couple that with the fact -- and you all, i knew i was in washington, d.c. on inauguration, and we've seen our president, our beloved president who i support wholeheartedly, african-american, on the anniversary of martin luther king. he had the courage to talk about immigration issues. he had the courage to talk about lgbt issues. but he didn't have the courage to talk about mass incarceration on the plight of the african-american man in the united states. so let's be real with it. we do not have that political capital. at first, i stopped there. but now we have this trayvon martin incident. so not only are we being disenfranchised or our community is being weakened to where we cannot fully engage in the political process or the policy making decisions, but when you look at this zimmerman trial and i've heard plenty of people talk about even the makeup of the

jury, you have to understand that the jury is selected from the voter rosters. and so because the voting roster in seminole county is overwhelmingly what you seen on the jury, chances are likely what you see is what you was going to get anyhow. so every time that we have a person that's disenfranchised, and we already know that african-americans already make up a small percentage of the population, but because of disenfranchisement, that's further diluted and, therefore, not only are we restricted from being involved in policy making decisions, we are restricted from being involved in participating in the judicial process to make sure that injustices like we've just seen do not happen. so do not for a second think that felony disenfranchisement

is an isolated incident. no. it is the concentrated, concentrated attempt to separate or reduce the amount of -- matter of fact, i believe there was a senator in the virginia legislature that said it. we want to keep -- [inaudible] and that system is still being implemented in florida. and that definitely has to stop. >> thank you very much, december monday, i appreciate your candor. [applause] in response to that question. you can speak to it when you've been there. you know what you're saying because it is who you are. and for that honesty and full disclosure, we say thank you so very much. now, florida is one thing, but not all states are like florida. thank you, jesus, hallelujah. [laughter] casting no aspersions on floridians, but if i can ask representative keeley, they did something phenomenal in the state of delaware as it has to

do with disenfranchisement and restoration. and i don't want to tell it, i want you to tell your story, if you would. and once she has responded to that, we're going to go directly into the q&a so that i'm right on time and it doesn't get me in trouble. so, please, would you? >> thank you. hard to follow up on that. [laughter] very passionate, desmond, and thank you for your comments. before i get into the voter restoration act, i want to thank all of you for inviting me here today. the hospitality that i've received over the last 24 hours has been phenomenal x you guys have a great conference here. i know you still have a couple more days left, and i wish you luck and success. over the next couple of days. we do have, there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. in delaware we recently passed a constitutional amendment that would restore voting rights for felons.

back in the '70s, '80s and early '90s, as desmond mentioned, pretty much i've jokingly said if you sneezed, you became a felon in delaware literally. [laughter] you know, it was lock you up and throw away the key. and one of the things that really us frustrated me about tt was really when i'm now my district at community meetings or at events or for that matter even knocking on doors and just seeing how people were doing and/or reminding them at length time that, you know -- at election time that, hey, you know, i need you to go out to the polls and help me out and hope any you'll vote for me was the fact that time and time again i kept hearing people say, well, i can't vote. what do you mean? i ended up finding out more and more that there were so many folks that literally because they sneezed or they let ten balloons, red balloons fly up in the air, they were considered a

felon. and not just their frustration, but my frustration. you know, how could, how could we as a state have allowed this to happen? a lot of those laws were passed prior to my arrival in the general assembly in 1996. but more importantly, as we, as i sit there and i see bill withs come before me -- bills come before me, i think how's this going to affect someone who just makes one simple mistake for the rest of their lives? we passed a law a couple years ago that did away with the minimum mandatory sentencing. that was the best thing we ever did. we are now starting to see the positive effects of that, and i think that's the first step. prior to voter restoration, i think if states really look at their minimum mandatory and their sentencing guidelines, that's the first ten that needs to -- step that needs to take place. one of the other things that

compelled me or two other things that actually compelled me in wanting to make sure i did this bill was in 1999 i had the opportunity to go to poland. i'm half irish, half polish. and, you know, this was just about 15 years after, you know, poland was restored to a democracy. and even that many years, it was almost 20 years later, today still had 100%, 100% voting. people didn't waste their ability to not go to the polls. in 2009 i had the ability -- i was actually asked to become or was a voting monitor in iraq in the red zone. not in the green zone. i went out, i said if i'm going to go here, i'm going out in the red zone. and literally that day after i left one of the polling places, someone blew it up, and a lot of people died. even though they'd had the purple finger, they still --

they gave tear life in order to -- their life in order to vote. and that really changed, you know, how these compilations of things come together really changed my view. and i said i've got to do something. and al and hazel plant were former representatives. he was the original representative, passed away, and hazel took his place in the general assembly. and they were both very involved in our local naacp as well as voting rights. i was one -- it was one of their passions they wanted to see happen. and so that's why i ended up taking up the voter restoration act. it's a constitutional amendment. it's basically taken me six years to get this done which it really should have only taken four. it didn't go anywhere the first two years, but we were successful. i know there's going to be a follow-up question to how -- [inaudible] can actually make this happen, and i'm more than happy to

expand on it then. but a lot of the comments in my talking points have already been expressed by a lot of the members here. but one point that didn't come up that i really want to address it and bring it up because i don't really know how it's going to affect. but the decision that came down from the courts a couple weeks ago in talking about voter, you know, not having the ability to vote, and, ryan, you connected on one of them about how texas very shortly afterwards announced that they were going to put back in place voter identification. but one thing that struck me also -- and i don't know how this is actually going to play out -- but if they're going to try it in texas, i think they'll try and do it other places. >> of course. >> doing redistricting. they said that since we don't have to follow the federal law regarding voting, then we don't have to send them our

redistricting maps, and they don't have to be approved by the federal government. that's going to have a profound effect moving forward. every state just finished redistricting. i represent a majority/minority district. if our state didn't have to have the federal approval and our redistricting the folks who -- we do our own redistricting in delaware, the legislature does. they could have easily said your district doesn't have to remain a majority/minority district anymore. to me, that's going to have lasting effects. and, again, not necessarily regarding voter rights, but it's still significant, and i think it's something that we all have to think about. >> which i think raises a really important point which is that we expect to see jurisdictions that

have historically been bad actors return to those. so one of the striking things briefly about the shelby county case was that it comes from alabama, right? alabama, folks know here, is a place that literally gave birth to the voting rights act. there was a really important line of cases called the dillard line of cases which found that alabama had for more than a century intentionally used at-large methods of elections to discriminate, right? so, essentially, where you don't have districts. everyone in your jurisdiction votes for how many members of people on whatever body that's at issue. that means that everybody in the city votes for however many members of the city council there are, and if you're not a majority in the city or whatever the place is, it's very difficult to elect your candidate of choice because of the reality that race influences how people vote.

in alabama, for example, in 2008 president obama received 98% of the african-american vote, right? obama runs for office, alabama, african-americans, 98% of them vote for him. white votes he gets 10% of the white vote. stark contrast. and the reality is that race influences how people vote in elections across the country, and in particular some of those cases that were covered by section five of the to voting rights act. so alabama has for better than a century used at-large methods of election to discriminate against black voters. we anticipate that we'll see lots of jurisdictions try to go back to at-large voting. the dillard line of cases required more than 170 jurisdictions in alabama to use district-based voting. we're anticipating, to your point, that we'll see places try to go back to at-large voting. we anticipate seeing jurisdictions try to redistrict in the middle of the decade if

not sooner. we anticipate that jurisdictions will try to move polling places. those are significant, right? you go -- for example, you came here thinking we were going to be talking about voting and the room was empty because no one gave you a heads up, we anticipate seeing some of that on election day, moved polling places. and so this really underscores the importance of you all being eyes and ears on the ground. if you see something that looks really shady or you hear about something, we really want you to e-mail us at vote@naacpldf.org because we have to be activated and aware of the types of changes jurisdictions will try to make in the wake of the supreme court's decision. >> we're going to follow a part of what each of you has said during the course of your presentations. we're going to allow an opportunity for q&a that will last probably about 20 minutes so that there's the interaction between you. we're going to have -- [inaudible] her final point, but we're going to have about 20 minutes where you can ask questions, and then

we will break into groups by region so that you can start to follow each of the suggestions that folks have given already by putting it down regionally some of the pieces that you know are violations that you've seen within the communities that you are a leader in so that we can get a jump-start on these suckers who are trying to rip us apart. let's load up the ammunition from our side on things that we already know exist that are violations to our voting rights. you follow with me? first, representative keeley to make her final point, and then we're going to go to questions from the floor. there's a mic here in the center. and then we'll break into groups. is that all right, possiblists, with you all? -- panelist, with you all? >> just very quickly so we can get to the question-and-answer period. we do still have two other very significant voting rights bills that are before us. our session ended on june 30th, but we do go go back in january,

and i do envision these passing prior to us recessing next june, excuse me, next june 30th. and two of the other bills are a no excuse absentee voting. no excuse. right now you have to have a reason, like you're elderly, you're on vacation, you have to work, and you have to have, you have to have it notarized. we envision -- it passed the house, it's over in the senate. we think that that will pass the senate this year and then come for the next election that'll be available, and then same-day registration is something else that we think that will pass, again, before next june 30th. so some of these unregistered to vote, they can show up that day and register to vote and vote. >> all right. well, the floor is now open. for questions. and you could not ask for a better source of information. there's a mic right in the center of floor. this is the naacp, so i know

there's not a shy person sitting in the audience. [laughter] please, come to the mic. please come forward and -- [inaudible] if you would. yes, sister. please identify yourself and where you're from. >> [inaudible] former president of the gary, indiana, naacp branch. i currently serve as the state president for the indiana democratic party's african-american caucus. and one of the things that i have recently earned is that -- learned is that even though indiana, like many other states, are not covered by the voting rights act, we are still, you know, subject to voter suppression. and recently i received about eight pages of voter suppression changes that were approved by our state legislative and our state senators. so as a collective group, for those that are representing states not covered by the voting rights act, what are some of the

proactive and unfortunately now reactionary measures that we can take to address some of the voter suppression things that are occurring? for example, one, in the state of indiana for every voter registration form that an individual or an organization completes or sees, they have to sign the affidavit for every single one. and if there are enough challenges with registration forms from one individual, they can be referred to the prosecutor's office. so now we're playing catch up, trying to educate our communities about people that are doing voter registration drives, etc. we're particularly concerned about grandma and the senior citizens' homes registering people to vote for the past 20 years who now, you know, may be subject to prosecution. so what i'd like to hear from the panel are some of the proactive and unfortunately now reactionary steps that we can

take so that we can address the voter suppression things that have happening in a noncovered state. some of the things that we can do collectively in a noncovered state. >> sure. i can take a stab. so, you know, one of the -- there's a silver lining to the devastating decision that is health by county. it is -- shelby county. it is that there is this moment now for congress to look at, to your point and i appreciate that question, the way in which discrimination occurs outside of the colored districts, more broadly, the way we are experiencing discrimination today in this country. so i would say that there's an important moment for us to make congress, our elected officials particularly at the federal level as their beginning to hold hearings in the wake of the shelby county decision to make them aware of the way that voting discrimination is proliferating across the country. because they are now looking at voting discrimination broadly. the supreme court has said that they did not like the way that

congress focused section five on 15 jurisdictions. so now there's a chance to tell congress about, to your point, the way in which we're seeing discrimination happening in places like indiana and places that are not, were not covered by section five. and you all know there was an important case that came from indiana that made its way to the supreme court, the crawford case of a bunch of years ago. and gary, indiana, was a hot spot where one of the efforts that we focused on a couple of election cycles ago was the in which home foreclosure lists were being used by a party in that state focusing on gary that sought to use the home foreclosure lists as a basis for challenging one's eligibility to vote. it was a cold-blooded way in which the downturn in the economy and the disproportionate way it impacted black voters in particular was used to make it difficult.

