>> you know, i think here in peoria she's becoming more revered frankly i believe it's because of the work of sinclair and others with this tribute to

kind of set the record straight. she was not a hater. she was blunt. and opinion naitd and brilliant. but she is loved her children, she had a traditional life. married woman. i think in peoria now, people remember her as being brilliant and gifted. there's -- been reluctance to embrace her. but she wasn't -- she didn't care. she embraceable type woman. so it's hard for me to say because i'm so e meshed with her and my feminist friends. but i think she's being thought of more high lie all of the time. >> when i tune in of the weekend it is new authors. >> watching nonfiction authors on booktv is the best television for for serious readers. >> on c-span they can have a

longer conversation and delve into their subject. >> booktv weekends -- they bring you author after author after author that is unlike work of fascinating people. >> i love booktv and i'm all c-span fan. >> you're watching booktv on c-span two,ing television for serious readers here's a look at what's on prime time tonight we kick off evening at 7:30 p.m. with msnbc and thoughts on voting right and corporate involvement in elections. at 8:45 jack takes critical look at the official story of the crash of flight tw8 flight l temple university professor describing paying the price on rising cost of higher education. and we wrap up booktv in prime time at 11 with bradley, discussing his award-winning biography of russell kirk.

that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. first up, here's zachary ross. [silence] >> hello everyone my name is davis, it's an honor to welcome you tonight to this debate with zachary ross for his any book the great suppression, cash and conservative assault on democracy. once again i want to thank you all for coming out and mention that this is a part of a partnership that we have with politic and pros and bunch of poets that we're allowed to host eventsbook events in the spaces as well as selling books and we sell books in three of the location it is now so here at 14 and b and tacoma loik and check out our calendar of events and browse a bookstore and see how this collaboration has been going on.

so one of the great aspect of that you can ordered to and drink throughout the event and i encourage you to do so and thank or beloved servers being able to staff this event. before we intros what is going on tonight, [inaudible] both silence your krefns at this moment so we don't have any interruptions. also if you're interested in purchasing the week we have cash registers up at the busket book senior that's the only place to purchase it. so if you will do so, there, the format of the event is going to be we're going to have zach and ron talk about 20 or 30 minutes and then 20 or 30 more for question and answers and i'll have a microphone to be carried out for anyone with questions so if you'll raise your hand i'll bring it around to you and we need to have the record of it because c-span is here so you'll

be able to relive the event later on the internet when you're -- with your famous question that you post about voting rights. so just to know that after the interview is over it will signing where the white table cloth is so -- in the great suppression zachary ross poses that a growing number of republicans distress very idea of incomes and according to ross they seem to be doing everything they can to limit it. for us on earth deep historical view and introduces us to its moted rn day proponents. gop officials pushing to make it harder to kat a ball lots. lawyer looking to scrap all limit on money and politics. libertarian psychological is particular for claiming judicial activism to roll back a new deal and corporate lobbyist looking to ban local action from minimum wage to the environment. review says that this is a blistering account of concerted republican to quiet the political voice was minority

students and poor. solid reporterring clined with engaging stories even about campaign finance reforms. so zachary is national reporter for nbc digital previously worked at yahoo! memo and written for atlantic, new republic,dale beast, salon, l.a. time and guardian among many other outlets joined tonight in conversation by ron that, chief of staff at every voice, and national nonpartisan organization fighting for democracy that works for everyone. there ron manages and serves as ambassador to serve in money and politics voices up to every day people. so join me in welcoming zach and ron. [applause] thank you davis and thanks everbody to for joining us here this evening.

but so i'm going to as davis pointed out ask questions of stack and then open it up for q and ark a and get started by asking -- what inspired you to write on democracy for quite some time. what is the story that you thought should be told and why you wrote the great suppression? >> first of all, thanks for this and thanks -- [inaudible] hello. is that better? how bout i hold it? hello pep yeah. thanks rhonda for doing this and thanks to bus boys and poets for hosting. why did i want to write this book? i've been covering voting right stories at msnbc back to 2012 during the 2012 campaign when we saw some restriction on volting some of the first restrictions

