parents to the point where as i said i feel guilty if i don't go to the polls and vote. but there are many americans who aren't rayed that way and aren't taught that, and that's what we have to change. like i say, starting in the schools and we're not doing enough to do that. i would be happy to work with anybody to do that and alleges encourage people, i don't care what political party they're in, to work in the election process. the biggest problem election officials have across this country is they can't get enough people to work at the polls on election day. it is a real tough problem. and the average age of election people these days is like 73, 74. and that whole generation that was taught that civic duty is very important and who have manned our polls now, they're slowly dying out and going away, and there frankly isn't a younger generation coming up with that same sense of civic duty and civic commitment to

take their place. that's the issue that we have to change. >> i'd like to thank both our speakers for what i will objectively say has been an informative and helpful newsmaker. thank you to you both. thank you to the newsmaker committee of the national press club that organized this event, and thank you to c-span for broadcasting it live. the meet slg adjourned. thank you.

today dr. tom frieden will testify on the u.s. spops to the ebola virus. he'll be joined by dr. anthony fauci at this hearing. it all gets under way life today at noon eastern on our companion network c-span. also coming up this afternoon remarks from faa administrator michael huerta on airline safety and security concerns. he'll give an assessment after a fire at an air traffic control center in chicago. you can see those comments live starting at 1:10 eastern on c-span2. tonight on c-span3, pabls from this year's national bullying conference held in washington. officials from the education department discuss the latest bullying trends and how to best

create an environment that discourages bullying behavior. comments from several students discussing their experiences. that's at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. also on tonight, c-span's campaign 2014 coverage continues with an iowa senate debate featuring democratic congressman bruce braly and joniernst. >> i'm bruce braly and i approve this message. >> take a closer look at jo joni ernst. she sponsored an amendment to outlaw abortion even in case of rape or incest. her bill would have banned many common forms of birth control. she even wants criminal punishment for doctor who is perform an abortion. >> i think providers should be punished if there were a person -- >> joni ernst, radical ideas, wrong for iowa. >> expecting her to fulfill

campaign promises. ernst's policies abolished the epa, giving polluters a pass. that's why extremist sarah palin and the billionaire coke brothers want her in washington. >> expecting her to fulfill campaign promises -- >> joni ernst, promises to them, too extreme for us. >> i get very upset. >> are you ready to apologize? >> you're damn right i read the bill. that individual had no college education. i find it ironic that there's this big push to shut down the house. do you have any advance degrees in economics? there's hardly anybody working on it. i get very upset. you're damn right i read the bill. there's no towel service. a farmer from iowa who never want to law school. we're doing our own laundry down there. i get very upset. you don't have a masters or ph.d. in health care policy.

one of the most important places guy is to the house gym. have you published any scholarly treatises in a peer review journal? a farmer from iowa what never went to law school. i get very upset. are you ready to apologize? you're damn right i read the bill. i get very upset. >> recent polling has listed this race as a toss-up. see tonight's debate starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span. this weekend on the c-span networks -- friday night at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, from the texas tribune festival, a conversation about dealing with undocumented youth coming into the u.s. saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a town hall meeting on the media's coverage of events in ferguson, missouri. and sunday evening at 8:00 on "q&a," richard smith on his

recent biography of rockefeller. and richard whittle on, you know, droens, their impact on aviation, and how they transform the american military. saturday night at 10:00, jake hall person on the questionable practices of the collection industry. and sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern the 2014 southern festival of boox. friday at 8:00 on american history tv on c-span3, martin luther king's poor people's campaign and the 1968 election. and saturday at 8:00 on lectures and history, the life and legacy of booker t. washington. and sunday afternoon at 4:00 on "real america," from 1964, exercise delaware, a joint armed forces readiness operation between the u.s. and iran when the two countries were allies. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400, email

us with the comments@c-span.org, or send us a tweet @cspan, #comments. >> now a discussion on demographic trends affecting american politics. we'll hear remarks from steve phillips, a philanthropist who chairs an organization which supports democratic candidates. according to mr. phillips, the coalition that is likely to dominate american politics going forward is made up of minority groups and progressive or liberal whites. this is an hour-long event. >> good afternoon and welcome. my name is paul harris and i'm president of the city club's board of directors. i am very pleased to introduce today's speaker, steve phillips,

president and one of the first 50 founders of our path. as stated at its website, power pac is a nonprofit policy and political organization established in 2004 to "champion democracy and social justice in states and communities across the country." before i comment on pacs, i want to say a few words about our esteemed speaker's background. mr. phillips grew up in cleveland, cleveland heights, so he's back home today and he has a lot of friends in the audience gathered throughout this room. he attended stanford university where he majored in english and afro-american studies and was very active in student organizations. he later earned his law degree from hastings college of law in san francisco. he worked for four years with the public interest law firm public advocates and at the young age of 28 was elected to the san francisco board of education, thereby becoming the youngest elected official in san francisco history.

he later became president of the board of education and served on the board for eight years. our accomplished speaker's appearance today is timely as we enter an election year that is certain to be a very active one with pacs and super pacs playing a role in the political process. now, a brief bit of history on pacs. pacs exist at both federal and the state level. the federal level, the first pac was actually formed in 1947. in the 1970s, congress passed a laws governing pacs including establishing contribution limits. more recently in the wake of court decisions, including the united states supreme court's decision in citizens united which was rendered in january of 2010, so-called super pacs have emerged. now, they're prohibited from making contributions directly to a campaign, but they're able to make unlimited political spending independently of campaigns. the impact of money funneled through pacs and superpacs

continues to be hotly debated. our speaker will present his informed views on that subject, as well as, of course, on another hot topic from the 2012 presidential election, the impact of demographic shifts in our country on the 2012 election and on future elections. so, with that, i am very pleased to present on behalf of the city club of cleveland, steve phillips, president and co-founder of powerpac. [ applause ]. >> thank you, paul, for that introduction. very grateful to be here. just addendum in terms of the bio, one of the things that we created last year plus, they're going to be materials that pacplus.org i'll be referencing through the site and things on the table that we had had here as well. we were talking about how this is -- there are a lot of friends here and it's very touching and

moving to me. made me think that if you ever -- this is probably the closest you can have of seeing what it would be like, who would come to your funeral without actually dying. and hopefully this won't be a near-death experience for me as i try to deliver these remarks. and i do want to give a special thank you to shandra who introduced me to dan and arranged this opportunity for me to speak here. a lawyer here in town, he and i have been friends since our days at stanford in the 1980s. and i always knew she was a smart guy who had great potential, but he really proved it when he decided to marry a woman from cleveland heights. and i'm very proud of the leadership that he provided around issues of equality and justice and was privileged to work with him around 2008 arnold lot of voter turnout to bring people of color to the polls in that election. i want to thank all of you for coming out today.

it is good to be home. and it is great to see so many friends from my days at hawkins school and my days on dartmore road and i would like to dispel one rumor at the outset is that i am not here to interview for the brown's head coaching position. so, although -- although as a long-time browns fan, my dad -- my brothers and i got season tickets when we were 7 years old, so i've been a passionate and long-time fan. eagerly following this process and as always looking forward to next season. but seriously, though, it's an honor to be invited to speak at the city club. this is a prestigious platform for anyone to speak from, but for a kid from cleveland heights this is a special honor and i'm humbled to stand here today. and as if the prestige of the podium wasn't daunting enough, my father, who is here today and

flew up from texas for this, heard me he heard two people speak at the city club his whole life, bobby kennedy and martin luther king. so, no pressure, dad. cleveland is the perfect place to have a discussion about brown is the new white, the future of u.s. politics and the context of america's demographic revolution. long before america elected a black president, cleveland blazed a trail by becoming the first major american city to elect a black mayor, carl stokes. for those of you under a certain age, that was 1967. and i still remember my mom making a point to drive us by mayor stoke's house when we were children on the way to visit our grandparents. they lived on east 128th street. a lot has changed in america since 1967. but many in national politics have been slow to appreciate these changes. the fact of the matter is that there is a new majority coalition in america and that coalition is built on the solid foundation of the country's growing numbers of people of color.

