partners with armored bulldozers ended put it to break down the defense's around the key city of for body. as they speak they have a calibrated effort to retake the city. . .

>> and on countering its message of division and hate using all of the media available to do so. and we are also providing additional assistance for the security capabilities of jordan and lebanon. these efforts are paying off. not long ago they controlled more than half of the 500-mile long border with turkey and today it has a great of only

about 15% and we have a plan with partners to pry open and secure the rest which we will. we are striving to put center of operations and we have hit some of the key energy facilities including the omar oilfield in which there was both revenue and fuel and we have made them change the way that they move and operates. and all of that and more is part of a strategy to continue building on what has worked and to apply pressure against them with as much intensity as possible for as long as it takes. at the same time we know full well that the struggle is not

taking place in a political vacuum and that is why we are working to promote a fully sovereign occlusive inclusive iraq and able to protect all of its citizens. but the truth is that nothing can do more to bolster the fight against terrorists than they probably supported diplomatic process and they begin to escalate the conflict and to give the theory and people a choice not between monsieur max and daesh but the status quo. and something with those across the political spectrum have a voice. and that is why another war element of our strategy in syria is diplomatic and renewed political addition, broader

oriented than previously attempted comment isolate terrorists and set syria on the path to peace. this possibility with the was the focus of meetings in vienna at the end of last month. meetings that for the first time brought together all of the key international interested parties for the very same people. and guess what, they came out with a product and the session produced a communiqué. countries that don't always agree on much like saudi arabia and iran, but those that do agree that daesh is evil and that the war in syria must be brought to an acceptable end as soon as possible. more importantly they agreed to support the territorial integrity and pluralistic character. we agreed, all of us that daesh and other groups have to be defeated. we agreed that all of us, that

the serious state institutions should remain intact so that we don't have the implosion of we saw in iraq. we saw and we all agree upon that the rights of all syrians, regardless of ethnicity have to be protected in whatever comes out. all of us agreed that access for humanitarian relief has to be assured throughout the country and that will be one of the tactics that we talk about on saturday. we agreed to replace for refugees in the and the countries that host them and we agreed, although, that the u.n. should convene members of the syrian government and the syrian opposition to develop a plan along the lines of the 2012 communiqué, leading to an incredible nonsectarian government followed by a new constitution and by free and fair transparent and accountable elections run under the

supervision of the united nations to the highest standards of elections anywhere in the world. we agree upon this, all of us, and we agreed to explore the possibility of a nationwide cease-fire to be initiated in parallel with this renewed political process. now, obviously, such a cease-fire does not include daesh. because our effort to defeat them in the effort of partners to defeat them will continue until we prevail. in fact it is precisely why we can, marshaling the support of the entire international community against a single common enemy. so the syrian people will be the validator's of this. our own special envoy has also

been in constant communication with syrian represent this. so this is not about imposing anything on anyone. we are trying to come together as a stakeholders framework and the syrians will be the first to tell you that they need help from the international community to get their and what they need is a consensus that will free us from the stranglehold of extremist and i have no desire to prolong the war and they understand that the compromise will be of wired.

so who in the world truly believe that it's possible? .after months upon months of indiscriminate violence of torture and bloodshed and 40 years of dictatorship. asking the opposition to trust us to accept our leadership is simply not a reasonable request. it is literally therefore a nonstarter. even if we wanted to, my friends, even if you made it the worst deal with the devil and said that that is what we have to do to try to make this process go forward, i have news for you. it will not stop. because there are those invested in what has happened with what has been done to them who see assad is the critical component

of the transition. because without a real transition no matter how much we want it, the fighting is going to continue and the war is never going to end. at this point i ignored that we are still working through and the question has not been settled and we had knowledge that. we believe through this organic process that defining the future of syria, we believe that we can find the road ahead and that this is not a defeat, and this has made the position and syrian people very clear. so even while divided on this issue, the united states and russia and other countries have decided wisely not to let that disagreement present us from trying to build on the common ground that we have established with a legitimate process.

the goal is to develop a timetable for action based on these steps and the participation of a broad range of syrian parties including men and women and the kind of political transition that will empower the center against the extremes. so i cannot say this afternoon that we are on the threshold of a comprehensi agreement and there remains a lot of work to be done. the walls of mistrust within syria and the region and the international community are thick and high. but those walls will never be breached unless we make a concerted and creative effort to cement them. the meeting at the end of october shows that the agreed basis for action is much whiterr and wider than ever proceeds. and that includes equally clear

that assad lacks the ability to ignite or wipe away the crimes of war and govern a country and end wars. so we must find an alternative. that logic is compelling and it provides the basic unified principles for our efforts going forward. so find a way, i will return on friday will. france, germany, rants, iraq, and saudi arabia, turkey, uae, the united kingdom and the united nations. >> i pray that we will be able to find a sensible way forward.

america's message the aegis that we all have a responsibility not to dig in our heels but to take the next step forward so that the bleeding can stop in the building can begin with so that the habits of civilization can once again take hold in this region were civilization itself was born. there are moments when managing world affairs is all you know and the elements required for progress simply do not exist. but time and turbulence can generate new possibilities. we do not know for sure whether the bright possibilities have yet come together in connection with syria. we do not know for certain whether the kind of political transition that we seek in the country can be achieved. we do not know for certain how long it will take before we can say that daesh has been defeated. but we do know for certain that we have an obligation to

ourselves and above all to serious next-generation to test those possibilities to the fullest and even more not to accept no for an answer. we have a responsibility to do everything we can to fulfill the high aspirations enshrined in the very name of this institution and we have a duty for peace. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. [applause] >> please remain in your seats until the official party departs. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up on c-span2, the

federalist society looks at the supreme court after 10 years under chief justice john roberts. then a white house medal of honor ceremony for retired army captain and efforts to prevent military suicides. >> the lexington institute josé foreman and transform on procurement starting at noon eastern on c-span3. >> the energy secretary will preview the upcoming climate summit later this month. friday at the carnegie endowment started at 2:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. ♪ >> please give your attention. >> my fellow americans, tonight

our country faces a grave danger. we are faced by the possibility that at midnight. [inaudible] >> in 1952, the united states was involved in a military conflict with north korea and a dispute between the steel industry in the unit had come to a head. >> the korean war was a hot war and they needed munition tanks for jeeps and all of those things that you needed in the second world war as well. so if they went on an industrywide strike, that was going to be a problem because it's a basis of the things that the army needs to fight. >> to avoid a disruption of steel production, harry truman

seize control of the mouse and as a result they strike was called off and production continued. however the companies lead in ohio disagreed with the action and took the lawsuit all the way to the supreme court. we will examine how the court ruled in the case and the impact on presidential powers. joining our discussion is a professor at the university of north carolina law school and author of the power of the president and the forgotten president, and william howell and author of the wartime president, power without persuasion and co-author of when dangers gather, that is coming up on the next landmark cases by the 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span3 and c-span radio.

for background on each case, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book which is available for $8.95 plus shipping at c-span.org/landmark cases. >> next, the court is discussed in a separate sheet justice john robert took the home. this is 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everyone. we are about to get started. the microphone is apparently on. welcome to all be watching on c-span and those of you watching the live stream. rachel graham is my name, for those of you that are not familiar, we are a membership organization of lawyers and lost events that provides a forum for debate on law and legal

policies. for many of us in the room, this is the organization that brought to our law schools perspectives. [inaudible] and that includes litigation group and the practice grew bigger about here. we have 15 practice groups divided by subject matter and they were responsible for a large portion of the programming hosted by the organization throughout the year. for those of you that could be interested in getting more involved, i would make a pitch for you to get involved in one of the practice groups. if you're interested you can come to find me afterwards if you can find tim was at the front table on the fellow society staff and runs the practice groups. i've been asked reminding you that certain conferences are being live streamed on the blog

of the federalist society so that if you cannot be here for the whole thing you don't have to miss out entirely. with akamai would like to talk about our topic today, i'm delighted with the panel that we put together and i'm looking forward to this discussion. the panel is better pointer but today on the first decade of the roberts court come from diverse perspectives, we have a journalist, academic, practitioner, former senate staffer as well. thank you for being here. for now we turn it over to our moderator for the ninth circuit. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, rachel, for that introduction. the 10 years that the chief justice has led the court have seen decisions that have affected aspects of our culture and religious and political lives, the panel today is going to discuss the deal not only with the chief justice, but also

the nomination process and what effect he has had on the other justices and whether it should be called the roberts court or perhaps the kennedy court order some people could say that justice alito chords. in some cases we could call of the court of reversal. because the supreme court has reversed the ninth circuit in 78% of appeals that it has had. [laughter] [applause] >> to paraphrase a former solicitor general, it has been suggested that one could open this is a petition to review a judgment of the court of appeals for the ninth circuit and there

are other reasons also been enough about the ninth circuit. the panelists are going to discuss the important decisions that are seen as consistent with the jewish philosophy of the roberts court. we have a distinguished analyst and the panels will then exchange questions from the audience. first we have steven duffield, a graduate of the university of chicago law school. stephen is the vice president for policy at crossroads gps and president of endgame strategies in washington. he worked on the senate republican policy committee during the judge roberts

nomination. publishing a book in 2007 entitled supreme conflict, the inside story of the struggle for control of the united states supreme court. and mike has argued numerous cases before the supreme court. mike is going to discuss some of the hot button issues that have come up during chief justice

roberts tenure including the affordable care act and the formative action that is affirmative action. then we have professor michael paulsen at the university of st. thomas school of law and minnesota and he has written extensively on interpretation. he has 2 degrees from yale and he will offer some thoughts on the direction that the supreme court might take during the next presidential administration. and so with that, let's begin with our first panelist. >> thank you. i am honored to be a part of the panel today. >> i am honored to have been a

part of this in 2003 and 2006. and the republican threats to illuminate this and the infamous gang of 14, partial settlement, the nomination of john roberts and the sobering experience for other nominations are concerned. and that includes how john roberts was viewed from the perspective of senators that confront him, obviously i don't speak for any senator but these are my impressions. so let's go back to the summer 2005. the most important thing to understand is that there was a great deal of concern that any supreme court nominee would be blocked by a filibuster.

nominees to conservative senators themselves could not support. in other words we feared disaster. as a consequence, senate and administration staff spent months working on how to plan a supreme court nomination. and i'm sure everyone will cause judge roberts analogy is calling balls and strikes. the first time i heard that was a few months before sitting in bill's conference room, a fellow republican counselor share the analogy in almost precisely the same language that the judge could later use. and so if you don't like the analogy, i know many do not, just do what you would like to

do, just blame congress. [laughter] now, keep in mind there were real consequences would framing, it meant that there was far less attention given to understanding the nuances of john roberts precise philosophy and instead we were working on how to shape the debate to prevent the filibusters. so let's go back to that timeline. the gang of 14 agreement is reached in may and justice o'connor announced the resignation or retirement, rather, in july. the president nominates john roberts soon after. from the outset one thing was clear. and judge roberts excited many senators because he reminded them of what he wished they could do themselves. brilliant, someone that was smooth and cool under pressure

and the phenomenal communicator. and they wish that they could be more like him. at the same time view at the time had replaced him with justice thomas or justice alito. judge roberts was considered an improvement over justice o'connor, a very good choice for o'connor. until after eight weeks of waiting, the nomination hearings occurred another brussels and the kennedys caucus room. eighteen senators made opening statements in many leaned forward and gave a statement of his own. he made his first public appearance and have promised not to be an agenda. there is a beautiful language about his childhood in the

fields of indiana and there is this possibility. he was formidable and the fight if there ever was going to be one was over that day. the next two days of question-and-answer or by most republican senators. judge roberts gave doctrines that proved mastery of the law and showed relatively little in the way of specific judicial philosophy that is also rather drive. at the hearings a few months later, joe biden climbed around and spoke 26 and a half of his 30 minutes before you asked the question and we kept track. i have to say that we learned that his favorite movies were, as we know, doctor zhivago and north by northwest. and characteristically judge

roberts response was a bit shaky. and he said that i have my experience. i'd like them to start by saying that he is confirmed. and i would like them to say that i was a good judge. and we would do private meetings with the senator and they would say, that guy is good, people were impressed.

