could have blocked bush o the tax. they succumbed to bush, they could have blocked him. look what the republicans are doing to obama. get over it. stop scapegoating the green party. stop trying to find an alibi. you're not standing up to the american people, and their rights, instead of dialing for the same commercial dollars that the republicans do. [ applause ] >> and now some questions for mr. nordqvist. >> first of all, before ralph nader came along, the free mark acknowledged a lousy job of protecting consumers from flawed automobiles and comp rations ripping them off. why do you think things will be different now if you realize your dream, as the questioner asks, of drowning government in a bathtub? >> the actual quote is you want the government to be small enough to where you could drown

it in the bathtub. it's not a question of size, it's a question of one's intent. i think if you look at the history of government, of statism. monopolies like at&t didn't exist until the government gave them a government monopoly. monopolies are created and forced by the state. i think we probably worked on some of these issues together, the regulation of trucking, which kept prices high. the regulation of railways, which is designed to keep trucking prices high. the regulation of buses to keep prices high. and airlines as well as rail buses. all of these issues, the government came in and set prices on floors. they like to pretend they're coming in to keep prices lower, helping consumers. if you look at the larger

governments, they don't necessarily do a better job at these things. i think the market -- i think consumers working voluntarily without violence, without the threat of force, 300 million americans deciding how they want to approach things. consumers demand increased safety and products, and they can get it. the government tells you how to be safe moving away from something that doesn't work anymore, moves as quickly as congress. i want the economy to be able to pribl predict when safety is at risk, to move not as quickly as the fda, but as quickly as microsoft or the guys who make your iphones. there's a big difference. you want the taxi guys fixing things for you or uber? choose. >> for someone who hates government, why do you support only those candidates who want to use government to control women's health by outlawing

abortion in all circumstances as a republican platform demands? >> why do you hate government? guys, this is the oddest thing. when people who want a limited government are called anti-government. okay, cancer doctors are not anti-cell. they like cells. some cells are healthy and they just sit there. some are very cheerful and they can do good things. some cells reproduce so quickly they hurt you and can kill you, okay? government, where you have some modest and minimal rules, like keep your hands on your own stuff and don't punch other people and otherwise you're free to live your life and believe what you want and do what you want, that is a much -- a big difference between disagreeing with big government and not liking any government.

we've had wars against people who were masters at big government. we didn't want government that big, whether it was the soviet union or the germans. we wanted more limited government, like we have. we have 4,000 laws. i can't list very many of those 4,000, nor could i tell you what they are. i think we have too many laws and regulations. i think the government is too big and too expensive and ought to be smaller. that doesn't have anything to do with hating government. the government created by the constitution is a thing of beauty and makes people more free. i work on tax issues. and that's what we work on. >> tonight here on c-span 3, we'll show you panels from this year's national bullying prevention conference held here in washington. federal officials from the education department discuss the

latest bullying trends and how to best create an environment that discourages bullying behavior. we'll show you comments from several students discussing their experiences. that all. kos up tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span 3. also tonight, c-span's campaign 2014 coverage will continue with an iowa senate debate featuring democratic congressman bruce braley and republican challenger joanie ernst. here's a look at some of their recent campaign ads. >> i'm bruce braley and i approve this message. >> take a closer look at joanie ernst. she sponsored an amendment to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. an ernst bill would have banned many common forms of birth control. ernst even wants criminal punishment for doctors who perform an abortion. >> i think that providers should be punished, if there were a person. >> joanie ernst, radical ideas. wrong for iowa.

>> expect her to fulfill campaign promises. >> joanie ernst promises shut down the department of education, hurting iowa students. abolish the epa, giving polluters a pass. that's why extremist sarah palin and the billionaire koch brothers want her in washington. joanie ernst, promises to them. too extreme for us. the league of conservation voters is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> 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. >> i get very upset. >> you're damn right i heard the bill. >> there's no towel service. >> never went to law school. >> we're doing our own landry

