things to offer and to engage with us. we must find a way to do that more effectively because they are the ones in the body bags so often. we must find a way to make them part of the solution. we also propose that you support national week of nonviolence. there have been two years of this already supported by 12 governors, 50 mayors. and that the task force consider calling on the nation to have a national week of nonviolence, next october 2015, and call on neighborhoods, churches, schools, police departments to sit down and talk about conflict resolution, nonviolence, building partnerships, building trust, and all the issues that you have addressed today. and finally, in terms of best practices, our organization is partnering with pittsburgh police department and we would like to recommend that you take a look at what they are doing. the police chief is having public conversations in public housing communities, at

churches with people, sitting there for hours letting people ask any question they have. we urge to you call the nation during this week of nonviolence. have community communications. ask the leaders to do it. they can do it. they are ready. they just need leadership and direction. we propose you contact and explore this whole issue of how to get the nation in a conversation. los angeles is doing great leadership, sacramento, all the things we've heard. let's have a national conversation using social media and change the culture of violence in our society. thank you. >> keith grate. >> good afternoon. that everyone for being here. this commission maz been a very good -- they've been here all day. i'd like to say to you thank you for coming and being able to

maintain composure and see that there are good officers and bad officers as well. we're very sorry for your loss. my name is keith gray, a former d.c. police officer, also former educator. prior to entering the force i was educator k-12 system, also taught university, hillsboro county, university of south florida. my background is very unique in that i come from a small town in longview, texas. i hated cops growing up. i always liked this one cop, a detective. he came to my class, one of my classmates' father. i said, i want to be a detective one day. that's exactly what i did. spent five years in the metropolitan police department. we benefited from everything. 8th street corridor. when you take a visit to 8th street, you're able to walk the streets at night, that was my work. that was me and my partner's work. that's why. that's why it's so important for us to have a police force who is competent, able to work with the community and able to change things because of what you're

seeing happening in d.c. right now. this man came and changed the culture of d.c., i want everyone to know that, and now he's changing the culture of philadelphia. we thank you for that. again, from a small town in longview, texas, i came here and joined the police force. and since i was part of the police force, i joined at a later time. so i came in after a career in higher ed. i had been a professional recruiter of students. i had been a manager of programs at a university level. i started to work on my phd. i said i want to be a cop. i still wanted to be a cop. it never, ever went away. after i graduated from american university undergrad. i spent time -- i was very blessed to play basketball professionally, traveled the world. every police department i paid attention to, they were all centralized. this is the only country, first world country, where you have a decentralized policing structure. having things like this in place to where you can bring a uniformity to police work is

very, very imperative. just like, for example, a gentleman mentioned tsa, formation of tsa. what happened before 9/11? every single airport had private security -- >> thirty seconds. >> now you have uniformity, you know what to expect. i can take my flask, i can't take my flask. you know exactly what you can take on the plane because of the uniformity of that. i wanted to make three quick recommendations. first is change the culture of law enforcement. it has to be changed from the inside. we have to put it on our shoulders, the gentleman, chief canterbury who was sitting here, made me cringe to say that we did not have responsibility or it was not important enough for us to put on our shoulders as law enforcement officers to be professional. it is our profession. all right. we don't expect the community to be as professional as we are. we are the professionals at being police. so we have to put it on our shoulders. so the culture of police work has to change.

officers can no longer be subjected to minor backlash and minor offenses because they are doing something out of the realm. what happened with me on police work, i got tired -- >> ten seconds, mr. gray. sorry. >> what? >> you're down to ten seconds. >> what happened to me, i got tired of enforcing laws i did not believe in. i changed. i'm now a small business owner. this is what i plan to do as a work of mine. this is my civil rights movement, connecting the community with police again. thank you for your time. >> thank you. edmond raymond. >> can everyone hear me? >> yes. >> first i'd like to thank the president and everyone involved for providing the platform this essential and overdue dialogue. i came here today with my good friend jim st. germain.

we are both co-founders of a nonprofit that's just starting up. it's called p.l.o.t., preparing leaders of tomorrow. earlier one of the panelists stated the way in which community members are treated, why would a young black man want to join the police force. theoretically it makes sense, and statistically she's accurate. i'm one of the few black men that decided despite the treatment to join the police force. i've been a police officer for seven years and i do my job honorably. one of the things that all the panelists mentioned was diversity, the importance of diversity in our police departments. it is important. but, unfortunately, it's completely undermined if there's existing policy that doesn't allow it to flourish. and i'm speaking as someone with front row seats to the madness

where i work. it's the most diverse police department probably in the world. and the beauty in that is completely taken away because it's of an inherently racist policy. stop and frisk was were popular recently. siel share some numbers. 2011, 700,000 stopped and frisked. 215. existing administration then said those stops were the reason for the decrease in murder. last year 2014, less than 50,000 stops, 326 homicides. 37% drop. the critics said, they will eat each other in brownsville, brooklyn if we don't stop, question and frisk them. obviously that's not true. 600,000 less and homicide still drops. and the broken windows theory is another thing that, it's

counter-intuitive, the truth. theoretically it seems to make sense if you go after the small things, the big things will sort themselves out. but the last two weeks in new york city has exposed the truth, which is, you know, what the media refers to as a slowdown. homicide, nothing increased. there's no anarchy in the streets, despite this slowdown. >> thirty seconds, sir. >> all right. i want to finish with critique now, i want to finish with recommendation. critical race theory. i recently took a course at john jay college, anthropology course, policing multi-ethnic society in which critical race theory is what's being taught. i want to share quick testimony from one of my colleagues who took the course. he says, my name is raymond shea, i'm a member of the new york city police department as well as a current student at john jay. during my fall 2014 semester in john jay, i attended anthropology class called policing multi-racial society where critical race theory is learned.

i found the class i took was exceptionally beneficial towards my work as a police officer. learning about the culture and history of black discrimination allowed me to understand why members of underprivileged black communities distrust the police. although many police officers see themselves as racially color-blind, governmental policies promote racial discrimination and targets impoverished neighborhoods. prior to taking this class, i had little to no knowledge of discriminatory actions against black people. as an asian-american growing up in predominantly white neighborhood i was never exposed to intense tif policing and social disenfranchisement these caused. i used to believe everyone arrested were perpetrators of the law and hardened criminals should not be reintegrated back into society. now i try to communicate and connect with the offenders on a more personal level. after learning about the history of black discrimination and being more culturally aware, i view some of these individuals as victims of an imbalanced

judicial system. this class has been exceptionally beneficial to me as a police officer and has allowed me to understand and communicate with the communities i work in. i strongly recommend this class for officers to expand their knowledge of various and diverse neighborhoods in new york city. thank you. >> thank you. i have one card here. there's no name but it's a comment. whoever wrote the card i'll read the comment publicly. it states, more training is needed to better integrate soldiers into community policing. they often can approach their job and the community from a high intensity, high danger perception instead of a more community police position. we'll take two more online and then we'll turn it back over to co-chairs. >> the national association of school resource officers. i trained sro, force, de-escalation training combined with body cameras is the solution. next comment from twitter, i

haven't heard anything about the new threats, isis, et cetera, and upgrading policing strategies for this purpose in addition. >> thank you. madam chair. >> thank you both, ron, and jim. at this point we're going to be turning to our task force members for a very brief about two-minute concluding remarks, and i'm going to start down at the end of the row with cedric alexander. >> thank you very much, madam chairperson. let me just say, i think today, for me, has been enlightening in the sense that this country, this nation, and those that were present here today had an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas. about where we need to go in terms of enhancing and promoting policing as we continue to move into the 21st century.

