things? thanks. >> i completely agree with you that unions really do help workers and it is quite remarkable how in the last, i don't know, 20 or 30 years there has been this steady, steady attack on unions at every level, at every level. think of the way we refer to the employer as the employer and we refer to the leader of the union as a union boss. that already sounds like a mafia boss already, doesn't it, and i think that unions are really all that stands between workers and just tremendous, tremendous levels of exploitation. i don't really understand why so many americans bought into the idea that the union is their enemy. i mean, that was the big thing going on in wisconsin where significant numbers of

wisconsinites really believes the problem with the school and their economy was that teachers were making too much money. i mean, can you believe that? teachers are making too much money? they should pay teachers double. it is a hard job. it is a lot harder than being a politician, for example, and as in a previous session it was discussed they're paid pretty well. so i don't really understand why it is that people buy into this antiunion thing. it is as if everyone in their head thinks they're a potential millionaire and the think that's holding them back is they have to join a union. that's not the way it is. >> if governor walker escapes recall what do you think about the perception of unions overall going forward? >> obviously it won't be good. they put a tremendous amount of energy, money, and also their prestige on the line here, and it just seems really, really terrible that sort of almost at the last minute this rush of money comes in sort of like, oh,

well now we're serious so here is a whole lot of money to help governor walker stay in power. >> lowell, massachusetts is next. this is danny, independent line. caller, go ahead. >> caller: hello. >> you're on. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes. i don't understand why c-span has gone to having -- we know the media is liberal and this liberal woman on here, so for the rest of this year i guess until election in november we'll listen to all of this liberal garbage. does she worry that much about george giving all of that money to obama or all the rich democrats that gave to obama? it just seems like the media worries only when it is a rich republican. i mean, we don't talk about how much money john kerry or al gore or any of them have but it seems to bother them if it is a

republican like romney has money. >> just before ms. pollitt comes in, i want to let you know during the series we presented both sides and have a conservative columnist yesterday and i would invite to you go to our website to see that for yourself. cata pollitt, go ahead to her point. >> i think the thing about citizens united that's disturbing is it allows all the money to be given anonymously, and i think that both democrats and republicans should be extremely concerned about that. i think it violates just basic standards of sunlight and transparency and knowing who your politician is going to be indebted to because they are giving that money to get something back. i don't see how that's really a republican or democratic issue. to me that's an issue of basic good government and citizenship. unfortunately, i think you're right that it is true that we

have a politics now that is dependent on immense amounts of money and that favors both people who have a lot of money and people who can attract a lot of money, and i don't think that's good. i would favor publicly funded campaigns, and also shorter campaigns. can you believe that it is still five months until elections day? sometimes i think i just want to go live in iceland for the next five months and just come back a week before because most people aren't even tuned into it now. that's what the media is going to be obsessing about for five months. every little wrinkle, everything any of them says is going to be blown up into a major news story, and i don't think that really helps people understand what the basic issues are either, whether they are conservative or liberal. >> what do you think about the caller's point and a candidate's personal wealth? >> well, that's an interesting

question. i think the thing -- there have certainly been plenty of wonderful politicians who had a lot of personal wealth. for example, fdr, he had a lot of personal wealth. and teddy roosevelt had personal wealth, too, the whole family. i think the question with romney is how did he get that wealth and what you think about bain and the whole leveraging of corporations and loading them up with debt and making a lot of money and i think that's the issue with him. in principle, in principle i would not not vote for somebody who had the politics i support because they had a lot of money. i just think that it would be nice if some people who didn't have a lot of money got to play a major role in politics. >> in one of your columns you have a tongue and cheek approach to ann romney about her working woman's status.

for those that haven't read it can you encapsulate what you're trying to do with the piece? >> i am sorry, i am hearing my voice. i am hearing my voice. i am getting an echo there. you know, you know that there was one of these manufactured controversies was when a person who was inevitably described as a democratic spokesperson but was not that made a nasty crack about ann romney, how can she peek for women when she's never -- for women on economics when she's never had a job in her life, and then, oh, the stay at home mom, it is a job and no, it isn't a job, and i think this is exactly an example of the totally manufactured kind of outrage that dominates so much of our politics, and i have to say i think a lot of it does come from republicans.