do -- laundry down there. >> one of the most important places i go is to the house gym. >> have you pun liblished in a journal. >> a farmer from iowa who never went to law school. >> i get very upset. >> are you ready to apologize? >> you're damn right i heard the bill. >> i get very upset. >> and recent polling has listed this race as a toss-up. you can see tonight's debate starting live at 8:00 eastern on c-span. now, a discussion on demographic trends affecting american politics. we'll hear remarks from steve phillips, a lawyer and philanthropist who chairs an organization called power pac, 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 rights. the city club of cleveland hosted this 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. [ laughter ] 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. [ laughter ] 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, told me he heard two people speak at the city club his whole life, bobby kennedy and martin luther king. so, no pressure, dad. [ laughter ] 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 failed coup of him 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. [ laughter ] 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 juice, 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 geographic map, that shows us 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 several months in 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 brings us back to the question of who they think are doing the electing and the un-electing. 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 obamacare 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 very well 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 -- black versus the number of synonyms for the word white and the connotations. 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 the progressive 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 health care, etc. 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 the values that flow from that and building an agenda that speaks to that, so i do think there's work that needs to be done in that regard. >> hi, my name is dale case. i just wanted to say, 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. [ laughter ] 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? [ laughter ] 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. so if you can actually 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. and 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 part of the challenge, too. it should not just 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. so able to preserve that type of

infrastructure will enable us to continue to have the kind of outcomes that 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. for congress than voted for republicans. and that's just a configuration of redistricting. there's a lot of effort and a lot of census, the sign-up for the census, very little organizing around then endwajing in the actual drawing of the lines. so we need to be vigilant and proactive around that so it's seven years from now. so we should all mark itcalenda engaged in the process. and the other way is are we automobile to pass a resolution on california that took it out of the hands of legislation.

so the lines were actually drawn by a neutral commission than just looking at the data and the numbers of that factoring in. ironically, et's actually helped democrats in california to protect particular individuals. and they weren't as concerned about the overall configurations. so if you just take that personal consideration out, cut theli lines according to what t data shows the demographics are like, you actually get better results. i know there was an effort to get a better commission herement but it's something to not give up on. you can draw on or reflect what the actual composition is. you shouldn't have a two-thirds majority of one party from the fair legislature. that's not reflectble.

however, it is worth engaging in that fight to be able to draw lines that are fair and reflective within the state. >> you mentioned some of the issues that the republican party has but you also cited x i think you called them sophisticated republican forces. and i was going to ask you to educate us on what these forces are sn. >> well, i think before these recent trbls, we'll see how it plays itself out, but i think chris christie has been quite mastzerful at his political route that he's taken within new jersey. and that he is quite the contrary of all of the hostility about the president. he's, like, literally embracing

the president and working together jointly across party lines in the state of new jersey. that creates a certain profile and a certain image. and he's been very meticulous with reaching out to leaders. and the house refuses to even pick up immigration reform. but they passed a state base dream act in new jersey. you can whittle it down a little bit, but basically, he signed that deal. i think the more left advocacy groups have on their web page, you know, yeah chris chris, ie. and then yesterday, marco r, bio had we to be able to deal with

this. so then rubio is starting to talk about well, there are other ways to go about it. historically, people have not addressed those issues. so we've been automobile to stand for ending poverty. we stand for multicultural inchugs. and this's within defining -- sufficient to define the parties. we're for dealing with cultural adversity as well. we're going to have to be more intentional and asertive around putting forward what they think should be the agenda of people's needs. >> looking at our current senate, they're a little bit notorious for not being aebl to pass any bills at allment it

seems like both political partyinpart parties are going to have to address. and both parties come together to create a mutually beneficial agreement that benefits both the political parties and the people that are voting. >> i think that it's no accident that there's so many issues to suppress the vote. >> i mean, one would think that

this is a democracy. people are standingarou ining a hours and hours and hours. the governor, with his own con ste stit stitch wents, not even seeming to care. it's going to be a challenge that sole judme of the folks wh trying to get ahead. rubio, he's trying to stake out this piece around the poverty part. can you look at some of those points to be able to partner and i think they -- it would actually be within their interest to be seen as being concerned about the needs and the interest. the other idea of potential is out there and how we can try to achieve common ground around the application of necktology. when you go to the department

store and you don't have to wait, you can buy whatever you want to buy right there. why is it so difficult to vote. if they can verify who you are when you want to spend some money, why can't they verify when we want them to actually vote. i keep wondering can we look at partnering with google and apples of the world to be able to have tho technological validation in the ways that might cross partisan boundaries. >> welcome home. so we now understand your thesis that brown is the new white and this's going to fundamentally change the political dynamic in your party. can you tell us more about what they're doing to leverage that opportunity, what they're doing specifically in ohio, a around the country and how people can get involved if they want to. >> so what we're trying to do is