i think this is only the beginning of our journey to seek those recommendations that we'll forward on to the president. but what is clearly very evident here today to me is that i truly believe that we're on a trajectory to make an attempt to do something different here. for me to sit here and listen and take part in this has been educational. in spite of the fact i've been in this profession over 37 years, 38 years now, i am still learning more and more every day. the issues that confront us in this country have been long-standing and have a lot of history attached to them. but the moment in the present is where we're going to find solutions, i believe, to the issues we're all confronted

with. and for me, this is not just totally a black or white issue, this is an american issue. it's america's problem. and it's going to take all of us in this room and across this country to find resolve and to seek resolutions that i think will be important to the advancement of our country. let me add one other thing. it was just noted by one of the twitter persons that nothing was spoke to in regards to threats from isis. and isil. and that brings us to international scope in terms of how we see this. we think about the issues that are confronting this country, when i think about it, this is an american issue which we are going to solve. and we cannot allow ourselves to become divided because we do make ourselves a target for those who want to see us divided and to work against us. all of us as americans in this

country, regardless of what our history and experiences have been, at the end of the day, no matter how much pain we may have endured and how much we may have put on others, i think we all will come to a conclusion that whatever issues need to be solved, we will do what we have always done in this country, and that is to solve them ourselves. and thank you all for being here and thank you for allowing me to be a part of this as well. >> jose lopez. >> echo a lot of the same sentiment. there was a lot of food for thought today. and i think, you know, in conversation with all of the members but also folks in the audience, folks on the panels, folks that i've been able to talk to during breaks, i'm eternally grateful to the time, especially the folks in this room, those that tuned in, the

amount of time folks today and over the course of all our work have committed to this issue. you know, i've done a lot of listening and i've taken a lot of notes. and i think all of us as members have. so we have a lot to think about and a lot to talk about. but this is the first of a couple listening sessions. and so we will be moving these around to be able to listen to more and more folks. and so i encourage everyone who is here and folks listening to continue to share their stories and to make that public, to submit testimonies and to talk to us about not only the day-to-day experiences that folks are facing with police officers on the ground and some of the consequences of that interaction, but also to provide recommendations and to be able to take those recommendations and put those in the order in

which you see fit. one of the hardest conversations i think for us over the course of the coming weeks will be, how do we prioritize everything that has been put forth. that is obviously not only up to the members who are sitting on this commission, but up to every single one of you when you're putting your testimonies and your documents forward. the one thing i would say is that i hope that we will have a better balance and that we will hear more from young people across our country. i've had the privilege of working with young people between the ages of 13 and 25 over the course of the last 15 years, and understanding the complexities of relationships amongst those young people and police officers on the streets of new york city and bushwick and jackson heights to be

specific, i do understand that there is absolutely a need to make sure we elevate the platform for young people's stories to be heard. it is those stories that will be able to change the hearts and minds of folks who have turned to this issue as one of the most important issues pressing our country today. so with that being said i'll pass the mic over to tracey. >> i just want to start my remarks by thanking, for myself personally, all of our witnesses who came and shared with us their testimony. i really appreciated the fact that they were so clear eyed and generous and willing to acknowledge the complexity of this issue. but also very clear eyed about recommendations of how we can make progress. i also want to thank all of you for sitting here supporting the

witnesses, supporting us, offering your ideas whether in this forum, online, or if you were going to be offering ideas subsequent to this session online, you know, through the website, et cetera. we've only just begun our work. i'm very cognizant of that. i have so much to digest. and we have, i think, at least four more full days like this to cover more topics other than trust and legitimacy. i'm very glad we started with that because that does seem to be the cornerstone of the work that needs to be done here. and the final thing i want to say on that is that i've spent decades of my professional life researching that issue of procedural justice and legitimacy from a social science perspective and from a legal perspective. and the highlight of the day for me was seeing all the ways in

which real life stories motivate and make clear and salient that research. so thank you. >> brittany. >> so today has been extremely enlightening and informative. you know, i think that one of the greatest things about democracy is our freedom and, truthfully, our responsibility to examine ourselves. in particular to truthfully and proactively examine any system that has an impact on our children, especially a life or death impact on our children. i believe that education has life or death impact on our children and that's why i became an educator. when i heard from ke vaughn, a tenth-grader in the district adjacent to ferguson. he missed a week and a half of school during the first three weeks of chaos. when i heard him talking about

wanting to be a police officer and being enrolled as an african-american young man in a program for people who want to be police officers one day and leaving the computer lab a few weeks ago and being accosted by a police officer, being stopped and frisked while he was walking home, i recognized the same responsibility to truthfully and responsibility to truthfully and proactively examine the system that he wants to be a part of but is also policing him right now. so i am deeply thankful to be a part of this task force because it is clear that we are not about platitudes but about the real work. there is clearly a great deal of work to do. but the witnesses and all of you have and will continue to enable us to do that. and in particular i'm thankful for all of the perspectives that are unlike mine that i heard today. perspectives like lieutenant peralta's and mr. ray and raymond as folks involved in law enforcement, which is a profession that i am not involved in. but who had very thoughtful and proactive suggestions for how to move forward. those are the things aisle

really be turning over in my head tonight. we want to be sure this is not an echo chaemmber but diverse in thought. so thank you. >> excellent. sue. >> well i have to thank the co-chairs again for giving me this opportunity and the president. it's been an amazing day and i've been in law enforcement for 35 years and i've heard things today that really reawakened some of the thoughts that i've had. one of the things that was so clear to me is there's so much pain out there and there's so much frustration. and i think that really resonated today. and i think that's why we're struggling so much. there's so much pain on the part of mother who is's lost children. and there is pain on the part of the police officers who east lost partners and love ones. i think that makes it more difficult to approach this in a clear-headed way. but i think the structure of this panel is going to help us work through that.

i also have heard a lot of hope and good ideas. so i feel a tremendous responsibility not to let you down. there are so many of you who have devoted your lives to this cause. so i feel that sense of responsibility. i know the task force is going to do good work. in addition to that, i am looking forward to taking the insights i've gained even just today to apply it to the next generation of police officers that i'm responsible for training. in the state of washington. i really appreciate this opportunity. >> connie rice. >> thank you madam co-chair. and thank you chief ramsey, the two of you have really led us very very ably. my biggest thanks however go to you for sticking with us. and lending witness to this work. i am concerned.

i want to hear more from the police because i'm afraid i am completely missing that perspective. and it would do me good to hear more from the cops about what we're missing. there is enormous pain in the community. i know that pain because i've represented families forever. and i think that we have to start there. but i don't think we're going to end there. i think we can end in a place of hope and a place of moving forward together. towards safety. and the elimination of these kinds of deaths. i don't want to hear about anymore kids being shot by the police. i really don't. it is time for that to end. and it can end if we really, really focus and help our cops train the right way. and get the community to back the police. when the police feel backed and they feel safe -- when police feel safe the community doesn't

die. that's been my experience. the community does not die when the police are safe. and when the police feel supported. so think it's got to be two ways it's got to be both ways. so thanks everybody for sticking with us. help us piece this together. and i this i we'll come out with a report that you will be proud of. >> thank you. sean. >> i would like to just echo my colleagues comments. i specially want to thank the witnesses who travelled to testify in person today and those who took the time to submit written testimony. to the co-chairs and director davis, thank you very much for your leadership today and into the lead up to today. and specially to president obama, thank you for convening this task force. and honoring us by allowing us to serve on it.

thank you to those of you who did attend today in person. and i know that there are literally thousands of people who attended this listening hearing online. and your comments will be summarized for us and provided to us. and so you will be heard as well even though you maybe couldn't travel here to testify before the task force. speaking for myself, i certainly learned a lot today. and also recognize, as i think my colleagues do as well that we have a lot more to learn. i really appreciate the solid recommendations that we got today. and i think we've probably been able to identify some areas where we didn't get solid recommendations. and so i would encourage those of you who may have been watching online or on television

if you have one you can certainly submit one through the cops web page. i was really struck -- and thank you for your comments connie. i don't think we're going to end with hope today was the first real day of hears. i'm starting with hope. i was very struck by the last panel that we heard from, the mayors. which is surprising for anyone who would know me. not only for recognizing the importance of working together with police officers their elected representatives but also elected representatives of the community and community leaders and mayors. and to the point that not only was it recognized, it was exemplified today when the mayor

of sacramento actually brought the police union president with him as his companion to the hearing. very striking. and also i think a great example and a great cause for all of us to have the hope that moving forward together, we can make really good progress on reestablishing trust and strengthening trust in communities where we need to. while we continue do the work of ensuring everyone's safety. so thank you. >> brian stephenson. >> i'd like to just publicly thank the cop staff for just reallying getting the diverse and thoughtful group of witnesses before us. i was really impressed and pleased by the testimony that we heard. i especially appreciated the witnesses who provided us with very specific recommendations. and i just would like to underline the utility of that because we're on a very short time line. that when we get very particular

specific recommendations it really does elevate our ability to kind of advise the president and our nation's leaders on how pest to get out of this place of pain and frustration into a place of more hope and health. and i -- i'm very excited about that. i'm very hopeful about that. i think we've had a very productive day. i also want to add my vice of thanks to the people who are here and particularly these police officers who came to provide us direct perspectives of their experience. we have a several african american police officer who is really said son inciteful thoughtful things for me to hear about your experiences in law enforcement as well as family members who have lost loved ones to police violence. those perspectives are critically important as we kind of find our way through these really complex and difficult issues. but i'm grateful everyone's put so much time. i think it was a very engaged day. and that kind of