and that is what we mean by brown is the new white. to perhaps state the obvious for the past 400 years or so, the united states has been a majority white country. it is worth noting that the continent had many native americans and mexicans prior to the arrival of europeans, thus we talk about the past 400 years. but for the purposes of understanding contemporary american politics, let's acknowledge that majority of the country and its voters have been white for a long time. consequently, addressing the needs of and responding to the interest of whites has been the central organizing principle of u.s. politics for a long time. when people talk about winning over swing voters or not alienating moderates, the picture they have in their head is of suburban whites, often women, frequently in ohio. in the 1960s, it was nixon silent majority. in the '80, reagan democrats in the '90s, soccer moms and in the early 2000s ex-urban voters.

these have been seen as pivotal and been the focus of politics and their consultants. similarly, public policy has been hypersensitive. the polling and impressions of what might alienate modern white voters. recently, we've seen a lot of articles about how will americans feel about obama care. my first thought was that those americans who weren't getting health care for the first time in their life would feel pretty good. but the premise of the question as articulated is how will middle class whites react to the affordable care act. that premise is now outdated and anachronistic. one of the masters of american politics is willy brown, longest serving speakers of the california assembly. there was a fail eed coup of hi in the late '60s. 80s. i saw his speech and i remember

him saying that the first law of politics is you have to learn to count. those who are most effective in 2014 and beyond will be those who know how to count. as bill clinton famously said in his 2012 democratic convention speech, it's about arithmetic. and so let's do a little math today. as i mentioned that those who are following online or outside of the room that there's a document that we have that down loads the data of -- the statistics i'm going to run through available at pacplus.org if you have a paper of color that grunts through all this work. so the arithmetic. 29 plus 26 equals 55. that is the new equation for this new era. allow me to explain. the 2010 census confirmed if there has been a profound demographic revolution in america over the past 30 years, latinos, asian americans, african-americans, native americans and mixed race americans are now 36% of the

entire u.s. population. the one response when i do these numbers that i hear from people is that not all people of color are progressive. believe me, i know. i often shake my head wondering what some of these folks are thinking. the closest statistical measure we have is national exit polls. the presidential exit polls. and that data shows that the vast majority of people of color vote democratic. in the last election, 80% of communities of color voted for obama. so all people of color comprise 36% of the population, 80% of them, once you strip out the conservative of color, feature 29% of the u.s. population. now, you look at those numbers and think, well, the percentages of whites have shrunk, but they're still the majority. 60% plus the 7% who are conservatives of color. that would be correct. that would be good arithmetic. which brings us to another very

important yet historically neglected and overlooked minority group in america, progressive whites. progressive whites are the rodney dangerfield of american politics. they just don't get any respect. they are frequently belittled or dismissed as irrelevant tree huggers or vegetarians or both. the caricature of progressive whites was captured during the 2004 presidential campaign when a conservative attack ad took aim at howard dean supporters by saying howard dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, volvo-driving, "new york times" reading, body-piercing, hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to vermont. now, i live in a very liberal city in san francisco, and i must confess that some people do drink lattes and read "the new

york times." they're still lovely people. but if we look back historically, we'll see that the role of progressive whites in american social change has been both heroic and vilified. from the abolitionists in john brown in harper's ferry in 1859 to those who gave their lives in the 1960s civil rights movement, people such at reverend james reid in selma, alabama, andrew goodman and michael shurner in mississippi. progressives have a long tradition of rejecting their privilege, refusing to stand idly by, and courageously standing with disenfranchised people who are struggling for justice, equality and democracy. this tradition has touched and improved my own life personally. as far back as 1964, when my parents couldn't buy the home they wanted on dartmore road in cleveland heights because they were black. but a progressive white lawyer

named byron france, bought the house for them, deeded it over to them, securing what became the childhood home that i grew up in. in terms of u.s. politics, people have always thought that there were too few progressive whites to matter. but with the growth of latino and asian and black populations that is no longer the case. look again at the exit polls, going back to jimmy carter's election, we see that anywhere from 34% to 48% of whites have voted for the democratic candidate for president. some years that was a more courageous act than others. so that's an average of 41% of whites voting democratic. so back to the arithmetic. 64% of the country is white. of that population, 41% are progressives. so that means that the progressive white population in the country is 26% of the entire united states. so you take that 26% add that to the 29% who are people of color, gives you the 55% which is the new majority in america. this demographic and

mathematical theorum has now been tested and proven twice at the national level with the election and the even more importantly the re-election of president obama. so what does this mean for u.s. politics going forward? the census data is also give us a gee graphic map that shows that the future of u.s. politics is in the south and the southwest. the new battleground states are the old slave holding states and the southwest, land that used to be known as mexico that we now call texas, new mexico, arizona and colorado. two last numbers i'll throw at you. 19 and 24. 19% of voters of color is the threshold for whether a coalition people of color and progressive whites can win an election. the 2010 republican tidal wave, three states re-elected

democrats to the senate. all three of those democrats who won the election lost the white vote but were able to prevail because of this coalition. we use that as the benchmark. and then this is where the picture starts to come most sharply into focus. there are 24 states in america that will soon have 19% voters of color. and those states are overwhelmingly in the south and the southwest. arizona, georgia and texas are the new battleground states. yes, texas. one of the most important races in the country this year will be wendy davis's run for governor of the state of texas. if the democrats take texas, it will cut the legs out of the conservative political machine and make it nearly impossible for the republican to win the white house for the next 20 years. georgia, which barak obama lost by 6 percentage points, without contesting the race. represents the democrats best opportunity for senatorial

pickup this year as michelle nun runs for the seat that her father once held. so these 24 states have 351 electoral votes. it takes 270. they have 303 congressional seats, 218 is the magic number for majority in the house. these states have the power to elect the next president and secure control of the congress. jessie jackson ran for president, used to say that the hands that once picked cotton and lettuce can now pick presidents, senators and governors. and so if democrats were smart, they would be massively investing in communities of color in the south and the southwest. conservatives have done the math and it's no accident that they are massively investing efforts to restrict voting rights in the south and the southwest. now, while obama's campaign did spend considerable resources mobilizing and turning out these new majority voters in north carolina, virginia, florida,

nevada, and colorado, for severals no 2012, with the results to show for it, there is nonetheless still no lasting strategy, program, or leadership pipeline carried out by the democrats in these key areas. apparently too many democrats have trouble with math. and there is a shocking underinvestment in the communities of color as too many campaigns continue to chase the ever-shrinking block of moderate white voters instead of building up the coalition of the future. many republicans on the other hand are apparently better at math than democrats. admittedly on the surface it looks like the republicans are locked in a fierce internal battle. you have the tea party who i would submit is fighting the last losing battle of the civil war, desperately and destructively trying to tear down the entire government rather than let barak obama, the duly elected president, address the nation's problems. the early indications, however, are that the tea party movement has crested. with the implosion of the tea

party challenger to govern kasich, we see that happening here in ohio as well. and other more sophisticated republican forces are asserting themselves, forces who know arithmetic and know it well. eight years after losing to the first black president, the republicans will likely feel the set of presidential candidates 30 to 40% of candidates of color. marco rubio, ted cruz, bobby jindal are all running as fast as they can while the democratic bench is surprisingly empty. although chris christie has a new set of problems on his hands which i must admit i was enjoying watching, he has nonetheless spent the past two years distancing himself from the reactionary elements to the party, courting latino and black voters, and made a point to sign immigration reform into law in the state of new jersey. so democrats run the very real risk of getting complacent in the face of republican internal squabbles and if underestimated the republican threat to their base.