and he said that he said i will protect the integrity of the important work to ensure that it safeguards those liberties that make this land. and so the concern for the quarter. and you don't go through the

judicial decisional process. and you go back to try to rationalize them and that is not the way the system is supposed to work. and embracing this elephant in the room, these words are somewhat interesting given. and he said i think when you folks legislate, you expect it is not too put in their own words. but to implement your views of what you are accomplishing in

the statue. and then he says i think that there is meaning in legislation and the job of the judges to do as good as possible to get the right answer. this was not pursued by senators of either party. no agenda, no politics, limited goal of judging. so i thank you. [applause]

>> i'm going to just ask to think back 10 years because president bush had really been a historic opportunity in the way that his father had done and even president reagan. [inaudible] and many victims that we need to get into and obviously some of

the justices were not as conservative. as the people had hoped. there's a frustrating term assigned to this. i was really polite. when we had no philosophy. others really change when the guy is on the court and perhaps didn't have that strong situation to begin with. and failed to provide in many cases the key votes that would have started to turn the court back in a more conservative direction and this is the most

egregiously characterize figured. >> you know, including the narrative, he is justice scalia is intellectual understudy. and it is in the papers and you can see thomas taking these positions and then justice scalia joining justice thomas and it's funny when i talk about

this in speeches depending on the audience especially on the west coast, i start to talk about justice thomas and i start to tell the stories and it's almost personal. no one wants to hear it. and it's something that i think is outrageous and so -- here is

george bush with his historic opportunity. which became obvious when justice o'connor shocked everyone by announcing that she was stepping down before the chief justice. so he had to get it right in the than the light on, i think, some very smart people. and it's kind of like we've come full circle, 10 years ago i was -- and i've argued with a lot of you in this room including on this panel, 10 years ago about whether he was going to be this judicial conservative and i was convinced that he was. and so i remember others were not. i remember members of the press, vividly in the pressroom, reporters were saying that he is not that conservative areas and

the memos came out and they were kind of snarky. and i called a member and said see, i told you so. [laughter] and, you know, he walks through as stephen accounted but who was he? we are still talking about some of his decision. they are hard to figure. i think we will get into more of the details. it's fascinating when you think

about how he would ruin obamacare and same-sex marriage. but those decisions would be completely complementary and not at all inconsistent because courts should not take out dispute but take a backseat to legislature and he would say that this is perfectly consistent with his testimony. the other thing about it if you look at it in 2003 when he was confirmed to the dc circuit, he had a very interesting exchange about whether he was a constructionist and some were concerned what was here. and what's he going to be part of the principles. he would not engage at all.

and so at the time that is a very savvy answer. and so he defies them in many ways. and i think the other nomination that president bush made, we are going to talk about the roberts court more broadly than that includes how often justice kennedy will ask an attorney what is your answer to the

questions and that includes how they will affect this on the court, because we all know when we saw justice thomas on the chords, solid vote.

and so that is a snapshot that is being developed. and so this court is going to change. then the next president's first term will be in their 80s. and these are conservative justices and if a democrat wins the white house, the courts and its membership is really

something that can be in flux. [applause] >> yes, i will pick up on that note. the first point to be made is that it's a misnomer in the other court and really the chief justice is just one of nine votes if he joined eight liberal justices he would have a different legacy than if he joined a conservative justice. and to pick up on the judge's remark. really i think it's more accurate to say that prior to 2005 it was kennedy and o'connor court in last 10 years, it has been largely the kennedy court because he more than any other justice is going to dictate the direction of the law. and i'm worried it could he come

the kennedy roberts court. the jurisprudence tends to bleed into other areas and we will have some very rough sledding and it's too early to tell on that. and it's not john roberts placing him and that includes the suburban republican state legislature and you've got some continuity and principle of the law and that has affected some of the various areas that i would like to chat about briefly here today. the first things i would like to talk about is substance and kind of a jurisprudential approach to judging and how chief justice

roberts difference. so i would say that starting with the good stuff because i am internal optimist, we have made some baby steps in the return to the rule of law and obviously if the election goes wrong then none of that will matter and we will descend into a hellish existence from lunch we will never emerge. but for right now, you know, and i would like to talk about some of ways in which we have made progress will generally it has been a big development and again i'm going to touch on each of these very lately, citizens

united was a brilliant decision in restoring individual liberty and enhancing the marketplace of ideas. generally they took a libertarian approach and commercial speech and the decision that was in vermont and they reinforce basic principles of free speech and that includes governing the marketplace of ideas.

and i will come back to that. basically if he has a libertarian approach to the first amendment, that is where the court is going to go. we had a step backwards last term which is probably the worst term since the 1970s. they have a very restricted opinion about the rights of doctors to solicit campaign contributions you can hopefully write that off as an anomaly that the judges are different so we are not really going to apply the first amendment to them. but the motive analysis is under inclusive analysis which is a dramatic departure and anyone takes it seriously, which i hope they won't, could undercut some first amendment protections. and the other aspect is religion

and again i have very good marks in the terms of where the court has gone on. in terms of enhancing religious liberty to this day, justice scalia wrote the controversial opinion that essentially it said that unless they single out religion for differential treatment, they can oppose any kind of neutral thing even as religious practice. so that area to the statute which restores the protections and said you cannot burn the practice of religion, there we saw was notably last year to terms ago in the hobby lobby where they indicated there rights of religious employers to resist other mandates that were in the affordable care act.

we saw a similar development which is actually a departure where they said even neutral regulations you cannot infringe upon the autonomy of religious institutions. so they departed that this would be okay as long as it was generally applied. we saw some baby steps and you can mention god and things like that in public forums at least if you have a strong history of doing so and i think that the real issue is that the court has not yet confronted and i think that will be the litmus test and it has not confirmed and so therefore should be that it does not violate the establishment clause if you give religious organizations to a neutral situation.

i have a strong degree of confidence that there will be five votes for that if it comes up and the next has definitely been a mixed bag which is of course racial equality. i thought that the biggest change we would see when justice alito replace justice o'connor was in regards to racial preferences. justice o'connor said that we will take a vacation. and you can discriminate against all you want.

and so we are dramatically revisiting what the justice did in the michigan case and that includes state raised discrimination. one relative to this actually has some educational value is. since there is a complete absence to support that notion, as long as they demand its improved as opposed to slogans and i think that they could go a long way towards restoring the neutrality of the supreme court

waited nine months to issue a four-page opinion that literally said nothing except when we take another look at this. and this time i think it will be interesting to see if they actually were to store this to the equal protection in office. in the statutory round there has been good decisions in voting rights act. , and that includes the fair housing act which prohibits fair housing discrimination which was a real surprise to me because at least in employment and voting area, justice kennedy's name to understand and adopt the position that the effect is another word for racial quota. and we shouldn't say don't take account of race into statutes

that say that you must and sort out the government benefits on a racially proportionate aces. but last year in the title eight case, he said don't turn this into a quota but about a week later issued regulations would turn it into a quota. so that will tell you about as much effect as the justice has there. the court's decision this year will tell you a lot about how they are going to handle racial issues going forward both in terms of the statutory and nonstatutory context and i think that the final big step forward in terms of jurisprudence and adhering to the rule of law was recognizing the second amendment actually does protect individual rights to own firearms.

the actual practical effect of that opinion, i think we don't know yet because they have never taken a case to sort through the kinds of gun regulations that are out there and the kind of scrutiny that they have given to it but it was clearly a huge win in the closely divided court and that was probably the best thing that this court has done. obviously last year's decision with the same-sex marriage case was about as lawless as you could be, the provision that the justice imposed so that you can not deny life or liberty or property without due process of law, which means people of the same sex must be able to marry. he supported this analysis with a platitude that i think came from hallmark greeting cards.

and so it really didn't pretend to be what we are usually accustomed to in terms of overwriting the democratic choices and the traditions. and so the one that i obviously have distinct prejudice on this, i think the lawlessness over the last 10 years was the case that i argued and in many ways it was really worse than the first decision which it upheld the affordable care act because as stephen was pointing out you could attribute that to a normal conservative -- that this was referring to congress and they didn't want to strike down when mark social legislation but there was really no excuse in terms of interpreting the

statute. the plain language of the statute and having six members of the court say it doesn't mean state but federal, it was reminiscent with what they were doing under cases like whether or where they said was meant south and easement west. i thought the one thing that we accomplished was to interpret this so that we have some meaning to the text. there is the argument that we shouldn't defer to policy choices and these are the policy choices of the legislature from four years ago and there was really no excuse other than a policy preference to change with the law meant to be the opposite of what it meant.

the other issue, and again this is where the chief justice is probably departing more starkly from the rule of law which upheld the constitutionality of the affordable care act and i'm trying not to take either of these decisions personally, but for those who think he doesn't like me so he only departs when i am available and maybe that will give us some solace for future cases. [laughter] and the other areas have been less dramatic in terms of their departure is. we have seen a lot of arguments where the court is essentially establishing a code for states in the death penalty and life without parole or they are dictating to elect her representatives and how they need to treat relatively young or mentally challenged murderers and establish the kind of code

with any serious argument that the punishment being inflicted is cruel or unusual. and again, it's not terribly unpredictable in terms of consequences but was really a naked assault on the text of the constitution as in the arizona redistricting case where they said legislature didn't mean this, this was two days after this decision came down, that includes the string to send and how they proved again that it is an irony free zone. [inaudible] [laughter]

so those are the big pictures and i think that the biggest difference between the chief justice and the conservative members of the court is an emphasis on incrementalism when he wants to take his debt by the time and he has done that in a variety of contexts where he took a small step and came back to it. the shelby county decision striking down section number five. not a lot they cast great doubt on the constitutionality commanding agency in public unions from people who do not belong to the union on first amendment grounds and now they have a case that talks about whether or not you should overturn on this period some say

this is preferable to the justice scalia like approach. clearly some said that the black schools were not equal to the white schools during brown versus education, separate and unequal but struck down because they did not satisfy this standard. the problem with that incrementalism is that it reflects keeping in place a foundational premise which is contrary to the structure of the constitution which cannot be for the coparent development good of the law or much less the institutional integrity of the court and that is what the last one is that i'm going to make picking up on stevens point. .. court in my

mind any time you hear a judge talk about the court as opposed to the law should send a warning signal because if you are worried about the integrity of the porch then just do what in a neutral way in a neutral manner if you start changing your view of the law or to modify your view because you're worried about public perception of a court bacchanal the invite the notion you're not interpreting the text of legal materials in the interview but a scale that favors one party or policy view over another. the by definition and decreases the integrity because it just reduces to another legislative body where decisions are made

rather than neutral principles but is always a worrisome sign this is too early to you to know which way chief justice roberts jurisprudence would develop generally it is favorable there are a couple of exceptions and if we lose the next election or not matter at all. thank you. [applause] >> i am honored to be here this has been an existence since 1982 that i discovered they were creating this is you should not exactly a founding father but maybe if founding nephew second generation of. [laughter] i will build on a law of what has been said but i

will move beyond that to think of the future of the roberts court. the title i have been given my remarks is a question though worry there is not a test. what's conservative about the roberts court? i agreed the idea marking the beginning of periods or epics is distorting in some ways but it is a convenient marker to look at the personnel changes and ask a question has the court really become ideologically more conservative? my answer is no. not very much not much of the ideological change since 2005 when john roberts was first sworn in. but three solid