-- engagement if energizing for us. so i thank you for energizing our work and our time together. >> and chief. >> i'll try and keep my comments short. i a know i'm the last one here. i've heard a couple of fellow panel members talk about pain and i heard the pain in. so voices that were talking today. and i that's apropos because as a parent i know that you can't have growth without pain. and we need to grow as a professional. we need to make sure we're listening to the pain out there and incorporating it into our process changes. but those process changes also need to be based on fact and truth and not merely anecdoteal information. we need to look into all the issues. and i heard out there -- and it has floored me since this conversation started that we as

profession don't track autolooetall lethal use of force data. so there are changes that need to take place and we need to be responsible and lead the way on those changes so that is our responsibility. and so i thank you for taking the time to spend with us today and i thank you 23rfor your input. >> commissioner ramsey. >> let me start by first thanking all of you for being here. especially those of whou that have been here all day. i now it's been a long day but it's been a very good day. and whether you were here personally or watched on television or online, thank you so much. because your participation is crucial to the work of this task force. we need your participation. we need your thoughts. i've been in policing now for more than 46 years. and i've learned a lot during that period of time. and i learned something today. and i learned something because

i had an opportunity to listen to many people from very diverse backgrounds that have different opinions. many opinions that are different from mine. but listening -- which is a skill that all of us would probably use a lot more of. listening, opening up our minds and re-examining how we think about things is very, very important. the events over the past few months have brought us here today. but also the events over the past few months have given us an opportunity to create a better police department across the country. to create better stronger relationships to bridge gaps that have gone unattended for far too long. so we need to here these voices. and as we proceed in this work that the president has given us we need to continue this dialogue. and you all need to continue to be involved whether you can attend future meetings or not.

there are ways in which you can stay involved. and we encourage you to do so. we had a lot of very specific recommendations. we had people that came with grievances. but even though they came with grievances they also offered recommendations. i can't tell you how much that means to all of us. now we have great staff here. we've all taken copious notes. but they have been recorded every single thing. so even information coming in online, we will see it as task force members and be in a position to be able to start prioritizing and start formulating the report that is due to the president. so i look forward to it. i think this is a great opportunity for change. significant change. and i can tell you one thing. on behalf of this task force none of us would be here today if we did not believe it was possible and if we weren't serious about this work. status quo is unacceptable. and i think we all realize that

and we will move forward as a result of that. >> brittany raised an important point. and that is that in a democracy we look and look at the need for change. and thank you brittany for raising that. but one thing we need to reflect on is that that kind of self examination is really tough. think about it in your own lives. it is very hard to be self reflective and to do that in an honest way. today was tough. it was tough in many of the panels to look at our own institutions and look in criminal justice. and i think for many of us who have been involved in criminal justice for many years we've seen that that kind of self examination, as the commissioner referred to, is very difficult. so today has been a long day. and i also want to join my colleagues in thanking all of

you who've been here throughout these many hours and those online who've been joining us over the day. but i think this kind of endeavor is very worthwhile. and this kind of investment in looking hard at very tough issues. so i join my colleagues again in thanking all of you, in thanking the cops office, ron davis and his great team, for helping us in going down this road. and with that ron, let me turn to you for your final comments. >> thank you madam chair and thank everyone for being here. starting with something brian said. i want to reinforce this dpp time and again. and that is thank you to the cops office staff to putting this together. the president announced this december 1st. the executive order was signed and the task force members named on december 18th and here we are in the first or second week in january. and all that shows the sense of urgency, the priority, the importance of it.

so i want to thank my team for the outstanding work they have done. and just to give you a sense for those who have been here most of today, this is the first of six. there are five more listening sessions like this. and so when you think about the robust -- the testimonies, the discussions, how much -- i just think in my 28 years of law enforcement now a year after the department of justice how much i learned today i'm really excited about the future public sessions and the hearings. brittany mentioned about self evaluation. and i've always had a phrase when we do evaluation -- the cops office does evaluations across the country. and that is the truth hurt bus selective ignorance is fatal. so those who want to identify what's wrong with them eventually will kind of sense for -- they are set up for doom. so we do want to know the truth. we want team to come forward. it may mic makis cringee isus contributory

negligence -- cringe. the co-chair mentioned this is all taped and what will happen now on january 21st from 5:00-7:00 eastern standard time we will have another public hearing but it will be a teleconference which is a public hearing open to the public. if you go to the cops website. and www.cops.usdoj.gov, there is president task force icon you can hit and it brings you right to the site with the call in number and give you the information. and that have been january 21st from 5:00 to 7:00. and the purpose is after digesting it will will summarize this to steal the recommendations and provide it back to them. and they will have the ability to talk about what's happened today. you can imagine for those who sat there there is a lot for

these great think arers to digest. january 30 and 31 will be two additional public hears in senate cincinnati at the university of cincinnati. and you can go to the website to learn more about those two hearings as well. and we'll have hearings in february to complete it. because if you don't know the interim report to the president is due march 2nd. and if you could tell by the hearing we had today t schedule we have and by the tenacity of our co-chairs and this task force we will zrechbl a report ready to hand to the president of the united states on march 2nd on how we has can move forward as a country together. a great honor for me to be able to support the task force. thank you again. and let let me turn to jim real quick if i may madam chair. i don't want to show my social media ignorance. but do we have hashtags and

things like the that people can go to? >> we do. it's #policetaskforce. to add additional comments and again submitting online all this information will be collected digested and given to the task force. nothing will be left out. so feel free to tweet us. i think that is the right word. and my career accomplishment today is actually reading twitter announcements. my 19 grandchildren will be impressed. so yeah, those kind of nountss and online data. >> thank you issue is. >> okay. with that once again thank you all for being here and the president's task force on 21st century policing is now adjourned. thank you. this week an c-span and prime time, three nights of tech. featuring the executives and

innovators driving today's most successful internet companies. >> leases a taxi for $45,000 a year. it should be a bentley or something. instead it is just a taxi. and for that privilege he gets to be impoverished. >> hear from a special presentation while congress is in recess.

sorry for the delay. we're going to go back. i'm very thrilled to welcome everyone to this important event. five years after citizen's united what are the cos for democracy? this is an important event. we're going to be hear this d.c. throughout the week recognizing the citizen's united anniversary. the terrible consequence this is decision has had for our country. today's event an unprecedented number of organizations have come together to release or share original research. as more and more americans have concluded that the issues they care about just won't be dealt with in a political system that

values the money of a few over the voices of the many. more and more organizations of different stripes are prioritized changing the way our elections are financed. from the environment in climate change to worker rights to civil liberties to reigning in wall street excesses and risky behaviors. americans and the public interest organizations that represent them understand that special interests are truly hijacking our elections. and the outrage they feel is really fuelling a ing aling a movement. creating change and also more collaborative efforts like you are seeing here today. this cooperate ievent can also be seen and this action in the release of a statement of unity that we're putting out today. over 120 organizations have signed on to this statement of unity which supports reforming our democratic processes and moving policy changes around disclosure, public financing and over turning the effects of citizen's united. you can find the statement of unity up front when you came in.

also up front i'm sure you saw hard copies of new research we're putting out today. but it can also be found electronically on "get money out action.org action.org." without a doubt the biggest winners were the corporate entity special interests and small number of billionaires who funded them. while the looses are the 300 million americans. today's event is about that. it's about the highlight thofg problem. we're going to be discussing as well much-needed solutions. the first handle be dig in on the numbers in the 2014 midterms and second we'll focus on real world implications of the current muddied system and finally close with a panel which looks at solutions featuring accountant connecticut state respective mattlesser to discuss his experiences in connecticut.

