ol every day, that somebody at school who cares about me. when you integrate this data and make it high-stakes there's always a chance of gaining the system. any management can be gained. any management can be undermined. in the public schools which introduced a social and emotional measure they instituted social and emotional walk-throughs. it became a component not the schools will be punished for this information at the have to integrate into the school and approve the plan. metrics that they work on include very clear things like absenteeism, turnover and behavioral issues. but what the walk through does is a way of assessing on a personal basis and it's similar to what's done in the uk with school inspections or cornerstone as a process. i have no doubt as a scrutiny and movement grows there will be no instrument got talk to people

who are trying to figure out how to include social and emotional into the multiple choice format. i think the behavioral tracking stuff is pretty valuable. just making that an upcoming trip all by itself, you know sick days for students, fighting expulsion, there is be able to put things can be very very powerful as indicated of the overall health of the school as a system. >> the other thing is do you see a tendency to realize that objective testing is not always the way that we have to start trusting the subjective can you speak about that? >> this is a very core point of which are thing. we all make assessments every day and we all have to deal with

other people's assessments and judgments every day. decouples towards data is a really, really strong in our culture right now and we're all kind of living our lives by external metrics but we don't necessarily understand the quality of the data that goes into those metrics or the nature or the algorithms to produce the outcomes of the metrics. i feel like we're at a medieval level in terms of their already described to coders and the great these algorithms and can we all just believe that israel. the solution to that sometimes the solution to that is better day, sometimes the solution is later see and curiosity and asking really hard questions about the nature of the information that's going into these judgments. honestly, i mean there are four -- fair-minded folks who are scientists who if you ask them they will freely admit the nature something like proficiency, that proficiency should never have been legislated for 100% of our

students. that's an absurdity. we define proficiency with reference to a bell curve and the idea that 100% will pass the point, you know it is a laudable ideal but an absurdity in practice. >> i'm going to read your book, but i wonder what examples are younger grades and how to me that seems to be one of the ripest places to start talking to families about this is what your child goes through and this is one way to show what they know. there are other ways. that's i guess my question is about the pushback from the youngest grades, and that my school we have a yearly regular now, gore standard testing, not in kindergarten yet but we feel it into the way sense of what is expected from them.

>> i agree with the. i think that teachers of younger children have a really important role to play in terms of speaking really loud about what science tells us about development of trajectories and individual growth. i believe that the expansion of greek a provides an opportunity talk about what is a high quality school -- reach a some you can believe in the tester you going to get from it for your. there are going to be attempts to introduce standardized assessment to a have been already. the new test for kindergarten admissions in new york city is an academic test with academic because the are included before. it's unlikely to be valid in terms of what it is trying to actually do. but i do believe there is undergo tough counterweight. parents are coming to kindergarten as a toddler in the book, when you have a child everybody tells you children develop at their own break and don't worry about the% of their ad, they will catch up, there's a broad range of normal

development, children are all different, which really is important is that they're driving and happy and then all of a sudden that grinds to halt if you don't learn to rebut time in third grade your denver avenue and a graduate from college. the disconnect is huge and i think you stand right in the middle of the i hope you buy the book and read it and give it to all of the parents. >> nice to meet you. >> thanks to the great writeup. >> i i was reading about this thing that we have in california with the kids where children are in control of their own content because they are children and they put content online and then the ideas that they own their content and they could get rid of it. it's being proposed and other states as well but it is here. however, it doesn't affect what

happens in the rooms of the school. so when kids are taking the test, you know the system knows whether the parents are divorced, weather, you know, they don't really take into account two days are bad days or maybe the kid is going through a tough time or maybe that even so i guess the concern is, and i think there are laws being proposed with regards to including schools but as technology starts coming more into the school system this is a bigger concern, especially with identity theft and misuse or mishandling of information. >> yes. thanks for bringing that up. i mean, this is an enormous issue. it's going to get much bigger before it goes away. it's not just for students that student privacy issues sort of at the forefront of the overall privacy issue that some of the

best minds are working on student privacy because it really matters. california is considered to have the strongest law, the law is potentially a model. there will be a bill introduced in the house tomorrow that has bipartisan sponsorship in the national federal house of representatives that follows on some of what california's law does but not all of it. the student privacy issue isn't just about testing, although testing is an important one because it's consequential information about a student's performance, but i will just lay this out there in terms of the potential issues are. there's different aspects to the data in collected by schools and then by the vendors that they work with, right? so there's security which is my students it will be stolen and misused or inadvertently exposed and misused or used for identity theft or used to make money

somehow. then there is commercialization, which is my students of data will be made available to third party vendor we used to advertise for target -- products. you know it's very difficult to define in some ways improper commercial misuse because you've already, the school has outsourced basic functions to vendors and information that goes into a technical for profit and is going to be is to improve the product itself but it's going to improve like aspects of the product to the more people use the product, like google, the better the product becomes but in some sense we all returned our children's information into commercial gain, and the question is how to limit the harm that or to define or even understand the hard. it's not straightforward. thirdly, most to the point of what were talking about right here is you know privacy of my

students but in a sense the permanent record. information collected on my stoop about my kid is going to be used to make decisions about them. in ways we can't control. and you can see sort of this in an innocuous, not so innocuous way in what's called analytics predictive analytics. predictive analytics, that's what target uses to try to tell you if you are pregnant before you do right? a look at your searches and make conjectures about people in certain places and sell your products. predictive analytics in school is, i look at the data and i have the income kid coming in from hispanic migrant community and is great in middle school, so i believe that they're at risk to drop out. you look at the date and debated decision or predictions about the kid and that prediction could be used to help them, to intervene on their behalf. it also is shaping the belief

about that kid on behalf of any professional that looks at that file right? so this file is following you around and we all know that when teachers are given information about their students, if they are led to believe, for example the students are really gifted, and they treat the students differently, the students achieve more. so what is the impact of having this comprehensive dossier of information on the student that the recount at the bottom says this kid is a potential drop out. and that is the kind of question, the law is so far away from really getting at and even in the court of public opinion there's a lot of division about where is it helpful, where is it harmful, when do we -- should they be able to tear up the record when a graduate? what about the value of that information not personally identifiable as we talk about changing policy to reduce dropping out in general, right?