conservatives of rehnquist and scalia a solid block of four liberals and by the time of the 2005 then you had to swing justices o'connor and kennedy i call them a weathervane because they swing with the cultural wind with conservative instincts but not a principled coherent portrait -- a loss of these then you have the substitutions and a layout maya nine upcard then you have generally mainstream consistently conservative replacing and

other mainstream consistently conservative that switches from roberts to request -- rehnquist and the material may change in some sense that is though little unfair it is like a double switch they came in at the same time he was supposed to command for o'connor that we have an episode from october 2005 where bush was flirting with the different nominee the then justice alito was put forward that this material because it does substitute a solid judicial conservative for a liquid or gaseous because o'connor was of a principled solid conservative. so that would change as you move from the swing justice

and that makes a difference where kennedy would have voted with conservatives there are some issues you means conservative some with o'connor said you substitute one vote for either kennedy would be with the conservative anyway. that is basically the list michael did so could i will ballpoint but the changes have been few and far between and interspersed between a law of importance defeats for the constitution so these are mostly cases where kennedy with the light -- lean right to one in

chin's campaign finance which was a first amendment disaster to ruth citizens united which is a triumph that is the single most notable change that is attributable to justice alito the boat abortion the partial birth abortion ban and upheld into those seven a federal ban on partial birth abortion it is baby steps. the court is moving in the right direction but it is hard to see. religious freedom there has been an important change the unanimous supreme court decision which right think undermines the premises of the employment division of the smith case will become important in the future and

sam alito o opinion in the hobby lobby case five / four was extremely important in the interpretation with religious freedom against government regulation. and mixed results on the enumerated powers i am one of the heretics that think it was rightly decided decided s not my policy preferences but it is my interpretation. [laughter] >> we will talk about that but even in defeat there is a conservative victory that the court did adopt to put meaningful limits with the

dramatic new restriction of the scope of government spending power to coerce states with executive power the regulatory group that i think is huge for separation of powers it says the president cannot rewrite was the congress to effectuate desired policies outcome is the scalia opinion it is brilliant and important it is a sleeper victory. this is the litigation group but there have been meaningful changes of territorial jurisdiction to

have a practical impact in the federal courts is victories are few and far between dramatic liberal results some of the most awful cases the war prisoner case from the bush administration absolutely indefensible and precursors to the same-sex marriage case of windsor in 2013. the four democratic appointees of the supreme court when kennedy joins him it is not the roberts corporation the kennedy court so i will conclude with lessons from the next conservative president flew cares about the constitution to look for word to the next

10 years of the roberts court and on inauguration day there will be three justices in their eighties and one in their late seventies and the opportunity for some meaningful changes in all likelihood. ideology matters judicial philosophy matters to have substantial power what the philosophy is to that property makes a huge difference to the country in the future of the nation and thconstitution sometimes literally a matter of life and death do you support - - point to the supreme court we ended up with david souter in 1980 if you had edith jones then roe v. wade is overruled by a vote of

six / three because the weather vane will swing the other way. did you have a conception to save millions of lives it does make a huge difference if you succeed to confirm and it makes a huge difference whether you have justice sotomayor or recessions or justice kagan or cavanaugh. ideology matters in the objection will come this sometimes you cannot know in the vance sometimes it is considered not proper to ask were not politics but my

answers are yes you can know that in advance fairly reliable it is necessary and proper to ask for course you can know how they will be as justices on the supreme court i don't think it is bragging or a special skill but give me 10 minutes i will tell you how they are likely to be on the supreme court i will not have everything right but they will not disappoint well settled expectations to put its foreign debt questions to a then you can tell in advance the difference between scalia and justice souter. it is proper to ask these questions sometimes to look at judicial independence with the constitution is of function of salary guarantee of life tenure that should

be the assurance of this additional autonomy. beside the gives the explicit political confirmation m process as part of the separation of powers and checks and balances to become the obligation of the senate to be the proper view of constitutional interpretation with all the powers at their disposal. into favor the most extreme version of the litmus test just give me one question to ask in individual justice with the maximum amount of information i talk about roe v wade if they can make

president and star a decisive is where the debris of relationship of judicial power and it is entirely appropriate to push these questions for word and should be obligatory. i will leave it there so we have some time but they give for your attention. [inaudible conversations] mcdevitt. [applause] [applause] >> with a period of questions and answers i appointed myself to start. we have the two cases and the interpretation what is not attacks on monday is a tax on tuesday when you

include the word federal in the second case there is another case where the legislature includes the enactment now is contextualism dead and the justice roberts give any indication? >> i don't think he did i have the transcript you get some hint it decide to go backwards to look big issue find yourself looking backwards but has a went through it thinking back and remember that being teed up

with no discussion what that would look like but then you have a the conversation of history but extended to which you would focus it would mean something different, no. we have no discussion that i could find like the first a see a case. they are not teed up because i think the hearings are taking place in a certain moment of time so now there's a law of discussion of key though. or the more recent cases to be discussed at the same time people think of that in a narrow sort of way in

terms of those. i noted is dead but they don't seem inclined to be with those doctrines of the interpretation with that format so that consequence is that they're not elaborated upon very much to sit there to have a simple view that is simple and straightforward about policy preferences to explain the contours of how you get there.

with the senate judiciary committee they have touched a job than there is the normal institutional part of the nominee people are interested to know they are conservative but they will not engage in a hostile cross-examination and john roberts and alito would run circles around anyone after a superb performance budget justice alito enveloped the committee in the warmest bath of boredom. [laughter] that was everyone.

[laughter] so the notion that the democratic senator like joe biden. [laughter] would figure his jurisprudence is unrealistic. >> because think about how john roberts answer the question. that it is subject to the principles of star a decisiveness that they heard different -- different things but what they heard is different things.

>> and to go by north by northwest this is a funny moment that senator schumer was completely frustrated with the current u.s. attorneys from new york to plan now a careful cross-examination and there was some back-and-forth of

the caribbean to the question he said i am happy to answer the question then said north by northwest. he was angry as was his counsel. because they really tried really hard to figure out how to pin him down and get enough information about his judicial philosophy to how to rule on the case. they thought they had him. and he slipped right by then he made a joke out of it. but it was not a joke for senator schumer or the other side there were very frustrated. >> i am not sure the senate confirmation hearings are

the best evidence to throw out traditional ideology you do that in one-on-one conversations with people who understand these issues in the right questions to be asking and looking for. my critique is the way the republicans administration tests seemingly failed to put a direct simple straightforward questions. >> they figure that out in the interviews they live. [laughter] the reagan administration judicial screening. yes it begins to be overturned. good. have some coffee. [laughter] nobody would say it is correct you gt there different ways but i thank you need a track record with the justice department or the state attorney general or on the bench justice souter was a completely

self-inflicted wound. i'll think it is the hard to teach them how to but the crucible of the white house interview process. >> think of justice alito he has never written a wrong opinion and his confirmation hearing he was the big fight nominated on halloween anybody said it is scary and an american track there is the track record and opinions and on and on and his performance was so masterful. and you cannot have scripted it any better when his wife started to cry it was like

they were ready undergoing to beat him and they could never strike never. by the way he did not read one word of their briefing books they prepared so the lesson that i think if you get that nominee confirmed his track record picasso thinking of the nominee robert bork was there with nectar red gum at the time. [laughter] >> we still have the senate in 86 to have gotten through so little quirks like that.

>> we have to close at 145 punctually so if you have questions please stand up and go to the microphone please identify yourself and the person to answer the question. >> every real property attorney from idaho. generally is the specific you think the decision of possibility drives the results but the larger question does the roberts court move into a position it uses the bill of rights as a shield to give a carve out to say no. you can do that there is no power like the affordable

care act in particular. >> great question if saudia lobby affects the outcome with the mandate cases. i hope so to keep the government for doing

otherwise would it needs to do. >> justice alito recently spoke to a gathering in he mentioned his distress in the free speech cases of course, he was the one dissent and he mentioned the video case. would you like to see a distinction between self expression and free speech? do you think he will be influential with the other members of the court and what controversy might be decided differently?

>> i think that justice alito narrow interpretation of freedom of speech does raychem the allied air with the court it is it's something he does often but in that aspect a pro freedom of speech position more than anyone on the court and is in a reliable place for freedom of expression is to send in the crashes and legal society was a powerful defense of freedom of expression and expressive association that is one of the important losses during the roberts court era that will be overturned in the future.

>> i think he is less libertarian where the streak -- the speech does not strike as speech with justice alito like to step on puppies heads. . .

i'll say this, the senate has very little information on specifics. there are a handle a members that may have information. my short answer is i have no idea. >> scalia did not appreciate it.

i don't know he would've taken it. in his defense, but no. what's interesting i think, another interesting question is everything has to line up. getting struck by lightning, getting nominated to the court. it depends on whether the democrats or republicans control the senate. to me, if he had stepped down, when we all thought he was going to, and really he should have, would john roberts have been the menominee? if rehnquist had gone first

question? , my guest would've been no. when the president saw him performing as he did and it was rehnquist on the eve of his hearing passing away, it had been contested. it was easy easy for the president to move roberts into that spot paving the way for that legal powerhouse harriet miers, which no one is mentoring her name so i have to throw it out there. i think the court would look quite different had rehnquist step down. >> you gotta do it woman, let's throw harriet out there for a couple weeks. high-stakes poker but i have to give you credit. >> so in his dissent and over felt, they criticize the new york case more than ten times. that's a case that more and more

conservative legal scholars seem willing to embrace. my question for the panel is what world you think that case will play the next appointee should a republican win the election. >> you said lochner quest mark. >> i'd say zero. i just don't see anybody on the court, including justice thomas going toward a notion of substantive due process that gives it the same kind of protection to economic rights as been given to abortion and that sort of thing because they think in my view that lockley was wrongly decided and economic regulationsñi, in today's sociey is really, really stupid that the constitution doesn't deprive states of federal governance of the ability to enact really stupid economic regulation. >> okay last question and to the rear of the microphone.