create an infrastructure in a vehicle to respond to this change in demographic. so we want to connect and coordinate the rest of the people across the country. use tech nological tools in thee states that undergoing dem graphic changes. we moved money last year when she was running for the state senate in texas. of course, she came 2in front o us this past year. we put money behind corey booker before the next democratic senator, african american senator to the u.s. senate. so we're looking for people like that across the country. we're looking to diversify the population and elected officials and leadership in a way that we can have people inspiring and

committed to the county's majority. so that's the work that we're trying to do and also put good information out there so we can understand what is 5:00 which willy happening based upon an appreciation of actual, good arithmetic. people can learn more and find out more about p.l.u.s. and it's a way to get connected with a lot of like-minded and idealistic people across the country. >> mr. phillips, you said earlier that a lot of communities of color want to be treated as part of the mainstream and they'll try to of

come this barrier and start having these discussions? >> i'm a strong leader in the power of leadership. in that we have to be able to identify, support and then connect leaders within all of these different communities. and so if you just look back historically, and we saw the movie on mandella over the holidays. you have leaders creatologizations and those organizations relate to the communities. so without those leaders who are connecting people, educating people, informing people, encouraging others to participate, it's going to be very difficult. so that is the folks trying to identify, enerenergetic, commit younger people to take on a leadership role and to be able to encourage with and work with their communities.

that is one of the core critical components. and then you can get people doing work with those communities and leaderships with one another. that's how you start to build a broad, multiracial coin tri t t leadership to move the country forward. >> i would like to ask, since you said about 80% of brown america is democratic leading. how would you see it if the republicans are smart enough to run a candidate like condoleezza rice. my other question is why has the affordable care act created such a riff in america. not jus among corporate america, but among americans itself. it's like a topic you just don't ever want to bring up.

on the condoleezza rice thing, my first flip thought is don't give them any ideas. [ laughter ] >> interestingly enough, there was talk about running for senator of california. she would be an appealing candidate. but she did not fit the conse e conservative orthodox of california. similarly, when colin powell was thinking of running for president, he would have been formidable, as well. we do have a -- which gets to your an ex question next questi we've come together from taking land away from the americans, taking the southwest and

enslaving africans, america has been built with all the history, it's still very challenging and the politics of the country. so people like condoleezza or colin powell are more sensitive to that history and want to speak to that, want to address these inequities within our society. and that there's another variable vor civilerous that has a medical things. so that's a big part of the country. it somewhat ties into the health care pieces. when we have the war on poverty, when bobby kennedy went to west virginia and talked about we have poverty and lifted up poor children, that touched something in everybody.

we feel a sense of otherness. so whether a child looks differently, it ee's not is sam empathetic spops. so this notion of everybody should have health care because we're a great nation and that's the way our values are, is not the way the conversation is playing out. so a sentence like "those people" are getting health care and taking money from me. it's just the vision. and that's part of i think which is tied to the historic division. that's why we actually have this. but my hope is that we can elevate that 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. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, mr. phillips. thank you, ladies and gentlemen, this forum is now adjourned. [ bell tolls ]

>> more campaign 2014 coverage tonight with an iowa senate debate between democratic congressman bruce braly and joni ernst. >> our look at political campaigns continues now with a debate on campaign finance laws. the event looks at the supreme supreme court's 2010 ruling. the event is hosted by the miami-dade ethics commission. it's close to an hour.

[ applause ] >> thank you, nelson it really was a privilege to serve 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. so this is going to be a modified debate, if you will. and we're going to be -- debating the topic of campaign finance and the citizen's united division. as you know, in 2010, the supreme court issued the landmark citizens united decision. talk about timeliness, when we were planning this conference, we had no idea that we were

going to get hit with another supreme court decision of money and politics. the federal elections commission came down. so we're really entering a brave new world concerning the financing of political campaigns. i really have the decembistinct privilege of modifying the debate between two of the nation's leading 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. we appreciate them coming down for this event. let me just explain the format to you and we will have time for questions.

