our freshman conservative colleagues and i think that's the reason that gary had such a profound and inspiring message and i think that we all will with respect to the opportunities that lie ahead for conservative solutions. in my case, you know, i ran against a republican incumbent. a 34-year incumbent who was frankly very well liked. but you know the reason that i have the opportunity now to serve in congress was, as tim said notwithstanding all of that, what i learned out on the campaign trail is that people are very much discontent with the status quo. there is a feeling out there, and i think that you know i hope to represent that feeling. i know that barry and dave would tell you the same thing, is that, you know, the feel out there is that washington is filled with a bunch of career politicians that have gone --

come up here, stayed too long, promised too much and ultimately become part of the problem that they were sent here to fix. people are looking for a different type of representative. and i think that that's something that we all are striving to be and see as a tremendous opportunity. you know out there you know, there is tremendous frustration. i caught the tail end of congressman jordan's comments. and i very much found the same thing to be true in the fourth cession nal district of texas that i'm privileged to represent. i don't have this opportunity because people have fallen back in love with the republicans. and you know out there in my district people feel like the republican party has been focused too much on the top 1%, that there's been too much corporate cone nichl, corporate welfare and corporate bailouts. but they're also convinced that the democrats are focused too

much on the bottom 3%, folks that are getting by on entitlements that don't really need them. and what they really feel like in maid l class or middle income district like mine is no one is fighting for the 96% inbetween. they see the debt, they see the poorest borders, too much taxation, and then they see a lawless president that repeat edly tramples or constitution. and they want to know will someone finally stand up for us. you know, i campaigned on those issues about being that type of representative. and you know, i think we're off to a great start. i think that we have some great legislation that's coming forward that really does provide conservative solutions. we're going to attack some of the problems that people have had to endure for the last six years. the next two years is an audition for the republican party, for my party.

we've got to convince middle america that we can do a better job, and that we deserve to have a republican president. and that if we have a republican president with a republican house and a republican senate, that we really can get back to the principles of reagan and the conservative beliefs that we all believe in. so. thank you. >> thank you, congressman. [ applause ] >> i've served in the state for about nine years. i had no intention of running for congress. i was something i had never thought of. and then the congressman who was serving in the district decided to run for the senate unsuccessfully. met with my home with my family who have been politically engaged. we were trying to find the right candidate. we're sitting around talking about it and the more we talked about it, the more my daughter and my two sons said, dad, you need to do this.

that's when all of the excuses started coming. no, i've had a small business that's been struggling over the past several years like everyone else, ve a nonprofit where we teach the values and the true foundations of american history. i kept going through all of the reasons why i couldn't run and i finally told them look after years of struggling, especially with the business we're starting to get comfortable again. that's when they daughter looked at me and said, so god called you to be comfortable? and as we talked about it, she expressed what a lot of people were feeling as this nation that you've taught me to love we're losing. unless we have the right people who are willing to fight the fight, we're going to lose it. after a lot of consideration and prayer, we decided that this was the direction to go. and as i sat with our campaign team, i said a lot of the things that gary and others have been saying without coordinating -- there was a coordination with all of the republican

candidates. i authoritied hearing the same theme, is that we need to quit defining ourselves by what we're against. that's what really has defined conservatives for years. we've been defined by what we don't like. let's be defined for what we're for and let's come up with solutions. we don't have to convince americans that their nation is off course. they know it. they're living it. obamacare is the reality. what we have to do is reinstall hope that we can make a difference. that's what we started focusing on. that we can make change. one of the things that i also realized and we've been talking about ever since the election is one of the problems that we have as conservatives is we have no strategy and we use poor tactics. if you want to use military terms. what is our strategy? you can boil that down to vision. we have a lack of vision. you know what the strip churs tell us. if you have a lack of vision, you will perish. and we started talking about what do we want america to look

look, not tomorrow, not next week, not two years not four years but by the year 2030. what do we as conservatives want america to look like. you see there's a lot of people in my generation we still remember what america used to be. what it could be. and it can be again. i tell the story of my dad who, when i was in high school he was a -- he worked for a building contractor. he came home from work one day. he said, i just wanted to tell you i started my own construction business today. and i remember thinking, i actually asked him. well, how did you do that? he said well i went and got a business license and i got the insurance and i'm in business. you know, the founder of home depot recently said he could not start home depot today in today's regulatory environment. but i remember when i was talking to my dad, i remember exploring it more. i said that's all you needed to do to start a business? he said yeah. what's so great about this country -- he's a world war ii

veteran, medic in world war ii. he said what's so great about this nation is you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do and the government is there to protect your rights so that in your pursuit of happiness you don't violate your neighbor's pursuit of happiness. i remember thinking america is so great you can do whatever you want to do except for a few things that government is protecting. but the mentality of the next generation following us is what will the government let me do. and we started realizing that not only do we have to define what america can be we have to define anytime a way that the generation following us that never experienced that america, that they would understand. i was invited a couple of months ago to speak to one of the colleges in our district to their political science class. and it with as joint political science and marketing or communications class. there was about 75 students in the room and majority of them

were minority. and after speaking to the class as it turned out, the majority of them were not associated as conservatives or in the republican party at least at the beginning of the program. but as we were there i realized that something we talked about in the campaign is a lot of times conservatives, we operate in this sphere of the mind. but most voters operate in the sphere of the heart. we have to connect those two. the topic they asked me to speak about was the bill of rights. i decided, let's talk about what the vision of the founding fathers was. what was the character? what was it that they wanted? and what was behind their pure suit of having a bill of rights instead of going down through each bill of rights. i wrote up on the white board i said i can put in one word the whole idea of the thought of the

founding fathers and i wrote the word liberty. we started talking about what liberty meant. i told them the story of my father starting his own business. as we progressed assad, now, let me ask you a question. what did the founding fathers belief was the greatest enemy to liberty? went around the room, british army, there were other suggestions. but right next to liberty i wrote government. our founding fathers said that the very thing they were creating was the greatest enemy to what they wanted to achieve and that's why it had to be limited. and i realized i was starting to connect. so i finally asked the group, i said, which -- how many of you in this room believe that you can achieve the american dream of owning a home. only three or four people raised their hand. and i asked them why? they said they can't afford it. so i asked them how many of you in this room if i could tell you

that tomorrow tomorrow we could reduce the price of a home by 50%, how many of you believe you could achieve the american dream? they all raised their hand. i said, let me tell wrub what the enemy to liberty can do by regulating. you see, i was just in a meeting with a home builder's association who told me that 60% of the cost of a new home is because of government regulation. it started to hit home with them. we went down a few other scenarios. by the time we got turn a young african american girl came up to me afterwards and he said, i have grown up in a house hold of democrats, my parents are a democrat, i'm a democrat. you just made a conservative out of me. she didn't say republican. she said you just made a conservative out of me. i said nom i didn't. i just let you realize what you already were. why? because we changed our messages and we built a vision a strategy. that's what we need to be doing as conservatives.

we have to convince the generation behind us. this is a multigenerational task. it's going to take a long tyke time to get it back. we have to be patient. one of the problems that we've had in the past is if we were a football team, the conservatives, every time we got the football we threw a hail mary pass. and if we didn't score, we assassinated the football team when they walked off the field. you win a football game by moving the ball down a field a little bit at a time to get the first downs and the first downs get you touchdowns and more touchdowns than the other guy you win the game. we have to be patient, change our mode, have a vision, change our tactics and we have to be working together. if you look at the liberal said of politics they don't agree on everything. there's a lot of disagreement. but they have learned to unify behind those things that they want to accomplish. that's how they have achieved that. we have to do the same thing.

i still believe in american except nalism. we have to define what american needs to be. the most dangerous thing we're facing is an $18 trillion debt. people have said it's im impossible. we'll never pay off that debt. americans can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it. they have a vision, set a goal and plot a path to getting there. if we were back in 1960 and i gave you this choice, which do you think would be the most possible. to pay off an enormous debt or put a man on the moon? every one of you would have said to pay off a debt. but if i recall there's only one nation's flag on the face of the moon. it's the united states of america because we set our mind upon a goal, we built an agency to manage -- if you think about it, it was the private sector that got us to the moon. nasa managed the contractors who are the ingenuity and the technology and they didn't stop

until they got it done. i still believe american exceptionalism is there and we have to spark that not only in this generation but the new generation and we can restore america so our kids will have a country that's free, safe and full of opportunity. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman. congressman brat? >> thank you tim. they saved the professor for last. are you ready for my hour of detailed talking points. >> buckle up. >> i'll try to keep it brief. thank you. it's a pleasure to be here at heritage. in my freshman crew who i came in with it's a great ride and i think we're going to do great things for all of the reasons you' heard. and i think heritage framed a nice session here as to what the american people wanted and i think you've heard from all of us what they want is people with ideals that stick to principles.