with that'll we'll turn it over to our first panel. a great lineup to discussion the issues at play in the 2014 midterms. karnt shan'ten from dmos. and then ian --. >> good morning. i'm karen shanton. a policy analyst at dmos. we all van equal say in our democracy and equal chance in economy. i'm here to talk to you about the first of those goals. to wrap ups of the congressional spending often focus on total amount of money raised and spend by candidates in these race. there is a good reason for that. and the reason is those numbers are really big. median winner of a house race in

2014 reported contribution of $1.3 million. on the senate side the median winner reported over 7 million dollars in contradictions. that works out to approximately 1800 dollars a day. and that is every single day of a two year house selection cycle and $3300 a day every day for six year on the senate side. so it is a lot of money. even more important than the total funds raised in these races, in these competition, is where that money is coming from. of the close to $1.5 billion in total contributions that candidates reported receiving in 2014, more than two third came from individual contributors. and the vast majority of these individual contributions came from wealthy donors. suppose you are a candidate faced with a prospect of having to raise thousands of dollars a day. if you focused exclusively on raising from small donors, giving $200 a piece or less, then you would have to secure at least nine unique donors each

day if you were running for the house. running for the senate you would need at least 17 unique donors a day. if you focused on donors giving at the current per election limit of $2600 by contrast you could get what you need from a donor or two aday. if you could convince that donor or donors to give at the current per cycle limit of 5200 you might even get to take a day off. not surprising most candidates end up collecting the vast amount of that you are money we partnered with the money race moving from big donor dominance in the 2014 midterm elections to small donor democracy, which is available at dmos.org. we looked at the large and small donor breakdowns in a targeted sample. where the partisan makeup for the district doesn't sort of already incline the race in

favor of one party's nominee over the other. and what we found was that the candidates who were doing well in these races are overwhelmingly drawing funds from large donors. in some the top two candidates in these 25 races got more 86% of their individual contributions from large donors. and fully seven of these 50 candidates got more than 9 and a half of every ten dollars. all by 50 cents of every ten dollars they received in contributions from donors giving $200 or more. the limited role for average voters in funding campaigns has implications for the types of candidate who is make it through the process. as well as the policies that get enacted when they get there. my colleague will be joining us later in the program to describe these effects. and one of our partners is also here today to tell us a little about the specific candidates who have been effected by the

current role of money in our politics. and to explain how even given current limitation tofrs campaign finance work we can start the find ways to address this problem. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thanks. so they say give yourself a minute a slide. and i have about nine slides to do in five minutes. so if everybody can promise not to blink for the next five minutes i think we'll be fine. we looked at election spending in senate races. the reason is it's been possibly up for grabs in all three elections since citizens united and that tend to increase outside spending. we found outside spending has ip increased and candidate spending has stayed the same. by outside spend i mean spend big people other than candidates.

this largely comes from a tiny number of wealthy donors who can afford to give in excess of the constitution limits that karen was talking about. and dark money is playing a bigger role, which means -- which creates risk for corruption and influence buying that's hid b by the public. so money spently organizations that hide some or all of their donors. this shows outside spending has increased over the last three cycles. this chart shows ten of the most competitive senate elections in 2014. the bars are percent candidate spending. the heavy middle line there is 50%. so eight out of ten the candidates were outspend by the outside spenders and the top four which, includes income t most expensive legislation in candidates history. candidates are out spent and losing control or accountability over elections. and why does this matter?

most of it comes from super packs. and they depend enormously on large donors the numbers in terms of the candidates are for more extreme in the world. the highest spending get less than 1/10 of one percent of their money from small donors of $200 or less. the average contributions are in the five and six figure range. and in fact in one billion superpack spending since 2010 about 200 people out of the entire country were responsible for 60% of that. so one of the things we see in outside groups is the single candidate groups. these groups can take unlimited contributions because they are outside and they spend all of that money on a single candidate. if it's run well, it effectively is an arm of campaign as the not subject to contribution limits. taylor is going talk about these later in the panel. but i just want to say where do they get their money from. across competitive elections

they get almost two-thirds from double-dipping donors. these are doeshs who give up to the maximum directly to the candidate and turn around and give however much they want to the outside group knowing money is going to be spent on that candidate. dark money has increased, money we don't know where it's coming from. what does that look like? on the left here you see how much dark money makes up outside spending that doesn't come from parties. it is a majority of that spending comet from unknown sources. but even looking at all spending the pie chart on the right is candidate, party and outside spending together. dark money is still a significant chunk. well over a quarter at 28% of of election spending in competitive races. that is a big chunk of money. still a minority baugh big chunk and it leads to numbers like that. looking just as the eleven most competitive elections in 2014, the winners, just the winners.

eleven people who took office this month in the senate had $131 million in dark money behind them. so 23 million in dark money behind tom tillis. the public doesn't know who spent that money. does tom tillis know? i don't know. is he going to give legislative favors to the people who spent that money? we don't know and we can't know and the voters won't be able to hold him accountable at the ballot box six years from now if he does. the post citizens united world as severely weakened contribution limits and transparence. and those regulations guard against corruption and they help to ensure that elect eelected officials are accountable to their constituents and not just their biggest donors or spenders. so we're now living in a world where rich donors and secretive donors have a great influence than ever before. and i'll stop there.

thank you. [ applause ] good morning. i'm taylor lincoln with public citizen. today i'm going to discuss one of the most obvious and uncontroversial things anybody in washington d.c. will say today or probably any day. in yet in terms of how our elections are financed, it may also be among the most important. i'm going say that many, if not most, outside groups are not truly independents of the candidates and the parties they seek to assist. this has been shown by many people in many ways. a public citizen we have sought to show this since 2012 in two different ways. the first by tracking spending by groups that devote all resources to benefitting a single candidate.

this trait does not definitively prove that a group has ties to the candidate. but it is highly suggestive if a group chooses to spend all of its money to help one candidate out of hundreds of potential congressional candidates. the backgrounds and leaders of many of the single candidate groups have confirmed our suspicions. the second method is tracking the spending of groups that we've deemed to be party aligned. we've only categorized groups as party aligned if they have not only spent all their money in support of candidates from one party, but if other evidence suggests that they are solely committing to furthering a party's advantage. for instance, if a group was led by former employees of the democratic senate majority lead and indicated a mission of protecting the democratic majority in the senate, that is the sort of group we could categorize as party aligned.

today my colleague andrew perez and i are releasing a report with final data on this 2014 cycle. we found 45% of all super packs work for one candidate. and eight groups we categorized a party aligned spent 31% of all the outside spending of outside groups in the 2014 elections. combined the single candidate party aligned groups spent 45% of the money by outside groups in the 2014 elections. so by these measures alone we can show that nearly half the spending by groups by outside groups wouldn't meet most people's definition of independent. what this means is that the citizens united decision has failed by the very logic that it laid out. it may be contrary to most casual observer's observations or impressions but the -- did not important to be eviscerating the entire campaign finance

system. on the contrary it endorsed had thrust of presidents that permitted campaign payment to spend corruption. what we now know is that many of the independent expenditures that resulted from the decision are not independent. they are made by groups a acting as unregulated extension of candidates and parties they support. this means official contributions remain limited while unofficial contributions are unrestricted. this is an intellectually bankrupt situation. again, nothing i've said today about the connections between outside groups and candidates and parties is particularly controversial or in dispute. this is accepted reality. some supporters of citizens united have sought to salvage the honor of the decision by blaming poor coordination laws for failing to ensure independence between candidate in outside groups. i'll close by simply saying

given the extraordinary challenge of crafting a coordinate law that can truly ensure independence, if that is their last line of defense, their case is in deep trouble. thank you. thank you. [ applause ] >> i'm brendan fisher. general council with the center for media and democracy. there are a lot of groups pushing the envelope. others have asserted the coordination rules really don't apply at all. most glaring example is in wisconsin where republican and democratic prosecutors have been investigating possible coordination between governor walker's campaign and independent groups like wisconsin club for growth which spend millions in the recall elections and funneled millions more to other groups. and the walker campaign and wisconsin club for growth have fought back not by denying

