does that one side with our allies obligations? what are the views of our partners on this shift? you talked about the marines moving to australia. how are we leveraging those relationships to better our -- >> just obviously at the highest level, that's a joint question that for the marine corps, the 174 case i described to you is a force that emphasizes the pacific. ..

>> we see going forward that there's not going to be much change at all, you know, at least for us as a service. >> can i ask a quick follow-on to that one about what at least superficially may seem to be a bit of a contradiction. if the marine corps remains focused primarily on the pacific, but i think at present most people would conceive of most crises not initiating in the pacific. certainly, there are other places in the world that seem more likely to erupt and require rapid crisis response. so is that a contradiction? are two special purpose -- [inaudible] enough? how do you reconcile that? >> you know, we're still going to be active of in other parts of the world. you know, my last life i was the centcom j5, and i used to say, you know, speaking of

sentedcom -- centcom, you may be finished with centcom, but centcom's not finished with you. that doesn't mean we or the rest of the joint force is going to draw down precipitously anywhere else in the world with. you can go a lot of places. couple that with maritime prepositioning forces, you've got mobility. you can answer a broad range of requirements. so i would say that we do not see this as, you know, well, we've got to draw back from a lot of other areas in order to do this. it's not going to happen. we will still maintain presence in those other areas as we go forward. >> okayment. >> sir, you already spoke of your desire to preserve the -- [inaudible] capabilities as much as possible. the co-comes around the world continues to increase. what is the marine corps' intention on enhancing its soft

capabilities or distributing? >> we're going to protect marsoc, but we're going to freeze it at its current level of growth. we feel it's about right for the current agreements we have, and we're going to pursue aggressively the integration of our forward-deployed muse with special operations forces. we feel there's a natural alliance there, and a lot of good work needs to be done to formalize that process to a greater degree. so, clearly, as we go forward special operations forces and all their roles are going to play, you know, a critical part in the effort. and we think not only parsoc, but marine expeditionary units are going to be part of that. >> what's the balance in terms of drawdown on this aviation force versus the ground force? is there a difference, or is it proportionally -- >> as you know, the ground forces are where the human

beings are. so you're going to draw more. if you draw down a flying squadron and an infantry battalion, in terms of huey p. n beings, it will look very disparate. so most of your people are coming out of the combat element, but mainly in the infantry side of it. for example, we're going to go down to 21 infantry battalions. we were at a high in the 202k force, we were at 23 and -- [inaudible] battalions for the 106k force, and we're going to go down to 21 in the force. so you're going to, you know, that's where the people are. it's the nature of the business. >> sir, you mentioned the f-35 and acb are two priority programs for the marine corps, both of these have price tags attached to them. is there a concern they may

become cost prohibitive, and does the marine corps have a plan b? >> yes, there is a concern. we'll make the case, ultimately, civilian leadership will make that decision and we would, obviously, always have a plan, we look at alternatives. but we hi the f-35 fills a niche capability, actually it's far broader than that, it fills a significant strategic capability going forward. and the acv is just a capability to replace a vehicle who's really done good service but is nearing the end of its service life. we feel pretty strongly that these are critical programs for the marine corps going forward. >> on the acv, i mean, i think many outsiders have been surprised that it's been coming up now almost on three years since the expeditionary finding vehicle was canceled, and there's still not a clear way forward on the program. can you talk about some of the challenges of why it is taking so long to nail that down and

what you think the way ahead is? >> certainly, marin. you know, i would say we're proceeding cautiously because we want to get it right. we don't know that this is not the last chance we get at this, so we want to make sure we get it right. we have the luxury, if you will, from having a lot of lessons learned, so we spent some time studying that. but we don't want to build a vehicle that is son of efv. we don't want it to be that. we want to look at, you know, the industry has developed a little bit since we were in the height of the efv development, we wanted to look at alternatives. and as i think, you know, the question you're really asking is do you want to build a vehicle that travels at high water speed or not? and for those of you in the audience who aren't familiar with this arcane subject, do you want a vehicle that can plane on the water and go about 25 knots or so and, therefore, be able to launch from further out at sea, therefore protecting your ships more and make the transit in very quickly, or do you want a

vehicle that looks like the one we have today which is much slower, ships have cotom in -- have to come in closer. so those are the trade-offs, and you'll appreciate the complexity of it when you consider this is a vehicle that's going to live 80% of its life, maybe even 90% of its life on the land driving marines around, serving as an armored personnel carrier, transporter of troop, yet the most demanding design criteria are for that 10% of the lifetime it spends in the water. so when you consider that, that's a pretty daunting challenge that you have to resolve. so what we are doing is we're doing really, really, i think, thorough due diligence on this issue. we're looking at it hard because this is a critical decision for the marine corps. it's as important as the v-22, as the f-35. so, you know, the months that we spend more actually matter little over the decades we have the vehicle in use. so we just want to make sure we've got it right and that, you

know with, we've looked at all the requirements. the final answer's going to be informed by what we learned from efv, you know, the wealth of other innovative things that have happened over the last few years, and we'll make a decision in the best interests of that capability. don't know what that final answer's going to be now. >> general, i think we only have one more question for you, and it regards the ships in the pacific with the drawdown, what steps is the marine corps taking to work with our coalition partners and leverage their capabilities? >> the number of training exercises we've been able to conduct with most recently the japanese, the australians and the republic of the philippines, all that is ramping up. you're going to see those increase over the next few years. so i think we are going to place increasing reliance on coalition

and allied partners in the western pacific. it's not that we ever lost focus on it, but some of the resources were not available over the last ten years to properly exercise some of the ways we would like to do now and are going to do in the future. availability of amphibious ships, it's almost a renaissance in that capability as we go forward. so, first of all, it's going to be very important to us and, second, we have the relationships in place to insure that this goes forward in a positive manner, and the shift to the pacific will simply emphasize that. >> okay. well, i think we've wiped him out with questions, and we gave you a pretty good exercise too. thank you again so much for taking the time, and we wish you luck as you continue to engage in the qdr, and relook forward to a stellar -- we look forward to a stellar program. thanks for coming down. >> marin, thanks very much. pleasure to be here. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> a couple of live events coming up on the c-span networks. the national business group on health announces the results of its survey of employee health care benefits. that's on c-span at 10 eastern. here on c-span2 at 13 a.m. eastern -- 11 a.m. eastern, pakistan's prime minister will speak at the u.s. institute of peace. he's expected to address

u.s./pakistan relations, regional stability and counterterrorism.s >> i never, ever ask a negative question. i think it's insulting to the person you want to talk to, and it w creates a bad impression about what you're downing. you're asking -- about what you're doing. you're asking for someone's time because you need information that will lead you to a better understanding of your subject. you know, sometimes you get negative information when you really don't want it, and youn' haven't even asked for it. i know. i remember calling a woman to ask her about a senate wives' luncheon in honor of the first lady. she said to o me, quote: i know why you're calling.ou you want m're to repeat those nasty things that a nancy reagan was telling us yesterday about barbara bush. [laughter]

actually, all i wanted to find out was how much money theout senate wives had raised for mrs. reagan's drug abuse fund.ug in that telephone call, i got more than i asked for, and i used every single word. i [laughter]y si >> presidential history, political intrigue and american culture, biographer kitty kelley will sit down for your calls and comments live for three hours beginning at noon eastern sunday, november 3rd on booktv's in depth. and in the months ahead, look for feminism critic christina of summers and mark levin january 59. right now online at our booktv book club, join other viewers reading "walking with the wind" by congressman john lewis. see what others are saying and post your own comments. find out more at booktv.org/bookclub. >> the supreme court heard oral argument recently about a michigan voter-approved ban against considering race or

gender in public education admissions. the question before the court is whether the ban violate it is 14th amendment's equal protection clause. the sixth circuit court of appeals found the ban unconstitutional. the court is expected to render a decision by the end of its term next year. this is an hour. >> we'll hear argument next today in case 12682, schuette v. the coalition to defend affirmative action. mr. bursch? >> thank you, mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, the issue in this case is whether a michigan constitutional provision requiring equal treatment violates equal protection and for two reasons the answer is, no. first, unlike the laws at issue in hunter and seattle, section 26 does not repeal an anti-discrimination law. instead, it repeals preferences unless it's an impediment to --

and, thus, it's an impediment to treatment, not equal treatment. >> seattle had to do with a remedy, de facto segregation. why isn't this identical to seattle? >> justice sotomayor, it's notal because of the remedy issue. in seattle they were imposing a remedy that would result -- >> you don't think that the proponents of affirmative action are attempting to do the same thing? one of the bill sponsors here said that this constitutional amendment will bring back desegregation in michigan, and it appears to have done just that. >> well, there's two points to that question, and i'll address them both. first on the merits. under grutter, the point of performances in university admissions cannot be solely the benefit of the minority, because under grutter it's supposed to benefit the campus as a whole, which we think is a laudable goal. it's a forward-looking action to

remedy past discrimination, and we know that because you can use preferences whether or not there's de facto desegregation simply to get the benefit. but your point about a what has or has nod happened here, two thoughts on that. first, it's not clear that the diversity on michigan's campus has gone down. but our pain point is not those number, but the fact that there are other things the university of michigan could be doing to achieve diversity in race-neutral ways. for example, we know -- >> i thought that in grutter all of the social sciences had pointed out to the fact that all of those efforts had failed. it's one of the reasons why the, i think it was a law school plan in michigan was upheld. >> well, there's social science evidence that goes both ways, but i want to focus on the university of michigan because there's two things they could be doing right now that would get them closer to the race-neutral goal. the first thing is they could eliminate alumni preferences.