and so i'll just give you my opening stump speech and a few point and then i'll close. but whenever i pa give my stump speech i give my background. i went to princeton seminary and got a ph.d. in economics. and i always open saying i'm running to put economics and ethics together and it's not a joke right? so people take that as an oxymoron. how do you put economics and ethics together. not only put them together but our founders knew that. they all held those principles tightly and unified. but i said not only am i going to try to do that. i think it can prodistrict all of my few thur skroets. i would say adam smith free market economics and put it together with james madison who is from my district right and i got tom friends in the front row and back there in any district so they're going to hold me truthful here. hello, seventh of virginia. and if you put those two

together, right adam smith and james madison who authored the constitution, you can predict my votes. and i mean that. right? and i think my class means the same thing. we intend to act out princesiples principles. they're reporting home how they're voting and either they're going to buy it or not. and if we stick 0 our principles it's harder for the other side to knock you down with sound bites. so those are the u toepian principles and ideals we're trying to hang to. i ran on three issues that concern the young people in the room primarily. the debt is $18 trillion the unfunded liabilities $127 trillion. and our budget is about a third discretionary and two thirds nondiscretionary. so the entitlements are in the two-thirds that are in law. you can't change that spending piece until you change the law. just to give you a sense of what

$127 trillion means, those two programs will take up the entire budget by 2030. right? so the other side will run negative ads against us saying you're threatening these systems in senior. false. those systems are insolvent by 2030. they're broke. the budget is gone. if you want to know why education and the military is being crimped, it's because those four programs are including on the discretionary piece. that's a huge piece. i've taught students if the classroom for the last 20 years. i encourage them -- who is the only group up here that doesn't have a lobbyist that's doing the job. your generation. madison intended for this to be a government of factions and competing factions are a good thing, right? and so i encourage one of you can make a lot of money doing it, right? represent your generation, get up here and get a working coalition together on that

issue, $127 trillion. you got a good talking point to start off with. then i ran on obamacare a year ago when it was kind of theoretical. now the bill is in the mailbox. it's not theoretical. who watched "60 minutes" last night. y'all were watching football. you can hear i'm a little sick so i was bundled up watching "60 minutes." the bill is in the mailbox, everybody is seeing it. it's one thing in theory trying to sell the thing. gruber helped us out by pointing to the arrogance of the top down economic philosophy on the other side, right, the fatal conceit. to think you're going to run 20% of this economy as a command economy would using prices and the price system is the fatal conceit. and unfortunately we bought into that and we're going to all pay the price because that will take

a while to turn around. but i think you've haerds good news on this panel. finally i ran on illegal immigration. started off with a cheap labor argument and mar fed into kids coming across the border, 50 to 100,000 kids and then it morphed into a national case of security concerns. now it's all of the above and i couldn't believe someone could be on the other side of this right? there's too much common sense. and then it morphed into the president doing an illegal inrun around it, right unconstitutional. he said it's unconstitutional over and over and over. and i always go back to my free market principles and my seminary background on that issue. because the left trying to fake us all out and get all confused and whatever on that issue, as if we don't like people or something like that. and they couldn't be further from the truth. and so when it comes to

immigration, in this town it starts with data and talking points. no one ever backs it up to the nasal logic. why does everybody want to come to this country in the first place? that's the question. because we're rich. how did we get rich? because we got the chesterton christian tradition. the rule of law emerged uniquely individual rights emerged uniquely in that context and frae markets emerged every more uniquely in that contest. right? and so if you want to help people, we're arguing at the mar again about a million people or something like this, small ball. if you want to help 8 billion people on this planet who are all children of god, and i believe that if you want to help 8 billion people on this planet, what should you do? promote the rule of law and free markets in the home countries. that's what we did with our arch enemies of world war ii. it worked.

now they're our friends. seems like that's good evidence. and to let the other side cast us as not caring is false. we're the richest nation the countries that follow the principles are doing well. and so i am optimistic as well. we can't do it. we have done it. but we better stay true to those fundamental principles that got us here. heritage has been fighting the fight for a long time. so, i'm standing on huge, broad shoulders and a lot of people have done all the legwork and grassroots people out there who helped me in my campaign. so, i would spread that. i would have young people on my campaign. they would yell at people at the door. i would say, don't yell at them. i would say, just go up to the door and say, are we going the right direction or not? and so heritage hit it out of the park on having this session. what did we run on? we did run on the principles and the ideals that have made this nation great. they're not in dispute as far as

i know, but it takes courage to stand up and say that. and so, thank you all for having us here. i think we're happy to take a few questions before we have to go vote. >> thank you congressman. we have one right here. >> i would like to ask congressman brat. you're one of the few economic professors professors in congress. what basics economic 101 principles do they either not know or have completely forgotten or just abandoned? >> well, that's -- i get that. and it's kind of -- i open up with free market economics and ethics. and i don't think it's a lack of knowledge up here. there's plenty of people smarter than me up here. we had dick armey and phil graham and so i think it has to do with the political courage. when it comes to unfunded liabilities and the debt. we all know the problems.

balance the budget, these kind of things. i don't think there's any mystery on the economics. we heard jim jordan and my colleagues here say, i it takes courage to stand up to special interests. when you run a race, it's easier to win to go to a few big purses than a lot of small purses. for me it's not so much the economic knowledge. it's the political courage to stand up and state the truth in public and educate. that is -- that is the economic education of everybody, in k-12. the k-12 kids cannot tell you what a business is. so, that's an issue. i don't think it has to do with people up here. the kids back home in k-12 education can't tell you what a business is. that's a problem for workforce skills, et cetera. thanks. >> anyone else want to field that? we'll go right here. >> congressman brat, i want to congratulate you. thank you for being congressman.

>> thank you. >> i just got back from southern california, real quick and i voted for prop 8, which got turned over, as you know by an unjust judge. and i could go on talking about the illegal immigration process for hours. they've closed eight of the hospitals. 34% taking -- i know of chez low vak czechoslovakian man, a grandmother was coming up from guadalajara coming up once a month to get a check. i met a lady from the philippines who -- and her husband had been a veteran for -- fought in world war ii. they were waiting 11 years for an immigration and naturalization number. i could go down to macarthur park and get you an i.d. if you pass immigration reform, it will really -- i just don't

see this country recovering. i'm with ann coulter. i just -- i hope you don't. i pray to god thaw don't. and you realize -- i mean, i'm an immigrant. i'm a grandson of -- i'm jewish and i'm a minority. there are more mexicans fought for a miracle in the mexican/american war. that's in the north hollywood subway. this isn't about race. it's about right and wrong. i think a republican congress can stand for right and wrong and law and order. >> great. thank you. immigration reform? >> well, you bring up a great point, but one of the other things we have to change and the way that we operate as conservatives is we've got to take back the language. they have taken the immigration reform. and the truth is we need reform. we've just got to define what it is. we need to seal the border. when you look right now, the legal immigrants take 12 to 15 years, and sometimes up to $15,000 in legal fees to

immigrate to this nation. that's a problem. it needs to be reformed. look, we've utilized my granted workers in this nation since revolutionary war. we brought the french over with us to win and many stayed with us. we had a work visa program that worked. and i've been to south georgia farmers. i've been to their farms. i've met with them to see. many of these migrant workers that would come to this nation which -- through government policy is what we've driven ourselves to where we're so relied on migrant workers, but most of them prior to the last couple decades would come here they would work. most of it is piecemeal. they're making a decent wage. it's hard work. as soon as it's done, they go back. because what they make here, they live in upper middle class when they go back to their country. and so what we've done is we've tried to fix something that was working relatively well. and we've created a situation. now what we want is through

government policy -- poor policy we've created a situation where many of those migrant workers are afraid if they go back home, they won't come back so they stay here. now we want to give them amnesty. when i sat with a gentleman from ecuador recently. who is an engineer here. he's a legal immigrant. it took him 12 years, 12 years to legally come to this country. he sat across me and said, i supported you but if you let those folks come here illegally stay after what i went through, i'll never support you again. he's right. we have to be careful the way we message this because we're going to be seeking the immigration reform. it's rule the law. it's getting back. it's simplifying it. it's taking the red tape out of it. it's making it work the way it was intended to work in the nation. and so -- but you're right. giving amnesty is a slap in the

face to those who have done it properly. we need to make the legal immigration work. we have to seal the borders. it always amazes me when i was in the state legislature, we're so reactive. we always want to start a new law instead of enforcing the laws we have on the books. so let's -- let's secure the border. let's enforce the laws we have on the book. let's streamline the legal immigration system and have a work visa program that allows those that do need to come in the nation to work, we know where they are, we can track them. if we do that, then we can take a step back and look at what else needs to be done. >> yes, right here. >> thank you. brad harris with the religious society of friends. with the budget caps on defense spending, this is sort of split