so it's a very complex and totally fascinating and a little scary as well. or than a little. depends on where you're sitting. can be extremely scary. >> sake of 25 years of the you're on a book tour with the test, the sequel, what would you be talking about? >> that's a great question. i would love to be talking about how the next generation of assessments really open up our eyes to each and every person's capabilities and allowed us that each student will be graduating with a robust record of their own learning, that they controlled and they could use to qualify themselves to a future employer. at our school to be places of collaboration and creativity, but also we are very robust and you could see a student started using dashboard tech information to get great point is to prove that they learned and to get

insight into what really motivates them. if i could magically call up the sum total of all the papers that i wrote in first grade through high school i would have such an interesting record of my own thinking in my own skills as they evolve and my own interest. so the promise and power of data is all about how you use it. >> the khan academy the role not so much of standardized testing, i don't have a deal with that but in learning and competency model mastery. that sounds like what you're talking about for the future. is there some synergy between that model and incorporate that into standardized testing? >> it is and it's a a very odd alliance actually but i'm getting interest in this book from tech companies who believe that they are the ones are going

to reduce the burden of testing but making it invisible. they talk about integrated invisible assist the us talking to a tech company last week and they said they're lobbing a very large state to do an experiment that would do away with state tests in favor of five questions a day. answer five questions a day over the course of the year no anxiety to this is a low stage thing, important and the nature of the question could change from student to student second a more adaptive model of the student learning, really important topics immaterial. you could come in many different types of metadata ways, learn more about what they know. and they are also looking at at a next level to this with a certain set of questions could a teacher create connectivity that would satisfy that question or that construct such that you would have to ask these given questions that you could have a teacher created assessment to supply that information as well. it takes a really, i mean the

path of least resistance and software doesn't necessarily make for better teaching and learning but when you get the these kind of went onto a problem as long as you these humanistic might at the same time the teachers and the learners who are close to it, i think there's interesting potential there. >> i just realize a lot of this is about how much can i know but it's not how much are you teaching me to think on how much are you using it to see what i'm saying? to think about it this way and in this way and then find out how you did and then bring that in pic is there anything that is developing that part? >> so in atmospheres of unlimited racers, test critters have been incredibly creative with coming up that type of patty were talking about and rubrics to define what that means. what i mean by unlimited resources, the oss in world war

ii just a bigot who was going to be a good spot right? they created -- there was one where someone had to build a box and they had two helpers. one of the helpers was an incompetent stooge and the other was a jerk. they had wood and tools and was incredibly stressful and those people, like very few people ever complete the task in the time allotted and the test is like could do not lose your cool and completely will on either one of the other person? you had to come up with a cover story and keep up with the entire four days. they're all kinds of creative challenges within the test. again with the performance assessment, if you integrate them like you can't imagine that happening in the context of state mandated tests for a couple weeks a year and much of a crazy like, i don't know the site those trying to produce a nation of spies.

but if you integrate teaching and learning and the teachers are engaged as part of the assessment as part of the process in every lesson and christians as well and they're integrating their own self reflection, i think that's an important key. i was struck by a student being prompted reflect on the old, how they got where they got them talk about the process and then give feedback to their peers. that was a really big part of it. you can make students do that and i can be part of the outcomes you were trying to assess and create for sure. >> is there anything you learned in the process of writing this book that changes the way you as a parent, changed the way you deal with your daughter, anyway at all? >> is a really great question. i was inclined in distraction anyway but i think i've been led

even more to downplay sort of her intellectual growth in favor of a social and emotional growth because i think that i just know, like many things i learned and this might be helpful to any of you who have kids who are educated people, as you appear to be if you and your partner and you have a partner and they both went to college chances that your kid doesn't graduate college is personal. your kid is way, way ahead start. private school doesn't make much of a difference once you figure from income to there's almost no difference. a very large book was written by great researcher called the public school advantage which argued based on masked performance the public schools on hold due much better because the teachers are better trained. so it can negatively affect your child is anxiety around the process of schooling and achievement and the fact that in our 21st century world the

achievement ladder gets narrower and narrower at the top to there so much inequality, so much space between 1% and the 001% the it freaks parents out in terrible competitive ways. and so that's what i strive to work on as a parent to say okay where am i really not making space or make it to develop socially and emotionally integrate her as happy as she can be so our home is a refuge, and loving books and loving ideas and indulge their natural curiosity is a huge part of that, but so is opting out of the madness that is attached to what looks like a really great gold which is getting the best possible education for your kids kids. that we will see she is only three. >> that was a pretty great one

to end on. thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> virginia governor terry mcauliffe will talk about the importance of early childhood education. live coverage of the center for american progress at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. here are some of her future programs for this weekend on the c-span networks.

>> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and key public policy events, and every weekend booktv now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2 created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service by your local

cable or sunlight provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow was on twitter. political independence met in the city last month. we will have from jackie salit who wrote independence rising. the committee for a unified independent party hosted this event. >> please welcome to the stage the chairman of united independence of illinois and board member of independent voting.org david cherry along with the sought after polls strategist and author ahmed independent movement when they joined forces to get mike bloomberg elected mayor of new york city, doug schoen. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> jackie salit of them on the front lines of the independent movement before people realized it was possible to have indeed been movement in america.

i am proud to have worked with her for 25 of those years. as a colleague and also as one of her students, just taken the movement from a party-based movement as it was during the reform party days to move beyond parties, to organizing and empowering independence without a political party. and grading new tools for the exercise of power and bringing people together across ideological lines. for 30 years she has been willing to speak out against any kind of effort to cripple or subdue the indeed been movement. whether it came from a republican a democrat or even an independent. here's a quick look back at just a few of those moments.

>> the reform party is a shame but it is a show. >> is the attitude that calls the reform party a shame it's that kind of attitude that inspires millions more every single day to become involved. >> it doesn't matter what the attitude is. >> it does because that's the dismissive attitude -- >> what's the program? >> but a lot of people in the progressive movement including of the "nation" magazine who are concerned about the possibility of a left center-right coalition that is populist, that breaks up the old coalitions your magazine recently ran an article attacking the buchanan sit down with doctor lenora fulani, a leading figure because you are concerned about populist left-right coalition is going to too much of an appeal to your constituents and to the base of the democratic party. i think you should be afraid. >> progresses just don't have the full clout.

without compromising any of the principles they can enter into these ad hoc alliances, fine that's the only way they will prevail for the time being spent i think if you make a mistake, make an important and significant error when you focus on using independent politics as a mechanism to quote-unquote move the democratic party to the left when in fact what the left has to do is get out of the democratic party out of the confines of political correctness and go to the american people. >> brad, you are a member of the tea party. >> what do you think? >> i'm a member of the anti-party which is about what 40% of the country is today. [applause] >> kind introduction and thank you for having me to your biannual conference yet again. i said to kathy stewart that

this has become a growing, and i daresay, enduring pleasure for me to have a chance to introduce jackie salit. i say a growing pleasure because as a political consultant, you're supposed to be -- you're supposed to advise, you're supposed to be all knowing. and the truth of the matter is that jackie has been one of my teachers, too. i begin in this i think introduction suggested, as someone who was working with mike bloomberg. it was a fusion effort. it was republicans and independents party, workers and advocates in 2001 eric and lo and behold what we learn in that election, and this is a statistical fact is that mike bloomberg would not have been elected mayor without votes on the independent party line. and i think that he governed for

most of the 12 years when heyor as effectively as an independent mayor. everything that is due in large measure and insubstantial amount to the work of the independence party in general and jackie salit personally. i say jackie has been and remains a teacher of mine because there is a huge huge agenda that you will be discussing today, and that people like jackie all of you and i daresay me, have been working on the yes, open primary. yes, political reform. and yes, recognizing that the largest single political grouping in america according to gallup, and david said, our independence. didn't used to be that way but as we sit here today, so for north of 40% 42 43% are independents. limits a couple of other things about jackie personal because i

think this is particularly import. i don't have to say or make clear to anyone in this room how tough it is to be an integrated. what i've said to people as i poured all over the world and the toughest country in the world that i found to work outside the boundaries of the established parties is the united states of america, and that is very very sad but all too true. and jackie has been a leader for the 30 odd years she's been involved in opening up the process. she is unique in that she is a compassionate, giving and loyal person. she is a thoughtful person and she sees the big picture. she is someone who is able to discuss grassroots politics coalitions, and the larger challenges of the movement your there is an effort in this country to open up the political process of open primaries, a

