african-americans are far more likely to be stopped and searched by -- than whites. the fact is, racial profiling is illegal but also -- i'm sorry, but uses of such tactics will tell you that a 1996 supreme court decision allows police officers to stop motorists and search their vehicles where they believe their trafficking illegal drugs or weapons. i challenge anyone, including my colleague from denver, all right, i challenge him to show me where, in that ruling, it states that blacks or minorities will be your likeliest suspects. it doesn't exist. dwb also has no respects of person. recently, filmmaker tyler perry became a victim of the misuse of authority, when last sunday he tweeted of his experience being stopped by two atlanta police

officers. in his posting, which has drawn more than 100,000 likes and 118,000 comments, told what happened when two white police officers stopped him while driving from his southwest atlanta movie studio last month. a department of justice report on racial profiling shows an alarming racial disparity at the rate which motorists are searched by local law enforcement. their findings show a clear and significant racial disparity in the whey motor ilss are treated once they have been stopped. the report also found that blacks were roughly three times as likely to be searched during a traffic stop. blacks were twils ce as likely be arrested and blacks were nearly four times as likely to experience a threat or use of force during the interaction with police. this is why i'm a supporter of

the ending racial profiling act. because police officers, we are empowered with a term called discretion of powers. and the way we use that discretion of powers, some officers choose, and i would like to think, by being fair and impartial. others use it simply because they want to do selective policing. that's what i determine racial profiling to be is selective policing. you take a law or portions of a law and you use it to justify your action. i challenge any of those officers, achieve my accomplishment and use community policing, that is a term that we use when we empower the community to work with law enforcement to determine solutions for their problems. it's their problem because i don't live there. as a deputy commander, i command my officers to go to the neighborhood association meetings and listen to the people. and then, bring those solutions back and together, we'll find a

solution. i ask that congress do the same with the racial profiling act. meet with the people and find out the problem and bring back solutions from the people and i guarantee you, i guarantee you, we'll come up with a solution that will end racial profiling. thank you. >> in addition to our congressional champions, senator cardin, congressman conyers and, of course, senator durbin, we're very grateful to the other members of congress who testified this morning, congressman ellison, congresswoman judy chu, congressman guuni gutierrez and congresswoman wilson. we appreciate they took the time to testify. unfortunately, they couldn't come back for the press conference. but i believe all of our speakers are willing to take any

questions if there are any from the media. thank you. and if not we thank you so much for your time. people are available for personal interviews if you want to come up and we hope you'll join us in the fight to pass the end racial profiling act. thank you. now, a look at money and politics. c-sp c-span's washington classroom is a partnership with the washington center and george mason university. this week, the class learns about the federal election commission from commissioner cynthia bauerly. she joined the class to discuss the role money plays in political races and the duties of the regulatory agency she heads. this class is focused on the road to the white house with a look at issues and events shaching the current campaign, as well as historical

perspective from past presidential elections. this is about one hour. >> to the students at george mason university in fairfax, virginia, and students from the washington center here in washington, d.c. and representing dozens of schools around the country, we want to welcome to c-span classroom, cynthia bauerly, commissioner with the federal election commission. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> this is an agency that's evolved over the last 40 years. so, let's deal with the basics what is your role as a commissioner dealing with money in american politics? >> sure. happy to talk about the agency. it is a fairly young agency in the realm of federal agencies across the government. and thank you for having me here today. and as you students who, i read your syllabus and looked at your course readings. this might be the first time i've referred to dummies.com. i appreciated that.

so, if you did your reading for today, you know the fec is an independent commission headed by six commissioners. makings us fairly unique in the independent regulatory agency set. many agencies have an odd number of commissioners at their head. we have six. the stay chult says that no more than three may be from the same political party. this was established at the outset of the enabling statute for the agency to ensure no party would capture the agency and be able to seek political retribution as apart of campaign finance enforcement. we are headquartered here in d.c. we only have one office. we have about 350 staff at our agency headquarters who work tirelessly, day in, day out, to ensure that our campaign finance laws are enforced, that reports are filed by campaigns that are timely and accurate and to basically ensure that your campaign finance system has integrity.

so, we were established under the federal election campaign act, way back in 1974 and have been doing our job to ensure campaigns are accountable to those who donate to them and voter whols participate in them ever since. >> let me share with you something that kathleen hull jamison wrote in the early years, back in, really, 1976 was the first major national election where we saw the implementation of the fec and the rules and guidelines. she said, quote, under the provisions of the law, gerald ford and jimmy carter were each given just under $22 million and the national parties were permitted to raise and spend an additional two cents for each person of voting age or about $3.2 million. these amounts functioned as ceilings that could not be exceeded through the direct expend sures by candidates or parties.