coordination but by arcing the coordination rules don't apply as long as the coordinated ads omit words like vote for or vote against. and if this were the case there would be nothing stopping a candidate from forming a the 501 c 4 that takes secret unlimited funds and having it operate outside of campaign offers. so donors who max out on campaign contributions would have another conduit for even more money. special interests seeking political favors but not public scrutiny could curry favor without discretion from the media. and this is what happened in wisconsin. we later found an out of state mining company that wanted to build ab open pit mine in the state made a $700,000 secret donation to wisconsin club for growth which this public never knew about as the mining bill was being debated. i raise this not because it involves a high profile

politician but the intentional and concerted pushback against this could be used national to argue against any campaign finance regulation whatsoever and to intimidate regulators from ifrtd laws that remain on the books. if you read conservative media this genuinely bipartisan investigation has been contorted into a politically motivated witch hunt by democrats against republicans. how did this bipartisan investigation get reframed in such a way? a key to the spin surrounding this has been a group called the franklin center for government and public integrity. they run their website watch dog.org and funded news outlets to cover state house politics with a conservative bend. and it is wisconsin reporter website has produced an astounding 160 stories over the year attacking the investigation as wisconsin's secret war. here is the thing. in course of running these 160

stories they failed to disclose it was launched and funded by eric o'keefe and filed the lawsuits and ensuring the issue ad coordination is perfectly okay. and frankly center also has not disclosed its director of special projects, john connors is the president of citizens for a strong america, another group implicated in the probe and which was entirely funded by wisconsin club for growth. what makes this even more astounding is the federal judge who halted the probe briefly cited to wisconsin reporter as evidence that the probe was politically motivated. so legal experts say that random mate probably never should have been involved in the case at all. because he regularly attended junkets tide to the groups under investigation. like the cope family foundation and the braidly foundation.

miranda was unanimously reversed in the seventh circuit many in a unanimous opinion. what that means is that the future of this investigation now rests with the wisconsin supreme court. but some of the wisconsin supreme court gist justices also face a significant conflict of interest. two of the primary groups facing criminal liability have been the dominate spenders in wisconsin circuit court e -- supreme court elections in recent years. that means the future of this investigation and with it wisconsin's campaign finance laws and potentially finance coordination laws around the country could be decided by justices who were elected to the bench by precisely the same groups facing criminal liability and arguing against these laws overall. and that makes a good transition to burt's presentation. [ applause ]

>> good morning. my name is burt brandonburg. i'm executive director of the group "justice at stake." and i'm glad brendan finished where he did. because if you came here and you heard what you are hearing and you figured this was a problem affecting money in public policy and government races and senate and presidential races, but that at least our courts are safe, i'm hear with bad news. an explosion in money in judicial elections is pressuring state courts to bend to political pressure instead of upholding the law. justice at stake is a non partisan organization working to keep courts fair and impartial. and it's become a grave and growing threat to justice in america. because our state courts are the engines of justice in america. handle 8% of all cases. -- 98%. because 87% of those judges have to stand for election during

their career. and because these elections are now being transformed into a full blown political circus that pressures judges to be accountable to money instead of the constitution. last year an elected supreme court justice cherie beasley told an npr affiliate she frequently write her opinions in the early morning and night. why? because her worked is filled with fundraising calls to attorneys around the state. many who then turn around and appear before her in court. until recently our elected until recently our elected huge war chest os make promise or respond to hardball ae attacks but in recent years judicial elections have become a playground for big money and hardball politics. as this report and a whole series of them produced by justice at stake in conjunction

with the brendan center for justice and the national institute for money state politics document. from 2000-9 the amount of money going in more than doubled. we've now seen a couple dozen states have records smashed. citizens united poured gasoline on this fire and in turn record amounts of spending by outside groups. knew new world cash is king. an arms race with business groups on one side fighting out against attorneys and unions on the other. judges a trapped in a the crucible they did not sign up. raising millions of from people business inside the courts and millions in power by parties and outside groups. much undisclosed. much f out goes for ads that we are going to try to show you here. let's see if we have a play button. and if not -- do we see a play

button? am i missing it? all right. as entertaining as it would be for me to reenact these ads i'm going to tell you what's been going on with -- we got it here? all right. we appreciate the patience of the web audience here. [ video ] -- and joyce's reelection is bankrolled from the same lawyers who profit from the cases she oversees as judge. pat joyce, groovy for them. bad for us. we want judges to protect us. when child molesters sued to stop electric monitoring of their location.

a law that let us track child molesters near school playgrounds, day care centers. she sided with the molesters. justice robin hudson. not tough on child molesters. not fair to victims. >> so that first ad i threw in for fun. the last ad is a lot of what you will see if you are in a state where judges are elected. spending records are being broken. this money and ads are pressuring judges to act like politicians in black robes or lose their jobs. and in 2014 we saw more of the same. more records smashed in a variety of states. national groups seeking to make over state supreme courts. last year we saw the law enforcement alliance of the america. the republican state leadership committee in illinois. trial attorneys and their supporters raised more than a

million dollars to oust groups there. billionaire groups like the coke brother, americans for prosperity are beginning to spend in supreme court races. judicial elections are broken. if they are not fixed, we're going to move to a system where justice is for sale. almost 9 in 10 americans believe this money is effecting decisions in the courtroom. surveys we've done with the national center for state court show nearly half of judges agree with that statement. campaign cash is effecting courtroom decisions. we see scholarly research now commissioned by the american constitution society and showing as cash rises judges point more towards prosecutors because of ads like you just saw. there is good news. they want impartial courts, even when they disagree about other issues but make no mistake the challenge to our democracy is a three branch challenge. next week the supreme court of the united states will hear a case that will decide whether states with insulate judge from big money pressure by requiring them to seek donations from the campaign committees or instead of making a the personal plea

for donations to someone who may appear before them in court. when money effects public policy, that stinks. when money effects a decision of the courtroom, the constitution of the united states has just been violated. the most important democracy issue currently flying under the radar of american politics is whether our courts of law can remain fair and impartial or whether they're accountable to a growing tide of the partisan and special interest and pressure. money and justice do not belong in the same sentence. thank you. [ applause ] >> thanks so much to our great panel. we have a couple minutes for questions now. there will be a mic going around. so if folks could just raise their hand and say who you are with when your ask your question.

>> i'm the first out of this group? okay. i'm with get money out in maryland. and the maryland committee to amend. we have a rally on the 27th to do just that. in particular supporting senator jamie raskins, one of this movement's great heros. constitutional law professor, american university. and state senator. he's introduced two bills to amend the constitution using article 5. and through calling a convention of the states. and also a shareholders disclosure, or shareholders united bill. so i'm homing you could address those, especially the campaigns around the country to amend the constitution to reverse citizens united, reclaim voting rights, our democracy, all that.

and we're hoping maryland will be the fourth state after vermont, illinois and california to pass this resolution out of the 34 that will be needed. >> anyone want to take that? >> i think it might be a question for you. >> okay. well just to frame up what you said i think, you know, we've highlighted a lot of problems here and a little later in the discussion we're going dig in on the solutions. amend the constitution to but you're highlighting key one. jamie raskins is a huge champion and the constitutional amendment movement is key part of what

i think a real important solution, and jamie rascan is a pioneer on that, as well. disclosure, the decision said right there that shareholders would have recourse. they could leave companies if they didn't like how their corporations were spending money in politics. but obviously we don't know. so we need disclosure to shareholders so they can make that decision. >> thanks. as a student activist from the university of maryland, one of the challenges is as you guys presented, as well, there's a lot of -- how do we frame this without being esoteric and

difficult to understand? the grandeur is huge. i mean millions and millions of dollars is hard to wrap your mind around when you have $20 in your pocket. as we begin to create for our students to latch on to. if there's one focus, if there's one anecdote or, you know, whether it's senate elections or congressional and general, whether it's speaking about judges. what should be our target as the most daunting and troubling part of this entire problem? >> does anyone want to take a crack? and i would say right there on the same row as you scott swenson, one of our message gurus, might be able to take a piece of that question, as well. >> i can start. others can add in here. i'll address mostly the judicial aspect of it. there's occasionally differences with the overall theme. i think you have to be compelling in the way we're

