because we were wantding to create is syrian democracy forum. there is a strong reaction against the word democracy because of what has happened with democracy in the region where people don't really believe in democracy. we see the arab youth survey showing less and less people are concerned with the idea. they're not putting too much value in the idea of democracy, so there were suggestions for us and i think that's where we have to learn how to adapt. to not talk about democracy as democracy.(

kind of the easy and exciting part because they're easy to mark. then on a day-to-day basis, you need to create systems and infrastructure that allow to be incorporated and allows you to be able to run the country. those are the pieces, in terms of breaking them down, that's where the sbresing part of the discussion takes place. >> thank you. >> we've come to the end of our time together and i have been enriched by the comments here and i hope we can continue to have this discussion. i would encourage anyone here to reach out to a panelist. just to ifis in general or

engage with us on twitter or any other medium and we'd be happy to discuss youth engagement with you. so, just in closing, i'd like to offer many thanks so jackson lee's office, without whose support, this event would not have been possible. i'd like to thank the panelists for agreeing to be a part of this discussion. thank you. and finally, i'd like to thank everyone in the room for taking time out of that you are but di schedules to attend. your comments contributed to a lively discussion here and hopefully, it will be fruitful in the future for all of us in our work in youth engagement, whether here in the u.s., abroad, policy or prak tigs ner side. thanks very much and have a wonderful day. vermont center and 2016

presidential candidate bernie sanders was in new hampshire over the weekend including a stop at a ton hall meeting in seabrook. more than 600 people from three states attended. you can watch his comments tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. >> the pope's visit to the u.s. cspan has live coverage from washington, d.c., the first stop on the pope's tour tuesday afternoon beginning at 3:45, we're live with the president and mrs. obama to greet the pontiff. wednesday morning on cspan, cspan radio and cspan.org, the welcoming ceremony as the obama's officially welcome him to the white house. live coverage begins at 8:45 eastern later, the mass and can nonization. thursday morning at 8:30, cspan's coverage begins from

capitol hill becoming the first uppontiff to address a joint meeting of congress. friday morning at 10:00, live coverage from new york as the pope speaks to the united nations general assembly and at 11:30, the pontiff will hold a multireligious service at the 9/11 museum and world trade center. follow cspan's coverage of the pope's historic trip to the u.s. live on tv or online at cspan.org. >> awl campaign long, cspan takes you on the road to the white house. unfiltered access to the candidates, at town hall me meetings, news conference, rallies and speeches. comments by twitter, facebook and phone and every campaign we cover is available on our website at cspan.org. representatives from wisconsin and michigan talked about new right to work laws.

and how they've been implemented in their states. the heritage foundation hosted the discussion which focused on -- this is an hour. >> a hot topic of debate recently has been right to work laws. these laws that require rather or prevent workers from being required to pay union dues. this is something wisconsin recently passed a few years earlier, michigan, my home state, surprising many. very historic. and there's a lot of controversy over what these do, so we've published new research out today analyzing the fact of right to work laws on wages and to discuss, we have chris, who's a

state senator in the wisconsin legislature. as was the author of the wisconsin right to work law. vincent, the director of labor policy for the mackinaw center in michigan. we will be discussing the effect of right to work on wages. i'll be presenting this research, theb then the senator and -- will be discussing how right to work has affected the two most recent states who have enacted it. you can see we've got up here some poll from the gallup organization and this is fairly consistent with their historical polling. you can go back to the 1950s and find numbers similar to this. americans believe in free association. whether or not you support the national rifle association, local kiwanis, americans believe if you want to join, you've got that right, but you shouldn't be forced to join. you'd be hard pressed to find many nra members -- even in the

nra is hard at work defending their rights. most americans agree with this principle. many, many union advocates and supporters do not. this has had effects on public policy. despite the fact almost three quarters of americans believe dues ought to be voluntary, but ought not be fired for deciding to run for a union. only about half the country has this. and the natural question would be why is that? a democracy, reflect the feel fooelings of the public, through their elected representatives. why is it that they are not going along with what their constituents are supporting. in missouri, fwhooirng to be voting in a few weeks whether or

not the override the law. new mexico, across the country, we're seeing ledge islator, some like senator, i have voted for right to work, but others say this is a bad idea and the core argument is that basically, right to work laws lower wages. this is a figure put out by the economic policy institute. it is a left wing think tank. most don't realize it's a union backed think tank. richard trumka is the chair of the board of directors. they have nine other union presidents on their board of directors, but the economic policy institute has put out a number of of studies showing that in states where intensity dropped the most, wage growth was slowest and studies like this, they're quick to acknowledge a points, you can't just say wages are different in right to work states. you've got different demographic

make ups, different educational make ups, especially different costs of living, so you can't make this apples to oranges comparison. . this is evidence that's been submitted before congress. they've submitted it before basically this study. before state legislature testimony. i know the senator heard similar numbers when he was being asked to vote right to work in wisconsin and what they basically show is you can more or less interpret these numbers if you can see them as percentage point changes. 13% lower wages in right to work states. account for demographic and individual labor market type variables like your education, your age, things like that, which we would expect younger workers tend to make less and more educated workers tend to make more.

the gap falls down to 9%, then throw in the third and fourth column, two different pressures of the state's living cost. the unions have made this point time and time geng, they claim wages are about 3% lower in right to work states. this, to me, has been a per swative argument. that's why we've got a major reason why we've got about half the country hasn't passed these right to work laws. generally, we believe in free association, but unions, pass right to work, fewer union members and the economic side effects that hurt everyone. therefore, while we formally believe in free association, we'll say we're going to force you to pay union dues. now, that is something that i as an economist find very strange conclusion.

