school prayer you have different activists realizing this idea of the amendment to restore school prayer is a nice idea but how do you actually do that, how do you write a piece of legislation that appeases everyone and doesn't offend the religious values in jeopardy because you don't want your evangelical child saying a prayer that might sound to catholic or or mormons of these issues kind of fall apart at the policy and the legislative area. james explores the challenges of partnership and governance next on book tv.rofer >> welcome, professor from the american university. also the coeditor of thes new

book american gridlock the sources, character and impact of the politicalrican gridlock: o. why are we so polarized? >> guest: there's a variety of reasons.s. one is that we reas have a a sociological phenomenon going on where people move to where they agree with each other and they stay there. if you live in downtown baltimore, your african-american and around people that agree with you and if you are in rural america you have people that agree with you also said the theory is that you move to areas where if you can there are people you agree with and if you don't, you keep your mouth shut or begin to be like the people around you. redistricting is drawing the lines around postings and those things and it's a partisan phenomenon except in the states where we have the commissions to do it so the redistricting for the state legislature as well as the house of representatives

predates districts that are safe at any margin. they are only 21 seats in the house right now that are estimated to be competitive of the 435. many of the state legislators are dominated by one party. they are becoming polarized. the media, not all media about the media reinforces us by having having us go to places where they agree with their own values and not being challenged. the courts at the lower level are becoming a big polarized as well so it creates the phenomena of the left and right finding each other with very few people in the middle of. in the 1970s and 80s the house of representatives had about one third of its members devoted to gather.

it was a governing coalition of creative moderation that created moderation and they got things done. today only 4% of the house and the senate both together and it's hard to get anything done and you've got constituencies out there that were the primaries and they are reinforcing people saying extreme things and even if you use the term compromise, you get primary can you get challenged in the primary by your own party and it's hard to win. the electorate right now the voters are expressing some of this on the left and especially on the right. >> host: you write political polarization and have all increased dramatically over the past three decades. the increase is followed a dramatic decline in the last three social indicators over the

seven decades of the 20th century. >> guest: i think the anger that you see like immigration but also income inequality where you are a moderate, you are criticized because you're compromising too much. bernie sanders is popular on the left and it looks like he will not get the nomination but he's capturing anger on the left and the right. we write about that in this book and by the way it is made up of some of the top scholars in the world writing about polarization for the media, the judiciary, the voters in congress and the state legislature. it's the first time we've had all of those together. usually we have a book on

congress and no one has brought up altogether. >> host: you write that several have political parties in the series of the reform with mixed success in the partisanship and generally working against as a whole. >> guest: to have all kinds of unintended consequences when it occurs at the state level. the dominant party is redistricting for the state, senate and house seats. no one is saying let's have more competitive district. they have commissions that do

redistricting and equal populations that are contiguous but they also try to have more competition and they are bringing about more. i believe in the competition and my colleagues believe in competition that will bring more moderation in the possibility of actually governing after people are elected. >> host: you have been teaching for how many years? >> guest: i don't know if i should tell you a. and the redistricting and the committee report and the campaign-finance reform. >> host: let's go to the independent claim of professor james thurber into the coeditor of the american gridlock. good morning. >> caller: good morning how are you doing?

another useless academic if you'll excuse me. my mother didn't want me to go along in academia so you are with her values. >> host: by visa visa direct with a guest that has agreed to come in on sunday morning? >> caller: let me get to the point. the reason we are having this incredible gridlock, and this is the reason that the tea party arose in the first place because we have gotten too far away from the constitution. let me give you an example. i just watched the first few episodes of the roosevelt come and let me give you a perfect example of when this all started. when teddy roosevelt filed an indictment without warning

against j.p. morgan and the northern securities co. for being a trust that came out of nowhere and he invoked the antitrust act to do so was he within his rights as the president to do so? absolutely because they feingold and passed the act in 1990. >> guest: i don't know if i'm a worthless academic. i think it's important for young people in america to understand the constitution like this. what we do in academia is we do research and teach people about how the system works and i do believe the president was within his rights to do that. there is a controversy now of course using the executive order

is and that comes and goes depending on what party is in office frequently. by the way this president said your executive orders on average than almost every president for the last 70 years but back to the questioner, i agree, he's taken the constitutional rights to do that. hispanic on-air as bitchy debate could teachers of the year at american university worked with others, senator humphrey and adlai stevenson, congressman david obie committee is the author or the editor of now nine books. john from missouri is next. >> i would like to address what is the democratic wage.