a wedge among some conservatives. the defense hauction want to spend more on defense. some budget hawks believe it's become more government spending. i wonder if each or any of you could talk a little bit on where you stand on the defense spending caps. thank you. >> sure. i'll take it. so i think this goes to, you know -- i always talk about the fact that i believe in a limited government but an energetic government. and, you know, this sort of ties into a little bit about what barry was talking about. the federal government has one legitimate role. it's to provide for the common defense. and so you know, we talk about border security before. we spend $3.5 trillion on a whole bunch of things the federal government doesn't have

constitutional authority or ee dichlt cs to do yet we don't do the one thing well the constitution says we're supposed to do. so, when you talk about being a hawk i'm a national security hawk. i'm a former united states attorney. i'm a former terrorism prosecutor. i know that when you talk about border security, for instance, everyone wants to talk about immigration. but given my background, i'll tell you, it's about national security. it's about our first line of defense for stopping drug traffickers, it's our first line of defense for stopping human trafficking and it's about immigration. so, from my perspective, we always have to keep in mind that that is the one legitimate role of the federal government. now, having said that, within that role, within defense spending, there is absolutely no denying that -- that there is waste, fraud and abuse within the defense sector and other sectors. that's one of the things, as i

look at making those decisions, is making sure that it's money that's really going to be allocated for the legitimate purpose of our federal government, but more than that. >> the problem we have today is our military, the strategy should dictate the budget, but we're letting the budget dictate strategy. that's a problem. as you said, one of the legitimate or constitutional roles of our federal government. the problem with sequestration is the way that it is done. the best illustration is if -- my personal income,fy took a hit, as my business did back in 2008 to 2012 i had to reduce my income, which meant hi to go look at my personal budget. if i would have used the sequestration model, i would have gone and i would have cut maybe 10% out of my entertainment budget, 10% out of my food budget, 10% out of my travel budget, 10% out of my

home payment and 10% out of my car payment. that's great except for i would be homeless and wouldn't have a car. there's no flexibility in sequestration. that's one of the problems with it. there is some reforms, as we've recognized here. we need procurement reform. there's a lot of waste in the procurement process. most of the defense contractors are begging, let's streamline it. it's a shame that when we have a new technology, a new fighter aircraft comes off the assembly line you know, the -- it's approved for production. it's 13 years before the first one is flying and the chinese have already developed and put one out in a year and a half. i mean, these are the types of things we have to fix. but we have to let those who are on the front line of the battle, the generals who have the strategic view dictate what the budget of the military is not the budget dictate our strategy. >> great. i think we have time for one more and then i think we have to let folks go vote. yes, ma'am. >> hi. thank you.

i am just so proud to be here. proud to be a heritage sentinel. thank you for so much of the work you guys have done here. it's really made an impact in virginia. i'm a native virginian. so and -- yes, that's my guy. so, my question is though with the mandate november 4th from the american people and the reaction to crumni buchlt s in regards to john boehner, we've had a lot of great ideas and a lot of great action that all of your speakers have talked about today. how are we going to get the other side of congress to get it? how are we going to unite them to get what we get and what we want? and, of course, we would like to see their scores higher. >> you're referring to the senate, i assume? or you're referring to the democrats? or you're referring to -- where? >> well, with the cromnibus

being just passed and the outrage from the american people with john boehner, they feel that they were kind of let down, the november election, and they want to see what we're talking about here today. we want to see a real change. and we want to see our speaker lead that and unite our congress against president obama's agenda. so, i'd like to know how our plan of attack is -- because we have great ideas on the table but how are we going to implement them if we don't have a united congress with our speaker? >> well, let me offer a thought and then turn it over to our guests. that is one of the reasons we're holding this conference. i think that this -- one of the things that is really important about this conference is when you start talking about these ideas, when you talk about the race act or a school choice like

we're going to talk about tomorrow, when we talk about the energy reform tax reforms, all of these ideas, it becomes very hard for even the more establishment types within the republican party to oppose us because the ideas are right. you have the moral high ground. it becomes very hard for them to-to-say, well, i'm not sure i want to put that on the floor this year. i'm not sure it's a good idea to vote for school choice on the house of the representative this is year. all of a sudden, guys like the guys on this panel have the moral high ground. now, i'm not saying it's a magic bullet. it's going to be hard. we've got a lot of work to do this year to convince our leadership to adopt most of our agenda. but i do think they're open to it. i think when you start to talk about the issues and you start to say this is what we're actually going to focus on this year, i think at the end of the day, they're put in a place where they really need to consider putting that stuff on the floor. what do you all think? >> i hope you're going to see a

little -- a different congress. one of the things to keep in mind, and -- asked a similar question. how do we change things? and he responded by basically saying, you know politics is downstream from culture. people -- we would say this on the campaign trail. i want you to go up there and fix washington. i say, well, i can't do it. what president garfield said is if congress is reckless, ignorant and corrupt, it's because the people accept recklessness, ignorance and corruption. it's the people that send us here. what he's getting at, it isn't just a one-sided battle. there are multiple battle fronts and part of that front is within your neighborhoods, at your home. bringing more people into this because what is going to change washington is a demand from the people to change, but patience with that, too, realizing you don't turn a battleship around on a dime. it takes -- it is going to be a slow and frustrating process.

and not assassinate those you send in to fight the battle if they don't win on the first shot. the other thing is we have to choose our battlefields wisely. again, start moving the ball down the field a little bit. in '70-'74 jefferson was appointed to a committee to look at the top 15 issues facing virginia. ironically, the top 15 issues then are the same today. and the committee met and the house came out with their recommendation which was the biggest danger to the liberties of the american people is a lethargic people. we have to awaken the people. that's what i'm saying, the culture has to -- as much of a battle on this as we do. >> i'll just add i think there's good news up here. people do listen to the people, you all know that. the sentinel program out here is very good. and so i ran on principles i put them on paper ahead of time. that's basically what ethics is,

putting the rules on paper ahead of time and trying to follow them. don't think enough solutions up here have been in the trillion dollar ballpark. the problems are in the trillion dollar ballpark and solutions don't match up at that level. but our leadership, i think the switchboards lit up here pretty good on the cromnibus in the last month or so. so, i think they got the message. i think our leadership is doing some good stuff on this immigration bill we got going forward right now that came out of conference. it looks like the right elements are in there. for a start. nothing's ever going to be perfect. we can keep working on it. i applaud the people that keep us paying attention to the issues you you want us to focus on. i think we're getting the memo up here. it's coming over. >> great. well, before we break just one more note for tomorrow. we have a schedule change. senator rand paul was scheduled to speak in the afternoon. he's going to speak at 11:30 tomorrow. just make note for yourselves.

we have a great agenda tomorrow. we'll have members talking about education reform, defense, defense reform. we'll have senators rand paul senator mike lee, lots of folks on the agenda. we hope to see you tomorrow. please join me in welcoming -- thanking our panelists for their time. and thank you all for being here. president barack obama today chose the former secret service special agent, he installed temporarily in the wake of security breaches to become the agency's next director. an independent panel concluded that the job should go to an outsider. mr. clancy is a 27-year veteran of the agency and previously headed the presidential protective division. here's what white house spokesman josh earnest had to say about the appointment today. >> today the president selected mr. joseph clancy to serve as

the permanent director of the united states secret service. director clancy, who is a 27-year veteran of the agency and former special agent in charge of the presidential protective division has served as acting director since october 1st of last year. many of you will recall that director clancy stepped into that role at the special request of the president at a rather difficult time for the agency. and over the course of the last several months director clancy has demonstrated the kind of leadership that, frankly, many of us expected him to demonstrate. he has based on his long track record with the agency, a lot of credibility built up inside the agency and he used that credibility to put in place reforms that were recommended by this outside panel that the dhs secretary jeh johnson had convened. he's got a lot of important work still ahead of him. but we're certainly pleased to see that he -- his leadership thus far has been recognized with this permanent appointment.

>> at 3:00 eastern today c-span2 will have white house cyber security coordinator michael daniel as he talks about information sharing between the government and private companies. his comments will be followed by a panel of private and government security officials. later this afternoon, the first lady of afghanistan attends an event at the center for strategic and international studies on the state of women in afghanistan. c-span will be live with that discussion at 5:30 p.m. >> this week on c-span in prime fim, three nights of tech featuring the executives and innovators driving today's most successful internet companies. >> he leases a taxi for $40,000 a year. it should be a bentley or something. instead, it's just a taxi. and for that -- for that privilege of leasing that car for 40 grand a year, he can -- he gets to be impoverished.