the wii all the phers i read treats unions is labor monopoly. they try to operate as a monopoly that, gain control of the supply of labor, get everyone in and when they can do that, they can control the supply of labor driving up its price, but the higher price gets passed on to consumers, the higher wages, the others pay for it and because consumer rs paying higher prices, a, the consumers are worse off and b, they're selling fewer goods and services, so more get pushed into the nonworking sector. the losses to the economy, you might have gains on the inside of the union, but overall trk economy's worse off. the claim you're lowering average wages is disinnocent to my ears. on top of that, union membership

has not been doing the best in recent decades. it's down consistently and so, they don't have that in labor markets where they have a monopoly. so how do you get this, the states with right to work laws, have worse wages. i and a few others have taken a look at this. this is actually, 1979 union membership. it seems like the states would have the largest drop in union membership since the 1970s or the states that had a largest drop and those are the states that had the slowest composition right. that doesn't quite fit in with the story the economic policy is telling. well, it turns out nea lot lowe

employment. and so, the start of simplistic story that we showed you before, actually turns out to be a lot more nuanced and less favorable to the unions than what the economic policy institute put out. i thought professional standards, you share your data with anyone who asks, they wouldn't share. so i couldn't replicate what they did because they weren't willing to share. well, we share your data and code, they just stopped responding to me, but i wanted to replicate, they did use broadly speaking source they made some adjustments to, so i used the same source and one of the key things you've got to take account of is living costs because you can remember from

that map, pretty much the entire south is right to work. we can debate how you discuss kentucky and missouri, but the entire south is right to work and the entire northeast is not. well, it costs a whole lot more to live in new york city or boston than it does to live in shreveport, louisiana or in nashville, tennessee. a dollar is going to buy you more in a lot of these right to work states and this chart shows it. the gray bar in the middle is basically average living costs. we've ranked states from lowest living cost to highest. the states at the top being the highest. on the other side, you can see which are the right to work and which are not. there's only one right to work state with living costs above. that's virginia. all other 24 are below average living costs and conversely, as you can see, new york, california, massachusetts, hawaii, the states with above average costs, they have forced union dues and one of the findings economists have made is that wages track one for one

living costs. once you control for skills and abilities, and any sort of local amenities like weather that might cause people to want to live near you or the beach, once you account for those, wages move one for one with living costs, so, the average new yorker might have 13% higher wages r, but they're not getting 13% more goods and service ises. actually making the same as the average american once you account for the fact that rent in new york city is really, really, really high. so, this turns out to make a major effect on the analysis. so, what we can do here, i'll summarize, i won't ask you to strain your eyes to save it. the first four columns are replicated and these numbers here, i've converted them to percentage points, so straight answers. we got close to what they did.

fairly close. then you have a look, they didn't talk about this when they were, in their appendix, it's revealed. their cost of living accounts for three quarters of the difference in living costs. if living costs go up 10%, wages are only 7.5% higher. not the 10%. they're not fulling controlled. they talk about it saying we're accounted for living costs, but the ducks they model only explains about three quarters of the difference. now, normally when you've got differences in purchases power across time and states, what congress will do is adjust for the differences in purchasing power, then run their analysis, usually, you run the analysis on inflation dollar, rather than the same over time.

i use the same models, same variables. the only thing i did dimpbly was adjusted the wages for living costs and all of a sudden, the results disappear. so, this claim that these are awful, horrible for workers, which you hear from groups like unions, you just change from doing a more accurate reflection. now, the next two columns there, i just break it up. in the private sector, you affect wages by using the monopoly strength and power, so in the private sector, about a%

lower right to work states. i would argue that's a benefit. we shouldn't be raising taxes to force the avrnl american than they themselves receive. the fact you're lowering is a good thing, but private sector, there's nothing. includes steps and commissions. again, no effect there. they really evaluate these studies. but what about benefits of right to work? besides the free association benefits. well, what we have here is a nice little national experiment. kentucky as i mentioned, has a

number of counties passing right to work. how as this affected their job situation? this county, warren county, was the first county in kentucky to pass it. they passed this in december of 2014. in the next three months, almost 30 different economic projects representing 3600 jobs contacted them and told them we're interested in locating you now. now that you've gotten right to work, we're interested. since then, as of may of this year, i've heard from the bowlibowl ing green chamber of commerce. that's gone up to 47 companies representing the 5,000 potential jobs. they represent about a 10% increase in overall employment. projects they were not eligible for, the businesses did not want

to deal with that, now, that's america. the others are just one county, maybe was something the weather or water or something, so i did the same analysis we did to wages to the unemployment rates and what it shows is when you don't account for anything, unemployment rates are about a half a percentage point lower. about a percentage point lower in right to work states. they found the same things i did and didn't want to talk about it. the scary stories about wages falling, it's really a lot of smoke and mirrors. you dig under the hood and they're not fully accountable for living costs. but we do see both anecdotely and numerically, very strong evidence on job creation. on top of that, just got the free associational benefits. why should i be forced to

subsidize their cooperations? i think that's a pretty powerful right to work. i'm going to turn it over to two speakers to talk about the experiences they've had and after they've gone, we'll take q and a from the audience. >> thank you, james. it's a pleasure to be here at the heritage. good grief, we spend a ton of time looking at the research these guys do, so thanks for doing what you do. thanks for inviting me to a swamp in the middle of summer. i appreciate that. went for a run last night and before i even stepped out of the door, i think i sweat through my jogging outfit. it is the right to work thing is a big deal. it's been a big deal in wisconsin for a long time and i think what i want to do is take a little bit of time to walk you through a couple of reasons you

know, why right to work in wisconsin. i want to walk you through, too, what we ran into with objections because i think that plays very well into what james has been working through with his numbers. i'm a cpa by trade. spent eight years in public accounting, the last several with arthur anderson, then i bought, owned a couple of companies, i still have that. but i jumped into politics probably about actually 2009. i started running for office, was elected in 2011 with governor walker came in. so, as you have seen in wisconsin, we've add some interesting things going on over the last several years. so, right to work is something we looked at right away when we came in in 2010, 2011. we're looking at an overall

blueprint for how do we take wisconsin, as you look at the history of your state, progressive, we brought into existen existence, the state income tax. we've got a new crop of citizen ledge islators who said what we need to do is slowly need to take away the concept of government is the provider to government is limited and you know, that's the heritage foundation is at its core, that's what you guys are about. right to work is in the recipe for that. as you know, we started out with act ten, which was essentially right to work for the public sector. we got that, i think led the charge in the united states for what states are doing now and

that was a huge, huge battle for us. but we knew it had to be done. we've done some income tax reform over the last couple of sessions, but coming up into this session, we saw right to work. that's the elephant in the room. we have to deal with it and so, we started actually before the session even started in okay, what is our message going to be? what things are we going to encounter? we looked at a bunch of stuff that james has done and the big driver is again, back to our blueprint, over 70% of our budget really relates to dependsy on government versus the individual. so, we knew we had to take care of this issue. this is the interest iing part about what these gentleman do.