they would show up at the polling place, there'd been a challenger with a list of home foreclosures and would call out, ryan haygood, i see your home is a subject of foreclosure, are you eligible to vote? so i think to the point that you raised in the same way that we're charging folks who were in the previously covered section five states with the responsibility of being eyes and ears on the ground, there's also an equal and opposite responsibility for us to do that more broadly. because we know that voting discrimination isn't limited to places that were previously covered by section five. we've got to be focusing on discrimination more broadly, making our elected officials both in state and federal level aware of that. and ldf is partnering with a host of civil rights organizations, the mexican-american legal defense fund, the lawyers' committee, the aclu, the advancement project. there's an opportunity now for even the groups like ldf to do this work and think about our passion about this work to

expand the work that we've been doing to reach places where we haven't historically been. so i encourage you to reach out to us as well. >> and from a legislator's perspective, you know, even though delaware's a predominantly democratic state, alex is alive and well. and the agenda and the bills that have come forward are alive and well. fortunately, we've been able to defeat those bills and make sure they didn't have the votes to pass. but more importantly is the organizations that went behind the initiative of my bill because, again, while it predominantly affected african-americans, but because of our laws that were so restricted there were so many people. and by organizing with nonprofit organizations that actually help

ex-offenders in having them come to the hearing and having them talk to the representatives and their senators up and down the state and making sure that the bill was passed. and these other bills will hopefully get passed, too, because it's that grassroots. it's that grassroots effort that needs to take place. and, you know, unfortunately, sometimes legislators -- legislatures have a tendency of holding these public hearings when most people are working. and you have to demand that a public hearing be held and that some of these laws cannot just slip through, you know, in the middle of the day instead of the dark of night, in the middle of the day when nobody can get this and speak their mind. >> i actually have one thing, i really appreciate your question about being affirmative instead of just reactionary. i think, unfortunately, we so often are in the place where we are receiving bad news and heartbreak, trayvon martin, and responding to bad news and

heartbreak and thinking about how do we come from behind, very defensive posture, to advancing affirmatively, right? so much of what we try to do is to keep the boulder from rolling down on us entirely. it's on the big toe, now it's on the ankle, ouch, push it back up, it's rolling back down. so i think, actually, in the throes of heartbreak -- and there's lots of that now from the supreme court giving us this horrific ruling in shelby county to what happened in sanford, florida, and more recently in the ultimate decision that allowed a man to walk out of a court with no charges, no convictions, that there's a chance for us to be thinking, like, what would the world look like if we were able to advance an affirmative agenda? so the concept of voting, i mean, why not have an agenda that includes same-day registration, right, that includes lengthy early voting periods, that includes at a minimum automatic restoration,

at a minimum. there's a very good argument to be made for allowing people who are presently incarcerated to vote. it happens in maine and vermont. >> right. >> it happens in most western democracies; israel, south africa, canada. that includes automatic restoration for people with felony convictions. why not have a very affirmative agenda in whatever context? if it's voting, maybe those three are starters. and then advance that to those to who purport to represent us in statehouses and in congress. >> thank you. >> sure. >> i see another question. >> my name's nicky -- [inaudible] first of all, let me thank the panel for being very wise as they are and also the one who is in charge. but first of all, i have one question that i believe my brother here -- i can't remember your name -- >> desmond.

>> i think he kind of give me some idea what i wanted to ask because his question was around trey about the jury -- trayvon about the jury, how the election, you know, the jury picked from the electoral area, the population of that area. if i'm correct. so dealing with the other brother was talking about the same -- [inaudible] at-large district. in my hometown we have a city at large, african-americans in our city, you know, 10% -- [inaudible] so my question is you've got that many small percentages and having a second amendment district, would that -- [inaudible] do you see that as a problem? we had that small number of african-americans in a particular county or a particular city, and they don't have that many population.

would the -- [inaudible] district with the better thing to do or go at large? that's my question. >> mr. mayor, would you take that on, please? >> sure. i'm familiar with -- mickey's a friend in south carolina. you know, i will tell you all and, ryan and i had a chance to chat about this yesterday. as we talk about single-member districts versus at-large voting and any of you that have been involved in the fight for the right to vote over some maybe short and long careers, it really is a two-edged sword because as we see single-member districts, if we don't do it and do it responsibly, you create these incredibly polarized districts. when we have african-american legislators clamoring for 85, 90% districts, then right next door you create another district that's 85%, 95% white.

and you have these incredibly homogeneous districts that do no one any good, any good. so it's so important that we look at the value of single-member districts to try and create a representative body of elected officials and not look at them as an end all. we have a very interesting formula in columbia, south carolina, that was a result of, of course, a number of lawsuits led by the south carolina conference and branches and some local leaders, leader of our columbia branch at the time that led to a hybrid approach to electing folks. we have a 4-2-1 system that many of you may have something similar to it in the jurisdictions in which you live. in which we elect four members from single-member districts, two at-large members and the mayor's elected at large. so it allows for the benefits of maybe both systems.

and we've had, we've had periods of time where you see some folks, you know, but -- [inaudible] single-member districts to have a majority of the vote there. it's a really interesting approach that may not be a panacea to some of the challenges that might face a democracy, but certainly i believe it's proven itself over the last 30 years. that's not a long period of time to be a bit more effective than the, some of these supermajority districts in which we have now. it creates some challenges though. and some folks may disagree with me on that. i've been around long enough to know that thoughtful, caring people can disagree on some, on some issues and still be friends. but there are some challenges to the approach. and ryan may have something to add on to that. >> i would just add that -- really appreciate that

question -- john jones was the president of the fayette county branch of the naacp in georgia for 20 years, championed in his county a move to move the county commission's method of voting from at-large voting to district voting, and we were forced to file a lawsuit about two years ago to make that change because on their own the county commission wouldn't do it, the georgia state legislature wouldn't do it. and african-americans had run for office on county commission and county school board for as many years and had never been elected. there was -- i'll share with you very briefly, an interesting election for the county commission seat involving an african-american who was a democrat who i think was, who was an attorney, an african-american who was a republican, he was in the league -- i think he was a vice president of the fayette county republican party and himself an accountant. so a black democrat, a black

republican, both professionally pretty accomplished, and then a white gentleman entered the race because he said he wanted to preserve the heritage of the county. [laughter] right? that's what his campaign theme -- and this was in 2006 or '8. and so he, and by the way, by trade he's a mechanic. and no disrespect to mechanics. but, i mean, for a profession. and he had never voted. he registered to vote at the time he declared that he would run for office. and he ran, he ran and won without a runoff. and so the difficulty of some places that you actually cannot elect an african-american to office without district voting, in some places race so influences how people vote like fayette county, georgia, like other places in this country that the only way you have a chance, an opportunity to elect your preferred candidate of choice is if you become the

majority of whatever the place. and so we filed a case under section two. there's another provision of the voting rights act that that is l very much in effect, section two. the supreme court dealt a blow to section five, but there are other parts of the voting rights act that have survived and will be used forcefully. so we litigated this case under another provision of the voting rights act, section two, and we won. and the federal district court judge found that because of the way that race influences how people vote in fayette county in combination with their use of at-large voting and, essentially, guarantees that no african-american could win in office. so i think that there are places in our country where we have to be, you know, realistic about where they are where black folks just won't be able to elect their candidate of choice no matter what the qualification or, frankly, even what their political party is. as this example makes clear, this guy was the vice president of the fayette county republican party and had professionally done some things in his time

that made him qualified for this position. and he couldn't win. so i think there are places where race so matters that you probably, as an african-american, won't win unless you are elected from a district. >> yes, sir. identify yourself. >> i'm -- [inaudible] davis, clay county, mississippi. i understand that you say texas secretary of state intends to go forward with the texas voter id law? >> yes, sir. >> knowing that the justice department has already rejected it -- >> that's right. >> now, can it be litigated? and if it's litigated, who makes the decision for this -- [inaudible] >> sure. great question. so this -- texas' photo id measure was hotly contested by the federal government and a host of organizations including my own under section five of the voting rights act. and section five is what blocked

texas' photo id measure from going into effect prior to the last election. so now that section five isn't in effect in texas, they said, well, there's nothing stopping us from going forward with this measure, so we will. and so this is to the point. so now we're using other parts of the voting right act. there's already challenges being filed under section two of the voting rights act, and other folks will join that case, i have no doubt. so technically, this measure will now be the subject of litigation under different provisions of the voting rights act. but to the point brother meade made, under section five if you wanted to implement a voting change, right, as a place that was formerly covered, you had to submit it, and then you had to wait to see if it was approved. and if it was found to be discriminatory by the federal government, it was rejected. now what'll happen is texas will implement its photo id soon, it'll go into effect, and then

it's on doj if they pursue a case or litigants like the legal defense fund and others to the affirmatively challenge that law on their own. and just to provide an example to john jones' case in fayette county, georgia, that's a case that was filed two years ago. the county, fayette county, expended better than -- >> 300,000. >> $300,000 defending it. it took two years to let gate it, we won, and the reality is the county may appeal to the court of appeals racking up more cost to the taxpayers and more attorney time on our side. so section two is a sword, and it will be used, but it's certainly not a replacement to what we had under section five. >> if we asked the next question, did you say his name was curly? i just wallet today make sure that wasn't -- wanted to make sure that wasn't lost on everybody but me.

[laughter] >> i don't think i got my answer. i asked who was ultimately going to decide texas -- >> [inaudible conversations] >> which court? >> oh, good question. so used to be under section five of the voting rights act all of the cases that were filed were heard in a district court in washington, d.c. or by the attorney general in d.c. now -- i've got you, i understand your question. now the cases will have to be filed in those places. so people, so if it's a federal court, it'll be decided by a federal district court in texas, somewhere in texas, or if it's a state court, it'll be some level state court in texas. >> well, let me say this, there are a firm of you who have questions, and we are not -- number of you who have questions, and we are not going to discontinue your ability to interact. we may not get to the breakout sections, but we want to hear what's on your mind and take advantage of the expertise that's here on the stage. is that agreeable with you?