the biggest toss in the system is rupert murdoch. in order to make money is divided this country. that's what has divided this country. others would argue that we are seeing that on the left as well. >> guest: is a particular source of the media, fox or msnbc then you have other people coming out with other facts and then of course there are those in the media.

the one thing we have is they go to get their information well before fox presented were other places and the problem is they go to places where they agree and they also get to places they want to be an entertaining and sometimes entertainment isn't the best aspect of presenting material. fox is known to be conservative and murdoch is a conservative person. i don't think he is the reason we have division in america based upon culture and based upon race and ideology into the media doesn't control that. >> host: kathleen parker and maureen dowd, this is from the weekly standard called stormclouds.

he makes a couple of paintings as if donald trump wins the republican civil war he could go the way of goldwater in 64 and mcgovern in 72 and what you're hearing now is that it could signal for the party that we could vote for a conservative candidate and he heard remnants of that from the speech last thursday that he wouldn't vote for hillary clinton or donald trump opening up the door for the conservative candidate. >> guest: this is related to the voting behavior. he mentioned goldwater and then ronald reagan who came down to the convention but he lost as an outside antiestablishment, anti-northeastern establishment

and then he went on to win as an outsider. let's assume trump gets the nomination i think it's likely he's not going to do well in those nine battleground states needed. he's alienated those that make up a significant portion that are leaning towards democrats and alienated other kinds of populations. what happens? the republican party comes together to try to figure out what happened and there will be a continued fight between those that are establishment republicans into those that are new, not so new tea party people on the far right and i don't know know what's good to come out of that but if the party

wants to continue that it has to reach out to the nonwhite americans because they will be the minority sunni and the need to reach out the way george w. bush wanted to do that is an establishment republican who criticized the basis of the party. >> here is what the senate democratic leader said. >> building trump piece by piece today the establishment acts like it's surprised in the party

that spent years they are not welcome in america. they act surprised that they are flocking to the candidate shock and outrage that the voters have the schoolyards. even if they deny for the supreme court nominee for the first time ever, the first time in history the republicans should be surprised. they spent eight years laying the groundwork. >> host: that was the statement of the leader harry reid last wednesday and i want to share this editorial earlier this month from "the wall street journal" after seven years of the cool week and endlessly no

drama obama the voters are looking for a leader that speaks in short declarative sentences. incomes are stagnant and they are on the march across the middle east no wonder they are responding to someone who promises to make america great again. can you draw a straight line between the president that dismisses the texas incidents of workplace violence and the plumstead and muslims from entering the country. >> host: he's expressed the democratic position is why this is happening, but it's more complex than that. it's not just that they had been bashing the government for all these years now and pushing for the far right agenda is. the party really believe is in a smaller government. a recent poll shows 74% of the government. 81% of the democrats want larger government. this part of the division when it comes to guns, pro-life committee marriage, the parties

are almost split in the same way so this is coming out in this election than we have a clear and external threats to the united states adding to the second question. america likes to have a mission statement of what you're going to do about it. they want a strong leader. they see trump as a strong leader. one of the things is we don't know specifics about what the specifics about what he will do as the leader and then he changes positions from time to time so that will come out in the general election and we will have a 'll have a debate between hillary and donald trump. yes they are looking for a strong leader not a nuanced leader. they are looking for someone who keeps it simple and he's also drawn some independence than

waiting for the day there's a lot of assertions by the candidate that he is bringing lots of independents and democrats and i have not seen the hard data in the survey is only assertions surveys only assertions so far at that point. >> host: but they do have the think that the most important blocks behind each of the candidates come and by the way "new york times".com does this don't you like donald trump tells it like it is and is an outsider and those like ten senator ted cruz have experience from marco rubio is the issue of who can win in november and hillary clinton doing well among the older voters and bernie sanders doing well among the younger liberal voters. let's go to robert and harrison arkansas good morning democrats line. >> caller: i haven't heard one comment about jill's thoughts. i understood the nonprofits were

designated for exclusively the social welfare purposes only. now we see this thing called partisan nonprofits and they don't have to identify themselves and they come in not necessarily speaking for the party but they have a definite background and in the conservative developer or progressive but they are carrying these messages that are basically its truth or basic lies. one of the things is bernie sanders who i didn't vote for point out that he would have a problem because he's labeled a socialist. and when you look at this, this partisan nonprofits, all of those that supply insurance to their people into québec's subsidized to the government, but when we talk about helping that person isn't a part of that group, that becomes socialist.