what we have to do is effectively communicate that to get the message across, so we have to take the numbers and translate it into people. we don't have a ton of time and i would have loved to have stood up and gone through this because the analysis is fascinating and we ran into the same studies, but what we had to do was take this and make it real for people. so, what we did is the first issue we ran into was, we started out by saying this is about worker's freedom and this is very personal to me because when i was 19 years 08d, i worked for an electrical contractor and i wasn't aware of right to work or unionization. it was just, you know, i took my job, went in and the guy said here's your offer, i took it

with him and went to work and the first paycheck, i had these deductions, couldn't figure out, what is is this? so, i went to the payroll person and said, hey, i think there's a mistake here, they said, no, this is your union dues and i didn't know about it. i said, well, i didn't ask to be in the union and she said, well, you have two options. you can take the deduction or you can go find another job because the state law actually says that this is the way it's going to be and that just as a 19-year-old, a very unpolitical 19-year-old, it never sat right with me. it always bothered me and so, when i came into office, my first piece was right on the front of that thing. it was a major piece that we had to do. but it's about worker freedom and it was interesting to see as we went through this, the first debate i had on npr, i think most of us lead, it wasn't with me.

came at me with worker freedom. said you're getting government involved, an employer relationship. i kind of laughed and i said i think that's in place. if we had a true free market here, the employer would have just as much of a right to say no, i'm not going to have a union in my business as the employees do to unionize, but that doesn't economist and why is that? because government's already involved. the worker freedom thing, what it ended up coming down to and we used this in the debate, too, it's really not a struggle with workers. it's the union bosses. the opposite side were upset about because guess who funds campaigns? and we had the statistics for a lot of our debate opponents sitting there ready if they pulled out that card because we always hear about they always pull out the koch brothers and

all these foundations. that always obviously are from the right. so, we had it laid out how much of their contributions dame kayembe from the unions in case we had to pull that card out. they never brought that up in the debate. that's really the angle we came at. worker wills make less. we used your statistics. this is interesting. to take all these numbers and again, bring it back to people, here's how we approached it. so, they brought up the argument and said you know what? in i call them forced ewan yob states, but in nonright to work state, people make more money and i said you know what? you're absolutely right. they do. and they would kind of sit and look at me. and okay, good, we agree on something. great. so then what i did is i had to

bring it again cost of living, if you start throwing coal out, the average person's eyes glaze over and they fall asleep. i said, have you been to chicago? been to a starbucks in chicago? have you said their chai tea nonfat is way more expensive there than in milwaukee or madison. everybody's like, oh, totally, i don't even go there because it's so expensive. i said, well, do you think the average worker in chicago makes more money? they're like, well, they have to. i said, okay, so, at the end of the day, do you understand, you have to have both pieces here? you can't just say they make more. you have to look at what their expenses is, so, i said they may have a bigger paycheck, but right to work states people have a bigger bank account. so that's what we kept coming back to. average family, $2,000. bigger bank account at the end of every year. that's what really helped us win that argument.

again, we didn't get too much into the details because we didn't have the time. but it was very helpful. the loss of workforce because workers will move to other states to get paid more. this was interesting because it was a study commissioned by the unions from a local professor at a university and he used the study you referenced as kind of his support and as i read through, he made assumptions based on a couple of fact, but didn't back them up with facts. he just assumed that people would buy into his analysis and a lot of o the public did. obviously, the media was constantly quoting saying well, you've got a pretty smart guy here and he thinks this is going to krooif workers out. we said let's look at how many of you have a lawn mower? what kind of engine? usually a koehler or brings and

stratton. briggs and stratton, when the union won the vote, they packed up and moved to a different state. this is not good. right to work states earn jobs and we could bring in statistics these guys put together that showed that's not the fact. but this professor tried to use the assumption that because wages were going to go down, wages were doing to decrease if you became right to work. we said no, that's not true at all. we showed that wages increase at a higher rate when you're in a right to work state. companies want to move to right to work states because they want to pay people less.

so, they were saying that sight selector, we all know who they are and what they do. this is one of almost their standard questions is are you a right to work state or not. we're going here because this is a key component to it, so, what we did is, businesses don't go to right to work states because they want to pay less. companies go to right to work states because there's more flexibility and because their workers can be more efficient, again, we brought that back the why is that because the worker is empowered with personal liberty and with the ability to make more decision on their own redskiversus having this contrar little things, so that was another interesting argument. right to work states are more

dangerous. that was the last big one they threw out at us, so what we did pulled a lot of workers comp data from nonright to work states, right to work states and again, me being a cpa, i created the spread sheet myself and had a blast doing it, but i couldn't show that to my colleagues because their eyes glaze over. but we showed that the numbers proof out that actually, in right to work state, there were fewer incidences and accidents an i know you referenced that, too, in what you said. so, those were the things we ran into. again, we always had to bring it back to people. what does it mean for the person. we look at the democrats, as a republican, the democrats are so effective because they take it to people. the impact on wisconsin, this is pretty new, but we are able to see some immediate things, it was frit cool, the day after we

passed right to work, i got a call from the cfo of a company and they own a conglomeration of company, 14, 15 companies and he said, chris, i just wanted you to know, because you guys passed right to work, we've been kind of waiting in the wings, but we're moving one of our manufacturing companies from minnesota to wisconsin. we just wanted to make sure you knew this because this is a big deal for companies. we had another company, at badger meter with governor walker, but he said we were going to look at moving 100 employees to another state because they were a right to work state. we'd have more flexibility, but we are going to keep those employees here and they looked at expanding, too, then a constituent of mine, last week, he said, hey, chris, wonder federal government next week, you could come do another ribbon cutting for an expansion we're doing. this guy, i knocked his door for the first time in 2010, he

chewed on me for about 45 minutes to an hour about how terrible wisconsin was with the business climate and how we just weren't listening to business owners. i said, dick, give it some time. trust me on this one. we've got a different crop of people coming in here. we're going to make changesand they instead of moving operations to kentucky, they have grown in the state of wisconsin. and i've been to two ribbon cuttings now for expansions there, so proof positive that what we're doing is working. interesting enough, i actually have this week, i've got some ledge islators from missouri coming out to talk to me about hey, kind of walk us through why you guys did what you did and help us understand better so that we can make an informative stigs on what to do with this veto. wisconsin business virm, this is pretty cool, too. we've always been ranked in the middle, lower middle tier or the bottom tier constantly. just where we've been for the last decade.

