>> senator, if i may, the one area, going to the question you had about the lawsuits, or why people can't file the complaint is, in many cases, i think the bigger challenge is that it may actually follow a legal stop. this is why the legislation is critical. why data collection is critical. i think when we think of profiling people, people sometimes unfortunately think that the stop itself may not have legal cause. so we have a phrase in policing, give me a car, two minutes and a vehicle code and i'll find a reason to stop you. so the stop may be justified. cracked windshield, bald tires. you know, you'll see those low discretionary stops being used quite often to get to, as to talk about a pretext to other things. where it makes it hard on an individual basis is a person's complaining about being stopped but, in fact, they did have a cracked taillight, and it makes it hard for that individual case, what you need to do track holistically to see that that's the 10,000th cracked windshield, 90% of them may be all of one group of color.

>> i see that i am well past my time and i appreciate the concerns that have been raised by this conversation, this hearing today, about the definition of racial profiling, about the importance of being narrowly targeted in a legislative response but i'm grateful chairman durban for your crafting a bill that insists on training on data collection, and on a narrowly crafted response to a significant problem. thank you very much. >> thanks, senator kuntz. following up on your question, i think one of the obstacles, mr. romero can probably back this up is when you're dealing with the question of whether or not race or ethnicity or profiling is the sole cause for the stop, you run into a real obstacle. our staff did a little research. turns out this isn't the first time that congress has talked about this. arguing the discrimination should only be prohibited if based solely on race and ethnicity has an unfortunate congressional lineage. segregationists attempted to gut the civil rights act of 1964 by offering an amendment that would

limited the act's reach of discrimination based solely on race. senator clifford case of new jersey argued in opposition saying this amendment would place upon persons attempting to prove a violation of a section no matter how clear the violation was an obstacle so great as to make the title completely worthless. and senator warren of washington said limiting the civil rights act on discrimination based solely on race would "negate the entire purpose of what we're trying to do." so the courts have set a standard which makes it extremely difficult, and chief davis, your examples, there might be a cracked taillight, as the reason they're being pulled over. what we found in illinois, incidentally, to go to my home state, consent searches by the illinois state police between 2004 and 2010, hispanic motorists in my state were two to four times more likely to be searched. african-american two to three times more likely to be subject to consent searches than white motorists. however, white motorists were

89% more likely than hispanic motorists and 26% more likely than african-american motorists to have contraband in their vehicles. so it made no sense from a law enforcement viewpoint to do this, yet it is done. i thank you for this hearing, and i'm sorry it took ten years to get back together and i'm sorry we need to get back together. to put it in historic perspective, back to our nation's very beginning, our founding fathers started wrestling with issues of race, gender and religion, and this year the presidential campaign wrestles with issues of race, issues of gender and religion, an ongoing debate in this nation. there are moments of great leadership and there have been moments of ignominious contact. as far as accountability is concerned, yes, this would hold law enforcement accountable but i hope we hold every person in our government accountable, including members of congress. let me concede i came to this

job saying, remembering what bill clinton once said when he was being interviewed before he became president. is there any issue you will not compromise on? we said i will never compromise on race. he said that as a man who grew up in arkansas and saw segregation. i thought that is a good standard, durbin. you saw it, too, in your hometown. hold to that standard, and i looked back and remember in my time in the house of representatives of voting for a measure that turned out to have a dramatically negative racial impact. the establishment of the crack cocaine standard and sentencing of 100 to 1. years later i was given an opportunity in this committee to try to make that right, and bring it back to 1 to 1. i couldn't get the job done because of the nature of compromise, it's been reduced to 18 to 1. still a terrible disparity but a dramatic improvement. what happened as result of that bad vote? by black and white congressmen? we lost trust in the african-american community. many people serving on juries

said i'm not going to do this. i am just not going to send that woman, that person away for ten or 20 years because of a crack cocaine violation. we lost their trust, officer gale. and i can see it when the judges came and talked to us about it. we moved back to try to establish some trust in that community by doing the right thing, but we need to be held accountable. this senator and all of us. whether we're in elected or appointed office in our government, we serve. we serve the public. and that accountability has to be part of that service. this is not going to resolve the issue. i think it is, i mentioned earlier, more complicated today, because of concealed carry and some of the standards being established in states. more complicated today, as mr. clegg has said, because the war on terror raises legitimate concerns about the safety of our nation and how far will we go to respect our national security, without violating our basic values under the constitution. i thank you all for your testimony. it's been very positive part of

this conversation, which we need to engage in further. there's a lot of interest in today's hearings. 225 organizations submitted testimony. thank goodness they didn't come here to speak. but we're glad to have their testimony. and will put it in the record without objection. that's good. it will include the episcopal church, illinois association chiefs of police, the illinois coalition for immigrant refugee rights. japanese-american citizens league, leadership conference on human rights, muslim advocates, naacp. national council, national immigration forum, rights working group sheikh coalition. and these statements will be made part of the record kept open for a week for additional statements. it's possible someone will send you a written question. it doesn't happen often but if they do, i hope you'll respond in a timely way. without further comment i thank all of my witnesses for patience and for attending this hearing