in a presidential election . and at the time i was one of the very few reporters who was really kind of covering that beat as a beat. and -- that's changed a little bit. the profile of the issue has grown over last two years which i think is a good and important thing. but at the time, it felt like it was being covered when it was covered at all around sort of discreet court decisions. and in a way that suggested it was another kind of example of partisan disputes. partisan politics. and there was no greater kind of moral issue at stake here. this wasn't a kind of matter of democracy, this was a fight between democrats and republicans and the way that media often covers fights between democrat and republicans is kind of -- with the neither side is more right than the other. this is just the partisan dispute. and that just seemed young to me

and it felt like there was a fundamental, the most fundamental include right at stake. and it needed to be covered in that way. and so i started doing that. and gradually in thinking about turning it into a book realized it wasn't just about voting, it was about assaults on laws that keep big money out of politics. it was about the wave of jerry that we've seen that -- that has given republicans a huge kind of unfair boost in the house. u.s. house, it was about this legal movement that encouragings junls kind of disregard to will east people. more willing and a whole range are of things that seem design to stifle the will of ordinary people and kind of maintain the power of the elite. and as i kind of looked into it further and delve into the history, i realize there was on a ideological dimension too this

wasn't just partisan politics but it was a belief on the part of some portion of americans that has always existed that this trust democracy on some basic level, that fears giving power to ordinary people because not going to use it wisely or vote themselves government benefits. it is going to be unsustain only which was kind of what mitt romney was say requesting the 47% comments or whatever reason ordinary people are not to be trusted. and so -- that is the story that i wanted to tell, to answer your question a very long way. >> as someone who works on democracy issues day in and day out i was actually surprised about how muchty learned in the book and how much i didn't know. and often you know if we turn on fox news and cable news network we hear pundits talk about the need to implement voter id laws because there's voter fraud

happening, and we hear about -- what we don't need more people going to the polls that maybe you know it makes me think as a person, as a wolf color that there are people actively fighting for democracy for them and not for all of us and your book seemed to very clearly make the case what you're doing is making argument that -- on the democratic side there's a fairly strong belief in inclusive democracy that this is all of us. and on the rights ore conservative right, you actually lay out it's not just a belief that this democracy isn't for all of us that, you know, all of the different shades of color and ages and people here in this room. but there's actually an academic scholarly underpinning to the thinking. can you delve more into what this -- this distrust of democracy is based in like what is this scholarly opinion here that they're feeding off of it?

>> e yeah, i don't want to give it too much of a kind of -- scholarly sheen and take it to seriously because i think on some level it is all of that -- it is a way to get to ultimate result that benefit to their sides. but it's really interesting to me because we think of democracy as this kind of -- consensus value that we all share. that we may have very fashion gnat disagreements about policy issues or even about values like individual liberty and how to balance that with a common good. but we like to think that we all agree on democracy ooze a way to resolve disputes. and what i guess i realized in researching and writing this book is that's not necessarily true. and, in fact, democracy is itself a policy issue and a value that is contested and that there have been fights over throughout american history and will continue to be fights over

and we're seeing them flare up again today. but what i do in the book is trace it back to all of the way back to the founders where -- for instance, alexander hamilton who is sort of everyone's favorite founder lately. he talks in his one big speeched a constitutional convention he talks about need to have a constitution that would limit the power of ordinary people. restrict ordinary people's power and keep power in the hands of the elite who he thought were more suited to rule and would govern more wisely. he talked about we need to check the democracy so there's always been this trust on the part of the elite and you can trace it through -- the reason why -- the reason why we got 15*9 amendment after the civil war that in -- supposed to guarantee the right of blacks in the south to vote. there were people in congress that guaranteed right to vote for everybody. other people said no.

we're willing to allow blacks in the south to vote but we don't want to go that far and guarantee right to votes for everybody because we don't see voting as a fundamental right and down that slope then everybody gets a right to volt. even some people who were willing to grant the franchise to african-americans we're not willing to accept democracy as a sort of basic issue of political equality and that continued to be true through history and now today, we see often if you look closely like i have a little after the years the vail slips when some of these supporters of voting restriction and other parts of these campaigns start to talk about why, so they forget to talk about voter fraud for a second and they say for instance, in the book i talk about a congressman from florida when he was running for office in 2012. he was talking to a friendly crowd and he said -- you know there's this problem of uninformed voters people who have the right to vote and don't know what to do with it that is as dangerous as having a load