>> yes. >> okay. then we're going to keep it rolling. so don't feel like your questions are being suppressed. brother, would you step to the mic please? i've yourself -- identify yourself. >> by name is reverend -- [inaudible] from cedar rapids, iowa. yes, they do have black folks in cedar rapids. [laughter] i relate to you, desmond, in our state because i don't know if any of y'all have seen the statistics that came out about the number of arrests for marijuana. iowa was number one. but let me tell you another statistic. statistic is about, it might be about 10% black in iowa, but we got 40% are in prison. that's off the hook. which means that the new governor that stepped in, you know, well, he had been governor before, branstad, the second thing that he did in office was he disenfranchised anybody that

had felony convictions. so, you know, whether they're mad because we pushed -- [inaudible] it wasn't just us because there was only 10% of us, they're a little teed at us. so now we got, you know, not only does this situation affect, you know, people in prisons, it affects our youth. because what happens is if the youth catches, you know, a little marijuana -- one joint or whatever, then that keeps them from getting scholar hardships and grants and all -- scholarships and granteds and all kind of things. don't believe that, it does. so what we've been doing, we've been meeting, trying to do it on a monthly basis if at all possible with the governor and also with the chief supreme court, you know, in the state of iowa. we've got pretty good rapport

with the chief justice, but now the only thing we've been able to do with the governor is he's changed a little because he's the only one -- [inaudible] okay? he has made it that they had to pass tests, you know, and then sit a while, and this possible possible -- panel votes on them. and the panel's probably just like what you're talking about, you know? see if these people would be eligible after a period of time to vote. you know? so i guess my question is, is that, you know, the naacp has been on top of this as best as we can, you know, at our level, but if there's anything else that we can do, you know? because we're not going to sit down. we're not going to give up on this, you know? i mean, we got to the camp at their doors, like i said, we finally got the governor to do a little something, but it ain't

really much, you know? because we still got those statistics, and the thing is that, you know, it's not just hurting our adults, but it's hurting our youth. so any suggestions -- >> i'll respond to that. and thank you so much, pastor. and while you were speaking, some other, some other things came to mind. and i'm pretty sure mr. haygood could correct me if i'm wrong, but one of the premises that the supreme -- that the majority in the supreme court used for gutting the voting rights act was that racism was not as prevalent as it is today as it was back at the time that the voting rights act was passed. what i submit to you is that, you know, we have south africaen in apartheid. they imprisoned around -- [inaudible] at the height of the war united

states have imprisoned over 4,800 black men per 100,000, you know? we have more people incarcerated, many -- more black males incarcerated today than there were slaves, you know? we have more kids that have died because of gun violence than the total amount of people who were hung back in the jim crow era. since sandy hook we've had over 4,800 gun deaths, majority of them are people of color. so i submit that racism is not -- has not declined, it has just taken on a different form. and it is more prevalent today than it was back then. and so when i think about this climate that we're in, you know, i'm reminded of what my mother told me a long time ago. she told me, he said, desmond, the tail does not wag the dog,

the dog wags the tail. and we have to start understanding that we as citizens of this country are the dog. i have never seen a business yet in which the boss had to beg the employee to do something. all the businesses i've seen is that the boss gives the orders, and if the employees don't follow the orders, they get fired. well, every elected official is an employee of the public. and it's time that we get that mentality that we're the bosses and not the employees. [applause] now, to step a little further, you know, and you all might not believe this, but i used to be shy at one time. [laughter] i really did. and i remember, you know, and when i was in school, you know, i've seen this nice young lady that i like, and so i sent my friend to let her know that i kind of liked her. he ended up dating her. so now when i see my wife, i

wasn't sending nobody to talk to her. [laughter] and so the moral of the story is, if we sit back and allow other people to serve our best interests, then they're going to end up walking away with our girl. they're going to end up walking away with what we had. [laughter] so we have to go out, we have to be more proactive, we have to understand that no matter how much we might need access to the voting booth, no matter how much we might have protections against voting infractions, please understand this: there is no other tool has used to destroy the african-american community than mass incarceration. >> that's right. >> understand that. if you look at the room right now, you will see the majority are women with because our men are where? >> locked up. >> and there's not too many kids because either they're dead, or they're in the school-to-prison

pipeline. if -- until we start working on humanizing people of color, you know, dred scott is alive and well today. and until we start understanding enforcing dialogue that young black man or that young black boy walking down the street with a hoodie on should not be automatically thought of to be thuggish or be a threat, but should be first looked at as a human being, or that young lady that might be on welfare in the projects or that young lady who might not be able to articulate her thoughts as well on national tv as people think that she should have, until we start looking at these individuals as human beings and demanding that we all are equal in god's sight whether we red, yellow, black or white, until we humanize, we have to understand. and i tell people today it's not about the verdict, it's about our values.

that's what everything is really based on. how do we look at that bum that we pass by on the street? how do we look at the van to have that's not making -- janitor that's not making minimum wage? how do we look at that worker that's not getting what they're supposed to get? ..

trying to get district voting and thanks to thurgood, i mr. haygood -- [laughter] >> word to that. >> we're getting there. but my question is, and, desmond, i appreciate you because you set up the situation that i'm going to propose and it's a major proposal. i did some research that, as i was sitting here, google, a voter bill of rights, and i want to challenge this organization to draft a voter bill of rights that we can, because a lot of times legislation for those who don't know gets drafted by organizations and we take to it legislators and make them pass it. we should draft, and it is about being proactive. we should draft a voter bill of rights and take it to our

legislators and force them to pass it. if we have to take a million, two million people to washington and shut it down until they pass it. i guaranty, you shut down d.c., they will pass it. so, and like, the dog wagging the tail? we the dog. you heard mr. rivers talk about the big dog? try it all together and we're the big dog and we can go up there and wag our tails and get things done. that is the challenge. personally, i'm a commercial airline pilot. i have flown justice roberts from washington, d.c. i took him somewhere. i met him. i took stevie wonder to las vegas after the inauguration but, and a lot of my colleagues, they just bask in the glory of being an airline pilot but i almost drowned in a creek, in a muddy creek because i couldn't go to a swimming pool, a safe

place to swim in my hometown of americus, georgia. that memory of that spurred my actions to become a civil rights leader. so, that's my challenge. my question is, can you draft that legislation to take to congress? >> if i can, panelists, please as a board member standing here for the national association, and i see other board members who are in and out, i see brother crow well and others who floated through, my brother, i appreciate your passion but as a member of the association we do have policies and procedures. if your passion leads you to that recommendation, i would suggest that then you follow the policy and procedures that are in our own structure instead of putting these four panelists up for slaughter, okay, in drafting something to come to the association. i appreciate your passion. and thank you for what you do.

so if i can, the next speaker, please? >> this is really a point of clarification. first of all christopher shaw -- [inaudible] >> thank you. >> point of clarification, suspect shun 4 was shut down because of disparate impact on 15 communities that were affected is that correct? >> so the supreme court essentially held that congress didn't establish a record that showed that the current needs justify the current coverage of those 15 places. since he asked congress to update the coverage provisions to reflect a more modern, a more more earn review where the voting rights act should operate. so essentially, so essentially, there was a back and forth in oral argument. justice roberts years ago, a couple years ago in a related, similar case, a case that raised similar issues, asked this question, which was, are you

saying to the oralists, from the legal defense fund, are you saying that the south is more racist than the other states that aren't covered by the voting rights act? and he had a hard time getting his mind around is why section 5 would all or part of 16 states and not all the states. so he was trying to separate, you know, in his mind why congress would apply this strong medicine to someplaces and not others and whether congress doing so was a, an up-to-date modern way of doing legislation. >> that is what i was kind of saying. it had a different impact on the south from the north. okay -- >> but i will say to you, what follows from that is, there's a reason, there's a reason why congress proscribed this strong medicine to apply in those places where it applied. >> exactly. >> because those place have shown themselves to be the worst

actors in the country. so it doesn't take a rocket scientist, nothing to you, but to the court, if we had a chance, doesn't take a rocket scientist to know why congress applied the strongest legislation where the places that were the thickest in our democracy. >> leading to my other question is. >> sure. >> because the, the program, i guess, for lack of a better word was administered bit department of justice right? shouldn't there be administrative action, instead we'll not have disparate impact on the south, we'll make it every, all 50 states? isn't there, i guess the question is, what are the barriers to this implementing it administratively to all 50 states? >> so the question, this is actually one that justice roberts asked at the previous oral argument where he said, wouldn't the better thing to be just apply section 5 nationwide? and that has some appeal, right, to the point that the from

indiana about the challenges in places like indiana. but here's the challenge, right? congress in 2006 develop ad record i talked about, 15,000 pages, applied to all or part of then 16 states. now if, later 15. all or part of, massive record showing intense discrimination in these places. and it was struck as unconstitutional as to that select number of places. so if you were to apply the strong medicine to the whole country including in places where you wouldn't that have strong record, the court would have struck it as unconstitutional as applied to the whole country. this is the trick of this case. if the voting rights act applied nationwide, the court would have said it is overbroad. you're places that had no history of discrimination. because it only applies to a few places you're too narrow. since you -- it's a slight of

hand, right. heads i win, tails you lose type of argument. it applied to too few places so it struck as unconstitutional. you should apply to more places. then it applies to too many. so the test to one of the questions earlier for congress now is undertake to do that review, that first review. so look at the places where discrimination exists and give it a fresh look and to provide to the court its best assessment of where section 5 or whatever the protection is comes to effect should apply this country. 's we know in this room based on the lengthy conversation we had today we still need many, many protections. to your point the work is not yet done. this idea of post-racial america is really a farce. we've got tremendous amount of work to do together. >> mayor? >> i know that a lot more questions to be asked here and these two able gentlemen are going to have to continue to have a dialogue on something, representative we have a flight to catch. separate flights to catch.

back to our respective destinations. just in parting i want to thank each and every one of you. some of you here are very young and new to the fight for justice. some of you have been added for decade, long before i was born and i want to say thank y'all for being the strong shoulders we stand on. we all recognize our responsibilities now extend to not just carrying on the proud heritage of this organization and being the broad african seed in the american sun but also providing the shoulders these young people have to stand on. we have to make sure that we are protecting them from racism and discrimination and also, just one other point i want to raise, we have to make sure we're protecting them from themselves right now. many of our young people are struggling, are struggling. that is not part of a this discussion we're having here right now but there's a lot of work we have to do in our own house. >> absolutely.