historically republicans have been so bad on matters of race and equality democrats have not had to do anything. soon, however, they will actually have to contest for the votes of people of color and make an argument about why they are better than the republicans at addressing the needs of the communities of color, and that is an argument that few democrats frankly are familiar with or comfortable making. lastly, what are the policy implications of emerging new majority in america? i tell my friends who spent a lot of time developing position papers and reasoned arguments to influence the public policy debate that as a general rule elected officials will support any policy that they think will get them re-elected. which brengs -- brings us back to the question of who do they think are going to be the elected and unelected and will be the voters? let's look at health care as a case study. if you're primarily concerned

about moderate, middle class white voters. you might be nervous about obama care. some people whose premiums go up, albeit to pay for more robust coverage and that's lost in the hubbub sometimes. if your objective is to solidify loyalty among the latino population growing in america, you should note that latinos have the least access to health care with 35% lacking health insurance. so rather than wringing your hands and worrying about how obama care is polled among moderate whites, smart ones should be championing how many people are now getting health care, how many children can now see a doctor, how many sick people can finally get treatment. and then they should be smacking their opponents upside the head with ads asking why they think that the richest nation in the history of the world should deny people access to basic health care. how is that moral or right or religious? in one stroke you can win over your growing base, put your

opponents on the defensive, and also win over church-going moderate whites by appealing to their sense of religion and moderation. the bible does tell us to care for the sick. another example of the new majority is economic and inequality. if you look at a map of the distribution of poverty in america, you'll see that the heaviest concentrations of poverty fall largely along the same lines as the rising black and latino populations, the south and the southwest. although these regions are seen as conservative, they're what's called unnaturally conservative and they have the least to conserve. again, a smart politician would champion the minimum wage increase, use that as an argument to win over low-income whites as well as people of color. the party who cracks that code will rule politics in this country for decades to come.

i called this talk "brown is the new white" because i wanted to get people's attention. one way is to be explicit about issues of race and ethnicity. but part of why it gets attention is because addressing race touches on deep-seeded fears and insecurities about how the country is changing. fears about how a cherished way of life is perceived to be disappearing. and in fact, you can't truly understand politics in america today without appreciating the inner play between the demographic revolution and the efforts by too many demagogues in congress who whip up fear and stoke insecurity in an attempt to opposition anything that's opposed by our african-american commander in chief. you have nothing to fear. you know that people of color like good food. you know we make good music and culture. turns out that many of us are

sociable, smart, and share the same values as you. in fact, those of us who come from communities that have faced discrimination and oppression are actually often the most hopeful and idealistic of all and dr. king's famous speech he said even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, i still have a dream. it is a dream deeply rooted in the american dream. so if you're worried, put aside your fears. and let's work together to build a better america. if you're a progressive white, your time has finally come. as my friend van jones said, if blacks don't vote, greens don't win. and if you're a person of color, let's grasp the role of responsibility that history has presented us. the bible says the rejected stone will be the cornerstone of the new order. let's use that cornerstone to build a new social structure in america that we can all be proud of. a structure of opportunity, equality and justice for all.

thank you very much. [ applause ] >> today at the city club of cleveland, we are listening to a friday forum featuring steve phillips, president and co-founder of power pac. we'll return to our speaker in a moment for our traditional city club question and answer period. and i would ask that you start formulating your questions now and try to keep them brief and to the point so we can get as many questions in as possible. we welcome all of you here and those joining us via broadcast.

broadcasts are made possible by cleveland state university and pnc and our live web casts are supported by university of akron. one week from today, january 17, the city club will host a breakfast program norton bonaparte, city manager for florida who helped the city manage policies after the trayvon martin killing. we will have a lunchtime forum featuring sue helper as part of our business leader series. for a complete list of our programs, to make a reservation or to order a cd or dvd of one of our programs, please visit our website. that's www.cityclub.org. we welcome our many guests today at takes hosted by baker and hostetler, cleveland state university, stevehigh school

alma mater, policy matters ohio, the chan dra law firm, and our strategy. thank you for your support today. we welcome students to today's program. student participation is possible by a generous gift from the fred e. shul foundation. we have students from hawkins school. stand and be recognized. [ applause ] just a reminder that students get to ask questions. now we will return to our speaker for our traditional city club question and answer period. we welcome questions from everyone, including guests and students, holding the microphones are mike cromaldy and kristin pianca.

first question, please. >> i want to thank you for being here. your presentation was wonderful. my question is, there's this arrogance program with a lot of people who feel like they know everything. so even though what you are saying is really logical, it's still difficult to get some folks to say, you know, you're right. so i guess my question is, how do you move -- i'm speaking of, you know, democrats basically -- how do you move them off of that, you know, my way is the best way and i know what i'm doing to begin to embrace some of your ideas? i know that's a really hard question. i just wanted to see what you're going to say. >> i was hoping would you have the answer for me for that question. frankly, that is one of the big challenges. it's almost endemic to a certain extent to the proposition is

that if you help elect somebody to the president, you are going to think you're a big deal and that you know a lot. that's part of the challenge of people not actually appreciating that. i don't think frankly it's as much an issue of just making the logical numerical argument. people know what they know and are familiar with. they tend to do that. a couple of things that we have been looking at trying to move forward, one is we have to think about what is the pipeline and the leadership development work we're actually doing. identifying people from diverse backgrounds, encouraging them to go into campaigns and helping them move forward in that regard. it applies at every different level. i want to acknowledge and commend state senator nina turner who has an african-american woman running her campaign. that's an unusual things in politics. we need more candidates who will do that. cory booker had that for his

senate race, he had an african-american man run his race. i do think that we're doing to have to make the -- raise our voices. so if you look towards 2016 in particular, which is the next major piece, we have to ask about this and push people at every level. i have seen now the career path. there's a woman who used to work for me, we were doing our super pac work in 2007 in california who wanted to move to ohio doing the state-wide field campaign, jen brown. that put her in a position to be major effort in texas. you move up from level to level. it matters to actually be asking at whatever level, county, region, state, asking the question, who are you actually promoting, who are you investing in? i do think it's largely incumbent upon those of us who want to see this happen to both be a squeaky wheel as well as trying to be nurturing and elevating the next generation of people who want to do this kind of work.

>> your statistics seem to be based on the last two presidential elections where a very charismatic african-american was up. what would have happened and how would those statistics have been skewed if we have -- which we might have in the next presidential election -- a white candidate? >> that's the $64,000 question in a lot of ways. it's really going to be -- you will see how that will play itself out. i was thinking about doing a gathering about after the black president and starting to have that conversation, what is that actually going to look like. that was very helpful and should not be minimized. yet lost under the understanding of what the obama campaign did -- expiring african-american candidate.

you had a lot of technology and cutting edge tools. at the end of the day, they had thousands of paid staff people doing the really methodical drudge work of going door to door, contacting people, identifying people, turning them out. so there's that. the other point is that there's a challenge around what is the policy agenda. are we articulating a policy agenda which will speak to people who don't vote. many of the people of minimum wage campaigns have run on a theme of vote yourself a raise. then it becomes a more tangible point of why you are voting beyond just this particular person. i would submit that for 2016, we saw -- i feel in many ways the '08 election was the culmination of the civil rights movement. there's a reason oprah and jesse jackson were crying at his piece. there was such a history around what that meant. the next wave of what is pent up within this country in terms of leadership is women's leadership, women's empowerment,

women's role in running the country. i think as much as there is a strong sentiment that propelled people around electing the first african-american president, i'm already seeing a similar sentiment with electing the first woman president. that will be a big factor in 2016. >> thank you. if you look -- think about history, back in the 1800s there were signs "irish need not apply." my ancestors from italy, italians were not allowed in shaker heights early on. to what degree do you see what's happening with people of color as kind of an extension or not an extension of what's already happened where it used to be irish and italians were considered outside of the fold where now everybody would think of them as white and wouldn't think anything about it? >> i think it's -- i do think that that's taking place. the writer james baldwin wrote a collection of his work is called the price of the ticket.