gun and not knowing ho to use it. he said you know, you used to have to be a property owner to vote and everybody kind of applauded at that. you see it on fox news they talk recently about or last year about should there be a literacy test to vote? so this idea about kind of uninformed voters for voters who don't know what they're doing ore people who shouldn't be entrusted with political power has comeback to the surface again after kind of -- going away for a while. >> and then i also noted it that it's not just this distrust in the people, distrust in democracy, there's also a thread that you talked about there's a belief that how some people strongly value corporation in our government. even to go as far as arguing that corporations should be a fourth branch of the u.s. government. i don't know, has anybody heard of that? something new i heard about. you said in your bock there's a belief that corporation it is in the superrich have a special unctioning of public policy not enjoyed boird their mortal that

shows up in campaign finance law opponent. how has this belief manifested in the government over the years? >> well, yeah. this gets us into the money and politics piece of this. and so i trace how you have business and government leaders especially in the late 1th century early 20th century and up into the mid-20th century talking openly about we should have a more explicit business influence in government because these are business leaders who have gained a if certain status in life. have the best interest, of course, of their workers at heart. they should really have a formal role in decision making. the reason why that's relevant today i guess is becauses now we have the supreme court as i'm sure everybody knows in a series of decision not just citizen unitessed by number of decisions° obama era weakening laws and money on politic and

what they've said is -- every law that that will regulates campaign finance needs to be based on the idea of bar and quid pro quo corruption then it is not constitution and that actually goes back to a 1976 case the root of the problem. but the roberts court has restliefd. and they've said laws that are designed to establish political equality that everybody had basksly the same amount of influence in elections which is kind of the obvious rational and widely understood rational for regulating campaign finance over the last century. that's what everybody believed in. that's what everybody thought was the reason to do it baa laws that are design is ised to do that are not constitutional because only thing you can do and rational can be to bar corruption and so -- i talk about one case out of arizona where john roberts in strike down a public financing law says

laws designed to create a level playing field i'm not quoting exactly but laws designed to create a level playing field are banned under the constitution. so it's really a sort of contempt for idea of political equality which i think many of us see as pretty integral and basic having a well functioning democracy. and that too has kind of come back to the surface through the roberts court. >> great so you mentioned the election. so pipghted f e-we talked about election and how you've seen many themes in your book how are you seen themes of distrust in democracy play out in the presidential race? >> so i don't know where to senator you have one candidate that is talking about the threat of a rigged election in order to

justify getting his supporters to go to the to polls and essentially harass and intimidate -- marginalized vote cheers creates an incredibly dangerous situation. and then additionally, kind of lay the groundwork for if he loses the election, to leave his supporters feeling like therm cheated and to not accept the legitimatecy of a hillary clinton presidency which is incredibly dangerous and kind of -- unstable situation to creates. on top of that, of course, you have the wave of voting restrictions many of which thankfully have been struck town by courts in the last few months bus a number of which will still be on the books in states like virginia and south carolina and

alabama. and even the -- something worth pointing out on that is even ones that have been blocked or partially rolled back like in north carolina and in texas. they've created so much confusion over what the rules are and whether you need an id and what changed. not everybody is following this as closely as we may be that that is bound to have its own effect in keeping large number of voters from polls. both confusion on part of the voters own part of coworkers who aren't necessarily trained in what latest court ruling was and can't always be trusted to enforce the law correctly. so there's just a potential for huge amount of disenfranchisement despite good court rulings. i understand go on this. : right. quell so i could too.

we're also seeing issues around hillary clinton's race and although she has a robust campaign finance reform there are questions of trust that unfortunately she can't shake and clinton foundation questions are coming up as well. so sure we'll talk more about that later on this evening. but kind of wanted to get into some hopeful things. [laughter] you say some of the most hopeful developments for campaigns to change the way campaigns are funded in key places like miami, dave, county, washington state. several counties in maryland and throughout the country. but yet folks still feel cynical. so what would you say to people -- those that are cynical feel like we have a broken system and there's nothing we can do.