>> and, and i don't want that to get lost in the discussion. there is work, all can be done by us. it can only be done by we men and many respects and certainly the burden has been carried by women for so, so long. i will continue to commit myself to doing the work that want to do, as a mayor. i will tell you that as you take, continue to take offensive stance that ryan was talking about, we can't, we can't keep playing checkers while other people are playing chess, y'all. we have to be out there writing policy, writing laws. we have to be setting strategies in place to make things happen. we're watching the rise of the metropolitan state. we're starting to see urbanization of america. cities and mayors are starting to make much more of an active role helping set not just local but state and national policy because things are broken in d.c. and some governors are not listening to their constituents. it is up to us, and probably

fortuitous the first question comes from gary, indiana. we know in gary, indand i can't set the stage with richard hatch's election said the staple for me and people look like me set change for all across america. we can do it time and time again. for last 150 years we can do it. may you continue to do the hard work you do and may god bless you and keep you. >> thank you, so much, steven benjamin for your input this afternoon. you're certainly a treasure to us at the association. we appreciate your commitment to always being a part of the progressive actions that we're able to take. relationship, i know you are dealing with a timeline? >> yes, thank you very much. again i want to thank all of you for allowing me to be here today. i think the panel and really good feedback, open conversation, is something that we have to continue to do. there are a lot of legislators

out there who understand the disenfranchisement that the african-american community has gone through and continues to go through and having dialogue and having open conversation, i think is the best route to go and making sure that your legislatures where a lot of these bills are taking place, being debated, that your voice is heard. and again, i can't stress enough, that at love times our work is done during the day when you're at work. and demanding that public hearings be held at night in different areas of your state. i live in a small state. we have less than a million people and there is no reason why we can't hold public hearings to allow everyone to have their voice heard. you know, just as a real quick side note, it is not just voting rights that i'm interested in. i mean, i am also sponsor of doing away with the death penalty in the state of delaware.

[applause] i mean prime sponsor of -- [inaudible] very quickly, lobby it in delaware for pay day loan industry, i introduced the bill on a wednesday. there were two of them. i came back on two of them, there were 15 of them. thank you. >> wow. >> [inaudible] [applause] we certainly appreciate you and, so --, when you gave a whole lot longer than we anticipated. take care. travel safe. god bless. now we have three people at the, four people at the mic. i would ask that if there's someone that has something that's burning, please get on the line now because we will continue through those four folks and then, that will conclude what we will be doing this afternoon, but please don't

feel rushed or pushed. so if we can, please identify yourself. >> i'm andre knight from rocky mountain, north carolina. i just want to say our county was one of the counties that were protected under section 5 and section 4. from 1776 to 2003 it was very hard to get an african-american majority or african-american elected on the city council until we sued them and went to the ward system. now we have a majority african-american council. this is my second term. also want to say that we know that, i know, that back home, that there are planning these attacks to disenfranchise the vote. so we'll have to equip ourselves to get people to register, even get the i.d. so they can, they can vote. but my question is today, a lot of those legislators who are passing these laws, they own local businesses in our

community and i just got recently locked up and with reverend barbara in raleigh, north carolina. we shut down the capital. [applause] we have to take it further than that because a lot of legislators passing these laws, they own local businesses in our community. only way how we're going get their attention we stop spending our green dollars. i want to know when is the national and state going to allow these local branches to do what we need to do to shut these people down and get their attention. our folks spend over $40 million in, in the state of north carolina to get the tea party in office. and they're doing some crazy, passing crazy bills. and, just recently, i had to vote on a situation with him, not directly with him but he owned these department stores, roses. they set up in black communities

where we spend our dollars. then he take our dollars and fight us with these laws by putting $40 million electing these people. now is the time, i ask him, when are we going to stop spending our dollars, giving our money to folks that is going to fight us and hurt us? that's my question, thank you. >> you asked it of the national. again i say to you, my brother, i love your passion. but inside our house, rather than putting the two remaining panelists on the line to answer an association question, i will say to you, and i know you. you know our policies and procedures. >> right you. >> know how to make your thoughts and ideas known, heard and implemented. after all you just came from jail, didn't you? >> i did. >> one of the strongest voices on our poll leadership team reverend. >> that's right. we do have a resolution. >> there you go. that's the process. >> we need more resolutions to

these things. >> see you on the floor. >> thank you. >> thank you very much for your passion. yes, sister. >> i'm margaret chapel, from ocala, florida, marion county. we'll tell what you things that happen. i work the polls in marion county, it is 70% majority polls. there are of course minorities. a couple things i notice that have been happening. i'm only minority there at that poll. we had a very successful drive for membership in marion county. we also encouraged early voting. what we found out and that is not being told, anything that is done early, not early, absentee ballots, when the ballots come back in, they check signatures. if they don't match they're provisional ballots. they're not telling people that. and we need to realize that has been happening all over. secondly, if you have someone in your family who can not read or has problems with the ballot, we have a four-page ballot, they will not allow poll workers to

assist them. bring your family with you. we had so many elderly people there of my color who only voted for president because we had a four-page ballot and they would not assist them. make certain this is getting around to your community. bring family with you, people that can read or see. they will not allow us to help them. so make certain, if you're aware, encourage our people to work the polls. like i said, i'm only minority there. and i worked so fast, they stopped sending people to me because they count, they count how many you work. they would send them to the white people. they wouldn't send them to my. i did it fast. i had it organized and they made so many provisional ballots for us. if the addresses weren't right, if they had moved. if i recognized you and i knew you voted. we've got to be there. we've got to go to all the polls not just where we're the majority because they're not treating us fair. there are other ways of suppressing our vote. that is what they're doing.

these are covert actions. they won't right it in the paper. know that. get your butts out there. irtoo old to work a computer. no you're not. you get paid to work the polls, okay? good money. so go there and be on the scene so you know how they're treating us, okay? i'm a banker. so i know how they work. they have a meeting before the meeting, okay? so you all know that, so thank you. [applause] >> sister i see your hand but for the benefit of the whole crew you will have to come up to the mic to state? >> i just want to respond to something she said. >> i understand that but for us to hear, different folks at home you have to come to the mic. and you have to get an agreement by the person at the head of the line to do that. >> i'm so sorry, i didn't mean to jump the line. >> you have a generous brother. >> want to respond to something she said. i'm bee bailey, president of lakeview, long island branch.

if you're a naacper in leadership position, they will allow you to assist people at the polls. so you got to be, you have to be proactive. and you have to have a poll watchers permit. and they will alou you to assist the elderly, the handicapped and all of that at the polls but you have to be proactive and have a relationship with your district, with your area. >> okay. >> so don't just let it go that, you know, only -- >> i understand. i understand what you're saying but brian, would you please for clarity? >> i think you're right. it also may vary by state. so i think, so -- >> see i'm from, i lived in new york also. so i was not, in my head with you but i was not going to shoot a sister down from new york. but -- [inaudible] now sir, would you identify yourself? >> speaking of new york, i'm

richard gibbs from new york. i'm with the jamaica, queens, branch of the naacp. i'm a former court officer. i appreciate what brother desmond is doing and talked about. and that way back when i was working the josh, i can still remember, the person was arrested if they didn't have bail money legal aid would tell them, you're going to be a here a long time before the case comes up. the courts are so backlog. the best thing to plead disorderly conduct, nothing happens, 30 days. you say clean and you don't have problems. what they don't tell them that is on their record from then on. so now when you start looking for employment you've got, you ever arrested? yes. and same thing handing today. that is why we're so busy battling "stop-and-frisk" in new york because just like the reverend said, with the brothers may be carrying a little built of marijuana, something like that, when they're picked up by the police they're statistics, first of all the police

department is glad to put them into the system, number one, because the same thing, is that when they go, looking for, i don't care what the charge is, if they're arrested they have to on application say, yes i've been arrested. and so that keeps them from the employment system. you and i both know, brings son is big bucks. you know who is building the prisons, all right? they're making a lot of money of it and bloomberg would rather see more prisons than schools. that is outrageous but anyhow. thank you for being here, folks. >> thank you, sir. [applause] >> desmond. >> thank you, two points i want to respond to you, you're definitely right. michelle alexander wrote a very good new book, the new jim crow. i don't excuse any legal act. but my belief is, justice unequally applied is not justice. so when you have minority black and brown that makes up less than 15% of drug users but

account for over 70% of the people incarcerated for drug use, we have a problem there, and systemically problem that has to be addressed n the state of florida, while we spend $20,000 per year to incarcerate one person, we only allocate approximately 3500 to educate a child. so we know where the state of florida priorities lie. we know that when they, when they changed the clemency policies, this is something i didn't make clear to you. so you do understand. do not think in florida once you have completed your sentence that you can get your rights back. it don't work like that in florida. if you were to complete your sentence today, which is, this is june 20, what, 13? you would have to wait until june 2020 before you could apply, july, july 2020, before you can apply. and when you apply in july of 2020, you have to wait an

additional six years for the application process. so it wouldn't be until july of 2026 before you see if you have a shot. i said shot, because right now, if you have less than .0008% of a chance getting your rights back even though you've been crime-free for those 11 to 13 years. so, it is a business because what they do, they bring you in, to these prisons and they start the from school. let's be real, it is a business model. you create a product and you drive the market to it. that's what they do. so they set it up with these zero tolerance policies that allow our kid to be arrested an stigmatized at an early age. sets them up to bring them into the prison system. and then they're allowed to outsource them as prison labor. displace, hard-working regular

people, from their jobs. so, you know i could lay you off now and hire inmates to do work instead of paying you $20 an hour, i am paying a inmate $2 a day. so it is modern day slavery. and it is, court sides with attacks against unions. the court sides with amount of money being spent weedcation comparison to incarceration. that is very valuable. >> exactly what you said. i do mentoring in youth of manhattan. exactly what they say i say they are a product, you are the product that is keeping this big business system going. that is what you need to realize every time you go out there and you think about doing something wrong you will wind up in there because you're dollar signs to the system. you know that is really where it's at. >> thank you, brother. anyone who has something to say has to say it into the mic. i saw you were going was, no way of stopping you. okay? these are the last two speakers

or is there a third? okay. all right. last three. okay, five more minutes. so get to your questions right away. okay? >> good afternoon, my name is ronald pierce. i'm the chapter president for university of new haven in new haven, connecticut. >> how old are you, sir? >> i am 20 years old. >> i am so proud. so proud. [applause] >> so my question basically is, more so directed towards the college student. you spoke about it a little bit earlier, that we have a large number of african-american men in prison. there is a very small number of us are actually in college. so, at my school we do a voter registration drive every september before school year starts. when we're trying to get people to register to vote, one of the biggest pushbacks we get, that, you know, i don't want to register because i'm fearful of my voter rights. or i'm fearful to vote because of all that is going on with 2012 with voter i.d. laws and

