of david macko you can begin. macko: this is one of the issues on the national party platform we don't have an immigration problem, we have an invasion problem by barack obama another reason to impeach him. he encouraged the countries in mexico and others to bring these immigrants in. when we bring the troops home from abroad and try to stop world war iii we should station as many of them as necessary in the southern border. ..

they'd be citizens than they would vote the way all of our freedoms. >> moderator: thank you, mr. macko. you've had an impact on people. you feel immigrations, sir. it is broken as they presently does. the first thing we need to do is secure our border. i would go about that, whether it's inject tenet of the states that are on the borders and make sure we had the wherewithal to guard the borders. >> moderator: like ohio?

joyce: we have the coast guard and the ability to do that. down in arizona, texas in the southern border. that is something we need to have the states employ the national guard to protect them, then so be it. we need to fund them appropriately. >> people say secure our border pretty frequently. i don't know what that means exactly. if it awol as david macko suggests, if it drowns? like what does that look like? that is potentially quite a lot of borders. joyce: absolutely. we have to employ the national guard. but they play again down there where somebody is and you can't do anything. people are running on both sides abandon this was given to me with the duty down there as part of the ground services career. he had to do some time. it is a cat and mouse game we're

playing. we have to stop playing the game because right now we want to make sure one, the border is secure. to promote better figure out who is in our country, specially with the problems abroad. three, we have to provide the wherewithal for that problem. >> moderator: thank you, congressman. mr. wager. wager: stories and those are not policy. their legislative policies have to be made. as i said, complicated issues require some discussion. first of all, there's a humanitarian crisis. 60,000 children in a detention center. let's answer that crisis consistent with the deepest that this country. secondly, the issue of border security. ims well. we can't have porous borders. i don't support awol. it does not mean all while other rio grande for me. lastly, the real question is

immigration reform. comprehensive immigration reform. 11 million people in the 14th district, work in our agricultural sector. they've done a great job of those people are about to be deported. that is not the solution. the solution is comprehensive immigration reform passed by the united states senate in 2013 with a dream i've been as consistent with the fact that all of us in some form or another for the most part of the sun come up renaissance or great events and daughters to their graves. that's the united states of america that i stand for. [applause] tree into us is the final question of this portion of the debate. congressman joyce, we'll start with you. the affordable care act also known as the obamacare has obviously affected everyone in the room and has come in for a considerable amount of criticism and praise. i would like you to speak very

specifically about places where that could be improved. we understand certain candidates may have a repeal and replace agenda. that may be dairy difficult to accomplish in the current congress and with our current president. so what would you do to improve it in lower health care costs? congressman joyce. joyce: first off, i obviously didn't go for it and i didn't vote for this president twice. the affordable care act is what he prefers to be his legacy act in his legacy activity doesn't mind: did obamacare. the problem you have with it is he wants no tinkering with the bill as it presently exists. however, he will do things like push the individuals, but he allows corporations to take the wavered on the mozilla wouldn't affect them in the election. i know it sounds inconsistent to say follow the law, but we need to follow the law. we are not going to know the

full impact until people have to feel the impact of it day in and day out. the problems with the law are many, they the parts you can improve, having two kids in college and are centrists graduated and started a job, the fact you can keep your kids on your health care until their 26 is a good part of the law. i don't have an issue with that. the preexisting conditions. they shouldn't get thrown off their health care. they should be taken care of. this president in this administration working for the senate will not allow nat occurring anywhere on the law. >> moderator: that is not what i asked you. i asked you what you would improve. those are things you wiki. what would you change if you could change something and if you took the president at his word that is interested in ideas from everywhere and he has changed things. as you indicated, there was a waiver for certain come in is, so on and so forth. what would you approve? how would you lower health care costs? joyce: first of all, it's illegal. the president has the ability to

make that change. if you don't want to work together to make changes, how can they change? it is kind of taken off your red jersey and blue jersey and put on a red white and blue jersey and do what is right for the country. the president has got problems with the affordable care act. let's address those. reprint problems all the time. he told people the biggest lie of the year. the fact if you like your health care you can keep it. that just wasn't true. >> moderator: sir, this is the last time i'm going to ask you to answer the question. do you have a specific idea he would like to share with the group? if you don't, we can move on. those are new ideas. i asked her lower costs. >> the lower cost him a usb about that. >> moderator: that was the first question. >> that's the other problem i have. it does not bring down the cost of health care as a whole. there has to be compensation in

the marketplace to allow those prices to come down. when you have people insured in the hospital and you don't realize different hospital systems might have different costs. when people have the ability to bring the cost down, those are important parts of it. one last part? the fact that with the implementation of it. you know have a group of medicare that will tell people how they'll cut costs and they will come between a patient and your physician and nothing should become between a patient, family and position. that is to be change. >> moderator: thank you, congressman. mr. wager. wager: i hope i get time. i would like to address the question as asked what the press is the affordable care act of firing united states congress, i would have voted for the still half measure because legislative -- hard legislative

decision-making requires incrementalism. so there's things about it i embrace my understanding the evolution of the social welfare program are prepared of years, whether or medicare, the opposition begins to embrace racism becomes part of our national family. you want a solution and you deserve a direct answer. no homilies, no pleasant stories. here's the solutions. because of the way was implemented in the fact that it provides only additional coverage for up to 30 million people for which 10 million have taken advantage, it is still incomplete. we need universal care in this country. there's one thing i would do, universal care. secondly, because it was implemented in a patchwork or good governors, smart governors embraced it so their changes are configured with what they wanted in their state like colorado. it worked in colorado more efficiently. the remainder of our state, with john kasich refusing to embrace him as part of the federal exchange which is badly

implemented and provides coverage for the people who deserve to be covered. we need to have an integrated system. we can address the underlying cost of health care. the united states of america per capita pays twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations. why? would start asking those hard questions. insurance companies and patients. that is what i do in the united states congress. >> moderator: thank you for a much, mr. wager. mr. macko. macko: trying to improve obamacare is like trying to improve ebola. [applause] we need to get rid of the whole idea that the government of the united states has control over the health of the american people. article i, section eight, there is a constitution, our guidelines for employment for whoever is elected does not authorize the united states