that's certainly one way that tilts the field away from underrepresented minorities. the other one, and this is really important, is to -- >> always wonderful for minorities that they finally get in, they finally have children, and now you're going to do away for that preference for them. [laughter] it seems that the game post keeps changing every few years for minorities. >> well, given the makeup of michigan's alumni right now, certainly that playing field would be tilted the other way. the other thing that we practice, socioeconomic diversity. and at the university of michigan there was a stat in the wall street journal just two days ago that if you measure that by pell grants, the number of students eligible for those, at the university of michigan the number of students who have pell grants is half what it is at more progressive institutions like berkeley and the university of texas at austin. so the university of michigan could be trying harder. but our point isn't to get into a debate about whether preferences are a good or bad thing because a that's not what this case is about. the question is whether the people of michigan have the

choice through the democratic process to accept this court's invitation in grutter to try race-neutral means. >> while you're on seattle, can you -- i have difficulty distinguishing seattle. one factual difference is that there was a school board there, a directly-elected school board elected for a short term of years. here there's a board of trustees. is that a distinguishing factor in the case on which a principled distinction could be made? >> i hi i it's a distinguishing factor -- i think it's a distinguishing factor, and i think the chart we have on page 17 of our reply brief explains it's easier to change race-based admissions policies now than it was before section 26, and that's one basis. but i think the more fundamental basis is to say, you know, what seattle is about. and if you can indulge me, i'm going to suggest that seattle could mean one of three things. one of those i think you should

clearly reject, and then the other two, i think, are possible interpretations that you could adopt. when seattle talks about racial classifications, it focuses on laws that have a racial focus. right out of the box, equal protection is about people, not about laws. but even more fundamentally, that cannot be the right test. that part of seattle has to go because if you had a race-neutral clause which forbids discrimination on race or sex, that itself would be subject to strict scrutiny because it has a racial focus, so we know that can't be right, and that's respondent's position. one would be an incremental change to this doctrine, the other would be a more aggressive change. the incremental change would be to interpret racial classification in seattle as meaning a law that, one, repeals an anti-discrimination provision as it did in hunter and seattle, and two, removes that issue to a higher level of the decision

making process. and because michigan's law requires equal treatment, eliminates preferences -- not an anti-discrimination law -- that would be a way you could keep seattle and hunter as a viable option -- >> i don't see the distinction. busing could be viewed and was viewed to benefit only one group. it was a preference for blacks to get into better schools, that's the way the case was pitched, that was its justification. and to deseparate the -- integrate the society. affirmative action has the same aim, we've said that in fisher, it should be to diversify the population. and so it favors diversity as opposed to desegregation. >> but there's a difference between favoring questionersty as an -- diversity as an abstract concept on campus and remedying past discrimination which was the point of the bus anything seattle. and that's why we're really in a post-seattle world now because -- >> but there was no proof that there was any dejury segregation

in seattle. >> that's correct. because at the time of seattle's decision, we didn't yet have parents involved, so there wasn't a strict scrutiny test that was being applied to that busing program, so you didn't have to go as far as you would today. but what really -- >> so you're saying there are three things, one the first -- >> yes. >> okay. and the second was an incremental improvement in the democratic process, the democratic responsibility? >> that -- >> responsiveness, i guess. >> right. that plus repealing an anti-discrimination law. >> and there was a third, did you say? >> well, the third way is really to look at racial focus and say that's wrong, and maybe this whole doctrine needs to be re-examined. and the way you could do that is to rook at what seattle and hunter -- look at what seattle and hunter are really doing which is falling right into the washington v. davis line of cases. both of those cases could have been resolved by saying, one,

there's a disparate impact and, two, given the facts and circumstances in 1969 akron, lo, and 1982, seattle, washington, that there was discriminatory animus based on race. and if you did that, you could reconcile the entire line of equal protection jurisprudence this court has used since that time. >> such a claim in this case, it just wasn't decided, wasn't there a racial animus that the reason for proposition 2 was to reduce the minority population? the court of appeals didn't get to that, but there was a claim. >> there was a claim but, your honor, there was also a decision. and the district court was really clear on this. keep many if mind that this was a summary judgment posture, and the district court concluded properly that there wasn't even a question of material disputed fact with respect to intent. this is at ages 317-319 of the supplemental appendix petition. and that's because the primary motivation for section 26

included so many nondiscriminatory reasons including the belief of some in michigan that preferences are themselves race discrimination. of others that race-neutral alternatives is actually a better way to achieve campus diversity that results in better outcomes for underrepresented minority students. some could belief that the preferences result in mismatch as justice thomas -- >> that, it seems to me, a goodies tungs for hunter and maliki v. wrightman which -- >> yes. >> but not necessarily a distinction in seattle because seattle you could argue, well, there are methods that are less racially divisive. >> and i think, and i'd like to come back to reitman. that fits into this framework too. but i think if you have any question about what seattle really meant, the place to look is the later decision in cuyahoga falls n. cuyahoga, the court specifically dimension --

mentions, and it also talks about the decision maker's statements as evidence of discriminatory intent in the hunter case at page 195. and so i think if you look at cuyahoga falls, it's already done some of the work for you if you're going to take the more conservative route -- >> but i don't see how -- >> -- intent. >> -- the argument would be any different here. one of the main sponsors of this bill said it was intended to segregate again. the voters in seattle were not all filled with animus, some of them just cared about their children not leaving, not having outsiders come in. i mean, there's always voters who have good intent. >> that's true, and there's always some bad apples, too, we don't dispute that point. but here you have a district court holding that there's not even a material question of fact with respect to animus because there are so many reasons that could be advanced, legitimate reasons, again, about mismatch and about the benefits of -- >> in seattle as well? so it wasn't the issue of animus

that drove seattle concern. >> i think it's much hardener seattle, your honor. but to fit reitman into this discussion in what i would consider the more conservative way, one that would preserve those as a doctrine is to think about how reitman would come out under that test. of course, you had anti-discrimination laws at the local level which were then repealed by a state constitutional amendment. and the political restructuring doctrine had not yet been invented yet, and so what the court did is it relied on the california supreme court's finding that there was discriminatory animus in striking down those anti-discrimination laws. i think that if you view hunter and seattle similarly as cases where if you repeal an anti-discrimination law as opposed to one that requires equal treatment, that's the narrow way to cabin those cases and a way that would allow those cases to survive, yet t to distinguish section 26. one point that we haven't discussed much is the democratic

process, and it's important that i emphasize that, you know, obviously, the use of race-based and sex-based preferences in college education is certainly one of the most hotly-contested issues of our time. and some believe that those preferences are necessary for campus diversity, others think that they're not necessary and, in fact, that we would have a much better world if we moved past the discussion about race and instead based it on race-neutral criteria. >> i'm going to ask you to go back to the very first thing you said because i didn't get your point. the question what impact has the termination of affirmative action had on michigan, on the enrollment of minorities in the university of michigan? do we have any clear picture of that, what effect the repeal of affirmative -- >> yes, justice ginsburg, we have a muddy picture. as we explain in our reply brief, the first thing that we

have is the actual statistics for the first full year after section 26 went into effect. this is 2008. and what we find is that the number of underrepresented minorities as part of the entering freshman class at michigan as a percentage changed very little. it went from about 10.75% to about 10.25%. then it gets very difficult to track because following the u.s. census' lead in 2010 the university of michigan stopped requiring students to check only a single box to demonstrate what their race or ethnicity was and move today a multiple check box system. and justice sotomayor, when you see in the briefs that there's been a dramatic drop, for example, in african-american students on campus at the university of michigan, those numbers don't take into account that people who before were forced to check a single box now could be checking multiple boxes. and if you fold in the multiple checks box student, the number of underrepresented minorities on campus comes out higher.

now, we don't know what those numbers are, because you could have a student who might be white and asian, and this would no -- they would not be considered an underrepresented minority, and they could be in there, but the numbers are closer when you -- >> so what do we do with the statistics from california? their attorney general has shown in another state with a similar proposition has shown the direct dramatic drop. >> well, the the statistics in california across the 17 campuses in the university of california system show that today the underrepresented minority percentage is better on 16 out of those 17 campuses. it's not at berkeley, haven't gotten there yet, but it's better on the rest. and they discovered underrepresented minority students have higher gpas, that they take more technology, engineering and math classes and they have a graduation rate that is 20-25% higher than it was before california's proposition 209. you can see similar effects in texas in their top 10% program

before it was modifyed, and not only did it have those positive impact, but it actually increased minority performance at social, economically-disadvantaged high schools where the students said, hey, i can only get into the top 10% of my class, i can be at the university of texas at austin. and, again, we can all agree that diversity on campus should be pursued what the california and texas experiences have demonstrated is there are good, positive reasons why the voters might want to try race-neutral alternatives. >> so why is it okay to have taken away -- not okay to have taken away the decision to have busing from the local school boards, the people on the ground, but it's okay to take that power away from the people on the ground here, the board of regents, who are also elected like the school board was in seattle? >> because --