>> some of you talked about citizens united. what is your sense of this in cases like mccutchen, free enterprise club, citizens united, who, who is the swing vote? >> who's the last one to come on board? >> i think you need to take those individually. we all know there was a famous dispute between justice scalia and justice roberts about the wisconsin right to life. again scalia takes the approach that you need to destroy the village to save it. chief justice takes the approach to keep the structure there that but make sure it doesn't mean anything. i'm sort of on the scalia side of that debate. if there's a fundamentally incompatible with first amendment rights than it should be cleaned up not through this

incremental stuff your question, chief justice roberts was reluctant to take the steps that they ultimately took as quickly as justice coolio wanted him to but eventually he came around to it. it's really interesting, if the solicitor general had not given the completely truthful answer that yes this means you couldn't publish a book criticizing hillary clinton, the corporation couldn't do it, we may have had a different result. that's what led to rethinking that argument. i strongly suspect justice roberts is the one putting the brakes on that. he probably wanted to write a

more narrow scope in citizens united. to restore the first amendment to what a naturally meant, i think he went alon

♪ ladies and gentleman of president of the mistakes along with the medal of honor recipient. ♪ ♪ >> almighty god we hear your words how can repay though board for his goodness today we remember your good news

with the sacrifice of all soldiers heal our hearts from the tears of their grieving families to be with us as we bader the actions of their hero's. we give thanks for their sacred calling to serve and protect and defend our nation and we of life. made this heroic and virtuous soldier be an example for future generations me his life serve as a beacon for a young men and women who run from the sound of the guns for the sake of humanity and the pacific of the nation they have come to love. if your name we pray. a bad -- amen. please be seated.

good morning. three years ago captain florent groberg was recovering from his wounds as a consequence of the actions we honor today. he woke up in the hospital bed in a haze he was unsure about he was in germany. someone with ed -- was at his bedside talking to him. he thought it was the lead seger from the heavy metal band korn. [laughter] he thought what is going on? am i hallucinating? but he wasn't it was real. so today i want to assure you covet florent groberg you are actually in the white house period those

cameras are on i am not the lead singer from korn. [laughter] but we are here to give you the highest military distinction of the medal of honor. we but three years ago on one of my regular visits to walter reed and he was one of them. the lakes the chicago bears a highlight camera the way. [laughter] and i had a chance to meet his parents who could not be more gracious and charming to get a sense where flo gets his character from. i also want to welcome flo girlfriend who apparently he had to help paint an

apartment the other day so there is a chore list going on. [laughter] to believe members in all of our distinguished guests me honor this american veteran whose story like so many speaks not only of gallantry of the battlefield but as a teen you -- to major flo discovered he had a gift. he could run. fast. he would leave the competition in the dust in one of the best and state and ran track and cross-country at the numbers to maryland. his college coach called him

a consummate teammate somehow we always found a little extra when he was running on the relay with the team. as one said he could go a little more than everybody else could. day after day and month after month he pushed myself in you that every run every stretch and interval could shave a second of his time. and then we find out a few seconds makes all the difference. training and teamwork but made him a great runner also makes him a great soldier in the army he would hit the books and pay attention and field exercises because he knew he had to be prepared. the deploy to afghanistan twice.

first as a platoon leader than a couple years later when he was picked to head up a security detail. but this day three years ago leading a group of soldiers to a meeting with local afghans. a journey that has been made many times before they would walk on foot to including passage over a narrow bridge. they passed pedestrians and cars and bicycles and children but then they began to approach the bridge a pair of motorcycles sped toward them from the other side. the afghan troops shouted for the biker tucson and they did and they ran away but then flo notice someone to his left walking backwards.

he spun around and that is when flo sprinted toward him and pushed him away from the formation and as he did you notice the object under his clothing, a bomb. and at that moment he grabbed him by the best and kept pushing him away all those years of trading in the classroom and on the field all came together in those few seconds to have the instinct and the courage to do what was needed. one of his comrades joined him they shoved him again and again and pushed him so hard he fell to his chest and the bomb detonated. flo was thrown 20 feet and

was knocked unconscious his eardrum was blown out. and pleading badly he knew he would be a sitting duck said he had his pistol out and dragging his wounded by the about that claim before american heroes that flo wants us to remember today. the 24 year-old that lawyers downtime or india their soldier that wanted to talk. and command sergeant major he was a role model because he cared more about people than himself. a popular air force leader seminole we seem to run into

a friend wherever he went. and finally a foreign service officer to read just volunteered for a second to work through ruth to the united states from egypt and reveled in everything american these four men believed in america and gave their lives to our country. but their families bear that sacrifice most of all. i would like those three goldstar families to please stand although one family could not be with us today. [applause]

today we honor to die because of his actions of the catastrophe by pushing the bomber away from the formation it took away but that explosion caused a second today before was in place had both gone off bluenose how many could have

been killed. those are the allies he helped to say. the brigadier-general, a sergeant who was awarded a silver star for confronting the attacker. also the bronze star for pulling flo from the road in specialist, that it will help to save flo leg and private first-class and sergeant who also served with distinction that day. please stand and except your thanks of a grateful nation. [applause]

at walter reed flo began his next mission to recover. he heads a bit under damage almost half of the calf muscle was blown off the leg that got him around the track that moved so swiftly that had been through hell and back banks to 33 surgeries' and some of the finest medical treatment a person can ask for he kept the leg procopius not running but he is doing a law of cross that i would not challenge him to cross it. putting some turf and a

roving machine and stair climbers. today's key is medically retired but like so many of the other veterans he continues to serve that is what our veterans do their highly skilled and dynamic leaders always looking for the next chapter of service to america. four flo a civilian job with the department of defense to help take care of our troops to keep the military strong every day he is serving he will wear a bracelet on his wrist as he is today that bears the names of his brothers in arms who gave their lives that day. the truth is he says that was the worst day of his life as is the stark reality behind these medal of honor

ceremony is called the courage that inspires us these actions were demanded by some of the most dreadful components of for. that is why we honor heroes like him because of their worst day he managed to summon his very best. not being afraid but performing in a selfless fashion. he showed his trading and to put it all on the wide for his teammates that is an american may can all be grateful for that is why we

honor capt. florent groberg today god bless all who serve when given their lives to our country we are free because of them may god bless their families and continue to bless the united states of america with heroes such as this. >> the president of the united states of america by act of congress march 3rd march 3rd, 1863 awards the medal of honor to captain florent groberg distinguishing himself by an active gallantry to go above and beyond the call of duty

fourth infantry division against an armed enemy on august 8, 2012. on that date consisting of several leaders to battalion commanders a sergeant major and a national army brigade commander as they approached the compound he approached the individual approach to the information he noticed the individuals clothing putting itself in front of the commander he rushed forward using his body to push away from the formation. he ordered another member of the detail to help remove the suspect regret this time captain florent groberg confirmed the suicide best

they physically pushed the suicide bomber away from the formation. upon falling he detonated outside of the perimeter killing four members and wounding others the blast from the first suicide bomb went previously unnoticed is the reactions bush the first with the formation to minimize the impact of the formation saving the lives of his comrades and senior leaders. capt. florent groberg heroism and selflessness keep pace with the highest tradition of military service and has great credit upon himself to the brigade team of the united states army.

[applause]

>> let us pray. made example on all the soldiers remembered today served to inspire us to defeat the enemies of the acts of virtue to give us the courage of what is good to help those who suffer. maybe bring honor to those who perished so others may live in peace. grant your blessings to be with us always. amen. >> that concludes the formal portion of the ceremony you may take some pictures with the outstanding team members as well as the goldstar families that are here

today. that his words this battle honors them. and on veterans day that is appropriate. thanks to all of our service members who are here today and i hope you enjoy the outstanding reception. i hear the food is pretty good here. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

♪ c-span for campaign

2016, taking you to the road to the white house on tv, the radio and c-span.org. >> next, look at efforts to prevent suicide among service members. joe donnelly of indiana joined veterans advocates and the

foundation for suicide prevention. it's about one hour. >> good morning everybody. thank you all for attending this briefing sponsored by senator joe donnelly this morning. along with the american foundation for suicide prevention, the nation's nation's leading nonprofit dedicated to preventing suicide through education, advocacy, and research. it is my my pleasure today to introduce three distinguished panelists that are going to talk about the military suicide prevention prevention in our country it is the goal to reduce suicide 20 set 25% by 2025. in order to. in order to do this we have to address issues around suicide prevention that flag our communities.

currently 22 22 veterans died by suicide every day. veterans comprise an estimated 20% of suicides in this country every year. on the panel today we have yochi dreazen, the author of the invisible front, love and loss and in this era of war. he is the editor for news and form policy where he runs and oversees a team of reporter. his book was picked as one of the most notable books of 2014 and one of amazon's best books of 2014. yochi dreazen has made several trips to afghanistan and has been an total of four years on the ground in the two countries. he mostly did frontline combat. he has reported for more than 20 countries including pakistan, russia, china, israel, japan,

turkey, morocco and saudi arabia. bill rauch is the political director and supports the development of the annual policy agenda. these and advocacy campaign through trusted relationships with veteran relations and government agencies. bill is a former army major who served 17 months in iraq and has experience working with veterans and veterans issues from his work on several major political campaigns and serves as team red white and blue for his local community in alexandria virginia. he has appeared on nbc nightly news, c-span's "washington journal" and msnbc coverage of memorial day 2015. last we have mark graham. he is the senior director at

rutgers call center and director of that's for warriors. general graham has lost two sons in two different battles. one to suicide and another to an ied in iraq. mark currently heads the call center and is the director for vets for warriors which provides veterans with 247 confidential stigma free peer support by veterans to activate duty, national guard and reserve servicemen. also to veterans, retirees, and their families and caregivers. we think you all for coming today. now i would like to introduce senator donnelly who as a senator from indiana introduced his first piece of legislation, when he came to the senate, he has been awarded the action award from the foundation of

suicide prevention as a champion of veteran and military mental health and suicide prevention. senator. >> thank you all for being here. to our panel, panel, thank you so much. we really appreciate it and to john and trevor, thank you. i guess the best way to start off would be to talk about the incredible dedication and hard work of all of our men and women who serve. of the love and devotion of the people of this country, for all of them. i want to tell you a little bit about a national guard unit in my home state. when our national guard was serving, they were in iraq in 2008. it was extraordinarily difficult circumstances and when they talk to each other, other, they said we have each other's back.

that's what we do. we have each other's back. it was a group that was in a truck. one was a driver one was the look out who made sure everybody was safe and one was a navigator. they were all working together. for a year they had each other's lives in each other's hands. it was the most intense effort you can imagine. they came home to evansville and the streets were lined with people cheering when our national guard group got home. and they did. they began to live their lives back home in indiana and from 2011 - 2015, four of the members of that national guard group have taken their lives. it is heartbreaking that it has to and.

that is what these wonderful people are trying to do. 2014, has my first piece of legislation as a senator, we were able to pass the suicide prevention act. what it did, jake was a a wonderful young man who served in iraq and afghanistan. his family and he helped provide coats and other things to the kids in afghanistan when it got cold. but jake had an unbelievable choice as he had to make and that's what our military have to do. incredibly difficult choices, life or death, one side or other. he came back home on r&r and when he got back home he took his life. he also told his dad before he went on it to her, he said dad i just don't feel right. something doesn't feel like it's working. it's not just those in combat as you all know.

it's people back home as well. with the stresses of finance and family trying to balance the national guard and a career and a family and the financial stressors. we want to make sure we are there for them. with the prevention acted is provide an annual mental health assessment for each and every service member, active duty, guard, reserve. then provided privacy protection so there was a chance for them to be able to seek this help and be able to do it with privacy. this past year were hoping pass today, god willing, is a care package that says okay we've been able to provide an annual health assessment, now we need to find the providers to do it. so what this does is for private providers in evansville and all

over the country they can go to places like the military research institute and get the training needed so that when a servicemember comes in or a guard member or reserve member, they know this person understands the special challenges they face. they get a certification with an online registry so that our vets and service members can go online and save this person gets it. i can talk to them and feel comfortable. then the department of defense folks take additional training in suicide risk recognition. so they can start to understand and we also are trying to add additional physician assistant so we have more frontline providers to help our men and women. our cardmembers, think of this,

when they finish up they can't go to military treatment facilities. they can't go to va. they don't often know about other services that are out there. oftentimes they feel like they are by themselves. there is a transition that takes place when you go from one to the other. we find ourselves with challenges as well. what that means, so you're in dod you're in that system, you're struggling and so they give you prescriptions to help take care of yourself. you become a veteran and they completely change what you're on because of xyz not being covered by va.