in the intro he says the price for the european immigrants was to become white. so that has taken place. you do see it in different regard, particularly in terms of different elements of the latino and hispanic community and some segments of the asian community, a desire to be treated in just that kind of mainstream fashion. the challenge is that color is such -- so ingrained in terms of the perceptions, a lot of the biases and prejudices. dr. king talked about the number of synonyms for the word -- around the color line, the color issues. so it's more difficult when you look that different to just be assimilated in. that's going to be part of the challenge. the hope would be that we would actually move to a point of not

wanting to sublimate. it's all in there but it's mixed together but you maintain the different characteristics and flavor of the various communities. >> mr. phillips, as a conservative and someone who believes in liberty, i come out at a different solution than you at some things. i accept at many do the challenge that those of us who believe differently have an obligation to communicate with the brown community. my question is, with respect to your statistics, there was a reason at the university of akron there was a seminar and it talked about one of the best predictors of voting patterns was religious belief rather than race or anything else for that

matter. there's a lot of folks who are of color, african-american churches, hispanics who are very active in their churches, who i think the polls suggest come to a very different point than the progressive point of view on a number of issues, whether it's the social issues, whether it's limited government, fiscal conservatism, a lot of other things. isn't there the likelihood that what we need to do is come together somewhere more in the middle rather than the extremes of either end and have a conversation more about a range of ideas and a range of solutions? >> i think i agree with that. we used to talk it's not about left wing or right wing but the moral center. one of the critiques i have of ro aggressive faith communities that we don't make enough -- we don't associate the progressive agenda enough with the strong religious and biblical underpinnings of things like

dealing with poverty and addressing healthcare. i think that that is a potential area to be able to come together. i want to be clear. my fundamental point is also a challenge to progressives and democrats that they cannot take people of color for granted. that george bush was very effective within texas around understanding and validating the cultural reality, the cultural sentiment of the latino community. his faith-based initiative won over a number of different folks in those communities towards being allied with him. people used to say back in the day, it's no permanent friends, no permanent enemies without permanent interest. they were talking about addressing and improving the conditions of people in the society, extending the benefits of the american dream broadly. i think there are things that can be done in that regard. my wife and i were talking about how there's a lot more common ground now among conservatives and liberals around criminal justice issues.

there's a lot of -- it's very expensive proposition to go about criminal justice work the way that we do within this country. some of the republican leaders in the south, mississippi, were talking about the incarceration alternative ways to rehabilitation people. that's a type of a solution. we were supportive of cory booker who we went to college with as well. he is looking at reaching across the aisle to republicans around some of these sentencing reform issues. i'm all for it, particularly since nothing can get passed in current situation, is that where we can find agreement i'm all for that. i'm not arguing that it should be a proposition that just moves in that regard. i think there are a lot of things that the democrats in particular have been slow on in terms of validating a lot of the pieces around the important of faith in people's lives and ed by -- and building an agenda that speaks to that. there's work that needs to be done.

>> i just wanted to say, steve, as a hawken alumni, i'm sure i speak for the community, how proud we are of you and what you have become in your life. i was reminiscing to think 35 years ago i used to sit in your tv room and watch you dip french fries into your frosty. we used to think you were weird. i want to say how impressed and how happy we are with what you are trying to achieve. my question is, i know your talk is the browning of america and the new states that will be the states to look at as far as texas and things of that nature. ohio always seems to hold itself around election time as being a very important state.

before we were to move on from that, what do you think or what would be your recommendation for ohio specifically because it always comes down to the last night. we never know which way we are going to swing. i would love to have maybe a blueprint or something plan or some advise from your point as to what ohio could specifically do for 2016 and even now with our government. our governor election coming up. maybe you could help with that. >> back in high school you didn't think i would amount to much, did you? ohio remains one of the bell weather states within the country. in a lot of ways -- because ohio is almost split down the middle in terms of its electoral trends, efforts in ohio make a bigger difference. the margin is so small. if you can increase the participation that has an impact. it's worth studying and understanding better what obama did to be able to win here.

the increased significantly the african-american turnout that shocked romney people. their models were wrong as to -- shocked karl rove. you watched his meltdown on election night. couldn't believe that was transpiring. how many people -- how many african-american people they thought would turn out. this is the -- this is part of the challenge is that this work is not -- it should not be episodic work. it should not be every four years, in october we try to turn folks out. what is the civic engagement infrastructure and involvement in leadership development that's going on around the clock? it's almost back to the civic club type of days is that people who were a precinct leader on turning out for obama, can they be supported to be civic leaders and getting people to the city council meeting or to be part of a block club? you start to know who all of your neighbors are. you continue to have that

relationship so when election time comes around, you know who the folks are, you're not just turning out to them. i think what i was meaning with turner today talking about how much has preserved of the obama infrastructure. that is one of the biggest challenges that we can think about doing is how to actually sustain the activist, the organizers who get inspired and do this work between election cycles. in a sense to enable us to preserve the infrastructure will enable i think us to continue to have the outcomes we want to see. >> in spite of ohio's division between republicans and democrats in presidential elections, we have apportionment of congressional districts done in such a way there's believed to be one competitive district in the state of ohio. latourette's former district. so i would like you to address the issue on a broader basis of

the i'll say malapportionment of congressional districts and its impact on the progressive movement. >> yeah. i really believe that redistricting is going to be the most important political fight of the next 20 years. so it's under appreciated how much with the republican wave of 2010 taking over all these different state houses and then drawing the lines in 2011 as locked in an undemocratic configuration of congressional districts. democrats won more -- more people voted for democrats for congress than voted for republicans. republicans still have an 18-seat majority in the house. that's just a configuration of redistricting. and gerrymandering, frankly. but i feel like that

progressives were asleep at the switch. there was a lot of effort around the census, but very little resources, little effort, little organizing around the engaging in the actual drawing of the lines. to be vigilant and proactive around that. so it's seven years from now. we should all mark it on our calendars that we've got to be engaged. are there ways to democratize the line draw. we're able to pass a resolution ballot measure. the lines were actually drawn by mutual commission than just looking at the data and the numbers and not factoring in. and ironically, it's actually helped democrats in california because you start to see how much the previous lines have been drawn to protect particular individuals when they didn't have -- they weren't as concerned as the overall configurations. don't mess with my individual district. if you take that personal

consideration out, cut the lines according to what the data actually shows or the demographics are like, you actually get better results. and so, it's something to think about. i know there was an effort to try to get a commission here that was not successful in ohio. but something to not give up on, you can actually have it be a more objective piece, then you can draw lines that reflect what is the actual composition. in a state this divided, this close every presidential election, you shouldn't have a 2/3 majority of one party within the state legislature. that's not reflective of who is within the state. i think it's worth engaging in that fight to be able to draw lines fair and reflective of who is within the state. . >> you also cited, i think you called them sophisticated republican forces that are emerging. and i was hoping to ask you to educate us a little bit about

some of these forces you see and we might want to know about them and watch them and watch what they're doing. >> well, i think before recent troubles, we'll see how that plays itself out. masterful of his political route he's taken within new jersey. and that he has quite the contrary of all the hostility and vitriol. on problems addressing this data on new jersey, that creates a profile and certain image. and then he's been very meticulous around reaching out to communities, that he had -- and it's not an accident the house refuses to take up immigration reform. they passed a state based dream

act for immigration reform in new jersey and, i mean, he whittled it down a little bit, basically he signed that deal. i know one of the more left advocacy groups has on their facebook page, yay chris christie. great job. like yesterday, marco rubio is starting to look at speak up about poverty issues and inequalities. there are other ways to go about doing it. historically, people have not addressed those issues. that's been sufficient to define the distinctions between the parties. we're for dealing with cultural

diversity, as well. then it's a different. then you have to dig deeper, that's what i'm saying. democrats are not as used to doing that, actually, and are going to have to be more intentional and assertive around putting forward what they think should be the agenda to meet people's needs. >> looking at our current senate, they're a little bit notorious for not passing any bills at all. do you see an area where we can start to compromise around this issue of colored voters. both parties come together to create a mutually beneficial agreeme agreement. >> give me a minute. and i think, just quite frankly, it is no accident that there are so many efforts to suppress the

vote. is that there's a very clear understanding that the more diverse the voting population becomes, the expectation is the worst it's going to be for the republicans. that is why you see these efforts to, you know, throw up all manner of legal road blocks. one would think that this is a democracy. people standing in line for hours and hours and hours trying to be able to vote with the governor, his own constituents not seeming to care people are going through that kind of difficulty. because it was serving, actually, a political, his political end. so it's going to be a challenge. i mean, i think the one thing i can think about. some of the folks who are actually trying to get ahead of this curve.

marco rubios of the world, around immigration reform, trying to do this piece around the poverty part. can you look at some of those folks to be able to partner -- i think it would be in their interest to be seen within these communities as being concerned about the needs and the interest. the other idea, the potential is out there. what i wonder is how much we can actually achieve common ground. why is it so difficult to vote? if you can verify who you are. i keep wondering can we look at partnering with google and apples of the world to be able to have that technological validation in ways that might cross some partisan boundaries.