>> wow, that's hard and goes way beyond my expertise in writing this book. but i feel like that's such a important question right now on the cusp of this election, and you know, you may feel like neither candidate is your favorite choice. but there are such clear distinctions including on these democracy issues between them that will -- that i just think it's worth continuing to point that out to poem or policy issues if -- to talk about democracy sufficient we have a choice whether we want to advance policies that make it easier to vote than a number of state have passed or introduced that automatically register you to vote or let you register online. or add days of early voting or make it more difficult to vote as we've talked about. policy it is that give ordinary

people more of a say in funding elections by giving vouchers to people to give to candidate of their choice. or conversely policies it that strike down limits on money and politics. we really are at a kind of cross roads where we can -- there's a organized campaign that is out to limit reach of democracy and contract incomes and move america back into a period of democracy shrinking that we've gone through before but also hopeful developments as rhonda said and that is sort of active battle that is played out on the state level and even to some extent in washington. and so if that -- doesn't motivate you to participate and to get involved, i don't know what else to say. [laughter] >> that will be your next book. [laughter] i've wanted to talk about a few specific concepts in your book, the concept of activist judges

as a last line eve defense against the mob which i think this actually probably a quote somewhere -- yeah. a quote in your book so can you talk a bit more about judicial activism and you know, the republican versus democratic thinking around this? >> yeah, i should say in talking about defense of the mob, that is io ron tick how the other side is thinking about it. what i mean by that is for decade as i'm sure everybody knows, there's been this rhetoric on the right about judicial activism and judges striking down laws or throwing against will of the people. judges from the bench, as recent years as part of this antidemocratic assault as i would call it. that started to change and there's now a very active aggressive movement of conservative and libertarian and

legal scholars who instead are urging diswrowdges attack opposite approach to be more assertive laws they think violate striking the constitution and less to the democratic process essentially to give the democratic process and to give voters less respect than -- than judges have judicially done and we've -- and it often again when you look at their rhetoric is displays a striking content for democratic process. you saw it kind of most consequence cially in the first obamacare case decided in 2012 where you almost had five judges who were willing to sign on to this very narrow restrictive idea of what the constitution allows and override a law that had been passed through the democratic process. in fact, you did have john roberts sign on to that view but he got out of it by reclassifying individual mandate as a tax and he didn't quite have the courage of his very

radical conviction on this. but that's how close you came to this philosophy of what they call jew dicialg engagement getting five votes on the supreme court. and we've had a number of other cases the bear that out too. this is where the energy on the kind of conservative, legal side is going. that's where we're moving towards and it fits in very clogsly with this broader assault on democracy from conservatives. >> i think another example is when you talk about state rights and the story of denton. can you tell that story that you go into in your book? >> sure. and this is about deash a movement of conservative states to make it harderrer for local government to pass a legislation. in recent years progressive cities have emerged as kind of a

great -- a great source of very ambitious progressive legislation on the minimum wage other economic issues on the environment, and so we've had a backlash where states have med that more difficult. what happened in denton is that a group of citizens came together and they decided they didn't want anymore fracking in their city. there have been about 200 fracking wells drilled in denton and they got a initiative on ballot to ban tracking in denton and it passed overwhelmingly 58% in november 2014. needsly the oil and gas industry lobbied friends in the texas legislature to find a way to reverse that pep and so texas passed a law that barred local government are from regulating a who else range of oil and gays activity including fracking that applied retroactively and one it got rid of denton fracking ban. guy who led the campaign in denton said to me, that the

start i was worried about fracking but now i'm worried about democracy. and he's right because local democracy is really one of the last places where democracy in america still functions reasonably well. where as he and his allies did you be get a group of citizens together and they can organize and work hard and have a decent chance eve creating change. because they -- they can kind of outorganize the corporate lobbytist in special interest at the local level. they may know the decision makers lobbyists don't have their people down at that level where as state and federal level, it is much more difficult to do that and special interest have much more sway. so this is on local democracy is really an assault on last place of our democracy still works well. and denton, obviously, is far from only example. in 2008, the voters organized and got together and got a ballot nirntive to require businesses to provide fade sick

days and another great grassroots victory and for community. community groups got together in alliance and got it passed when scott walker and republican legislature came in 2011 they passed a law barring cities from requiring fade sick day and again replied retroactively and got rid of those sick day. birmingham raised mnl it was a federal mnl $7.25 raised to 10.10 an hour and benefit largely african-american low income fast food workers. state of alabama a group of all white lawmakers who voted for it passed the law saying cities can't raise the minimum wage. so again that raised -- it was taken away and the -- autonomy and local government is kiefd coming under assault in that way.