>> all part of a special presentation while congress is in recess. >> israel, probably the top high tech country in the world went digit first for gdp, health care education to every location, movement of their cities south by the way cisco was a partner all the way through it. >> three nights of tech tonight at 7 p.m. eastern on c-span. the second circuit court of appeals heard a case for religious affiliated employers. the roman catholic archdiocese of new york -- this is about 45 minutes.

allows them to opt out of providing contra teps ive coverage and incentivize third parties to step in and provide that coverage. as d.c. circuit recently explained, government's independent actions and mandated in coverage. >> counsel, can i ask a question about the exemption, which already exists for religious institutions? i just want to know how it's working. how do those employees get contraceptive coverage if they actually want it? >> the employers of -- or the employees of religious employers, as that term is defined in the regulations, are not currently receiving coverage under these regulations. however, in this case, the

plaintiffs who are effectively exempt their employees would receive coverage. >> so if -- if they're exempt, if the institution is exempt, their employees don't get coverage at all? >> under the religious employer exemption that exists. and that's based on the special solis tud for churches it cross-references the provision in the internal revenue code that defines houses of worship and enter greated ancillaries. >> can you speak directly into the microphone. >> you don't get coverage. your answer is, employees who work for exempt institutions, because of the special solis tud, as you say do not get coverage at all? is that typically because co--religiousists usually work for those institutions? is that the reason? >> that is one of the reasons. however, again, the exemption for churches is a long-standing

exemption that exists in numerous statutory provisions including in the international revenue code. churches are exempt from property taxes from filing informational tax returns. again, the religious employer exemption here cross-references the internal revenue code. >> so if an employer however wanted coverage of this important service from an exempt institution, is there any method by which that employee could get it? >> the employee could independently seek out contraceptive coverage, but would not have it available without cost-sharing under these regulations. >> i see. >> which is why it's so critical that the accommodations that are in place here for the plaintiffs to take advantage of both with respect to their religious liberty by allowing them to opt out and become in the words of the supreme court, effectively exempt, so that they are sfratd

the provision of contraceptive coverage of which they object, but also ensures that their employees get that contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing. and the supreme court in hobby lobby emphasized the importance of accommodation of making sure employees received coverage that the effect on the employees of these institutions would precisely zero out of these opt-out accommodation, that there wouldn't be additional administrative or logistical burdens. again, it's important to emphasize the opt-out accommodation exists in order to respect the religious liberty of these plaintiffs and relieve them of any substantial burden under -- >> counsel i'm sorry for interrupting. how does the court determine whether a burden on religious exercise is deminimus, substantial? after hobby lobby to understand

what was we're supposed to be doing here other than rubber stamping a request to opt out or to not be part of this? >> certainly you know, as the d.c. circuit's decision makes clear, there is a role for the court to play. it's not rubber stamping the request of the plaintiffs. it's not allowing the plaintiffs to cloak religious judgment over the entirety of the substantial burden inquiry. and substashlt -- >> how do you decide if a burden is substantial? >> again, urn what we know under rifra a burden is not substantial if what the plaintiffs are objecting to are independent actions of government or third party. >> but they think it's substantial. and hobby lobby tells us we have to defer to the beliefs of the obtainer. >> and the government here does not contest the sincerity of

plaintiff's religious beliefs but as the d.c. circuit made clear, there's a role for the court to play in evaluating the nature of the asserted burden. in this case the plaintiffs do not object to identifying themselves as having religious objections to the provision of contraceptive coverage. they presumably don't object to notifying their third-party administrators or under the revised accommodations of the government that they have such an objection. what they're really objecting to is that once they provide that notice, the government then steps in and ensures that the gaps in contraceptive coverage are filled by incentivizing or requiring -- >> you say they're complicit in providing contraceptive coverage that goes against their religious beliefs. >> they do make that argument, but if -- the regulations make clear that there is a separation between these plaintiffs and the provision of -- >> so their belief is based on a

aye misunderstanding of the process, is that your argument? >> our argument is that there's no substantial burden under rifra because the regulations separate the funds that are used -- >> so you're saying that they are mistaken when they claim this is a substantial burden, is that what you're saying? they're just mistaken? >> what the government has argued is the court -- there's a role for the court to play in determining what the burden actually is. >> and how substantial it is. >> and how substantial it is. that's what the d.c. circuit did, the seventh and sixth circuits have undertaken a similar analysis. and the court there walks through very carefully what the regulations there provide keeping in mind that the plaintiffs in this case have an opt-out. the accommodation exists so that they can separate themselves from the provision of contraceptive coverage. and it's important to realize -- >> so it's a part of your -- an essential part of your argument if i understand it.

that the question whether the burden is substantial is a question for the court. >> that is correct. >> were it otherwise there would be nothing that the government could prescribe in such a program that wouldn't be defeated by the affected person saying well, if i'm asked to say, i object to it, my simple statement that i object to it, which will bring into play the government making this available through other methods, my mere statement that i object to it is a substantial burden. the court doesn't have to accept that. >> but, counsel how do you square that with this -- the following language from hobby lobby, it is not for us speaking about the court, to say their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial instead our narrow function in

this context is to determine whether the line drawn reflects an honest convictions, and there is no doubt that it does. that's what hobby lobby teaches us as the circuit courts. as long as they truly believe they are complicit, if they go through this process, we have to accept it. how could that be right? >> your honor the plaintiffs in hobby lobby were in a very different situation than the plaintiffs in this case because they were required under the mandate to actually provide the contraceptive coverage to which they objected. justice alito's discussion of the substantial burden in hobby lobby is based on those facts. >> correct. so they got the very accommodation that our plaintiffs here are asking for. >> that is correct. and in affirming that -- >> furthermore, the statement that judge pooler just read did not address the issue of burden,

the substantiality of the burden. it stressed the importance of the belief. and accepting the sincerity and importance to the plaintiffs of the belief simply doesn't address the question whether the burden imposed on them by saying, i object is a substantial burden. >> that is correct. there's no -- the government hasn't questioned the sincerity of plaintiffs' beliefs in this case but that does not mean there isn't inquiry with respect to whether the burden in the opt-out accommodation is substantial. as your honor noted earlier, the government in order to accommodate religious liberty must be free to allow opt-out accommodations such as these. the supreme court in hobby lobby made very clear in relying extensively on the accommodation that's available to plaintiffs here, that accommodation did two things. it respected religious liberty at the same time ensuring that the government was able to --

>> the plaintiffs are arguing that the law requires us to do an affirmative act in a way that's contrary to our religious beliefs. and that is a substantial burden. and the lower court accepted that argument. how do you respond to that? >> well, the plaintiffs are being asked to effectively raise their hand, to state that they have an objection to providing contraceptive coverage and to provide either their third-party administrators or the government with the bare amount of information they need in stepping in to fill the gaps that are created when the plaintiffs opt out of providing that coverage. this is -- >> so being asked merely to raise your hand is not a substantial burden as a matter of law. >> it would be the equivalent of the plaintiff in thomas, for example, saying, you know, i don't want to work on the

munitions line but i'm not going to tell anybody that i don't want to work on the line. i'm merely going to you know, not show up for work one day. this is how accommodations and opt-outs work, is that the plaintiffs have to identify themselves. that's what they've been asked to do. and i would say even if the substantial burden were met in this case, the government has established that the strict scrutiny requirement of -- >> is substantial burden the end of the line or is it correct that even if a burden is substantially, can nonetheless under the statue be outweighed by the governmental interest? >> that is correct. even if the -- even if the burden were substantial as we've found it's not, sixth and seventh circuits have found it's not, the courts have found a compelling interest in ensuring women receive this important health care benefit, access --

equal access to contraceptives for women whose employers object and women whose employers don't object. and by showing that that -- we've satisfied the compelling interest standard and this accommodation is the least restrictive alternative available to the government to satisfy the important interests in ensuring women receive contraceptive coverage. >> thank you counsel. you have reserved three minutes for rebuttal. we'll hear for the plaintiff. >> todd geremia. i would like to start with this discussion of the hobby lobby excerpt from which judge pooler read. that did indeed address substantial burden and it addressed an argument that is in period of time nent respects identical to what the government is ar guing here. in particular, what it addressed was the plaintiffs there stated that it was a violation of their religious beliefs to provide

insurance coverage that would allow for abortion. and the government in that case said that it's too attentive of a connection because what needs to happen in order for an abortion to be provided in that circumstance is that an actual individual needs to make an independent choice to avail herself of the abortion services. and it was in the very quote that your honor read from that the supreme court said that we are not in the business of evaluating that difficult moral and philosophical issue as to whether, by providing coverage, the hobby lobby plaintiffs would thereby violate their religious beliefs. >> counsel, let me follow up on a case that opposing counsel mentioned in her closing minutes and that that's thomas. in the d.c. circuit, either you or whoever was arguing for those plaintiffs was asked about the conscientious objector who objects to working in a factory

but is actually working -- object to working in a munitions factory but is actually working in a farm equipment factory before the d.c. circuit you or your colleague argue that a court must nevertheless defer to a plaintiff's mistaken belief that he is substantially burdened. would you give the same argument here today, same answer? >> well the thomas case answers that in a way that's i think particularly apt here. it said there that the plaintiff decided that it was consistent with his religious beliefs to make sheetmetal used for a variety of purposes but not to make steel that would be used to manufacturer a steel -- >> and did the -- >> i'm sorry, the supreme court there said that's the line that he drew. it's not our role to question that. >> so he's mistaken. >> it makes us complicit in the scheme. >> even if the line is drawn, based on a mistaken belief? that's my question. >> that might perhaps go to the

