that we can reach from the economic and political reform. >> i and agree it is largely a false choice couldn't to crafts have a behalf of the minority groups there is that economic argument. >> absolutely teefour . .'t the snowplows

another day of missed work means i could not pay another bill. the reason i was in in this situation i fled from my daughter -- daughters father i was prompted to call the police for safety now i was homeless. worked as of landscaper to transitional housing and we could not have made it out of the shelter without the attendant based rental assistance. to find of full-time job but $8 now or is not enough to provide for a family.

even with a full-time job i had to:of budget to buy paper towels. after that cold winter with the child tax credit i could buy toothbrush's curtains and a desk in blankets and a bed. a heated mattress pad so i didn't have to heat the whole room in be slapped at night pratt was still in hopelessness and doubt. and then steven emotionally support me. and with the food assistance and rental assistance and may help me to get back on my feet.

and when the biggest threat to their existence and when they needed the most. already under attack by republican legislation like speaker paul ryan. and then to the death march we cannot let this happen but then i gave birth to a second little girl we could eventually move into secure housing but i could afford one and somehow my gamble paid off ended july 2015 and article i wrote went viral and got also got a top literary agent but launched by career over the next few months, started to work as a

writing fellow and with the economic karcher reporting project ahead to a mitt when i fell on and hard times. and then that constant stress of providing for my family. in to write opinion pieces in that economic hardship project but last summer my youngest daughter's second birthday i accepted an offer for my memoir. this story of not only finding happiness with the little things but what it takes to find your resources to survive then to the other side reid along bird need them.

all while raising two children but i knew i could not have done that without these living standards to get ahead. paul ryan may think his plan is a better way but it does nothing to create jobs with food stamps and medicaid and not whereas most calories. el whiff prescription medication. in the back aches from long hours to keep the society moving smoothly. and then to stand out in a fantasy in and go home to the unheated house still

hungry from there one meal a day they need to go home to children who had to set in an office during recess because they could not afford to have a coat. that they need to spend together on a pullout couch keep form to wake up the next day and do again. thank you for listening. [applause] >> did this my privilege to moderate a discussion of the panel of experts.

informally is serving as administrator calendar president carter with the landmark food stamp act of 77. and the pension benefits of public policy on health care. and as a professional staff person with the of labor movement. and up political director peopling croute improving communities through organizing representing 50 different foundations and 17 states and the pastor and founder of marriages from the united care chalk of

christ in philadelphia. to my right is the manager of witnesses to hunker at a philadelphia now spreading to other cities. partnering with mothers and caregivers of young children who have experienced poverty in into frame those issues will. and finally on the end over here the director of public policy for the center of community change one. with a national organization focusing the power and capacity and has the along career of those at the center for law and social policy. that was a mouthful.

thanks for bearing with me. but to get right down to with. with both the importance of policies that our critical to working families that support them as wages are not enough. we also heard a little of the previous conversation a policy that trump made when he was campaigning. and steve kemp led to you think that he will make life better ahead of the workers party? >> we probably should dial listen as much to mr. trump as watching. and with uh cabinet and the direction that has taken us. but if you step back from

trump i think he is much more of bob product of the modern more generally ends is more of his rhetoric but the republicans have a vision of governance that that purpose is to facilitate commerce and the making of money. the more money be making society we reject that characterization. and idol think it is monolithic. to do what is called the externality to mitigate those consequences and adverse effects. and we have clean water and

clean air those are democratic principles so with commercial development to address those societal problems. so of the of working-class we know we have a labor secretary nominee and then somebody doesn't believe in environmental regulations the department of education has discussed trade the school system of choice without accountability. but it means that those who don't have independent means will not have the opportunities to get a heads white firmly believe the trump administration is part of broader cabinet today just society that considers economic justice and externalities' of a

capitalist system. >> as we continued of discussion of what to say for working families. view have done a number of public appearances over the last few weeks speaking very boldly in your career behalf never seen a greater threat to the safety net programs that are there for with those wages are not enough whites you characterize that is the greatest threat to following the election this said he would not touch medicare or medicaid.

and let's start with the house republican budget of those budget proposals issued. we know a significant part of a of the budget was non-defense discretionary programs that means everything outside of the budget of rental assistance assistance, education, and job training, the enforcement of labor standards and environmental standards these are all part to of the budget. wary breed are now headed is under what is called sequestration that would

take total funding to the louis lowell on record going back at 1962. however the trump campaign proposal promised to cut this below the sequestration level so those are massive cuts like child care and a variety of others. but then you come into court existence and plenty of assistance for snap.

they are set to up and no way for those national standards you are not baton a waiting list and then the economy goes down. the house republican budget cuts make those beyond repealing be affordable care act. if there is a fixed amount of money it doesn't keep pace with health care costs and the increases in a recession. the budget takes about $1 trillion over 10 years with cuts out of health care and food assistance to block

a grant to and then to wipe out the health coverage expansion and to so if you put these pieces to get other unfair was a simultaneous for those whose

struggle to make the ends meet every week. >> but i'd do want to do turn to steve shoe help us understand and frame the the economy turns. there is a deception about workers as they are different conversations or should be. and then seated next to each other. is there a really a dichotomy is there a relationship from the two speakers before you? >> there is no distinction

between those who are in the working-class most people who receive public assistance and food stamps or snap or medicaid are in and out of of labor reich it and it is a false distinction that there are people with very limited opportunity that are disproportionately african-american send immigrants. but the broad characterization i could put this into a story that it is a function of for some responsibility for crowfoot we know that's not true. people who get as much public's assistance that

we're not talking about two distinct sets but those that have a labor market changing dramatically and also talking compensation and a with the low-fare in the '90s, there is a conscious effort to blame people of color for is securities that is threatened by the labor kit. but then it is difficult to come back. in the enabling of may

coalition of voters who voted for trump. >> wanted to read many of them did place their bets on donald chomp to make their life so if enrages that divided press if it is a us versus them or to prove cell level of resentment trying to divide and conquer. >> the largest in the country we have 45 states and local operations breaker unitarian net have paid vice