>> yeah, so sad spoiled say to folks, this is an incredibly compelling book and it is complex. i mean, you push and pull where we have active campaigns to limit our democracy on the flip side we also have many actually many people in this room. but many people in this country that are waging active campaign to expand our democracy. and so i think that, you know, it's note a -- not black or white we're not necessarily going one way or the other but constantly pushing and pulling. so i think what we'll do now is open it up for questions. from the audience and davis is here and he can walk around and take questions you have a question please raise your hand and back there to the left.

[inaudible] the question what was what to you think of mandatory vote and will it come to the united states? that's a great question, and we were just talking about that in event earlier today. i don't know if it's a politically popular idea right now. i'm sure it's nots. but to answer the first part of the question i think it's a great idea. i think it's the way to ensure that everybody's voice is represented. and i think we, you know, when president obama talked about it last year just in a very kind of amusing kind of way he said you know, i think he said in some other countries they riesh everyone to vote. and just that set off kind of a fire storm of alarge to mix metaphor in the conservative

world and conservative pundit it was sort of a mix between this is ultimate kind of big government requiring you are to do something you don't want to do. and false we're going to have all of these voters at the poll who is don't know what they're doing and who are marginalized and wouldn't be otherwise voting and wouldn't vote wisely. both of those reactions are wrong to me. we require people to do things all of the time like wear seat belts. i don't know why requiring participation in the democratic process is somehow worse. and then second of all i don't worry about the problem of people not knowing enough to vote. i think everybody is pretty well able to understand their interest that's what parties are for. and what's more important is that everybody's interestses are represented. that's why we have this democratic system in the first place. in terms of the political feasibility of it, obviously, it's a long way off in the u.s.. but there's no reason i think

not to start, start talking about it and strategizing about how to one day get to it. and i think that's kind of the ultimate goal with a lot of these reforms that are design ised to make votes easier. so i think it's a great thing to keep on the horizon. [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> the request was hillary clinton make it a tax for judges for pointing judges that they vote to overturn citizens united as opposed to simply nibbling around the edges? i don't know that i know the answer to that any better than anyone else in this room. but -- i would -- hillary has been pretty, pretty clear and strong in supporting a returning citizens united. and i think most of the judges who are in the kind of world that she would be drawing from would be pretty solid votes on that. i can't say that with any 100% certainty. but that's what i think. but i also think that the issue is note only a decision that overturn citizens unitessed as clear and as simple and as important from the sort of organizing perspective as that

goal is. there's a lot of if other , there have been a lot of other decisions in the obama years that can weaken campaign finance reform and even going back as i said to buckly decision in 1976 which was kind of the ultimate -- the original place where the supreme court said you can only have a restriction on money and politics it is designed narrowly to ban quid pro quo corruption so there these to be a willingness to have that doctrine and i think that is something probably more difficult to achieve in terms of appointing judges than a lit test about a ideology but i think the kind of judges that hillary would appoint would be pretty supportive of that approach and i certainly think that judges that donald trump said he would appoint are not supportive of that approach.

>> i would just add from the organizational perspective there is a broad set of groups in the progressive left that are applying pressure on the clinton campaign to ensure that hillary clinton commit to appointing supreme court justices, that not -- i don't think we're using it specifically overturned citizens unitessed because it should be a prodder frame. but that that value, the voice of every day people in our political process and -- and yearm what the rest of the phrase is. but there's pressure from the broader community to do that. i feel hopeful this may be one of the things that she can act on because it's not something that she ?eedz to do although she needs senate approval. other questions? there it is. it is working right there. [laughter]

>> hi. [inaudible] >> great -- okay. there you go. okay so some of the groups that are least active in voting are also groups that are growing the fast test such as unmarried women and hispanics. i was wondering what you thought about if the rate of voter participation would increase if there was nothing else -- if the government didn't do anything to help. [inaudible] and what to do -- of such groups without if there's anything we can do without suspension. >> i missed the last part of your sentence if what? >> if there's anything we can do to increase voter participation amongst groups without outside of the government. >> i'm sure rhonda can speak to this too.