sincerity of the belief which the government does not challenge here. we have affidavits and declarations establishing that it is a violation of catholic teaching, and these were not lightly arrived here theologianses evaluated this before we brought the lawsuit, that it was a violation of catholic beliefs to comply with this mandate because it would thereby make us complicit in a -- >> if your clients don't want to raise their hand to say, we want this exemption, how does the government know that they want it? >> well, the government should not be able to ask us for that information. for example, if a -- if my neighbor asks -- >> then how does one implement this? it seems your objection is to -- your employees being provided with this coverage at all? because -- how -- i mean, how -- the insurers the government

they can't read your minds your clients' minds, how do they know they want this exemption? >> it's not the mere information. it's -- doing the notification the government is conscript a party administrator. our client would contract with tpas that would not provide this. now by the scheme, the tpas are authorized to provide the information and, indeed in order to seek reimbursement, they have to go through the scheme. so the fact they're using our tpas our contractual relationships and interfering with our business and our morality, that is violating our religious practice. the government could do it any number of ways to ask us for the information that doesn't involve actually enforcing our administrators -- >> you have no objection to identifying yourself as an institution that is seeking the institution? >> no, we don't. >> isn't that sort of opting in?

>> it is -- i mean, the whole opt in/opt out terminology is not appropriate. it's not just an opt out. it violates our beliefs. to identify ourselves we don't object to it. >> what if you discover after you identified yourselves, the government using tax records went to each one of your employees and offered this coverage? >> that may be a different question as to -- >> that's the question i'm asking. >> yeah, i don't know the answer. i don't know that that would -- we would deem that a -- >> would you come back and say -- >> i'm not a theologians, i can't answer that question. it might be a different lawsuit. i doubt it. you know, we do believe that the government may certainly provide these services. we don't want to be complicit in the scheme. >> but wouldn't you -- >> that strikes me as it would make us complicit. >> so, you're saying you're applying your analysis to other cases, for example. supposing that the entity in

your position in your client's position objected not only to -- objected on sincere religious grounds, not only to contraception provision, but to all. provision, that it offends god to give medical treatment, it would work the same way, right? if the statute provided that the person merely -- the entity merely needs to identify itself and say it has this objection and that will bring into play the mechanism that provides -- provides the medical coverage otherwise, that person is in the same position as you that it -- that the -- it offends rifra to oblige that entity to say we object to providing medical coverage? >> yes, i think so. >> if i can add two things to that. you know, one point is that the lee case -- i think it's the lee case, about the amish parents

who objected to providing -- providing high school education an important right. the court there said that high school -- that in that case their beliefs would trump the state's interest in providing a high school education. now, there may be some questions in the example that your honor raises as to whether the state has a compelling interest and uses least restrictive means. but in terms of the substantial burden inquiry the court does just have to accept the belief. if it's sincere. the government can always challenge and seek discovery and litigate over the sincerity of the belief. it didn't do that here for good reason. these beliefs are sincere. it couldn't challenge it. >> that's right. the supreme court says you can't challenge the sincerity of the belief. >> you can -- if the belief is sincere. the court has to accept it. but the court can challenge whether it's sincere. >> it seems to me you're con conflaing the sincerity whether it's substantial. they're not the same question.

and while you may say, and correctly so that the hobby lobby case involved in some way similar questions, the sentence judge pooler read did not address address, if i heard it correctly, did not address whether the burden was substantial. it addressed the question whether the belief is sincere whether the person -- the person really does have a religious objection. but that's not the same thing. >> the court was addressing the belief in the context of a substantial burden analysis because step one in that analysis s you have to identify what the belief is and then step two, as court stated, have you to identify whether there's substantial pressure. >> yes in the context of it. nonetheless, the sentence, the words that were read, did not address the issue of whether the burden is substantial. they were talking about another aspect of the inquiry.

>> the -- that part of the opinion address -- >> why would we even have substantial -- why would we even have substantial burden in the test if all the person whose burden needs to say, it's substantial and that's makes it as a matter of law substantial? then there's no test of substantiality. >> it may help the court -- at least my view on this is the substantial part of that question is i submit quite easy here because the penalty for us not complying with the mandate is crippling fines. there's some quibbling about the amount of the fines but it's $100 per day ber beneficiary or $2,000 per year per beneficiary. for these plaintiffs, nonprofits, those would be crippling and put them out of -- out of nonprofit business. so, it's not -- it's really no question there is -- it is substantial. that inquiry goes to for example, if a religious adhere rant in one of the cases is

forced to go around the corner to do something. this is unquestionably substantial. the government is litigating now whether it's a burden. >> the issue -- the issue to which substantiality applies it whether it is a substantial burden to fill out the form and say we object. that's -- that's -- that's what it is -- isn't that -- isn't it correct that the question is whether that is a substantial burden? >> the question is whether by complying with the mandate, including executing the form of the notification, we are being made to violate our religious beliefs by -- we believe this makes us come policeplicit it we scheme that violates our beliefs. judge pooler referenced before. >> counsel, moments ago you told me that you wouldn't object to filling out some sort of form to

opt out as long as you didn't have to go through your own tpas. isn't that what we discussed? >> we did. that might be the case. can't answer that definitively as a matter of catholic doctrine. >> but filling out the same form, you say, i want to take advantage of this exemption, so as long as your tpas were not involved and you never negotiated with your tpas, you would find this an acceptable burden? >> i think that may be the case. i mean, but it's -- it's really quite distinguished from what's happened here which is that the government takes these tpas. now we say we don't want to you provide the coverage. and the government has now implemented a scheme where i believe, they haven't said that we can contract with tpas and have them not provide this service. the government intends the tpa to provide these services and to get in the way of our ability to contract with them to say they can't. >> excuse me. you wouldn't mind if the government talks to your tpas as long as you don't talk to them, isn't that correct?

i mean have you to be a tpa it's either yours or someone else's. someone has to administer this. so, as long as you never had to have a conversation with your tpas you would not object then to letting the government know you wanted to take advantage of this accommodation, is that correct? >> the conversation we have with the tpas now is we don't want you to provide it and the scheme makes it -- precludes us from -- >> you wouldn't be -- >> the tpas now have to do it, or at least the tpas may avail themselves of it in a way we would preclude them from -- >> what if the tpas got no instruction from you at all and once you identified yourself, the government could begin talking with your tpas and telling them to provide this coverage, would that -- would that make the burden less substantial? >> i think that would make the burden less substantial. i can't answer the theological question but the current scheme -- >> it's a real -- >> the certification operates as an instruction to the tpa to do

this. >> but the form of the self-certification. >> and the notification in turn -- >> the reasoning of the -- of wheaton college. i mean, cheaten college says, you don't have to use the form up. can write your own letter. can you do it in substantially your own words. why doesn't that reasoning control here? >> well, in the wheaton college case your honor wheaton college injunction did not make clear, as the regulations do that the effective notice is going to be that the government will -- will require the tpa -- >> you could write in the letter -- >> the tpa injunction was -- >> in your letter -- hold on. when i'm speaking, please. your clients could write in their letter, we think this is wrong. we don't want to be involved. i mean, how does saying we object be translated into an endorsement of some kind which is what you're arguing?

>> it does in two respects because we believe it does. i don't want it to be a -- you know an overly terse answer but that is the end of the inquiry for the court. we can debate here about whether that belief is correct and whether it's logical but that is the legal analysis for the court is we believe it makes us complicit and in the absence of a challenge to the sincerity, which there is none here, the court has to accept that. and then here as opposed to wheaton college the consequences really underthat belief it's making us complicit -- >> perhaps we have to accept that it is complicit but do we have to agree that it's substantial? >> i think you do only on the fact that the fines are so substantial and by virtue of -- >> but you can avoid the fines by submitting the letter. so then it's -- the submission of a letter that says we object is that and assuming that

somehow makes you complicit, is that a substantial burden? >> that's an exercise of our religious practice in a way that -- that's the same -- really the same thing, you know the hobby lobby plaintiffs said that it makes us complicit -- >> hobby lobby says there's no exemption and points to the nonprofit situation as -- obviously, it's not a ruling, but the way it's written it seems to say here's a way you could do it without a substantial burden. do it the nonprofit way. >> hobby lobby had a sentence -- this is a little beyond what judge pooler read but i think it's particularly instructive. it says this belief which implicates an important religious philosophy namely the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act which is innocent in itself but has the effect of enabling or facilitating an immoral act by others. that's us. that's what's happening here. hobby lobby addressed the accommodation in the context of