>> could you tell us more about what your organization pac plus is doing to leverage that opportunity. what they're doing specifically in ohio, around the country, what they're planning on doing and how people can get involved if they want to. >> what we're trying to do is create an infrastructure and a vehicle to respond to this change in demographic moment. we want to connect and coordinate progressive people across the country. use technological tools to be able to pool resources.

before she became famous this past year. and so, looking at pooled resources, put money behind corey booker becoming the first -- not the first, but the next democratic senator, african-american senator in the u.s. senate. and so we're looking for people like that across the country. we're really frankly trying to diversify the population of elected officials and the elected leadership within the country in a way that we could have people both inspiring and committed to addressing the needs of the country's new majority. people refer to us as an emily's list type of a model. also trying to put good information and data so people can understand what is actually happening. we can make public policy and political plans based upon a appreciation of actual good arithmetic. that's the basic thrust in the work. people can learn more and sign up at pacplus.org.

pous. able to get connected. >> mr. phillips, you said earlier that a lot of communities of color want to be treated as part of the mainstream. and as a result, they may shy away from grouping together to have these hard discussions about politics and race. how can they overcome the barrier and start having these discussions? >> i'm a strong believer in the power of leadership. we saw the movie "mandela" over the holidays.

educating people, informing people, encouraging others to participate, it's going to be very difficult. and so, i think, that is the -- very focused on trying to identify energetic, committed, conscientious, talented younger people to take on a leadership role and to be able to encourage and work with and educate and move their communities. and that, i think, is one of the core critical components of it. and additionally, people within those communities doing work with their communities, to then the leaderships have one within another. that's when you move the country forward. >> hi, my name is christina. i would like to ask since you said about 80% of all brown america is democratic leaning. how would you see it if the

republicans were smart enough to run a candidate like condoleezza rice. would the brown community support, support her, do you think? that's one question. and my other question to you is why has the affordable care act created such a riff in america? i mean, it's not just created a riff among corporate america. but it's created a riff among americans itself. it's like a topic you don't ever want to bring up. >> on the condi rice thing, my first flip-flop. there was talk of her running for governor in california. she's not seen as an ideological figure, she's a woman, an african-american, she would be an appealing candidate. she duh not fit the orthodox.

she couldn't get the support to move that forward. and then similarly, when colin powell was thinking of running for president in '96, he would have been formidable, as well. so it's -- i mean, these things. a contentious history within this country, we don't often like to talk about it, in the way the country has been built with all of that history is still very challenging. still, i feel at the core of a lot of the politics of the country. people like condoleezza or colin powell are more sensitive to that history and want to speak to that, address that, his inequities within our society. and there's a another very

vociferous movement that wants to preserve the status quo as unequal as it is. about these children, it's not right. we should do something about it. touch the morality, the conscience of the nation. part of the challenge, the history of the country is we feel a sense of otherness. if a child looks differently or doesn't speak our language, it's not the same empathetic response that we have had. so this notion around everybody should have health care because we're a great nation that has the capacity. and that's what our values are is not the way the conversation

is playing out, which is one of my frustrations with the white house. and so instead, it's like those people are taking, are getting health care, and taking money from me. and it's this division. and that's part of, i think, tied to the historic division of the country. i think that's why we've actually had this. my hope is that we can elevate that debate to the level of who are we as a nation that is inclusive of all of us, speaks to our values and embraces all of us regardless of what we look like or what we might sound like. thank you. >> today at the city club, we've been listening to the president and cofounder of power pac. thank you, ladies and gentlemen, this forum is now adjourned.

tonight on c-span 3, panels from the national bullying conference. officials from the department of education suggest the latest bullying trend. we'll show you comments from several students discussing their experiences. it all comes up tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3. last night, a florida governor's debate was held between rick scott and democrat and former governor charlie crist. initially refused to come to the stage because of a dispute of a

fan positioned at the bottom of charlie crist's podium. here's a look. >> ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now. we have governor charlie crist. governor. florida governor rick scott. our incumbent governor and the republican candidate for governor is also in the building. governor rick scott, we have been told that governor scott will not be participating in this debate. now, let me explain what this is all about. governor crist has asked to have a fan, a small fan placed

underneath his podium. the rules of the debate that i was shown by the scott campaign say there should be no fan. somehow there is a fan there, and for that reason, ladies and gentlemen, i am being told that governor scott will not join us for this debate. ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, this is a debate, i don't know, what can we say? >> well -- >> that's the ultimate pleading of the fifth i've ever heard in my life. wow. yeah, it is. >> no, i'm not -- >> i'm sad the people of florida are -- >> governor, governor -- we're not. >> won't get to hear about. >> we're not asking you a question. we're not asking you a question

of governor crist. i'm asking rosemary about the situation we find ourself in. >> governor crist, do the rules of the debate say that there should be no fan? >> not that i'm aware of. >> so the rules that the scott campaign showed us that says that no electronics can be used. >> are we really going to debate about a fan and talk about the education, the environment and the future of our state. i mean, really. there are serious issues facing our state, and it's funding education appropriately, protecting our environment. making sure we have ethical, honest leadership. >> governor -- >> i mean -- >> if he's going to give it to me, i'm going to take it. >> this is not a platform for one candidate. we're hoping that governor scott will join us on the stage. and i am told that governor

scott will join us on the stage. in all fairness to governor scott, i was shown a copy of the rules that they showed me that said there would be no fans on the podium. >> should we ask him to get rid of the fan? >> my understanding is that governor scott will be coming out. >> it's a trivial issue no matter which side you think you're on. >> we were placed in the awkward position to decide this. and i don't think it's our role to determine.

>> governor, thank you. ladies and gentlemen, that has to be the most unique beginning to any debate. >> i don't think we'll forget. >> not only in florida, but i think anywhere in the country. let us start. >> part of last night's florida governor's debate, recent polling has listed this race as a toss-up. you can see the entire debate and dozens of others any time online at our website c-span.org. more campaign 2014 coverage tonight with an iowa senate debate between democratic congressman bruce braley and joni ernst. recent polling listed this race as a toss-up. starts live at 8:00 eastern on c-span.

>> follow us on twitter and like us on facebook. to get debate schedules, video clips of key moments, debate previews from our politics team. c-span is bringing you over 100 senate, house and governor debates. and you can instantly share your reactions to what the candidates are saying. the battle for control of congress, stay in touch and engage by following us on twitter at c-span and liking us on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. >> our look at political campaigns continues now with the debate on campaign finance laws. the event looks at the supreme court's 2010 citizens united ruling and the notion of money is speech. co-hosted by the public trust commission. it's close to an hour.

>> thank you, nelson. it really was a privilege to serve with you, to serve, you know, as your executive director for 13 years. i'm here simply today as a moderator. my role is pretty limited. i'd like to have the two debaters come up. this is a little different than the previous sessions. this is a modified debate, if you will. we're going to be debating the topic of campaign finance and the citizens united decision. so that the backdrop for all of this is, as you know, in 2010, the supreme court issued the landmark citizens united decision and more recently in april of this year, i mean talk about timeliness. when we were planning this conference, we had no idea we were going to get hit with another supreme court decision on issues involving money and politics. the decision of mccutchen versus

the federal elections came down. we're entering a brave new world concerning the financing of political campaigns. i really have the distinct privilege of moderating the debate between john bonafaus and james bop, they are two authorities on the subject of campaign finance laws and the effects of these supreme court decisions on our political process. i could speak for a long time about each of them rather than to bore you with that, please read your program, please google them and you'll be very impressed with their qualifications mr. bop coming from indiana for this event. we really appreciate them. massachusetts, okay, even better. we appreciate them coming down for this event. let me just explain the format to you and we will have time for questions. but initially, each individual's going to be given an opportunity

to make a ten-minute opening presentation. so he will speak first. after the ten-minute presentations, their opening statements, each will have a three-minute rebuttal. after the three-minute rebuttals, we'll open it up to questions from the audience. if you have questions, put them in writing. and at the end of the session, we will give them each a minute to kind of sum up. with that, i'll turn it over. i don't know if -- i think it's better to stay in here because c-span is recording this. and i think they wanted to focus on this. thank you. >> thank you to the miami-dade commission on ethics and public trusts and st. thomas university center for ethics for holding this debate on this critical question of our time. american democracy is in crisis. big money interests dominate our elections and our government, drowning out the voices of

ordinary citizens. five justices of the united states supreme court have hijacked the first amendment for the wealthy few distorting the very essence of the first amendment's guarantee of an open and unfettered exchange of ideas and undermining the fundamental promise of republican self-government and political equality for all. the american people recognize this. and in just four years since the citizens united ruling, millions of citizens across the country have propelled a growing grass roots movement for a constitutional amendment to overturn the supreme court and to defend our democracy. 16 states have already gone on record calling for such an amendment, including the states of montana and colorado where 75% of the voters in the 2012 election supported ballot initiatives demanding such an amendment. 500 plus cities and towns, and more than 160 members of congress are also already on

record. the united states senate will soon hold an historic vote on the constitutional amendment bill which would end the big money dominance of our politics and restore that basic vision of our republic. government of, by and for the people. in these opening remarks, i will address four central points as to why the supreme court's rulings and buckley v. vallejo are wrong. and why we must fight to overturn them in the name of the first amendment and our democracy. point number one, money does not equal speech. in its 1976 rulin the supreme court equated money with speech and struck down campaign spending limits past in the wake of the watergate scandal. the ruling set us on our current course today of unlimited campaign spending where our elections are sold to the highest bidders.