little corporate form and in terms of calm pain -- campaign contributions also registered as well, so the party leaders did not take advantage of their inherent advantages in areas legislatures to rig things against the people. i have never been more optimistic about the urgency and necessity for reform and now and i am frankly completely completely convinced that with the work of people like jackie, success will be achieved if not this year, in the future. the one thing that this attendance on a rainy day in the winter shows, as it has before, is that the commitment of independents is a strong as it's ever been if not stronger. one final word. in hearing people's biographies and hearing people's commitment

to independent politics many having left established parties i am left with one thought which i think is a seminal force. nobody would have had the commitment they have the success they have had and the interest and passion but for the leadership of jackie salit. i consider myself someone to have benefited enormously in the lecture, personally and professionally from my friend who i'm proud, i was going to stay indoors but indoors and introduce, jackie salit. thank you very much. [applause] ♪ a ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> thank you. it's great to see you all. thank you. isn't that cool? you just walk somewhere and someone brings you a chair. [laughter] great to see all the. thank you so much for being here and i'm so glad were going to get to spend this time together today. before i start though i just wanted to thank sarah lyons and her team for putting that beautiful video together. [applause] wow out america there it was,

there was. it was the also looking at the clip of myself, i hadn't seen them for a really long time until the south pulled them out for this purpose and that was kind of cool. and the first one actually one where i'm arguing with john i kind of liked that that one for a couple of reasons. one, it was my first national television appearance since i was ms. bosco on the bozo the clown show last -- [laughter] for those of you of an appropriate age was a very popular television show in the late '60s and '70s. bozo the clown. i was on that show and i was ms. bosco and it got to drink a glass of chocolate milk on national television. which was fun but i realize of course afterward that it was

great training for the later part of my career, because i had no idea how many bozos i was going to be on television with. [applause] so that was good. but the other thing is that india parents with john, which is was in the '90s john was you get a little sample of the john was very, very worked up on the show and i was responded to it but this was before as i said, it was my first appearance on national tv and i hadn't yet learned that what you do when someone comes at you in an adversary comes at you and attacks you is that you basically kicked him in the teeth and then you smile the i hadn't learned that smile part yet, so you can see i'm kind of very grim and the. but in the fox piece which came about 20 years later, you see, i

say i'm in the anti-party, ha ha. so i learned how to smile at the end. but the fox piece, i'm glad that was up here because the fox piece actually captured something about kind of a turning point in the movement which david cherry referenced in his introduction to me about the shift from party-based organizing the organizing independents without a political party, but as a force, as a lever against the defects and the dysfunction, and frankly, the inhumanity of the political system as it is curly organize and-based of course in the two parties. and blood we have seen over the last 20 years has been a very very steady growth in the size

of the number of independents in this country your as doug and david of course referenced this, in the year 2000 i think the percentage of americans who consider themselves independent was about 35%. as of today it is about 42%. and that number is in my view and i think in the view of a lot of people, is a very meaningful number. it's a very meaningful phenomena, and we've seen of course as the size of the independent voter bloc has grown, one of the things that happened in response to that at least initially is an attempt but a lot of the powers that be to minimize that or to paint a picture that suggests that that's really not that meaningful or not that significant, the fact that 42% of the country have this line in

terms of how they identify themselves and how they put forward what they take to be their own legal principle. a lot of the political establishment has tried to belittle that and ensure that a way, if you will you know, and that's taken the form of everything from, 42% of the country might say they're independently do not really independents because when it comes to the election time, they vote for democrats or republicans. they never managed to point out that in most elections that's the only choice that people have have. but i think that that fact, that fact of political life in america which just simply does not go away no matter how much the parties or the political professionals or the media tried to marginalize it were painted as something that is casual or does not have real political and

historic significance for the country, don't matter how much that goes on those numbers and that movement continue to take hold. and while it's not the case yet that this phenomenon, is in deep end and this alignment has developed into a full-blown american sea change a full-blown movement that's able to create and move an agenda to change the culture of politics, that hasn't happened yet. that's what we're working on. but i do see, this is part of what i want to share with you briefly this morning, i do see a growing number of situations and circumstances and complex if you will, that are going on around the country that i think are important because they show

that as much as the political establishment might want to try to put the genie back in the bottle they can't your they can't do it. so for example, just to give you just a low bit of a sense of what i'm talking about, we all know of course that in california the voters and the great wisdom in their 2010 voted to transform the election system in the state of california and they enacted a top two system in california. for those of you who are not for me with all the technicalities of the different systems, with the california system basically does what the voters basically did is said look, here's the fun of principle that we're going to operate with. the fundamental principle of the electoral process has to be that every voter has full access to every stage of the political

process without having to join a political organization as a condition for entry into the legal process. and so the top two system was adopted in california in order to enforce that principle and that became the law of the land in california. i see some of my california friends in the audience today and that was a huge huge victory. [applause] and so naturally as you might imagine when the system was fast and then implemented immediately all of our players try to a drought what they were going to do about it. could be overturned it? could they punch holes in it? could they cut some kind of deal that would ameliorate the effect of the? everyone has been busy trying to do that and that's good. that's good. my thing about that is bring it

on, baby, because let's have the conversation, let's have the fight, let's deal with the issues let's break it down. but most of all let's do that in such a way so that we can bring the people of california, the people of america all the people into the process of saying what kind of democracy we want to have. that's our job. that's our job. [applause] show in california i want to share this with you, this kind of tickled the a little bit. recently the university of california, berkeley journal of politics and policy came out with their february edition, and the entire addition was devoted to an analysis of the impact of top to. and so they published 15 articles written by 18 political scientists, and let me just say that generally speaking, the

attitude of these political scientists towards this new system was not sympathetic. not sympathetic. i wanted to share with you just a few of the titles of the article because i really got a kick out of this, and they're kind of scary to these are like political scientist. if you even buy the idea that there is a science, that political scientists are experts in, which i don't, but anyway, i find it entertaining to read her stuff. so they came up with like scary titles. top two too soon to tell. why the top two primary fails california voter. it was my favorite. is california's top two primary bad for women candidates? guess what the answer was? [laughter] but as i say, this is a good thing, this is a good thing,

it's good to bring these issues out to it's good for the opposition to have to put their cards out on the table. it's good for us to have to argue why this system is a better system for the voters, for the people of this country. that's part of what i want us to talk about today in the panels were holding. we have some incredible leaders with incredible expertise and vast experience in community organizing and holding public office, in fighting for democracy and political reform, and fighting as outsiders and fighting as insiders. and they really want to use this time and use their experience to dig deeper into these issues because i think they are so very important. but i think about this though i really want you to understand is that part of what happens when you open these issues up, when you bring them out into the public square is that people are forced to take positions on things and actually did throw

them off their game. they get thrown off their game. that shows you in my view, the power of what it is that we are doing, the power and importance of focusing on structural political change because it doesn't fit into the traditional ideological category. it really scuttles the conventional political wisdom. and so it forces people to do things that get them off their game. so one example of this is that after the california pieces came out and the number of folks who are ardent supporters and defenders of top two wrote pieces that were published in the papers that refuted what the uc berkeley journal said and this provoked a lot more conversation from a lot of different places including a very, very histrionic response from a guy named marcus who is