and look forward to working with all of yo following the hearing, maryland senator ben cardin, who was one of the witnesses at the hearing, held a news conference with reporters. this is 20 minutes. >> well i think we're ready to go. first let me thank you all for being here. we had an extraordinary turnout for today's hearing. particularly want to thank the leadership conference on civil and human rights, the acl up the, the rights working group,

the naacp, for for all of your help in organizing today's activities. i particularly want to compliment chairman durbin for calling this hearing. he is, as i said in my comments in my testimony, he has been responsible for the, having the subcommittee of the judiciary committee that focuses on human rights issues. and he's a leader on so many different issues in our community as it relates to human rights, and here on ending racial profiling. i think this hearing was a major step forward. i think there was general consensus by all that, all the testimony and the answering of the questions that we have a problem. we've got a problem in this country that needs the federal government to respond to. and that racial profiling is wrong. it's un-american. it's not of the values that we believe in. it's against the spirit if not the letter of our constitution,

in protecting the rights of all of our citizens. it's a waste of resources in which we have limited amount of resources that need to be used to deal with those who are -- need to be held through investigation, we need to have that and it compromises the confidence of the community to work with law enforcement in order to keep a community safe. all of that is jeopardized by racial profiling. i also think it was quite clear from today's hearing that racial profiling is occurring in america. too frequently. and one time is too much, but it is in too many communities. it is used, and it needs to end. i thought that there was a good discussion. i appreciated senator graham's comments that wants to work with us to try to resolve some issues, perhaps of clarification. i think that's legitimate. that's what a legislative

process is about, it's to make sure that language accomplish what's we have set out to do and one of the things we've set out to do was end racial profiles in america. if we can find the right language working with all members of the united states senate, we hope that we will be able to advance that. so i thought it was a constructive hearing, and i could till i've already talked to the leadership on the floor today about this hearing, and looking for opportunities to try to get the bill ready for enactment, because i do think we have an opportunity in this congress to move this along. there was not a lot of comment about specifics that are in my legislation that i filed, and i want to thank senator feingold, who was the leader in the last congress on this issue. i was a co-sponsor. and when he didn't return to the united states senate i took up this issue, and i'm proud that we have 12 co-sponsors. i think as a result of today's hearing we're got to get more

members who are interested in joining us. the language of the bill is pretty clear. it defines racial profiles. straightforward way. it makes it clear that in the random investigations law enforcement cannot use racial profiles. simple as that. you can't pull someone over because they look a certain way. you have to have solid police evidence as to what you're doing in an investigation. that's the essence of what we're trying to accomplish. we make it clear that the best way to do this is through training. and we want all law enforcement trained. it's not only the police officer. it's all of those who act under the authority of our police need to be trained as to the proper procedures. that's spelled out in our legislation. we also believe that we freed to have the facts and, therefore, there are certain reporting requirements in our legislation. there's also federal funds

available for best practices that we share best practices. i just want to respond to one of the concern that was expressed during the hearing, and that is, whether we are setting up a problem for a technical problem, for convictions of people who have committed crimes. i don't believe that's the case at all. and quite frankly, good policing is how you get people through our criminal justice system in the appropriate way. we've heard this argument over and over again by naysayers. quite frankly, racial profiling is poor police work, and the whole purpose here is to get proper police work so that when people are charged with criminal offenses they will be prepared for the court proceedings in the appropriate manner. so i just wanted you to know i felt very encouraged by today's hearings, and i'm looking forward to working with senator durbin, senator graham, and all of the members of the senate and my colleagues on the house.

i thought my house colleagues made a very persuasive point and we're going to be working with the members of the house and also with the department of justice and the obama administration. we've had some pretty clear communications, and we are working, going to work very closely with the obama administration. what we're going to do now, there's several individuals who are, we're going to be asked to come forward. before i do that, i want to acknowledge from my community bishop richardson, who's here, head of our ame church and one of the great community leaders in baltimore and maryland and i thank you very much for joining us today. you'll be hearing from some of the other distinguished people that are here. because of our caucus launch which takes place in about 10 to 15 minutes and it's very possible that this issue will be on the schedule of our lunch today, i'm going to have to excuse myself in about ten minutes.

if there are specific questions that members of the media have, i'd be glad to answer them now. if there's not, we're going to go on with the regular programming. is there any specific -- yes? >> at the lunch today in what capacity? i mean -- >> my guess is it's not going to be on the schedule, because the hearing took place today, it might. the normal schedule for today's conference would include the postal reform bill which is, you know, we just enacted cloture on that, and the budget, it was the budget -- i also serve on the budget committee. so i need to be there also for the budget issues. so that's what is scheduled on the agenda, and, but you never know, because of the day's hearing it may come up and i might be so motivated to bring it up today. >> in realistic terms, since there were no republicans testifying on behalf of the bill, only one republican at the, on the dais, what's the realistic terms for trying to get this bill through at all before the elections?