>> general population has feelings about many things, but the only decision that they're -- educational decision that they're taking away from the board of regents is this one. affirmative action. everything else they leave within the elected board of regents. >> you've put your finger on the fulcrum of respondent's best argument. that only race as a factor alone has been removed, and there tear argument exactly backward, because it's not michigan or section 26 that single out race, the equal protection clause itself. because, justice sotomayor, if a student wants to lobby for an alumni preference and put it in the state constitution, strict scrutiny is never applied to that effort. but when you try to get a preference based on race or not based on race in the federal or state constitution, strict scrutiny is always applied. so it's the equal protection clause which is making a

differentiation between race and everything else. and that's why this court in crawford -- again, decided the same day as seattle -- on page 538 recognized a distinction that discriminates on the base of race. and section 26 falls into that latter category. >> you've been asked several questions that referred to the ending or termination of affirmative action. that's not what's at issue here, is it? >> no. and i'm glad that you brought that up, chief justice robert, because affirmative action means a lot more than the use of race or sex-based preferences in university admissions. the article i, section 26 only focuses on this one aspect of university admissions. now, another important point to understand is that section 26 is not all about university admissions. this is actually a much broader law that applies not just to race and ethnicity, but also to sex and to other factors, and

that affects not just universities, but also public contracting and public employment. this was a broad-based law that was primarily motivated with by the people of michigan's decision to move past the day when we're always focused on race exactly as grutter invited the states to do. and you can see how that discussion gets mired when you look at some of these statistics that we've been talking about. if someone has multiple racial boxes checks, are they more or less diverse than someone who has one box checked? >> something much more, you're basically saying because fisher and grutter and -- we've always applied strict scrutiny. >> correct. >> all right? so it's, essentially, a last resort within some reason. but what you're saying if all those other measures fail,

you're by constitution saying you can't go to the remedy that might work. >> no, that's not what we're saying. >> well, but this amendment is stopping the political process. it's saying a board of regents can do everything else in the field of education except this one. >> well, again, it actually runs the other way because equal protection is what singles out race-focused measures for strict scrutiny. but what we're saying is under grutter race preferences are barely permissible. it cannot be unconstitutional for the people to choose not to use them anymore, to accept this court's invitation in grutter to move past the discussion about race and into a race-neutral future. >> what would you do with a constitutional amendment that said pro-affirmative action laws and only those require a three-quarters vote of the state legislature? >> well, under what we're going

to call the save hunter and seattle, something like that would be unconstitutional because it removes an anti-discrimination provision and moves it to a higher level of government. now, one of the problems with keeping that doctrine is that it could also work the opposite way. you know, pretend that the political climate in michigan was turned on its head, and the universities had agreed that they were no longer going to use race or sex in admissions, and then it was the state electorate in the legislature or the constitution which imposed a grutter plan on everyone. well, under hunter and seattle that would have to go because that law removes an anti-discrimination provision and moves it to the higher level. and so that would be one reason why you might want to take the washington v. davis approach and consider whether there's discriminatory animus based on race. but in either of those cases i think you can either, you know, pare down the doctrine or get rid of it entirely and distinguish our case from it. but the one point i want to leave you with today is that the

core of responsibility's arguments that somehow a racial classification can be any law that has a racial focus cannot be the right test no matter what that portion of seattle and hunter has to go, because equal protection is about protecting individuals, not about protecting laws. and even nondiscriminatory race-neutral laws that have a racial focus would fall under their racial focus test. it would be the federal fair housing act because it references race, it has a racial focus in the words of seattle and hunter, and it has the ability of preventing anyone from lobbying for preferences based on their race or sex at lower levels of the government, either state or local. so under their theory the federal fair housing act would have to be applied under strict scrutiny. and their only response to that in the brief is that, well, the supremacy clause takes care of that problem, and we all know supremacy doesn't kick in until you first determine that the

federal law itself is constitutional, and it wouldn't be under their theory. so what we're asking you to do is eliminate that portion of hunter and seattle that suggests that a large racial focus is the goal of a political restructuring test, and to either -- >> mr. bursch, isn't the position that was taken in seattle deviewed from a different view of the equal protection clause? i mean, strict scrutiny was originally put forward as a protection for minorities, a protection for minorities against hostile, disadvantageous legislation. and so the view then was we use strict scrutiny when the majority is disadvantaging the minority. so you do under the counting

products view, you do focus on race, and you ask is the minority being disadvantaged. if that were the view, then i suppose we would not be looking at this. while the criterion is race and wherever the disadvantage falls with a majority or minority is just the same, that wasn't the original idea of when strict scrutiny is appropriate. so if we were faithful to that notion that a it is, measures the disadvantage of the minority that get strict scrutiny. >> two thoughts on that, justice ginsburg. first, under grutter this court made crystal clear that a

grutter plan is not about which minority group is being advantaged or disadvantaged. it's supposed to benefit the campus as a whole. and to the extent that preferences benefit certain classes of minorities and not others, you know, for example, it benefits african-americans and latinos but not asians even though they're both discreet, insular, underrepresented groups, then it fails under grutter. it can only be something that benefits everybody. but more fundamentally, going back to your question about the origin of the doctrine, i think it's really important to understand why we hunter. because hunter, remember, was decided before washington v. davis, and when you look at the face of the law in akron, ohio, in hunter there's nothing in there that would trigger strict scrutiny. so this court was searching for another way to strike down a law that removed an anti-discrimination provision and made it more difficult to reenact at the higher level of the political process. it needed something to fix that. and our point is you can either construe it to do exactly that, that only anti-discrimination

laws being struck down and move today a higher level can satisfy a political restructuring doctrine, or you can look at it differently. you can say now that we've got washington v. davis -- and we all know what the intent was in akron -- that that is a simpler way to address this problem, and we really don't need the political restructuring doctrine at all anymore. but the reason why we have the doctrine in hunter is because strict scrutiny did not apply. >> you said that the district court found it was clear that there was no, there was no discriminatory intelligent. and that wasn't reviewed on appeal. >> no, it was not. but it wasn't a finding, it was actually more than that. it was at the summary judgment stage. the district court correctly concluded there wasn't even a dispute of material fact as to whether intelligent was the primary -- intent was the primary motivation of the electorate. unless there are further questions, i will reserve the balance of my time. >> thank you, counsel.

mr. rosenbaum? >> mr. chief justice and may it close the court, we begin, justice kennedy, with the questions you raised and then come to the question chief justice roberts raised. to begin, justice kennedy, there's no way to distinguish the seattle case from this case, nor the hunter case. both those cases have to be overruled. here's why the seattle case is identical to this case. both issue -- both cases involve constitutionally-permissible plans which had as their objective obtaining diversity on campuses. seattle was a k-12 case, this case is a higher education case. but in both instances the objective was to obtain diversity. no constitutional mandate to relieve past discrimination, rather -- [inaudible] seattle, tacoma and rosco were attempting to deal with -- >> is that an accurate description of seattle in i thought that in seattle before the school board adopted the

busing plan the city was threatened with lawsuits by the department of justice, by federal government and by private plaintiffs claiming that the previous pupil assignment plan was -- involved deinjury segregation with. isn't that correct? >> that's correct with regard to at least one of the districts, but there's no dispute that it was done pursuant to a plan for de facto segregation. moreover, the question -- >> [inaudible] that question. as to seattle itself, is it not the case that they were threatened with litigation? >> yes, but there'd been no finding, justice alito -- >> isn't it correct that the district court found there was -- >> that is not correct. there was no finding whatsoever that there had been segregation and there was a constitutional imperative to correct that desegregation. it was absolutely identical to the situation, and regarding the

accountability, your honor is correct that this seattle -- in seattle we were dealing with an elected school board and here as the court specifically found on pages 326a and 327a of the record, this is a political process in which the regents were elected have at all times maintained plenary authority over the admissions process itself -- >> well, there's two things. number one is it delegate today the faculty and, number two, they're elected only rarely and in staggered terms. >> that is, there is no question that that that's correct, your honor, but the ordinary process itself is a politically-accountable process. that's a what the district court found when it looked at how the system worked. >> >> [inaudible] >> i'm sorry, judge. >> i'm sorry, they did, and then after several years they decided, you know, we don't like the way it's working.