-- fast perversity of latino or asian and they are all part of our coalition. one of the failings is meant to run better run into renfrew of part negative and he has used a lot of dog bone negative dog whistling bridge and to the working-class white fall calf to understand they have more incongruous million flasks cajun folk who ordeal of a curve san but with that trump camp it is critical to

understand is an issue of

that racial oppression. >> that want to bring new in so they were impacted by a the policies like nutrition assistance and to bring these people together and

what can we as progressives learned what from those model and how can that organization and others working that same way build a movement? >> thanks for having us. talk about these stigmatizing the language be that we use. everybody has an experience with those key players everybody get some form of social welfare they know this. event to get away last with uh tax credit and reminders of of that. all these things to get for having a child is will fare.

then when we changed the conversation to stop making about those people but all of us how we benefit from the government wanting to provide benefits. then they get that human face. with that 13 percent the poverty rates. and then one of the things we have to do is stop separating the pour from working. nobody show live in poverty. full stop. so when we have that conversation reinforce the idea that is everyone's problem and it is not yet.

would use supposed to do? and how we pay people america has never recovered to include labor costs. and based on the economic system of free labor and i would mention and you reap what you so. bois and we have a liar who was about to be the president of the united states. every day he tells another live. this is where we are in our world. those organizations that are on the ground but my biggest fear is how do we get the

funding to continue to ample for a -- amplified voices prexy we all have experts with value but why don't we value the experience of the community's weak word talk to people and stop projecting this is what they think they need. also to express their are some children on fridays they can take of book bag filled with food so they could have been over the weekend. we do know some children can't eat if they don't get to school. but some say what psychological impact to give them a bag of food to share

their family not bear responsible for feeding their family? what if that bag is stolen what can home? have these come on rescission said there's more than poverty that if we do that we will get somewhere. >> with that first at analysis. hired to we can initiate more effectively or but now simultaneously with this conversation we live in a

post truce world but in a world where fake news beats out real facts and figures at a think-tank so how o do progressives like the center for american progress for we are accustomed to fax in figures win the day because they are true how do they reach people that hasn't been one over? >> we have to live our values. and arguing that this is very diverse. the majority women all different races and status with sexual orientation and

of that matters. we work together well but

sometimes in the closed system to a more open type of debate but like i said at the beginning it is a clear sense and understanding with a consensus around that. because most want to claim progressives. with the society that is nurturing. with those policies in place. we are about to embark on a journey literally 80 years

of consensus. to communicate that with facts and figures is not always the best way to do representative. and lenny communicate to make this as real and as accessible cow affects pocketbook issues neighbors neighbors, services of what they do in their jobs. people take pride whether they are working for nasa. and we have to listen to them oftentimes there are dismissive of the of the concerns.

and then to have credibility >> but turning back to bob. oh what really comes to service of what was describing with these policies that they benefit from our with that interest deduction to even received health-insurance. howard do we accomplish those goals? and that safety net and then as they are expecting. >> just with those ways of

communications. with those facts and figures >> so if you look at the campaign to comment trump in the domestic arena with those policies. and when congress begins to act there are specific proposals. ramparts average job is to analyze effectively. but as the analogy with a successful effort to make

congress make permanent those improvements and we found the various republican members generally this deficit under the impression that this was of low in town program. in fact, a larger share because of those areas. and as they show them the actual figures in us period ahead of the policy of our the program we need to put the information together

what about locality by locality? those other economically challenged areas but those areas that they often rely on these programs i am not sure that we have tried hard enough. that means to the second point we need everything so the actual information in them and they work for the wages.

in that day want to help obama and to the degree that this assistance is fundamental. and not only that normal kind of analysis. with those programs or if the program like medicaid has of block grant those that have been adequate funds and to know where this is coming from. but should they be made? in with the debates on the tax policy.

so what is that the urban institute ltd. includes dave provision of the of medicare tax with the hospital insurance of the investment income this provision means a worker making $50,000 per year pays that medicare tax on all wages and it doesn't pay any medicare tax adult chain bad is particularly popular with the claims nonetheless.

andy will advance that message to say bashan be of salt quicksand you will do that while raising the minimum wage for the programs like food assistance credit. >> put that together. >> best steve i will ask you a lot of progress since have been reluctant to normalize trump and of that presidency the hold the what we don't want to be responsible for but at the same time i will confess uh great fear to continue to spend a lot of time of what did he tweet

this morning to be fought of space for the republicans to push through that major piece of legislation that was just introduced last week from the ways and means so which side do you land on? to read your negative? bin mike kandel think it is up to us and then to have incredible power and to deal with that. but then to call them out and those support center not in the interest of the working people.

including those that they are supporting. so for us to immediately get caught up in with dad different type of communication from some high elected officials. but on the communications question part of the problem , with my research based on shared values. to have zero new proposals will benefit one of of those things that most americans feel they have been up to and then once he made that

connection you can tell a story of what is going. and to say this is now implicitly is the benefits of the policies that they are talking about they want the tax cuts as block grants. because it helps to pay for the tax credit but the story that we need to tell is that we saw from the sanders campaign the wall street and corporate interests want the tax cuts because that benefits them and not the working people.