everything like that. my question is how do we go about educating college students about what their voter rights are and what they're entitled to and things they can do going into the polling places so they feel more comfortable? even ones that did register and go out to vote, i go on twitter, i hope i didn't do this wrong. i want my vote to count i want president obama or whoever they were voting for to get in. how do we go about educating them so they feel comfortable at the polling places? >> i let you wrap it up. i think one of the main things is, sadly it took a tragedy make it happen but i think right now we're in a prime environment where the typical college student or high school student would start to understand the importance of them being registered so it would be a much easier sell much one of the complaints i have had and

continue to have today, while a lot of these policies that impact our community, such as the "stand your ground" laws packed, we were too busy being preoccupied what the heat was doing or what scandal or, scandals and other kinds ever insignificant things that did not have, you know, impact. i believe what is the key is reminding people about our forefathers that was beaten, bitten by dogs, burned and hung from trees to get the very same rights that we allow to be taken away while we're preoccupied with insignificant things. if we can connect some of those stories and those individuals and, they're still here, with some of these young people, they will understand the responsibilities that lays on their shoulder to be more egg civically engaged. i think there dialogue needs to

be asked and take advantage of this incident that happened and capture those emotions and direct it the way you're doing. i commend what you're doing. i hope other youth chapters throughout the country would actually try to emulate. >> i would just underscore brother meade's point. i like the idea of connecting the vote to something material. because that what motivates folks. from the student perspective, this really is, we have not seen a time like this for students when you are graduating from college. with universities with crushing debt, right? having to decide, whether after graduating do i get a roommate and live in my own apartment or do i, do i humble myself and go back to live with my parents if they would take me back home? i think there is this moment where young people have an opportunity to require elected officials to be responsive to the needs of students, particularly those in college. there are all these measures,

what we saw in the last several years in this voter suppression effort was a focused attack on people of color and young people and students in texas. they pass ad photo i.d. measure that wouldn't allow the use of student i.d.es. the reason is students are ideal, push the envelope, challenge elected officials. so it is easier, not to be accountable to students and to listen to them. i think there's an opportunity, especially given, i see your vision, for empowering students to challenge elected officials to create legislation, to create responsive actions so they hear from you all about what your needs are. so same way we talked about creating, i'm not calling it a voter empowerment bill but an affirmative, an affirmative, affirmative voting measures. there should be one that speaks

to the life of a student that includes the reality that the student loan debt is crushing. if you want to go to graduate school the prospect of looking at loans there is also crushing. that life after graduation from undergrad is unlike what we've seen before and to challenge elected officials to either adopt your list of reforms or find someone else to champion. >> i'm sorry. go ahead. >> whenever you have the opportunity, those that are interested in it, just to look, look up dream defenders on your facebook, on your twitter. they're a group of college and high school students that are really pushing the envelope in being civically engaged. they were one of the first organizations that were created after the trayvon martin incident was made known. and so they're definitely doing some things. so maybe you can see some things they're doing and being able to implement. even collaborate, you know to

really help the movement. dream defenders. >> if i can be one to remind you as well, not just you but for the benefit of everyone that's here, we're very fortunate at the association to have very young, top leadership. both our chairman, roslyn brock and our president and ceo, benjamin jealous, are very young and in doing so they created vehicles and avenues for us to tap that age group. there's a leadership 500 element within the organization that i'm sure you've attended probably? >> i heard about it when -- >> that is why you came here. that's the way we can get you into the nation's oldest, boldest, biggest, baddest who continues to know all elements of our population, to do the right thing. so we've got the leadership 500 where you can get some that training and it is not just for privileged folks.

if your branch or your state conference is engaged in the political action and legislative programs of the association, bring young people there. they can start with training there and then go to leadership 500. as a part also, of who we are as an association, we partner with a lot of other groups. everyone of the panelists today have been saying what's going to happen with the march. on august the 24th, which is a saturday, that's the march that will be there as a convening to remember and commemorate, not just celebrate necessarily, but to commemorate and recommit ourselves to the challenges for jobs and justice. in line with the march on the 24th, there will be one element of the program that will happen on the 25th, and on the 26th. that deals with training for you, the naacp who have partner

with the national coalition on black civic participation. with the randolph institute, with national action network, and with the southern christian leadership conference, sclc, both legacy organizations and's well as other organizations that are now very prominent in the civil rights movement and social justice movement. so if there's a vehicle there, during that day of commemoration, for training and introduction, to new warriors that are ready to get going. i'm going to look for you, okay? all right. we have three minutes? two minutes? >> two. >> two minutes. so you get one minute and you get one minute, how about that? yes, sister. identify yourself, please. >> i'm jade bart ton. i'm from spartanburg, south carolina, and i represent the fuhrman university chapter and i'm the vice president, my question kind of branches off with the question we just had before. kind of goes more into how a college campus can really reach

out to its community because i know like in my state which is south carolina, he specially in the city of spartanburg we're experiencing a lot of gentryification, like historical black neighborhoods being torn down and taxes raised and people not really having their voice there and nursing homes where, you know, our historically black, these people are being displaced to places all over the up state of south carolina. i worked on a lost campaigns and call on people about going to the polls and them saying, oh, i don't feel like going. it is like, i'm going to pick you up from your house and take you to the poll and bring you back home. what can a college campus do, and especially mind which is on predominantly white college? what can we do to reach out to the community? how can we like organize workshops and reach out to people and bring people in to really talk to them about like what is happening to our community and how our politicians are being, bought and we don't really a way to elect them anymore because

corporations are kind of paying them off and they're not representing our best interests? how can we really educate people on that, not just youth but the community at large and let them know we have to have our voice, like we have to really stand up for ourselves and do something and take advantage of the rights people fought so hard for us to have? >> -- go for you one more time, okay? branch training that goes on regular. state conference training that goes on the regular. leadership 500 that goes on annually. conventions as you are here right now, a whole plethora of training sessions, conference committees of workshops, the whole nine, soak up everything that you can while you're here and when you come, do what some of the elders from the churches have done. arrive with five more of the young folk so that you can then build on that. talk about the naacp and its progressive programs. be the activist that you read

about because guess what? you are it now. you are it now. that's what we're looking for. [applause] that's what we're looking for. that's what we're looking for. grab an elder while you're here. anyone that you see with a badges, grab an elder while you're here. that is our responsible to you, to make sure the struggle continues because the battle is not yet over, sister. proud to see you. proud to see you. [applause] >> really quickly i want to thank the panelists. i reasonably enjoyed hearing from both of you. >> thank you very much. yes, sir. identify yourself. >> i'm vicki stay -- stapleton. i'm from northwest, new jersey. i'm proud to say i'm one of the three most active naacp people in my state. also executive vp of state board of now in you. >> jersey and one of two most active members in my state. i had a comment. not a question. >> okay.

>> where was i? i'm feeling lot with all of this, i can say, i'm glad to say, i'm proud of my state. we don't have voter i.d. we don't have suppression. we have it by mail and none of it is due to our bully governor christie. that's a big problem. we have a lot of slums. we have a lot of problems that you spoke of. prisons, i'm involved with that with unduing racism committee. and i would say to utilize your county college students and your retired to do voter registration and form voter registration vans, on voting day, to go get people to bring them to the polls. you will have some more people voting that you otherwise won't have. and if christie does run in 16 -- >> y'all do know we're non-partisan, right? >> i'm saying. he does nothing for women or the men and we have the murder capital of the u.s. in camden. you have to take those kind of

things into consideration. >> we understand. >> for our things we're fighting for. thank you. >> absolutely. thank you very much, sister. we appreciate you. [applause] naacp is non-partisan but we are particular. so we do make adjustments. i will give the final words to our two panelists. if there is anything further that you would like to say in closing us out, please do so. >> once again i would like to thank the naacp for giving me this opportunity. i really want to remind everyone that it is not about the verdict, it is about our values and we have to, as we move on, from this tragic event, as we move on from the verdict, as we move on back into our regular lives when we leave this convening, we have to keep in mind we have to empower those who are weakest among us. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you. >> i would just say thank you. what a blessing it is to be here. we appreciate you staying in here to have the conversation with us. there are lots of materials on your seat, including a call to action which lists three things we would like for to you do. contact your elected officials. email us stories of voting changes you see happening in the places where you live or that you are hearing about and join naacp and many other organizations in washington, d.c. on saturday, august 24th. [applause] >> before you leave, let's give them a resounding round of applause. please look on your seats. you have another action item that is here. pick these up and we ask that you make your phone calls. at your very earliest convenience. today is monday. so you can make them today, tomorrow, whatever. thank you all for coming this. thank you all very, very much.

>> you were here first. >> oh, thanks. >> we appreciate it. >> thank you so much. >> oh, yes, yes. >> thank you. >> do you live here? do you have a brother who is a mayor? >> thank you. [talking over one another]

>> a live look inside the press briefing room at the united nations in new york city. we're awaiting remarks from u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon who is scheduled to speak with reporters about the situation in syria and on a possible u.s. military strike against the assad regime. u.n. investigators last week confirmed chemical weapons had been used in syria but they didn't say who used them. samples gathered in syria are being analyzed prior to the release of a full report on that attack. president obama is getting involved in the discussions about syria. earlier today he met with congressional leaders over at the white house along with party leadership and also in attendance, ranking members on the armed services committee, the foreign relations committee and the intelligence committees. he spoke at about 9:50 eastern this morning. while we wait for the u.n. secretary, here is president obama.

>> i want to thank the leaders of both parties for being here today to discuss what is a very serious issue facing the united states and the fact that i've had a chance to speak to many of you and and congress as a whole is taking this issue with the soberness and seriousness it deserves is greatly appreciated. i think it vindicates for the decision for us to present this issue to congress. as i said last week, as secretary kerry made, made clear in his presentation last week, we have high confidence that syria used in an indiscriminate fashion chemical weapons that killed thousands of people. including over 400 children. and, in direct violation of the international norm against using

chemical weapons. that pose as serious national security threat to the united states and to the region. and, as a consequence assad and syria needs to be held accountable. i have made a decision that america should take action but i also believe that we will be much more effective, we will be stronger if we take action together as one nation and so this gives us an opportunity not only to present the evidence, to all of the leading members congress and the various foreign policy committees as to why we have high confidence that chemical weapons were used and that assad used them. but it also gives us the opportunity to discuss why it is so important that he be held to account. this norm against using chemical weapons, that 98% of the world agrees to, is there for a reason because we recognize that there are certain weapons that when

used, can not only end up resulting in grotesque deaths but also can end up being transmitted to non-state actors. can pose a risk to allies and friends of ours like israel. . .