my column was about, you know, the endless iteration of the mommy wars, the endless thing about staying home versus going to work, when the real problem, the real problem is that in this country, this wouldn't affect ann romney necessarily but in this country we do nothing to support families. this forces women into very difficult choices. most women don't have the choice to stay home, but it forces -- we don't have day care and people who can have it is extremely expensive. we don't have preschool in most places. we don't have even kindergarten in a lot of places. we don't have after school. we don't have paid parental leave. can you believe it? you have a baby and that's it, you're supposed to just support yourself until you can get back to work? no. this is society should be helping people, but in this society we treat having a baby, sometimes it is described as being like a saint and sometimes

it is described as buying an extremely expensive bicycle. why should i the taxpayer help you buy your bicycle? this is the future we're talking about. it is in everybody's interests to have young people growing up who are healthy, who are educated, well cared for, where the families have enough time to spend with their children, and that includes men and women and i really dislike the way this is always discussed as just an issue of women. i just think it would be great if we would focus on the policy aspects of this and less on who is the moral perfect woman. >> san antonio, texas, iojuanit republican line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i used to work in a lot of places but i have been in what you call mediocre jobs in

restaurants, and i have been doing about $8, 8.50 an hour, and like that and i have been laid off several times to find out they rehired a person who was an immigrant for a lower wage and that way they don't have to pay so much, and i have even been in one where i was taken away from my position so they could give it to somebody else and then my wages were cut, and so i understand that part because when that person on one job got hurt and we told her, you have a right to go and report it because the manager was bad to her, you know, to report it, the mistreatment, she couldn't go because she was an illegal alien and scared of being deported. we told her you don't have to worry about that, they will take care of you, and she was pregnant also.

so it causes us bad because we can't help ourselves and they won't go against the management who they hurt and it is like they get away with it. >> thank you. good, ms. pollitt. >> isn't it interesting how all of these issues are connected, that if that immigrant worker had the proverbial path to citizenship, if they were a citizen, if it didn't matter whether they were a citizen or not but there was still decent protection for all workers, then the employer would not take your job away and give it to a person that can pay less to who was more vulnerable than you are. what bothers me a little bit is often when people talk about immigrant workers, it is as though, well, the fact that immigrant workers are more vulnerable means we have to get rid of them, they're the problem, if only we didn't have immigrants we would go back to having the wonderful life of some time in the past when there

weren't so many immigrants and i don't think it works that way. i think that we are really all in this together. it is not going to be the case that 11 million or 13 million or however many million undocumented immigrants there are in this country now are going to go back to their home countries. that's just not going to happen. we have to work with the situation that we have and make sure that everybody has rights and is taken care of. >> jim heinz off of twitter makes this point to you, ms. pollitt. both parents would not have to work if they did not have to support the giant government you advocate for. >> well, actually, americans pay less in taxes than in other industrialized countries. i think it is a huge myth that americans are so burdened by taxes and get nothing back from it. you get lots back from it. most of the things that government pays are are things like we do have an enormous

military and when people complain about taxes that doesn't come up too often, but i think that if you want to have a society that takes care of people, where people don't end up on the streets, where the schools are good, where people have health care, then you have to pay for it. it is the way you have to pay for everything. that's the thing that nobody can say in politics because if you say, hey, we have to raise taxes, then people, there are a lot of people like your caller there who think that's really just the worst thing in the world. i want to live in a society that doesn't have people living on the street and that doesn't have people running out of unemployment and then what happens to them? i want to have people that where everybody has work and a place to live and a decent life and that's i think would be a good world. i know these aren't very fashionable now.

>> this is texas, harold, democrats line. >> caller: i am listening to what she said about the question earlier and if really a democratic nation, people were allowed to vote, we wouldn't have the problems that we have now. >> how so? >> caller: well, if everybody was allowed to vote, we would get better elected officials in office that would take care of the business of the nation. we shouldn't have to have these kinds of problems. >> if everyone were allowed to vote. >> there is a lot of voter suppression and even outside the new republican driven and they are republican driven, sorry republicans out there, you know, new regulations intended to keep people disproportionately people of color and low income off the roles. even without that, it is really -- people don't realize this. it is really hard to vote in

america. every time you move you have to reregister, and there are numerous procedural things that make it harder and you have to vote on a tuesday. what if you can't get time off of work? i mean, in a lot of countries you can vote on the weekend. that's when election day is. it would make a lot of sense. it is just tuesday and it is in the constitution because of the way the time farmers needed to get to the county seat in the 18th century, so i think it is not as easy to vote as it looks, and that's why i like it that in some places you can vote by mail and i think that that does help a little bit. you know, there are a lot of people moving around a lot, especially poor people. they're moving around a lot and then they get kicked off the rolls or the opportunity to vote by mail doesn't reach them, et cetera, et cetera. you really have to make an