but the most challenging is we have to talk about how that continues to harm. and to have a frank conversation in those who share those views. and it is 100 years of history. it just cannot all be about of 99% with the structures whipping up against blacks or immigrants. >> before i turn it over to the audience who has questions for the panel one

last question so at a point where economic power is now controlled by the ever smaller number and rich corporations, how do we build up the power base in our community that is a huge part of what you are involved in to counterbalance where the power is held currently? and hal can establishment structures and national organizations connect with folks who were on the ground greg. >> it goes back to working closely together to get us think-tank san the intellectuals in conversation with those on the ground and need to be listening to each other.

we did say earlier the best policy makers in our country sitting in the projects if you want to ask somebody what it takes to get out of poverty rask which takes to get out. we feel there has to be a closer relationship. listening more to deeply here from a people that are struggling at risk of having this conversation that you are talking medicare or medicaid. so we you. use the misery because to

increase the use of private prison. and those that then who came here the very majority have to have the opportunity and we will take personally we've got to try get rid of stopped and frisked by leander stand there are lot of lawyers that are making a lot of money with stop and frisk the necessarily. talk about when we cannot allow donald trump to be normalized because what he is trying to do would destroy this country especially those but it is critical that we figured how to work together so we are

out with biting and rustling to gather. with of progressive leadership in the house and in the senate. . . and we have to make sure when we talk about communications we have to make sure we are communicating with people where they are. i agree we need facts and figures because that's where the

proof is that they won't understand what any of the themes so how do we get out into the community and translate that in a way that makes sense for people? it is the foundation of all of this and why a person would believe they need food stamps and a poor black person as a booch. i absolutely hav have to when yu ask me how that all these white women vote for trump, because racism is a part of it is not necessarily about the economic insecurity because they were economically insecure and have them forever. this poverty and struggle wasn't new to them. they know what this is and they want to frame it in this way because they lack the education that teaches them about how this

came to be in help them and their families ended up in the situations they are. they listen to the rhetoric and they are susceptible to it because they lack the knowledge they need to combat it and we have to prioritize on both sid sides. you haven't heard the name of the people from the ballot and that is just as bad as someone voting for trump. when we are sending people to sit on the jury duty, that is one of the scariest things we have people touching other people's lives and they don't know anything about the wall all they are doing is going with their gut.

in my opinion in many cases it is worse then we see from the gop so until we start talking about that and educating people in those ways we are not going anywhere and that is how it happened and how this will continue to happen. calling someone a white nationalist is redundant and the only people that have access or white peoples of these are the educational conversations we need to have one of the few institutions in america that is

diverse in all senses we have a special obligation and the fact of the matter is the republican party has long been appreciated as more than the democratic party. we've been the target. republican attacks because they recognize the power of working people coming together and get to spend the new democrats who don't quite see the value of the bargaining. don't see the value of labor. it's the only institution where the workers can exercise power on their own by joining together. everything else is filtered through political system and it doesn't always work well for us. the judicial system works even worse. so the collective bargaining needs to be preserved and we are now facing the likelihood of the supreme court president being reversed not just rove v. wade

and the public sector employees could have strong unions we may be seeing the right to work la laws. these are very intentional mechanisms to undermine the power waiver. when you have south carolina, nikki haley who will be the nominee to be ambassador using the power of her estate to defeat the unionism. we have a serious problem in the state we have a law from no collective bargaining that get a political party that is antagonistic to it and compress it and for the collective bargaining its proven in a democracy across the globe, and

it will prove to be so here. republicans recognize that and we need the democrats to recognize it if we are going to be successful. >> the moment has arrived. we are running a few minutes over because we started a few minutes late. audience questions raise your hand if you've got one and then the microphone will come over to you. right here in the back. >> my name is jim webster and i used to publish newsletters about agriculture but the biggest claim to fame is working at the u.s. da. my question for any of the panelists, when does the buyer's remorse sets in who would like to take a stab at that first? >> going back to education, as trump begins to name those people a lot of them don't know who they are and they don't know

the impact these folks have had in their individual spaces so as we begin to educate and get these articles out saying here are five things you need to know about this person used her to become more familiar and start realizing wait a minute, these people are exactly who we didn't want right now they come out and folks are like two. so that's where the folks start to see that. >> another add-on to that? >> he has yet to take office because of what he's doing. some of the decisions he's taking i think some people are saying wait what do we do. and a cross by multiple communities that did or did not vote for him but they are seeing the danger of what he's doing at this moment in time. so i think it is already beginning. >> also to be affected by the state ostate of the economy wile more quickly if the recession

comes. i think that it will be difficult for the administration to blame the next recession on obama but i'm sure they will t try. but i do think what happens to the overall economy will have an impact. we have to see, but there are policies that trump talked about during the campaign that many economists believe would accelerate the recession. >> right here in the front. >> good morning. thank you very much. i guess i considered myself a hubert humphrey liberal typically politically in perspective when i ask the following question. it's about thinking of corporate america as monolithic and i'm wondering if the progressives don't need to find more alliances within the various

business and corporate communities. the affordable care act was supposed to hurt small business. i don't know if it did or didn't. if it did, then you need to find a way to make it better when they are trying to dismantle it and have the business people have petitions to the new small-business chairman. if it didn't, then there's an example that needs to be counted by the small business and in north carolina we have a democratic governor because corporate america weighed in so strongly. so in the communities like philadelphia, you have corporations not all of whom are adverse to a hubert humphrey agenda. don't you need to find new

partners and get out of the bubble? >> it is a very good question with the assault not only on the affordable care act that food stamps which wal-mart doesn't want to see cut any more than folks on the stage. who wants to take a crack at that? >> the date, and the pope's death worked to build support for -- v. david and the folks were many outspoken. there are corporations, small businesses who will speak up on a number of these issues either because it is in their self-interest like agricultural interests will support food stamps for the goods they are producing.