>> well, i thought senator graham's comments were telling. he made it clear that he's prepared to work with us. i think whether you're a democrat or a republican, you note that we have a problem in this country on racial profiling. so i would hope that we would be able to bring about a consensus here to move legislation forward. quite frankly, the trayvon martin case has put a national spotlight on this. and i think the american public were outraged by what they saw. and as the investigation continues, again, i don't want to prejudge the investigation, but everything that we've seen indicates that race had an immediate impact on trayvon martin being targeted. and the end result was, he lost his life. so we want to make sure that never happens again. i think that's true whether you're a democrat or republican, and i would hope that we would get a consensus on this bill. certainly going to work for that. yes? >> -- would really not affect

people like zimmerman, who are on neighborhood watch. you know, this is law enforcement. is there any discussion of trying to expand that or -- >> it's my intentions that it would affect a person such as mr. zimmerman, because he's acting under the authority of local law enforcement. he's working in cooperation with local law enforcement. so these neighborhood watch groups would be, would go through training and understand that racial profiling cannot be used. it's wrong, et cetera. so i would hope that neighborhood watch groups would be covered under our legislation, and be subjected to a training session. yes? >> [ inaudible ] -- one thing they might have a problem with? >> i haven't heard of any specific part of the legislation that they have concern about. i know there's always concern on new authorizations. so we will certainly look at

that issue to see whether we can satisfy the concern on new spending. whether we can't find an avenue within existing programs to finance this. this is not a large cost issue. so that would be one area that i expect that i would have to deal with in order to get certain republicans to sign on to it, but from the point of view of the substance of the legislation, i don't know of any specific concern as congressman conyers pointed out from the beginning, this is not to impede the proper investigation of a crime. specific crime. where the identification of the -- of the potential perpetrator needs to be fully explored. that's not the intentions of this legislation at all. what the intent is, is to prevent the random selection of individuals because of their race, their ethnic background, et cetera. and i think that fundamental issue, there shouldn't be much disagreement in this congress.

but i'm an optimist. you know. i'm in the senate. you got to be an optimist to be in the senate. so we're good. >> when you said that you hoped that it would include neighborhood watch, do you think the language already does that or is that something you hope to fold in later? >> i believe it's already included in the language. if that needs clarified we will clarify it. the language makes it clear law enforcement, these neighborhood watch groups, are working under the direct partnership with local police. so they need to take responsibility for those actions. yes? last question and then we'll move on. >> there was some suggestion from one of the witnesses that the disparate impact reporting would create new causes of action against police officers. do you think that your legislation would do that? >> no. i don't think it does that at all and if that needs to be clarified we will clarify it. that's not the intent of the legislation. that would be an area, i expect we're going to have to -- there

will be some technical suggestions. we're waiting for the department of justice, also, to give us their views on the technical language. but no, that's not the intent of this legislation at all. with that, what i'm going to do is, introduce, there's an order we're going to follow here. what i'm going ask the cooperation of the different persons as they will just follow this list. i do want to acknowledge reverend jamal bryant, who's also here from baltimore. he is on the program to speak. since i will not be here when he is introduced i just really wanted to acknowledge him and take the local prerogative, as a marylander, a point of pride, dr. bryant's extraordinary leadership is, his advice he's given to the trayvon martin family, his spiritual help has certainly been noted around the nation, and we are very proud of his leadership in our community. it's nice to have you here. with that, i'm going to follow the order that we have here and ask, i hope you all have good eyesight. this is pretty small print here.

but if you'll follow down, we'll start with margaret huang, the executive director of the rights working group. if members of the congress come back, they will have a chance to speak also. we have bonita rhodes-berg an african-american mother and grandmother will go next. then tiburcio briceno who is a u.s. citizen of mexican origin. then elizabeth dan a third year law student at new york university. anthony romero, executive director of the american civil liberties union. hilary shelton the director of the naacp washington bureau. a frequent visitor to this room. he knows this room probably better than any other person that's here. a great leader on civil rights issues. kevin levine, a retired police officer, and a criminal justice professor. -- senior dr. jamal bryant comes after hilary shelton. then the final person would be

kevin levine. dr. bryant is the pastor of empowerment temple, ame church of baltimore. so we will start with margaret huang and then we'll proceed and i'll leave this list up here so everyone knows. again, thank you all very much. appreciate it. >> good morning, everyone, and welcome. my name is margaret huang, i'm the executive director of the rights working group. we're a coalition of more than 300 organizations across the country, working to end human rights violations, civil liberties violations, for everyone in the united states, regardless of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration, or citizenship status. it is a pleasure to be here today and have joined all of you for this momentous hearing. we want to start by acknowledging senator cardin's leadership as the sponsor of the end racial profiling act. he's been a true champion.