>> i look forward to listening to the various concerns of the members here today. i'm confident the concerns can be addressed. i think it's appropriate that we act deliberately, and i think everybody recognizes the urgency here and we have to move relatively quickly. with that, you all of you here today, i look forward to an excellent discussion. >> [inaudible] >> i would not be going to

congress if i was not serious about consultations in believing that by shaping the authorization, to make sure we accomplish the mission, we will be more effective, and in so long as we are accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, which is to send a clear message to assad, degrading his capabilities to use chemical weapons, not just now, but also in the future, as long as the authorization allows us to do that, i'm confident we can come up with something that hits that mark, all right? [inaudible conversations] thank you, everybody. [inaudible conversations] i am. thank you, guys. [inaudible conversations] thank you, guys. [inaudible conversations] >> a live look into the press briefing room at the united nations in new york city while we wait for u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon to speak, we have reactions from the congressional leaders following

the meeting this morning with president obama. we start with speaker john boehner. >> good morning to all of you. the use of chemical weapons is a barr beer attack. it's clear to me that the united nations is unable to take actions, nato not likely to take actions, and the united states, for our entire history, has stood up for democracy and freedom for people around the world. the use of these weapons has to be responded to and only the united states has the capabilities and the capacity to stop assad and to warn others around the world that this type of behavior is not going to be tolerated. i appreciate the president reaching out to me and congress over the last couple weeks, and i appreciate the president asking the congress to support

him in this action. this is something that the united states, as a country, needs to do. i'm going to support the president's call for action. i believe with my colleagues should support this call for action. we have enemies around the world that need to understand that we're not going to tolerate this type of behavior. we also have allies around the world, and allies in the region who also need to know america will be there and stand up when it is necessary. thank you, all. >> the president honoredded us with his presentation this morning and he does not take going into military action likely, and they are have compelling reasons, the intelligence is clear is that assad perpetrated this attack of

using weapons of mass destruction, really. weapons of massed destruction, detouring their use, is a pillar of our national security. assad has done that. that is a differentiation from what he's done up until now. people say, realm, he killed a hundred thousand people, what's the difference with this 1400? this 14 # 00 he crosses a line with using a chemical weapon. president obama did not draw the red line. humanity drew it decades ago, 170-some countries supporting the convention on not using chemical warfare so it is really something that from the humanitarian standpoint cannot be ignored or else we cannot say "never again," and secondly, from a national security point, we have to send a clear point to

those with weapons of any variety that they should forget about using them. it was a very constructive meeting. president listened to our colleagues, the speaker clear, told his view associated myself with the remarks, but, again, i believe the american people need to hear more about the intelligence that supports this action, and that is that the responsibility for this chemical weapons use is clearly at the feet of assad. the -- now we go to the next step of having a further debate in the congress of the united states, and i am hopeful, as the american people are persuaded that this action happens, that assad did it, that hundreds of -- hundreds of children were killed. this is the behavior outside the circle of civilized human

behavior, and we must respond. >> are you ready, then, to in a sense, with your membership get on board with the president? we heard, obviously, from the house especially, all over the place. >> yes, i'm respectful of that. on these issues, it's not a question of whipping, but discussing making sure people have the information that they need to make an informed decision, to make sure they have the full value of the intelligence that says this is how this happens. members have to decide, do they want to ignore the fact that this humanitarian disaster took place or not? there's the larger issue of syria's behavior if they get away with this, so, again, it's very respectful of all the concerns that the members have

that our constituents have. i do not, in my district, i don't think people are convinced that military action is necessary, but it's important for them to know that the weapons of mass destruction's use has taken us to a different place that the president takes, obviously, any president would, but this president does not take this lightly, and that what will happen will be targeted, tailored, short duration, and send the message necessary, and then we go from there. you're absolutely right. there's work to be done. it's not a question of whipping. it's a question of discussing with the members hearing their views, and some won't ever be comfortable with it. i, myself, from a human tearian stand point think that waiting for the u.n. and waiting for putin, the slowest ship in the convoy of reacting to use of

weapons of the chemical weapons by assad is a luxury that we cannot afford. i have to go. thank you, all, very much. >> you said never again, are you comparing that to the holocaust? >> no, no, thinking of rwanda, things like that. nothing is like the holocaust. >> live to the press briefing room in new york city where ban ki-moon is speaking about syria. >> welcome, ladies and gentlemen. i leave shortly for g20 meeting in st. petersberg, but i wanted to take a few minutes with you before my departure to brief on the crisis in syria, particularly on chemical weapons invers -- investigation. since the horrendous attacks in damascus two weeks ago, the mission has been working

urgently to establish the effects regarding the nature and extent of any use of chemical weapons. as the first to pull allegations of the use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century, the mission is in every one's interest. not surprising, i briefed the members of the parliament members of the security counsel on the status of investigation. this morning, i briefed the counsels nonparliament members. this afternoon, my high representative for disarmorment, ms. angela king, will brief other member states. i called for the mission to give every opportunity to complete its task. the united nations investigation is uniquely placed to

independently establish the facts in our objective and in partial manner. its work will be conducted strictly according to internationally recognized stand outs. commission worked around the clock following return from syria to prepare the materials it gathers for analysis. i'm pleased to announce that all biomedical and environmental centers will have -- samples will have arrived at the designated laboratories by tomorrow. we are doing our best to expedite the process. at the same time, i need to stress the importance of not jeopardizing the scientific time lines required for accurate analysis. as soon as the mission has arrived at findings on the

incident, i'll report to the security counsel, and as soon as he can, permission to return to syria to complete investigation and to prepare is a final report. as i have stressed repeatedly, if confirmed, any use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances will be a serious violation of international law and outrageous war crime. almost a century ago, following the horrors of first world war, the international community agented to ban these weapons of mass destruction. our common humanity compelling us to ensure that chemical weapons do not become a tool of war or terror in the 21st century. any perpetuators must report to

justice. there should be no inpiewnties. bearing in mind the primary responsibility of the security counsel, i call for its members to unite and develop with appropriate funds, should the allegations of use prove to be true. because we have a duty to move it beyond the current stalemate and show leadership. this is a larger issue than the country in syria. this is about our collective responsibility to human kind. whatever the source, this latest escalation should be a wakeup call for the international community and put on end the atrocities that the syria people continue to suffer. we should avoid militarization of the country and revitalize the search for political

settlement. i take note of the argument for action to prevent a future uses of chemical weapons. at the same time, we must consider the impacts of any punitive measure to prevent the bloodshed and facilitate the political resolution of the country. the turmoil in syria and, of course, the region, serves nobody. i appeal for the sports for regional and international actors to convene the geneva conference as soon as possible. the g20 summit meeting in st. petersberg is meant to know cues on economic issues including the development goals and sustainable development, but our opportunity of this gathering to engage with the leaders on this tragedy including humanitarian

assistance for the more than 2 million refugees and 4.2 million syrians who have been displaced externally. this is a disgrace, this war. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. i have time for a few questions. >> pamela from cbs news, and on behalf of the u.s. correspondents association, thank you, secretary general, for the briefing, and wish you well on the g20 meeting. my question is, since you are talking about an end to impunity and you are also talking about the prep sigh of -- premise of the charter without security u.n. authorization and without a stalemate in the security counsel, what is it that you're proposing? what's in the tool box of the u.n. to avoid that kind of confrontation, but end impunity in is do you think the inspector's report is out before the u.s. congress von veins? thank you.

>> as i have repeatedly said, the security counsel has primary responsibility for international peace and security. for any course of actions in the future, depending upon the outcome of the analysis, scientific analysis, will have to be considered by the security counsel for any action, and that's my appeal that everything should be handled within the frame work of the international charter. the use of force is lawful only when in exercise of self-defense, you know, couples with article 51 of the united nations charter, and/or when the security counsel approves such action.

that is from the principle of the united nations. as i said, again, for your second question, we will -- our mandate to investigate the other allegations of chemical use remain unchanged, and when we are ready, we will send the dispatcher of the missions again to syria for a final report. the timing will have to be considered later on depending upon the situation. >> secretary, do you mean, secretary general, that position taken by president obama that of his opinion there should be a strike and is illegal? why did you agree or your team agree to limit the mandate of the investigation team to only as you put it, the nature and extent of rather than if the team has information as to who

is responsible this was. this was syria, the syria government insisted or stipulated before agreeing to the protocol? >> i have taken note of president obama's statement and appreciate his efforts to have his future course of action based on pro-opinions of american people, particularly, the congress. i hope this process will have good results, and as for other issues, i have clearly stated in my positions on, you know, other issues pertaining this chemical weapons use. >> but you put them -- who put the limits on the mandate? is it the syria government? >> you mean -- >> what state -- [inaudible] what does not identify, so who

put such limitations on the mandate? negotiated the syria government or security counsel? >> it's the united nations' decisions and my decision that mandate of this is to determine the use of chemical weapons, whether there was or not the use of chemical weapons, and it's not to determine who have use against the form. we do not have that kind of mandate at this time. it's not -- one think it is a limit, but this is based on recognizing the standouts of international community, and we have been working very closely with the opcw and who. thank you very much. i have to rush to the airport at this time. i hope you will understand. thank you very much. thank you.

[inaudible conversations] >> we'll hear more about syria this afternoon when the senate foreign relations committee hears testimony from secretary of state john kerry, defense secretary chuck hagel, and joint chiefs of staff general martin dempsey as the committee sets out to draft a resolution authorizing the use of military force in syria. that'll be live at 2:30 eastern on our companion network, c-span. the house counterparts on the house foreign affairs committee can question kerry and hagel tomorrow in a house hearing scheduled for noon eastern. live coverage of that as well on c-span. now, coming up here on c-span2 this afternoon, a live discussion on the significance of including turkey within the transatlantic free trade area including european union nations hosted by the brookings institution, and it gets underway in just a little over

an hour, at 2:30 eastern, right here on c-span2. >> the state house element is one of the most iconic and recognizable symbols of the maryland state house, but a lesser known fact is that it's not the first dome to cover this building. when the building is completed in 1779, it's topped by a small, undersized coop la, leaks because it was hit by a hurricane, and by the 1780s, it's described as built con contrary to all laws of modern architecture. less than two years after congress is in annapolis, construction begins on a new dome to the state house. they, of course, dismantle the original, and that takes them about 12 years to complete it. the construction on the exterior begins in 1787, completed in 1797. it's the largest all wooden dome in the united states entirely

without nails held together with joints and iron strapping which really -- it's truly an architectural masterpiece. in the 19th century in the war of 1812, it's a lookout, the tallest point in town with a commanding view of the river and bay, and so we have tremendous documentation of william, barnye going up to the dome using his excellent glass to observe the troop movements on the way back and forth up the bay in september of 1814. >> more about maryland's state house as booktv and american history tv look at the history and literary life of annapolis, saturday, noon eastern on c-span 2, and sunday at five on c-span3. >> the independence institute hosted the ninth annual alcohol, tobacco, and firearms party last