va covers fg age. so something you've begun to feel comfortable with and is working for you, it completely changes per we have to make this seamless. we have to to make the handoff seamless and we have to recognize, been a nation at war for such a long time and in many ways, young people like our cardmembers come home and there's a complete disconnect. there's a disconnect to the community that loves them so much, to the world that used to be a part of but before they went and when they served, they see things and deal with things that completely change their lives. the incredible dependence of knowing other people count on you for their entire life. they're under incredible stress every day in our panel knows much better than i do. then you come home and it's just different. we want to be there to help but

we not only want to be there to help, help, we have an obligation to be there to help. to make sure that if someone has a question there is someone there to provide an answer, that they feel comfortable that there is no stigma. that if they're there feeling sideways, they know who they can call. they have the opportunity to talk to somebody. that's our job. that's what we need to do. we lost over 400 young men and women lashed year in the military. we want to get this number to zero. trevor and john, thank thank you. to our panelist, think you so much. thank you for your sons who have served and all your family has sacrificed we are incredibly grateful for your help trying to

provide answers. thank you very much [applause]. >> thank you again senator donnelly for your comments and your true leadership in the united states senate to prevent suicide among our veterans, military personnel and provide support to their families. next i would like to introduce yochi dreazen. >> good morning it's a pleasure to be with you on this rainy day. setting aside journalistic activity for a moment, your activity on this is wonderful to see sen. i wish you were not so often standing by yourself on an issue that matters as much as this one does. i just want to talk briefly about the issue in framing a little bit and turn it over to my friend mark. in 2009, i began to hear from friends who came back that they

would look in the mirror and not recognize himself. these are military friends i met over the years in iraq and afghanistan. you could see it in the eyes of their wife or their husband that they were scared. they could see in the eyes of their children that they were scared. they felt ugly and disfigured by what they had seen or what they had done. they knew they had changed but they didn't know how or why or how to change it. some of them over facebook or e-mail or phone began to say they are thinking of killing them self. they just didn't want to live in the way they were living. they didn't want to keep feeling what they were feeling. a couple of those i knew did kill themselves and this was shattering on a personal level. setting aside anything john journalistic, these were guys i've known. these were guys guys who made it back physically unhurt for the most part but they came back with something inside of them. with the diagnosis they didn't know how to deal with. there was no support structure. as flawed as the active duty structure is, there is exists.

the reserves has nothing. they came back to a civilian world that it was more disconnected than it's ever been. they came back in enormous numbers. in 2009, up until 2009, military suicide rate had been steadily rising. the military response was we have a problem but you civilians have just as bad of a problem. that was literally true. if you look at demographic in the civilian world, men between the age of 18 and 25 which is generally demographic of the military, they were rising at the same rate. the numbers were roughly the same. 2009 was a horrifyingly important year. that was the first year where the military suicide rate rate exceeded the civilian rate and it's just kept going. 2009 is when the rate pulled ahead and kept going higher and higher and higher.

there had been reluctance at the higher level of the military took knowledge what they were seeing which is an epidemic. by 2009, that didn't happen anymore. they had no way of refuting what they were seeing in the numbers were so startling and horrifying. knowing as many people who did were struggling, i began to ask the pentagon whether there were people i should get to know. people who were trying to fight this in a creative and energetic way. people had acknowledge the problem early and were dedicated to solving it. i kept hearing the name mark graham again and again and again. they would tell the story of him and his wife carol. i will let him talk about it, but it was hard for me to believe frankly because you don't meet generals who have lost children. you don't meet people that have served their country as long as

people like he has pi went to fort carson to find out what he was trying to do and what you covered. right before he got there there was a unit with a nickname of lethal warriors that had killed 11 people. soldiers in and around the base. this had really never been seen before. this was new and horrifying he got there and have the darkness of suicide in the darkness of homicide. these are things he devoted himself to fighting while he was there. part of the cause that he was trying to fight and what he had seenis stigma. what is that? how does it manifest itself.

it manifests itself in a soldier who came back wanting to kill himself and putting black paint on a white wall. thankfully he got the help you needed and was taken to a hospital and survived and is still life today. the military response was he defaced government property so we will charge him. this is a mother of a son who almost killed himself and called and said if i come and repaint the wall let my son go. they said sure. so she came and repainted the wall. they looked at the nicely painted wall and they charged him anyway. this is were talking about, the callousness and the in the cruelty. were talking about soldiers and

marine feeling that if they go seek help, their careers will end. they will be mocked by the people around them and seen as cowards. they will be seen as people who don't want to serve anymore. people who came back and are scared. not the people who have anything legitimate, any struggle they will struggle to fight against. there's one case i wrote about in the book in which a kernel felt the soldier was underperforming and tried to kick them out and said he's overweight in showing up late for formation. there's something off about him. he's getting into fights with other people. they tried to kick them out. mark looked at the same case and said his record before he was deployed is perfect. what's different. he has ptsd and he needs help, not to be kicked out. he saved the career of that young soldier.

people in the military and look at the military from the outside, it is extremely rare for a general to reach down into his brigade and say to a kernel, you're wrong and reverse the decision. it's not popular. i spoke to the colonel and he's a very good man. one of the problems with this issue is that there are not only no silver bullets but very rarely is a black and white. very rarely is there a villain or hero. most often it's in the gray. this kernel had a point. i need to deploy the best soldiers that i have in the soldier is not one of them. he's not one of them because he needs help. gives you a sense of the complexity of what it is that the military is fighting against. we like to look the military from the outside and say it's its own world that were not a part of. the military has made a gigantic

mistake by consolidating itself in places where the average civilian would never go. if you live in a coastal city, washington being the exception, you may never see anybody who serves except for in the airport. you probably don't know anybody who serves. you probably have zero association. it's not its own world. they protect our country and what comes from one impacts the other. from the moment it was created till 2010, more people died in car crashes than illness. that was the case quite literally from when the first model t rolled off the assembly line. in 2010, that changed. that was the year that the civilian suicide rate, the number of people killing themselves exceeded the number dying car crashes. if you think about that for a

moment, all of us watching local news read the horrible stories of a crash on highway x killed so many people. but when you're seeing that, that same day, more people total, americans are killing themselves then are dying in this car crash. that is a staggering thing. i want to close with that because we owed the military more than saying thank you for your service. we know the military more than trying to understand that it is the military that reflects us. we know the military there it knowledge that we are the country that understands what it is going through and that we understand what those who serve are going through whether their guard or reserve or active duty, it doesn't matter. if they wear or have worn the uniform, we are either are fighting or have fought in wars, afghanistan as we know is not ending. we thought it was but it's not.

even when these wars and, the number of ptsd will not end. number of cases that manifest themselves for decades after a person has served will not end. we'd like to believe, i think in those in the military who are still fighting it, they know better. there is a hope out there that when the guns of war fall silent, the suicide rate rate will drop or slow. that's just not true. ptsd can go on for decades. they can be fine for decades and then 30 years from now something happens and they take their own life. now we are seeing suicide rates among men in their 50s skyrocket. some of these men have lost a job and are figuring they will never work in a assembly again. i want to close with that.

i should point out that when we discovered we were having a baby boy and we spoke to our parents, my first call was to mark and his wife. as you listen to them, keep that in mind. they're not only speaking about or for the military, they are speaking for our country [applause]. >> senator donnelly, thank you for your leadership and the legislation you proposed and we hope many more will support us. we thank you for what you're doing each and every day. as he said, he's family. we've we've spent a lot of time

with him and he's writing the book. of course my good friend bill as well. today's the marine corps birthday so happy birthday to the marine corps i'm an army guy so i will say tomorrow is veterans day and we all just want to thank our great american veterans and their family and caregivers for all they continue to do for our nation each and every day. who do you call when you're home alone at night and you're afraid, you're isolated, you don't know what to do or who to turn to. you don't know who to call. i run a program at wreckers called that's for warriors. it's an that's the number for warriors. it's 24 hours a day seven days a week, veteran answers the phone within 30 seconds of the phone

ringing. they're trained in a program called reciprocal peer support. it set up where veterans answer a call in their support on-site 24 hours a day. no matter where you are and if you're active member, family member caregiver reserves, reserves, no matter what you can call the number and ominously or confidentially. we don't tell if you tell us your name or where you live. you can call and talk to a veteran who gets it and understands what you're going through. twenty-four hours a day. who do you call question on who they call in the middle of the night? i wish my son kevin had a phone number to call. our son kevin died at his own hand. he took his own life by gun in 2003. he was getting ready to go to the army advance camp and finished his third year of rotc. he was a straight a student, a

premed student was going to be an army doctor. he took his own life. he was struggling with depression. he didn't even tell his brother or sister he was struggling. there was huge stigma. he was on medication and came off his medication. i will never forget only found out later that one of the kids was using his computer and he walked out and said who's on this. it was kevin and he was embarrassed. he felt it was a character flaw. this isn't just a simple stigma. this is a deadly stigma. we can change. people say how going to change #america can do anything if we put our minds to it. our research and our resources behind it. our son jeff had graduated from the university of kentucky. he was killed in iraq ten months later. they were best friends as well as brothers.

>> >> to connect you to somebody they connect you to local resources there are organizations out there everybody is guarding their rice bowl and all the soy sauce. we want people to know we have a 24 hour days seven days ago week call center you are never alone we connected to local resources with whatever you need and i'll give you a couple of examples a veteran in a motel recently struggling

because we don't do crisis calls we had a veteran called recently after a long conversation they talked to this veteran to help convince them and they decided they were right he locked the gun in the trunk of a car then contacted the police he came and took him to the emergency room where they admitted in. and the said collins' back when he is safe. guess what the police officer was a veteran. he got a. another is a grandmother recalled worried about her grandson has she got a note

on facebook and finally started to make connections they got him help of course, he said grandma don't do that again. [laughter] but the matter the challenge they are there. the follow-up as long as it takes they called us and is to reduce clinton knows somebody will call me back. they need a safety net there in transitions we higher over 46 veterans so we hire and train them to do this

great work around the clock. prevention is key. to be the safety net with their transition out of the military with the normal drill status for there are so many times they can fall through the? in the want to be there for them. and wish my son had before he took his own life i believe that our nation each and every day we're here to help and not judge we are here to help and not judge we will help them work

through it together that feels like getting hit with a fire hose what is the toughest thing you are going through today? up can we help you today? let's do it together and one better in that time army navy air force marine or caregiver at a time is how we solve this thank you again. for your great friendship by love your brother and things to all the veterans for your service this is the land of the free because of the brave don't wait. call. you are not alone.

[applause] >> thanks to mark specifically i know lark because we graduated at west point together and we were stationed with those places nobody would go to bed now want to go back and they said he would either marry her or go to jail and we are really glad he is part of the family now. we also want to think senator donnelly and the staff aide you so much for everything you do to change

the culture and the stigma to promote community and awareness like you do. and two friends on the panel we talk about this often and in fact, industrialized this is one of the few times we have spoken on the same panel which is what probably gravitate toward this but i want to tell a couple of stories with a number one priority is combating suicide in this country in the first tory is related to a point that this is a problem for our country not just the military purpose of speaking of the recipients from iraq and afghanistan and most recipient medal of honor was involved in an

attack and afghanistan were a friend of mine died and it started to think about that last night i was thinking of him as the most recent friend i have had to has died and asked who was the first person? although scott died in a training accident and of the key was the first. and the first person in my class who died was a cadet who died by suicide before the war started and was home on christmas leave and did not come back we didn't know how to talk about it he is not on the web site if you look at the list of the names of the fallen soldiers talks about community and culture the culture is such

we don't talk about mental health or suicide but one of the amazing things as an army veteran that i love about the legislation in the senator has sponsored and i believe will make a huge impact in the culture of the military is the annual checkup every young son who is to and has been to the dentist twice. both painful this is both times. committed is indebted he will go every year so what does that have to do with mental health? everything because in this country the ada to get a checkup once your for your mental well this is foreign to most people so when you looked at in that context

because it another component was april 2007 i was in iraq might commander said you have a phone call. i was with my battle buddied it was my father to tell me my oldest sister had died by suicide and had taken her life. never served a day in her life. how did this happen in? i didn't see the signs it did not know them but to go back to the culture peace no one in my family was prepared no one in my community was aware what those signs were we talk

about that the highlights the point that is a challenge for the entire nation and country so i talk about culture and community it truly does impact all of us a usually ask folks to participate so ask yourself how many of you know, someone that has died by suicide? ask yourself that question. so why wouldn't we take action or more active in our community? because it is the situation to talk about policy agenda it is powerful we have worked tirelessly in with partners on the hill looking

at that policy component to leverage community and that is what it is all about so we are proud to support the marines is important to talk about this today but he could not receive the help that he needed and i think of those under not as driven or is motivated to have a more difficult time trying to get over those barriers and and i feel very privileged i have a the v.a. to go to another barriers to entry are different for each sector but i also think of

my sister and others the reservists who don't have the access and go back into the small towns and they feel all alone in a very different way than they did on active duty it was uniquely different because i was already in the exact same community i laughed and that i had the same neighbors with that lack of community so tomorrow is veterans day we're proud to have events across the country to come together and tomorrow is veterans day but

every day we should be striving to build community to change the culture if you have read the book read the book is phenomenal. educate yourself and get active in your community this affects the entire country just like senator don ho just like in alexandria new jersey ask yourself what can you do personally? we all those one that has been touched by this and there is something we can do about it. the key to be an amazing partner into my friends for sharing their story. [applause]