the cool one for us is manpower. manpower does a study on finding a job. we are now number four. we're the fourth best state for finding a job. that is powerful. we don't have a jobs issue anymore in wisconsin. we have a worker issue. finding workers, which is a really neat transition from four, five years ago when i took office. we have a worker issue. that's a different subject. as you know, wisconsin is a heavy manufacturing state and southeastern wisconsin, kind of the milwaukee, wakashaw, pretty much the milwaukee region, we were just named, we had the highest growth in manufacturing

jobs of any metro area in the united states. in the last year. and it's because of things we've been doing and we can definitely attribute that to right to work. that was a piece of the puzzle that has really helped us, so very strong evidence just from on the ground. people, businesses. and people who are getting jobs, too. these are good paying jobs. that right to work is good for state. i think it's good for the nation as a whole. because again, it get back to the individual liberty and freedom of a person to choose. if they want to associate or not with us. so, that's what i have. and wisconsin always 46%, so we're below the national average. doing great there.

>> hi, i'm the director of labor policy out of michigan. james, heritage, thank you so much for the invitation to come speak and for everybody else in the audience, you've heard from the economist. from the cpa. now, you get to hear from the lawyer. so, i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. before i go on, let's just do a real quick definition of what is right to work. right to work simply means a union can't get a worker fired for not paying them. doesn't affect collective bargaining in any other way. workers, unions, they can still negotiate with their employer over wage, hours, working conditions. anything they could negotiate over before right to work they could negotiate over rilgt to work. they simply can't say you have to pay us or you're going to lose your job. let me tell you what was going on in michigan from about 2000 to 2010, give or take.

it was michigan's last decade. we had some of the highest unemployment in the country. we lost over 860,000 payroll jobs during that period. our wages for falling. between 2001 and 2012, wages in michigan fell by almost $2500 a year inflation adjusting. rest of the country, wages went up by almost 3,000. we were losing population. there was a saying in michigan, last one in michigan turn out the lights. some people really took that to heart. i move d in 2012 right at the unions were putting a ballot measure on the november 2012 ballot to amend the institution. to allow union collective

bargaining agreements to an effective veto legislation. they were going to give collective bargaining agreements, the power of the institution and civics 101, you have a institutional amendment, you have a piece of legislation, which wins? the constitutional amendment. so, it's against this backdrop that i moved and i was an optimist. i knew michigan would be coming back. i'm moving, taking this new job, moving my soon to be wife out here. i'm buying a home. i hope stuff works out, especially with this proposal, too. well, it did. voters took one look at that and it went down by 15 points. they said no. that eventually led to the conversation on right to work and in december 2012, michigan, the state with the fifth highest membership rate, the birthplace of the uaw, long considered a labor stronghold, finally gave workers the freedom to choose.

and the effect was felt almost immediately. the next month, senator was talking about sight selectors. sight selection magazine published there should be a significant increase in the number of projects michigan receives because they are no longer being eliminated in the early stages of sernls. now, we've heard about right to work and population growth. higher population growth in the right to work states, you have higher wage growth. lower employment, more jobs. at its core, right to work is is about freedom and when creators look at states, the first things is right to work is is a check box. does it have a right to work law or not? now, if the state has a horrible regulatory business climate, if they have incredibly high taxes, chances are jobs probably aren't going there. but if they have a competitive tax climate, if they have

competitive regulatory environment, then jobs are going to be attractive. without the check box, most sights won't look. past, do you have worker freedom or not? well, so what happened? well, michigan, unemployment, went down. led the nation. by almost ten points. since june 2009. we're now at 5.3%. unfortunately, wisconsin's still beating us, but we have a lot to offer. >> you guys are used to that. >> no comment. well, the next closest to us was the right to wrk state of indiana, which had a six-point drop. in may, in may alone, michigan added 6,000 manufacturing jobs. and up to that point, it was almost 13,000 for the year. indiana, a right to work

neighbor, and in 2000 that month, 5,000 for the year, you can contrast that with you know, i will go ahead and say forced unionism, the forced union ism state of illinois which lost 2,000. right to work states gaining these jobs, the forced unionism states that are losing. remember, i told you i was a little nervous about just a little nervous, about buying a home, relocating my life to michigan. well, that gamble paid off. right now, michigan home values have grown, the seventh highest in the country in the last five years. from personal experience, my home value has skyrocketed. since i bought it in 2012. things are going well in michigan. wages, wages are going up. from march 2013 when the right to work law took effect until early 2015, michigan earnings have gone up by 5.4%.

compare that to the national average at 3.7. oklahoma, which passed right to work earlier in 2000s, the year that went into effect before it was $539 was the average pay per week. by the end of 2002 after right to work, it went up to $551. in 2012, it was $801 is per week. in indiana before they passed right to work in 2001, average weekly wages was $774. by the end of 2012, after they passeded right to work, average wages were $793. so much for right to work lowering wages or right to work for less. so, we've heard where they got it. it's cool. senator was talking about starbucks. i grew up in new york city.

do you know how much rent is for the average apartment in new york city? it's about $3400 a month. you can get a shoe box apartment, not even a one bedroom, a studio apartment costs you $2,000 a month in new york city. you get a decent house in alabama, the mortgage on average, the right to work state of alabama, $800 a month. puts things in perspective of why those workers in new york are getting paid more. the dollar does not nearly go as far. well, james' nemesis, epi, just released their 2015 family budget calculator. and they went through and according to their calculations, went through several metropolitian areas and estimated how much a typical family would need to spend on rent, food, the bare basics.