government to control a deal in any way with the help of the american people for impatiens such as ebola. the ninth and 10th amendments prohibit the government from doing this. the father of communism stated that health care is the most important way to control people. if you control the help of a person into the obama tax panel, you control the people. you control the people and make them slaves. for obamacare, one last thing, we have an example of how obamacare will help if it doesn't get killed. >> moderator: thank you, mr. macko can you provided us with our most imminently to eat a bad moment. we will pass to make our transition into the q&a. >> today we're listening to a high-energy debate between the ohio district 14 congressional candidates in comment david

joyce, david macko and democratic party michael wager. it is now time are almost time for a question-and-answer period awareness to start formulating questions now and try to keep them brief to the point and phrase questions that we can get as many as possible. we welcome all of you here are those joining us via our live webcast sponsored by the university of akron. be sure to tune into our city club friday forums, one of 4.9 wto p. are one of the many radio stations across the country they carry programs. television broadcaster made possible by cleveland state university and pnc. on october 22nd, the city club or host in ohio gubernatorial debate with democratic candidate at fitzgerald and green party candidate, and neither rios. for more information about our

upcoming and past forms, please visit us online at debbie debbie debutante city club.org. today's debate is sponsored by the northeast ohio media group, politics and policy programming. we thank you for your support. our community partner for today's program is the center for health affairs. we thank you for your support. today we welcome a lot of sponsors hosted by beijing capital, citizens for michael wager, eaton, macko for congress, she enjoys come the center for health affairs and university hospitals. we thank you for your support. but not least we have students here i ask you to stand and be recognized. [applause]

>> thank you, students. i would remind you as part of the great democratic tradition of the city or this country i'm sorry i'm you have the ability to ask questions. even though you in the corner, please ask questions. now our traditional city club question-and-answer period, we welcome from everyone including guests and students. city club contact associate, teddy eisenberg and city club marketing another specialist, kristin beyond her. her's question, please. >> first of all, thank you very much for being near today. it is great to have all the candidates present at a debate. you've touched on a lot of issues and they have financial implications. i would suggest one of the major problems the country is facing right now is the level of our dad. when you look at the debt on a per capita basis, you are approaching the levels of some third world countries actually

is quite frightening. with the growth in entitlement programs, it's not going to get better. what would you do to get the u.s. debt under control. >> thank you very much. mr. macko, why do is start? macko: first-come return to the constitution. we can spend 40% of what we spend on military spending. if we return to the constitution for domestic spending, we can cut to 10% above we have now. as i mentioned earlier, it would refer the federal government to solve all of its unconstitutionally held properties, including the million square miles of land of the united states would bring in enough money so that you could get rid of the ant contacts in the gift tax. we do what we have to do, not

what is done now and only what is constitutional. we could get rid of most of the national debt, possibly all day. by the way, we are refuting every day that the government creates more money. the question is, should be repudiated officially and honestly. the great economist and historian has some very interesting comments about that and i want to look them up on the internet. in the meantime, the constitution is the answer to all of our problems. getting out of the depression, stopping world war iii. thank you. >> moderator: thank you very much, mr. macko. congressman joyce. joyce: one of the first things i did is talk about getting the country back on budget. you can't control spending. it's surprising to find out we have been five years about a

budget. 180 congressmen and women was asked by the chairman of the appropriations committee, how many of you here have seen the budget process in the 12 bills passed. only out of 180, only five people live. we have to get back to the appropriations and slowly but surely reduce their spending in areas where we can reduce it. some of the areas we can reduce that are obviously that $85 billion being wasted. we also have to be realistic about the entitlement programs because the tide of my programs and dabble pretty soon consume everything we taken in taxes. we took in 2.7 trillion taxes. you can't get back on track, to get spending and debt act together. right now we know $55,000 for every man, woman and child in our interest, which is that

going to nih, which isn't going anywhere else, but just covered with dad though we've accumulated. we have to get the country back on track. we have to nick some hard decisions and stop lying to the american people and throwing out pleasantries and get down to the hard facts and let everyone know so we can make decisions. [laughter] >> moderator: thank you, congressman. mr. wager. wager: the commerce and addressed spending and deficit. in order to reduce our public debt, you have to run surpluses. run surpluses. how many times in our nations history have we run surpluses quiets less than 10%. we've had public that as a nation since andrew jackson. the question i will answer directly as well as how large a data sake can we have is a nation to the size of our economy to have growth? you can cut all the spending in the world and you can set it on

your table and balance your whole budget like you balance the federal budget. that underscores for me you don't understand the problem. we need growth in this nation. smart tax policy and investment over the long-term. private-sector growth solves budget deficits that you find to be too high and if you do run surpluses rippled the red in recent history in the clinton administration, you can reduce debt. you have to stop incurring budget data sake to find and engage note that an american mission, without an exit which alternately spends itself with that for which we have no long-term interest of no return. you have to spend on something valuable, spent on infrastructure, put tax reform and i for one of the democrat would go back to the budget deficit commission as a starting point. it is the beginning of a serious discussion did not tell them you consider run your table and balance your home budget.

[applause] >> moderator: thank you, mr. wager. there will be most effective if we keep our applause until the end and then you can go crazy. >> i mentioned in the lobby had a question for you. i enjoy the fact you have a good reputation in this community and you are held in high regard. therefore, an ad that i would classify as negative and i want to get my facts correct. he said the congressman voted for funding health care for life, being funded by the taxpayers and free first class travel for congressman. i understand that is incorrect and indeed he voted for -- against these things and sponsored the legislation. therefore am concerned by you continue to run florida. >> first of all, we ran a negative ad, negative ad based

on his fact that they see if i can do that. nearly 20 times. if you still had done that, it would've reinstated the health care plan that members of congress had before obamacare, which if you've been there for them at a number years will fund 77% of their health care premiums. the 302nd ad was i can't be that specific, but it's based on fact. when they came back and responded with negative ads, they referred to me as honest and smarmy. i encourage you to take a look at the worlds for me. by the way, were smarmy as used in that article appeared provided with the article is nothing to do with me or my race. we spoke a connection to make a point, which regrettably has to be negative. make it about their based on facts are legitimate part of the dialogue did negative ads based on deception are something you

should eat to cry. >> moderator: to either candidate have a rebuttal or response? mr. macko. macko: the important and if congress is voting the way of liberties. this is a relatively minor point. they should be cut down, but everything should be cut down. >> moderator: thank you, mr. macko. >> the first one posted that there was a vote taken in 2012 in january 2013. you know, my thing is always been the truth. when people go out and just bash you, that obviously said something about their character. >> moderator: thank you, congressman. next question.