least restrictive means where the plaintiffs didn't object to it. we do. and, frankly the government here hasn't even made -- tried to make a showing there's a least restrictive means. it kind of punts on the issue. >> if i can summarize your argument, the role of the court is not to judge substantiality but to judge sincerity? and by what standard would we judge sincerity? do we have a meter where it goes from nonsincere to very sincere? >> the role of the court in this case is not to evaluate sincerity because it's not an issue before the court. you have to evaluate whether there is a substantial burden on our religious exercise. >> right. but you told me that the role of the court at least hobby lob y may have told us that our job is not to judge the substantiality. the d.c. circuit actually said it is the role of the courts to judge the substantiality. but you tell us our job is to judge the sincerity. once we find it's sincere, our

job is over. >> it's -- the court articulated the -- in jolly which was also from tillman. and substantial pressure here is, you know, are you forced -- what does the government do to force you to refrain from your religious exercise or modify it in some way? and our religious exercise here is that we don't want to and we think it's immoral to execute the self-certification form, thereby, be complicit. what are the consequences if we don't do it? there are fines. that's the pressure. that part of it i don't think the government has an argument whether that's substantial. >> so, counsel, before i let you go, i want to just make sure that i understand our earlier discussion about what your clients, you think might be able to endure. as long as they don't talk to their tpas even if the government does, that would not be a substantial burden and would not make them complicit in contraception, is that correct?

>> it's the right -- right now we are being prohibited by this regulatory scheme from entering into contracts with tpas that don't provide this coverage. that's our exercise. >> right. >> i believe it would be interfere with that exercise if there was a scheme that somehow prevented us from contracting the tpa and telling the tpa we don't want you to provide this coverage and we're not going to contract with you if you do. >> you wouldn't be able -- >> your position was -- i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. you wouldn't be able to tell your tpas not to provide contraceptive coverage if you just tell the government, i'm omenting out, and your we'll would end right there. >> sitting here today without having the -- our clients evaluate it, it seems to me that would burden our exercise to not be able to deal with the tpas and say, we don't want you to provide this if you're going to enter into a relationship with us. this is predicated on our relationships. they don't get the burden unless they -- >> i thought earlier you said --

maybe i misunderstood -- as long as you didn't talk to the tpas or they got a neutral message from you you would not feel you were complicit. >> i think the government could talk to another provider if they wanted or set up a different scheme but i do think, you know, again not wading through all the facts -- >> you're not a theologians. >> i did take theology in high school, catholic high school. >> i thought the gist of your argument was that what makes the burden substantial and what makes it so objectionable is that you are being -- is that in order to obtain exemption under the main date, you are -- are required to do an act any act, the result of which is that the thing that you object to is caused to happen through another route. because you -- by virtue of your submitting your objection on a

piece of paper, that triggers the government taking action which results in the provision of the coverage that you object to to the employees, isn't that correct? >> it's -- it's not any act. our facts shown below was addressed to this situation and that's what -- we believe it's this act. >> how would it be different if the act were a different act. for example, if you were simply being told you'll be provided with a button. all you do is you press that button that will bring into play in the same way as this scheme is brought into play by your feeling the objection, if you press that button if a different act, you're pressing that button will bring into play the government financing of the things you object to. how would it be different? if that were the case you would come before us you would say well, when we press that button, we are facilitating and indeed, bringing about the very things

we object to. we are complicit. >> if i can make two points. i don't know that we would, first of all, if by pressing the button the government thereby goes to some other administrator, not ours, with whom we contracted to arrange for services. we may not object on that. i don't know the answer to that sitting right here. >> how would it relieve your conscience? you're pressing the button is not substantially different an act from filing a form. >> this is what i was going to get to. this is the kind of thing. hobby lobby said these are difficult, philosophical and moral questions the court is not in the business of resolving. if -- i'm not saying -- >> the court is very much in the business of resolving questions like whether a burden is substantial. that's the kind of thing that courts evaluate every day. >> but if we made a factual showing for our bishops and theologianses made a determination that it violates our religious beliefs if for

example, the -- pressing the button thereby has the government providing the services through somebody else i don't think we would arrive at that conclusion. but if we did, hobby lobby instructs that's what the court has to simply accept. now, the government could litigate over whether we sincerely beliefve that. once the sincerity is not an issue and it's not here then -- >> so your definition of substantial burden is anything that the -- that the effected person says sincerely it considers -- >> it's a substantial pressure and the court can always look at what's the nature of the pressure applied to modify the belief. and the government can litigate over whether that's the belief. once the belief is set, and it is here that's what has to be accepted. the court's role is to say, well, is there pressure to change that or not practice --

not engage in that practice. that part is really simple here because you have these crippling fines. >> thank you, counsel. >> thank you. counsel, you reserved three minutes for rebuttal, but since we gave a little extra time if you run out a little bit, i won't object. >> thank you, your honor. a few quick points. primarily of clarification. but first, one thing that particularly struck me about the appelee's argument is they made clear that their objection is not identifying themselves as wanting an opt out but to the government taking independent steps to ensure that their third-party administrators provide contraceptive coverage to what is in this case alone tens of thousands of dependents and their beneficiaries. and the third-party administrators -- >> what i found them say is they object to them not being able to talk to their tpas.

>> and again, under the revised accommodation, there's no requirement that the plaintiffs talk to their tpas. >> well, they can't instruct them either not to provide contraceptive coverage, correct? >> well they no longer would be telling their tpas not to provide contraceptive coverage. what they would be doing is notifying the government that they would not like -- like the tpas to provide the coverage. >> and this is the very accommodation that the court found acceptable in hobby lobby. >> acceptable in hobby lobby. and in wheaton college, which the revised accommodation is based on the court made clear that the notice that wheaton college was providing the government could be used by the government to ensure that women received the full range of contraceptive coverage under the act. that's essentially what the plaintiffs are being asked to do here, is to notify the government that they are choosing to opt out. and then the tpas that we're talking about in this case are

blue cross blue shield emblem united health. very large third-party administrators. >> the suggestion was made that -- i don't think there would be an objection if the government contacted another tpa, not their tpa. is that feasible? is that a less restrictive alternative? >> what's available under the revised accommodation is -- and i think it's important to emphasize in this case the government is not actually requiring the third-party administrators of the plaintiffs to do anything because they have church plans. so what occurs is the departments notify the third-party administrators that there are incentives available to them under the federally funded exchanges. it's then entirely voluntarily on the part of the tpas to provide the contraceptive coverage. the present regulations wouldn't allow the departments to contact different third-party

administrators. but, again, the tpas we're talking about here are blue cross blue shield united health emblem. they're large, administrators and the plaintiffs are able to opt-out entirely. they are effectively exempt as hobby lobby made clear and as wheaton college made clear should prevent or preclude the departments from ensuring the tens of thousands of employees and beneficiaries of plaintiffs plan receive the full range of contraceptive coverage. >> is there anything that prevents the plaintiffs from communicating with the tpas in whatever manner that they choose? >> the plaintiffs can continue to communicate with the tpas and i should also clarify that nothing -- they make a point in their brief that they are required to maintain a contract

with their current third-party administrators. that's incorrect. there's nothing in the regulars for them to maintain their current contract. >> suppose they went to tpa and said you do what the government is inducing you to do by these brandishmen ishishment brandishment, we'll drop you. >> they could drop those particular third-party administrators. there's nothing in the regulars that precludes them from doing that. >> they could do that. >> they could. this issue was addressed in the d.c. circuit. i believe it's footnote 19. >> there are a limited number of large tpas in the country so eventually they would have to find one that administers a plan for large number of employees is that correct? >> that's correct. again, you know they have third-party administrators to administer these plans.

the government is incentivizing them. >> what if it advertised itself as one specifically designed for religious organizations, and the brochure in which they sought clients said we'll never provide contraceptive coverage and they found this person, this tpa, what would the government do? >> well there's actually a case that presents those facts that's currently pending. i believe it's in the 10th circuit where i think it's christian brothers associates as a third-party administrator that does not provide contraceptive coverage. that case is currently being litigated. again i would emphasize what the government has done here -- >> i understand. it's one step from here to there. that's what's happened to these cases. for instance if the plaintiffs

are successful here should we not expect to see hobby lobby asking for the exemption rather than the accommodation as well? >> this is part of the difficulty in these cases because as the supreme court made clear in hobby lobby the reason it relied so heavily on the accomodation was the accommodation ensures contraceptive coverage is still provided. that's unlike the exemption for the religious employers as your honor pointled out at the beginning of the argument. here the thousands of women who need contraceptive coverage to plan their pregnancies properly, to ensure not to being pregnant when its contra indicated they are maximizing the outcomes for their babies and themselves from a health perspective to achieve equality with men to stop paying 68% more than men for health care, all of those interests are satisfied when the accommodation

which respect plaintiffs religious liberty is in place plaintiffs take advantage of the opt-out and the government incentivize the women who need them. >> i have one question but i don't know that you have the answer. how do we judge sincerity of belief? >> sincerity of belief is not at issue in this appeal. the government again doesn't contest the plaintiffs have sincere religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage. again the substantiality of the burden that's at issue is a standard they have not satisfied.