all ten of their most expensive cities are inforced unionism states. that's the group saying well, workers aren't making more. their own data is showing them that when you calculate it correctly,s it's because it costs more. when you factor in that cost of living, workers in right to work states are making about 4% more. makes the unions i'll say pause when they hear this. is that right to work can actually make unions stronger. right to work means that unions can't take their own membership for granted. they can't force them to pay, so they have the prove their worth to the membership. they have to compute. competition can make you

stronger. last year, indiana tied for the number one state of adding new union members. last year, they added 50,000 new members. michigan lost some. and the forced states beat the right to work states last year. in new union members. go back a couple of years and see that it goes back and forth. some years, right to work states actually outpace nonright to work states or forced unionism states as far as new union members. now, now, i can just spout numbers, but i don't want you to take my word for it. i want to read you some quotes. this is something i never understood, that people think right to work hurts unions. to me, it helps them. you don't have to belong if you don't want to, so if i go to an organizing drive, you koent have to belong versus if you get 50%

of you, then all have to belong whether you leicht or not. i don't even like the way that sounds. anybody know who said that? gary casteel, the uaw's current secretary treasurer. in michigan, the aflcio president said we don't know what to expect. we can continue to explain why membership is of value. same thing. same sentiment from the membership director of the state's largest union, the teacher's union. have we to increase our effort and he's talking about communicating with his members. sure, we have and we're stronger because of it. now, i like to say they're taking these sentiments to heart. i think some are, some aren't. we have run into a fu speed

bumps with worker freedom in michigan. first of which was that the law was passed in december of 2012, but didn't take effect until march of 2013. so, during that period, unions were able to extend contracts, in some case, up to ten years. a decade. of forced unionism because the right to work law did not affect you aren't contracts. they also established windows. that workers could only exercise the right to work rights during certain times of year. for the teacher's union, the month of the august, which we just passed. and the one that sprang up on this this career year year is we had the teacher's union again, used to accept resignations to their general mock. in june, they put a nondescript disclaimer on their website and

said they will no longer be accepting says nations to their mailbox and would only accept it to a thu mailbox. not coincidentally, the of resignatio resignations historically. mailbox was p.o. box 51 at the local post office, which you can make illusions to area 51 all you want. at the end of the day as the unions try whatever they can to get around the right to work law, we are seeing more jobs in michigan. we're seeing higher home values. we're seeing more population growth. and the attitude in the wolverine state is optimistic. we are optimistic about the future. thank you very much. >> all right. we've got some time for questions. is there someone with a microphone?

the gentleman in the back, if you'll stand up when you have your questions and state your name and affiliation. >> my name is connor wolf. my question is regards to the averages of all the right to work states. upon passing right to work law, do we see wages change in that case? could this be a control for future reports? >> it's the kind of thing that both the folks from the left and myself on the right and academic economists basically say we expect the effect to -- basically, it'll take many years to play itself out. the way you want expect right to work effect wages is on the labor side. similarly, the union argument is

that your weakening the power of unions, so they can't get us good contracts and putting downward pressure. in both cases, this is something that is going to take place over a number of years. i was quite surprised to see the numbers. it was a very strong response from that county. but it's something at a statewide level that you would expect to play itself out over a number of years. yeah, let's wait a few years. i think five years from now we'll be able to look back and actually get some numbers and take a look, but it's not something you'd expect to have an effect the next month or two months later. i don't know if either of you want to comment on that. >> connor, i can send you some of the numbers and some of the average weekly earnings for oklahoma and indiana. we haven't done wisconsin yet,

because it is still pretty new. like i said, michigan is far outpacing the national average for wage growth. at the end of the day, when you look at it, the tag line of workers will make less after right to work is passed is simply untrue just by looking at the last three right to work states after they passed the law. >> can you hear me? i'm an attorney here in town. it's been stated that a lot of large corporations are very lukewarm to right to work laws because they'd rather negotiate with one union than with 10,000 or 20,000 employees and that they see right to work laws as disruptive of labor peace and

therefore are very unhelpful in getting these laws enacted in other states. is that a correct statement of fact or is that myth? >> well, right to work wouldn't have any effect on the number of unions they're negotiating with. the only thing right to work effects is whether or not you're forced to pay dues. the size of the bargaining unit that's an entirely different question. we don't lobby. we put out research on these issues. but to the extent that you have an effect of big unionized companies not wanting right to work, it may be right to work puts more pressure on their unions. it's a captive audience they can tax and raise the dues. if you're in ohio or

pennsylvania, basically if you aren't willing to switch jobs, they can raise your dues and you have to pay up and they don't have a lot of pressure to deliver high-quality services. i mean, in theory the union officers are elected in these elections, but they're heavily slanted into the incumbents. it's passed from father to son. it may be with right to work in the option of exit where the workers can decide if they're not seeing value, they're going to go elsewhere that the unions feel more pressure to actually deliver something at the negotiating table. >> we actually -- it's interesting you brought that up. we did not hear that. we had some larger corporations who are unionized. they did come to us. they said publicly we have to be careful here because we have our work force.

obviously, the work force, the union work force, is not in favor of right to work because of what they're told from the union bosses. it's going to decimate them. but the reality was they said, just so you know, we can't come out publicly to back us, but we think this is going to be a good thing for our company and our workers, so that's what we heard from the large corporations. >> hi. i'm sasha from voice of america. how does the right to work law effect government employee unions since government employee union is now the majority of the union membership? >> sure. a typical right to work law in wisconsin was a little bit different, so we don't talk about act 10. the senator can speak to that

more authoritatively. it simply says a union can't get a worker fired whether it is private sector or public sector. the union can't go in and say that this person has to pay us or they have to lose their job, and that's all right to work does in both public and private. government workers, depending on the civil service laws or anything ancillary, can negotiate over wages, hours e and working conditions same as they can in the private sector. but as far as the difference, for a typical right to work law there really is none. >> the effect i found in my study was there were different wage effects for the government and the private sector. the reason behind this might be the government unions are intensely political organizations because they can do something that the private sectors can't do. they can elect their own boss. if they can elect a friendly politician, the unions can

control both sides of the negotiating table. the politicians may be more interested in paying off someone who is a major contributor into their campaign not necessarily in dollars but in terms of boots on the ground and activism. the department of labor puts online a lot of unions are required to fill out these financial disclosure forms. if you look at the government unions, a lot of these government unions, at least those who are subject to these reports, are spending a 1/4 to a 1/3 of their budgets on politics. a huge portion of their budget goes to politics and lobbying expenditures because it gives them something the private