>> congressman joyce, the editorial board describe your refusal to answer this question as infuriating. so i wanted to ask you here, do you or do you not support criminal background checks for all gun purchases? joyce: that wasn't the question. it was universal background checks. we have to have a discussion take place in america. february 27th, 2012, unfortunately been a prosecutor in a school shooting, i saw firsthand. what happened in the town was the person executed his own mother, a legitimate gun owner and proceeded to do what he did. it's disgusting. we have to have a national debate is how we are going to solve that problem. the universal background checks will somehow be a magic or to solve all crime. that's just not true.

people have killed each other with rocks. we have a problem with mental health. we need to address the mental health issue in many do that, it is part and parcel to some kind of solution. i am all in and i've offered a host of debate. i've offered the vice president himself because getting ready for the trial i did the research on it. there was a lot post-columbine and a lot to be set in the last to be done and we have to have an honest discussion in america how we are going to treat them. >> moderator: this is a very important topic and i think both candidates for a 92nd response. go ahead. macko: all power comes from the barrel of from the barely begun. the founding fathers agree, which is why we have the second amendment. there should be no restrictions except for people in prison are people who have been judged by due process, not by just putting them with the 175,000 veteran's.

otherwise we will lose our liberty. we will be in the same situation as the china soviet russia with germany, which suffered millions, tens of millions of dead when the people were tricked into giving up their guns. >> moderator: thank you. mr. wager. wager: this is a serious issue. i am a voyeur. i taught constitutional law. i understand the language of the second amendment. dave macko and i could recite for you as well. they determined that reason all limitations were consistent with the protection. i don't think i heard direct answer yet from the congressman. so i'll give you mine. i stand for the universal criminal background check at the beginning of reasonable limitations. i also support limitations on the size of magazines because

the acceleration of technology and weaponry, mentally ill or impulsive people can get their hands on guns and slaughter wholesale. this can eliminate guns in the hands of bad guys? of course not. is it a magic alert? the concerns of limiting and regulating the proliferation of guns in our society? of course not. that is the beginning of hard choices of legislation. as the beginning of a dialogue because it is by the national rifle association that supports manufacturers primarily intends to support gunowners. guns for collection, for your own home protection are all part of the private right to bear arms. that's a semi automatic weapon, which you can procure without a criminal background check. that is criminal. >> moderator: thank you very much, mr. wager. unfortunately because we need to preserve three minutes each,

we're out of time for audience questions. i would encourage you all to treat out all of these guys or grab the master was anathema to question yourself. they wish we had an hour and a have to do this, but we don't. our final question is this a new answer with three minutes each in the same order that we began. david macko, you are first. >> i like you to describe the areas in which you disagree with your party leadership. but you have done or will do to fight your party leadership in an effective way regarding those beliefs. macko: as i said, disapprove the libertarian party national platforms on the issues of immigration and on abortion and i think i've made my position pretty clear over the years with my campaign literature and also through my website, macko for

liberty.work. so again, i have made myself clear and i don't come from the system. again, you have to say this again. here the choice between the two old parties, which have led us to the point of national collapse to a police state, to world war iii, and economic collapse or you have a chance to try something new. back when i was here in 2008, i said how could libertarians possibly do worse? some people said that was inappropriate. libertarians for me wherever you have the chance in ohio with her public enough for us to the contrary, we can do better. we believe in liberty all the time. we believe in national defense for the united states. not the rest of the world.

we believe that position should always be free down, not government, more spending, more taxes, more control. vote libertarian. thank you. >> moderator: thank you for a much, mr. >> moderator:. mr. wager, you're next. what do you plan to do to fight for those police? >> i fundamental disagreements with some of the congressional leaders in the democratic party as well as the president. let me start with the latter. i fundamentally challenge and question the foreign policy of the president of the united states and have for a number of years. it is a dangerous world and i understand this. you been engaged in foreign conflict at the cost of trillions of dollars without an articulated mission about an articulated national interest and without an exit. once again in an extremely dangerous world, which is not being addressed by our foreign

policy, the president under the war powers act will engage us in broader conflict against the islamic state. i would minimize the danger of the islamic state, but i would ask the president to do with the president should do under the constitution. go to the congress, asked them to authorize action under article i as he makes his case with mission, national interest and access so that the congress can fulfill its function. on domestic policy, i fundamentally disagree with the timing, the current administration has undertaken pushing comprehensive immigration reform. they determined it was too hot to handle before the midterm elections. i stand here to tell you the 11 million plus people in this nation waiting for comprehensive intelligent immigration reform dealer. the children born here, undocumented workers that came here. i support the dream act in the

president of the united states is wrong. that should be pursued in the u.s. congress and frankly members of congress should be back in washington now debating whether this country goes to war. [applause] >> moderator: thank you very much, mr. wager. mr. juries. joyce: the question is? nocona thank you very much and for the opportunity to be here. i appreciate when you get into arguments with leadership, but as i said before, these are the things i will never get out front and embarrassed as speaker or the majority leader. when i have an issue, i go right to them to discuss the issue and work our way through it. but as it. one is the skill of fact about reforming the way we trained people looking for careers. i didn't like way they were going about it. i want to see them and the author of the bill came in they try to explain to me. i went back like i always do to my district and i went to

lakeland and i asked them how they see it and they said it's working fine the way it is. the changes seem to be basically trying to stick in the eye of the people who are part of it. i believe careers are for everyone in that one should have the opportunity because it's all about jobs. i went to bring jobs back. i'm sad my son just took a job in ohio. msb the land of milk and honey. i couldn't get in to look at jobs here. i want to keep ohio in the greatest location in the nation. we are the verge of doing good and clear. i told people i go there. i will tell you the truth. i am honored that my friend here today, the first time we met they shook hands and said we will run and above board debate and debate issues. i appreciate that. however, when people tell lies about you, i've done my opposition research, but i refuse to engage because that is

part of the step i'm taking to reform what is going on in washington. we have to start talking at each other. you have to listen and work together into what is right. i do that in my district. i do that in d.c. because i want to make sure we continue the things necessary to make our country great. we have serious issues in this country. whether it's entitlements, changing taxol, we have to put it out there and let the americans see a period instead of saying i am not there to pay the senior benefits for medicare or social security, you continue to go out. i haven't voted on anything like that. i go back and tell people the truth. i say you are going to hear these things about me. if you have a question, here's my card, call me. i made myself assessable throughout the 14 district. i will continue to do that. it's an honor and privilege to represent each one of you. it's an honor.