konls kwently, she writes, the differences between the republican and democratic campaigns in 1976 was not in how much was spent, but how it was spent. how things have changed? >> things have changed. we -- i guess we can attribute it to inflation. a lot of things are differently priced than they were back then. the campaign, the public financing portion of our federal campaign structure is no longer as -- doesn't have as many people participating as it did in some of its earlier years. last cycle was the first time that a general election candidate of a major party did not participate in the public financing campaign. the other candidate, senator mccain, did. he received about $87 million in the public grant. so, the public grant has gone up from $20 million to about $87 million. and in the 2008 cycle, a number of candidates did participate in

the primary financing portion of our public financing system and this time around, we are seeing far, far less participation, in fact, only one candidate thus far has sought matching for the primary system. >> when you look at campaign spending laws, two key decisions, supreme court decisions, if you could elaborate on. what did the decisions state and what impact did it have on federal candidates and then, of course, the other is citizens united. you can take each one individually. >> sure. and there are a number of others in between, but buckley is sort of the starting point it was really the challenge to the underlying feca law. there have been campaign finance laws on the books for almost 100 years prior to what happened in 1972 and again in '74. but this was the first full to the ideas, about limiting special sbrelss interests or l

wealthy individuals in the campaign finance system. so, feca had some basic pieces to it. one was that it included limits and prohibitions on who could give to campaigns and how much they could give, if they were permissible to give at all. it had some expenditure limits on what parties candidates could spend and it required disclosure. and created the fec to be that central place for where all of this activity would happen. and buckley said that the limits on expenditures could not stand in the face of our first amendment freedoms but the limits on prohibitions and the dollar amount were an important way that, if continue wanted to ensure that there was no corruption or the appearance of krurms krur corruption in the system. it's continued for the 40 years since those decisions, and they

have been tested along the way. in different court cases, different entities that were prohibited from giving contributions, such as corporations have challenged these along the way. and then there was, of course, a major reform, revision of the law in the bipartisan campaign reform act in 2002 and as apart of that, congress said that corporations could not make what we call electionary communications, broadcast advertising that mentioned candidates. and these are all very nuanced and specific definitions within the law. not necessarily what someone watching television might think that they, of when they see an ad they think is an election ad. so, citizens united, an organization that wanted to run a movie that was about then candidate -- senator clinton, wanted to run their movie and

their advertisements but because they wanted to pay for it with corporate treasury money, under existing rules, they were not allowed to do so. they took that to the supreme court. and the supreme court said, because they were going to be spending this money independent of any candidate or party, that they could go ahead and do so and so it struck down that provision of the law. and this was a significant change to the way that campaign finance laws have existed in this country, because prior to this time, it was generally viewed that corporations as an organization or labor unions, same rules apply to them, could not participate in this way. now, there have been some hints that the court might go in this direction a little bit earlier on with respect to things we call oodz logical corporations. but this was certainly a major step away from where what people had understood campaign finance law to be. >> and when you look at these so-called super pacs, just in

the republican primary so far and these are numbers from a few weeks ago, but close to $85 million spent by mitt romney, rick santorum, newt gingrich, this is unbundled money they can spend on behalf of a candidate even though they can't specifically coordinate with the campaign. and about $6.5 million for the president's re-election effort. let me just have you react to talking about this issue of money in politic, an event we covered here on c-span. >> it's clearly something new and important that there's as much money in the campaign this year as there is. i think that's something that worries many americans. it doesn't worry political scientists and i think shouldn't worry people. if you think about the scope of government and what's at stake, the amount of money that we're spending to decide who is going to run the thing is really pretty modest, right? so, we're spending $1 billion, $2 billion to decide who is going to be in charge of a $700

billion bailout plus lots of other stuff that the government does. so, i think in any absolute sense or by compareson with the amount of money that major corporations spend on trying to sell you trivial stuff, the amount of money that's spent on politics is really not problematic. >> cynthia, your reaction to that point of view. >> well, i think he's right in the absolute, the idea that there was approximately $6 billion spent on our last election in 2008, the presidential election cycle. certainly sounds like a huge sum of money, and it is, in any absolute sense. when you compare it to what we spend as a nation on halloween that year, it was about the same. and so i would argue that electing our government is actually much more important than that. but that said, it certainly -- the cost of campaigning has certainly gone up and that has an impact all across, i think, from my view, our election system, including people feeling like they don't really have a say when they see such large