initially, each individual is going to be given an opportunity to mick a 10-minute opening presentation. so mr. presidentboniface will s first. after the three minute rebuttals, we will open it up for questions from the audience. and then, at the very end of the session, we will give them each a minute to kind of sum up. so, with that, e eel turn it over to mr. boniface. i think it's better to stand here because c-span is recording this and i think they wanted to to kus focus on this lectern. >> thank you. american democracy is in crisis. big-money interests dominate our

elections in 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 and undermining the fundn'tal promise of republican self government and political equality for all. the american people recognize this. and in just four years since the citizen's united ruling, millions across the country have propelled 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. 75% of the voters in the 2012 election supported ballot nush tifrs demanding such an amendment. 5 00 plus cities and towns and

more than 1 60 members of congress are already on record. the united states record will soon hold a historic vote 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 acre address four central points and why we must fight to overturn them in the name of the first amendment and our democracy. point number one, money is not equal to speech. in its 19 7 6 ruling setting us

on our current course today of our limited campaign spending where elections are sold to the highest bidder. but as 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 at the expense of the rest of us. the campaign spending issues for unreasonable regulations on the manner of speech, not on speech itself. by equating money with speech to distort or 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 very clearly. kovax 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. it found that public streets served other public purposes. freedom of speech for kovax duh not include freedom of sound amplifiers to drowned out others. it would be strange, indeed, the appellate court said if by

extrapolation hour, the wealthy few could claim a constitutional guarantee to a stronger political voice than the unwealthy man because they are able to give and spend more pun and because the amounts they give and spend cannot be limited. campaign spending limits are to ensure that they do not drown out the voices of everyone else. point number three, the equal protection rights of nonwealthy candidates and voters. the supreme court has long held that wealth cannot be a determinant factor in our elections. in 19 66, the court struck down the poll tax. and in 197 2, it struck down high candidate filing fees on that same basis. the supreme court also made

clear in the exclusionary whi primary cases, that a process which has become a critical part of the machinery for getting e legislated must be open to all. today's campaign finance system operates as an exclusionary wealth primary in violation of the voter protection clause. the wealth primary has become a critical part of the machinery for getting elected. almost invariably, those candidates who win the wealth primary who out raise and out spend their opponents go onto win election. a system that preselects kabd dats based on their access to wealth is contrary to equal protection in the political process and offensive to the basic principle of one person, one vote.

chief justice berger says were we not to recognize that this system falls on unequal weight according to their economic status. we would ignore reality today were we not to find that this campaign system falls with unequal weight with voters according to their economic status. point number four, corporations are not people. in citizens united, the court e kwated corporations with people and swept away a century of precedent. but corporations are not, as some have argued, merely associations of people. such an argument would not pass a basic corporate law examine in law school.

corporations are art official creatures ot state, unlike a voluntary unincorporated association of people, corporations have state-based advantages that you and i, as real live humans do not have. perpetual life. the ability to aggregate welt and dribt wealth. and for those very reasons, the framers understood that they were not to be treated as people under our tugsz. james madison said that corporations were a necessary evil. thomas jefferson hoped to crush in its birth the aristocracy of our corporations. five justices of the court have unleashed unlimited, corporate and union dollars making a

dangerously corrupting system expone exponen exponentially worse. 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 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. seven times to overturn e gree jous 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

presents a unique and historic opportunity to unite around our common vision of america. but 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 demock racy. who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? not the rich more than the poor, not the learned more than the ig no rant. the electors are to be the grat body of the people of the yietsds. it is time for a 28 th amendment

to the constitution that lifts up that fundamental progress for democracy and makes clear that we the people rule in america. [ applause ] >> thank you. mr. bopp, you have ten minutes to make an opening statement. >> thank you very much. >> i must admit, i'm one of those ajegents of the corporate and big-money interest sense. wisconsin right to life, citizens united and, most recent mccutchen case were all my cases. and, of course, in those cases, i was representing an advocacy group in whenisconsin who all t

wanted to do was lobby their incumbent members of the senate and to encourage them not to filibuster president bush's judicial nominees. and, of course, they ran square into mccane feingold's blackout period which made it illegal to run any ad that simply mentioned the name of a candidate for federal office. aened 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 ad. people might come together in average groups. that's the only way they can participate 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 against them. well, this is as old as time. incouple bent incouple encouple incumbent politicians that have ever come together in the history of the world. and they knew that if the experiment in 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 govts to operate. that is speech, press

association and petitioning the government. so they wrote the first amendment. john didn't mention it, but let me. which said that "congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, press, association and petition. . it wasn't a few years before the federalist party passed the alien and sedition act to suppress the speech of the american party, thomas jefferson. and people were prosz cuted and went to jail for doing things that were considered sedition. and that is, to "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.