god bless you all. thank you for having me here today. i back [applause] >> moderator: we got to close it down. michael wager, democratic candidate. macko. david joyce for the republican party. thank you very much. >> there is not much to add except to thank everyone for your attendance and participation today. thank you again to our candidates. it's impressive three people showed up to share views with their city, state and nation. this forum is now adjourned. [applause]

>> if there is one message in the book to take away, it is the notion that they are characterized by handshakes and hand out.

this speaks to your question as to who should do well. they handshakes are what washington has been doing lately behind the anonymous on reported in the media, which is shaking hands on some of the key principles of the state opening of data, encouraging and issuing challenges and so forth. that means that the opportunity to have a more open government starts with a bipartisan commitment to delay the foundation. what is critical as you are handing off to the american people. entrepreneurs and innovators, federal state and local levels of government to take that raw data and dumped more interesting products and services. >> earlier today we heard from election analyst at this conference hosted by the international foundation for

electoral systems. the form will continue shortly live, looking at free speech, pacs and campaign finance reform and later today at 4:00 eastern, the last panel of the day with a discussion on how the americans with disabilities act and an international treaty on persons with disabilities has expanded rights. who would get underway shortly here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and waiting for this panel to get underway again. this is the international foundation for a lot her assistance, an all-day wave an all-day wait for my bandwidth. if you missed the earlier panels come you can find this online. this panel, looking at free

speech, pacs and the future of campaign finance reform. after this wraps up, 4:00 looking at americans with disabilities and their political -- expanded political rights. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] soundman

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> okay, welcome everyone to this panel on campaign finance. this section is entitled money talks, free speech, political action committees and future of campaign finance regulation. do a deal with those in the next 60 minutes. in case you need interpretation, please note english is on channel seven, at arabic on

channel eight, french on channel nine, indonesia on channel 10 and spanish on channel 11. if you need a headset and you don't have one, please indicate back to colleagues who are providing them. i am a senior political finance advisor. next week i will celebrate having been with ifes first 10 years. i do the finest initiatives in many parts around the world to much more importantly, we have two prominent speakers with us today. on my far left is trevor potter, former commissioner and anti-chairman of the federal election commission. he is republican and he was counseled for john mccain's 2008 presidential campaign. he is also a member of the washington d.c. law firm of cap dan and drysdale and is

president of the campaign legal center, which is meant geodes are which is nan gl three washington chemist specializing in issues regarding money in politics. on my direct last is alan weintraub who was nominated to the federal election commission in 2002 new highs since twice as chairman of the commission and in the true interest of bipartisanship, democrat. she was previously counseled to perkins coro. and a member of the political law group to counsel clients on federal and state campaign finance and election laws, political ethics, nonprofit law and lobbying regulations. before that, counsel to the house of representatives ethics committee. she served as house ethics manual and principal contributor to the state at 678 manual to documents that i am sure are

needed. when i left the committee and investigations and often have left the responsibility for the public education and compliance initiatives. we have discussed this in the hands and we will start by giving an overview of the case law in this area. and ellen weintraub will then discuss the results and the spending patterns and the consequences in this particular election cycle. following this presentation, we will open the floor as we had done previously for your questions and interventions. there are many factors that influence the practices. many of these are covered in the various sessions of the ifes u.s. election program. one fact there is the role of money and the electoral passat. i have yet to visit any country

where people tell me that money isn't important in our elections. whether it is huge spending on advertising or multiplying or abuse to state resources when the candidate nomination and the government party and nondemocratic systems. the importance of this factor is now recognized around the world and in the recent study of 180 countries, they couldn't find a single one that didn't have at least some legislation in this field. this includes some latecomers, including my own native sweden which passed its first law in april this year. however, there is also growing understanding that creating laws is only the first step. the vast majority of political party and campaign finance laws around the world are not

implemented. for ifes, supporting legal reform is an important part of our work with local finance, but it is only the first. the vast majority of our work focuses on supporting the implementation of such regulations. as part of this, we cooperate with many public institutions such as election management bodies that have the mandates to enforce negative provisions. in this context, i want to mention the recently published finance oversight handbook, which is in your packets and are more copies available outside. this is in turn part of our training in detection and enforcement curriculum. one of the people who has to field test the curriculum is commissioner weintraub. we also spend time assisting

civil society groups that monitor campaign finance come including the two niche in elections last the report, which he had in a month or so will be the first campaign monitoring reports average in asia if in north africa. during the last 15 years, ifes has supported local finance initiatives in over 40 countries and there was no sign that the need for this work is declining. one excellent example of the work of political finance canada and is the united states. even though the first rules came in this country over a century ago and several decades have passed since the legal reform in the may 270, there is a lot of work still to be done and indeed, many are arguing the transparency and oversight of the role of money has gradually

gotten worse in the last two years. we will hear more about this issue from our two speakers and i will hand over first of all. >> thank you, magnus. it's a great pleasure to be with you. i admire the work of ifes when i've had an opportunity over the years she spent time with groups such as yours who are coming to these elections. i always enjoy it greatly because it gives me a chance to step back and think through what you are about to see. i have to say that i think what you are apaches e. and here explained by commissioner weintraub and myself is probably more confusing today or anytime i have known in my professional career. so i don't necessarily and be trying to figure it all out. we are trying to figure it out ourselves.