but i think that with the hispanic population it's in part, of course, we should be doing things to encourage everyone to be voting and especially sort of marginalize groups and having effect especially in this election i know there are very organized efforts to register latino voters and also to register unmarried women and that's all important work. but with the latino population i also think it's a question of -- of time and the longer people have been here, the higher their voting rates are, and so in texas for instance, where you have a lot of efforts to register latinos you stills have two million unregistered eligible voters and that's in large part because many of them are reelstively recent immigrants, and so as people get

nor ties to the community and more sort of -- simulated, with i think that problem in part takes care of itself but other piece of it, of course. i don't know what rhonda has to say on that. >> most promising area of increasing voter participation that we're seeing in the country right now is to pass automatic voter registration that started in oregon and then california passed it and other states that may have passed but i can't recall but other states pick up this campaigns and automatic voter registration is you go to get your driver's license at the dnv and registered to vote. the default is that you're registered to vote. you have to opt out to deregister yourself and i think these are the kind of systems i mean, the very act of going to register to vote is a barrier. right? most people doangts know you have to register to vote or once you move have to reregister you

know, with so i think it is most promising wave we're seeing right now. >> just to add to that oregon first state to introduce automatic voter registration last year just announced today their role just in the last year since they instituted it they're roles have grown by i think over 14%. voter rolls a huge jump in that time. and so automatic voter registration really does have power to transform the electorate and transform who is religioned to vote and who votes and that, of course, is first step in kind of changing policy outcome. >> i think we have a question up here. [inaudible] you have to tell people what's on your t-shirt too? >> stamp out corporate rule. >> my goal. [laughter] >> my name is hank from tacoma park. it seems that the title of your book is --

with a lot of sub titles in my mind comes down to one basic issue and -- everything that goes on these days also seems to come back to the one basic issue which is corporate personhood. the fact that money is the equivalent of speech and that there's no universal establish right to vote for you feel us. and have our votes counted. i've been working in the last three years of state of maryland to get legislature to sign on to an article 5 convention of the states to create the 28th amendment that would blish those three things. interestingly while the founders didn't trust the common people because they didn't give black and the women the right to vote not to mention the distrust of the creation of the electoral

college to make sure popular vote doesn't win if they don't like it. but they did establish a popular choice of how to amend the constitution to amend constitution by two-thirds vote of the nows of congress then it goes out to be rad if id by three quarters of the state legislatures. but we're seeing a time when congress could not or would not write an amendment which is the time we're in as i read it. two-thirds of the legislatures demand a convention of the state for writing a particular amendment then it happens. it's never happened before, but so far state of vermont, california, illinois, rhode island and new jersey have demanded such a convention. we got half way having one house in maryland vote for it.

two sessions ago, and we continue to be hopeful in the future. the idea of hillary clinton or anybody appointing another justice, supreme court is -- not impossible but a temporary solution because as soon as there's another majority and another way, then they reverse another decision. so the only way to eliminate the power of the corporate world on our politics and on our democracy and way that you're talking about limiting it is to limit the corporate personhood and fact that money is speech. every other issue will lose inevitably because money can win and will win and almost all of the cases not everyone. just wondered if you have any view on how to amend the constitution, what the prospects are, and what your view of the article five method is and i have petitions for anybody from the state of maryland to ask

your legislators to vote for such a resolution. thank you. >> thanks for the question. i think that founders made it really hard to amend the constitution whether through conventional process or through the article five process. and the threats that -- that democracy faceses are of a name of of a sufficiently urgent name nature that i would hate to wait on that. there's a push for a constitutional amendment to overturn certain term united i think that just in materials of reaching the goal that we want to achieve, you're going to be much more likely to reach it in a short-term by getting a supreme court that takes a different view of the constitutions prohibitions. and is more willing to allow reasonable regulation of campaign finance than you are by

amending constitution not to -- not to say that that's not a long-term goal worth fighting for. i write in the book about the article five process and what's interesting is it is actually been taken up in recent years as you may know much more by conservatives than by progressives. there's 27 states i believe almost all red states that have passed all a resolution to have an article five convention per a balanced budget amend. [inaudible] a blue one, yeah. okay. either way you have to get to 34, right, for it to happen and so it look like even that is not happening right now. there's eat -- a number of other sort of even more out there conservative demands that -- that there's a list that some conservative pundit came up with ten things they want to see. i think every kind of item on conservative wish list that they

want toking write into the constitution through the article five process, and to me it -- it's -- it's a dangerous potentially dangerous process that you're entering into. because you're sort of sidelining normal political process where we elect our congressional leaders and state government. and -- and sort of putting putting limits on the ability -- on the ability of people to make plit change in a sort of more organic way. so i qeses to be frank i'm weary of the article five process but the larger goal of get fog a constitution that -- that overturn citizens yiengtd or that allows more room for reasonable regulation of campaign finance and to give ordinary people a greater say in our political process is