the founder of something called daily costs which is considered like a radical left wing of the democratic party. so here's what happened within. he wrote an article criticizing top two, and he said, here's the basic thing that is wrong with top two. top two promise that is going to deliver a more moderate legislature, but it didn't. and so now we know that it is a bad system. so i was very perplexed by this on several counts. first, because top two actually doesn't promise a more moderate legislature. some people might advocate for on the basis but that's not the promise of top two. but the second thing and the most important thing is that daily kos has made its entire

political career based on saying that the democratic party is to moderate. that's their whole political message. so now for them to turn around and to say oh we don't like top two because it's supposed to make things more moderate and it didn't make things more moderate, you can say wait a second what do you want with the one moderate or do not want moderate? what are you going for? the reason i think it is important in the reason i should this story which is that this is an example of how make this case, a particular political player being thrown off their game, the existing categories don't apply. you can't invoke the same things, the same argument, the same levels of political appeal. you can't invoke those things because top two, open primaries redistricting reform, the whole gamut of political change elements that our movement is interested in and let me say by the way that there is a broad

section of issues that people bring to the table on the structural political reform front and that's good. not everybody agrees with everybody on these issues and we will see some of that in some of our panels today but everything that's a good thing. that's a good thing. i'm happy about that. i want to have open and honest and direct dialogue about all of these issues. these are important issues for our country. but the thing just about this is that the way that our movement grows, and perhaps this is maybe the corps message that i want to give you today, is that it grows because changing the game is not something that happened up here. something that happens in the real crucible, in the real day-to-day life into new political battles and the new political conflicts that are unfolding in this country. that's how the game changes.

in the state of mississippi some of you know this story in the state of mississippi, the open primary system through politics into total turmoil in the last election. why? well mississippi is an open primary state and it happens to be controlled by the republicans, okay? in the last election come in the midterm election, the u.s. senate race was up and the incumbent u.s. senator thad cochran, a republican, was challenged by tea party candidate chris mcdaniel in the primary and did not receive enough votes to win republican nomination without a runoff. so that race went to a runoff in mississippi. and so the race was between that a cop in a somewhat moderate republican senator and they tea party, very very social conservative candidate from the far right.

so what happened in that situation? well, cochran and his people, smartly, when out to the black leadership in mississippi and they said, you know what we want to come to you and make an appeal to you to bring out black voters in this election come in this runoff election in support of senator cochran. and use the fact that there's an open primary in the state and that anybody can vote in this runoff. you don't have to be a number of the republican party because it's an open primary. anybody can vote in this runoff. bring this community into this election to defeat the far right. we will expand our support for the things we're trying to bring into the african-american community to deal with issues that you are concerned with but usual political mobility to defeat the right. and that's what happened. in that election. that's what happened because it was an open primary.

now, i am not sitting here abdicating for that cochran or any such thing he's not exactly my cup of tea but probably more than the tea party is my cup of tea but we will leave that open for discussion. the point is that the situation has now gotten everybody in mississippi into an uproar. oh, myoh, my god, this thing happened it was supposed to happen. voters were supposed to vote over here went over to encode and produced a certain outcome that wasn't expected. voters did something that they were not supposed to do but in this case african-american voters do something other than vote for a democrat. oh, my god. world is changing. the world is changing. that's right and one of the reasons that we advocate and work so hard for political reforms that opened up the political process is that we want to give voters and we want to give communities the opportunity to do something

different, to use their power to use their vote to create different kinds of outcomes to upset the apple cart, to change the game and to make it a case that the politicians and the parties can no longer rely on the conventional wisdom to determine how they run elections, how they govern, and that they represent the people of this country. that has got to change. [applause] i got a call from a reporter at politico a few weeks ago, and he wanted to talk to me about a whole set of things are going on where they were challenges to open primaries in the states that have open primaries. and we're talking about aunt hannah mississippi tennessee, hawaii, alabama, south carolina

kind of a whole lot of things. and we talked about things, you know basically of some right wing elements of the republican party try to get that primaries closed in certain states and a dedication to join the party in order to participate in the primary. democrats are doing that in some places. anyway, so we are having this conversation he's asking all these questions and then filling in in and find he says look you know, here's what i don't understand. what i don't understand about this about this seeming aggressiveness and acceleration of aggressiveness on the part of the parties against independents, what i don't understand is that it seems to me that what's been happening other than california and washington state that every time an open primary initiative is put on the ballot whether it was here in new york or in arizona in 2012 or in oregon

twice, whatever goes on about what, it loses. the independents and the reformers get between 30-35% of the vote and it loses. so he says to me, well, you know given that come how come they are being so aggressive? they are winning this at the ballot box. how can you are being so aggressive? so i said to them you know, that is such a good question because it really, really goes to the heart of the matter. it takes time to build a movement that can perform in certain ways at the ballot box. it takes time take development it takes history to make that happen. but i think the reason that the parties are being so aggressive in this regard is that they know

that the american people are on to them. they know that the dissatisfaction that they are seeing in the polling, we all know the numbers of how people feel about congress and how, you know, the lowest rating ever in the history, you know, 9% of people think congress is doing you know, all that kind of stuff. they know, my opinion they know that it's not just about what's happening at the ballot box right now, or what's showing up in the polls right now. they know that. they know that the dysfunction of the american political system is something that the american people are deeply, deeply

concerned about. deeply concerned about. and in my opinion they are trying to take steps to push back against that sensibility that feeling that movement that movement becoming a movement. i read a wonderful book that was written in the 1950s called the origins of modern science by this guy herbert butterfield to i was introduced to him from the founder of our movement. i read this book by butterfield and to talk about scientific revolution. and he talks about how a very misunderstood part of the scientific revolution was that the feelings of masses of people in the world were changing in terms of their understanding of how the world was put together.

and this is a little understood part of the scientific, not just about a bunch of smart guys in the room coming up with and understand about the circulatory system actually works. i think some of these impulses is helpful to me when i read this because i think some of these impulses that drove the scientific revolution, that since that the way we think about and see the world is inadequate to what the world is actually becoming. i think that impulse in the scientific revolution is also driving, if you will, a political revolution in america today, a sense on the part of the american people from all walks of life from all different communities with a range of different concerns, a sense that the way we are doing this, the way we are seeing is is inadequate to the challenges

that we face as a country. i think that the parties and the powers that be, they don't understand it completely, i think you understand, i think they have a sense that there is a momentum, that there is a process, that there is a developmental consideration of how our country is organized politically, and they need to make profound structural and cultural changes in debt. i believe they see that. [applause] so i want to move to our panel and bring some speakers income but i want to close this section of just sharing some my own thoughts with you in the following way. i'm very, very glad and feel

very, very welcoming of there's numbers of people have come to the conference this year who are considering bringing initiatives for top two onto the ballot in their states or and i'm so excited that you are here and that you are coming not just to this event but to this community of activists and leaders to learn and to talk about what you were doing. i think that's so important to i wanted to see if i could should maybe just a little bit of my own experience or wisdom or beliefs with you. when you start to do these campaigns, keep this in mind. i know you're going to like you are bringing your pollster. you bringing your consultant the you bring in your communications guy. you bring in your specialist. you bring in your database