the national retailers association have incredible power and are working every day against workers rights and well-being and security. i think we should look for corporate and small business allies but ultimately, i think the main alliances that we need to build are among working class people, multiracial organizing efforts to build political power for people who don't have power. >> i saw a hand right over here in the front. >> thank you all so much for coming out here and chatting with us. i have a question piggybacking on the previous question which is about how as progressives we all have our individual species. we work for climate change to

the safety net and support of black lives matter and immigration etc.. how do we as progressives come together despite our very passionate focus on our individual issues, particularly as we probably suspected the trump administration will start picking off certain groups at a time so what does that mean, how do we come together for how to be kind of maneuver that. >> we are a broad-based organizations we work on the issues simultaneously. one of the things we have been challenging our colleagues we are all fighting to certain people. undocumented immigrants in the

country whether we are dealing with child care issues, whether we are dealing with voter suppression and voter id laws. we have to begin to think in a way of military terms. we have to build an army that is essentially learning how to attack and maintain vigilance for the various issues we work against and not allow ourselves to be picked off one by one. i used to teach this to my organizers as long as we stay in the silos, one built up street and town big enough to crush the silo. i might not be working on your issue today that if we are working together against the same people, we will begin to turn the tide over a period of time and we keep rolling and it's difficult.

you could actually have multiple issues that are in the legal simultaneously. so i think we have to work to get out of the silo and understand what we are fighting against the mindset and the narrative of what the country ought to look like and that we need a collective mindset to think about what the country looks like in every family can fly if not barely survived and that is what we've got to get to. >> what is really important is the self reflection and confronting our own biases because we are working for one particular issue. every single issue has multi-layers there is no such thing as a singular issue talking about the environment all activism and poverty,

racism, things like that we talk about poverty. it's all these things s through every single issue if we recognize we can come together on those things and can act on those comments that we cannot have those conversations until we confront getting in the way of being able to communicate. >> please join me in saying in the panelist. [applause] an hour.

>> the argument in 126 1262 mccy versus harris. >> this should be familiar because they've been to the court on many prior occasions. even though there are congressional districts in north carolina congressional district the issues are actually quite distinct. with respect to congressional district 12, it's different from both the house delegate district in the previous case and the congressional district number one because this was not a district that was drawn with the intent to create the majority minority districts to comply in the voting rights act but with respect to district 12, this was

a validly political draw. now if that all sounds familiar it's because it's the same dynamic that was before the court in number two. the court in reversing the district court on the standard concluded that when the state actually said that this was a political draw into the race didn't predominate over the politics in th and the draw of e district that is essentially the same dynamic that is before the courts now with one major difference. this is a much easier case for this court to reverse van to because even before the court gets to be standard of the review, there is a legal error here that was created by my friends on the other side and the districts failure to abide by teaching. i think it was about as clear as it could have been that in the case where you have a majority

minority district or something approximate, and you have race and politics highly correlated, and you have somebody challenging the state's suggestion that this is a political and not a racial draw with the plaintiffs must show, not canned or may or it would be nice but what they must show is the alternative way ways that te legislature could accomplish its political goals. >> that passage is pretty clearly hobbling off the analysis of the case with purely circumstantial evidence rather than direct evidence of the race-based district. i think you would have heard it and it would have sounded different if the court meant that in every case where the question was is this politics or

race there was a requirement and that just would have read differently. >> i respectfully disagree for two reasons. one, there was direct evidence and number t two the direct evidence is similar. you had evidence that the map drawer himself had taken a race with the community in greensbo greensboro. >> what i wrote was such as this one. people may wonder what is a case such as this one. by the time we reached the alabama case, there is one seen by the majority of the court to try to bring clarity. we are speaking as a quart, not every individual gets his own way or should answer if we go back into an area and try to reconcile the case and try to

come up with a complicated area a set of standards that will prevent us from turning into the 19th court of evidence to consider some awfully detailed manners and so forth. the last case, the alabama case at least trying to set the way in which a district court should go about deciding a case such as this one. should i not have? >> alabama and cromartie number two are different cases like how to deal with alabama and congressional district number one, where you have a state we did it and we wanted to dra conl the majority and minority

district. cromartie is the states last and best were on the cases like this where the states is why did we do it, politics. we looked at the benchmark map, the benchmark map had congressional district one and we wanted to preserve that is the majority district and we know how to tell you when we are taking race into account we said we are giving it, we are not playing the data with respect to see one and when it looks to 12 is the political draw. >> that is the question the district court was trying to answer is politics or race. that's politics it's fine, if it's race, it's not. let's take a hypothetical which is the state does decide to do the race-based districting. it says we want to segregat sege only african-american voters, this is the way we want to do

it. but then they said we will justify it based on politics because that sounds better. the justification is politics, but the true reasothat the true. so, were you suggesting when you stood in the first statement or you suggesting that a plaintiff comes in and has all this direct evidence that they are trying to do race the plaintiff has to present its own maps? >> i would say yes and why not. we are talking to a situation where the plaintiff is going in and asking the federal court in this case after they already asked the state court and lost. but we are asking the federal court to say a sovereign state legislature that says the politics was dissembling and it's actually race, that is a

big thing to ask of a federal court. it is unique in the cromartie2 case when the state is forthright. >> that if they have direct evidence that the state is doing race-based rather than politics based. >> i guess i'm a little less troubled being demanding of the plaintiffs fan iem of putting the sovereign state legislatures in a difficult position. and if there is no direct evidence of course i think the alternative map drawing is going to be a breeze. all this direct evidence that it was about race and the idea that this was about politics as a pretext they think it is going to be easy as pie to show you could have drawn that differently and you wouldn't have taken the race into accou