i am glad you are here and magnus, thank you for your opening remarks, setting things in context because americans tend to forget that there are other democracies in the world struggling with the same issues we are. they are not unique and from their perspective you will have an opportunity to have an issue magnus has raised about how it is disclosed with one space by most countries, any country having an election. our system is a constitutional system, so we have a constitution that and created two houses of congress and executive ranch and an independent judicial branch. congress passes laws, which means they have to pass both

chambers, the house and senate and they have to be signed by the president. they now are a law, that they are interpreted by the supreme court under circumstances, either as a case arises where party says we think the law says that in another party with the government says no, the law says white and in those circumstances, the dispute goes to the court to resolve what congress meant. the other circumstance in which a dispute reaches the court is where someone whose activity is covered by the law says that the law is contrary to the constitution, that congress and the president has created a regulatory system that is not permitted by our constitution. that actually is something the court has said frequently in recent years. for much of the court they have

nothing at all to say about congressional regulation in politics of limits on who could spend on disclosure. the watergate scandal and the reelection campaign of president nick said. some of the contrary to the laws that existed, some of it not disclosed. some of the closer to a bribe congress enacted a new set of laws to react to that but limited money, disclosed money. and there, our supreme court stepped in when those laws were challenged in court. but they said is our constitution, specifically the first amendment of the constitution limited power to

regulate the raising and spending and disclosure of money in politics. our first amendment is in my experience reasonably unique in that it is an absolute prohibition on government doing certain things. the full text is congress shall make no blog reflecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof or of the press. where peaceably to assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances. all of this went back to the period of the revolution in the late 1700s and was a reaction to things that the british government had done in the american colonies. but if you listen carefully, you didn't hear any names but the government regulating or not

regulating the spending of money and elections. what has happened over time and it has been incrementally is that the u.s. supreme court has interpreted the pieces that the says congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech to encompass spending money in elections or giving money to candidates or parties as a version of speaking. this theory be that clearly speeches standing on a street corner and speaking coming that might be standing on a street corner and speaking with a microphone, although you have to pay money for the microphone. you have to buy it somewhere. certainly if you are speaking by taking out television advertisements in a system where we do not have government television, it is all commercial and you have to pay for advertising or mailings or phone calls or staff.

all of that cost money and so the supreme court has said there are circumstances in which government may regulate the spending of money. there are others in which it may not. which is which? we are going to decide when those cases come to us. it makes figuring out what to do with the government may do in this area very complicated, particularly because the population, the members of the supreme court change over time. so i sent example, congress passed in may 2002 mccain feingold campaign reform act, which was designed to deal with problems congress that had arisen since the watergate last 40 years before, 30 years before. those laws were challenged in the report. there were almost entirely upheld by the supreme court. then there was a change of one justice who retired.

her replacement felt differently and since then has gone back and start down important pieces of the law they just upheld. so if you are congress writing a file, you do your best, but you are not sure what the court is going to do on the court may not sure who was on it at that point. the final piece of the structure, which complicates life is that we have the same sure all that you do, administrative agencies whose job is to interpret, to explain and enforce the laws passed by congress and upheld at the supreme court. in our case from the principal agencies the federal election commission, which i was a commissioner of sometime ago. commissioner weintraub is now. that agency is essentially evenly balanced between the parties. not more than six commissioners,

not more than three of one party and practices mature republicans , three democrats as our two major parties. that commission requires four votes of the six to take any action to adopt a regulation or to enforce the law. the good news of course is that means no one party has controlled and can use it against the other party. but it requires the commissioners to be sincere about making the law work because you have to compromise and agree. what has happened in the last five years or so with the current federal election commission, which again depends who is on it is the commission has split three, three. republicans versus three democrats on most major votes to enforce the law. ..

it's $2,600 for an individual giving to a candidate and more if they want to give to a party committee but not a great deal. the practical limit of what you can give to the committees, the three party committees directly is going to be $100,000. a lot of money not enormous given what is being spent in our elections. congress said and the court has agreed so far corporations may not not give correct collegiate candidates or parties. only for individuals, citizens and permanent residents so the floor in governments and countries and individuals. that's money is required to be fully disclosed so that every citizen will know who was given to the candidates and the party is over a low threshold over

$200 so above that, the contributions are going to be disclosed to. parallel to that, the court said it is permissible to limit how much individuals give directly to candidates and committees but it is not permissible under the amendment right to free speech. the individuals can go out and spend on their own to advocate of the defeat of a candidate so we have two different stories, spend it on your own, take the movie by television advertisements and say vote for obama, vote for romney. reelect so and so they are great

for the state. that's can't be limited and after the case called citizens united it cannot be limited to what the unions can spend. congress said corporations and unions cannot spend money in the elections and that had been the case in the country until citizens united in 2010 so there has been a significant change with the supreme court saying again u.s. corporations and unions have the same rights as individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money. what the supreme court said zero is that money should be disclosed and is required to be disclosed under the law so if i i give to a candidate or the committee to candidates and party committees disclose it and

if i as an individual spend the money on my own so i take out an ad that says vote for smith it could state paid for by trevor and i would be required to file with the government something that says i took out this ad and it cost me $2 million. a new development that has occurred which i admit sounds confusing so bear with me for a moment instead of my taking out an ad in my own name or a corporation or union which according to the supreme court can now do the same thing doing that and say paid for by general electric to committees have formed super packs which simply means political committees registered and reporting with the federal commission so they disclose their donors so they

can take all of this money and run the ad in their names so the individuals and corporations that have an unlimited amount to speak can put their money together and do a super pack and let's call it a better america for tomorrow. it will run the ad in the state paid for by americans for a better tomorrow. when you watch the ad you may not know who americans for a better tomorrow is but it is public information. the press can find out who they were and it can say that most were corporations and labor unions. there was another type of group groups spending money this year and that is called dark money which means money that is not disclosed to its source so those are not super packs. they are ngos and nonprofit

organizations that are created by individuals or corporations and supports supposed to not engage in politics otherwise they would have to file with the commissioners agency and they would report their donors. but nonetheless they can spend and do spend a lot of money on politics and their creation and disclosure should be regulated by a different government agencies the internal revenue service that focuses on taxes but for a variety of reasons it is not doing anything about those groups so we have ended up in a situation which was never and vision by congress which passed the laws and was never in visions by the supreme court when it changed the law because the court said even though the corporations and unions can spend and i'm limited amount it would be disclosed.