>> guest: he make the good point. you know, bernie sanders calls himself a democratic socialist. other people say that the social security system for medicare and medicaid, others supplement for people that are retired or in the socialist progressive programs said he wants to expand but for college students to reduce their debt to try to bring in the minimum wage to help people and it's very attractive because people have been hammered by this economy at one level. he talks about behind what he's saying is the super packs that are pouring millions of dollars into campaigns. let's put it in perspective. the cycle probably in the last

cycle in 2012 had $7 billion spent in the primary general election for the house and senate including party money into this time it is probably going to go up to 8 billion bits one thing that we know is that these outside groups have not had that much impact in fact before going into the cycle of my gosh the money will just come in and change the agenda. the donald trump has shown that you can do this without a lot of outside money but it is a problem. people invest in campaigns not just for democracy they would like to have certain policies and many times from the super packs where we don't know who they are or what they are spending until much later they

have a impact on the system did in terms of people distrusting what's going on and they cannot coordinate although they do coordinate but i think the story as money doesn't think is money doesn't take that much difference. look at jeb bush she had a lot of money and a lot of endorsements and he barely got above 7% and dropped out the campaign whereas -- a lot of money more than anybody else even a little more than at the beginning. now, donald trump doesn't have a love of outside money. lot of outside money. he says that he's spending this money himself if you're going to find out more about that later but it certainly wasn't because some outside tax supported him

come he's captured the anger of the american people on the far right especially and he's done well. >> host: the caucuses are available online at time.com. we welcome the coeditor of the new book called american gridlock to the listeners on c-span radio. go to thomas next. it >> caller: for me i think that gridlock really started in 2000 when the republicans figured out a way still to do that in the presidential election katherine

harris did basically the supreme court when all is said and done and the votes were counted he didn't really win. >> guest: gridlock started in the 1980s in the sense that we had fewer and fewer people elected to the house and senate the senate and the legislatures that could be called moderate. a liberal republican and a moderate republican are an endangered species and secondly is to have the blue dog democrats of those that are fiscal conservatives and voted in the middle of many of their colleagues in the 70s, 80s and they started being redistricted and they lost. they are no longer around so we

went for about a third of the house and the senate voting together in the 80s to write now about 4%. when you've got that there is no incentive to move to the middle and be challenged in primaries coming up to the middle and be governed together that's reinforced by the leaders in the house and the senate but keep the group together against the public will in my opinion. one example of that is the consideration to have a hearing for a nominee for the supreme court announced well in advance of but it's an example of reinforcing the base on the far right. it's part of the history of this on the supreme court that a lot of the growth of the super packs and other things but i think what's happening basically the

voters are sorting out the parties are reinforcing that and the reelection is the primary but when you get to the general when people go to the save betamax, these people don't support me and they are very disappointed and angry and that is more important i think then the 2,000 election. we have a framework that makes it hard to get anything done and we also have the divided party government that needs a different party party and do if house and senate and presidency about 50% of the time we flip back and forth between the two parties into parties into the house and the senate and presidency. all of that create an environment where let's just blame and use the issues to help us win the next election that helps your base you don't have a policy but it helps. immigration is an example of that. we should have had the bill a long time ago. both parties are benefiting from

not having the bill passed at this point. that is more important than 2000 election. >> caller: you or anything but a useless academic select get that squared away. you have been immensely wonderful. go ahead barbara. i want you to create washington journal 100. the people will vote and we will tell you who you want to see. and then we will do stuff showing their clips over the years and it will be fascinating i heard the other day. george washington said let's watch out for these political