sector unions can't get. they can directly control who they negotiate against and get a sweetheart contract. there's pretty good evidence that workers won't pay dues if they have these laws. i do find that that as an effect on the numbers. about 3% to 5% lower wages in the government sector. in the private sector, there was nothing. just nothing. the numbers were basically negative .1% to .5% across the different specifications. while the formal mechanism of right to work applies the same to government and private sector, they do have differential impacts in those two sectors. i think we have time for one more question. thank you, everyone, for coming. >> thank you. [ applause ]

tonight on c-span 3 a look at taiwan's upcoming general election, then a discussion on turkey's political system and relations with the u.s. later a house subcommittee on plans to combat campus sexual assaults. taiwan has its general elections scheduled for mid january. a group of political science professors recently talked about taiwan's political system, past election results, and how this next election might impact with relations with china. this runs an hour and 20

minutes. >> thank you very much. my name is richard bush. i'm the director of the center for east asian policy studies at the brookings institution, and on behalf of brookings, we're very pleased to be cosponsoring this program. we had a program that we did together back in may, i think, and for that one brookings had the home field advantage and now ciss has the home field advantage. i'd like to thank all our friends at csis for the outstanding job they did in preparing the home field. i think our first panel was an excellent discussion of issues of high policy, and we had two

outstanding presenters and one outstanding moderator. we got into some discussion due to bonnie's insistence of domestic issues, which is good. this session is not about policy. policies are important, but there's more to elections than the respective views of the candidates, and so what we want to look at in this panel is in effect the horse race. even though president ma, whose name means horse, is not running this time, there's a lot of bad elections that is very important to the outcome and effects the way people vote but don't have that much to do with the policy

positions. for example, the quality and charisma of the candidates, the party identification of voters and how that shapes who they vote for, the larger balance of ideological sentiment that exists in society, contextual factors like the public approval of the party and the leader in power, whether or not that leader is running for re-election, the state of the economy at the time that people go to cast their vote, the state of the democracy's external relations, and, i think, extremely important are organizational and mobilizational issues. how capable are the competing parties at getting out their own message, fighting to control the

agenda, and on election day getting their supporters to the polling place? doesn't matter if you -- if your party has broad support in society if you can't get your guys to vote. you're not necessarily going to win. so this is the general scope of this panel, and i think each panelist is going to talk about these issues in different ways. we're very fortunate to have three outstanding presenters. david brown, i think we all know. he's he's a professor who follows taiwan politics very closely.

dr. rich and dr. yun-han chu. so our first presenter is david brown. dave, do you want to stand up? >> thank you, richard, for that introduction and thank you brookings and csis for inviting me to participate in this panel. as richard said, i'm a professor at csis. that's the capacity at which i'm speaking. i'm at sometimes misrepresented in the taiwan press as for

speaking for someone else. i'm not. i'm speaking on my behalf. anyways, it seems very clear in the information that's been presented already that taiwan politics, which has gone through the last quarter century some dramatic shifts in political power, is in the process of going through another one. this process started with the '91 local elections. that seems to be carrying over into the presidential and legislative elections that will be taking place. i've been asked to talk a little bit about the campaigns, so let me do that. on the one hand, the dpp is a nominated candidate.

she is a sophisticated personality with experience in both government and politics, the chairman of her party, and she is running with a united party behind her, and her campaign is proceeding, it seems to me, smoothly with very few mistakes. on the other side of the green/blue political divide in taiwan, the campaign is not going so well. it is running into repeated issues and problems and does not seem to have adjusted very well to correct for those things. and as it stands now, the knt party, the leading party on the blue side, has a candidate who is polling between 15% and 20%.

how did they end up in that situation? i think there are a number of steps in that process. one is the natural person to be the candidate for the kmt, the party chairman, has chosen not to run. instead he set up a process, a sort of primary process within the party, which would be based upon conducting a public opinion poll to see who should be the party's candidate. none of the main figures in the party chose to stand for election and perhaps for wise reasons. the one candidate that emerged at the end was a relatively less well-known personality in taiwan, who has recently been the deputy seek of the

legislative u-on. before the public opinion poll to determine whether if she would qualify to be the party candidate was held, the party did not arrange any time when she would present her platform to the public. and so when the voters that were polled, not the voters, the people who were polled reacted to her, what were they reacting to? they were reacting to her personal story which is quite compelling and interesting, and they were reacting to personality as an outspoken and atypical kmt politician. when the poll was conducted, she surprised many people, including myself, and got a 46% support rate, which was well beyond the threshold that the party had set for a potential candidate. shortly afterward, however, her

poll numbers began to collapse. why? because the more the public learned about her policy, the less attractive she appeared. she laid out, as has been said, the core of her platform was on cross strait relations, and she said she wanted to move beyond ma's one country interpretation to reach an agreement with beijing on one china common understanding, and she said she wanted to open political talks with the eventual goal of having a peace agreement. not a new idea, but one that ma had handled very carefully. she was putting it back on the agenda. i think the more people learned about that aspect of her policy the more rapidly her numbers slipped.

and as they slipped, the kmt party was moving towards its congress in july and voices began to appear that maybe the party ought to rethink who its candidate was and find a more attractive candidate. well, none was available because once again eric chu, i think, reiterated that he was not going to run and he managed to pull the congress together to the extent that they unanimously adopted her as a candidate. her campaign has not gone well. just two weeks ago she announced she was going to have a pause in that campaign. it took everyone by surprise. she was going to meditate about the future, decide how to proceed. three days later she came back and she essentially said i'm on

the right path. i'm going to continue the campaign the way it was, and i'll do my best on behalf of the party. her poll numbers have remained in the 15% to 20% range. this led to another figure entering the race, james sung. many of you will remember he was a kmt, very successful kmt politics, who in the year 2000 ran as an independent, almost won. afterwards formed a new party. and has participated in the 2004 and 2012 elections without being on a winning ticket. he has always considered himself fully qualified to be president. and i think he saw this, and i

respect james sung. and i'm not criticizing him on this. i'm just saying that he is a man who has great experience and he's understood himself that way. and so at 73 he probably concluded that this was his last chance. so because young's numbers were so low and the kmt party was not well organized, let's put it that way, he jumped into the race, and it's now a three-way race. and in this three-way race, the outcome is not what you would expect that taiwan's poll numbers have been largely a combinatn of james sung and

chu. the outcome of that race, i think, is quite predictable. since richard told me not to talk too much about policies, i will dropout of my talk, the part i was going say about that and shift to the legislative area on the election. in some ways that's the more interesting and the more consequential point. can the dpp win a clear majority in the ly either alone or with the support of a live parties and i don't know what the outcome is going be. there are many who predict the goal of a dpp victory is within grasp. here again, i think you see a difference in the way the two parties are running their ly campaigns. the dpp seems to be well organized, is methodically going through the process of identifying good candidates and constituencies where it can win.