trying to be here today and nail home the ironclad case. and for some audiences, that'll be important. but you're getting to something even more important, which is this has to be connected to people's everyday lives. you have to have real world examples of why this made a difference for someone's lives. and those will often be tailored to the community you're in or the state you're in, et cetera. i think in the case of the courts, you know, i can talk about money affecting justice and that will turn off a lot of people. people have good instincts that courts are supposed to be free. but you have to talk about an asthmatic child and have clean air. you have to find the individual examples where policy, be it from the courts or elsewhere, affected someone's real life. >> maybe -- i don't know if scott wants to say something. >> the biggest issue we have to overcome as you pointed out, giving people hope, letting

people know something could be done. there are solutions which were referred to earlier in the unity statement of principles letting americans know that rooms are filling up in every city, town and every state looking for answers to this problem. there are solutions working around the country and we have to point to those to overcome the cynicism that nothing can be done. that's the key to winning this race. >> hello. >> i'm representing global integrity. just on my way here. thank you all for your presentations. really enjoyed it. to focus on the state level issues that were raised at the end there, both the wisconsin focus as well as the judicial elections. i'm curious in terms of independent expenditures and coordinated campaigns and how

state regulators are defining coordination. i'm not going to say it's anything best practice out there. are there any better practices? you painted a pretty bad picture about what's going on in wisconsin right now. is that the last place where we're holding the line, so to speak, on that? or there's some better practices out there that we could point to in terms of judicial elections, are there some states that are regulating this in a different way that are more effectively keeping money out? or is this across the board a 50-state phenomenon? >> sure. so on the state level, in some ways, i might defer to the brennan center. they did a great report a few months ago on coordination and some of the proactive measures that are being taken in states to define coordination and to keep the -- to create effective walls between campaigns and outside groups. and wisconsin a lot has been crumbling over the past two years. and i thought that we had pretty solid, pretty solid definition of coordination in this state.

it would seem pretty clear that groups regardless of whether they're running issue ads or express advocacy could not coordinate with campaigns. and i think there seems to be an assertion that the -- that these laws that were widely accepted can be flaunted. but i think there is -- there is positive, positive movement in some states besides wisconsin. and i think i would probably refer you to the brennan center report for more information about that. >> yeah. so i'll just plug. brennancenter.org, all of our reports are there. the report that brennan mentioned was, i believe called after citizens united. the story and the states. it surveys state laws on coordination. what are good, what are bad? and what's the difference? so, yeah, check it out. >> so in answer to your questions about the courts part of this, the efforts to deal with coordination i don't think have

been particularly different in addressing judicial campaigns. it would apply to all campaigns. i would say there have been some other efforts that deal with the broader issue and disclosures obviously very important. that has moved forward in a few states. notably in wisconsin, there was a backwards move. the attempt to make the efforts stronger actually led to the provisions largely written by some interest groups that instead said that no judge can recuse if any amount of legal money came in. notablye and finally merit selection of judges where you have a nonpartisan screening commission that helps select a slate of candidates based on very thorough vetting. and the idea is to avoid the

election trap altogether. some states are looking to move towards it. >> excellent. all right, on that note, we're going to move on to our next panel. thanks so much to this group. [ applause ]

>> so this panel will be focussing on the real-world implications of what you just heard. and how it impacts people and issues. and i'll turn it over. >> thanks, lisa, and thanks everyone for coming today. so you got a lot of information about how money affected the 2014 election. but our view at common cause and many organizations in this room and many of the people in this room is that while money in elections may determine winners and losers although there's arguments to be made, so much

money on both sides now that it's hard to determine if money's actually effective. but its real effect after the election is over when people take office and favors are starting to be given. when doors are open to donors that not everyday americans can get. so our research and new report called whose government whose voice looks at the needs and issues that the american people are calling for. issues that have high popularity that have been stalled in congress and stalled in a lot of state legislatures simply because of the special interest money behind these issues. our government is not addressing the problems and the needs of the american people. and when it tries to, the special interest money speaks louder than the people leading to ask if our democracy is still around and whose voice our elected officials are listening to.

the rate that it is increasing is quite startling. specifically from special interest groups. in 2014, groups such as the u.s. and energy special interests, they spent more money on the 2014 election than they did on the 2012 presidential and congressional election. if you put that in context, you know, they're spending more money to elect the house of representatives and the u.s. senate than they did to elect the president plus congress. you can see wall street and financial institutions spent more than double on the 2014 presidential -- 2014 congressional elections than they did ten years ago during a presidential and congressional year. so the amount of money is increasing. it has been increasing, and i think someone used the term that citizens united just put more fuel on the fire. you know, citizens united is

about paid speech not free speech. and i think these charts and the information shows that. there's no lying here. and as spending by the special interest groups is increasing rapidly, and it's continually going through dark money groups. leaving voters to question who is really behind these ads they're seeing on their tv. we looked at five major issues that have very high percentage polling from the american people. and then we looked at the special interest spending behind the issues blocking progress on the issues, particularly on the federal level, but also in a lot of states. and so, you can see the polling numbers in the middle column and the special -- some of these numbers, the u.s. chamber, i

believe the nra, those count like state level spending, too. an untold story that a lot of money is being spent on the federal level to elect a congress. but the amount of money in governors races and state legislature races has exploded, as well. and is increasingly rapidly, too. so, you know, 70% of americans support raising the minimum wage, but the u.s. chamber, the national restaurant association and national federation of independent businesses and low wage employers are spending millions to silence the workers who are organizing for minimum wage. and so, you know, it's really wrong when the walton family and walmart can pour money into politics every year and pay their workers poverty wages with no benefits. it not only creates a crisis, it creates an economic crisis that we're still feeling. the latest poll shows that

congress has a 16% approval rating, and that is -- and congress is literally the best congress money can buy. and it just goes to show that while the american people have such a low approval rating of congress, to block these issues. and also to get their favors like we saw in the bill with the wall street handout and the repeal of some very important campaign finance limits. both a comedy and a democracy. in large corporations and the rich came out of the recession on top, better than anyone. while americans are still struggling, it should be no surprise that they're able to pour millions into politics while the needs and wants of the american people are dead in committee. so in our report and we always

think it's important to show a path forward. there is a path forward. and you're going to hear from solutions later on. but here are a few solutions that we identify. and it's important because the american people understand this issue. the polling shows that they're with us. they understand corruption. they understand -- they're tired of seeing tv attack ads. so here are a few steps to the path forward. we need a demand disclosure, both at the state and federal level, through an act of congress, through the ftc, the sec and the irs. we need to pass public financing. the growing tide of big donors can be repealed back. we need a strengthened coordination laws the growing movement to do that. and most importantly, we need to increase voting rights and increase voting turnout. our president once made a statement to me that if we fix voting rights and we get 80, 90, 100% turnout, this money thing

will solve itself. because congress and elected official will have to listen to voters instead of those who can write the biggest campaign check. >> hi, my name is adam working for an america where we all have an equal say in our democracy and economy. and i'm here to tell you about a report we released recently called stack deck and it's a great segue from jay because i do look at this as a voting rights issue, as well. i'm going to talk a little bit about that. i want to talk about five racial

dynamics in money and politics. first, the wealthy white donor class is fueling our campaigns. next, candidates of whatever race need to appeal to this white wealthy donor class when they do run for office. next, there are several barriers that are placed in front of candidates of color who want to get involved in the system. and we have communities of color as a result severely underrepresented. and then skewed policy outcomes as jay mentioned. so let's talk about the wealthy white donor class which will come as no surprise the top 1% is overwhelmingly white more than 90%. and by income and by net worth. and those folks are responsible for a significant percentage campaign contributions. it's difficult to get data on campaign contributors. this is from an a.p. analysis from the 2012 presidential race. and about 90% came from majority white neighborhoods. in contrast there -- this is

contributions in 2009 in new york city races by african-americans. and you can see the small donor end of the spectrum, there's more diversity, than their share of the population of new york city. as we go up the donation scale donor diversity drops sharply bottoming out at below 10% in contributions. here's a similar graph of latino contributions in new york city. what this means is that candidates whatever their own race, when they're running as we heard from karen earlier, they are chasing large dollar contributions when they run. and here's u.s. senator chris murphy being admirably frank about this fact. he's talking about how he

doesn't call anyone who can't afford to give him at least the thousand dollars who he estimates makes at least $500,000 a year. and they have different priorities than do the average citizens he's seeking to represent. the views are much closer to the general public than they are are to the donor class. and this means that when candidates are pursuing the checks from the donor class, they are, in fact, turning away from the needs and priorities of communities of color. we also know that there are barriers for we know that two-thirds of people of color in doe -- when candidates of color do run, they tend to raise less money than their white counterparts. 64% in the south. and all else being equal. raising less money hurts their chances of winning. this results in a democracy that is the not reflective of our population. here's some great research from the women's donors network this is what we have. in spite of the fact that 37% of

our population are people of color, 90% of our elected officials are white. the vast majority have little in spite of the fact that 37% of our population are people of color, 90% of our elected officials are white. the vast majority have little interest. those are the exact folks that political scientists have no apparent influence on the behavior of their elected officials. this leads to skewed policies across a range of issues. five case studies in a stacked report. it's the flip side of the same coin for the fight for voting

rights. and that's why we are fighting for a democracy where the strength of your voice does not depend on the size of your wallet. thanks very much. it's the flip side of the same coin for the fight for voting rights. and that's why we are fighting for a democracy where the strength of your voice does not depend on the size of your wallet. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thanks so much to our panelists, very interesting stuff. do folks have questions? we have about six minutes.