they're adopting too many racial preference programs. we're going to revoke the delegation. >> absolutely fine. >> why is that any different? >> because the difference is that in the seattle case n this case and in the hunter case what's going on is a change from the ordinary political process which your honor perfectly described, they can change it today, they can go to a affirmative action plan today, repeal it tomorrow -- >> so if this were a provision in the michigan constitution that says the board of regents is authorized to enact these programs, in other words, dell gated from the people -- delegated from the people in the constitution to the board and then the people change the delegation by saying, no, it's no longer, we're no longer going to leave that up to the board, we're going to make the decision ourselves in the constitution, how is that any different? >> it is different, your honor, because of the racial nature of the decision. under their theory, under their theory the people of the state could amend their constitution, put in the legislature two

rooms, one for racial matters, one more all other sorts of matters and say to any entrant who wants to enter that first room, you may do so, but first you have to to pay an pork about the cover charge and climb stairs just to begin the process or think about in a desegregation case. a student comes in, two students come into the admissions committee. one says -- and the admissions committee says we have one question for you, one question since you're here to talk about a legitimate factor in pursuit of diversity. here's the question: do you want to talk about your race, your race in the context of other factors? and if the answer is, yes, that student is shown the door, told go raise between $5-$15 million, repeal prop 2 and then you can come back to make the case whereas the student who says, no, just another legitimate

factor, maybe geography, alumni connections, whatever it is, that person is permited to make the case. now, chief justice roberts was certainly on to something in terms of are there race-neutral methods to get this done? of course there are. the state constitution itself could be altered at a different committee or a different set of individuals could make the decision if they don't like the way the regents are doing it, or they could do it the old-fashioned way, the way that the political system works which is to say we are going to work at these universities. that's how affirmative action involving race happened in the first place, that's at pages 20-271a and 228a-293a, they worked for years -- >> well, i thought the whole purpose of strict scrutiny was to say that if you want to talk about race, you have a much higher hurdle to climb than be you want to talk about something else. you can argue that strict scrutiny should only apply to minorities and not to students who are not minorities, but i

thought the court decided that a long time ago. so i don't know why that's a hard question that you asked about the student who says i want to talk about race. what if it's a white student who says i want to talk about race, i'm white and, therefore, you should admit me, you should give me preference. the state can't say, no, we don't want to hear that? >> the state can say we don't want to hear that whether it comes from a white person, black person, whom afterif -- whomever. and the programs in this case, indeed, the only programs in this case are those that have passed strict scrutiny -- >> i don't understand your answer then. if one student comes in and talks about i want to talk about how well i play the cello, all right, we'll listen to that. i want to come in and talk about why i as a white person should get a preference, you have to listen about that too? >> you do when the program has

passed the strict scrutiny test. .. that the faculty makes a determination whether they should be affirmative action. and the faculty those for affirmative action. three years later, the board of trustees said we're abolishing the rule, we're doing that ourselves. violation? >> assumed that the regents say that's fine, no problem whatsoever. no problem whatsoever.

that's the ordinary political process. >> so the regions can take it away from the faculty? but can the legislature to get away from the regents? >> not under the mission -- michigan constitution because -- >> hypothetical. >> the legislature can take it away. that's not a problem in a situation where that's part of the ordinary process. >> at what point is it that your objection takes force? i just don't understand. >> i don't understand the declension here. >> my apologies, your honor. >> or the crescenta, whatever you call it. >> both music to my ears. the point is that the people of the state have multiple options available to them if they don't like the way the universe is operating. one option they don't have is to treat racial matters different from all other matters. the example that you gave -- >> that applies in the chief justice's hypothetical or my revision of it as between the

board of regents and the faculty, or between the faculty and the legislature. >> exactly. the problem that the restructuring process gets, because of the concern this court has shown with respect to the political process, the political process itself not become outcome determinative. the process itself be a place where we can end the discussion but not create it in a separate and unequal way to make the decision itself through the process. >> why is the faculty administration, faculty decision any less outcome determinative from of the voters would say? >> and then i'm not explain it clearly. when the faculty makes the decision, that's part of the ordinary political process. nobody is allowed to win all the time. no one has to win all the time. no one has to lose all the time. that's the ordinary political process. that's how we use the political process.

the problem with mounting a racial classification within the constitution itself is that that takes the ordinary political process to the extraordinary political process. >> so you could say that the whole point of something like the equal protection clause is to take race off the table. is it unreasonable for the state to say, look, race is a lightning rods. we've been told we can have affirmative action programs that do not take race into account. socioeconomic diversity, elimination of alumni preferences, all of these things. it is very expensive. whenever we have a racial classification, we are immediately sued. so why don't we say we want you to do everything you can without having racial preferences. if the litigation determines that we are required to have racial preferences, this statute has an exception and allows them. but starting out we want to take race off the table and try to

achieve diversity without racial preferences. >> the problem as this court stated as recently as last term in the fisher case, is that under the equal protection clause race is not all the way off the table. the problem with proposal to is that the substance and the message that it communicates is that because of the separate and unequal political track that is created with respect to the extraordinary steps that have to be taken, the message is that, even where race is being utilized as one of many factors in a constitutionally permissible way, the message that is being communicated is that all uses of race are illegitimate, all uses of race are off the table, race itself is a dirty word. >> why doesn't the fourth amendment violate the rule you're saying -- the 14th amendment violate the rule that you're proposing?

i am a minority and i want laws that favor my minority. not just in university, everywhere. my goodness, i can't have that through the normal legislative process. i have to get a constitutional amendment to do it, right? >> that is correct. >> i guess that on this subject of equal treatment of the races, we can eliminate racism just at the legislative level, can't we? >> your honor, the underlying basis of the entire strict scrutiny doctrine in the 14th amendment is to preclude the government, preclude the legislative and executive branch, from making those determinations as absolute determination. the 14th amendment sets the standards and the criteria by which we measure that. of course you're correct. that's what the 14th amendment does. it sets what the rules are in terms of how race is utilized. but what the grutter case said --

>> you can't change those rules by normal legislation. >> that is correct. >> if you're a minority that wants favored treatment, you are just out of luck. >> you have used the ordinary political process. >> but the constitutional amendment is not the ordinary political process. >> but the fact that it's a state constitutional and underscores my argument which is that in order for the minority or in the individual, white, minority, whatever the individual is, to say i want the same rulebook, i want the same playing field, the problem with proposal to is that it creates to plainfield. >> if are bolted been in the michigan constitution before any affirmative action program was adopted, would the result be the same? >> it would because it would be building in this explicitly facial racial classification into the state constitution. the problem are the separate and unequal systems that are being used to do with race. it shouldn't come within 10 feet

of race. >> it's not a racial classification. you should not refer to it that way. it's the prohibition of racial classification. >> no, your honor. spent every prohibition of racial classification is itself a racial classification? >> no, your honor. just as an hunter, it is an explicitly facial racial classification. it singles out race for different treatment. my goodness, this campaign started three days after grutter itself. the author said the purpose of it was to get rid of racial preferences. >> if that's how you're using racial classification i thought it meant it's directed at blacks or asians or -- in that sense, the 14th in itself is a racial classification, right? >> well it said -- >> in that sense the 14th amendment itself is a racial classification? >> i don't agree with it. i nation as a racial classification by the 14th amendment. that comes back to justice

ginsburg's argument. his revenge -- revisions history of hunter, that has nothing to do with the problem in this case. when the district court -- may i finish? when the court looked at this particular issue, the concern was the way that it racially divisive political process itself. what he is saying is that there may be all sorts of motives. that's a rational basis test and that has nothing to do with a racial classification. the definition i'm using is this court's definition of a race of classification for which all sorts trigger strict scrutiny. thank you very much. >> thank you, counsel. >> ms. driver? >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court. we ask this court to uphold the sixth circuit decision to reaffirm that doctrine that's expressed in hunter-seattle, and

to bring the 14th amendment back to its original purpose and meaning, which is to protect minority rights against a white majority, which did not occur in this case. >> my goodness, i thought we've held at the 14th amendment protects all races. i mean, that was the argument in the early years but i thought we rejected it. you say we have to proceed as -- as though it's purpose is not to protect white, not only to protect minorities? >> i think it is a measured that's an anti-discriminatory measure and it's a measure in which the question of discrimination is determined not just by, by power, by who has privilege in the society, and those minorities that are

oppressed, be they religious or racial, need protection from a more privileged majority. >> analyzed that exist, the 14th amendment is not violated, is that right? do you have any case of ours that propounds that view of the 14th amendment, that it protects only minority's comment any case? >> no case of yours. >> some people think that there's a difference between the plus and a minus, some judges differ on that point. some agree sort of with you, and some of the sort of not. let's think of those who agreed sort of. and then i have a question. you know this area better than i. so think of grutter. grutter permits affirmative

action. -- grutter permits affirmative action. they permitted affirmative action where it was overcome, the effects of fastest termination, but probably not otherwise. that's what i want to know. >> are there areas other than education for affirmative action would not be forbidden to achieve the goal other than overcoming the effects? have you got the question? and doesn't have to come to mind? >> i think that affirmative action programs could be permissible underemployment. for instance, -- >> okay. so there are a set. >> that's right. >> if there are a set, what i'd like you to explain, if you can take a minute, is think of how a city is set up. there are a vast number of administrators. that are a vast number of programs. it could be an administrator somewhere says he'd like to give a preference, maybe for good reason. but then the city counsel votes

no, because there are other ways of doing it, by first come first served, or some other criteria it doesn't use race. are all of those unlawful? everyone? do you have to leave it up, the matter what the subject, no matter what -- are you going to draw a line somewhere? is there a line that you could draw that would take your case on the right side from your point of view, but would say we're not giving power to every administrator in the city to decide on his own whether to use racial preferences without the possibility of a higher up the -- veto, which i don't think you want to say but maybe you do. >> no. i think these are very fact-based determinations. and so, somebody could make a decision that they wanted to use what you are calling racial preferences, and that could mean a range of things and that could be subject to a veto higher up. yeah, i agree with you. >> is there any line that you can say, look you, we were

trying to be very helpful, and all of a sudden they put this on the ballot and you can't get it through okay? that your basic point. you have to write something and that something is tremendous effect on over the place. so what kind of line is there, in your opinion? >> i think hunter-seattle provides the line. i think it says that if you have a law that has a racial focus and that law, part of proving that it has a racial focus, is that it takes the benefit that transport to minorities and removes that benefit and restructures the political process and places a special burden on minority's to re- ascertain that right, yeah, i think that's a proper role. >> can i come back to the question that chief justice and justice kennedy were asking before, essentially the question. let's say that the decision