it is leaving a little bit of space for others in areas where it might not win on its own but where it could support other parties with the hope that they would win. these parties, the ones that they have been working most closely with are the tsu and the new phenomenon, new power party formed by activists who are involved in the sunflower movement and earlier student activities. so they're doing well. the fallout from the presidential campaign has had a very negative effect on the kmt's campaign for the ly. as soon as madam hung's platform became better known, candidates who might have run for election

on the kmt ticket had decided in some instances not to run because she's at the head of the central ticket. others have left the party to join the pfp and several have amalgamated into a new party which is based around the candidate in shinzu who had the largest electoral support in the last ly elections. so the kmt side is, again, badly divided and its prospects, i think, are poor and really do open the possibility that the dpp with allies could win a

majority. the ly election is also interesting because, as i said, you have new parties participating that have not participated before. the kmt side of the spectrum is not a new phenomenon, but i think certainly the new power party and the coalition that's emerged between the green party and the social democratic party are interesting phenomena of people trying to take advantage of the environment created by sunflower student movement, the demand for more openness, the success of chu running as an independent in taipei with dpp support of opening up the

possibility that these smaller parties could succeed. listening to people in taiwan who know these issues better than i do, it seems that there is a possibility that the new power party may pass 5% threshold in the party list part of the ly election, and gain some seats in that way and conceivably even win in one or another constituency with dpp support. so this is, i think, a very interesting new phenomenon. do i have time to say a few words about -- about the prc, because that is really interesting? at the beginning of the campaign, maybe eight, nine months ago speaking with taiwan experts from china, you would sometimes hear that oh, national level elections in taiwan are different than local elections and therefore there is a possibility that the kmt might do well in the elections in

january of 2016. i do not hear that kind of analysis any longer. it leads me to believe that thoughtful people in beijing understand that they are going to be confronted with a dpp government and possibly a dpp controlled legislature. what has beijing been saying during the campaign? i think it's a mixture of what i would call hard messages and soft messages and that's a phenomena we've seen before in the way beijing has dealt with taiwan at a time when it's not clear what is the best policy on the way forward. some of the hard messages, i think, were the comments that had been referred to by xi

jinping in march and may of this year, and the fact that they have conducted some military exercises that have been interpreted as aimed at sending a message related to the election and the softer message is, in part, also xi jinping because his comments have been, i would say, not always clear just what he was saying. there have been times when he talked about the importance of unswervingly maintaining continuity in the peaceful development of cross strait relations, which has a certain soft message in it, and that's the way he spoke to liang jong when she was in -- he was in beijing recently. and i think the way they have dealt with taipei mayor shows a

certain flexibility on issues which would not apply directly to the dpp because the dpp is different than an independent mayoral candidate with no background, no history of relations like the dpp has, but it showed in my mind as was said a certain a flexibility on beijing's side. so, i am left a little uncertain. i think on the longer term, when taiwan won and not in a mode of trying to influence things but of having to deal with a new situation, beijing will be confronted with many difficult choices. one of them basically is are they going to stick with the peaceful development policy, or shift to a much more military focused coercive policy? i don't know the answer to that question. in part because i don't know that i fully understand a man who is going to make the decisions on that which is xi

jinping. but my personal bet is that they will move to find a way to try to keep the peaceful development policy going but with many adjustments to that policy. why do i think it will be a difficult set of decisions for them? it's because i see them on the horns of a dilemma. on the one hand, they will want to show that elected a government that does not accept the '92 consensus or the idea that taiwan and the mainland are both part of one china, which is xi jinping's core requirement, has to have some costs. they will have to deal with that government differently than they dealt with cho. to the extent that they do

things that are seen as punishing to taiwan, they undermine their long-term goal of having a successful peaceful development policy leading in the direction of some form of the integration in the future. so i think they face great difficulties and i will leave it at that. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, dave. now we have tim rich. >> good morning. i would like to structure my talk today around -- into two broad sections. one, placing the 2016 presidential election into more of a comparative framework, and the second part focusing on the legislative end, which has received considerably less attention but will likely be much more competitive.

i'm a comparativist at heart. most of my discussion is on taiwan, japan more broadly. one thing that sets this presidential election apart in taiwan is the likelihood they will elect the first female president. this is not unusual in asia. in fact if you look over the period from 1945 to 2014 there have been 11 female presidents or prime ministers elected in asia. the side note here is all 11 were either the children of a former leader, the wife, the widow, et cetera of a former leader, former president, former prime minister or a member of a democracy movement. hung would be the first without this familial ties. to put in contrast, the other female presidents and prime ministers since 1945, only three of them outside of asia had these familial ties. some examples for example in

asia, park geun-hye. she's also unmarried and when she ran for the national assembly, which was a major issue. she said she was married. she was married to her country. that sort of died off later. another point much comparison with taiwan is there's arguably greater opportunities for women in lower level elections and thus for legislative elections and thus presidential elections than in other countries in the region. part of this is party quotas, part of this is ease of access at lower levels. frankly in terms of legislatures only scandinavian countries on average have more women in the legislatures among democracies, stable democracies, the philippines is the only country within east asia, southeast asia that has a similar percentage of women in the legislature as compared to taiwan. another area that i like to go is to compare the 2016 election here with some initially

superficial similarities to the 2000 election. some of these are patently obvious, so bear with me. three candidates including james sung again, pushing the election towards the dpp. i think we could agree the kmt did not run their strongest candidate. arguably to avoid the sacrificial lam this year. arguably, others could be put in the same place. there was real potential for them to finish third. here's where the comparison with 2000 should end. the pan blue split handed the election to the dpp whereas they led in every other poll in the

election in 2016. less of a focus on cross strait relations since 2000 if anything its an undue influence in the 2016 election. i don't expect recent attention to the '92 consensus to change that election focus in the long term. another point that i think has been largely overlooked is james sung's motivations are different between 2000 and 2016. i would argue his rationale for entering '16 is similar to entering '12 and that's to bolster his party. however he's a more viable candidate than in 2012. a reminder he only received 2.77% of the vote in 2012. other sort of clear differences between 2000, 2016, the dpp candidate is not painted as the one that's extreme but hung is playing this role largely because of her positions on cross strait relations.