>> i cannot thank you know for being here today as you talk about this subject at this point i would like to turn it over to the audience briefly for questions. >> [inaudible] that bill did a few things first and foremost, passed by this congress to address mental-health and is named after klay hunt user did

iraq and afghanistan and. is provided incentive for officials to go to the v.a.. 34 the thousand dollars of student debt to help them recruit mental health professionals there is a shortage across the country and this affects all of us. another thing it did was mandate freeing of many programs said v.a. had into one location to find out where the resources are even with the assessment that there are so many efforts out there one of the challenges we had had we know what is working well or not a strike to look at

things also we have called on congress to have a public hearing working with the v.a. and their mental health professionals to make sure they have the tools they need to implement and we're confident over a three-year period we will find ways to improve the services to replicate and learn from across the board. >> one thing president obama did for all of american history only those you died in service but it was not for those by suicides and he was the first president to

sit down with those who died at their own hand but they will look to the families who lost one with that same level of grief because that letter said your son served with honor and recognize that as a country. >> i believe that was 2009 was there anything else you want congress to do to address? >> i think to build on the

success there were some things that were not included we talk about access to care and currently i am enrolled at the v.a. as a five-year combat eligibility requirement add but we know many individuals to experience trauma in the challenges that they had that even older men start to see the uptick of challenges doesn't happen three years after you come back so the recommendation is to extend that at 15 years. absolutely that is something that can be done to be a champion for the community at large has a package distaff has been working on that is very bold will we

think is as the old policy that not only addresses the dod side but also the v.a. side but there is the culture peace as well. having the president sent a letter what a shift of culture. each congressperson has the ability to do something to be leaders of change to use the right language i didn't know about the right language to tell my sister died they can speak intelligently and share their stories but a good policy would impact the culture and community aspect. >> the newspapers to report that we would be honored but

we're not notified. that is the hardest part for us. is the suicide rate from operation in desert storm and operation freedom is it similar to the vietnam or korea? it sounds that we hear more about it. >> it is a great question the date data was not attract as closely so the feeling is that it is worse so what we think of as ptsd as there were different phrases so post civil war so

you have that phrase in that number ended world war ii half a million troops discharge shoes psychiatric disorders such to fight as the greatest generation how forcible because they could not do any more baby they were shellshocked but ptsd he emerged from vietnam. those studied the issue believe there are a couple of reasons but the multiple the plebiscites without question and a majority of those who have killed themselves have not deployed but still the units where they had so what they hear from the people next to them this is what we faced they are absorbing behavior's and

also a prescription drug use is extraordinarily high it is too high in the civilian in the military world again. the military and its billions to control the amount tops it is like world war i. there are 58 men at that base of 53 taking prescription drugs they're taking multiples like six or nine. they come back then they go cold turkey where suicidal thoughts skyrocket and a change like that can lead to suicide.

it isn't something that happened in previous wars a lot of research is going to babette and of think we have any sense of how big of a problem is. >> things for coming today to joyous for this important conversation. i have to think of our partners from the american foundation of suicide prevention volunteers across this country and of all communities to prevent suicide with partners like iraq and afghanistan journalists and authors to speak up and out that have a

very on the love of that this point with your wife your daughter in the important work that you do every day and have done to prevent suicide in the bill said earlier resonated with me that every day is veterans day we're doing work every day to prevent suicide among our nation's veterans and military personnel like the senator is, the white house, congress and capitol hill be will get the job done and prevent suicide. thank you for coming out and have of wonderful day and a great veteran's day tomorrows. [applause] the

runoff. >> good evening, i am beth courtney. thank you for joining us. we have a 40 year tradition of contributing to the democratic process and we continue that through the debate and other public forums. we welcome the entire audience this evening. thank you. >> i am berry erwin, president of the council for better louisiana and thank you for joining us. our debate features candidates in the runoff for louisiana governor. first state representative john

bel edwards and state senator david vitter. thank you for joining us. >> kelly spires is one of the questioners and jeremy is here from editor and publish of lawpolitics.com. >> tonight we will dive into issues and topics of great importance to the citizens of louisiana. a drawing was held earlier to determine the order of questions and closing statements. the format is to encourage a dialogue between the candidates. >> we will talk about the governoring style of the candidates, element and second educati education, the budget and taxes, workforce development, health care, infrastructure, and issues related to each candidate's campaign. our panelist provide background on a topic and pose a question to start the conversation. then candidates will have a turn to ask each other questions. the panelist ask follow-up

questions to insure clarity and responsiveness in the answers. >> we will begin with exploring the governoring styles of the candidat candidates. kelly starts it off. >> one of the two of you will be the next ceo of the state. what experience have you had in executive management? mr. vitter? >> i managed my senate office for several years and if you talk to folks who interact on a number of issues, particularly louisiana residents, they will say it is a responsive center office. i am hands-on. that is my style and different than jindel who has been said to be aloof. hundreds of thousands have my personal cellphone number.

i am completely accessible and get into the weeds of important issues. i have great staff to help me. i help direct them. but i get in the weeds and lead them. again, the proof is in the pudding and i think in that, i built a solidht pbte -- a solid background to get it right. >> second air born division. that is an ex executive position

as commander. when we go to the field and train that number grows to 250. ittee requiring me to call n the meetings and issue the agenda whether it was the military and veteran's special committee in the house of representatives, which i reserected that committee. i worked with veterans from strengthening homes to making sure cemeteries were open and para officers were in place and the veterans could access the services they were entitled to. >> mr. vitter you will ask mr. edwards a question and mr.

edwards you have a minute to respond and mr. vitter gets a 30 second review. the topic is governing style. >> john bel, you talk about shared sacrifice given the enormous challenges we face as a state. but when i look at your concrete record, and others look, i don't see the shared sacrifice from yourself and other insiders. i see something different. after coming into office, you voted for yourself getting 123% pay raise. you noted for yourself to get a per diem increase. you opposed a bill to mandate governments and illegal gifts. you expressed opposition to the

concept of term limits. this really does go to governing style. what real sacrifice will you ask of political insiders and politicians? not just hard working taxpayers who have to pay more and more for government. >> senator vitter, you have been lying sideways to the public. you make $40,000 more a year now than when you got elected to the senate. that is more than i make -- you make more per month than i make into year. so i am not taking a back-seat to you on any of the issues you raised. in fact, i voted for every single bill in the first ethics reform special session we had in 2008. so shared sacrifice, absolutely, there is shared sacrifice. i have led my example. i am very proud of the work i have done in the legislature on a whole range of issues.

and you know, you asked so many different things there rather than one question. but i will tell you as it relates to term limits, i believe that there are term limits already. every office has a certain term whether it is four or six years. and the voters are able to decide if you stay in the office or not. they are able, when they want to, to turn someone out of office. and i think you will experience that pretty soon. >> well, again, i think this illustrates big differences between us in terms of philosophy about governing. i have always fought against the political establishment because quite frankly i think the political establishment is way too isolated from normal voters. they don't understand normal voters every day lives. that is why i fought automatic pay raises, that is why i never joined the congressional retirement system and will never get a penny. that is why i fought the

obamacare exemption and don't get that subsidy. and led the fight to establish term limits in louisiana. i believe in that concept and think we need to return to citizen legislatures not politics as a profession. >> thank you, mr. vitter. now mr. edwards, it is your turn to pose a question. >> david, in the past 16 years you only passed five of 566 bills you authored. you have been called the most corrupt member of congress and been named the least effective member of both parties and don't show up to work. the best indicator of what someone does tomorrow is what they did yesterday. and you show you are more concerned with helping your friends than being accountable to voters and taxpayers. how is it you don't represent a third bobby jindel term? >> you are completely

misrepresenting my record. you talk about bills you introduced that passed. you have to look at things i fought for and worked with others on on a bipartisan bases or was a prime author on that did pass. that record of bipartisan accomplishment i will put next to anybody certainly including yours. a water resources bill i co-wrote with barbara boxer of california is important for coastal measures. fixing the flood insurance crisis, i helped lead that effort, yes with others on a bipartisan bases. coastal restoration i have been involved in that and making huge progress made in the last several years to fund the work we need to do. hurricane recovery. i worked non-stop with our delegation, with others, to pull us out of the dark time in terms

of recovery from katrina and rita. i have a full record of bipartisan accomplishment. >> your rebuttal. >> 5-565 bills does speak for itself. you have been named the least effective members of congress. you have one of the worst att d attendance record of all hundred members in the united states state senate and you said you endorse bobby three times. i like him and respect his leadership and agree with all of this political values is your record. >> follow-up questions, reporters. >> i would like to bring it back to the state legislature and how you will interact with lawmakers. would you all have a plan to testify in front of committees or would you not? >> i would as i said a few minutes ago.

i am a very hands-on person. i would be interacting with individual legislatures as i do now. most have my personal cell and i interact with them constantly. i would be on the floor or off the floor in committees. that is a different governing style we have seen in the last several years. i exhibited that governor style in the u.s. senate with real effectiveness. >> mr. edwards, would you like to continue? >> i will testify i lead from the front. i lead by example. i will testify in support of the bills i am proposing to the legislature. i will meet with the leadership, and rank and file members of the legislature in the house and senate. i will tell you i have not had a meeting with bobby jindel in many months. >> we need to move on to the next topic. >> k-12 education. jeremy, you have the question.