what happens is that individuals who are willing to disclose who they are give to the super pack which reports the federal election commission spends an unlimited amount and they know who the donors are. if they want to hide who they are they give to one of these ngos. they are referred to by their designation under the tax code so you will hear 501 c. six. it is an organization that spends money and politics and four a variety of reasons that are peculiar to our administrative system do not end up disclosing the donors. personally i think they are required to by law. that's what the law says and what the supreme court said that my friend the commissioners agency does not have the four

votes to enforce that law. i will say commissioner weintraub has been one of the force trying to enforce that law but there isn't a majority so we have a pic of your administrative failure where the agency is not doing its job and the only way in our system to get it to do its job is to sue it in court and those that do not like the failure to enforce the law have sued in court. the case is still stuck in court and the agency hasn't been ordered by the court finally to enforce the law and the result is we have a great deal of money being spent which the commissioner was going to tell us about and a lot of it, literally hundreds of millions of dollars is not disclosed to the source of the funding and as a result of citizens united and

the introduction of the corporate money we have also a great deal more money being spent in the elections that we've traditionally historically haven't a system that does not have public funding for house and senate candidates for the election that you are seeing is totally privately funded and if the money is by candidates and parties and it is limited and disclosed if it is by these outside groups that are supposed to be independent of candidates and parties then it may or may not be disclosed depending if it is through one of these ngos. with that, the commissioner will tell you just how bad of a system the system that i described is in practice in terms of the amount being spent. we disagree on issues of

campaign finance. however we agree we are not getting a representative sample of the debate that usually takes place between the democrats and republicans on these issues. i want to take a step back. i think that there were really important principles at play. one issue that is important in this country records in particular have been protected of the right of every citizen to criticize the government without fear of any kind of penalty or reprisal and that is an important principle and it's important to remember that because if you watch the tv ads and they are often ugly or unpleasant to watch i think one has to take a step back and remember why do we allow this

because the courts see this as a form of protecting citizens to criticize their own government and the candidates for office and the office holders. there are different ways one might go about doing that. i think it is particularly interesting in an international group to take a look at some of the different ways that one could come to these issues. in this country our courts have a very libertarian perspective. they believe strongly that the best way to encourage the most robust debate on issues of public concern is by having no limits on spending that goes behind these political ads and that way this site can spend all they want and the other side can spend all they want and in the end all the issues will be fleshed out and we will have a great and robust debate.

they are protecting greece speech rights and look at it in a different way and say that when you have no limits that allows wealthy people to dominate the debate and to drown out the voices of others. you have the similar and legal background and yet the courts and the walls have evolved in very different ways and come to very different have come to very different conclusions on this precise issue of regulating.

the or any kind of the civil enforcement of the law. some people voluntarily comply particularly the candidates themselves will be most motivated to voluntarily comply with the laws because they have a reputation no interest at stake they don't want people out there saying they are lawbreakers because people won't vote for them because they don't want to vote for officeholders that are lawbreakers. you get into the political messaging that is very ugly and

very negative and not necessarily reliable. the first question everyone wants to ask is how much money is being spent. we spend between six to $7 billion the presidential race will undoubtedly be even more expensive and people listen to listened to that number and it makes headlines and you think it is an awful lot of money. last way we would see people dressed up in costumes and have parties and candy.

it's not how it is raised and spent but is it done in a way that is transparent. is it done anyway that someone is accountable for the money that is being raised and spent and the messages put out there because as i said when no one is accountable, the message becomes a lot less reliable. is it done in a way that promote citizen participation. one of the problems having all these negative ads out of their. when the money gets further and further for the candidates is that the voters get turned off. they are not interested in participating. small donors are less interested in participating.

voters say i see all these negative ads and i think i don't want to vote for any of these people. is it being spent in a way that is legal or that is not corrupting of the entire process. and there are a lot of people in this country that have concerns about that. i should say the three that trevor is alluded to on the commission are not prevalent but it's not the way that you think it might work. it is not a question of the three democrats protecting

democrats and republicans protecting republicans and enforcement matters. there is an ideological divide on the commission that the republicans on the commission believes in this more libertarian view. the belief that the first amendment protects all of this money that is being raised and spent and that we shouldn't be regulating it. there are laws about the disclosure that were passed by congress and they were upheld and they should be given force and we should investigate the groups that appear to be engaged in political activity and are not registering at the political activities. so it is -- although it sounds like a partisan dispute it is more of an ideological dispute about how the law should function in terms of regulating politics.

i will tell you a story in my own home state of maryland in the last election that we had a question about whether to allow the casino gambling in our state. this is something that is decided in state-by-state basis and there were ads that started it to be run about this from the various officeholders said yes this will bring money into the state. it will be good for economic development and we will have more money for education. we should vote yes on this question and then the group started advertising and i always looked to see who's behind the ads and the only ads that were paid for. there is no way of knowing that it is going to fund education

reform or better educational services it's going to be a big giveaway to the casino interests, so don't support this. because we have the disclosure rules in my state it came out that stuff under the decided vote no was a competing casino in the next state in west virginia and they didn't want the competition so they wanted us to vote against it. that affected how i view to those ads and how i assessed what was going on in those ads. these were not people that cared about the education they just wanted to protect their profits in west virginia and when the initiative passed they came to maryland in the filed of the license application. so i think it's important to the supreme court has recognized is that the voters know who's behind the ads and what we have now is a system where, and it changes from one to the next,

there's changes as we go along but increasingly since 2010 we have a system that's more is raised from fewer donors and less disclosure. in the top ten senate races because we don't have the president on the ballot and the senate is where a lot of the attention is being focused and they may change and control from the democrat and republican depending on how the votes go tomorrow. in the top ten races there's more money by a longshot to being spent by outside spending groups then the candidates themselves. in the most expensive race in north carolina which is not a big state and is not inexpensive media market but it's the most expensive race so far. as of last week there were

$12 million. there is one of which over $80 million came from outside spending groups. the candidates are taking on a smaller and smaller role in their own campaigns. some of the groups are run by friends and associates of the candidates and funded by the same donors that support the campaigns. sometimes they are supported by family members of the candidates and yet they claim that they are independent of the candidates, so this issue of independence of the campaign spending has become one that is contentious. we have the parties that are transparent and the contribution limits and filed with the disclosure reports that tell

everyone every donor of over $200 every expenditure of over $200 the very detailed reports. then there's another category that trevor described. these are political committees that final reports, not as frequently as the candidates do, and there's an article in today's paper about the groups that have manipulated the process so that they held off the donors until after the last report was due as of october 15 was the last period for the super packs and all of a sudden we are seeing a flood of ad by geezer groups that one wonders how could they afford this because in the last report they didn't seem to have that much to be asked their donors not to write the checks and to transmit the money until after the end of the reporting. oh so there will be a flood of advertising and no one knows

who's paying for it. the ads have been coming in at 20 million a day so there is a lot of money being spent and then there are those that don't disclose at all and we will eventually see the ad and be able to know from those that are filed in the federal communications commission in the federal government how much money was spent on the ads but we won't necessarily see all of the money that is spent by these groups. some of it will go to the voters to bring them to the polls and there is a whole infrastructure developed the shadows the party organization and billionaires creating their own party organizations that are mimicking what the parties to accept in a much less transparent way.