amounts going to candidates and a large amount spent. and a lot of this money is spent on advertising and many people just think that there's way too much television time taken up with election campaign ads, particularly negative ones, as september and october roll around. but the -- and we have seen a shift in the spending, at the fec, one of the things that campaigns have to do is file quarterly or sometimes monthly reports, depending on their status. from those reports, we can see how much money is being raised an spent and the public can, as well. all of the information that is filed with the fec, by committee, is available on our website, virtually within hours of it being filed, for analysis, review, curiosity, by anyone who wants to come to our website. it is all publicly available and i they's a really important part of our system. i would agree there is a lot of money and many people say way

too much money, the vast majority of it, all of it is reported to the fec, is transparent. there are still areas where the donors are not available to be seen by the public but the vast majority of it is transparent and i think that's very good. >> our topic classroom here today, money and politics, the role of the fec in congressional and presidential elections and you brought along a chart, which we will get to in a moment. let me turn to bob, my colleague at george mason university, with a question or comment. bob? >> yes, actually, a comment or question that relates to what we were just talking about, the question of transparency. you want to -- >> especially regarding super pacs, how can transparency be increased in the system of federal campaign donation? >> thank you. let me back up for just one second and help define a little bit about what super pac means.

i have to do this because i must tell you, it is not an official campaign word in our law or at the fec. when we first saw these new sorts of entities, they really came about for two reasons. one was the citizens united decision that we just spoke of and another was a case called speech now. d.c. circuit court decision that held that a group of people could get together and spend their money in, as long as it was independent, could spend an unlimited amount of their own money. they did not have to be c constricted by the contribution limits that are in the law. if you combine citizens united that says corporations and labor unions may spend their money for independent expenditures, with speech now, you have this entity that can take unlimited amounts of donations, contributions, from all kinds of entities, including corporations, so long as they are making independent

expenditu expenditures, they can do that in an unlimited way. at the fec, we call these independent expenditure only commit deeps. as any agency, we are required to create new acronyms every single year. i'm kidding, that's a joke. i knew we would call them super pacs when stephen colbert decided he wanted one. that's become part of the discussion. but they are regular political committees. they have to register with the agency. right now, there are approximately 327 of them registered. about two new super pacs file with the agency almost every day. so, it's a very popular new farm of political committee. they must register, tell us who their treasurer is, identify their location for a mailing address and file reports with us so that we can see their

donations coming in. everything that is coming into a schumer pac is reported to the fec, that is put on our website as those reports are filed. one of issues that hasn't been addressed in the press, this is not something that we deal with in particular, is some entities who are not profits under the tax code. because a super pac can take contributions from anyone, including a 501 c-3 or c-4 or c-7, those organizations are giving to super pacs. so, the donation, the contribution that comes from them would identify it but wouldn't identify the underlying donors to the c-4. that's an area that has been of much discussion in terms of whether those entities donating to the 501 should be disclosed or not. and how much of that 501, this is -- this is an issue that comes open every election year about how much of that 501's activity is political versus not

and those issues get raised. but in terms of super pacs themselves, they do have to file and they do have to disclose all of their donors and expenditures. >> you are from st. cloud, minnesota. how did you get to the fec? >> a long and winding path, but the short answer is, i was nominated by president bush to fill a seat on the federal election commission and confirmed by the senate. because the agency cannot have more than three members from any one party, my name, i'm a registered democrat, so my name was sent for suggestion to the white house by the majority leader, senator reid because president bush was looking for names of democrats, of course, and so there were several of us who were confirmed all about the same time and took office about june of 2008, some in july of 2008. >> let's put on the screen a

look at outside spending and first, in congressional races, and if you can explain to the students what these graphs mean. >> sure. one of the benefits of the information we get in at the fec is, we're able to see some trends in the data. and everyone after citizens united started wondering what the impact was going to be in terms of these knew types of spenders that could spend -- raise unlimited amounts of money and engage in spending. before 2010, they couldn't. so, if you take a look at the first chart, the line in red is independent expenditures by party. it holds steady from about 2006, 2008, drops a little bit in 2010. parties have different emphasis depending on the year. this is all in congressional races. this is not accounting for the presidential spending that might have been going on. the blue line is where we see what happens after citizens united. so, the blue line is independent