month. at the party in colorado, activists offered views own perm freedom. we'll show you as much as possible until we are live with the discussion on the cig cansz of turkey being a part of the free atlantic trade area happening at 2:30 eastern this afternoon. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> hey, welcome. [inaudible conversations] are we ready to begin? [inaudible conversations] no? don't worry, just keep on drinking. hey, again, i want to thank you for being part of the 1 is 1 #th

annual alcohol, tobacco, and firearms party. [cheers and applause] a couple of housekeeping items. the folks from -- watch your god damn mouth is what i'm telling you. there's cables and other things, so be careful. we'll do q&a, there's a microphone here for folks to talk, and if you have not given your score cards back to our front office, please do so. we have remarkable prizes for the best and the worst shooters. no matter how humiliating, be sure to do it. we'll start off officially. welcome, i'm john caldera, president of the independence institute, and i'm just thrilled to be here again. [applause] you know, for those who are

watching at home on c-span, i think this deserves a little explanation because for a bunch of people on the east coast watching c-span late at night to see open mouthed breathing hicks shooting guns and drinking beer, this is a scary thing for them. [laughter] let's try to bring them in slowly and bring them up to speed. here in what's called america, many of us enjoy the perks of adulthood, and those perks include a beer every now and then, fine cigar, and some time out with friends out on the range. that's why the idea of drinking, smoking, and shooting is celebrated here at the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms party, and, sadly, the lawyers won't let us enjoy them in that order, but when the staff is alone, we do. the real goal of this event when we started it 11 years ago was

simply to celebrate the perks of adulthood, that as the nanny state continues to grow and grow and government reaches further into our personal lives, at some point, adults need to make a stand and say, hey, you might not like what we do, but this is what we do. if you don't like it, tolerate it. we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone, and we do that in so many areas of our lives that are politically correct, but what we're saying is in these politically incorrect areas, we want the same sort of acceptance that many people now enjoy today. that's the purpose of this party. hat's off and cheers to all of you for being part of the most politically uncorrect party of the year. [cheers and applause] and how incredibly amazing is it that we have colorado being the showcase for the war on guns

nationally, and for those who don't understand what goes on in this state, it has been one of the most remarkable periods of our history in colorado just with the assault on our second amendment rights. those watching on c-span, they might not get it. what's the big deal of limiting magazine requirements or saying you need to have a background check on any transfer of firearms, that seems rather reasonable until you understand really what these are all about. when you realize that the way this law was written, it outlaws almost every magazine in colorado and makes transfers among willing people it might not happen at all. my favorite example is in my town of boulder where a gun buyback program -- you know how they are, give us your gun, here's $25 to spend at sears -- these new laws now have stopped that from happening because there was no way for these people to legally give up their guns in order for them to be

destroyed. that's how bad these laws are. the independence institute not only has done the work on what these laws are, what they mean, and how they work, but also now that they passed, we are leading a lawsuit to overturn them in federal court. i want to introduce a couple folks who make that possible. here in colorado, 62 out of the 62 sheriffs came out in a position paper against these laws when they were bills. all of them. [applause] fifty-five of the sheriffs are plaintiffs on a lawsuit to overturn the unconstitutional laws. now, i think about the sheriffs, these laws don't apply to them. they don't apply. yet, these men and one female sheriff all stood up in unison

and said, no. they didn't have to. they didn't need to take that risk. they didn't need to put themselves in political harm's way, but they did. i want to thank them. we have a few of them here. i want to introdust ken putnam from cheyenne county. where's ken? [applause] there you are, ken. [applause] by the way, this is what a colorado sheriff looks like. [laughter] also, we have, of course, john cook from wells county. [applause] this is what a sheriff is not supposed to look like. also representing jefferson county, jeff strainer. excuse me, jeff, thank you. [applause] now, imagine 55 of these guys walking in a courtroom saying these laws are unworkable,

therefore, we can't enforce them, please overturn them. the lie that law enforcement loves the gun laws has been debunked by the gentlemen. i'll ask the sheriff to say a few words. >> thanks, john, appreciate it. [applause] great to be here with atf, one of my favorite events. you know, the slogan that they used to have a couple years ago was come to atf, enjoy your freedoms while you still can and enjoy them. i laughed at that always thinking it was funny, but it's no joke anymore. we do have to secure our peoples, and, you know, it's great to be here with second amendment loving and law-abiding citizens, you know, ones at the states want to make criminals. that's what the laws do, turn you into criminals. i'm with you guys, and glad to be here with you, and i want to tell you just a little story. i went to vacation up to montana, and we were staying in

glacier national park years ago. we decided, hey, let's go into canada, into waterton national park. knowing canadian laws, i left the gun back where we were staying. when we pulled up to the border, the border guard asked me, do you own a gun? do you own a handgun? he didn't ask, is it with you, but asked, do you own a gun? i said, of course i own a gun, i'm an american. [laughter] of course i do. [applause] so he proceeds to say if i pull you over and search the car, i won't find it? i said, no, you won't. he waves me through. i tell the story because if we don't stand up and fight right now, and if we don't put a line in the sand and say enough is enough, colorado is going to look like canada. the united states might look like canada if we don't end it. colorado is a test state for, i

think, the the rest of the country, and if we can let them get away with the give up laws here in colorado, it will not end. i believe in the near future if we don't stop it, we'll look like canada. let me just tell you where we got to at this point. back in january, we had the county sheriffs of colorado have our conference. we knew gun laws were going to come. i talked with the chief of police from greenwood village who met with the brady group and cease fire group who worked with the chiefs' association to come up with the gun laws, so at our conference, we spent three hours at a round table and said these are the laws that will present. we have to end it. let's do a position paper from the sheriffs, and that's what john referred to. all 62 sheriffs agreed with that position paper, and the number one io lem on the reason we oppose the gun laws is it's a violation of the institutional rights. we took an oath to defend the

constitution. that was the number one reasoning for -- [applause] our second statement was let's put a hold, not have any knee jerk reactions to the tragedies in aurora and connecticut, step back, wait a year, talk about it, have sensible dialogue, and, of course, that didn't happen. we -- 30 sheriffs testified in the state senate, and we were ignored, giving us just a couple minutes, had over a thousand people there to testify against the bills, and fortunately, myself, a few other sheriffs could testify, but they didn't care what we had to say or would listen to way we had to say. i told constituents that jesus christ himself could have came from heaven and testified about the bills and they wouldn't have cared. >> they wouldn't have recognized him. >> absolutely, they wouldn't have known who he was, i like that! [laughter] hey, you want the microphone?

[laughter] all right. anyway, now i lost my thought, but, anyway, the 55 sheriffs said, no, we're going to sue the state because the state legislature and government signed the bills, and, you know, i'm still proud of all the 55 sheriffs because 55 sheriffs put their name on the line, their reputation on the line, and the political futures on the line to defend the constitution and their constituents. a lot of people say, well, why the sheriffs? why are you guys doing this? my response is, if not us, who? if not now, when? we took an oath to uphold the constitution, and that's what we are doing, representing our people who can't represent themselves in federal court. we're defending the single moms that might be attacked by several intruders and needs more than 15 rounds or might be attacked by several intruders. we're defending the disabled

shooters who might not be able to reload as quickly when being attacked by somebody. we're defending the rights of everyday citizens. you know, this lawsuit is about two things. it's about our oath we took to defend the constitution, it's about public safety. these laws do nothing to protect public safety. it does not make colorado a safer place, and if these laws would have been in effect, the aurora shooting would have still happened. doesn't do anything to make colorado safer to live, work, place, and i believe it's going to make it less safe taking away rights of individuals to protect themselves. law enforcement is about priorities and resources. as sheriff, i set the priorities and resources for the sheriff's office for weld county, and my priorities are putting the bad guys in jail, they are about putting the burglars, rapist, child molesters, drug dealers in jail, not the law-abiding citizens who the laws are aimed at.

[applause] i would just ask that you stand with your sheriffs and support us in this endeavor. there is a fund started for the lawsuit, and you can go to the website and contribute to the lawsuit. it is expensive. we have some expert witnesses that they are going to cost a lot of money, so you can support us by donating, and we received over 2,000 e-mails and letters, cards, usually bring them, but forgot them, and of 2,000, roughly 1800 of them are in support in saying, you know, thank you for saying protecting our rights, and a lot are from across the country because they know if it happens here it can happen there. the other 50 to 2 # 00 are

letters, e-mails, and cards telling me to do something to do myself that physically and humanly impossible to do. for people who believe in gun control, some say they hope that somebody breaks into my office and, you know, shoots me, and i die an untimely and awful death, so i don't get that part, but anyway, please support your sheriffs. we're saying enough is enough, and i'd appreciate it if you back us and support us in that as well. thanks, john. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> if there's anybody who zephyrs a standing ovation, it's these sheriffs. john has done an incredible job. for them to stand up and take heat for this, there's no political gain for them, they are not making money from this,

but are doing it because it's right. all 62 elected sheriffs in colorado were on that position paper against it. they tried to contact and tried to call him and they would not meet with a single parents as the bills were ran through; however, as our invest gaitive reporter, scott todd shepherd, was able to find out on the complete colorado website, while our governor would not listen to a single sheriff, he was happy to accept phone calls from michael bloomberg himself at key moments during the debate, and for those who do not understand from out of state why this bothers them, here in colorado, we believe in local control, and we. and we want to control what happens politically here in colorado. i know the guntureture is bizarre, and when i was an anti-gun, it was bizarre for me,

but in colorado, we're raised with guns, more guns in this state than people. over a hundred thousands people here have concealed carry permits to carry weapons. this is part of the fabric of colorado, and for some east coast elitist to tell us we can't have them, well, that's where the independence institute comes in and stands up and says no, and thank you for your support on this lawsuit. let me introduce dave to prove that -- [applause] even on saturdays, lawyers wear blazers and neckties. [laughter] cowboy hat is on his bedspread as a kid. >> i still own that bedspread. [laughter] dave has been doing such an amazing job, not only during the debate, but bringing together this legal suit, bringing forward on the constitutional grounds on several issues.

i'm optimistic about what it can do, and give us a quick update on that and introduce our great speaker. >> thank you, thank you, john. [applause] so this lawsuit despite having 55 sheriffs and retired police officer as plaintiffs has more than 20 adational plaintiffs who represent some of what the best of colorado is and has always been. other plaintiffs include the colorado farm bureau, colorado youth outdoors and organization that encourages and helps young people participate in the outdoor sports including the shootings sports. the colorado outfitters association, the trade association for colorado's hunting guides who have been seriously harmed by these poorly written bills to disabled individuals and the organization, outdoor buddy, a nonprofit that helps disable people participate in the

outdoor sports, and importantly, this claim, this case, involves constitutional claims under the second amendment and 14th amendment of the united states constitution, and it also includes claims under the americans with disabilities act because the ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds is especially harmful to disabled people who may not have the mobility to be able to retreat to change a magazine when under attack, or they have only one arm or difficulties with their fingers for any number of reasons, and so they, especially, as our expert reports have explained, they especially need standard capacity, full capacity magazines for lawful self-defense. we've made tremendous progress in the case already. in june, we filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, and the result of all the preliminary injunction briefings act in force was on july 10th.