we may never know how much is being spent on those endeavors and where the money came from so this to me is a problem in our democracy when we are moving away from disclosure because i think the voters have the right to know who is supporting the candidates and they need to be accountable for their own supporters so we are moving towards a less transparent system and also a system that is is empowering more wealthy people. we are seeing more money but fewer donors because as i said to some of our feeling was encouraged to contribute when they see how much money is flowing and a lot are getting a lot of money. we are talking about tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars from individuals and

i think going back to whether this is a corrupt process we have to ask what will they expect in return for those massive contributions so that's where we are today and where my concerns are as someone tries to enforce the law. we will open the floor for questions and comments if you can raise your hand. please introduce yourself and your affiliation and if you can keep the questions and comments brief that would be grateful to that people can speak. speak to [inaudible]

this is impossible. why the members of this commission are not independent or do not belong. and is there a penalty to report on those that aren't using the political money and have the commission the right to regulate and thank you for listening. >> we will take one more question before we turn over the census. >> [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the politics of

the parties, where do they get the money from because campaigning cannot be separated from money. what kind of violation has been done in the campaign financing and then how do you resolve it lacks. >> let's take one more before we had over. we need to learn more about the financing of elections. if you you are the members of the commission, do you have

found is that you travel are you a source of funding at all without public funding how did that happen? we have questions about appointing a commission or and what it ought to not be better to have independence. questions about the sanctions and violations where does the money come from and maybe a couple of words about the presidential funding system. >> let me start with your question about the appointees to the federal commission come from. like everything else in our system it is the result of inevitable compromise.

they have to be nominated by the president so selected by the president and then approved. in reality what has happened for the entire existence. they were leaders of the party and to choose their people. if a president tries to nominate someone for one of the other party seats the senate wouldn't confirm them so that you would have a compromise because it has developed you end up in the current world that the democrats

being appointed by the president and countering with his party and the republican being selected by the leaders in congress and then the congress officially nominate them and both are confirmed together. this was before the presidency because there has been no agreement between the parties and other areas where we have deadlocked. there have been no new commissioners. the ones like those before remained there because they've been successfully appointed to replace them. if you haven't left your own accord we would still be there.

although i am a democrat and my name was recommended to the president. we should have some sort of an independent commission. that's clear. you would have the concept of who selects the independence and who makes sure they are truly independent and not a wolf in sheep's clothing. the current gridlock system is creating a serious problem. it's not a democrat or republican that he was selected to fill the democratic seat and he generally votes the same way

to the democratic commissioners because that's what he leaves is the right thing to do. it was was setup to be a bipartisan commission so that one party couldn't control and it at various points in history works better than it is working today. the last five or six years there hasn't been a lot of common ground meeting in the middle of an earlier part of my tenure when he did a much better job of that and i hold out hope that that could happen again. financing is largely private in this country. we have a cyst on public financing will make for the presidential race not for the house or the senate. various states may have their own system of financing for the

state level elections that the federal level, there is only private financing except for the presidency. the way that our supreme court interpreted that law said that it couldn't be required, so it is a voluntary system and the way the system is set up if one accepts the funds one also has to accept the limits. what has happened over the last number of years since 2000 is that it's become clear that candidates have been able to raise so much more money than the expenditure limits would allow them to spend.

the commission has the authority to impose penalties to impose most of what we do to enter into the negotiations and to try to come to a settlement agreement and once we agree the problem of late has been getting to that agreement of the violation of the law. we have simply run out of time and people are waiting in the back of the room. we have to continue the discussion during the break.

for the election program as well that we would be electing a new president and i welcome you back to that event with one or two things i heard things are getting wilder and wilder and more money is being raised. if you are interested in the finance please grab me at any point during this event. we will take a break and we will reconvene at 4:00 in this room.

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this is from the forum for the international foundation for the electoral systems. live coverage in about 25 minutes on the americans with disabilities act and the international treaty on persons with disabilities both that have expanded political rights around the world. until that gets underway we will be showing portions from this morning on the 1965 voting rights act into the role of the federal government in elections. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you all very much for being here today i would like to get started so that we can stay on schedule. first welcome to the u.s. election program and to the

panel from selma to montgomery and beyond the 1965 voting rights act and future role of the federal government in the elections. i'm the director of the center for applied research and i'm joined by daniel who is currently a professor of law at ohio state university and an expert on election law and voting rights specializing in electoral reform issues. he is also the law and co-author of election law cases and materials. i'm also joined by brandon who is the council. he is a litigation focused practice assisting clients with tribal and appellate matters before the courts and federal agencies. he was counseled at the shelby county alabama and the challenge to section four and five of the voting rights act. just a couple of quick reminders

english is on channel seven, aerobic is on channel eight, french is on channel nine and spanish is on channel 11. for today's discussion. about ten minutes each and then we will have the rest of the time for questions and answers. a level playing field is at the heart of the genuine democratic elections. isis works to support the right of every person to participate in a free and fair elections and our work includes promoting equal rights, justice and inclusion from marginalized or underrepresented groups so they can participate in the political life. voting rights have been contentious in the united states and litigation to protect equal voting rights continues to be the subject of both litigation

and debate. the landmark case resulted in the supreme court's striking down section four of the voting rights act. what requires requires the federal plea clearance before acting changes to the voting laws. and attempting to share insights on the american electoral system in the voting rights into the political inclusion. today brendan will speed up the lead up to the filing action including prayer that occasion in the 2006 reauthorization of the voting rights act. he will also discuss recent changes in several states including texas and north carolina, wisconsin, and how and whether the preclearance would have affected the implementation of the law.