about admissions criteria across the board is basically delegated to the faculty, all right? and the faculty about some sort of affirmative action plan. and now that is overlooked in -- overruled in favor of a colorblind approach adversaries levels going up the ladder. so maybe it's overruled by the dean, or maybe it's ruled by the president of the university. maybe it's overruled by the regions. maybe, if state laws allowed, it's overruled by an executive department of the state. maybe it's overruled by the legislature through ordinary legislation. maybe it's overruled to a constitutional amendment. at what point does the political restructuring doctrine taken? >> i think in this case, the difference between what other groups can do in order to get preferential treatment for their sons and daughters and what racial minorities are subject to, the level of distinction

places such a high burden on minority's. >> well, that really isn't responsive to my question. let's say exactly what was done here is done at all of these levels. at what point does the doctrine take in? when it comes from the faculty to the dean? from the dean to the president, et cetera, et cetera? where does this apply? >> i think it depends on where it is that minorities faced a heavier and special burden. >> it can't be that, because the normal political process imposes burdens on different groups. i thought the line was a very simple one, which is if the normal academic decision-making is in the dean, the faculty, at whatever level, as long as the normal right to control is being exercised, then that person could change the decision. said if they delegate most

admissions decisions, as i understand from the record, to the faculty, but they still regularly, besides race, veto some of those decisions, and race is now one of them, then the board of regents can do that normally. so could the president, if that's the way it is normally done. it's when the process is, political process has changed specifically and only for race, as a constitutional amendment here was intended to do, that the political doctrine is violated. have i restated? >> you have, you've restated it very well, and i agree with you in principle. >> but i still don't understand your answer to justice alito's question. suppose the dean has authority in the bylaws of the university to reduce what the faculty does much of a dean who just does not like affirmative action. he is dead against it. he makes the decision to reverse the faculty. do you have a remedy? >> i don't think hunter-seattle applies.

>> all right. then you have justice alito's question. then it's the president of the university, and then it's the legislature. >> i think you need to think. -- two things. i think you need that decision-making body. if the university of michigan regions decided tomorrow to eliminate affirmative action programs and there was no proposition to mac, they have the legal right to do that. they are the decision-making body. minority could still go and lobby the regions, go and talk about the question of racial equality. spent with the future if they've never gotten involved in missions -- admissions criteria before? to have the authority, but they left that to the university officials. >> i think if they have the plenary authority to do that, yeah, i think that, again, if they wanted to eliminate

affirmative action programs and they had the plenary authority and is guaranteed by the michigan state constitution and it had existed for 150 years, and they chose to into this area, i think -- >> i don't see how that is consistent with justice sotomayor's answer to my question. does the people of michigan have -- told the people of michigan have plenary authority? >> in this case, they are applying that plenary authority in a way that is racially focused, and creates a political process that is disadvantageous to minorities. >> i'm not saying instead a political process. don't let me put words in your mouth. think what you think here. you say where the authority is divided in a certain way, and

that's true under the constitution of the state. so the state government lacks the power. and then you have to take the power from the people and change the constitution, and when you do that in respect to the benefit, then, in respect of benefits, washington, you know, seattle and hunter kicked in. so we are not deal with past discrimination. >> what we're talking about in terms of affirmative action are constitutionally permissible programs that were shown to this court to be the only way to achieve racial diversity and integration at the university of michigan. and whether you explain that by looking at the reality of the inequality in education for black and white michigan, or what ever it is that you come up

with that requires that, the university has shown that this is the only way to achieve diversity in which racial diversity is a part of the quotient. and so to take away that right from the university and from the regions. and i just want to go back to one of the questions that was answered. if you would get the law schools, medical schools, the professional schools now in the state of michigan, there's been a precipitous drop in underrepresented minority enrollment in those schools. we are going back to the resegregation of those schools because of the elimination of affirmative action. >> to what extent does your argument depends, i thought both hunter and seattle speak in these terms, that the policies that are more difficult to enact are beneficial for the minority group. >> say that -- i'm sorry. can you repeat the --

>> to what extent does your argument depends upon the assumption that the programs that you say are now more difficult to enact are beneficial to the minority group? >> i think it's an important component part, because i think it's in the benefit to the minority group that it's especially important -- >> well, why do you -- >> that the political process be on a level field. >> right. what if the question of whether it's a benefit to the minority group is more open to debate, whether it's through the mismatch theory that taylor and stand i guess have adopted, or other theories? do we have to assume in your favorite that these definitely are beneficial to particular minority groups? >> certainly the minority voters of michigan believe them to be, it has 90% of black voters in michigan voted against prop to mac. i think that's a clear indication of the popular of these programs and the perceived benefit of these programs spent there may be a difference

between popular to an benefit. in other words, you want us to assume that the programs are beneficial to a minority group? >> yes. and are beneficial to minority groups. they may serve to provide benefits for the population he on minority groups, but they are a benefit if -- >> your opponent says otherwise. he says that minority students have taken tougher courses, they have been better qualified to be admitted, and all sorts of other benefits. so it's certainly a debatable question. >> it's a debatable question in another forum in a different case. and, in fact, i think that case was the grutter case. this case isn't about, isn't just about whether or not affirmative action benefits minorities. it's also the restructuring of the political process and a special burden that's place to

minorities. if you want to go back to debating whether a prominent action -- >> you're changing your answer. your answer to the chief was it does depend upon whether it benefits minorities. now you're saying it doesn't depend on whether the benefits minorities at all. it's just whether it places a greater burden on minority's to change it. which is at? >> no. >> one or the other. >> i think it's a two-part test. i think the first thing that you look at is, is there a racial focus to the law, and is the benefit that has been taken away something that endures to minorities. and i think the second part of the test, and that's why think seattle-hundred is such a narrow doctrine, is whether there also has been a restructuring of the political process and a special burden placed on minorities. it requires both. >> thank you, counsel.

mr. bursch, you have four minutes remaining. >> thank you, mr. chief justice. i'm going to start with a sentence from crawford, decided the same day as seattle, where this court defined what a racial classification is. a racial classification either says or implies that persons are to be treated differently on account of race. it doesn't say anything about laws with or without a racial focus. and we think that's the test that ultimately should come out of the decision in this case. my friends on the other side disagree with that because if that's the test, section 26 is constitutional. they draw this false dichotomy between laws that involve rates and laws that don't involve raise. we will put them into separate chambers of the legislature and charge a fee if you want to talk about race. we know that can't be right because your observation that the whole point of equal protection is to take race off the table when everyone is being treated the same.

that's why they can't -- >> you quoted from crawford. >> yes. >> and there is an opposing quote in seattle itself on page -- what is that -- 486? >> yes. >> when the state's allocation of power places unusual burdens on the ability of racial groups to enact the legislation designed to overcome the special condition of prejudice, the governmental action seriously curtails the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied on to protect minority's. and it quotes carolene products. and then the following sentence is, in the most direct sense, this implicates the judiciary special role, not treating the individuals as individuals, but

that this year's special role in safeguarding the interest of those groups that are relegated to a position of political powerlessness. so the rationale of seattle is that notion that we can't put hurdles in the way of a disadvantaged minority. >> justice ginsburg, there's two problems with that. first that's where the respondents very most closely knocks up against rueter. because you're right. under seattle and after you got have a policy designed for the purpose of primarily benefiting the minority. but if that's the policy that violates greater which is supposed to benefit everyone, but the bigger problem is if you treat -- >> diversity does, but when you take away a tool for diversity, that's what seattle is saying is wrong. >> bright, but the bigger

problem -- >> you can't take the tool of way simply because it may include race as a factor, simply because you're changing the playing field. >> justice sotomayor, the biggest problem with respondents test, with applying the little linkage of seattle is that as i said, the federal for housing act, the equal credit act, a state equal protection law that mentions race, all of these fall into categorical laws dealing with race. some are discriminatory. >> seattle in this case old involve constitutional amendments. why can't the law be drawn, the line be drawn there? if you change the allocation of power in one of these substantial ways, that's one thing, but when you require a constitutional amendment that's a big deal. >> that would still invalidate the michigan equal protection clause which has a racial focus which says you can't discriminate based on race and sex and yet no one would argue it would be subject to strict scrutiny. >> what i'm thinking is go read

the cases. you yourself seem to say these cases seem to apply a light to the benefits or to the discrimination against it. there's lots of language in seattle. now, suppose you take that and say, all right, it was meant in context. but tom -- the context includes constitutional amendments because you are restructuring. you would lose on that theory, but they would be a limitation on the extent to which the people have the right to move powers around the. >> justice breyer, the limitation has to be not only that, but also that you are repealing an anti-discrimination law, not in equal treatment law. oregon, otherwise the state equal protection clause has to fall. so to the extent that i am right, that's awakened hunter -- you can narrow hunter and seattle. if i'm wrong about that then respectfully seattle and hundred should be overruled. either way, it does not violate equal protection to require

equal treatment. thank you speed thank you, counsel. the case is submitted. >> a couple of light is coming up on the c-span network. a national business group on health announces the results of its survey of employee health care benefits. that's on c-span at 10 eastern. here on c-span2 at 11 a.m. eastern, pakistan's primaries will speak at the u.s. institute of peace. is expected to address u.s.-pakistan relations, regional stability and counterterrorism. >> up next this weakens debate between a candidate for detroit mayor. mike duggan won the primary as a write-in candidate. previously was president and ceo of the detroit medical center. his opponent is benny napoleon. this is about one hour. ♪ >> the 2013 my oral debate.