we got everything we had been seeking to fix with that preliminary injux motion. the magazine ban not only outlaws magazines that actually do hold more than 15 rounds, but it also outlaws every magazine which is, quote, designed to be readily converted to hold more than 15 rounds, and nobody knows what it means, but the only thing it could mean, if anything at all, is that every box magazine is ban because whether it's an eight round magazine for your colt pistol from the 1911 model from a hundred years ago or it's a ten round magazine or 13 round magazine, almost all of them today have a removable base plate to assemble it, clean it, replace the worn out spring, and because of the removable base plate, every magazine could have an extender added to it, at

least in theory, and there, in fact, are lots of after market extenders. the effect of this was to outlaw all magazines holding of whatever size. we sought the preliminary injunction on that, and as we pushed and pushed and pushed, the attorney general representing the governor in this case, because that's how, in colorado, you sue against a state statute, name the government as the defendant, ultimately conceded our point, and on july 10th, issued new technical guidance to replace the guidance for may and said, well, you have to interpret design to be readily converted, in essence, it doesn't apply to anything at all unless it was converted, which is not really what the language says, but we'll take that temporary interpretation as lease for the time being to protect people with magazines of 15 or less. in addition, the magazine ban had a grandfathering clause

saying you can continue to own a normal magazine of 20-30 rounds of your rifle if you owned it on july 1st, and that's something everybody can understand, but it also said you have to maintain continuous possession. what's that mean? well, the attorney general issued technical guidance in may, and it said, continuous position would end -- you can maybe -- when a friend comes over, show him your magazine, in the room with him, he can hold the magazine in the hands for a few minutes, that's okay, but anything other than that would terminate continuous possession, therefore, making your magazine illegal. if your magazine were broken, take it to a gunsmith for repair, and even if colorado, there's not on-the-spot service, that's a distinction between burger king and guns, you leave the magazine for a couple weeks or few days at least with the

gunsmith for repairs, and that met that full continuous possession is broken and you and the gunsmith are criminals. by pushing for the preliminary injunction, there's new technical guidance which abandoned what they just said in may, and now it's continuous position is never broken as long as the owner keeps ownership right which if youmented to leave the gun with the magazine with somebody for half a year, maybe you go out of the country, and you want to leave it for -- with them for safekeeping so it's not stolen, that's relegallized in colorado. there's still a lot more to do on this case as we get to the core issue. the sponsors of the magazine bill repeatedly says that the only reason a person owns a megafor more than 15 rounds is to murder a lot of people quickly. well, that is a horrible group

libel against literally millions of law-abiding citizens and against colorado law enforcement. the supreme court has said in the heller case that what you can't ban, the arms clearly protected by the second amendment, are those which are typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. in our case, we don't get into the theory of a hundred round magazine or something like that, things that don't really work very well, and then are rarely owned by people other than a novelty item. what we say is clearly unconstitutional is the magazines which are indisputably typically owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, which for handguns is magazines up to 20 and rifles is magazines up to 30. that's all we bring up in this case because that's enough to say that a ban on 15 is unconstitutional, categorically

unconstitutional under the supreme court's precedent in district of columbia versus heller. one of the -- what you can -- just by observation, people you know, all around, talk to gun owners, lots and lots of them own standard capacity magazines. not because they want to kill a lot of people at once because they own them for good purposes of lawful self-defense and legitimate recreational shooting. they are commonly possessed by sheriffs and their deputies, and carry handguns as 5 lock, a springfield, or smith and wes son piston with a 15 or 19-round magazine, and in the patrol cars today, almost every law enforcement organization, you'll find an ar-15 type rifle with 20-30 round magazines. they are not carrying the arms because they are going hunting or because they are gun collectors or because they want to kill a lot of people quickly. they are carrying them for one

purpose only which is the lawful protection of self-and others, and the reason they choose their firearms so often with the magazines is because they believe those are the best choice under their particular circumstances. what kind of firearms fits their hand best, what they control the recoil on, and what helps improve public safety. they believe that citizens have exactly the same right to choose their exact same firearms. this is the opposite of the idea that law enforcement is a guard that's superior to the citizens rather the belief of the sheriffs is they are elected by the people and given power to serve people and not to be superiors who control from above and have access to arms that ordinary citizens do not. these magazine bans also directly harm law enforcement.

nominally, there's an exemption in the magazine ban for people who work for law enforcement agency, but not everybody coming to the aid of law enforcement is a full-time employee of law enforcement. let me tell you one antedote about the differences that, the harmful difference of the magazine ban would have made had it been in effect 20 years ago. in 1994, in hinsdale county, southwestern colorado, a very rugged area, the sheriff knew he had to go out to do a high-risk road stop, and so he brought along a trusted person he knew who he'd trained to be a safe and proficient shooter in support of law enforcement, but the person -- retired air force officer, was not a certified law enforcement officer. he was not sworn. he was just this good citizen helping the sheriff out.

well, the sheriff and citizen went out on that traffic stop on the highway, and there, the sheriff was murdered by a man and woman in that car. the citizen was carrying his beret that handgun with a 17-round handgun and fired all 17 round magazines adds the murders attempted to escape, and a round hit the tire of the escaped vehicle and stopped it. the murderers ran off on foot into the foothills. over the next month, 200 law enforcement officers from all over came to participate in the man hunt for those people, and so did a hundred other citizens, ordinary citizens performing their role coming to the aide of the sheriff, voluntarily, bringing their own firearms of the type they happened to own at the time, and they participated in the man hunt searching

buildings and remote areas all over until one month later, finally, the murderers were found in a remote cabin where they had committed suicide. if this bill would have been in effect 20 years ago, that good citizen wouldn't have had a 17-round magazine, but a 15-round magazine, and the murderers would have escaped. house bill 1224 is a deadly danger to law enforcement and to all of the public in colorado. [applause] this lawsuit is not one of the bumper sticker things that says what part of shall not be infringed do you not understand? it's not something that contends all gun controls are unconstitutional. regarding the background check bill that was passed by the legislature, which we are seeing saying it unconstitutional, we don't take a position one way

other the other about the constitutionality of background checks on the private sale of firearms, but what we say is certainly, if that could be constitutional, you at least have to have a functioning system for that to happen, and house bill 129 is a dysfunctional order, the people do the background checks without them in a practical way being able to do so. they have to bring the guns, if a neighbor wants -- if a ranch wants to sell a firearm to his neighbor on the ranch next door, they both have to go to wherever they find a federal firearms licensee firearms retailer to perform the transaction, but that licensee is only allowed to charge $150 for filling out pages of paperwork for incurring serious legal liability for any mistake on that paperwork for waiting what is sometimes the hours or days it takes the

colorado bureau of investigation for what is supposed to be an instant background check. few, if any firearms dealers, will be able to do that. that means in practice citizens who want to comply with the law will not be able to do so because there's no way to do the transfer without going to the federal firearms retailer. much, much -- even worse, clearly unconstitutional, is that the bill not only background check bill applies to the sale of firearms, but it plays to the ordinary use of firearms that includes loaning firearms to someone else on a temporary basis. that's what people in real life in the united states and america, how they actually use firearms. the bills were written by people who have any respect for or knowledge for, yet weigh the real firearms. it means say there's a friend from kansas to visit, an l elk

tag to hunt for a week. he comes, spend a night with you, and then there's a malfunction in the rife. he can't use it, and again, the gunsmith, takes awhile, so you lend him your hunting rifle, he goes off for five days off to the hunting camp, hunts for elk, comes back, and returns the rifle to you. under colorado law, the new background check bill, both of you are criminals subject up to 18 months in jail and you lose your rights to possess a firearm for a year. that's not rational or reasonable. another example of this, and, again, direct harm to law enforcement. it's common in law enforcement for sheriffs deputies or police officers that their duty handgun and sometimes the rifle in the car or the shotgun, is something they buy with their own money

from an approved list of suitable firearms created by the chief law enforcement officers, but it is also true that most law enforcement offices have armories where they do supply firearms to deputies. if you're a sheriff, and you have a supply of ar-15s in a safe in your office, and you have a deputy who has been promoted from working as a jail deputy now a patrol deputy, you hand him the keys to the patrol car, and say, here's your car. you live in the county, when you're off duty, take the car home, and you have it to respond in case of emergency where we need you right away, and here's an ar-15 rifle with 30-round magazines for you to keep in the car as well because you may need a rifle for all kinds of different possible situations that could develop. we expect you to keep the rifle

in the car, and, of course, when you're off duty and got the car park at home, secure the rifle, and you take it inside. well, the magazine ban does have a law enforcement exemption, so the author of this bill, the magazine ban and background check bill, were both written by representative ron defield so she put a law enforcement exemption into the magazine ban, and it's there, but there is no law enforcement exemption in the background check bill, so that means when the sheriff gives the ar15 to the deputy and says, you're going to have this rifle for the next six months, according to house bill 1229, they are to both go down to the local gun store and ask for a background check on the deputy and the deputy can have -- the gun store has to register that firearm into some inventory book like selling out of its own inventory. the bill, in essence, criticized

the ordinary operations of how law enforcement works and the same thing with returning a stolen firearm toits -- to its owner. that is not a bill that's a thoughtful, sensible, common sense, reasonable gun control law. it's just the opposite. it's an unreasonable bill that was jammedded through the legislature in 41 # days without the careful consideration of the sheriff asked for. back in january, they said, let's have study committees over the summer, think about it, and whatever we're going to do, let's do it right and do it thoughtfully, and instead, just the opposite happened, and now law enforcement flout the state has been -- throughout the state has been criminalized by the wrecklessness and language in the bill. what the sheriffs are standing for in this case is, in some ways, the genius of the american political system, where we divide the power between the federal, the state, and local levels, and whenever any one

part of that system is oppressive, the people, the ultimate sovereigns, can appeal to the other level, and so here is our sheriffs, locally elected, appealing to our national institutional right, guaranteed by the second and 14th amendments to protect us from unreason, dangerous oppression enacted at the state level. their belief, as you heard, is that law enforcement and law and order are very important, and if you believe in that, you have to believe the first priority of everyone has to be obeying the supreme law, the constitution of the united states of america, and so what the sheriffs are doing here is standing up for public safety and the rule of law, and we hope you stand with them. thank you. [applause]

much thank you very much. [applause] >> i'll introduce my friend, cam edwards. ..