people. you crunch the numbers. you test the slogans. go for it. but, but you cannot get across the finish line without bringing the movement with you. [applause] you must bring the movement with you. that is, that's the element that's the push that's the foundation, that's the moral compass. that is the base of making these kinds of changes. so do all the analysis that you want to do and crunch all the numbers that you want to crunch all good, all good. the people in this room and the millions of people that the people in this room represent you are the folks that are going

to make a change. so thank you for all of you do your you are my inspiration. let's get to work. [applause] unified independent party conference. in a moment the panel will look at the political system's ability to solve problems like poverty, health care and low voter turnout. we will airport about the role of independent voters. >> hello everyone. stud hi jacqui. >> hello, jackie. >> all right. let's get to it here. all right, we took a very big topic for this discussion. the title of this discussion, this panel is can democracy transform the social crisis? this is obviously a very big and

important question for the country and for us. here's what i wanted to do. i wanted to see if i could ask each of you to share some thoughts on the following question. anytime of the social crisis that we are living through, poverty is on the rise joblessness, hopelessness is on the rise, young people are having a terrible time finding their way into careers and into the mainstream. there's a huge housing problem, the education crisis, police committee relations, violence. we saw just a few examples of some of what we are dealing with here. sometimes when that goes on windows kinds of conditions go on they can make people more conservative. and by conservative i mean more

frightened and more feeling that they have to hold on to what already exists because it's too risky to consider certain kinds of change, even though they also want changed and they feel that change is so critical and needed your that they are torn in some ways because the conditions of life can be so difficult. so i wanted to start by asking each of you to talk about that from your vantage point, from your experience are the difficulties that our communities and the american people in different ways are facing, is that acting as a brake on certain kinds of political changes? ..

better register a nice independent. that is having an effect appeared in business we see a whole change taking place as well because there is now a new technologies and information new systems people can operate. organizations are now becoming flatter. you are watching the rise of what is now the exponential organization that are being pushed and promoted, oftentimes through crossers in types of efforts. steve jobs said the reason that they went is because they put

ideas over hierarchy. that seemed to me to be exactly what has to happen in politics. the idea that what we need is a system that promotes ideas instead of the existing system that squelches them, but it stops there. the system is built on higher. it is built around power and ensures groups have a disproportionate voice inside the system than people do. those changes are again happening organically the political system is way behind the political curve. >> yeah, tio. >> that is what is going on here in america. when you say you know what, we need to stop the bickering and get the job done. when i ran for governor, i want to say a lot of my friends said this guy has to be crazy to run for governor.

i took care of business. i visited every wal-mart in the state of illinois and the majority has voters i talked to her independent voters. they said it's time for a change. i secured 125000 votes and i spent my own money. was a lot of money but the people will tell you they took on my campaign. this is the key right here in my opinion, anyway. in illinois right now 80% african american males between 16 and teen or unemployed and nobody wants to address the issue. i put that on my platform. another statistic out there. 85% of homicides take place in chicago, the african-american community. nobody talks about police brutality. i made that one of my platform issues as well. they take on those issues that they are going to do something about it because it's an

enormous issue to take on. as an independent i like what you said. since i know a lot of people i got $50000 for citizens myself. [applause] that is what it has come down to for me. >> so i think what we are answering is the anti-democracy potentially on the social crises. i've been thinking about that a lot. the first time i voted, i voted for nancy ross and i were running for governor and i was running for lieutenant governor. i've never been in a voting booth in my life. but where i had been was from a

small town in pennsylvania. i grew up work my family is poor, the city is for and more poor people exist and are coming to be poor in this country. and so i think it is so critical for poor people and people who are not poor to care about poverty to come together around the issue of strengthening our democracy. to me that has nothing whatsoever to do with who gets elected because people get elected information that have created the poverty. they don't care about it. they don't want anything to do about it. they don't even really talk about poverty in this country. so i think we have to continually deepen people's understanding about the relationship between these two

and i think the african-american community has a role to play in not because objectively we've been taught the reason we are poor. [applause] i think there is no way to engage these issues unless they come together in which people are doing to create an environment where voting is a thinkpad clock back and i will take over for the environmental means because that is what we are all suffering from. the more dysfunction has become clear.

from the background i come from participation is what makes the difference in my mind. there is very little flexibility reward in the wrong things right now. i remember the fdr quote. so it is about giving the leaders that want to be good leaders. they don't want to be good leaders because they want to undermine people. prosperity is something everybody will say they want. i actually believed them. talking about the feeling that risk. and your ability to be creative

and for me to care about -- when i care about you and you care about me and we are having a conversation about how to solve a problem and the solution to when i don't trust you, i don't like you and all of a sudden you get these adversarial solutions. that frankly are terrible. we have the most expensive health care system in the world per capita and we are not in the top 10 and outcomes. we are not in the top 20 in outcomes. how in the world do we achieve that. first we have to do it ourselves. we're not all what we want to see and we have that kind i want

to meet your needs. you want to meet my needs. the outcomes are dramatically better than we might even get to come up with something better to come up with. [applause] >> it just speaks to the existing architecture of the system is designed to keep people out. it just is. it is a design in a way that is just exclusive. if you go to arizona independents now make up about 85%, the largest organized or unorganized group, however you would like to see it. the republican senate democrats. yet if you run for governor in arizona, you need 6000 signatures. any 7000 if you're republican. in a 39000 if you're an independent. if you end up on the ballot, you are always last on the list. the others rotate. if you need a voter lists, you

have to know how to communicate with voters. it's $100000 if you want to run as an independent. last, this is the one that is crazy to me that in 1994 we pass an effort that allows independent involved in an initiative backed and that allowed independents to vote in the two primaries. the parties are trying to close this out. one of the things they've done is they've also said we have an automatic early voting list. you automatically in the list if you ended up on it the year before. if you are an independent, you have to reregister every single time in the primary, meaning the rules are rigged. they are rigged to keep those -- that group of people out. amongst hispanics is the largest group, and this is the largest voter suppression effort that we've seen in the country.

if this had been happening in the south, we would've seen it back in the 1960s. instead, today we ignore it. we are not paying attention to the fact that there's a large group of voices who today are being silenced because of the architecture system. [applause] >> let me see if i can pick up on this because in the first round here part of what i hear everyone describing in different ways is there is a set of things that have become intractable in this country intractable poverty intractable conditions that produce violence intractable systems in the political sphere that don't

allow people to participate. it's almost as if things are frozen in place and everything is allowed to be only the name that it already is. how do we break through that? >> in my opinion, you have to organize independents once again and present the solution to a degree. when i ran for governor, at the same time there's a lot of enemies, too. these are some radio stations. it appears they were on the payout for the other politicians. they would let me get on some of the shows to advocate for haddock at illinois. so it is difficult because like

you talked about they had a system so it will take the multitudes of people to continue organizing with the issue. we have enough independence throughout america to make them amazing and it will take a real leader from the independents. to push that agenda. the same way that people are organizing in missouri, we need an independent organizing effort at second to none puts the agenda on the independents because they need to be heard status quo politicians that oppose their policies were we won't gain any traction. that is what i would like to add. [applause] >> one of the things that is obviously entrap the bull is our relationships to each other. people in this country are so divided and somebody over time make sure that continues to happen.