but as former supreme court justice john paul stevens has said, money is property, it is not speech. money, in fact, amplifies speech. and for the very wealthy in our society, money enables them to be heard at the loudest decibels athe expense of the rest of us. at issue in buckley were reasonable regulations on the manner of speech, not on speech itself. by equating money with speech, the buckley court sanctioned a system which allows the very wealthy and now corporations to distort our political process and the very meaning of the first amendment. point number two, no one has a first amendment right to drown out other people's speech. the supreme court stated this clearly in 1949 case in kovacs v cooper. in kovacs, a union and a city of

trenton was blaring its message with a sound truck going down every street. in response, the city passed an ordinance requiring that sound trucks could only go down every third street. the supreme court upheld the ordinance as a reasonable regulation on the manner of speech. found that public streets served other public purposes that needed to be protected. freedom of speech for kovacs does not include freedom to use sound amplifiers to drown out the natural speech of others. the d.c. circuit court of appeals in the buckley case recognizes this very point. it would be strapnge, indeed if by extrapolation outward the

wealthy few could claim a constitutional guarantee to a stronger political voice than the unwealthy many. because the amounts they give and spend cannot be limited. may not drown out the voices of everyone else in our political process. point number three, today's campaign finance system violates the equal protection rights of nonwealthy candidates and voters. the supreme court has long held that wealth cannot be a determining factor in our elections. in 1956, the court struck down the poll tax as unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. and in 1972, it struck down high candidate filing fees on that same basis. the supreme court also made clear in the exclusionary white

primary cases that a process which has become a critical part of the machinery for getting elected must be open to all. operates as an exclusionary wealth primary in violation of the clause. voters and candidates lacking access to wealth are effectivelily barred from the wealth primary. almost invariably, those candidates who win the wealth primary who outraise and outspend their opponents go on to win an election. preselects candidates based on the wealth is contrary to the process and offensive to the basic principle of one person, one vote. writing for the court and striking down high filing fees

in the state of texas. chief justice berger said, quote, we would ignore reality were we not to recognize this system falls unequal weight for voters and candidates according to their economic status. we would ignore reality today were we not to find this campaign finance system falls on unequal weight according to their economic status. point number four. corporations are not people. in citizens united, the court equated corporations with people and swept away a century of precedent barring corporate money in our elections. but corporations are not as some have argued merely associations of people. such an argument would not pass a basic corporate law exam in law school. corporations are artificial creatures of the state.

unlike a voluntary, unincorporated association of people. corporations have state-based advantages that you and i as real live human beings do not have. limited liability, perpetual life, the ability to aggregate wealth and distribute wealth. and for those very reasons, the framers understood that they were not to be treated as people under our constitution. james madison said corporations are, quote, a necessary evil subject to proper limitations and guards. thomas jefferson hoped to, quote, crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations. yet, now as a result of citizens united, five justices of the court have unleashed unlimited corporate and union dollars into our elections making a dangerously corrupting system exponentially worse and

extending further the fabrication of corporate claims of constitutional rights. under our constitution and under our republic, we the people shall govern over corporations, not the other way around. in the face of this crisis, we must now use our power under article 5 of the constitution to enact a constitutional amendment to overturn the supreme court and to defend our democracy and our republic. we have done this before in our nation's history, 27 times before, 7 times to overturn egregious supreme court rulings. we can and we must do it again. and we will. for as dangerous as this moment is for our democracy, it also unique and historic opportunity

to unite around our common vision of america, a country may be divided on many public policy questions of the day. we are united behind that basic and powerful idea. government of, by and for the people. that common vision fuels the current movement for a constitutional amendment to reclaim our democracy. as james madison wrote in federalist papers number 57, who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? not the rich more than the poor, not the learned more than the ignorant, not the distinguished names more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. they are to be the great body of the people of the united states. in the name of james madison, it is time for a 28th amendment to the constitution that lifts up that fundamental promise of our

democracy and makes clear that we, the people, not the corporations nor the big money interests rule in america. >> thank you. you have ten minutes to make an opening statement. >> thank you very much. i must admit. i'm one of those agents of the corporate and big money interes interests. citizens united and the most recent mccutchen case were all of my cases. and, of course, in those cases, i was representing advocacy group in wisconsin whose sources of funds are people of average means who all they wanted to do was lobby their incumbent members of the united states senate to urge them in 2004 not

to filibuster president bush's nominees. and of course, they ran square into mccain/feingold's blackout period. which made it a criminal offense for a corporation or a labor union to run any add that simply mentioned the name of a candidate for federal office. and what they wanted to do was to urge the public to contact them about an upcoming vote in congress. now, you might wonder, why is it that congress would pass such a blackout period. that people who come together into groups, people of average means, that's the only way they can participate is by coming together as a group. why is it that congress thinks it's outrageous and a criminal offense for someone to have the audacity to lobby them about an

upcoming vote in congress? well, this is as old as time. incumbent politicians object to being criticized. they hate it when people talk about what they're doing to us and for us in office. and the people who founded our country were surely one of the most sophisticated group of politicians and political thinkers that have ever come together in the history of the world. and they knew that if -- that the experiment and self-government where it is the people that are going to govern themselves would certainly fail if the government could decide whether the people could exercise the four indispensable democratic freedoms that allows that system of self-government to operate. and that is speech, association and petitioning the government. so they wrote the first amendment, john didn't mention

it. but let me. which said that, quote, congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, press, association and petition. well, you know, it wasn't a few years before the federalist party passed the act in 1790 to suppress the speech of the emerging republican party of thomas jefferson. and people were prosecuted and went to jail for doing things that were considered sedition. and that is to, quote, disparage the government or any public official, criticize them about what they're doing to us and for us in office. well, it didn't work as often these attempts by incumbent politicians to protect themselves against the people

and using campaign finance to suppress their speech often doesn't work either. and thomas jefferson, the acts were repealed and pardoned those convicted under him. so it's perfectly obvious from that experience. it's going to be very difficult to get incumbent politicians to get off the train and the train is to use government power against who they perceive to be their enemies. john, his speech was talking about who he perceives to be his enemies. corporate and big money interests are his enemies. enemies of his liberal agenda or enemies of what he thinks is the authentic will of the people. and what he wants to do is suppress those voices so he can get his agenda adopted. through congress. well, incumbent politicians will do that, as well.