>> moderator: welcome to a special presentation, the great debate for mayor of detroit. detroit is the city that put the world on wheels but so much has changed for the motor city as it has confronted at the challenges by shrinking population, tax base and major financial woes. with so much at stake this is even more vital. which is why we are pleased to welcome the two candidates who want to be detroit's next mayor. mike duggan and sheer benny napoleon for appearing here in the first televised debate. great techie guys with us. for the next hour we will hear from them in a conversation we hope provides a deeper look at both of them. all of us here are pleased to partner with our sister radio station wwj d. and the michigan chronicle and bring you this important for them. join me in the question is political pundit cliff russell, tom jordan, morning news anchor, and senior editor at the michigan chronicle.

if you are tweeting are using facebook, use hashtag cbs 62 to debate. the rules for this conversation as agreed to by both candidates are fairly simple. each panelist will ask a question of the candidate who has 60 seconds to answer. the other candidates also has 60 seconds. each candidate has an additional 30 seconds to respond if he so chooses. as agreed to, we'll kick it off with a 60-second opening statement and by a flip of the coin mike duggan goes first. duggan: i want to star start by thanking cbs 62 to come to be deputy and the michigan chronicle providing us a chance to talk directly to the voters. i'm running for mayor of detroit because i believe we need change in this city. i was born in detroit. as a young poet i lived on stansbury. i went to high school in the city and i live in the city every day for the last 32 years. i never in my life thought i'd see that kind of things we're seeing in detroit today. senior citizens are getting

beaten trying to fill the car with gas. children on the streets because our parks and rec centers are closed a once proud neighborhoods deemed overtaken by polite. we can change these things but we need a mayor with a proven history of doing turnaround. america will make sure the street repair crews show up and get the lights on, or the angles and the police car show up when you call and deal with these abandoned houses. i'm running for mayor because i know we can rebuild a great detroit together. >> moderator: up next we'll hear from sheriff benny napoleon on traffic i would also like to thank cbs 62 to thank you for giving us an opportunity present our plans to the people of this city of detroit. hello, detroit. my name is benny napoleon and i will be the next mayor of the city of detroit. we are facing the most critically -- critical election in 40 years. this will determine the direction of this communities for generations to come. are you select on november 5

will be pivotal to the future of this great city. i have devised a plan to revitalizing the neighborhoods in this community that are innovative, progressive, visionary, focusing on the quality of life in your neighborhood, the life that we had when i was going up in this community. livable, walkable, sustainable neighborhoods. neighborhoods that were safe, neighborhoods where you shop, neighborhoods where you played and that you worshiped him. this is a defining moment for the city of detroit. detroit's decision is up to you. you have to look to your future and picked a leader. >> moderator: now we'll start with are questioning here. i will start it off and other panels will join us. gentlemen, ma the one thing that you both agree on, the emergency manager i know if you had your way would both like to undo the law but the fact is, kevin will be the emergency manager for another six much a so after one of the is the next mayor. mike, start with you, and that

is, i had many, many readers and cbs detroit.com readers asking about this emergency manager. how specifically did hud plan to work with kevin during the first six months? duggan: the first question is is the only here for six or nine months? while the governor has said emergency measure would here for 18 months, the contract is not say that. one of the questions we've got to ask is how do we most effectively move the emergency manager out quite as long as he is here, nobody has any right. not the voters of detroit and not the next mayor. i intend to come in and i'm going to engage the emergency manager. i'm not going to attack them but i will come in with a very specific plan, and i hope that the community and business leaders will join with me and saying to the governor that we now elected a man with a strong tournament history who has a great team and the specific turnaround plan. at the earliest possible date i

hope we will encourage the government to send kevin back to washington, d.c. and return detroit to the elected officials. napoleon: i have maintained since day one that i believe kevin is here illegally. i do not believe that governor has the right to impose his will and notify the will of the people of this community. i am opposed to. i think it's illegal. i believe the federal court will ultimately say that the citizens and democracy will prevail in this community. that being said, the fact is that we need leadership that is going to stand up for this community. i have a plan. i have a plan that i've presented 63 pages long. i've been waiting for mike's plan. i haven't seen mike's plan. mine is there. it's out there. for anybody to see. he could get hundreds of people working on this plan for the city of detroit. i have a plan i can present today, not january, but today. i think the citizens of this city need to recognize, my plan

is there. vacancy today giunta apparently the sheriff has not attended my 10 forums i've done in every counsel district where i've done and our powerpoint with 200 people at a time presented a plan to rebuild the neighborhood. when i finished at the residence have taken question for an hour, hour and half and were adding them to the play but it's on the website in with a very clear plan to rebuild the city so that every neighborhood has a future trip to i can show your power points all day long but i want to see a written document put together by 100 people that he said he had during the course of his campaign. he started in november talking about these people he had putting this plan together. i have a written document. i also have a powerpoint that i put out for people to see if it's all there. i just want to see the document. >> moderator: our next question comes from cliff russell. >> i have a question for both of

you. i would like to elaborate on emergency manager questioned just a bit. as you both know, voting rights have been aggregated in detroit. elected officials have been nullified. democracy in detroit, michigan, is dead. i'd like you both to characterize how egregious that is to the citizens of detroit. and as mayor, could you elaborate more on what specifically you will do to make sure the emergency manager goes away, and that this can never happen again. napoleon: i campaigned vigorously against the emergency manager law. as they did against the right to work. i'm a history major. i understand the long struggle that people have during the civil rights days. i lived. my grandparents from middletown in tennessee, where they were sharecroppers. i saw segregation in its heyday. this is the most offensive assault on democracy that has ever occurred i believe in the history of this nation since the

american revolution. we must do everything possible to get rid of kevin. he is here illegally. he is here illegitimately. and i, for one, will stand up for the citizens of this community and to everything i can to get rid of kevin. because trying to work with him, he has demonstrated doesn't want to work with anybody. the current mayor attempted to work with kevin. he is totally disrespected, not just the mayor, but the citizens of the city of this community transport there's no question what is happening is a troubling. you have a number of short-term consultants making millions of dollars spent an awful lot of money with no thought to who is going to run a city department in the long run. i am concerned about it, and asked the people in the city, can you point to a single area of city government were your services are better? are the buses on time? on the street lights fixed?

are you safer? i don't believe you are. it is my hope to go in on day one and say, i'd like to see the emergency manager go, but if not i believe the next mayor ought to be chief operating officer. the next mayor ought to be allowed to come in and put in his cabinet, put in the long-term team i'm going to coming engage with the emergency manager. if i'm allowed to commi come ind put the team together and started turn the city around, i'll work with them. and if not, then will be an adversarial situation. napoleon: have no plans to work with kevin. my goal is to get rid of kevin. that should be the goal of anyone who is truly going to stand up for the citizens of this community. our right to democracy have been taken away. i don't think there's any community in this state that would welcome having their votes taken away from them and imposed the will of the governor on their community. i'm against it. i were remain against it and i will fight against it with every ounce of blood that i have in my

body. duggan: this is the difference between. i would engage in the day one. kevin will be sending a plan at the bankruptcy court that could potentially take away the pension rights of seniors. it could sell the water department. i'm going to be engaged by day one of my own vision and that i'm going to first ask the emergency managers support. and if not, the right to the bankruptcy court that says we do not have to sell off her assets. we do not have to cancel pensions. to have to restructure? yes. i'm going to be engaged from day one, not sitting waiting for him to go away. >> gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity. i want to ask you both this question. start with mike. in so many city in america, they actively seek advice from municipalities across the country that are showing a lot of success in their own mini is about as economic growth, curtail debt, attracted businesses. they have lowered the crime

rates but detroit has seemed to have adopted somewhat of an isolationist attitude. if you're not born and raised or from detroit, don't bother us kind of a mindset. you agree with that, for one? and whether any cities in america that you see are worthy of seeking advice or have shown success that you see as a city you would like to seek advice from their city leaders? duggan: i think there are always cities you want to learn from your but back when i was a prosecutor and the violence in this community was at a terrible rate. the city of new york has successfully medic reduce the violence we. so has austin. i spent a fair amount of time in new york and boston and studied what the event and we brought a lot of these strategies you. what we did was we teamed up with u.s. attorney, the atf, dea, the prosecuted, the police in the state altogether to crack down every single gun crime so we investigate, prosecute and made it clear he carried a gun

in this county, you are going to prison. last year's prosecutor in 2003 we had the fewest murders in 30 years. the other thing they did in boston is a paired with the ministry of committee with a 10-point plan with a provider conflict resolution and mentoring services, et cetera. i think we can learn from the communities that are succeeding and make this a safer city. napoleon: you know, i don't necessarily agree with you that detroit is isolation. i think they're very proud people who want to be respected. we have had attacks on the city predominate coming out of lansing where the people of this committee believe that they have been under attack. lansing took away revenue sharing. lansing dugway residency. lansing took away the mayors office, took away the school system. detroiters are very proud people so i don't think they're isolationists at all. they just want to be respected.

the second thing relating to folks from other communities. yes, i had the opportunity to meet with mayors down in atlanta just a few months ago. up and was a city very much like detroit at one time. it was predominantly poor, large african-american population,-employment, education challenges and crime. i had a long, long conversation. they are doing things right in the lead. there's things we can emulate here in detroit. >> moderator: let's go to our next question. senior editor of the michigan chronicle was writing a book on detroit as we speak is up with the next question. >> thank you very much for being here. ..