, obviously, a superimportant one. do you have anything to add to that? other questions one on the side back here. >> okay. so you -- do you consider elect tomorrow college to be depressing democracy? >> do you consider electoral college to be democracy yes is the anxious. and i write about that in the book too, and that was another way in which alexander hamilton and other founders wrote the constitution. so as to limit the power of ordinary people they created a system for electing the president where you didn't directly elect the president but directed electors and then they in their wisdom would meet an deliberate and decide who the president was. now it quickly within a decades easer the constitution was rad if id it quickly that system kind of broke down. bawtdz because parties were created and people vote for a party and you knew they were

going to vote for a certain presidential candidate that they'd made clear up front and we do almost directly vote for presidents but the larger problem that it's left us with is that -- in five cases out of how many we've had -- but something like -- i may get the math wrong here, but a decent number of presidential elections have gone in the end to the person who wasn't the choice of voters and oaskt we saw that most recently in 2000 with enormous consequences so you know what's interesting is you have conservatives actually defending the elect rile college as a way of -- limiting power of ordinary people and limiting majority rule and explicit about that and to me is quite revealing of their ideological belief on this

and not gain from a partisan point of view on that. bub next time we get a result where winner of the popular vote isn't winner of the electoral college may help republican or democrat who is knows. but there's a movement among conservatives to resist any change to the electoral college because they're to this idea of finding ways to tsh to limit majority rule and so they like it just on a kind of design basis. i should say before that -- there's an effort by mostly progressives and good government groups to end the electoral college called national popular vote where if -- if where states pass resolution saying they give vote to the winner of the popular vote that goes into effect when you have -- enough electoral votes to create a majority so 270 i guess. and right now i think 11 states have signed on but they're always blue states.

there's no red states that are interested in what seems to me and to many of us as a common sense effort to make sure that the president is the person who is the choices of the people. who gets more votes than the other person. [inaudible] questions -- >> hi. >> if i -- more for money in politics and democracy or more generally seems to be a bit of a contradiction because by the time organized and fen gauged in created enough power to do thing like an article like a convention, i mean, ultimately

that's your long-term solution. [inaudible] that's what's going to only way to ensure a long-term democratic, but my question i guess was we've also been talking about historic -- [inaudible] of this sort of democracy -- that is started with founding fathers as you said in previous answer. so you also characterize in your book as a newer trend and i'm wondering you know what convinced you for different or what about it do you think is unique? [inaudible] >> what about it is unique from its normal is the question. i guess i would put it more like there's always been this strain of thinking that distrust democracy and worries that giving power to ordinary people that they're not going to make wise decisions or they're going to sort of bankrupt us by

abombishing private property or with benefits and that has kind of wax and waned at different times throughout our history and i think that's in part a result of what's going on sort of socially at the time and economically and demographically and when you've had waves of immigrant that has led us into a backlash with a contraction of democracy. but it has, it kind of wepght away for a while at least from the surface after passage of the voting right act and it stheemedz we all agreed that everybody deserved not just formal right to vote for a kind of basic standard of political equality. i think it has resurfaced in the obama years in part thanks to his campaign ability for racial minority, the poor, the young.

and also because of demographic changes again where conservatives are realizing that at least when everybody votes, and at least nationwide they're likely to be on the short end and that's increasingly true, and so they're increasingly afraid of the power of sort of the masses and of ordinary people and they're increasingly finding ways to hold on to power that involve limiting the amounts of pour that ordinary poem have. >> zach do you want to say about who they is because it's -- we talk earlier that's not the entirety of the republican party. but really who are those that are -- [laughter] running the the show? >> sure. certainty i don't want to brush into ideological belief of those voting republican those are decent americans like anyone else.