to me, why democracy can impact the social crises is because for me what democracy is his power for the people. we have to take ourselves seriously as the people who have to produce that. so many things like the way in which poverty is understood and organized in america keeps us. i have been speaking to a lot more white poor people over the last couple of years and i say to them, you are poor. the thing that you have going for you is the government says at least you are not black. but that does not feed your children. that is until the crises as you work to come to terms with that. we have to do something about that. and what that means is people have to come together and work in ways to transform and we have

to have honest conversations about what is happening in this country and in our world. i spent hours teaching the black and latino community individually and overall. and it is poor. that is not a personal position. it has come about as a result and our nation and the abandonment by so many different institutions. discourse think everything is a mass. to the degree that we accept that and we can cross those lines that exist between a and white people in other people which is what the independent movement has done so well, but it has to grow at the bottom around these issues also. i think we could transform america and that is what we should be working on. [applause]

>> did she want to speak on this? >> is a great, i am thinking systematically when you think about the different communities you're talking now. the conversations are specifically designed with an increasingly self segregated community. when i asked my progressive friends to cohost a conversation and they say no i don't and can't know any conservatives. i live in berkeley. but you know, there's a lot -- >> so does my daughter. [laughter] >> but you know that is a terrible thing to say that we have had that much division and

we know that when people with like minds talk about initiatives they get more blind about the u.n. that is part of what has been happening to us. we are living in separate narrative streams. when i talk about an issue with some of my conservative friends sometimes our facts are different. they are very different. and that makes it very hard for as to have a good discussion on solutions. so the conversation this indication to start reconnecting and at the core of this initiative one small simple tool about making a human connection. no people think it is the intellect guidance and their emotions that guide us.

so when i like you, i hear what you say and has a lot more. i am more likely to remember it. i am more likely to believe you. and i am more likely to be sitting there trying to figure things out with you in a way that will try and make you happy. so if we can just start having relationships then our potential for solving all of these issues about the arizona structure. i bet you people across the board would say hey, that is not fair. i would like to change that. but we are sending up flags all of the time. this is the tribe by a man. if you're not in the tribe in your careful about what you say and you don't really get real and this is a self-fulfilling

prophecy as they find ourselves drifting apart. my hope is as an independent you have the decider to be part of the democracy and help heal it. you guys are in a wonderful position to say we are going to be part of this and we are going to be a healing part of this conversation and democracy. [applause] >> in 2016 we have to be at ground zero on this issue and would love to have you in their neighborhoods having those conversations. just to give you a sack and on how structure affects the minds of elected officials. let me give you an example i was involved with. the minds of elected officials because at the end of the day, that is what we are talking about. scary thought. [laughter] i became mayor in 29, but before

i was mayor of us on the city council. i grew up in the second highest poverty this day. i didn't have the great fortune of having terrific parents and nine brothers and sisters. nonetheless, i came from a poor area and i ran in a taster was pretty much an affluent area. i won by knocking on doors, and meeting people one at a time i knocked and 80000 doors over a period of 12 and i met with people. iran and a a nonpartisan election. so democrat, republican and independent. they had an effect on how i thought. i met many good republicans during the race who had issues that were important to bad and their businesses and structures and things that they cared about and it had an influence on me. when i became mayor at 29 or so there is a governor named bruce babbitt. we passed a martin luther king

day and our governor, bruce babbitt, passed it by an executive order at the state level. there was a republican primary with a bruised left, with figures that primary. many people thought a moderate fellow is going to win. but instead have been was there was an extreme individual by the name of alvin maker who pulled out of the primary race. it was pretty much said to win the general election. when he got into office the first thing he did, first thing i'm going to do is get rid of the martin luther king day. and then he began to make comments. these comments you can not them up, they are all real comments and i know them personally because i was mayor at the time and i had to do with them across the country. when i was a young guy black people like to call it a good nannies. he made the comment that he would hire a black man and he was the best person for the job.

he says yeah, omnipotent, but does he speak english? he went to issue his convention and told them they have to be happy that they live in a nation that people don't do to them things other people have done in the world. that was radical. when he got rid of martin luther king day, we went to the voters and put it on the ballot. he came back and put it on the exact stand but a different date. he was successful in doing it but that's okay because we did it again. i organize business leaders. i spoke to people on the other side. i listen to people who didn't think exactly how i thought and because of that we could build a coalition. arizona, the only state in the nation that was passed by a majority of its citizens. i'm very proud of that. [applause] the same electorate voted in as

they meet them. think about that. in arizona today we do with issues where they have a paper on my bill passed by the legislature that says you can go to jail if you don't have your paper struck down by the u.s. supreme war. we had another issue that said you could legally discriminate against gay. it goes on and on about what comes out of our legislators that is far right wing. they don't represent the arizona voter. they represent the 4% of people who show up in a republican primary in our state. the key is for arizona, for us to break out of that aim to give a voice to the majority of the voters to make certain that you change the architecture. but here is what is even more important. you cannot get people to understand poverty unless you are willing to understand, or spirit you cannot get people to

understand how to fix problems until you understand the importance of working together. a nonpartisan system in my opinion is meant to facilitate communication between all sides said that we can do those things important to move our society forward. [applause] >> let me see if i can dig a little deeper on what you are saying here. let's talk about democracy and poverty. let's go right at this question and let's talk about it. how in your view -- how does expanding democracy at this point in america put us in a better position to engage the issue of poverty? how do you see that both a political level, a moral level

and also a practical level. how do we bring those issues together? >> one thing is in 2005 when michael bloomberg ran for mayor in new york city we were from his campaign on the independent party line of the republican line. bloomberg got 50% of the black vote. nobody has ever gotten 50% of the black vote in the last 20 or 30 years unless they were democrats. and so, it was phenomenal. so we went to bed that night -- i went to bed that night, silly me, thinking i would wake up in the morning and this would be front-page news. like i could not wait. not one media outfit including the city nobody acknowledged that 50% of the black community had gone out of voted for an independent. we got the vote primarily on the independent party line. so i think the reason for that

is because the announcement comes hand-in-hand with the fact you can step outside of your box. you can do something different and you can reorganize yourself in such a way in the political arena that you have power and the people who run the city were determined that they were not going to convey that. and with power you do the things you need to impact on. people in the city currently for the whole season has been living and there has been no heat. so that is a political issue. that has to do with people knowing you can stand up and say you've got to turn on the seat or whoever you are in the arena remember your income in the area we are in, we are not going to vote for you. there's a whole host of things that would be taken on if in fact we continue to build people's sensibilities involvement emergence and

growth and importance of democracy in the relationship between democracy and voting and changing our lives. but we have to work on that because now there is that relationship because the same people get elected and they do not think that the people freeze enemies apartments because they are trying to freeze them out. [applause] >> i just want to add another so why talk about the political structure. we need independent candidates to have the opportunity to participate in debate to put those issues on the table. governor pat quinn commanded 28% of the state though. he would not go out with a guy like me because i'm different and i'm not worried about being politically correct. when i put the issues on the table of a stake the minds of people. he couldn't survive the debate with me either because his

experience is different than my is different. we can present issues where people have experienced right now and solutions based on my expertise anyway. one of the solutions is making sure we had open primaries with independent process. a lot of them are being overlooked. the word is independent because of the structure. quit leave about politics right now and i'm speaking on behalf of what is going on with african-american leadership in chicago right now. believe it or not what happened with my election i want 30 counties downstate. i had more problems with my own people than i had with everybody else. in chicago african-american leaders came together to knock an african-american lady of the ballot. she stood a chance to really

make a big difference in chicago. so now what they are doing is they are supporting -- [inaudible] i know chewie personally, but we represent 47% of the boats in chicago but we could never come together to support the african american qualified candidate. this is not about the race. when you have a voting bloc like that you need to use it to your advantage. as soon as they came together to the most qualified african-american female so once again the system is playing a role and we have so many issues in chicago. not just african-americans. poverty, immigration and transmitted diseases on the rise in the african-american community. so many things happening. we need someone to represent the people sincerely. that is where independents come in.