? race is a part of the agenda? >napoleon: as we stand here today and discuss this issue, 50% of the people of this state who look like you and i have been disenfranchised but there are other cities in this state with some of financial challenges like the city of the joy and detroit is one, serious financial challenges, there is no emergency management implemented. if any governor in this country, let's pick a southern state like

alabama or mississippi or georgia, would have the nerve to go to a predominantly african-american city that was in the heart of the civil rights movement and disenfranchise the majority of the population that we would think it is just ok, there are financial problems and they need someone to coming, we would be up in arms as a nation and we would be highly offended where we should be. >> no question what is happening in this state is disproportionately affecting the african-american voters and is hard not to feel a sense of disenfranchisement. i will not pretend to read the governor's motives, but you have to look at the effect which is disturbing. what is disturbing is the complete failure of the emergency managers in the history. if you look at what happened,

hal in part been through it over and over, when you disenfranchise local voters there is no evidence the emergency manager has made things any better. so my objection is twofold, it is disproportionately affecting african-american communities and there's no evidence to works. >napoleon: i find it incredible that my opponent would stand here today and suggest that he is befriended by the placing of an emergency managers into the city of detroit when we have the e-mails that show not only was he a participant in a discussion regarding putting in emergency manager in the city of detours, e-mails do you was the candidate to be the emergency manager as opposed to being selected, he will deny being elected. duggan: this is how dirty this has gone, to just make things a. you know what those e-mails show?

that i lobbied furiously against the department of emergency management. i wrote positive op-eds that it will not work and i lobbied to get as much more and the chief of staff, and the dublin, state treasurer, and said you cannot disenfranchise voters, you need to hold off the emergency manager and let people decide. that is what those e-mails true. >> moderator: this conversation shows conversation about race, race relations is very decent and -- divisive in detroit. the between news, rev. jan hawley wrote an op-ed talking about the fact he contacted 16 ministers asking if you could come in to speak and 50% said they did not want that and reverend jim cali said it was because you were white. the question is having a racial agenda and dealing with issues to bridge the conversation, how to do all these things, do you

have a specific agenda? duggan: i am going to people's living rooms and talking to them face to face because the only way to get to know people and let them get to know you miss talk face to face and when you talk face-to-face what divides you tend to go away and what we have in common comes to the front. i don't agree with reverend halley. i have been treated well. i am in churches every sunday with ministers who open their doors to me, i have been so busy i didn't know they were ones that had that. i think the ministers have every right to decide who they're supporting as does anybody else in this town. i don't agree with that criticism. i will keep doing what i am doing and i am running on a platform of unity. we shouldn't be dividing, we need to be uniting. c-span2 -- napoleon: i don't think anyone who has the best interests of this region at heart would suggest that this region should

be divided along any lines whether it is racial, sexual preference doesn't matter. we shouldn't be divided. the only way the region will grow is if we grow together in harmony. what people need to understand and recognize is there are differences among us but we have to be respected for those differences. i have been in and out of homes in the city of detroit for 58 years because i have been here 68 years. i understand how the citizens of this community feel when it comes to the things that have happened to the city of detroit down through the years. we have been since the last 40 years, the citizens of this community feels they have been treated as second-class citizens of the state of michigan. we need leadership that they are confident, will stand up for this community and demand this community as respected as we get along throughout the state. duggan: it has been powerful. i have been posted in a number of homes where the house next

door is abandoned and the people say every night i go to sleep wondering if the house will catch fire and spread to my house. i have been hosted by parents who had children and the police have not solved the crime. we are supporting you because we know there will be a different level of commitment in the city and in 48,000 people who believe in change and believing unity, who wrote my name and filled in a circle i say thank you because i did believe we would bring change this city. napoleon: transforming the community is the essential. we have serious issues. crime and violence in the community is something i have lived with since i was an adult. i started out putting my life on the line for this community for 19 years. i continue to do that. some 40 years later i continue to do that. i have been to those homes but i have been in before the victims cleaned up. i have been in before the people have gone to court. i have seen the devastation firsthand. >> moderator: the next question

from russell. >> you both heard of mayor coleman young used to say there's nothing wrong with detroit that enough good paying jobs can't fix. it is clear that those jobs will not come from the manufacturing and making of cars like it used to so my question is what is your vision for detroit's economy under your administration and what will you do specifically to bring investment and jobs to detour? napoleon: great question. i wrote out an economic transportation program for the city that focuses like it does on the neighborhoods. we are going to put an economic anchor inside every neighborhood in the city of detroit, to be the community i grew up in where people live, shop, dinah, play, worship obama right in the neighborhood, and attending to the economic anchor will be public safety malls.

one of the reasons before it spends the money outside the city of detroit is because they don't feel safe but when you put the police, fire, attention to these economic anchors where there will be shopping done it will drop, where we are eight miles to go to work. i have a bold $3 billion economic recovery plan focused on the neighborhood. duggan: the idea we will build $3 billion of police stations and malls in the light when the city's bankrupt, the idea you will draw some circles and say put your $3 billion here is completely unrealistic. if that worked dennis archer would have drawn circles and filled the city's. detroit will come back when lots of entrepreneurs start small

companies that feed off of each other and we can do that. when i was a prosecutor i took homes that people abandoned, we can take a vacant storefront, take them and make them available to the entrepreneurs, terrapin the permitting process that is driving businesses out of the city. i am talking the foundations of a $10 million pool of star of funds. if you want to start a company in this town you have to have a means to get funding so we can get 15, 16 drills in the city to think i will be my own boss and set my own company, that is how we come back. napoleon: that is the difference between me and my opponent. i didn't go to the school by can't, i went to the school by can. when we talk about doing something that is going to transform our neighborhood, everybody wants to say we can't do. i believe we can. that is the difference. i have visions. i believe this beacon grow and be a bigger, better, stronger,

tougher city than it has ever been and is going to be that when we have leadership that believes in this community and does not have a defeatist attitude. duggan: that is the difference. last time we had that male with a chill and he went to the executive commissions and i have a vision for a new jail and i want to build this new jail right here and we are going to save money and it was a senseless thing from the beginning, he didn't check out the numbers or the facts and now there are $100 million in the budget and tearing down. it is easy to say you are going to do something. when i started with at 11,000 employees. when i left we had 14,000. we ought to talk about what we have done, not what we are going to do. >> moderator: next question from tom jordan of news radio 950. >> this is for both of you. what do you do with the elderly woman who bought a nice home in they ten 1960s, nice neighborhood which you both

experienced way back when and since then has to watch turn neighborhood crumble, she can't afford to move out if she wanted to move out, her home is ransacked by scrappers taking her windows, furnace, cupboards and this is one of thousands of stories like this. how can your specific crime-prevention plan address that specific issue to bring these neighborhoods back to life? people like this elderly woman can once again feel safe? duggan: go to my web site and you can see the plan called every neighborhood has a future. first thing we will do is go back to doing what i was doing as a prosecutor and the abandoned homes when their first abandoned and move families and to which i did a thousand times so we stop the deterioration in the first place. we will go to the vacant lots and cut the grass and go after the scrap yards that are buying or scrappers to take out a financial incentive to do it. on the crime side, we need to get the police to show up when

you call. that means starting to make better use of the offices we have, we had 50 officers increasing selling out payroll and officers dispatching cars. first thing we need to do is take all the offices we have, put them on the street and jobs for civilians and cut the police. if we can do those things together we can make a difference. napoleon: i will use the first few seconds of the answers to this question to comment on this jail issue. the deputy county executive knows that sheriffs and employees and department heads don't build buildings, district department does. but my mother has been in the same house she has been in since 1960. that is why i developed a crime-fighting player focused on making our neighborhoods liveable, walkable and sustainable. i put together a crime-fighting plan that reduced crime in the

city by 30% when i was the chief of police. i have a square mile initiative that will further enhance the crime-fighting plan. that we will reduce crime where they live by over 50% during my first term as mayor of this city. it can be done. it is possible, it is necessary, it is about the focus on the neighborhood. duggan: if you have a crime-fighting plan feel free to start. you would be elected sheriff of the county. you have been there four years, you ran for sheriff promising a crime-fighting plan would make a safer and in four years there hasn't been a single initiative out of your office that has been effective. on a 30% prime cut we're still waiting for the answer. what years are you measuring? we can't figure out what you you think you reduced -- of we will tell us what you are measuring when you claim that success. napoleon: those are posted on the web site.