but i also do think it's worth noonling that organized republican party, the people in power, i don't -- i don't know what the rules are on this if this is a nonpartisan event and i'm just saying what i think that organized republican party people in -- very little difference of opinion on these issues almost everybody in positions of power and republican party is willing to go along with policies that make it more difficult to vote that increase the power of the rich and corporations and reduce the power of ordinary people. and that in other ways give republicans unfair boost in state legislative -- state legislature in congress by redistricting and a very aggressive way. there's been very little

internal defense within the republican party about that. and you now have a position a situation where there is quite a start split between where the two parties come down on these democracy issues in a propose a starker way than we've seen in history. i want rhonda to have the chance to -- temper what i've said because i'm just speaking from myself. >> i mean, you know, for as a work that we to at every voice, we work hard to try to move solutions to how campaigns are funded in a bipartisan way. and we've had a very challenging time at the federal level to move things with republicans and primarily thoser that on our bill and legislation and our federal campaign, our democrats. but you get down to state and local level you see there's much more opportunity to -- when you're not dealing with the rank and file high test of the republican leadership you're seeing that there's --

not so much this ideology isn't so ed, in fact, people are actually much more i would say in line with the value of democracies we all have learned to know what that is throughout our education, yeah. >> other questions? [inaudible] the man in the back in that corner. [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> i certainly think this it would be positive for the u.s. to have a multiparty system and to have more parties that have real power beyond the two major parties. and i definitely support sort of long-term efforts to do that. in the sort of short-term, the fact is we have an election coming up, and the result of that is going to make an enormous difference in the live of ordinary people especially most vulnerable people. and so i think it's a bit of a cop out if you're not willing to choose between the two people who actually have a chance to become president. i think chris had supporting donald trump now maybe -- so that's his -- that's his choice. but i think there's a pretty clear, clear choice.

but it's everybody's duty to engage with. >> i have no idea how much more time we have. okay time for two more questions sorry days davis the woman backe with her hand up. no, right here. yeah. [laughter] >> thank you anyway. i'm sorry i came in late. but i have a question about instant runoff voting that i think if you don't have it you can have a spoiler effect, and end up with a person that is fewer people wants, and you know there's some countries like say for example vote for nateer as first choice or joel stein, so the system is the problem and it's a runoff voting would increase the potential -- [inaudible] >> might have a more detailed knowledge of where things stand.

i know there's an effort in maine to introduce some version of that. and i'm supportive of that too. i think it's a great idea. again, i sort of think that in et meenl time, we have this system that we have, and we got to work to make it as democratic and amplify voices of ordinary people as much as we can. >> i would just add, i mean, a lot of folks have suggested different strategies of how to solve the problem or how to increase the inclusiveness of our democracy, and i think the positive note that we have to remember is there's so many americans there were 85% of americans out there in the country, democrat, republicans independents alike believe that our campaign finance system needs to be overall believe that our democracy needs to be strengthened. so you have public support.

you have organizations of people on the ground. you have organizations here in our lovely capitol of the united states that are actively waging proactive campaign to expand our democracy including every voice and public citizen isn't here and many other partners. there is -- a great effort to amend the constitution. there's great work being done to change our jurisprudence through the court and appoint appellate and supreme court justice who is believe in lifting up the voices of people in our democracy. and there's a great work to change the way we finance our campaign so that candidates and elected officials are more response i have to the people that they're hoping they'll be elected to represent so there's more. there's efforts to expand runoff voting and to implement automatic voter registration. so there is work being done.

we have to make sure we're engaging the 85% of americans and i bet you right now we're only engaging a sliver of that. so the more folks can get involved and participate in demand that our democracy should be an expansive, inclusive one, i think that we're seeing a -- a swell of movement and action on the ground even in the last year. ...

whenever they ask people do you want to make it easier to vote, do you want or early voting days, the want it to make it easier to register to vote vote, do you want absentee voting, do you want to be able to register on line, it's already very popular. all of these reforms are very popular whereas on the other side people who are passing voter i.d. laws and restrictions on voting or having to do it mostly under the radar because they know that when polls may show people support voter i.d. people can't understand that well but once there becomes a debate in the media and the public sphere about the stuff people don't like it. people like democracy and they want more of it and that's why in the end despite these