effort and the people who make an effort are disproportionately older people, people with very stable housing, people who lived in a place for a long time. we're a very mobile country now so people feel a little less connected to their community and a little less inclined to vote there. if we wanted to raise the numbers of people who could vote, there are things we could do to do that and we don't do them. >> part of our spotlight on columnist series katha poll it, a columnist for the nation. john on the independent line. go ahead. >> caller: don't cut me off. >> we're running out of time. >> caller: ma'am, first of all, you talk about image with as. let's get to the point. bill clinton wouldn't pass nafta and ross pierrot told him what would happen and the reason i am able to vote, i won't vote for him because he took right around

and put hillary clinton up there and then when he went along with the gay deal, so i think just you guys can't have it both ways. that's what's wrong with people in north carolina and other states, too. all of them talk big, everybody talks big and nobody gets out there and does anything. >> katha he put a lot out there. go ahead. >> he did put a lot out there. i just want to say that i think both parties, both parties have important aspects of their economic policies that are very similar and that are intended to serve big business. that's the way it is. one reason that's the way it is is because of the whole campaign finance situation where that's how people get elected. it is very rare that somebody gets elected because a lot of good people gives them $10 each. mostly the way campaigns are funded is from large and

business donors. that distorts our politics in both parties. i think you're completely right about that. >> fort worth, texas, phillip, republican line. >> caller: hello. you said you didn't understand why people have a problem with the union. well, the union, they drive up the costs of everything. they don't base their employment and pay system on knowledge. they base it on how long they have been there, so somebody who works really hard and gets good at something deserves more money because they're more skilled, and somebody who don't know what they're doing, they want the same money but they don't want to do the same effort to learn what to do, and so they also go in -- they go to companies that aren't unions and they get a job

and then they try to get the other workers to go union to make that shop have to pay more. they make our government pay more. everything in government costs more because the union don't want to have a level playing field. they want to, you know, everybody has to -- the government has to pay union scale wages so that the union can compete and then they drive the costs up because they do everything the hard way. >> caller, thanks. >> well, it seems to me that actually people that i am in a union and at my place of employment, the nation magazine, and we're in communication with workers of america. people get promoted. people get paid more. not everybody is paid the same. the unions establish a floor of what you can be paid and that's good, but it doesn't say you can't get paid more so people negotiate for raises on an

individual basis, and it is not the case that everybody who is working at the nation today was working there 40 years ago. there is turnover. every now and then if there is somebody that completely doesn't work out, they are paid to go away, and i think that the assumption, people have this assumption that they're the ones who in a unionized situation would not ones who would be the ones who, oh, i am such a great worker and i get paid no more than some smoe out there. maybe sheer the smoe. did that every occur to people maybe they're the people who are the average worker and the average worker needs that kind of protection because not everybody is some work genius, and it seems to me that most people in most jobs are doing okay. they're doing okay. my daughter was in public school, and she had excellent teachers, not all the teachers

were equally excellent, but they were all good, and i think that there is this myth out there that the average american worker is terrible, especially if they work for a union, but that's not true. that's not true at all. we're very productive country, a country that makes a lot of things and does a lot of things, and i think the idea that the only thing that keeps people working is the terror of being fired is, i just would like to see some evidence for that. >> just a couple of tweets. this is mary off of twitter. we need work of all kinds in our economy. we need to honor, have living wage for all type of work and we also have another tweet from who says should we have a solely publicly funded campaign finance system and gives ideas by taxing all voters $10 per year or taxing taxpayers $10 per year and while you kind of go he will on that, let's take one more call. this is jacksonville, florida,

claudia, democrats line. >> caller: hi. i wanted to ask you, now, here a lot of people say that voters vote against their own best interests, and so i wanted to have you compare the stockholm syndrome to those people who vote against their own best interests. thank you. >> katha pollitt, go ahead. >> i think the first question was about publicly funded campaigns. totally in favor of it. i think that would really help and also shorter campaigns, please. i mean, in most european countries the campaigns are very short, like six weeks. that's better. that's so much better. there is plenty of time for people to pay attention and to educate themselves when these campaigns drag on and on and on it becomes sort of like who do you like? who do you want to have a beer with? this is ridiculous. it is a ridiculous way to run a

country. >> let me squeeze in one more call if i can. westchester, ohio. we're running real short on time. jump right in. >> caller: okay. thank you for taking the call. the lady had mentioned how congress was basically stone walling obama. when he started off he had the congress, he had the senate, and the white house and hence that's how we got obama care when most of the people in the united states did not want it. hence 2010 which is why congress came back we still don't have a budget after three plus years and which is their mandate to do, and the senate hasn't even brought it up again. what happened to a balanced budget and they will not even listen to it on the floor? >> the work of congress, especially when it comes to a budget? >> i think congress has been remarkably ineffective and most people agree with that. their ratings are just through the floor.