let's talk about crime fighting. i never heard of a person fighting crime, looking out the window of the eleventh floor of the frank murphy hall of justice. get from behind a desk, away from the computer, put on a bulletproof vest, strop on a 40 caliber and stride the streets of the city is not equipped to tell anybody about fighting crime because the men and women putting their lives on the line every day are the heroes. can't take credit for the work they do. >> moderator: next question from mr. thompson. >> the 70-year-old citizen doesn't have time to go to your web site, or have a computer. how different is your crime-fighting plan from benny napoleon's? give us a start contrast. duggan: i will go to what i was doing as a prosecutor, a share being disrespectful anybody in it police department, they are heroes to do a phenomenal job of

detroit police arrest a prisoner and sheriff goes to jail you haven't accomplished anything. if the judge doesn't sentence you haven't accomplished anything, they go on probation and violate and a probation office doesn't become up you haven't accomplished anything and when i was a prosecutor i went to boston, went to new york and we adopted the strategies that drove down the violence. we created a team of the u.s. attorney, the atf, the default police, prosecutors and the state because i am not running to the police chief. we have a police chief in jim craig. what i'm going to do is take my experience, my relationships to make short when someone is arrested for a gun crime if they can be prosecuted again our agencies to work together. napoleon: the only way to root reduce crime is use proven crime reduction techniques, a community police, problem

oriented policing, dated driven approach to crime. that is the only thing that has been proven to work throughout this country. i have a square mile initiative that will place the police officer in every square mile of this community. that officer will be responsible for taking care of quality of life issues citizens have. basketball courts, get them out, drug houses, get them all. stores that are not cutting, getting rid of graffiti, picking up trash, presidents causing disruption, knock on the door and tell them to be a good neighbor. every community leader, every principal, every organization in the community to make sure we have walkable, sustainable neighborhood. my plan is focused for a problems are. in the neighborhood where the people live. duggan: back to my same thing. if you have a crime plan, you have been sheriff four years, what have you done to make the

city safer? you have all kinds of talk. let's stick 139 officers who will solve the street light problem, abandoned house problem, and what is going to happen? you haven't fixed the street lights or the abandoned houses? you have 139 cops sitting on hold dialling in and out a street light that is our dialing in an abandoned house that is close. they need to be on the street responding to calls. napoleon: i have done more in one day as a police officer in this city and i have done and he has done in his lifetime but the fact is the only way to reduce crime is to use those proven techniques. i have my scout program working throughout the city of detroit that is impacted. we reduced by 200% by being there two days of month. i have been raiding houses, picking up ochres and prostitutes and taking care of this community for 40 years.

>> moderator: a quick time out. we will be back on the great debate for mayor of detroit right after this. ♪ >> moderator: welcome back to the great debate for mayor of the tour, we are working with mike duggan and benny napoleon are vying to win your vote on the historic election nov. fifth. i will start questioning, a question many people have been asking. crime, unemployment, and so many issues going on. if elected mayor, what is the first issue you will tackle? napoleon: you have to have a plan to address the issues confronting our community. there is no question as a lifelong detroit peer, making detroit a seat city is the number-1 issue of anyone who

takes over the mayor's office. in addition, we have serious issues with finances. we need to make sure we do whatever we can to make sure the tenure in the city of detroit is limited, hopefully he will be gone by january 1st but if not, get control of this government back to the elected mayor of the city of detroit has to be a top priority. thing you have to focus on the other issues. we have serious issues, one of those is insurance. we are plagued by the highest insurance rates in this nation. those are the things we need to focus on, getting our finances straight, crime, focusing on insurance. duggan: the mayor should be judged on one standard. is the population of the city of detroit going up or going down? if the population of the city of detroit is going down more people want to leave the come. if it is going got more people

want to come than leave and i will work hard to reduce the decline in population. we are going to last three things. we look at police response time, we have to be confident in the city, of the offices will show up and the criminals are not afraid. we have got to repair the street light. it is an embarrassment when so many living in the dark. and the abandoned homes as a prosecutor to move families in. and police start to show up, street lights come john, start to be occupied, we can generate hope and start to go on a path that we can rebuild the city the way we want. >> moderator: next question from cliff. >> i will start with mike this time. we heard about the corporate community stepping up in detroit and buying new police cars and making commitments to the city but many residents i speak to fear that those commitments made

come with a price, that it is the essentially the police cars and things allow them to control real-estate, build their own light rail system, stadiums, to take over real-estate, take over the lighting department. what are your views on corporate responsibility, corporate walls in detroit and your thoughts about tax abatement? >> i think it is important to build a coalition that includes all the community and i am proud to have a number of business leaders in the account supporting and proud to be supported by the detroit firefighters, sanitation workers, plumbers, health care workers and grass-roots organizations like ernie johnson and a community coalition and these have a place at the table and at the end of the day here is what we ought to do. we have a lot of growth downtown and midtown bill we are losing too much population out of the

neighborhoods and we will come back to the plane you will find on my website to make sure every neighborhood has a future and that means take the abandoned homes, move the families in, take the vacant lot and sell it to the person who is there and what we want to do is get many businesses to partner with new entrepreneurs and fill up storefronts. if we can do those things together we can bring every neighborhood back. napoleon: i don't think there's anything wrong with the corporate community helping out the city of detroit. as good corporate citizens they should do that but those are not the people who gave me $3 million in contributions. to say that we are for sale can't be referring to me. i have enjoyed the support of the uaw, the teamsters, united food and commercial workers, i have enjoyed a tremendous amount

of support from labor, lieutenants and sergeants association. we both have support in the community but the fact is the question that is most important, who is going to focus on the neighborhood? the neighborhood has been where i have been since the beginning and once we focus on neighborhoods we will grow this community. i don't oppose tax abatements but i believe tax abatements should be given first to people who are already doing business as opposed to other people. duggan: the same question, you have been sheriff for four years. what have you done? if you look at the three years i spent in the prosecutor's office, i went to these neighborhoods and 900 drug houses where we move drug dealers out and move families in, we went block by block and took 1,000 abandoned houses and we didn't demolish them and when your face the abandoned houses and moved people in, people plant flowers, just like life

spreads, hope spreads. napoleon: the former deputy prosecutor needs a civics lesson. the constitutional mandate, the jails, the parks, the courts, every city in wayne county has its own police department and they are responsible for policing their community. he is disingenuous when he talks about what i have done. discount program worked for the community to make it safe. we rated 500 houses a month when i was police chief coming out to tens of thousands in the course of my tenure. >> moderator: we continue questioning here. >> the relationship the city of detroit has with the state, state capital, is important, more prominent and more important than in past years and has become very volatile. what specific relationships do you gentlemen have with specific people in lansing that will have a positive impact on the city of

detroit? mr napoleon, start with you. napoleon: i have worked with folks throughout wayne county, worked closely with all the legislative representatives elected from wayne county, 43 communities and also worked very closely with the detroit delegation. i have been endorsing, supported by almost all the detroit delegation, house and senate. that is where my strength is, working across county lines, working with people inside the community to focus on the issues that are important to this region. i enjoyed tremendous amount of support throughout the community. i have been in public service 30 years, i worked with people this entire time and i will use that focus to go into the communities and make our neighborhoods safer, more livable, sustainable because it is really about the neighborhoods, the

neighborhoods, the neighborhoods. duggan: we need to recognize detroit is the% of the state population in the fall we are going to do is fight with the other 92% we will keep losing as we have in recent years. we were heavily dependent on the state of michigan because of the number of uninsured medicaid patients we deal with. when rick snyder was elected governor in 2010 and republicans took the house and took the senate, i said we are going to lobby for our money because there was a group of hospitals that immediately started to change the funding formula to move funding out of detroit to the grand rapids area. i sat with the house republican chair on the western part of the state and that with the new republican senate chair, i sat with governor snider and i showed them objectively that dnc and henry ford reducing outstanding job delivering care for the 4 in our community and when it was that every single dollar got reinstated back to the city of detroit.

we can do it on a bipartisan basis but we have to work at it. napoleon: let's talk about the fairy tale of the dnc turnaround. $50 million came from the governor. huge tax breaks from county executive o'connell. $30 million in fines paid to the justice department for bribes, fraud and kickbacks. nonprofit hospital where my opponent got millions of dollars in cash and stock options while hundreds of thousands of people got laid off. that is not turnaround. duggan: astonishing how many untrue things you said in three seconds but let's say this. $50 million was given to my predecessor before i got there and it was gone and when i came in dnc was on the verge of laying off 4,000 people, closing, receiving, closing the hospital and we worked together to turn it around and as sheriff

napoleon knows every dollar i got in that sale we created a scholarship fund we gave to the children at dnc employees, we did not make a single penny. >> moderator: the next question for mr. thompson. >> let's expand this to leadership. what you just said goes into the leadership question. there are people, you had your supporters, people who send me lots of e-mail's saying you both have been part of the wayne county government for a long time. serving as police chief the department came under federal oversight, and came under investigation for corruption. what can you tell voters who are watching tonight who are not supporting you, are in the middle, wondering what you condemn and straight on leadership and ethics and can you explain yourself from the police department and from wayne county? duggan: in wayne county i was there for 14 years, balance the

budget for 14 years, and there was one member of the administration indicted the u.s. attorney at the time said very clearly i had never been under investigation. on the other hand sheriff napoleon spent five years where that had been under investigation as well. what you really ought to look at our results. i would encourage your viewers to call somebody you know who works at dmz, people who remember what it was like when you go to the waiting rooms and wait three four years to see a doctor and i came in and turned around and delivered a karen 29 minutes. how we went from having no cardiology program to one of the best in the country, we went from 11,000 employees to 13,000 employees and when you draw on our campus in the city of detroit, $850 million in new investments. that is the result we need in the city of detroit. napoleon: no secret both of us have been in government for a very long time.

neither one of us are new. and it is not much different. and from a leader should standpoint i have always been open and transparent. i have always been open to it. ..