expend sures by pacs, grouches and individuals, so, a corporation that may have wanted to make an independent expenditure in 2008 was prohibited from doing so, but in 2010, it was perfectly legitimate thing for them to do. and we see a significant increase in the amount of spending. the numbers translate, in 2006 and 2008, there was approxima approximately $43 million, by all of these different types of outside groups. so, those first two bullets on the blue line. and then, that increased to $208 million, by 2010. that's a five -- that's five times the amount of money that was spent in 2008. so, there certainly was an increase in the amount of independent expenditures. and that's an aspect of the system that has shifted, as a result of some of these cases. prior to our most recent

changes, parties and candidates really had the crux of the control over how the money was spent, how, when it was raised. and now that we have other groups that can take unlimited amounts of money, there's been a shift away from candidates and parties to groups who can raise larger amounts of money. if you have -- if you can only give a candidate $2,500 per election, but you can give $1 million to a super pac or -- to a super pac, that is just going to aggregate their ability to spend this kind of money and that's what we're seeing in this first chart. >> and then the next one, a breakdown of independent expenditures and these are in millions of dollars. >> yes. so, we take that $208 million, that blue line that went very high in the last chart and we break it down to sort of digest who is really doing this spending. the blue line are traditional pacs, they are normal pacs who

have limits of $5,000. the red line, which of course didn't exist prior to 2010, super pacs. and the green line are others, just individuals, corporations, small organizations, that engablg in this type of activity. so, as you can see again, traditional pacs have always had a role in independent spending, about $37 million, $36 million in 2008 and that almost doubles to $66 million in 2010. super pacs of course didn't exist before 2010. they spent about $62 million and the green line of others jumps from $6 million in 2008 to almost $80 million in 2010. and obviously we don't have data yet for the 2012 cycle. we are just starting to see that. and the agency will be putting out aggregate information about what we know about the first year of this cycle. but if we -- what we're seeing

so far continues, it's going to be even larger than the increase we saw in 2010. >> i want to go back to your earlier point and then we'll get to some of your questions. as you indicated, many of the students have been researching this p toic, that the idea of campaign finance law is dating back to teddy roosevelt in 1912. but it took watergate to really implement a number of changes. i want to show this one moment from august 9th, 1974, the resignation of richard nixon, which became the culmination of the watergate scandal that led to the fec and the changes we saw just two years in 1976, the election of jimmy carter and the race with gerald ford in that campaign. but here's from the east room at the white house, the morning of august 9th, outgoing president richard nixon. >> we think sometimes, when things happen, that don't go the right way, we think that when you don't pass the bar exam the

first time -- i happened to, but i was just lucky, i mean, my writing so poor, the bar examiner was like, we just have to let the guy through. we think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat, that all has ended. we think, as t.r. said that the light had left his light forever. not true. it's only a beginning, always. the young must know it. the old must know it. it must always sustain us. but the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when

you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments. when sadness comes. because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. >> cynthia, that was the morning of august 9th, 1974, and was really a landmark date in a period of american political history that led to the culmination of the watergate scandal, the resignation of richard nixon and the creation of the fec. give some history. what was going on in the country that led to so many changes in american politics in that period? >> well, of course, the watergate scandal was about many, many different things, you know, the break-in itself, but i think what it symbolized is that people were, had this idea that the government was no longer

functioning in any semblance, in the pursuit of what was the interest of the people. i think that speech, that segment of the speech is so sad, because it was a recognition of how far we had gotible off the path of what the government is supposed to be doing for us. and of course there was a very vigorous reform and this is an area where you don't see a lot of movement in congress, because these are rules that are near and dear to the people who have to pass the laws about what p governs their own lives, their own re-election campaigns. so, it is an area where it is difficult sometimes to get reforms passed. but this was certainly such a momentous occasion that it really led to the consolidation and the con if i case of a number of the laws that had been out there and frankly, a regulator to come in and be the central focus of these laws, because some of the laws had been on the books and they had

been enforced by different agencies, the reporting was going on to a different agency, they'd been reporting and the auditing had been happening all of the ga gao. a centralized regulator was a major shift on how congress and the country was viewing how the campaigns had to be run. it was a real, i think, understanding that something significant had to be done to restore the confidence of the people in the system. >> let me turn to some of my students from the washington center, they've all researched this p toic. jessica, we're going to begin with you, a question for cynthia bauerly, commissioner for the fec. go ahead, jessica. >> hi, cynthia. so, i'm wondering, i saw that the mission of the fec is preventing corruption in federal campaigns. do you think that the current fec regulations are working or do you see reform in the near future? >> well, i'll start with your first question, the statute and the