[applause] >> i think that we can't rely on the two-party systems did they do have our debates. we have to take our debates to the street. we have to recognize people to participate in that because they are never going to let us then. the only way we are going to be in is if we change where anna is. and it's on the street. if i was going to take this because voter turnout is not good and the number of that are participating or particularly the younger you are come the less likely you are to participate. i rest in california did it the other day that had 18 and 19 year olds, someone quoted as saying more 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds got got arrested then voted last year. that is just horrifying.

when you are trying to change the issues of poverty one of the top causes of the poverty spells in this country is the birth of a child. people that are incredibly overwhelmed already with their lives. it is hard to ask them to vote when they don't see anything happening. we've got to convince people that voting is the way to show up and other forms of participation we have to be able to have the voices. i think young people -- i think that young people don't vote because they are not stupid. [applause] what i really think they are saying to us if you have not put

something in place where my voice can be expressed and heard. you don't even have to be young. there are lots of people who don't vote because nothing transformed. i think we have to focus on finding ways for people to make voting something that you do because it's going to transform the world. we have to teach people how to be political in ways that allows for them to stand up and speak on behalf of themselves and participate in what we are trying to do which is to change with the political system looks like. i know that there is this notion that lack people and latino people and white people are poor because we have babies. we are not poor because we have babies. we are poor because we have not been led into a system to function. even if you don't have a baby if you can't read if you can't

go to school if you're not a part of it it doesn't work. if you are poor and you live in the community and stand on the street corner long enough because there isn't that much to do, which is why we built this all-stars program you will get pregnant. [applause] >> the basic story about a quarter -- a huge number of people fall out of the middle class when they have babies. but i'm saying we have people entering in a way that is growing. our growing population of non-middle-class in poverty is a huge problem. we want to have everybody become middle class. we have a huge bias against

mothers in the work place and against single mothers in particular. >> i love you. i just don't want to blame our social crisis on babies. >> if you have a bias against mothers then you have a bias against babies. single moms can make 60 cents to the equally qualified man's dollar. we have a problem because we are making things hard on women who have babies and children. and that is one of the things we have to correct. that is part of what i'm debated about. we don't hate mothers. most of us have had -- we have how many mothers here? [cheers and applause] how many people have mothers?

that is kind of it. >> do you want to get in on the bond issue? i am clearly pro-choice on the bond issue. well, here is what i would tell you a boost on the poverty issue that seems to make sense to me. i think the solution is somebody somebody -- it is a recognition that we are not really divided. i watch what is happening in our country with the tea party movement, which is mainly co-opted by the republican party. their message seems to be one that says the real problem is government. the government has created the problems we have and we need to remove government and our problem would be fixed. on the other side, the occupied movement, which in many parts as the bright democratic parties to

say that government is not the problem but it's the private sector, the corporate sector. here is my answer. we become the mightiest nation may be in the history of the planet and we did so for a process that does both of them are wrong. let's start with government. government played a key role in building infrastructure in our educational system in loading up the ability for people to participate. it passed regulations that were important to commerce. civil rights rules, women and minorities to have been helpful to our economy. on the other side the private sector are creating products. products are shipping around the world. things like this that are changing our quality of life. effectively, both are important. i went to nicaragua were assessed to give a speech on poverty.

i did so when they asked me which i just didn't quite understand. nonetheless, i gave a spiel to them in combat was in the united states we like we're people. 50 years ago we had people like tesla and edison and einstein. we talk about how great they are. they're ideas that went into the private air we tax them during the administration. we begin to create a system that took money from the commerce and pay to educate a whole new group but we're people. steve jobs and bill gates and others. if we lose that a symbiotic mutualism. i guarantee it will get worse. it is going to get a lot worse. the idea is we are all sitting in the same narrow row boat together. the people who come to me

oftentimes look at the people on the other end of the boat and they view it as they want to see emerge without recognizing they are tied together. the business side does the same thing to leaders on the poverty side. recognizing we are connected is the only way to continue one has to become the mightiest nation in the history of the planet. [applause] >> in a couple of moments we will open up to the floor for your questions and comments. i wanted to ask each of you could you say the issue of myths about the political system, and that's about the causes of social crisis of knowledge that have been touched on by a number of you in your comments. i'd be interested to know as you reach tell us what is a

myth that you think that's busted up in order to break down some of these barriers we are talking about having to break through? what is the myth you would like to see crumble? >> i will go for it. you have to have so much money to win political office. caught whether anybody is going to run for high-level office get double the signatures you need not just to make the signatures you need to win the entire race. to me that is a big myth. what has happened but television that works radio networks, the media keep saying if you don't have big money, you cannot win. it's like a myth really because we've had examples of people that can win without having a lot of money. right now $30 million is running

against chewy garcia. he doesn't even have a million dollars but he is going to run on it. if you look at what is happening in d.c. right now the gop continues to undermine president barack obama. i'm not saying barack obama is the best man in the world but he's the president and they continue to undermine his leadership. as a matter fact i will be the because i'm angry about it. i'll leave that alone. the reality of it is either you are going respect the president and leave the station the proper way. we keep going outside the boundaries of what we think is right is showing racism still exists, which we know it does. don't get me wrong. we know it exists but you members right now don't care how they are showing it. they are all up front.

i just wish they respect the president won two terms. serious. >> two minutes i would like to debunk. the first one on your point i find it absolutely fascinating that the leadership inside the gop are intent on making certain that people know they do not like the president of the united states. back to me is interesting although south. i do think part of the is driven by the myth that they really are that interested in the policy side of the equation as opposed to the power side of the equation. at the end of the day, here is what it comes down to. who has the majority in who wants the majority? the political structure -- the senate was set at two b. the firewall to make certain there is a more stable response to what might have been

politically. but what has happened is that because they are really not just running for election every six years because they want to control majorities, they run for election every two years and it creates an inability for the fire ought to work. one of the myths we have to break down as again they are not in it for the policy. they're in it for the power. the second myth that we need to break down his face. this is perpetuated at least in arizona almost on a daily basis. they are either apathetic or ignorant. that's our view. they do not recognize that it is an affirmative statement about what they care about and that is why people are registering as independents or nonpartisan. they have given up the existing political system and they believe there has to be another way. >> one minute that i would like

to totally eradicate is that under the current system if you vote you can make a difference. [applause] because the issue is the assembly coding. it has a lot to do with what you are voting for what the parties represent, what the people represent and people get beat up so much all the time around not going to the polls and voting but in some ways i think it is important to recognize when people keep voting and the same thing happens that turns them to politics come into power, to anything. they want nothing to do with it. i would think people were smart, but they don't go vote unless you give them a real and actual alternative because otherwise you are playing into the hands of people who take the vote and do nothing. it's just not true.