using campaign finance to suppress their speech often doesn't work. he pardoned those who were convicted under it. so it's perfectly obvious from that experience, that it's going be very difficult to get incumbent politics off the train. his speech was talking about who he perceives to be his enemies. corporate and big money interests are his enemies. or enemies of what he thinks is the awe thent ek will of the people. what he wants to do is suppress those voices so that he can get his agenda adopted. through congress.

well, incumbent politicians will do that, as well. and it's bipartisan. it happens with people on both sides of the issue. so that's why our first amendment was adocumented. is to prevent incumbent politicians from using the power of government to suppress who they viewed to be their enemies. now, is there any doubt that they've had a difficult time understanding what the word no means? well, i have thee daughters and they thought no was well it's okay this time, isn't, it dad? and of course here, the irony of john's landbasting of his perceived enemies, the corporations and big money

interests, the irony that mccain-feingold targets the very groups that the people of average must have in order to participate. imposing this blackout period in terms of mentioning names of candidatings and broadcast ads, they attacked 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 attacked unions with same black out periods. there's not a sentence that adversely affects the rich person to spend their own money. but they don't have the money. well, what they have to do is associate. they come together in a group,

they pull their resources. now they have the money to participate. so the rich get off. people of average means they're shut out. he calls this attacking big money interest. i call it enabling the rich people to be the only ones that can participate in our political system. he praised the expenditure limits. they were passed at the 19 74 post-watergate limits which limited what a 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 with the fact that money is not speech. that's always been the big lie. they say we say that. we don't say that. that's ridiculous.

what the problem is is that if you limit the money that can be spent on speech, you're limiting speech. does anyone doubt that limiting barack obama to spending only $20 million to run for the 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. somebody has to buy the megaphone. how many people can you communicate with that you can't spend any money to go see. to speak to them personally. thank you. so that is why campaign finance limits on spending money violate the freedom of speech is because they limit the amount of speech that somebody can do because the reality is it costs

money to communicate. the final thing i might say about john's present traation iw offensive ifs that everybody involved in politics are crooks. they have a variable industry that's funded by the large esz priva priva private foundations in our country that are just continually dragging this con september that everybody working in government are simply just a bunch of crooks. john has advocated and defended contribution limits as low as a 00 dled dollars to run for state representativement when i went to law school here in florida, honest, in 19d 19 7 0e 0, i

didn't know a single state rep that you could buy for a hundred dollars in the state of florida. so it's not surprising when you have a whole industry that spends an enormous amount of time and money and effort painting all politicians and public officials with this brush. and that takes us to the final point i want to make. the real problem is contribution limit. everything that -- all of the things that are disturbing beam of the lack of transparency, the total lack of acountability in many instances.

>> thank you. [ applause ] >> okay, we're going to give each side up to three minutes to rebut. you don't have to take the full minutes, but if you want, you can. >> i do want to clarify something at the out set. we are interested in lifting up voiszs, not suppressing voices. and our view of the current finance system suppresses voicesment when you allow the very wealthy and the very well endowed unions to drown out voices, you are effectively suppressing those voices. now, jim agrees that money does not equal speech. i think that's fabulous that 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 d.c. circuit court of appeals understood that. scholars of the first amendment all over the country have understood that. justice stevens understands that when he says 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 do this all the time under first amendment jurisprudence. campaign spending limits operate as a reasonable manner under speech. those who speak very, very loudlou loudly without any limit are able to drown out the voices of

others who do not have the money to make expenditures at those decibels. another point of clarification. jim says that i think everybody involved in politics are crooks. i happen toe to run for office. i don't think that i am a crook. we do believe that in a system in candidates running for office must cater to corporate interest and union and big yunlon interests in order to win that wealth primary in order to be successful that that process is krupting. of the fundamental principle of government of, by and for the people. there are a loath of well-mean and decent people in politics.

so the last point of clarification is the idea that somehow this is about a liberal agenda. or that i want to promote a liberal agenda. i'm a small d democrat. i'm a small r republican. i believe in republican self government and the promise of democracy. 5 5 % of the voters in montana voted for mitt romney in 20 12. and 75 % of those voters calling for a constitutional ameantment to overturn the supreme court ruling across the country people believe that this system undermines the fundamental process of democracy. this is about a small d democracy agenda. thank you.