and it's bipartisan. happens with people on both sides of the issue. so that's why our first amendment was adopted. is that -- is to prevent incumbent politicians from using the power of government to suppress who they view to be their enemies. so now, is there any doubt that they've had a difficult time understanding what the word, "no" means? no, i had three daughters. they thought no meant, well, it's okay this time, isn't it, dad? so we've had periodic passage of laws including the most recent mccain/feingold law. and, of course, here, the irony of his perceived enemies, the corporations and big money interests. the irony that mccain/feingold

that he championed targets the very groups that people of average means must have in order to participate. mccain/feingold targeted advocacy groups and imposing this blackout period on -- in terms of mentioning names of candidates and broadcast ads. they attack political parties for raising money, regulated under state laws in order to impose more restrictions on what political parties could say about candidates for federal office. they attack unions with the same blackout periods. they did nothing about any rich person. there's no a sentence in mccain/feingold that adversely affects the ability of a rich person to spend their own money for politics. what about people of average means, they don't have the money. what they have to do is associate. they come together in a group, they pool their resource. now they have the money to

participate. so rich get off, people of average means are shut out. he calls this attacking the big moneyed interest. i call it enabling the rich people to be the only ones that can participate in our political system. he prays praised the expenditure limit that were passed as part of the 1974 post watergate amendment which limited what a president, presidential candidate can spend to $20 million in a two-year election cycle for both the primary and the general election. and he calls this not suppressing speech. i do agree that the fact that money is not speech. that's been the big lie, they say we say that, we don't say that, that's ridiculous. the problem is if you limit the

money that can be spent on speech, you're limiting speech. does anyone doubt that limiting barack obama in 2008 to spending $20 million to run for president of the united states doesn't limit his speech? come on, john? well, of course, it does. somebody had to buy the soap box, the mega phone. how many people can you communicate with that you can't spend any money to go see to speak to them personally? thank you. that is why campaign finance limits on spending money violate the freedom of speech is because they limit the amount of speech somebody can do because the reality is it doesn't cost money to communicate. the final thing i might say

about john's presentation is how offensive it is that he thinks everybody that's involved in politics are crooks. i mean, they have an industry funded by the richest private foundations in our country that are continually generating this concept that every public official and many of you who may not be but work in government are simply just a bunch of crooks. that are available for purchase at quite low prices. because john has advocated and defended limits as low as $100 to run for state representative. i went to law school here in florida. but honestly, even in 1970, i didn't know a single state rep you would buy for $100 for the state of florida. but he thinks, they're that cheap.

and, so, it's not surprising that people are cynical about politics and government and think people are crooks when you have the whole industry that spends an enormous amount of time and effort painting all politicians and public officials with this brush. and that takes us really to the kind of final affirmative point that i would make. and that is the real problem in our public finance system right now is low contribution limit. everything that -- all of the things that are, you know, disturbing people, the lack of transparency, the total lack of accountability in many instances of actors within our political system all are occurring because of the low contribution limit. said another way, somebody interested in, for instance, things that are happening in congress and they want to support a candidate that shares

their views. and they're prepared to spend $50,000. let's say a trial lawyer. thank you very much. 30 seconds. one, two -- no. they're not going to be satisfied with just spending $2,600 and contributing to a candidate. they'll find some other mechanism to participate so they give to the trial lawyers pac, they give to the, you know, some c4, some super pac, who will spend the money less efficiently who will be less transparent or in some cases, no transparency at all and are certainly unaccountable because they don't, they are not on the ballot. so these low contribution limits should be rally increased in order to allow for a much more transparent, much more accountable system which will lack many of the distortions

which we suffer under currently within our system. thank you. >> thank you. okay. we're going to give each side up to three minutes to rebut. so you don't have to take the full three minutes. but if you want, you can. >> thank you, robert. well, i do want to clarify something at the outset. we at free speech for people are interested in lifting up voices not suppressing voices. and our view of the current campaign finance system is it suppresses voices. because when you allow the very wealthy and now very well endowed corporations and unions to drown out other people's voices, you are effectively suppressing those voices. now, you know, jim agrees that money does not equal speech. i think that's fabulous we've reached agreement on that. i want to make clear, however, that when we limit the amount of money in our elections, we are

not limiting speech, we are limiting the volume of speech, the circuit court of appeals in the buckley case understood that, scholars of the first amendment all over the country have understood that. justice stevens. he said money is property. it is not speech. we limit the volume of speech. this very debate today has time restrictions for jim and for me. i can't stand up here and filibuster because it wouldn't be an open and honest debate. we have time restrictions. we do this all the time under first amendment jurisprudence. reasonable time, place and manner, regulations on speech. and campaign spending limits operate as a reasonable regulation on the manner of speech. those who speak very, very loudly without any limit, unlimited are able to drown out the voices of others who do not have the money to make expenditures at those decibels.

now, you know, another point of clarification. jim says i think that everybody involved in politics are crooks. well, i happen to run for office. i don't think i'm a crook, i don't think everybody in politics are crooks. that's not what we're saying at free speech for people. we do believe that a system in which candidates running for office must cater to wealthy interests and big money interests and corporate interests and union interest in order to win that wealth primary, in order to be successful that that process is corrupting of the fundamental principle of political equality for all and government of, by and for the people. there are a lot of well-meaning and decent people in politics, and they actually, many of them, are on the side of saying we need a constitutional amendment to overturn these supreme court rulings and to reclaim our democracy. thank you. so the last point of clarification is the idea that somehow this is about a liberal

agenda. or, you know, that i somehow want campaign spending limits to promote a liberal agenda. i have to be very, very clear on here. i'm a small "d," democrat. i'm a small "r," republican. i believe in republican self-government and i believe in the promise of democracy. this is not an issue solely for one side of the political spectrum. 55% of the voters in montana voted for mitt romney in 2012 and 75% of those voters voted for our ballot initiative with common cause calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the supreme court rulings. across the political spectrum and across the country, people believe that this system undermines the fundamental promise of democracy regardless of their ideology. this is about a small "d," democracy agenda. thank you. >> thank you.

the same ground rules, three minutes if you need it. thank you. >> no self-respecting lawyer would ever say something in a sentence that could be said in a paragraph. i'm really glad -- i debated a number of times. i'm really glad he heard me say, which i said for decades that money is not speech but that spending money on speech, if you limit that, then, of course, you're limiting speech. he says he doesn't want -- he wants to lift up but not suppress. lifting up would be public funding, giving money to people who don't have money so they can speak. lifting up would be tax credits, which, by the way, i'm in favor of. for people making modest contributions to candidates, pacs and parties.

that's lifting up, enhancing the ability of someone to speak. that's not what he's talking about. what he's talking about is shutting up other people that he thinks -- he thinks, and he thinks he can get the government to think, spends too much. and, of course, it isn't anybody that spends too much. he hadn't said a single word about the unions. they were going to spend $400 million in this election cycle. to support their agenda and his agenda. so this is -- he's talking about suppressing voices that he doesn't want to hear and that he thinks he can get the government to shut up. the court has repeatedly rejected this idea that you enhance the voice of somebody by suppressing the voice of another. no, you don't. and it's not a question that there's not enough ad time where people can go buy additional ads. you know, it's not that these ads are all bought up so they're

not available. they are available. and we need to look at ways to enhance the ability of people to participate and, of course, he attacks those which are corporations and labor unions and praises the decisions that would drive them out of the political system and, of course, that's the only way people of average means get to participate. we're not talking about how high the volume is on a particular ad. we're talking about how many ads you can buy. he wants to limit the number of ads or prohibit people from buying ads, particularly people that he doesn't like. now, cater to the wishes of the wealthy and the corporate, whatever, things he's been saying, the phraseology he used. big money interest. isn't that an interesting word. cater to, what does that mean? what is he driving at. does he think it's wrong that

politicians have friends? does he think it's wrong that they give $100 in a campaign contribution. he supported such low limits. we have contribution limits in order to prevent the undue influence of a particular contribution, the court upheld that in order to exclude large contributions that would tend to unduly influence. >> excuse me, you have less than a minute, wrap it up, okay. thank you. >> thank you. they're talking about undue influence of not friendship, gratitude or appreciation. they're talking about prid pro quo corruption. the fact he has no interest in reimposing the limits that corporations and labor unions share before citizens united has

no interest in imposing that on unions, demonstrates conclusively that this is a partisan effort. they, unions are the biggest spenders in our -- as a group in our political system, they're seconded by trial lawyers and, of course, they're rich individuals. he doesn't want to limit them either. he has no interest as far as spenders and limiting, and they are the two biggest groups supporting the democrats and the unions. so this is without a doubt a partisan political effort just to shut up voices that he personally doesn't like. and this is exactly what our founders wanted to prevent. >> thank you. we will give you, i know it's not much time, but a minute each at the end. runs a very tight ship here. we have to stay on schedule.