account. we know they correlate and that is just a fact of the matter what he said notwithstanding that if race is the note if you get one result. the maps are actually hard to do given the extent of correlation that the direct evidence of the race space which i have to say there is some in this case because the principle line drawer says they told me to get above 50% direct evidence. that basically makes the case for somebody. >> to be clear to direct evidence is actually incredibly hopeful for my client because the same guy that had no problem testified cd 12 that when he drew the map he didn't even look at the racial data he looked at the 2008 presidential political

results and drew a map in order to bring in the democratic voters and exclude republican voters. >> didn't she say specifically not with respect to guilford county which is probably the most important piece of this discussion? >> that is and what he said. he basically said to do it as a political draw independent you have to check what you did with the african-american community because guilford county is a covered jurisdiction. >> we can go back to the original deposition testimony. >> absolutely. you look at the deposition to the testimony, and that the testimony of the trial and all fits together because -- again, when it came to guilford county, i turned off the political screen on the software and picked up the race.

the whole time he had a political data precisely because the race and politics or correlated and he drew the map then he checked his work specifically with respect to guilford county and he did treat them differently if he should have because it is the only covered jurisdiction and he looked and said they have the community together. i don't have a problem. now my friends on the other side want to take what ever quibble there is and it is essentially with respect to every other part of the map the race isn't taken into account at all it is not controverted. they did a cross check to make sure there wasn't a retrogression problem with guilford county which is exactly what he should do by the way.

with the court said getting that direct evidence relatively minimal weight was to say if you look at the rest of that e-mail, the map drawer was very candid about taking race into account drawing cd one and there was less reasonable so i didn't predominate. the similarities couldn't be more dead on with this case. the most you can get is taking into account some way that didn't make it to predominate in the same evidence here that if you can contrast the way the legislature proceeded it's virtually impossible to think that this was all a pretext. i understand why you want to search a little bit more when you have a legislature that comes up in these racial maps and they say greece had nothing to do with it, but when it repeatedly says we treated

differently i would think you would want pretty substantial evidence before you second guess that conclusion. >> if i can enter evidence that he sits on the witness stand and says i have had a conversationh the map drawer and he says my bosses told me i have to get up over 50.1%, but seems substantial evidence of a direct conversation he's had and says he received orders from on high. >> that's the thing. there's a dispute whether that conversation ever took place. in the record in this case, you have a senator who protests that's not what happened. >> didn't district judge say --

spinnaker they did say that that only gets to the point that even if he said that, it didn't get translated to the map drawer. they made multiple public statements that say it isn't a racial drawl. it's a political draw. ..

>> 200 i understand that problem too. i think the problem in cromartie to is it doesn't say in all cases, i write that for purpose. they say it when a case like this one is ambiguous but it means it, that as the time progresses we face what you see and i see is the problem right now. that is a set of standards the district court's can apply which will try to separate sheep from goats. without us spending the entire term reviewing 5000 page records. that's what. that's what you have by the time we get to the later cases. i understand your arguments. i'll go back and look at it. you think it's absolutely determined to have the cromartie

two, not so sure. >> i think it's determinative because he didn't say in a case such as us on he said in a case such as this one where it's a majority minority district or close approximation and race and politics are closely correlated. another criteria is in the cases where the legislated stated goal was politics not rex. you have silly senate but you're absolutely right. before you decide whether it's sheep or goats, i think it's perfectly fair to say there are two breeds here generally, the cases, the more common ones, the alabama cases, the shock cases, those are all cases where the state comes in and cd one, and the state comes in and says yes, it was race because of this act we don't think race predominated and predominate and if we did we survive, but there's a separate class of cases with the state comes in and says it wasn't reset all, it was politics. and they are highly correlated but it was politics. there's very sensitive sensitive cases for the state because of the

state does that, if they lose because they have found to have dissembled they don't even get to the second half of the case. i kick my. argue was politics that race, and if you think rely by the way we narrowly tailored, you don't have that opportunity. there has to be a high threshold cromartie two addresses those cases like a laser beam. if you give guidance to lower courts don't tell them you fake them out in cromartie two. say that you're going to stick with that and identified the class of cases. it's not the world's biggest burden to come up with an alternative. if the alternative map shows the way that you take race or politics into the count the same extent with bader race by turning covenants or making a district look like this and this

which is what you found in commodity too, looked at the alternative maps and it was not beyond man to come up with maps in the case. the. the problem is they actually showed the legislature. >> even though the district court listen to the map and believed to come in the statements are pretty much against you, and then they heard two of the state senators and they were against you and that it's up to the district court to identify the strength of witnesses and came to the conclusion on the basis of that. in fact it was race was the explanation. despite that everyone who comes in has to have an alternative map and we have five interveners and will have five or six different alternative maps and a hundred state legislators and so forth. >> first of all, i don't think the direct evidence here is of a

character that's material different from cromartie to itself. and i would say, look, trying to give district court's direction, everybody's, everybody's going to say i have direct evidence, the quality and character of it will differ from case to case. what i think you should do is in this class of cases where the states defenses politics not race, is the five interveners can get together and pull the cost which will be minimal and give me one alternative map that shows you can do the same particle thing without a comparable effect on race. i think it would make your jurisprudence more administrable. it would have the virtue of applying starry decisive because he said it in cromartie two. everyone of the court cases says this is an extremely difficult business, it's inherently legislated business, it is a humbling and big thing to have a

court second-guess the decisions. i think in a world like that especially when you have already set it to say that there is an alternative map requirement as a gatekeeping function to guided district court to give the court the same tools you used in cromartie two to say it's easy to say it was a pretext but when i actually look at this, at the end of the day and going to look at that alternative map in conjunction with the direct and circumstantial evidence but be guided by something that says there was another way to do this and that does make me think that this direct evidence is more probative than it was. if they really just want to help the democrats or the republicans or vice versa they could've done it with the different racial balance. >> what we do with that that eat evil we are trying to addresses the use of race.