after he speaks we will provide more context to the process and including with the voting rights act preclearance was and was not doing and he will also discuss what has happened since 2013 including new state laws and practices in litigation challenges under the constitution and section two of the voting rights act and with that i will hand it over. i'm here to give my perspective as someone that participated in the litigation of the case to provide that unique perspective here for you all to hear. the backdrop is that we have a dual regulation and the u.s. federal constitution that

provides certain fundamental guarantees covering voting rights and so with that situation you have the states of primary power except they can't do anything that would violate the united states constitution and congress also has the ability to enforce the fundamental rights in the united states constitution and that's where the voting rights act comes in so that congress made made the determination served an additional measures needed to be taken to enforce the fundamental rights so there were a bunch of different provisions that one of which was section five. it's kind of unique in comparison to other things that were going on in the voting rights act. if setup a prior restraint that said states can't do anything to change the law in any way so

they get approval from the united states attorney general to make that. it's hard to overstate how much of a shift that was from the baseline system it's kind of flips it on its head those were certain areas of the country and were designated in the section of the voting rights act, so that is a formula that has to go through that process and everybody else is under the baseline system so that's where section five comes in. it was controversial and what is interesting is the congress put a provision that allowed at the jurisdictions to take constitutional challenges but that is something that you see sometimes where there is a question about the constitutionality and this wasn't an exception so the state of south carolina and others took the congress up on that

offer and the court uphold section five at that time finding that given the circumstances that existed in the early 1960s leading up to this guy was a justified use of the power and it was on a couple other occasions and again upheld both times. the thing about section five is that it was limited in that time. go so you have a situation it was only supposed to be in place for five years. in 1970 debris authorized it and 1982 it was set to expire in 2007 survey the time that it came around they were thinking about this again it was basically unchanged in the formula and so congress took up the task again at that point. the committees held hearings

into and debate again a lot of evidence. they had a lot of hearings and debate come high yield of what had been described throughout the litigation as a 15,000 page record that justified this particular action that nobody could say they didn't work hard at this so that was basically they reauthorization process. what kind of important at the time is that there are serious concerns about going forward on the same basis as the justification for the act. it do any to look at more modern of circumstances and what's going on on the ground today ultimately not to impugn the academy but they got bad advice

about updating the courage formula some folks testified that history is enough plus the current circumstances in the jurisdictions. you don't need to look at everybody and say what should this do going forward, is a justified in the areas of the country where we have had this all along alternately that is where we get to the litigation. so, but there's also testimony about things happening in other areas of the country that were recovered by the voting rights act that did not justify the continued coverage and so the testimony was a mixed bag but from the perspective of someone that brought the case in our view there wasn't a lot of evidence of the constitutional

to justify the continued use of the provision. so at the time that is something that was debated and they ended up voting for it and in any event that's where the first challenge after 2006 was called northwest austin. one was to get the coverage so they asked for a a bailout and that would put them on the parole system for the lack of a better term.

in 2009 the bailout questioned about it than the two talked to the question that raised again for someone to bring a challenge so that is a background to tell you how basically we got where i came in. we've been doing some work on the project with a group of folks interested in fairness and and e. elections and things of that nature. we thought about discussing with people to challenge the act.

nobody paid any attention on the supreme court. the jurisdiction was covered under the act and the state of alabama was covered as a county in the the states or state so by virtue of that it was recovered jurisdiction and shelby county had been kind of a model of the rights to be honest for a decent time or had been some cities and towns that have their own issues of complying and shelby county itself was pretty good and so we were signing them on and they filed a complaint. we decided to bring two claims one was a challenge to the section of the coverage formula in the second was to bring a

challenge to section five because of some things the court had said about the coverage being outdated we without breaking it down would crystallize the issues for the court when they were addressing that issue and that is ultimately the way that we proceeded and ultimately the way the court ruled under this section for issue and it didn't rule on the section five issue so the baseline that we have today is that section five will be back in place but as of right now, it's not because there is no valid coverage formula. let me just start by thanking you for bringing us here today, for inviting me and to thank all of you for being here.

it is an honor to be among such a group of people from around the world who care about the democracy as much as we do. the foundation of democracy is the right to vote. this right has long been recognized as fundamental by our supreme court even though the constitution does not protect voting rights as such. our courts since the 19th century however has said the right to vote is fundamental because it is preservative of all rights. none of the interests in education, employment, health care, whatever it might be our

safe unless we are able to vote and participate as equals and democracy. i say this by way of introduction because although the principle has been proclaimed in the united states it hasn't always been respected and even today in the united states that diminish or impair voting rights of some of our citizens so let me start by providing some context on the united states unusual electrical system in history before moving to the question of what is the preclearance provision of the voting rights act that they were and were not doing at the time of the shelby case that was

decided last year so first a contest on the u.s. election system. we are very unusual and the nature united states. first is the profound decentralization of our system. elections are not run at the national level in the united states. we have no entity with general responsibility managing elections as it is the case in most other countries. rather, elections are run for the most part under the law in the 50 states and they are administered at the local level with her only by thousands of

counties and municipalities which has authority for actually running the day-to-day operations of our voting system at the local level. we have not just one voting system or 50 in the united states but literally thousands. the other distinctive characteristic and some would say pathology is partisanship. what i mean by that is a most states the official is someone that is either elected or appointed by the party and runs for office as the candidate for their party or is appointed by someone that is the candidate of their party that is to say the

chief official in each state is in that sense a partisan. this creates an inherent conflict of interest between the official responsibility to create a level playing field and that over -- official interest in the ranks of his or her party. it is well recognized among other democratic countries which is why the chief election authority enjoy insulation from partisan politics. however it is a lesson that we in the united states have yet to learn.

next let's make it a little bit of historical context. for most of the country's history, racial minorities most notably african-americans have been denied the vote in much of the country. that was three out of the 50 years ago in 1965 voting rights was about to -- adopted. things have changed considerably in the intervening period. at the time of the act to blacks were kept from voting or even registering throughout the southern states which were the states that were covered and

they decided the shelby county case. what was the voting rights act of doing and what wasn't it doing there has been in the recent years a lot of discussion of the voter suppression that eventually make it more difficult for eligible citizens especially racial minorities and poor people to vote. voter id is the most prominent subject of criticism by those who complain that there are other practices such as registration, limits on absentee voting and early voting that have also been criticized.

the perception is that the provisions of the act were an effective tool against the suppression practices. the reality is they were rarely used to stop those practices. where the preclearance provisions of the act were most often used was with respect to what we called vote dilution at the local level so for example new line from drawn in the legislative bodies they generally have responsibility not only for running the elections but also for drawing the district lines from which people are elected to office.

.. the places that had problems 50 years ago are still the places with the worst problems of race discrimination today. that said, these issues that i have discussed, and i presume we will discuss further in this panel, ki