>> i think so. should've said stock portfolio. >> that works, as well. >> my name's james, i'm from the george washington university law school. i've always found this problem to be really paradoxical because it seems to the -- to the degree to which money is more influential in politics to the degree to which, you know, people's voices are heard less. and a small concentrated group of people are heard much more. people are less likely to participate because of that but at the same time, that's the very thing we need to have happen. in order to fix that problem. how is it we can address that situation when it -- the thing we're trying to do to fix it is -- i'm sorry. >> we get what you're saying,

yeah. it's a great point. when we with spend a lot of time describing the severity of the problem, there's a general sense there's nothing you can do to fix this. we as you see from the next panel in this event, also in the reports we're writing. jay made sure to mention solutions. in a report we're writing today. we actually spend more than half the report talking about how it could be different. the leading federal public matching fund bill were in place and showing how that -- the key thing we need to do is focus more and more on the fact that there are available, tangible solutions that can breakthrough the cynicism and get people involved. we need to build a movement here. that means as jay said, people going to the polls and participating. it means making this a voting issue. and it means ultimately knowing

that we will win. we will win this fight. and people need to get on board this train. because we're going to win this fight. we have solutions available. it's only a matter of time. and the week leading up to the anniversary of citizens united. there'll be a rally showing how much people care an event where the sponsors of the major public financing bills and constitutional amendment and solution bills are coming together to reintroduce that legislation to show there are people on the job working towards solutions. >> at the beginning, 120 organizations have signed on to it. the majority of them are not so-called reform organizations that focus just on campaign finance issues. it's groups that care about the environment that work on worker rights that work on cleaning up wall street. everyone's starting to realize

they can win on other things until we win on this. it's making a difference and it's tangible in that statement and everything adam just described. >> i see my colleagues greg moore and o'neill price from the democracy initiative. with nearly 50 million members who primaily work on other issues. we need to push through the road blocks in our democracy in order to have success on those core important issues. that influx has been a tremendous move forward in our field. >> i'm ryan clayton, i'm the executive director of wolf pac. i really liked one thing you said which is that one-half of your report focuses on solutions and what you can do to solve the problem.

if you have prevention of harm goals, you demotivate people to happen, but you can stwal encourage people to take action and mobilize them. i'm curious to know what your visionary outcome is. what does the world look like when we win? >> for me, i'll start. my world looks like a place where regardless of whether you're a teacher or plumber or wall street executive, you have an equal chance to run for office and your voice is equal in the political process. there's a great book out there called white collar government that points out that in the last couple hundred years, that is -- something is off, right. we don't need all lawyers in congress. we need some of them, but not all of them. we need folks from every walk of

life representing us. we need folks of all races and genders, et cetera. we have a big problem with underrepresentation of women and people of color. and we have people all walks of life running, participating, and participating effectively winning elective office and washington is looking a lot more like wisconsin and the rest of the country. and all these places where people feel rightfully they're not having their voices heard in our nation's capital. >> i think it has to do with how our government functions. how much money a member of congress has to raise every week to be reelected. the dirty secret in this town is that members of congress and even the state legislature level

that they're spending masses amount of time donor calls walking across the street to the dnc or rnc buildings to do this. and it gets in the way of them doing their real work what they were elected to do. we can put in real limits and put in real reforms that allow small donors and allow less big money in our system that our members congress and our elected officials continually have to ask for every day. to take up their time to divert their time. we might have a more effective government and more inclusive democracy and country. >> to ken. >> hi, i'm ken doyle. the list of solutions that you have in are pretty wide ranging from specific, fairly specific things like amending the disclosure and coordination rules to something that's very ambitious like amending the constitution. do you have priorities or ones that you view is more achievable? do you think about achieving things in stages?

or is there a road map to what you're trying to do? >> yes. i mean, i think the momentum that we've spoken about and the huge number of organizations that are working in this space mandates that we have a road map and a plan. certainly, you know, all of these solutions are necessary, and we think they need to happen in a row. we need disclosure to understand what's going on so we can advocate more effectively for public financing and for the amendment. each of those distinct campaigns. so, you know, we think we can win things on disclosure at the federal level. whether it's a new securities and exchange commission rule making or a strong irs rule making around political intervention. we think we can win things in states in public financing. in support of the amendment or public financing bills or protecting public financing statutes already in place. i'm not going to go into the entire plan now. at the end of the day, we want a system like adam and jay described. >> there's growing momentum on the local level for small donor matching public financing systems. we had a victory in montgomery county here in the d.c. area, and that's really sparked interest across the country.

there's some advisory ballot initiatives. and ballot initiatives percolating. and that's a real hopeful bright spot. and then also, i'd add another solution. because as you mentioned amending the constitution is a grand ambition, something we need to work towards and do. we at the brennan center and campaign legal center and lots of other groups here are also working on a complementary strategy. >> gives us a better chance of success. >> not a question, but a potential item. we have a comment period open right now through thursday last chance. and one of the items that's on the agenda is whether the fcc

should do more to approve disclosure of campaign finance money. there are things we can do. not every commissioner is onboard. if you care about this issue, we'd love to hear from you. we've got thousands of comments so far and most of the comments are pro disclosure. that's good. thank you. >> all right. on that note, we'll transition to the third panel. >> we heard a lot today about the problem -- we've heard about

the unity statement, we think is emblematic of the goals. the statement, again, shows over 120 organizations agree that we need more disclosure. we need the federal administration to act. we need legislative action. as i mentioned, the white house could act pushing the sec rule making to increase corporate political spending disclosure. as the commissioner mentioned, the fcc can act, these organizations agree that disclosure is needed. these organizations also agree that we need financing to improve the congressional and presidential systems. and they also agree that we need to overturn the effects of cases like citizens united and mchutchen. reclaim our constitution. so today, our final panel is

going to focus in on one of these solutions talking about public financing. which, again, we all agree on. and the members of all three panels are still here and can take questions on any of the stlugss mentioned in the unity statement. start off our panel and go to dan smith from u.s. purg and finish with matt lesser of connecticut to speak about his experiences with public financing in that state. >> hi, everyone, i'm the research director at public campaign. the word means being a town. and it comes from the tradition of neighbors helping a family relocate by literally lifting their house and moving it. there are traditions like this all over the world including barn raising in america. i think that universal spirit is here in this room. and that's good because as we've heard, there are a lot of heavy

houses to lift and move. small donor solutions make a difference, even with all the big money. our election analysis found that clean elections continue to work in states particularly in connecticut. and small donor base campaigns can work at the federal level, too. so the good news from the states is voters just elected nearly 300 clean publicly financed candidates in connecticut, maine and arizona. where small donor policies have passed. these are candidates who raise small, local donations sometimes $5 at a time. to qualify for public grants.