once it's met you don't need a manifestation of it, you need need just the use of race. that's the evil the constitution is intended to avoid. so state legislators go out and always it's politics because it's really easy to say politics even though there is a lot of direct evidence that there really was race. and put the added burden on a plaintiff now to do a map where you'll come up and say on that map of this takes care of this problem that there's another political reason for not doing it that way, there's another political reason for not doing it this way, it's impossible to ask a plaintiff to come up with a race neutral map in light of the entire -- issue is our state legislative prohibited from

using race and if they are then they should go back to the drawing board. >> your honor, i think that sure at the end of the day in these districts where you basically have one party saying it was politics and the other was saying its race, you do ultimately have to have a mechanism to determine which one it was. our humble point is that everybody agrees they are highly correlated, that creates the possibility for abuse so are not saying there should not be a test but this is a difficult thing, it's a a particularly damning thing to say that state legislature especially when they're being candid about their race and cd one to say they're disassembling is a big thing in the only issue in the case because there isn't going to be screwed need fix it on the backend. they're gonna say we didn't take race into account at all. it's not beyond man, woman or anyone else to come up with an

alternative map. it's not doing it to be mean, they're extremely you so full for the analysis and you only have to look at the committee to opinion to show how they can say if you do that you're going to elongate it. that will will not be the case all the time. in some you'll come up with a alternative map. if i could turn my attention to cd one which is the case that is more like the virginia district in a sense that here it is, the valid use of race in order to preserve a majority minority district. as to this one in particular we think the district court aired in scrutiny simply based on essentially the adoption of a 50.1%. the easiest way to affirm this probably to do with the north carolina supreme court do which it also confronted a district

court that it applied strict scrutiny because that have been apply but they said applying it would be merely taylor. the north carolina supreme court said the district court screwed up on scrutiny trigger but nonetheless we agree it's narrowly terribly and i think you could do the same thing here. i'm sleep read bursting the district court but it may be the easy way to decide cd one. here they admitted they took race into account. they were dealing with a difficult problem which is they had a bench part map that had cd one is majority minority district. to to be sure it was a coalition district a little north of 48%. it also lost 97000 votes. they want to preserve it as a majority minority district based on their reading of strickland and other things they say the safest way to do it is to get it over 50.01%. so we'll tell them after our one

it over 50.01%. the map targets that instruction and draws a district that ends up about 52.6%. the fact that it's at 52 and a 50.1 shows it's not like this ratio was preserved over everything else. but also i think it's worth understanding it's not like there is a myriad of ways to do what the map chart did. there's two opportunities. you can draw the district to get part of wake county and that would get you over 50% 50% or you can go into the city of durham and get over 50% that way. the first time the map charger the map drew in wade county that's 50% there is back and forth with representative butterfield and the like in. >> to what extent in what circumstances of section five of the voting might that require that a continuous district be

drawn assuming you're using race and then you have to comply with strict certainty, to what text then to think it requires a continuing district. >> i think it requires a reasonably continuous district. if you a more compact district and in our you essentially have to extend the district to capture those territories. the one thing i would would say before i sit down about cd one is a think it is telling to look at representative butterfield's testimony in the record. what the lower court found is the reason we lost on strict scrutiny was there is not racially polarized voting and cd one or particularly the state hadn't enough to show it. nobody thinks there is that racially polarized voting and cd one. they don't think that. they think wouldn't do enough to

prove it. representative butterfield doesn't think that he was think of it in the district. the dispute is not over whether it's racially polarized voting, is as represented butterfield testified, it has has to be at least 45%, 46 or 47 is better it could go south of 45%. butterfield said if only two thirds of white voters will never vote for an african-american candidate and cd one. he admits there's racially polarized voting. it's not about whether we like or don't like racial targets it's whether you're going to give legislative flexibility to choose between 47 to 48 on eight on one hand or 50.1 and 52 on the other. that has to be within the zone of the deference. >> thank you your honor. >> thank you counsel. >> elias welcome back. >> mr. chief justice i would like to jump in and go through

district 12 as my colleague did and talk about cd one. the problem that the state has in cd 12 is the finding of predominance was more than amply supported by the record the trial court found. we are under a a clear air. >> the question as justice breyer has pointed out is whether race was a dominant and controlling factor removing a significant number of voters in her out. it seems that the primary defense that the state house and trying to overturn the decision of the lower court is that an alternative map was not introduce. while certainly an an alternative map is a way to induce evidence it can't be it's the only way there's a matter of

ways to prove that race predominates. i would would point out that we offer no alternative map in the last case. i would point out that we offered no alternative map in the case that you heard earlier this year. >> why not? >> because in each of these cases and in alabama they offered no alternative come in each of these there is no need to provide an alternative map to prove circumstantially what amply existed directly. it's not true that the state of alabama and that case or the state of virginia did not assert political motives as a defense to some of the district. >> did they in respect to this district, district 12? because when i go back to cromartie to a

think he's right, it does say at least where the evidence is close to one side is saying it's racial the other side is same as political and the other says the party attacking the boundaries have to show that the legislator could've achieved his legitimate political objectives in an alternative ways that are equally consistent with traditional principle. so what is it that you suggest? are you going to say this isn't a close case? are you going to say we should've overruled that? overruled that? >> i would say two things. the first is, i'm taking issue that trial courts are confused and this is a reversal on a trial court. the trial court in north carolina was not confuse that a map was not required. >> then explain why is in a map or some kind of evidence they could have achieved their political objectives with less

reliance on race? that's what it seems to say. if it doesn't really say that then you could say there many things you might sam not suggesting an answer. i want to say what you do say you can say doesn't matter because were giving weight to the district court, but i don't want to suggest something. >> your honor, i think that cromartie, the language in cromartie that's been focused on is discussing that case, the case in which you say there were lots of maps. that was a fundamentally a maps case where each side is proving their case through maps principally through circumstantial evidence of what was in various versions. in that case where you're offering maps on both sides you at least have to offer one that shows you achieve the goals and political goals without waste predominate.