>> thank you. [ applause ] >> the same groupd rund rules, minutes if you need it. >> no self respecting lawyer would say something in a sentence that could be said in a paragraph. i'm really glad that john finally 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 wants to lift up, but not suppress. lifting up would be public funding. giving money to people that don't have money so that 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 and parties. that's lifting up. that's enhancing the ability of someone to speak. that's not what he's talking about. he's talking about 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 everybody. he hasn't said a single word and the unions that are going to spend $400 million to support their agenda and his agenda. 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 rejetted this idea. that you enhance the voice of somebody by suppressing the voice of another. no, you don't. and it's in the a question that another there's not enough "ad time" where people can go buy

additi additional ads. they are available. we need to look at ways to enhance the ability and he attacks those and wants to drive them out of the political system. and this's the only ways that people get to participate. we're not talking about how high the volume is on a particular ad. we're talking about litting the number of ads or prohiblt people from buying ads, particularly people that he doesn't like. now, cater to the wishes of the wealthy big money interest.

does he think it's wrong that politicians have friends? does he think it's wrong that they give a hundred bucks in a campaign contribution? he supported such low limits. we have limits in order to prevent the undue influence of a particular contribution. the court upheld that. >> jim, you have less than a minute. wrap it up. >> okay. >> they're talking about undue influence and not friendship, gratitude or appreciation. they're talking about quid pro quo corruption. the final thing, the fact that he has absolutely no interest in reopposing the limits that both corporations and labor unions

share shared before citizens united. has no interest in imposing that on unions. demonstrates conclusively that this is a part san effort. unions are the biggest spenders as a group in our political system. they're seconded by trial lawyers. and, of course, he doesn't want to limit them, either. the two biggest groups, he has no interest in spenders on limiting. sew this is, without a doubt, just to shut up voices that he doesn't like. this is exactly what our founders wanted to prevent. [ applause ] >> thank you. we will give you not much time, but a minute each at the end.

we have to stay on schedule. but we have questions from the audience. i have not seen these. i don't know if they're directedment some of them look like they're just general questions. if you don't mind answering them from there. one question is did citizens united allow individual donations to candidates by corp. s? if not, what is the problem? >> first of all, i've got to make clear that i have not said 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 the 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 is resulted in the superpacks, as well. and the problem does predate citizens united and goes back to that early case i cited and it's why we musz engage in overturning these rulings because unlimited expenditures undermine any purpose of having direct contribution limits. the unlimited expenditures allow these big money forces and corporate forces and union forces to dom nate our elections and our politics. just one other point, i fully support public funding electi s elections.

this is not about one reform versus the other. but, today, in the post-citizens united and post 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 inepfective. >> just a couple points. john and i have known each other for years. i know what he supports. and he knows what i support. and his criticism of scitizen's united is all about corporation. when i challenge him, he wants to throw unions in, too. and i wasn't talking about his amendment. and ill do agree his amendment would encompass unions, but it

would also encompass the press. these amendments will mean that new york times versus sullivan was overruled. that that was a decision that many of you know protects people running for office. and before -- citizens, protects citizens and their ability to criticize people running for office by imposing a higher standard for liable actions dpens citizens by politicians. one of the things the court had to decide was the 14 thd amendment does rule on people. and the court has long decided that the end of the 14th amendment that, you know, that corporations and many other entities and people are encomb

passed within those protections. but what he doesn't say is he would also overturn new york times versus sullivan. he would treat the media, which is of course you arencurrently multi-milliion dollar international conglomerates that he rails against. he would blt allow them to suppress the speech of 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 he are, ald sued because they had to give equal time and space for a candidate's rebuttal in the newspaper and the supreme court struck that down. the montgomery-alabama paper sue

because it said they couldn't endorse on an election day. the press has been one of the real targets of reformers who want to control everybody's speech and decide who's 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 tar gets and, of course, is targeted once again in his ameant. . >> we're not going to be able to get to all of these questions, but i have a few others. >> do do you believe that there somehow be any ceiling? and i guess a corollary to that is do you think that money that is contributed has no influence on how a legislator or other official votes once they've been elected?