>> we have seen significant reforms and changes over the last 20 years including school accountability measures for teachers and students, growth in the recovery school districts, charter schools, and this is in addition to vouchers and school choice mechanisms. aside from common core, could you pick a couple you would keep or strengthen or get rid of from the list i just went through. mr. edwards? >> i will support charter schools. when charter schools help the perishes and the perishes are in need of help. however, i believe in local control of education. i believe that local taxpayers and voters and parents ought to be able to hold their school board members accountable for how dollars are spent and children are educated. if a district has an a or b better grade, i believe they should have the final decision of a new charter school opening in that district or not. if the letter grade is a c, d,

or f, i think it is probably appropriate for the board to have the opportunity to review and perhaps reverse the denial of that charter application. i also have no plans to end the voucher system. it was unconstitutional when it was passed. i voted against it for that reason and the supreme court held it was unconstitutional. i will not end it but i will confirm to its stated purpose which is to give parents of kids trapped in failing schools a choice. >> jeremy, this is a huge issue where john bel and i have different records. on all of the reform efforts i have been an active leader for charter and voucher scholarships. choice empowers parents particularly from poor families. accountability, i have been in support of that.

john bel's record is consistent in the opposite direction against charters. he would limit those opportunities as we just admitted voting against the voucher scholarship proposal when it first came up. voting consistently against accou accountability over and over again because fundamentally he has been doing the work and charting the course of the teacher's union not parents, not empowering parents who need it the most. >> thank you, mr. edwards. it is now your opportunity to pose a question to mr. vitter on the education topic. >> just like bobby jindel, you were for common core before being against it. you were a strong supporter and then against it in a fundrais g fundraisinging letter, then for it again, and you now flip-flopped again and want people to believe you are against it.

you have put your personal interest ahead of the common interest and when the political winds change so do you. just like bobby jindel you put personal ambition over what is best for students and teachers. on this issue, why should louisiana parents trust you today? >> you are talking about common core first of all. it is you who said at the press club, with the respect to the common core standards you were okay with the sarntands. in the advocate you said in 2014 quote the standards are fine close quote. you said there is no conspiracy about common core and this is not a federal takeover of education. you said that about common core. not me. i have a specific plan to get us out of common core and the park test. it has been part of my plan in the race. it is all at davidvitter.com and

part of my detailed plan on the challenges we face. >> senator, i have been voting against common core since brought to the legislature in 2014. that is my record. 2014 and in 2015. i did make statements such that the standards themselves are not a communist conspiracy but i never said the standards should be adopted without being vetted by parents and educators and made the changes where necessary. that is my record from the beginning. i have been against common core. my voting record is hundred percent consistent on that. i have never flip-flopped. you flip-flopped and flip-flopped again. >> mr. vitter, it is your turn to ask a question on k-12 education. >> i want to go back to the choice in education because i think it is premier civil right issue of time. whether every child in louisiana has the right to a great

education. as discussed before, you were in favor of limiting the opportunity to establish charter schools and you would not allow it unless an entire system is drf. that would cut out 6800 students in lafayette perish for example who are in d or f schools from being able to enjoy new charter schools. state-wide that is 170,000 kids who are in d or f schools. >> your question? >> you are limiting those charter opportunities. what do you say to those poor families who are not going to get the full charter opportunities because of your specific legislation? >> first of all, when it comes to voucher, i voted against this because it was unconstitutional. my oath of office means something to me. when it says you will support the constitution of the united states and the laws of the state of louisiana i take it

seriously. my decision was affirmed by the supreme court. money stolen from the local school districts had to be returned so the students could receive the services they were entitled. i believe in local control of education. when a school district is performing well it ought to be in control of the decision of a new charter school opening. otherwise, the creation of a charter school diverts funding away from the programs that made that school district successfully to begin with. i believe that is the right thing to do. because if parent and leaders don't have the ability to hold them accountability it is only a matter of time until they stop authorizing new taxes. >> there are failing schools in the districts you are talking

about. you will limit and trap the students without more choices and voucher scholarships would give them. the record is the record. you can try to talk a good game but on education you have fought all of these reforms every step of the way. you fought the voucher scholarships. you tried to limit charters. you co-authored at least four different bills to curtail charter schools. certainly accountability. you have not consistently opposed common core but you have opposed accountability and that is what you are trying to point to in terms of supposed opposition of common more. >> thank you. we are out of time on this topic but we go to the next one with kelly and posed to mr. vitter >> louisiana has been dealing with significant budget cuts. the legislature raised more than $700 million in new revenue yet another huge shortfall looms. given where we stand today, do

we solve the problem by shrinking state government or should we better match revenue with spending? >> kelly, quite frankly we need to do both. i have a balanced approach on both sides of the equation. i laid out the approach months ago in our detailed plan on our website at davidvitter.com. the first thing i would do is call a special legislation session focused on this. i would start on the spending side and have reforms to undedicate most areas of the budget so we can roll up the sleeves and cut the spending in those areas we cannot afford or are wasteful and off limits. that is why higher-ed has cuts that are not porportioniate. and we need to get rid of certain exemptions and credits

that don't produce for the economy or taxpayers. i think as opposed to john bel i would have a balanced approach that looks at both sides of the equation. >> mr. edwards? >> kelly, we have to do both. you look for new ways to create efficiency and deliver state services with a cost savings. you have to expand the flexibility to allocate cuts across a broader spectrum of the budget so you are not focusing on higher education and health care. you do that by looking at the statutory dedications. but also the constitutional dedications. but those are harder and take longer because you have to get two 3rds vote in the legislature and approvaled by the voters themselves. we will september federal dollars back into the louisiana as well. when they help meet obligations to the people and save us we will do that with the medicaid

expansi expansion. we will focus on growing the economy and not incentivising the government where there is no growth. the biggest thing is reduce or eliminate tax gave aways that cost too much or don't return. we can create savings to reallocate to high rer priority items >> you may ask the question on budget and tax. >> john bel talks about a balanced approach but his record is different. it is another area where we have completely different records which suggest would lead in different directions. this past year in the legislative session you voted for $2.1 billion in taxes. you have a plan on your website you are touting that is a $1.5

billion tax increase on the 165,000 families involved. you have never specifically authored a single piece of legislation to undedicate any area of the budget. you have never authored a singleal piece of legislation to cut in those areas. that is not a balanced record. why should voters believe you in saying that you are going to take a balanced approach when the concreate record is very, very different. it is all taxes -- concrete -- >> the voters shouldn't believe you and the ridiculous question you asked with figures you made up. my record is clear. i did vote for the things i talked about. reducing tax give aways that cost too much and don't produce enough return on investment to create savings that we then reallocate to higher priorities like saving lsu, like making

sure the safety net hospital system stayed open, making sure the medical school in sheave port had the money to continue to operate. those were the hard choices we had to make. i did vote for those measures because they were the right thing to do and consistent with what i said i will continue to do as our governor. we will not stay in this ditch we are in under jindel. we will roll up the sleeves and pull ourselves out and finance our priorities. that is my commitment. >> i asked about a balanced approach and what is on the saving and reform of government side. you talked about a tax measure: getting rid of an exemption. >> your record is all taxes, no budget reform, and no savings.

that is the record. you have not authored a single bill to undedicate any part of the budget. if i can missing, name the bill. you have not authored a single bill to go into the areas and cut the budget. you have never proposed or led in that effort. but you voted for $2.1 billion in taxes this year and you are proposing more. >> your pledge to out of state interest cause you to repeatedly to vote to send our jobs overseas. jobs of louisiana residents and americans. bobby caused the state's dodge budget to employed. you have been unfaithful to use taxpayers and why should they believe you changed? >> i have taken no pledge to glover nor quest in dealing with challenges in the state budget

and laid out a truly balanced approach in terms of doing that. you refer to bobby jindel constantly but the fact of the matter is i have on several occasions publically fought, butted heads, and disagreed with bobby on things. his use of one-time money to plug the budget hole, you voted a lot for that, but i opposed him in 2012. i led the charge to stop abusive legacy lutawsuits. i dragged him kicking and screaming to propose and pass that reform. in contrast when have you every publically disagreed strongly with your party leader barack obama? when did you stand up at the 2012 national democratic convention and say he is wrong

on this? he is wrong on obamacare or gay marriage or anything else? it has never happened in any public way. >> mr. edwards? >> you are wrong. you signed the glover anti-tax reform. you said you have not signed it but you lied. you signed the pledge in washington, d.c. and in fact, i have stood up against the president with respect to the moratorium. i voted for a resolution calling on him to direct the secretary of interior to take that moratorium down. just the other day, i stood up and opposed the decision not to go forward with the keystone pipeline because that is the wrong decision for our country and our state. it would create jobs, allow for energy independence and if you believe sitting here tonight that the president poses the biggest threat to our future in louisiana, you need to stay in wash and deal with that. >> time is over for this topic,

we need to move on. >> we can continue that conversation because in the next topic we are talking about and that is workforce development. jeremy, your question. >> we have been told there is an industrial boom coming for qualified workers particularly in the technology field. in southwest louisiana there is a need of 35,000 jobs over the next five years. me century link in monroe is trying to bring in engineers and technical workers to fill jobs but are finding it difficult. can you give two or three examples of what you will do to address the need over the next four years? >> this is critically important -- and one generation's time we are going from a time when 25% of people needed education beyond high school to get a good job and now

that number is two thirds of the people. you have to invest in higher education, four year university and community and technical colleges. the straight of louisiana has cut state support for higher education more than any other state in the nation over the last eight years and raised tuition on its kids more than any other state in the nation in the same time period. that is the perfect recipe for disaster. we have to do better and align the workforce needs with job creation opportunities out there so that kids are getting the education that allows them to have the certified skills and training necessary to land the jobs. we have to do it around the state. you were talking about century ling in monroe. since the end of the session in 2010, job creation is positive but when you get to alexandria

and north to is zero. a key to address this is invest in the higher education around the state. >> jeremy, i have a lot of proposals on my website. our mari skare -- maritime sector it very important. i proposed structural reform so we would on ports, maritime and have leaders built into led and dot to help me do that. a subcabinet focused on growing those jobs. secondly, we need to be more effective in terms of addressing the burden of litigation. we need litigation reform because we are hurting because of abusive lawsuits led by trial

lawyers, who by the way are funding vitter's campaign. i laid out reforms for this like texas did in the 1990's and that was a major factor leading to their very robust economy. there are other detail proposals in the plan. >> mr. edwards, question for mr. vitter. >> david, you have consistently voted against job training against louisiana's veterans many who are seeking employment after their dedication and service. what kind of plan is it if you not dedicate your time to this? >> i have a strong record in terms of supporting our veterans. it starts with individual cases. helping them get the proper treatment and benefits they need. i spend a lot of time personally, along with my great staff, helping veterans on those issues with great results. talk to the veterans who have interacted with my office. talk to them and ask them how

they feel about my representation of them. we are getting community-based clinics >> the question is about job training. >> job training at the va. i sponsored legislation as the chair of the small business community to put increased fluence through the va specifically for veterans as they make the transition from war time to work. i helped lead that effort. >> david, your record is you voted against the gi's educational bill for veterans moving it from $1100 to $1500 in 2008. in 2012 you voted no on the veteran's job core act that

would have invested 1 billion in veterans. you voted no on the national defense appropriation act to help prepare members of the armed forces for civilian employment. your record is horrible. it is your turn mr. vitter. >> economic development and workforce development is critical. you are trying to portray this myth that you are a conservative or moderate. you are in the middle. you are going to unite and you have a mainstream record. but if you look at the record it is different. leading pro-business groups and economic development groups give you a low score. national federation of independent business, 23% rating. the top economic development group in the state, louisiana association of business and

industry, 25% lifetime rating. that is lower than mitch and mary landry and bill jefferson. that is the bottom 10% of shh legislature. why should voters think that is a pro-economic, workforce development record, that will grow jobs and the economy? >> theluti louisiana associatio businesses gave 90 legislatures f grades and i was one because it didn't like the way we supported the universities, hospitals and people of louisiana. i will tell you the louisiana association of business and industry is headed by someone who is a very strong supporter and former executive council and chief of staff to bobby jindel. today they endorsed you because they want a third jindel term except they would like to have it on steroids. when it comes to voting records,

i don't intend to give anybody a hundred percent except for my wife. >> again, john bel, you try to portray yourself as a conservative. the record is the report -- record and it suggests something different. i am not talking about this year giving these f's this year. i am talking about a lifetime rating of 25%. i am talking about comparing that life time rating to mitch landrieu and they all score higher. i am talking about the fact you are in the bottom 10% in terms of ratings about jobs and economic development. that is not conservative or moderate or anything of the like. >> time to move on to another topic and kelly will talk about health care. >> yes, in the realm of education, similary our state

has seen changes in the way public health care is delivered. would you keep the policies we have now and work out the issues we face or go into different direction all together? mr. vitter? >> you mentioned a few things. the public-private partnerships are a good reform but need work. i specifically have been proactive leading the charge to improve the pub linebacker partnership in louisiana. i support log chip and thing it is important and needs to be in the mix. medicaid expans is a huge issue in this area. we have strong differences on that. john bel would immediately lunge into the medicaid expansion under obamacare and barack obama's terms. i would only consider it under louisiana's terms.