i would .. out as an important note the state of north carolina didn't draw a remedial map in this case is not hypothetical whether they could draw a map that achieve their political goals but did not gerrymander based on race. in fact the state of north carolina after this jew a map of battle lovely on political data that using restated andrew this district at a lower yet protected the republican nature of the district. >> did they say that did not know. >> if they didn't say that whether they are able to draw another map doesn't prove anything. if the legislature said this is done based on politics and there's no way we could've achieved our political a jet objective without doing this they can't prove a negative

so it makes sense to turn to the other side and say prove that's wrong and that the political ends could be served without taking her without the map that was drawn. >> i think the problem with the reading being offered is that it puts the constitutional cart before the horse. the harm is in using race as the predominant factor. there's no constitutional right to gerrymandering. what has to be protected as the voters rate. >> but what was the basis for was it politics or race? so if no one can point to a way of achieving a political objective other than through the map that was drawn than that's evidence that politics was the reason for. >> your honor, it may be evidence of her evidence of race serving as a proxy.

even if not it doesn't mean there can't be other evidence. >> which except that a map is necessary except in the case where there is quite strong evidence that race was the basis? i don't think this court needs to do find out the strength of the evidence, i think i think it's evidence. i think a map is evidence and i think like most trials it's a mosaic, snow smoking gun and the mosaic of evidence in this case. >> how much weight do you think the absence of a map is entitled to? >> i think it's entitled to no way. the fact that there is is a map that was enacted was obviously in the evidence that they had it the trial that race and party correlate to a large degree is evidence but employment in this case look at what it is that lewis said.

before we get to them after our that's take a look at what they said. quote, because the presidents of guilford county, this is the cost the cost in the 12 districts we have drawn our proposed 12 district at a block voting age level above the percentage that's above the population found in the current history. that that statement from the sponsors that it was race. what did the experts say? the expert said in his report and this is ja 1103, the general assembly, mindful that the county was covered by section five of the by section five of the voting rights act determined it was prudent to reunify the african-american community in guilford county, this could avoid the possibility of a charger fracturing our community and inhibiting the clearance by

the department of justice. this extension of the 12 district caused the circum- circle around the district to increase in diameter. >> i think the evidence with respect to dilfer counties your strongest evidence, but beyond that the rest of is not very strong. >> your honor, but that is where race predominate. race predominated in a district justice bar u.s. to question and the less, this was the district those overpopulated by 2800 people. this was almost spot on one person, one vote. and yet they moved 75000 african-americans into the district. so to say the county is the strongest states, that is in fact where they moved.

>> was or any evidence that was necessary to avoid regression problem? >> they offered no evidence that i was to comply with the voter rights act. >> why is that? i wasn't that an issue? >> whether it was a strategic litigation system that they wanted to put all their eggs and in the politics not race basket were whether their expert would not support this was actually necessary to comply, i don't don't know. but that was not their argument. it's also important to realize that evidence doesn't stop there. you have mel, who by the time he testifies be for the district court he is out of congress and has no stake in this district one way or the other for himself. he has moved on to the administration and a life after electoral politics and he says he is told the reason why this happened was that it had to ramp

up to over 50% to comply with the voter rights. >> they did make the case and they said yes we did that and the reason we did was mostly african-american voters will for democrats and we want all the democratic voters in one district. >> it's what the democrats did last time that's the kind of argument they make. >> what mel was told that he is a respected african-american was going to be expected to sell to the african-american community that this needed to be over 50% to comply any know what he said in his testimony, he laughed. he said it's not possible because the people in this district will know there isn't a reason why this have to go above 50% to comply with the voting rights act. the trial court also discounted the testimony that my good friend and colleague has

suggested was offered by the mat drawer about what he was told and that he had turned off race and only use partisanship, that analysis, the district court did not credit and said i heard the testimony, i listen to the live witnesses and i didn't credit it, it was not believable. >> like a back to congressman roth's testimony. he referred to something other than what i thought thought you highlighted in your brief, what you highlight is double hearsay. congressman ron said we should of told him and somebody else told him something and none of those people is actually the person who drew the mat. i don't even know whether any of that's admissible to prove the truth but if it is its weak evidence. >> it was admitted, there is no objection to the evidence and it's evidence that the trial court credited as important documents.

>> so i understand the supreme court can do whatever you want, but i think the role of the appellate court is to look at this and say you wage the credibility of this and whether it sounded like attenuated double hearsay or whether it sounded against all of the other evidence sounded like something that is believable. >> when judging demeanor in the light,. >> the other thing that i think is overlooked is look at what the actual number came in it. isn't it coincidence that politics drove the map and yet it wound up with 50.66, isn't that coincidence? shocking they turned off racial data and they drew a map and it just so happened that it came at 50.66.