we have questions from the audience. i have not seen these. i don't know if they're directed some of them look like they're just general questions. if you don't mind answering from there. and i'm just, like i say, looking at these for the first time. one question is, did citizens united allow donations by unions/corporations question mark, if not, what is the problem? >> well, first of all, i've got to make clear that i have not said nor have we said free speech for people that we want to support the idea of unlimited union money in elections. we've made clear and the constitutional amendment we support would equally apply to corporations and unions. we believe the whole decision of citizens united, which allows unlimited corporate and union money in our elections is wrong. so jim has just gotten that completely inaccurate in terms of how he views what the amendment would say. as far as unlimited donations directly to candidates, it is correct that there are still

direct limits on what you can give to candidates. but the problem here is that we have unlimited expenditures. we have the ability of unions, corporations, wealthy individuals to make unlimited expenditures. this resulted, of course, in the super pacs, as well, post citizens united. the problem does predate and goes back to that earlier case i cited. and it's why we must engage. the unlimited expenditures allow these forces to dominate our elections and our politics. and one other point. i fully support public funding elections. i've been in court defending public funding of elections. this is not about one reform versus the other.

but today in the post citizens united and post mccutchen v.fec era public funding of elections will be very much vulnerable to this idea that wealthy individuals and big-money interests and corporate union forces can make unlimited expenditures making such a system ineffective. i think we need all of these reforms moving forward. >> just a couple of points. first is the -- many of the things, and john and i have known each other for years and debated several times, and i know what he supports and he knows what i support. and his criticism of citizens united as you heard in the opening speech and his rebuttal was all about corporations. when he wants to throw unions in, too. and i wasn't talking about his amendment. and i do agree that his amendment would encompass unions, but also encompass the press. you know, this is one of the big secrets out there that the reformers don't want c-span and others to figure out.

and that is that these amendments will allow -- will mean that "new york times" versus sullivan is overruled, that was a decision many of you know that protects political -- people running for office. and protects citizens and their ability to criticize people running for office by imposing a higher standard for libel actions. and, of course, one of the things the court had to decide because this involved the states was that the 14th amendment does confer rights on people. and the question was, was the "new york times" a person? and the court has long decided that under the 14th amendment that, you know, the corporations and many other entities and people are encompassed within those protections.

what he doesn't say is that it would also overturn "new york times" versus sullivan. it would treat the media, of course, currently owned in many multi-billion dollar international conglomerates. it would allow them to suppress the press. if you look before 1974, the court cases, what you will find is that all the big free speech court cases involve the press. the miami herald sued because it was a florida law that required that if they criticize a candidate that they had to give equal time and space for candidate's rebuttal in the newspaper. the supreme court struck that down. they sued because of a law that said they couldn't endorse candidates on election day. the press has been one of the real targets of incumbent

politicians and reformers who want to control everybody's speech and decide who is worthy of speaking or not speaking and what voices are to be suppressed because he doesn't like the message and the press has been one of those targets. of course, is targeted once again in his amendment. >> we're not going to be able to get to all of these questions. i have a few others. this is for mr. bopp. mr. bonifaz, you can weigh in on this as well. mr. bopp, do you believe there should be sealing on the amount money that a corporation or union can contribute to a political campaign? i guess kind of a corollary to that is do you think that money that is contributed has no influence on how a length lgislr other official react snz. >> right now corporations and labor unions can be prohibited from contributing to candidates.

citizens united involves independent speech, not contributions. contributions are also subject to a lawyer -- a lower standard under the laws as far as allowing contribution limits to be had. i do think that they are abysmally low. i'm very involved in the republican party. say to republican groups, you can't buy a democrat congressman for $2,600. the anecdotal evidence it is takes six figures. william jefferson of new orleans, had $99,000 in cold, hard cash in his freezer. he went to jail to be bipartisan. duke cunningham, from san diego, if you came in for an earmark of a weapons stem -- he was chairman of the armed services committee. he would pull out a schedule. the lowest schedule, based on

the value of your earmark was $140,000 and a yacht. i don't know where he got the yacht thing. in any event -- to buy these people -- it takes much more than $2,600. the effect on our system has been a tremendous distortion driving money away from the most accountable and transparent sources. it's fine -- great that we have super pacs. i won the first case in the court of appeals saying that super pacs were legal. but i'm not in favor of driving money to them. by having these low contribution limits, that's what we see. you can't vote against the super pac. you can only vote against a candidate or maybe the parties -- the political party's candidates. so they're accountable, super pacs aren't. of course, what john proposes and supports would do --

continue to create that distortion. the other question on influence, yeah, i can see -- this is why i keep going back and forth on whether i really support contribution limits. yes, i can see that there are some politicians that if you give enough money to them, you will be able to unduly influence them. meaning, you will be able to get them to change their vote from what they would have otherwise voted to something else. but frankly, it takes a lot more money than $2,600. you know, if it's really a seriously large contribution, i can see some undue influence. i think we have to make a decision whether -- on balance we want to be able to know what interests are influencing our politicians, because they actually give them the money and we can vote for or against them.

when interest gives money to a super pac, how does anybody know that has anything to do with candidate x or candidate y? how do they know it has anything to do even with what the super pac does? leave it to the voters? frankly, i go back and forth on that. >> i will jump in here. i think that the other dimension of this question needs to be about the promise of political equality for all. $2,600 is not something that the vast majority of the american people have at their disposal to contribution to political candidates. the kind of money that's coming into the system is coming in from point 0000.1% of the population. those are the people participating in this campaign financing process. jim talks about ordinary voices wanting to participate. the vast majority of the money comes in to this system is coming from the very top percent of all society.

that is undermining the principal of one person one vote and the promise of political equality for all. the only thing i would add on the freedom of the press point, i would urge jim to read the amendment. there's a section in the amendment, you can get access via our website, section 3 of the amendment says nothing in this amendment would abridge freedom of the press. the questions around freedom of the press are different questions. editors, journalists, producers, they all have freedom of the press rights as individuals, and those are protected under this amendment. >> thank you. i guess moderator's privilege here. this is an issue that occurs i guess in local elections. the notion of the wealthy candidate who finances his own campaign where he doesn't need contributions from anybody, whether mayor bloomberg or

recently in the city of miami beach, we had a wealthy person elected to office. do either of you have thoughts about the wealthy individual who is running for office who loans his campaign money and then doesn't take contributions? is that a good or bad thing in. >> i think it's destructive of the promise of democracy as well for the same equality concerns. in buckley, the court faced the question coming out of congress of campaign spending limits passed in the wake of the wat watergate scandal which would apply across the board, including whether they raced it from their friends or whether they raised it from their own bank account. it's not what democracy is about when we allow only those who are very wealthy to play this game, to enter into politics or have access to wealthy friends. i understand at the very local levels of government it may be different in terms of the kind of money that it takes to run for office. but the ultimate trajectory that

we're on here with this campaign fund-raising process is even in the local elections, we're going to see citizens united have a destructive impact. because if you dare at a local level to go out against a big corporate interest or a big union interest -- i did mention union in my opening remarks. perhaps jim needs to read them outside this event. if you go against those interests, they now under citizens united have the ability to come in and make unlimited independent expenditures targeting you and make that anti-democratic. that's troubling as well. >> mr. bopp, any thoughts to respond to my question? >> yes. sure, i do. it is true that what john's approach is all about equality and nothing about freedom. of course, he thinks he can shoe horn that under -- he used to think -- good point. used to think he could shoehorn

that under the first amendment. now he realizes he has to change that constitution to get that in there. he has his own view of equality. he's not in favor of equality under the law here. what's he's in favor of is equality of result. that is, not that everybody gets the opportunity to spend but that everybody can't spend what any other person can spend. think about that. if equaliquality is the driving consideration, that means since there are people that can't contribute anything to candidates, then really equality means no one can contribute to any candidate. that would only be the context of true equality. and frankly, points to really where i think john wants to go. that is government run elections, not free elections run by the people and the

government would decide how much you get and how much you spend ant what you can spend it on and there we would be. he wants to target labor unions simply demonstrates his view that it's not about the rich people. it's about people of average means, pooling their resources. that's what labor unions of all organizations, that's what labor unions do. they are members pooling their resources and participating. so he thinks that a bunch of people who are very modest in means because they pool -- they have the audacity to pool their resources and participate in our system are an evil force that needs to be suppressed. as to the rich generally, you know, i think it's fine if they participate in our political system. i don't want them to be the only ones that get