kentucky's cost soared beyond anything they projected. kentucky's cost are double what they projected. they are facing a budget crisis and just elected a new republican governor largely on that issue. those are the differences. >> i support the move for the public-private partnerships and we have to make it work. the state owes the federal government $190 million because of the plan being illegal to draw down dollars we were not entitled to. we have to strengthen that.

we went to a manage care plan administered by five insurance companies. we are going to expand the medical program when i am governor. it is the louisiana plan we already reformed it. they would have saved $52 million this year alone. that is how it was scored. 30 states have done it. 13 with republican governors. this isn't right versus left. this is right versus wrong and i will do it as governor. >> the biggest issue around health care is obamacare. the core of obamacare and medicaid expansion. john bel, you have supported all of that including the core m mandates of obamacare. hb-429, clear vote. and that fundamental mandate is what through 98,000 louisiana residents off the health care plans they had and wanted to

keep. obamacare said no, we are not allowing that. we know better and that is not good enough. that fundamental mandate led to increased in cost. folks are getting their premiums now and they are soaring. what do you say to middle class louisiana families who got thrown off a plan they wanted to keep and face the soaring premiums >> i say the affordable care act came from congress and that is where you sit. we are not voting in louisiana on mandates for obamacare. you are making that up. if you are worried about health insurance premiums going up you should support medicaid expansion. every family with private insurance is paying $1,000 a year extra to pay for the private care and because the hospitals are not getting compensated they are building it into the contracts and that results in higher premiums. we are paying the taxes to the federal government and not accepting them back so that

250,000 of the worker poor get the benefit of health care coverage with our tax dollars that are instead going to other states that did that we are paying more in terms of private insurance. that is a disaster for this state. we need to do better by our people. we need to bring those dollars home. we need to save the tax dollars in the process. it is just the right thing to do. it is called putting louisiana first and i know that is foreign, david, but we need to do that. >> the record is the record. it is all at lagovernorfacts.com in case you want to look. very specific vote in 2014. hb-429. it was a vote by you and you sided with the president. that is siding with the people of louisiana. that is what through 98,000 louisiana residents off the

health care they wanted to keep. they used a model i am proposing. they didn't say we will do it under our terms. they negotiated their own terms. you have a chance to pose a question. >> while in congress, you voteded to end medicare for 70,000 louisiana seniors. that has no place in government. the seniors deserve to know whether you plan to balance our budget on their backs as well. how can you justify ending one of the most successful insurance programs in history and ask the seniors to pay more. >> john bel, you know i am for medicaid and have voted to end it as you know it. you know that is the case. this attack is exactly what we hear from the national democrats. i hear this from harry reid over and over on the senate floor. i hear it from barack obama over and over. i never said i want to end made

care as we know it. i never voted that way. one of several reasons i voted against obamacare is it stole from medicare. it stole $750 billion to create a new entightment and weakened medicare. that is why record on medicare. -- entitlement -- i am proud of my record. you are spreading the old fears and lies of national democrats. we hear it all of the time from harry reid, barack obama and all of the rest. >> you hear it all of the time because it is your record in. in 2013 and 2014 you voted budgets that would turn medicare into voucher system and increased the cost on seniors and made them pay the difference. that is your record. that is the paul ryan budget you have supported. the people of louisiana need to

know that you will treat them better. they deserve better retirement plans and need a governor who will not budget the balance on their back. >> if we are moving from one thorny topic to another one and that is the state's infrastructure; roads, highways, ports and everything questioned. jeremy? >> i am sure you know what number i am going to say which is $12 billion. the back log of projects in louisiana. there is not enough to address the larger problem. how would you generate more money or is it time to concede this is too big of an issue to deal with? how do we break the tradition?

>> until you fix the trust fund, it is premature to ask the people of louisiana to pay more whether that is a toll or additional gasoline tax. up to $60 million has been leaving the transportation trust fund not paying for roads and bridges but going to the state police. that is wrong and not the expectation of the taxpayers when they paid the gas taxpayer. i will get the trust fund under control in the first year. i will wean the state police out of the trust fund and that is $60 million. i am increase by 25% the amount of the capital bill and that is an additional $75 million per year. as soon as we do that, we will double the investment in the port priority program from 20

million to 40 million overnight. that is the right thing to do. once we clean it up and see we don't have enough revenue to go forward and maintain the system we have in terms of highways then and only then will we consider tol tolls or other revenue measures. >> we cannot ask the hard working citizens of louisiana to put more money in the bucket whether there are gaping holes at the bottom of the bucket. that is the situation now and john bell voted for that situation. that is the situation now. last year only 11 cents of every dollar of revenue associated with the state transportation trust fund went to roads and bridges. went to concrete and asphalt. that is ridiculous. i have a detailed plan to change that. it is all at davidvitter.com. i have a second plan to lead an effort among chambers, business

groups, and leading legislatures to develop a high priority building program. high priority projects in key areas of the state to spur economic development linked to new revenue, tied to that. go to the voters and citizens and say this is what we will build in a finite amount of time. if you support it we will not spend the money any other way. it would go to voters and citizens to earn their approval. >> a question on infrastructure, mr. vitter. >> david, you have been rated the least effective member of congress, the fifth highest absence rate among 554 peers and nowhere does it show in any other area than transportation. you have not helped finish i-49 or back up the projects jeremy asked us about. you even worked against securing

loan forgiveness after hurricane katrina for local governments. >> why don't you talk to local leaders and officials about my record. you will hear a different story. >> no, i didn't. >> i have been a leader on i-49 including as a high ranking republican on that committee. we have brought significant money to virtually finish i-49 north and to start i-49 south in a major way. through that work on that committee i have helped turn louisiana from a donor state. we were spending more money through federal gas tax to the federal government than we received back whether i went to congress it was about 93 cents on the dollar. we are no longer a donor state. we are getting more back than we send to the federal government because of the reforms and the work i did with others. and there are lots of specific

projects. la-1, i-49, many critical projects around louisiana, relief in baton rouge and greater new orleans that have benefited as a result. we need to go farther and i am working on a federal highway bill. >> david, the fact of the matter is you have been ineffective in the senate and worked against the local government in louisiana when they sought loan forgiveness after hurricane rita and katrina. >> i secured the loan forgi forgiveness. >> i get my information from the local people who lead the municipalities and perishes. >> mr. vitter, you can continue the conversation with the question. >> john bel is misrepresenting the record. i helped secure the loan forgiveness.

talk to the leaders who received it in key perishes. but john bel, you are always talking about fighting the former governor, in fact, there have been eight budgets you voted for and supported five of them. on this critical issue of infrastructure they were horrendous and stole from the transportation trust fund. you voted for 5-8 budgets. hundreds of millions and voted for the very budget i was referring to under which only 11 cents of every dollar of that revenue goes to roads and bridges and steel and concrete. why should voters believe as governor you will do something different? lagovernorfacts.com. that is your record. >> i have voted for five budgets and that means i voted more budgets than the vast majority

of my colleagues. the reason it is different is because i am going to be the governor. i am going to set the priorities. if you don't vote for the budget you don't pass a budget and nothing gets funded. but as governor, i will be able to control the process and make sure with that line item veto we will do the things i am talking about. just the most recent years we voted for revenue to take it clear that the state police can get out of the transportation trust fund. that is going to happen in the first year. zero dollars are going to be aappropriated to the police. that is my commitment to the people of louisiana. we have the revenue in place to make sure that happens. i did support that revenue because i want to be in a position to make sure that we can restore faith and confidence to the people of louisiana in the trust fund.

>> again, john bel, there is an enormous gap between your rhetoric and the vote. you talk about battling bobby jindel but supported 5-8 of his budgets. you voted for the state fund and it was rated over and over, hundreds of millions, and you voted for the budget under which 11 cents of every dollar, only 11 cents goes to transportation, and everything else is rated. that is the record. your red -- rhetoric is different. >> gentlemen, we have come to the last topic of the evening. time constraints say let's each do 30 second response on the first question. i give it to the reporters. >> gentlemen, both of you in recent forums have discussed

trackers following you and your family with video camera and the media in louisiana is writing about private investigators. have you and your campaign hired professionals to carry out the such behavior? if so, have they done anything you regret? >> it is the reality of campaigns i have lived with for years. i have lived with the trackers for many years and they associated with every campaign. we have not directly hired them. but others in support of my campai campaign. it is a free country. in terms of negative campaigns. there is nobody who has been the target of more negative campaigning than me. there are eight different

entities attacking me. three in the primary, three of their assoc aceationsation -- association. >> the short answer is no. senator vitter spent $156,000 on private investigation and lied saying the money was spent on legal fees. he said it is free country and he is sending private investigators to spy on the sheriff. louisiana doesn't need more scandal. i urge everybody to go to www.ltv.com and watch the cferee given. >> a question for mr. edwards. >> john bel, follow up on this. you never hired the parts but the state democratic party does

it on your behalf. you say you don't do negative campaigning but you have the most vicious negative ad up that veterans have been offended by and asked you to take at a down. you have nothing to do with the trial lawyer pac that has been running negative campaigns in the millions of dollars for months. isn't that disingenuine? you are not living by the honor code. you are living by the lawyers' code trying to parse words. >> mr. vitter, a question. >> nors -- my campaign has not played for a tracker or private investigator. i have not seen any footage of you anywhere from a tracker.

i understand you don't like it. it hits you where you live. >> i am not talking about me saying anything. you have missing out on your deals in congress in order to engage extra curriculum activities. >> >> you said the trial lawyers were working for jay garden. now it is benefiting you to say they are working for me. >> let's each one of you who have had a chance to ask a question we are almost to the closing comments. why don't you get 30 seconds and

you get 30 seconds. 30 seconds, vitter. >> again, john bel, you are being dis-in genuine to suggest the trial lawyers are not doing your dirty work. you are living by on honor code of technicality. >> i am not suggesting anything. i am not looking at video foot null from you. have haven't hired a private investigator to go after you. the last part of the honor code is i will not tolerate those who do. you are a liar. and a cheater >> what have you said -- >> i don't tolerate that. >> if you don't agree with tlar behavior why are you tolerating and benefiting from their

behavior? what we will do now is go to closing remarks. we are just about out of time for the hour debate. we thank you for your candid and energetic commentary. we will go to the closing remarks. >> this is certainly an important election. we have two candidates for governor. john bel edwards and myself who could not offer more starkly different voting records and political philosophy and therefore directions in which we would lead the state. it is pretty clear that john bel edwards wants to talk about anything but the future. he wants to talk about anything about those records and philosophies and where we would lead the state. that is because his campaign is built on a myth that he is some sort of conservative and we

don't differ much on the issues when we absolutely do. so, i humbly ask for your vote and support and ask you look on the key issues and how we differ on job creation. his ranking is at the bottom of the barrel. on education my support of charter and accountability and reforms and john bel has the opposite record supporting the teachers's unions not parents, families and children. >> thank you. mr. edwards? >> i want to thank the veterans. we are on the eve of veteran's day and i want to thank them for the service of the country. when i decided to serve the country nobody asked if was a democrat or republican. which candidate is best able to lead the state right now after eight years of miserable failed

poliauolicie policies? leadership to bring the people together, performance agreement, and tackle the biggest problems and challenges and provide real opportunity for our children in louisiana. that is my record in the legislature as a leader. i will fight against anyone of any party when they do harm to use. and i will find along the side of anyone of any party when they want to do our state good. ...

at dhs inspector general in 2013, cbp monitors report, states that initial estimates of deployed rpms showed an average useful life expectancy of 10 years. what we hear repeatedly from our port members is the lack of clarity in funding and in administering the rp rpm progra.