>> we need not determine the sincerity of plaintiff's belief. it's a difficult issue. the question here is the legal question is the substantiality of the burden. the plaintiffs are under the regulation aside from contraceptive coverage. every effort is made to notify employees their employer is not funding contraceptive coverage. what plaintiffs are objecting to is the government incentivizing or regulating third parties to meet their compelling interest and that does not allow. >> thank you. thank you both for a very good argument. we'll reserve decision. i'll let you clear out. the next case on our calendar is martin stoner versus the young concert artist, incorporated.

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the potomac institute for policy studies in arlington virginia. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. and we want to thank you for joining us here today. i'm from the potomac institute for policy studies and on behalf of our president and ceo, and the chairman of our board of regions we're pleased to have you join us today. potomac institute is celebrating its 20th year in existence and we usually look at those science and technology and stoney policy issues that are associated with that. but we also delve into innovative areas. and we're able to host events like this that allow the returning commanders to speak and speak about what they did on their deployments. that brings us to brigadier general dan yu who is with us today. a scholar. a trainer. and a warrior. first of all as a scholar got

his masters from college of naval command in new port, rhode island. he also was a national security affairs fellow at the hoover institute in stanford. as a trainer. lieutenant colonel as a commander. had one of our infantry training schools on the east coast. he was also a trainer with the afghan national army. he's been on the ground in afghanistan several times. he was also the commanding general of the marine corps depot on our west coast. as a warrior, both a float unit and of course on ground with his efforts here that he's going to talk about but with the operations officer for the 26th mew and that unit is demanding in peace and war. daniel you have some scars from that tour. he'll talk to us about his time in afghanistan.

please join me in welcoming dan yu. [ applause ] >> thank you for the kinds introduction. always great to see you. you look great. hope 2015 is as good as your previous years. general stallworth, a mentor of mine. good to see you. i saw colonel paul walk in here and i think we walked the pentagon halls when i was a young major learning my way around when he was up there as a colonel. great to see you there too. i think i'm going stay behind the lectern. i don't prefer this method but because we're being recorded it will be better for audio. my voice will carry anyway. i got my sergeant major doug

barry, accompanying me to keep me out of trouble on this tour of post-deployment briefs. i apologize, we were to come to potomac institute in december right on the heels of our retrograde back in the united states and we also had the afghan leadership that we brought back. and we wanted to bring them back for several reasons. we wanted to thank them for their steady partnership while we were in the country. we wanted to capture oral history of our experiences with the afghan national security forces and expose them to the larger d.c. and university down at marine corps university as well too. so we ran out of time hosting them. but we wanted to ensure we got back they're address some of the other audiences that were interested in our deployment. identify never been a real fan

of post-deployment briefs and what i did on my summer vacation, what we did i think is more germane from an internal marine corps perspective and historical perspective but i think the potomac institute in which it pursue versus important so we wanted to make sure we got back out here. >> it provides a backdrop. i hope i want will be a dialogue. i'll try to blow through some of these slides as quickly as possible because i know we're under a time constraint to 1600. the reason we use the slide and general campbell adopted this too. those that are familiar with our campaign in afghanistan but

specifically rc southwest and the marine led coalition down in the southwest, it was a coalition and that represents the members of the team and it was a coalition from the beginning until the very end. other aspect of it accurately reflects where we were when we ripped in and took toho during our at the entrepreneur there. full security responsibility and the 2014 when we were going to transition to resolute support. as great marines always do you're surrounded by better marines and the young marines from our camera came up with this and i think it captures the essence where we were in the shadows and they were in the

lead. when we showed up and they took it all from us when we left. next slide. i guess i'm my own slide clicker. what i tried to do here. we tried to build a brief from micro to macro. we came in february and if you look at the bottom -- excuse me. if you look at the bottom portion of the slide there was operation steel falcon had already started to execute and we finished and that took us up to june. the perspective as we showed up there was it was a long year, which we knew we would face many challenges and some of them very historic in the history of afghanistan. but it went by very fast because there were so many challenges encountered on a daily basis. flexibility was important from both a mental agility and from an operational capability.

what we highlighted here were some of the major milestones that you'll see but most significant from an afghan perspective was the national alexandrias s elections they had in april and we anticipated there would be a runoff based on a previous experience in 2009. not sure when it would happen. there was discussion it would happen right away. we realized the logistics with international observers and those things that an election runoff would take longer. it happened to fall right at the, in the middle of the summer fighting season that we historically had been accustomed to. then obviously the result the inauguration, the signing of the bsa. all these blue triangles represent where we were in the campaign. if you didn't believe it because you read it in the immediate where a i saw it firsthand. the afghans were in the lead in the south and i have a slide that shows their force disposition. if you look at what the previous

iterations did to set the conditions for them to take the lead in june of 2013 and then transition to where when we got there in february and prepare for the elections for the eventual full security responsibility they have they lifted off in the south. they were being very successful down there. then we actually the british contingent and that's what these blue boxes represent they are the rotation the rotations the brits had traditionally done. they were in hellman. this box representing all the coalition members and when they ended operations during our tenure there. as you can see when it lifted off our focus was getting rid of a layer of command, they had a one star command where we became

subordinate to me directly. he left and those individuals worked for me in a relationship. but more importantly is really when we started lifting off after the initial election, we transferred fourth brigade which was the youngest brigade of the corps. we lifted off of them and then we lifted off in northern hellman even before the election runoff. that's something people miss. for the initial elections we were there and co-located. next to the district center so we could monitor what was going on from the perspective of the elections at the same time minimizing operations because it really was an afghan-led and planned, organized and executed election from the security to the actual election itself. we lifted off from central

helmund. when you talk about where they are today, that really happened during our tenure and what this lays out is a historical perspective of when we arrived we knew the surge would come alibi eventually the lead elements with general nicholson and the men that came in there were few afghan national security forces in the ao. the general took a brigade in kandahar and that was the foundation of the 215 corps which has four brigades and subsequent slide you'll see the size of their capabilities. then the similar thing with afghan national police. when you talk about the afghan national police those are multiple pillars. when we started off in some areas of southwest you would have a 10-1 ratio of coalition members to afghan security

partners. at the end when they took lead responsibility specifically in transition it was the reverse. so in military terms, we were the supportive force, supporting force to them early on and they truly were the supporting force for us when we lifted off because when i showed up there, there were two lines of operation we were focused on. one was security force assistance and the other one was called force posture. force posture was the perspective of the remediation, retrograde and redeployment all forces in good order. there was discussion about making the third one force protection being a security operations and i was against that because i honestly believed one, force protection is a war fighting function but continuing action that we do as marines and so it was always the foundation of everything we did but those were the two lines of operation. and as you can see, it's quite a success story and i'll talk more

about it. we'll go the next slide here. for those that aren't familiar this is really the battle space that the afghans own out there and it encompasses two provinces. at one point it was all part of rc south up to the creation of rc southwest. so you had the four rcs, north which is recently led by the germans, east the army of the south that went from the canadians to the brits to the u.s. and then you had the west which is the italians. so they created rc southwest during the surge time frame. and, again, as you look and see the size of the battle space, and the numbered districts and in context to the u.s. and uk you can see it's dense terrain. if you look over to the left, those are the, your left your

left right here these are the leadership of the civilian military apparatus in the province or what they call the zone now because it encompasses both two provinces. so although you have two provincial governors there the one military commander, he was responsible for the whole of both provinces but also was dubbed the zone commander. for unity of command and effort they created a zone. the provincial police chief was his deputy. you would have all the pillars working together. and they worked very closely together during the elections. we'll talk a little more because i want to get into a little bit about the summer fighting season and all the stuff you read in the press and what in my view was some of the inaccuracies in the press and where some of the friction points came too. the national director of security, which is their intelligence instructor and the

other pillars between the commander, the border police commander and the alp commander that is not shown on here. but as you can see when you look at the task, and it equates to structure. whether they can fill it or not based on recruiting and attrition. what's assigned is what shows up on the roles right now and what's on hand is at any given day. the disparity between that comes because of casualties and also things that they call drop on request, what we would say is unauthorized absence. a lot of the individuals that go on unauthorized absence, they drop them from the roles and the dates have changed. used to be 30 days. now i think it's 60 days. but on a positive note a lot of them come back. 70% of the people that are dropped in roles come back after they come off of leave for

whatever reason why they didn't return on time. but the bottom line, if you sum total the on hand that's a significant amount of combat power in the ao to provide security and stability for the region. and then you have a very small footprint mostly border place. it was a model of self-governance and security throughout the region. the other thing that's important to highlight here is the border, significant border with pakistan and obviously iran to the west. this gives you a perspective of the insurgency as we saw it. when you look at helmand itself we talk about highway 1 that goes all around the country but specifically from the east when you come from kandahar all the way through and up through the west there. that's key terrain from the

perspective of the ansf and from thing insurgent as well. what's critical for the insurgency is up here is northern sagan and what helmand represents to them from cultural and historical perspective for the taliban. a lot of the leadership are from that region up there in northern helmand. there's a monetary value because of the illicit trafficking that happens up there. it's very important because you see some of the major facilitation routes. if you put it on all the facilitation frouts the west and the south, southwest is really a sieve for illicit and illegal aid that comes in and out of the country there too. when you look at it from the perspective of where we saw the counter insurgency that the afghans were leading the best way to describe it is good better, best. best because the south again,

based on them taking the lead and the cross pillar coordination between the district governor and the mayors and the security forces, whether it's a police organization or an ao organization. when you talk about sagan being important the reason is there's a lot of illegal mining going on down there. then the reason kandahar is important when you talk about decisive terrain kandahar is decisive terrain and helmand is. helmand is important. the two of them are very dependent on each other. kandahar in my view is the most important province to the insurgency. as you can see, when you look at this, what we saw this year was no different than any previous year from the ttps and the objectives of the taliban.