>> fist, limits. citizens united involved ind pen dent speech, not contributions. contributions are also sublt to a lower standard under the laws for our allowing contribution limits to be had. e do think that they're abysmally low. i'm very involved in the republican party and you can't even buy a democratic congressman for $2600. and the anecdotal evidence is it takes six figures. he went to jail to be bipartisan. duke cunningham, republican from san diego, if you came in for an earmark of a weapons system, he

would literally pull out a schedule and the lowest schedule bassed on the value of your earmark was 140 ,0,0 0140,00 0 yacht. so to buy these people, it takes much more than 26 $00. and the effect on our system has been a tremendous distortion driving money away from the most accountable and transparent sources. i think it's great that we have super pacs. i won the first case in the court of appeals saying the super pacs were legal. but i'm not in favor of driving money to them. and bipartisan having these low contribution lichlts, that's what we see. you can't vote against a super pac. maybe against a candidate or the political party's kabd dats. so they're acountable.

super-pacs aren't and, of course, we'll have what john supports and opposes will continue to distort that question. the other question, influence, yes, i can see and this is why i keep going back and forth on whether i really support krex limits. yes, i can see that there are some politicians that if you give enough money to them, you'll be able to unduply influence them. meaning that you'll be able to get them to change their vote from what they would have otherwise voted to something else. but, frankly, it just takes a lot more money than 26 $00. so, you know, if it's really a seriously large contribution, i can see some undue influence. and you will think we have to make a decision whether unbalance we want to know what interests are influencing our

poll stigss because they actually give them the money. and we can vote for or against them. i mean, when the interest gives money to a super-pac, you know, how does anybody know that has anything to do with candidate x or candidate y. 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 contribute 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. i'll go off the board and ask either one of you a question if you want to respond. 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 watergate scandal which would apply across the board, nt expenditures, candidate expenditures, including whether they raised 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 to this 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 equality 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 and 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. their 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 to participate.

that's why we need participation of labor unions and associations and corporations and advocacy groups in our system. on the political affect of this, which he seems to be somewhat interested in anyway, what i have found is that there's more liberal democrat rich people than there are conservatives. frankly, i admit to being a republican and a conservative. while some liberal interests seem to think that they stand in the way of getting their liberal agenda, they find out differently when they go to hollywood and raise the enormous sums that they do from the richest people in our country. but look, there's rich people on both sides. this is not about partisan politics or punishing those people you don't like or suppressing those you are fearful, speak out in opposition to your favorite policy. but about the ability of all of

us to have outlets of participation in our political system that are not foreclosed by partisan efforts by government agencies to suppress our speech. >> i don't know if either of you want a minute to sum up. mr. bopp, it sounds like that was a summation. you can have another minute. >> i can always say something else. >> i'm sure you can. as most lawyer's prerogative, they like to talk. mr. bonifaz, anything to say in summation? >> yes. as i make a summation, i would just say that there are many unions that support this constitutional amendment because they recognize that they cannot compete with exxon and mobile and chevron in the political process. they need to have an equal playing field. as far as where we are going with this overall movement, dr. king said the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. when we look at what happened in

the poll tax case before the supreme court, we have to remember that was in 1966. earlier before that, there was a case brought in 1937, a group of poor voters challenged the poll tax, a fee charged to voters to vote. they got to the supreme court. they lost. the supreme court said it was necessary to charge these fees in order to ferret out the frivolous voter. if you were a true voter, you could come up with the $1 to vote. 1951 a second group challenged the poll tax. they got to the supreme court. they, too, lost on the same grounds. then on the way to harper versus virginia board of elections, the 24th amendment to the constitution was enacted barring poll taxes in federal elections. but there remained four southern

states that held on to the tax. virginia was one of them. in 1966 the supreme court finally got it right and the court said what qualifies as equal protection under the equal protection clause does change and does evolve. dr. king is correct. the right side of history is one that says that democracy will prevail not big money interests, big union interests, big corporate interests drowning out our speech and undermining the fundamental promise of political equality for all. >> thank you. when we were designing the time limits here, i thought how could we give a lawyer one minute for anything. we're trying. mr. bopp? your closing thoughts on this topic? >> you know, the example that john just gave demonstrates the fallacy in his argument. the government set the poll tax and the government then imposed the burden on people

participating. government doesn't determine the price of ads. the government hasn't decided that ads are going to cost something. it's the marketplace. it's the private -- it's reality, one. and it's private people doing that. you know, are you going to get the lumberjack to work for free to cut down the tree in order to make the news print so that you can do this for free? you know. it's not about the government imposing a barrier. it's about the government providing for freedom and preventing the government from imposing a barrier which is the suppression of speech by criminal penalties that john has supported and continues to support. secondly, as to exxon mobile and chevron, to my knowledge they haven't done a thing after

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