he has taken this bill and really moved it forward in the last year and we're grateful to him for his leadership. we also want to thank senator durbin for hosting today's hearing. as he noted a few times, the first in more than a decade to look at this important issue. and we appreciate his ongoing efforts to protect human rights and equal justice for everyone in the united states. today in 2012 racial profiling is flourishing. despite the fact that we have our first african-american president, our first african-american attorney general, our first latina on the supreme court, racial profiling is doing -- is increasing on an extraordinary basis. despite all of these achievements, we have to deal with this serious and pervasive problem. and it doesn't just affect african-americans, latino, asians, arabs, sikhs and muslims. it affects all of us, everyone in the united states.

when communities lose trust in their police, in the government, it means that they don't serve as witnesses. that they don't report crimes. that affects everyone's safety in our communities. it means that parents don't take their children to school. it means that loved ones don't take ill family members to the hospital. all of us become less safe when racial profiling is not addressed. passing the end racial profiling act would be a major step forward in countering this problem. it defines the problem, it bans it, it requires law enforcement agencies to adopt clear policies and train their officers to avoid racial profiling. we need this legislation. today we hope that a number of the members who testified earlier this morning will be coming back to share their comments with you and to take questions. we will also hear from a number of directly affected people. people who have, in fact, suffered racial profiling, who want to share their stories with

you. we hope that you'll all join us in this fight to end racial profiling and to pass the end racial profiling act. i'd like to call up my colleague bonita rhodes-berg as our first person to offer some comments this morning. thank you. >> good afternoon. i was born and raised in minneapolis, minnesota, along with my siblings. we were brought up to be proud of who we were, and my father was a 20-year veteran with the minneapolis police department and he made it quite clear to us that we better not get in trouble. i grew up believing that if i abided by the law, and treated myself and others with respect, i wouldn't have to face questions by law enforcement or be singled out by any reason. but that changed 11 years ago

when the dea at the minneapolis-st. paul international airport stopped me for no reason other than the color of my skin. i was returning home from a two-week trip visiting my younger son damon, who resides in los angeles, california. i took the red eye. i was using my frequent flier miles and it was the only available time that i had to come home to use my rewards. i had taken the day off from work at my job in downtown st. paul and i had planned to go straight home because the red eye, you know, you get tired flying that particular flight. i was wearing jeans, a jacket, and a baseball cap and no makeup because i like to be comfortable in flying. once i got off the plane, i collected my luggage and headed toward the elevator to take the shuttle downtown because i live

in downtown minneapolis. while i was waiting for the doors of the elevator to close, i saw a man and a woman running to catch the elevator, so i held the door open. they entered the elevator and rode down with me. when the elevator doors opened, the woman said, excuse me, and i turned around and they had their badges out. they said that they were dea agents and it was their job to watch for people bringing in drugs and money for laundering. i asked them what was their criteria for stopping me and they told me that my carry-on looked heavy. after i questioned them, they got defensive and told me not to be indignant. they wanted to see my airline ticket and my identification. the female officer asked to check my carry-on, and i told her to go for it. in my carry-on she found my bible, my devotional studies,

toiletries, jewelry, lingeries, my pajamas, and a soy protein product. the agent closed my bag and they went on their way. after they let me go, i proceeded to catch the shuttle. on the way home i started crying. i was so mad, i knew that they had stopped me because i was an african-american and i knew that i had been racially profiled. immediately after that terrible experience i got in touch with my representative, the senator, i even called the governor's office to let them that the dea had stopped me, and i didn't do anything wrong, and i wanted to know why they had treated me as if i had. but since that time, i have successfully settled a civil rights lawsuit in july of 2005. but from that day on, my feelings about the police and the law enforcements have been

not the same. the following saturday i had to go to the airport again to catch another flight because a friend of mine, her husband was giving her a 50th birthday party in orlando, florida. so after we arrived -- after i arrived in orlando, i went to catch the shuttle to the airport -- i mean to the hotel, and as i was walking to catch the shuttle, a policeman said, may i help you? and i thought to myself, help me? i didn't ask for help, why is he asking me that question. from that day on, my feelings about the police and the law enforcement have not been the same. so the thing is, in regards to being stopped by the police and the dea, i have been paranoid and never relaxed in flying again.

you have that relaxed feeling 11 years ago, i have that no more. that was taken away from me. thank you. >> translator: my name is briceno tiburcio. and i am a proud citizen of this great nation. i was born in mexico yet my mother was a u.s. citizen in texas.