their number one objective is to make sure they remain relevant to the population. that they are a viable alternative. the second thing is i think from a perspective of io, and relevancy to the insurgency itself, and then i think the other thing that we saw from a strategic mistake when the april 5th elections happened, for whatever reason and there's things between resource short falls, between fracturing of the senior mid-level leadership to the wait and see mentality of the elections they failed to act. i think it's probably a combination of those but most importantly from the perspective of security provided by afghans, the afghan national security forces were very pro active shaping during the winter fighting season which really wasn't a winter fighting season because it was pretty mild and

the kinetics were a lot higher than normal and they knew they had an election that was upcoming in april. so they were very pro active, planning coordinating and executing. they established the security that facilitated such a successful election on the 5th of april. i would also say the taliban themselves are probably going through a decision point right now whether traditionally they were a military organization and now because of as you look forward, maybe the peace and reconciliation process maybe they become a political entity as well or both. that had a lot to do. next slide. now, i'm going to go real quickly into the summer fighting season which attracted a lot of media. as you see, again this is our portion of the campaign of what we were focusing on and really after the first elections we had to focus on retrograde and

redeployment. i always said it would be conditions based. when you look at our operational contract we had people in infrastructure. then bounded by the daily balancing of between intentions of the insurgency, not knowing what their actions and capabilities would be during the summer fighting season from the asnt capability whether they would have the confidence and initiative to take the lead to transfer full security responsibilities and you know because of the concern of the abandonment narrative and those things whether the green on blue that was always somewhat of a concern for the leadership and then the bottom piece was the redeployment retrograde. we always said it was conditions based and keep as much combat power to give us that operational flexibility, to give them the capacity if you needed to even after we lifted off but it got down to a time based and

the laws of physics to move all this stuff out in good order. we were balancing that on a regular basis. if you look what they were doing and this gets back to the southern helmand liftoff to their surge especially up here in northern helmand which we knew every year is an issue because when you look at the northern spine facilitation route and saw the ones coming up from the south here it takes a little bit of time to work its way through to kandahar. what you see here is the helmand river valley. there's a traditional staging area that comes off the area. so you see their illicit aid coming down here stage to where

they have a traditional corrosion point which cuts down the traffic time to get to kandahar. we knew this would happen up in here. so did the afghans. they continue to be very proactive through the elections and summer fighting season. they continued to go up and clear that and then wanted to set the stage because of the pending announcement of who the president was going to be and the concern to make sure they were set for 15 as they went into rsn knowing we would lift off. the general had an advantage. he said we understand we're rsm and what the continued relationship and partnership for afghans brings but if the afghans fail in '14 and '15 no need to think about '16 and '17. we had to balance this transition to full security responsibility make being sure that they had most importantly the leadership and the confidence to know that we weren't abandoning them we were transitioning on a daily basis.

so they were very pro active. the friction points i was talking about in my introis right -- intro is right here. general maluk was the core commander that came in with general nicholson. we had continuity of leadership that understood the political leadership and the insurgency. in the course of our year we had three brigade commanders that were responsible for northern helmand portion. he was relieved right prior to us coming in. then another one was responsible for the election and when the fighting season started and all this stuff you heard about helmand he went home on leave and refused to come back. they brought in kahn that came in from rc east.

he was relieved because of the kunar except that was overrun right prior to the elections. and some could argue whether it was his fault or not. but he was the one that they held accountable. he was brought back in. he's done a pretty good job up in sagan and northern helmand. no continuity at the tactical level which is concerning. the other piece was moman who was india's chief who had time in kandahar as well. had been there quite a while. when you talk about all the intelligence capabilities it's my experience that the human network, the afghans is some of the best out there and a lot of our technical means we validated what we knew already and to provide confidence to them. he was very good. he knew all the players from both the formal players to informal players which is extremely important because the

two are so interconnected from the insurgency perspective. then probably the most important guy was the provincial police chief. we talk about the importance of all the pillars. the ana is really the best in my humble opinion may be subjective but people that have been there could validate the best military capability they have. we kind of neglected the police. but in reality if you look at stability in the future, the police have to be professionalized and they are really the key to success. well, angar was ideal because of his tribal affiliation. when you look at northern helmand, sagan, what described the condition was tribal dynamics. when you look at the lower valley, sagan district and if you look at the upper sagan

valley it's a split. angar could drive up there by himself in his vehicle with no concerns because he knew a lot of the tribal leaders. he knew all the tribal leaders out in kandahar too. in the same time frame all the stuff up here belongs to the alikozi. so the tribes define the tactical situation up there. what defines the fighting is really the nexus or the criminal nexus up there and lethal aid and illicit aid that goes through there. that person was very important. he came in. on the short perspective.

what was befuddling to us angar was relieved by karzai right before the elections. he was putting people he favored for both personal and professional reasons. he didn't last long. he got through some of the summer fighting season but because of the ineffectiveness of the police he was replaced by a general who had previous history and not capable to continue to be provincial police chief. i'm anxious to see who will be the next provincial police chief. mineral maluk after five years down, there before he came out here with us he was already planned during our tenure he would leave. just the timing. he's up at kabul now waiting to be reassigned. hopefully he'll be appointed a position of continued and

increased authority because in my view and having seen many of the leaders over there i think he's one of the good ones that we've been affiliated with. so this shows you what's going on. we had rumors of 8,000 insurgents out of area fighters and i was getting calls. we sent up a lot of surveillance up there to validate this. what was 8,000 was really about 400 to 800 traditional fighters that we saw that you heard this term out of area foreign fighters. when they talk about out of area they are talking about out of district fighters. afghans were very good during the elections to get out in front of the information and articulate what was going on. when this fighting started and the rumor started going about this huge influx of insurgents, the different pillars started to fracture and not coordinate amongst each other and going straight up their individual

chains whether it's moi mod from the provincial leadership right to the president. as a result the media was reporting facts that weren't facts. and as you can they made it through the summer fighting season primarily all on their own because again, just to highlight we didn't have anybody up in northern helmand. we couldn't even go up there to help them because we didn't have assistance platform up there. they were doing all of that on their own. and what's significant about the summer fighting the first time in my experience and i would say in afghanistan where each corps had their assets and because even though the leadership at kabul had gone the coalition partners asking for coalition assistance we weren't going to put troops on the ground because it would, one it would be high-risk for us because of the capacity that we were off-ramp and two it would be detrimental

to the strategic narrative and where we were in the campaign and most importantly we knew they could do it themselves. so they did it themselves and really came to a decision point where they had to for the first time prioritize and reallocate resources. what they ended up doing took a couple in and pushed them into sagan. they brought tanks down from capital division. they surged additional air down there to include two of their m 35s down there and dit on their own. so when i look at the summer fighting season this year of '14 it was a seminal event. from the governance peaceful transition of power which they did themselves from election elections runoff to inauguration and two in our perspective down in southwest even with this political turbulence here they were able to maintain stability by themselves after we had lifted off.

as part of that responsible transition, as we were leaving since we were going the first rc to shut down and it was accelerated. it was supposed to be 31 december. we anticipated not coming back until 2015. the general told me can i get everybody out by 31 october. we had clarity in-state. plus the fact that i think with all the partnering we had done in southwest and the emphasis of the coalition about building institutional organizations our mantra was train, sustain and be able to project combat power into the battle space. we felt very comfortable about the accelerated timeline. that also helped out the rest of the theater because everybody trying to get out at the same time was not just i think feasible from a strategic lift perspective too. we were tasked to come up with a concept which came up -- we came up with advise and assist. what we wanted to do our