parties. they are going to do us in. while i wondered the other night listening to donald trump who was accused of flip-flopping his positions, but what he's doing is deliberately or unconsciously is attempting to create a kind of national unified platform on the remaining issues that he's taking the best sense both sides and to sum it up in a very funny way it could be donald trump looking at the american electoral system and saying you are fired. >> guest: let's start out with the first 20 and remind the viewers of madison madison in federalist paper 55 written about we have a publicly have to worry about whether it will continue or not and he said the aware of the actions. they will undermine the public

interest. beware of the parties. they will undermine the public interest. it will undermine the public interest. the american people sort of believe that. i think donald trump is a great extent and bernie sanders on the left and the right are talking about the specialist in their way. i cannot add it to the interesting comments. i don't know what is going through his mind from day to day because he changes it so much. it is instinctual and sometimes it's wrong that he doesn't make a difference. he goes on the next day and changes the position. so we have never seen anything like this in american politics. he is unique. >> host: returned to england on the channel. good afternoon to you, robert.

>> caller: good morning to c-span. how are you? as part of an international poll you will be mentioned in the media polarization. one of the things you may not be aware of is the polarization of the uk media. about 70% is not through choice. that's because basically we only have the lender not one of the reasons why i think most [inaudible] now we have one of the most

important positions that have been for several generations. what has happened is you've got the majority of the media being compelled where what is happening in the american presidential elections is echoed because the one we have one or two in a national broadcast which would be places like new york and washington. but you've got the regional media that basically means they are representing the actual truth of what needs to be told as opposed to the journalism. >> host: i'm going to stop you on that note and give the guest chance to respond.

>> guest: i lived in london and taught at the school at the university of london many years ago and i love the fact that there were multiple papers and i didn't really think about the regional question that you outlined. what happened in the united states is the regional papers and the city papers are hurting, the papers generally are hurting and they are relying upon the nationalist forces for national issues like "the new york times," "washington post," wall street journal and they are putting them in the local papers that exist. the local television stations are very much alive. in fact, people in the united states watch local tv and they get much more in-depth analysis. certainly the weather but sometimes politics compared to the national broadcast that are

23 minute headline news services. we have a lot of pharmaceuticals advertising on this and people are sick of it and it includes the cable television, cnn and others. but i think more and more especially people in the united states are getting to the internet to get their information into your getting lots of different sources of information but the problem is they are going to the places they agree. but to talk about the regional coverage in the united states, compared to rethink the uk, we get lots of diversity and lots of in-depth analysis and investigative reporting and it's a very rich source of information compared to many others. >> postcode is the chairman of the republican national committee said at the conference on friday with regards to what could potentially have been in cleveland at the summer convention.

>> host: whoever the nominee is, they will get the full backing of the person to the support of the party. we have a process and its simple. we set out a process and the voters, the republicans are voting in a lot of the states. they buy into the delegates to the convention and then to the convention obviously it takes a majority to become the nominee and that person joins the republican party. now i know it takes a little longer then you have on a 32nd response on television but i just wanted to calibrate everyone and remind you of what's going on. we have the candidates that are competing to be the nominee of the republican party who want to join the republican party at the convention in cleveland and when

they joined the republican party obviously, they take what we have been able to build. we don't take sides regardless of what you may think or read. there is no sides of the take cake at the republican party. >> host: he expects the nominee will be decided before the convention. >> guest: i agree i think that we will know after march 19 after several states if donald trump continues to win he will clearly have enough delegates as he goes to have a nomination. if he doesn't, we may have an open convention, not a brokered convention like in the old sense where they got together behind closed doors and selected who they would have and after the first ballot where people are required to vote a certain way then you will see, well before

that a lot of negotiation behind the scene. i lean towards conventional wisdom at this point that trump will get the nomination. >> host: would it be fascinating to watch clark's >> guest: last year about this time i thought that it would be a snoozer with bush and hillary going after each other but this has been so exciting, too exciting and if we have one of those conventions will be wonderful to watch. >> host: where are you located in the state? >> caller: on the coast near rockland. >> host: and argue caucusing tax >> guest: i am independent. i don't vote in -- basically my

comment is in maine we are mostly independent thinkers and i wish we could go back to the people that fight for community first. donald trump needs to be reminded when someone does a documentary about you -- we are fighting for the financial elite. we live in a state that fosters business and community recipe for success and as of late most take care to pay well especially the workers that are building the companies and wealth. growing up they would teach you good things to build people up

more like kennedy would say what can you do for your country for everyone? >> guest: a couple of comments. first i would push to reform to have open primaries were open caucuses throughout the united states to allow independents to go one way or another without having to identify that they are democrat or republican they would get a better turnout. why do they come in from oregon and we used to vote for the best person. my father was a republican that he would vote for wayne morris when he was a democrat and senator hatfield who is a republican and there is a certain amount of debt because we are very similar to name in my opinion.