the other thing i just want to say is that poverty is self-perpetuating that it's personal. even in the segregationist, i don't even think that we self segregate. i think we have been segregated. when you look at the neighborhoods, people don't even think they can live next door to each other unless you are some elite class. the neighborhoods are organized in that way and that keeps people from knowing who the other is. people are not responsible in this country for being poor. the country, the nation has a responsibility for doing something about poverty. i think we politically have a responsibility. i feel like i have a responsibility for doing something about poverty in the way that looks for everybody as we have to fight against poverty. we didn't create it.

we would rather live in the poorest, most run down and extensible community in the city and people say i think i'll take the latter. we ended up there because of the consequences of history and the lack of political support for the people who run the city in the country. [applause] >> so many good myths have argued then -- i guess the myth that i am most focused on right now is about the other the other being kind of dimwitted. the other being mean-spirited the other being callous. in the really good news that when you take the time and you create the kind of space that allows for listening and conversations could be really

listening. you find that even these people, what can you do about it? most of the people get into whatever will we are playing from a good place. and for the exceptions, i'm sorry i just don't want to go there. but i think that is true of the vast majority of people throughout the spectrum and how do we start opening things up so that we start benefiting from the richness of our views used together and our energy put together. [applause] now open the floor up to you. we are going to get some house

microphones. we have microphones at either end of the aisle. i asked my co-panelists here to join me in this discussion. >> yes i have a statement that i would like to make. my name is mark and i'm part of the committee for independent community action tio stated in his or her back sold us out and

the republicans are willing to understand as long as we are willing to come in through the backdoor. i want to thank dr. newman and dr. fulani and that is the mantra we stay all the time that our children cannot grow unless they are first to develop. is that i have two degrees and i still find it hard to find a job and i thought that with all of my education and all of my knowledge that things would be a little bit easier. but i am still a person who was brought up in poverty, so that is something i had to realize and is that there is is that there is to empower more importantly i am so grateful to be here at with the number of movers and shakers are thinking independently. thank you so much. [applause] >> type. mena spout pearls. i'm a former new mexico state

representative and i also ran for congress and for 13 years spent 14 hours a day practically campaigning and walking door-to-door walking door-to-door is that spirit your data is at the and change is

people who don't share. it is like the best lesson in

the world. because they are having that experience and they are shocked because this after all is a democracy. >> mine would be nonpartisan elections coming eliminating the subsidy for political parties. would be making sure all voters and candidates are treated equal regardless of how they are registered. if i were to give you my second one, it would be i don't even like the existing structures in the legislature. the fact that they meet in caucuses, that those caucuses are partisan can to stymie good ideas. they tend to stymie conversation among the groups. they should even be organized legislatively as opposed to from an election standpoint on a nonpartisan basis. [applause] >> basically, i concur. and i will repeat what i agree with already.

>> i think it is lots of changes. yes. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> bob, i would just add data to everything that was presented here. one of the reasons come and go into one of points that dr. fulani made earlier about not voting and the judgment call so many people are making the reason i like these proposals including reform is right now the voters are related to as the thing that happens last in the political process. that is considered choice. we have to change the definition in the meaning of what choice is to than being a passive can ever at the end of the assembly line to be inactive creator of the choices that are getting made. that is one of the reasons for the primary.

[applause] >> my name is elevator for a share. i am an independent leader. i live in harlem. i did grow up poor in this country. i want to say thank you south lawn for cms conference. it is important that we continue to do the work. i like the question about the myths because one that i would like botched up is that america is the greatest country in the world. america needs to deal with this history to deal with its origins. we need to reorganize how we like to think about ourselves. when you say you were great all the time that means that you won't take any kind of reflect his stock of how you got to where you got. you know wiping out the native americans, enslaving african

american people and now continuously oppressing and locking up latin american people because they want to come here. those are not great things. [applause] we need to get real with ourselves and get honest about how we can reorganize how we are together. i believe the conversations are important. we call them revolutionary conversations because they are hard conversations conversations we don't want to have with each other. i do appreciate this conference and all the dialogue going on here. i did work on dr. fulani 1988 campaign where we had to get 1.5 signatures to get her on the ballot. when you go out there and you get in the grassroots, knock on the doors in utah to people, you

learn something about where you are, who you are and what we need to do. get involved, get back to baghdad, talked to open primaries. i like it because it is a solid week we can all organize around while we also create dialogue around all of these other issues. thank you very much. enjoy the conference. while it do the full. thank you to our leaders. [applause] >> my name is jason olson. i'm the director of the californcaliforn california independent voice.org, part of the independent voting that her. first of all what to say thank you for hosting us. it is always wonderful seen so many amazing faces in the auditorium. the myths i would really like to explode and then i have a question for the panel is that the world is the way it is and there is nothing ordinary people can do about it because this

grouping of people right here shows no matter what the odds outline are, there is something we can do about it and i'm happy to be part of that with all of. in that vein, particularly folks who maybe this is your first time to one of our gathering wondering how is this conversation impact do you? will you take away from meeting various folks as you continue to approach the various reform efforts in the work that you do in your life. >> i would like to say how the conference has impacted me as i see the makings of major independent voters. i see it. [applause] that is the only thing i can say for right now. i believe in movement. i'm looking at nelson mandela and you talk about the power of the person that can make a difference. we don't just have to go with the norm in the status quo

anymore. we just have to organize and nelson mandela's lies. and if you don't mind back i should be upheld in the black community, too. he exposed the fact that the cia and the government introduced crack into the community. they say this guy committed suicide and he never got another job. he never got another job anyway. i am just saying there's a lot of things taking place in our history as a country that we need to bring up to the table so we can get past the issues. i am inspired. you can see by the way we talk. [applause] >> i think that the lesson that i take from this is it is always fascinating.

i come from a state that has a very conservative legislator, conservative is not even the fair word. we end up getting oftentimes people on the extreme and our goal is to bring them back to the center which is of course a leftward movement. other states it is the exact opposite of what the democratic party has had overwhelming support and they've stifled voices as well. what is interesting and is oftentimes an issue between right and left. it is simply an issue of who you have a voice or do you not have a voice? i will tell you what i think is the single most important thing to the movement is that it is not going to be carried off by a single state doing what they want to do. it has to be a national effort. there has to be a national voice a national group of people coming together to talk about its importance. in that, you are always going to find differences, but you'll also begin to find the area where we have common ground that we can move it forward.

[applause] >> what conversation can really help this reinvigoration of democracy have been so that we had twice as many people showing up at the polls so that we felt like when we had our leaders working for us that they were really working for us. i don't have the answers to that right now. it is exploration. i thought biro moments over 15 years, there were three very viral moments. one is what i sometimes call a goldilocks moment when it's not too cold, not too hot but when this can take off. you can talk about the slow build, but it is a punctuated

equilibrium. .. i think what people really need, i think we're ready for voters revolution, and i think the last 10 years i've been saying the. people looked at me strange. now everybody says yes we need a revolution. we have to flush congress. they are full of -- never mind. so my