that's not a coincidence. the trial court did not find it a coincidence. the the fact that the number that ultimately came was just a hair above the threshold for section two district is not incidents its further evidence that race predominate. >> mr. last i would like to ask you about the procedural issue in this case. there is another case those in state court the same issues and justice decided the opposite way. we are urging in this case that to your era that we should judge what the judge did. but if we we had a state case before i suppose their findings would also be judged by the standard

isn't that so? if the state case when the other wang came to us look at that and say? >> your honor, the court applies clear error to the case before whether there's a finding it and that's the rules of the appellate procedure and what this court has done for many years and what my clients are entitled to this is their case. they brought this case and are entitled to have it adjudicated under the normal rules. the well-established principles of the court. >> but justice ginsburg can pursue and protect her own question. and it's true the state case was first. >> it the second point i would make is that the state case was

really a different case. in several respects. the state case was predominantly about the state lines. they're challenging and congressional district but most of the testimony do not relate to the student related to the state district. number two, there are not the findings of fact and the dixon case they're not the specific findings of fact about the credibility of witnesses that are found in this opinion. this trial court was very meticulous in laying out what facts they found most credible, what they relied upon. the state. the state action was much more conclusive in that regard because they're dealing with a mountain of evidence around the state legislative and state senate district. finally i would say there are other judicial mechanisms

available to this court and two district courts generally to control and handle the question of multiple cases moving through the system. congress making a decision that in the cases of statewide redistricting there would be an expedited process for cases to move through the federal system to the supreme court. whether that was good policy or bad policy in the pot of congress it was a policy decision that cases that come up out of the federal courts come from a three-judge panel on direct appeal to this court. the other case goes through the normal circuit channel this court might choose or might not choose to hear it, but that's not an accident, that's not fortune come that is an actual deliberate decision that congress made in structuring the review. finally this is a question of

the application of federal law and the federal constitution, our claims are in fact federal constitutional claims. the defenses are largely under the voting rights act and there's no reason why this court would not give the same, normal weight to a federal three-judge panel and those kinds of cases and somehow defer to. >> it's not a question of deferring it's a recognition that the state courts. >> i would've thought that's a pretty well-established principle. >> they do mr. chief justice but it's an equally well-established principle that this court judge is finding the fact by laura court under clear air. whatever the state of north carolina. >> that doesn't seem responsive to the points you just made which understood to be that we ought to give greater difference to the federal court findings the way would to a state court.

>> that i misspoke. i say we should give greater deference we should follow the ordinary rules which is the case that is before you is the case before you in the finding of fact by a trial court in this court are entitled to clear error. what i think i was trying to addresses there are circumstances for example in the grow situation where you have a deadlock where there is no map for the state court, because it's either been deadlocked are thrown out, the court has then said that the state courts go first because they're exercising a policy judgment. that's not present. here here is the federal constitution and federal voting rights. there is no unique state perspective that are to cause you to overturn 100 or or 200 plus years of jurisprudence about plaintiffs having the rights have their case heard.

>> do you think we should give any consideration to the state? >> i think you can read it in the way you would read any other decision of the lower court that may be of interest to the court. i don't think it's entitled to any more or less deference than a decision of the north carolina supreme court that it may have had interracial gerrymandering case from 1998. they can certainly inform you that it can form your thinking they don't think the findings of fact are entitled to any weight in this case. i think it clear error standard applies. with respect to congressional district one to my want to make the point that this was clear error of law. that led to believe that it

needed to destroy a crossover district which is what it did when there is no evidence of racial voting preventing african-americans from electing a candidate of their case. >> thank you counsel. >> i like to start with congressional district 12, this is the serpentine district, the one that everyone agrees looks terrible the question is whether race was the predominant motive or whether is politics. the determination the court has said on numerous notifications is one for clear error and the district court had evidence before. once or three day trial. i want to highlight some key evidence that relied upon in making credibility determinations and finding race was the predominant and that starts with congressman watts

testimony, one of the architects of the plan told him to head to ramp up the minority voting percentage in the district over 50%. that's a racial target at the starting point. as counsel mentioned we have the target being hit on the nose, 50.66% and we have evidence, direct evidence of the way the state did it. that came from the mapmaker and he said, although he did also say first that he did not he only is politics and do not use race, he may contradictory statements and said he did use race in respect to guilford county. he pulled the black population in order to comply with the voting rights act. if you looked at the record you'd see exactly what you anticipated which is the state was pulling in concentrations of the black voting age population in the concentrations were so high that supported the inference that they were using race. there's a charge in the

plaintiff's briefs that shows that you had that concentrated paul inches that's that's how it was done in respect to guilford county. the last thing was the district court may credibility findings that the political motive had been discredited. there is evidence that was there about political motive but the district court found it wasn't credible in light of congressman watts testimony which the court credited about the target and in light of the fact that the political testimony which was mostly put on by the mapmaker had been contradicted by the mapmaker himself when he said he used race and contradicted by the architects of the plan who tried to downplay politics in their statement. so when we look at this and particularly in light of the clear air standard you have a three-judge panel that went through three days worth of evidence may credibility findings and even the one judge that disagreed with respect to

this holding recognize that what the majority did was eminently reasonable. those cases i don't think you can find clear air. >> what you have to say about the voting rights in the air standard with respect to the cape the state decision. if it were the state case we would be reviewing their factual findings on the same question for clear error and now you're saying this once here so we should apply clear error. seems to me that response is not terribly helpful in addressing the conflicts that. >> pence: asked. >> first of all the way the court deals with potential to bites at the apple problem is through the claim per preclusion document. so to the extent you're trying to figure out what weight the state has we think is the

appropriate one. >> is that whichever one was decided first to arrive surfers? >> you would have to ask if the principles, you'd have to ask whether the principles were met. >> so we could apply the race principles and that leads us to favor the state court. >> no, i'm not saying that. >> will the state was the decided first what is let me? >> the application would apply a north carolina law in this instance. we don't have a position on the application of north carolina law. i'm saying the way you deal with this question is through application of the framework as opposed to doing some different like saying we won't use clear air anymore. >> so you want us to apply to decide this question and you don't have a position on what the answer is? >> if you're worried about the state court having an effect