what we have in the united states be his days, visa days, we have a lot of people who are not splitting their tickets when they are voting in the general election. so if you look at the data and there are surveys on this, they are good academic surveys where 93% of the democrats voted for obama also voted for the democratic house members and 89% voted for senate members and the data is the same for mitt romney and the republicans. it's very hard to get people to do with this individual said. he liked the outcome of your independent and vote for the best person. people are not splitting their ticket and i think that will continue giving this particular administration. in terms of all the policies that he referred to, these are all good things and things the candidates can take into

account. that is better wages for people and is a baby can create as you mentioned. >> host: if you are just tuning in our listening and our guest is from the american university and the coeditor of the american gridlock joining us from summer town tennessee. on the line for democrats. good morning. >> guest: there is no mention of c-span or the corporate media for the pledge. i think that includes the delegates misleading to have a vote has gone and clinton mentioned the stupid delegates and i would like to know how he's doing and the actual vote and do you have those numbers? >> guest:

>> host: we do. we are including the superdelegates and here's why. we are getting the numbers from the associated press on primary and caucus night. the primary and caucus night. the numbers are from the ap and on the website as well and those pledged delegates are elected officials and the dnc officials who will vote and if they change our numbers will change as well and you will also see the delegates for senator sanders and they also include his pledge to the superdelegates which are fewer than hillary clinton. what about backpacks >> guest: they are part of the rules of the democratic party. they've been there for a while. there is a balance. they are elected party officials and the delegates that you get from the caucuses and primaries but i should mention that in the senate, hillary has the superdelegates vote and she has all the senators except for senator warren and bernie sanders has none at this point

which is telling about what sanders thinks about him and ted cruz of course is roundly criticized by his colleagues in the senate. >> host: coal from gladstone new jersey. >> caller: this morning. i have a sort of macro question. i was wondering about whether or not the present state of affairs can be related to the lack of teaching and implementing civics as an educational issue and to see its demonstration in the public discourse i think that there is a generational part in the country to understand that politics is not the end result of its sympathy of the quality of our civic life and so as a civics teacher i was hoping to hear your perspective on that approach to the present situation.

>> guest: i agree with that. i've been involved in the grandstand centers for the last 20 years that have tried to improve the way that he teaches civics at the high school and grade level and in particular, the former member of congress will be hamilton has been handling this and has a competition to come to be educated at the university during the summer. they help improve the way that that he is done at creating interesting online games and other things. so the center in illinois there is a variety of congressional centers and presidential libraries that are trying to do this. the foundation world has been worried about this for two decades and gave millions of dollars into trying to improve this. and i thank you for your comment because i feel like i am trying to do this with my graduate and undergraduate students that do a

better job of teaching students about how the system works works and to improve it. >> host: only a minute or two left. what you ask your guest if he believe this is a realignment election and is that the outcome of the gridlock? >> guest: that is like the election where a massive number of great numbers of people that were republicans shifted and became democrats and that became the coalition behind the democratic party for one or two generations. we have a regional realignment in the south that used to be the dixiecrat democrats from the 65 voting rights slowly and then rapidly became republican. right now i don't see donald trump as a person creating a realignment. i don't see evidence yet, and i like evidence. i like data. i don't see evidence that there is a massive number of democrats and independents that are the largest portion in the surveys or independents are shifting

into becoming republicans. but to watch that great question, i am skeptical as a researcher i'm skeptical i am skeptical until i see the data. it is a good hypothesis but let's wait and see. i don't think it is a realignment election. >> host: the professor at american university and the author were the editor of nine books including american gridlock. thank you for being with us. ..