i think we're coming into election season or in election season and let's just hope the next time around produces some people that are more interested in actually making some good progress instead of just preventing anything from happening. >> according to the work of congress next week the senate is expected to take up the paycheck fairness act. what do you think about its chances and what does it do for women? >> the paycheck fairness act would be a very good thing. people talk about the lilly led better act which was good, one of the first things that president obama did when he took office was to sign that, and what that did was it restored the status quo that the supreme court had over turned when they said that lilly led better didn't have the right to sue for having been under paid because of her sex for many, many years because she should have filed suit 15 years previously or whatever it was, a long time

before, although she only found out about the wage discrimination recently. so the paycheck fairness act would give women more protection and more opportunities to equal lies their pay with men, and this is a tremendous injustice in our society. we all say, oh, yes, we're in favor, equal pay for equal work. that isn't what's happening. >> we have to leave it there. i am sorry about that. the house of representatives is in. thank you for your time. >> thank you so much for having me. >> all this week at 8 p.m. eastern we're bringing you american history tv primetime, programs normally seen weekends here on c-span 3. tonight one of america's earliest settlements, jamestown, virginia, and a tour of archaeological sites along with a visit to a lab where they're studying more than a million artifacts found so far. >> the congressional black caucus held a summit yesterday on voting rights. the final session was dubbed a

call to action. they discussed how to get african-americans to vote and new voter i.d. laws. three members of congress, fudge, jackson lee and waters participated in the discussion. >> thank you all so much for being here for our last official session of the day. i want to thank the chairman and the president of cnbc for allowing the cbc once again to participate. i want to thank my chairman, eman he will clooefr who i always told people could tear it up. to the members of the cbc here, my colleagues, we have just been joined by congresswoman sheila jackson lee from texas. give sheila a hand. and we're going to begin this panel even though congressman maxine waters is not here yet and she should be here shortly. we're expecting her to join us

and you met our doctor and vice president of the cbc earlier donna christianson from the virgin islands. thank you all. it is my great pleasure to serve as moderator for today's final discussion. i am representative marsha fudge from high representing the 11th congressional district. thank you. i am honored to be here with you for many reasons. i serve as a cbc's for the people voting rights initiative co-chair with my friend and colleague representative john lewis. let's just take a walk down memory lane. the date was march 7, 1965. the place was selma, alabama. young people led the way. their goal was to achieve the uninhibited right to vote. hundreds of brave men, women and children marched, black and white, hand-in-hand. i can hear it now.

many of them were probably singing, singing some of those old freedom songs like oh freedom, we shall not be moved, or we shall overcome. and then all at once the marchers were attacked by police with billy clubs and tear gas. that day will forever be known as bloody sunday, a day when hundreds of americans bled on selma alabama's bridge bleeding for the struggle to secure our right to vote, our right to have unrestrict and had unhampered access to the polls. the marchers were beat and knocked down, but they didn't stay down. they got up. one week later they marched again, and a few days after that they marched once more. now clergy and young people led the massive crowd. this time thousands marched along the voting rights' trial from selma to montgomery. because of bloody sunday and the thousands of americans who were beaten and killed over the years

so that i can vote, so that we can all vote, i am standing here today and i refuse to let their efforts be in vain. the suppress civil tactics being used today are not new. what we called a poll tax is now a few voter photo i.d. law. instead of physical threats unnecessary and confusing laws are being used to restrict turnout and hamper the effect of early and absentee voting. it was the church and young people who led the way in '65 and we need the pulpit of the church and the energy of young people to lead the way today. this panel is going to talk to you about how we make that happen. this is in fact a call to action, so you're not going to hear any real speeches. we're going to open this up as i introduce the panel and we're going to ask them some questions. then when i finish my few questions, i am going to let you ask them some questions. as i said, we're going to be

joined by my colleague representative maxine waters and until she gets here i will move on and start out by introducing reverend tony lee. reverend tony lee is the founder and senior pastor of the community of hope african methodist episcopal church. he formerly served as senior minister to young adults in fort washington, maryland. he over saw the development of a wide range of youth ministries that engaged young people in a style of praise and worship that embraced their unique styles and interests. he received national media attention on bet's cousin jeff's chronicles on cnn and c-span. reverend lee serves on the leadership team of saving ourselves, sos, an organization working in the gulf coast on behalf of those victimized and impacted by the social economic and physical devastation of hurricane katrina.