connecticut led the way with 84% of winners running clean and the strongest participation rate they've seen since the program started in 2008. maine and arizona's participation rates were lower than last cycle. part of that decline has to do with federal decisions such as citizens united. so it's good that local organizers are working to strengthen programs in all three states. who are some of these clean winners? a real bright spot for me is the continued success of women using these programs in connecticut, 89% of women winners ran clean, including marilyn moore, a community activist and the first african-american woman to win the state senate. in maine, 69% of women, winners ran clean. whose election slogan was clean elections, the way elections should be. she campaigned on issues such as access to health care and access security for all mainers. in addition to working for challengers like marilyn and

kathy, publicly funded campaigns work for incumbents like matt lesser who you will hear from shortly. matt won his fourth term using the connecticut program and he has risen to important positions throughout the state. before leaving the states, let's take a look at impact in connecticut. we found that since 2010, candidates have begun relying on a more economically diverse set of donors. this is particularly clear in the gubernatorial case. you can see where median incomes of 100,000 or more went from 71% in 2010 to 44% in 2014. we saw similar patterns among statewide candidates. when we apply that funding model, we found that 77% of them would've raised as much or more than we spent in 2014. and that's without going to a single new donor, which we know

they'll be incentivized to do. also, for winners who benefitted from outside spending, about half would have been able to support. and that's without going to a single new donor, which we know they'll be incentivized to do. also, for winners who benefitted from outside spending, about half would have been able to support. therefore, even in the challenging post citizens united world we live in, small donor programs and the candidates who use them can thrive. by making democracy work may

feel like a heavy lift. but when every voice is heard and we work together, it's possible. thank you. >> hey, everyone, i'm dan smith, i'm the democracy campaign director for the u.s. public interest research group. we're a federation of 27 state based public interest advocacy organizations with citizen membership across the country. and we're pleased to have partnered today to release our new study, the money chase moving from big money dominance in the 2014 elections to a small donor democracy. too often, a handful of deep pocketed donors gets to determine not just who gets to

win on election night but who runs for office and what issues end up making it on the agenda. and as a result, qualified candidates from both parties who don't have a network of large donors get filtered out before the americans head to the polls. in our report, we interviewed and profiled some of the credible qualified candidates who relied more on small donors but were significantly outfund raised and ultimately defeated. we profiled four diverse candidates. we had one republican and three democrats. two women and two men. one african-american. two that competed in the primary and two that made it to the general election. what all four candidates shared was a lot of success persuading ordinary investors to invest in

the campaign. but unfortunately, the way that our big money system works right now relying more on small donors resulted in these four candidates on average getting outspent 5 to 1. so i'm going to tell you a little bit about a few of these candidates and how things would have been different if we had a small donor public matching system as you've heard a little bit about that's laid out in representative sarbanes governor by the people act. 2014 was the first time that kelly westland, pictured here, a candidate for wisconsin's seventh district had run for congress. as she brought experience as a city council member, the head of a nonprofit, a small business owner to the race. and when she first told the democratic party that she wanted to run, can you raise $250,000 in three weeks.

and kelly recalls laughing and saying and i quote, no. have you met northern wisconsin. my network includes, is mainly based, made up of waitresses, police officers, firefighters. running in a district that had a median household income of $48,000. we also talked to david smith, a republican candidate running in florida's seventh district primary. a decorated former marine colonel in one of a district that has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country. smith felt that veterans were underrepresented in congress. he said that the money that incumbents bring is virtually limitless.

creating a system where small contributions are matched with limited public funds would allow grass roots candidates like westland and smith to compete with big-money candidates. the government by the people act would work to move us towards a small donor democracy in two principle ways. it would amplify the voices by matching small contributions that come in small chunks with public funds up to a ratio of 9-1. for candidates that decide to forgo big contributions. and secondly, it would empower more americans to participate in campaigns by providing a refundable tax credit for small contributions. this type of program as you've heard has already proven effective in states.

it's also proven effective in new york city where in the -- 2013 small donors in the city council race accounted for over 60% of participating funds when you factor in the match the largest source came from small donors with this program. if a small donor matching system were in place for the candidates we profiled, the four on average would've closed the gap by 40%. even if the opponents also took advantage in the matching program which we hoped they would do. there's a clear path toward small donor democracy that amplifies the voices of ordinary citizens and allows candidates to focus on average constituents to run their campaigns.

instead of waiting for federal action, most recently as adam mentioned, we saw in montgomery county in the fall enacted a small donor public financing system. and across the country signed on 90 local elected officials in support of this policy. it's time for congress to show that it is serious about getting big money out of our elections and enacting small donor matching system is a fantastic way to do that. i'm a state representative from connecticut. and i think my role here is to try to provide lesson from the

states, a message from an actual candidate who has actually run for office and holds office. i now have leadership title in connecticut. i'm the chairman of the banking committee. connecticut is home, fortunately, to a large percentage of the global financial industry. banks, hedge funds, whatnot. and to get where i am, i had to raise money not from calling wall street executives, but by calling my own constituents and asking for $5, $20, $40 contributions. i want to explain how we got there, how that actually works. particularly in the context of the post citizens united world. so first i want to thank the brennan center for hosting this forum, done a lot of work as well as all the partners here today. also want to give a couple of shoutouts to some nutmeg state natives who have been critical

to this movement. a former constituent of mine and our former secretary of the state miles rappaport. i got started in 2008. i was a 25-year-old ambitious candidate. i ran against a long time incumbent, a 68-year-old state representative who actually served in the nixon white house. and the story is almost cliche. i knocked on a lot of doors. he knocked on a lot of doors, i knocked on more doors. and in november, thanks to a national wave, i won narrowly and was elected to the house of representatives. that story is the way we imagine politics to work in this country. that's the cliche about how people get into office. but, of course, as we've heard this morning, that's very much not the case elsewhere in the country. your ability to leverage special

interests. and to illustrate that fact, i would point to the same district that i hold now. my predecessor was able to outraise his democratic opponent 5 to 1. and he won by about 2 to 1. two years later, when i ran, it was the first public financing program. we were on an equal footing and that changed the race, and i was able to win in that race. so -- i'll tell you a little bit about how our program works. as a state representative to get public financing in connecticut, i have to get 150 of my constituents to write checks of anywhere between $5 and $100. have to raise a grand total of $5,000 and the state comes in and matches that 5-1. gives us $30,000, which in a small state like connecticut is enough to run a race for the state legislature. the threshold is a little

higher, you have to raise $250,000. again in contributions of less than $100, anywhere from $5 to $100. and the state matches you 24 to 1. and the -- proof is in the pudding. because right now every statewide elected official in connecticut participated in public financing program. the overwhelming majority of candidates of both parties participate in the program in races for the legislature. and whenever you're looking at a public financing program, the way to check to see if it works is whether or not candidates are opting in, particularly in the most competitive of elections. how did we get it? well, as with all good ethics reform legislation, we got it because we had a couple of scandals. our governor went to prison.

we had a few state senators get in trouble, as well. and in 2005, connecticut embarked on an experiment. we copied the main law adopted public financing. and we provided enough funding to really make a fair and level playing field for both incumbents and challengers. one, that equal playing field. the fact that both candidates are able to get their message out, and you have a fair contest of ideas. two, this benefits both incumbents and challengers. i think that is absolutely critical. we've heard, we saw the quote from my senator, or senator chris murphy talking about how he hates talking every single day, asking people for donations over $1,000. the folks who pop late the donor

pool aren't the folks that our members of congress want to be talking to on a day-to-day basis. and the same is true on the state level. so it gives incumbents the ability to focus on issues they care about rather than the issues that special interests care about. and as the incoming chair of the banking committee, that freedom is really critical to me doing my job in a way that reflects the interests of the people of my state. it also benefits challengers. because as a 25-year-old, i probably would've had a lot of trouble raising enough money to challenge an entrenched incumbent. no political party -- those challengers were unable to win. many of those challengers happen to be republicans. i'm a progressive democrat. but in the city of new london, connecticut, an urban community, we have a 20-year-old african-american latino conservative republican take out a democratic challenger using

public financing. and he did it by knocking on doors. and i'm as inspired by his story as i am by the progressive legislators who have done the same thing. using grass roots support to change the system and really force all incumbents to prove they deserve to stay in office. now, the obvious question is this system was set up in 2005. it went into effect in 2008. but we're really talking about a system that was set up in the precitizens united world. so how have things changed over the last few years? well, there have certainly been tests. but we have seen a system that has evolved, that has been tested in part, but that has survived. and has really been a robust and i think very success