she's not appealing to the sort of blue base but the deep blue. the growth in taiwanese identification even if just looking since president cho took office, 20% growth of those who consider themselves taiwanese as opposed to chinese or both. and which tends to be overlooked still early enough although highly unlikely for a pan blue coordination over the presidential candidate. it's still theoretically possible that one of the candidates will drop out, although that's highly unlikely. my expectations for the presidential election are no different than almost anyone else's. i see the '91 elections have energized the dpp. anti-sentiment may not necessarily translate into

pro-dpp sentiment. however, short of a scandal or an outside short-term event seems poised to win. a sort of follow-up to this is that the third person coming in, a catalyst for internal reforms especially in terms of recruitment, something i brought up before today is not the question of why didn't eric cho run but why are there not other eric chos ready to one. now shifting to the legislative election. here's where more attention needs to be placed. where sung favored to win the election, the balance in the legislation is less certain. i expect this to be a much more competitive race than 2008, t f 2012. but i do not expect it to necessarily end in a dpp majority. in both cases in 2008 and 2012 the pan blue coalition obtained super majorities.

75% of the seats in 2008, 69% of the seats in 2012. the dpp currently have 40 seats in a 113 seat legislature. they need 17 seats for a majority on their own. i would argue that the structure of the legislative u.n., especially after having the seats, having the seats in half starting in 2008, have created structural conditions that make it difficult for a dpp majority. you have apportionment of district boundaries that benefit the blue camp more than the green camp since each traditional county or municipality gets one seat. that means places get one seat. another place could be underrepresented. even assuming a national shift that means in terms of proportional representational

seats, the dpp could at best pick up two or three seats there. the shift they would need would be in competitive districts elections. a shift of 2% or 3% would bring them closer to the number of seats that they need. but this also assumes that smaller progressive parties like the npp and the tsu don't gain ground. it means coordinating with them in some of these districts. they may benefit for that matter if the pfp runs a larger slate of district candidates than they have announced so far. and what i see are a handful of key select districts that make it more probable that the dpp will come close to that majority on their own, that would be several districts and a few others that traditionally lean light blue, but i think 17 is

really pushing it, frankly. my current prediction, and i hate making election predictions because my track record is not good -- i was very happy as a graduate student to predict the 2004 presidential election. but that was a coin flip. i'm sticking to it. it was planned. my current prediction is there will be a slight, slight pan blue majority in the legislature. what i mean by that by a one or two seat majority not the 75% seat, 69% seats. this largely, of course, depends on the level of both blue and green coordination of the four party list seats but most importantly district seats. let's take one step back here. let's assume i'm wrong. as my wife says i'm often wrong. what would a unified government look like if the dpp wins the presidential election and the

legislative u.n.? this would be the first time that the dpp has ever been close to a majority in the legislative u.n. i don't see that this would galvanize the party to push towards a more independence oriented sentiment. i think as many have already stated, the expectation would be a maintenance of the status quo although the particulars of this may be defined slightly different. i do think, however, it's a chance for the dpp to move the party and show what it can do, for example, on social issues, on social welfare, on social inequali inequality, and on areas of this nature. one other point and this is not a salient point in the current election but the dpp does have an official stance supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage. the rest are ambiguous at best on this issue. supporters are more supportive of same-sex marriage than dpp supporters. marginally. marginally.

why? i don't really have an answer for that right now. what i expect if the dpp do win in both areas you'll see these subtle shifts for future debates on issue of social policy not so much of issues on cross strait issues and i'll wrap up there. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, tim. and thanks to both of you for paying so much attention to the race. yun-han? >> okay. good morning. thank you you-all for coming to this conference. it's difficult to prepare my remarks, knowing in advance i'll be the third speaker of this panel. but i just tried to focus on a few points and try not to repeat

what dave and tim has already said. i think it's probably useful to offer you kind of a historical perspective. remember that this is not the first time taiwan entered the presidential race, neither is james sung. if you look back, you know, what happened four years ago, at that time -- this is the poll figure that you can collect, you know, during july and august, roughly in the same state that are current in comparing years right now. and at that point you can tell that actually james sung, he

posed a formidable challenge in this three-way race. i'm sorry, i pushed the wrong button. this is the one. 2011. okay. this is during the july and august of four years ago, and james sung is at one point get as much as 18% support in the three-way race in july, and i list all the -- what i consider established polling agencies. there are some little known group that might pop up oftentimes for the purpose of disinformation. not offering much credible

sources. and then the taiwan -- actually in the running, just slightly behind ma for support in june and july for quite sometime. and in the end, obviously, i think tim mentioned, you know, earlier that sung won only 2.7. a three-way race will eventually end up as a two-way race. okay. whether this scenario will repeat itself, well obviously hard to say. this time, you know, the pan blue voter will feel very confused unlike last time. ma was clearly winnable, electable candidate. in the end the pan blue voter simply abandoned sung and switched to ma to avoid an easy

victory for taiwan. tai's is much stronger candidate than last time. ma is a stronger candidate. tai's support hovers around, can be as high as 46% ever recorded. sometimes can be as low as 34. so undecided voter -- also fluctuate from one point to another. what she suggests actually a sizable portion of our electorate. their move is quite volatile. it manifests through this fluctuation. and that makes the pan blue voter even more confused, especially when they try to pick

which one is more winnable between sung and ying-wen. at one point, in a three-way race get as much as almost 30%, but sometimes it's light like 12% or 13%. so this is what has happened july and august. or if ma eventually the pan blue voter can identify a clear cut runoff. that will shape the scenario and dynamic of this election in a very significant way. i think a very important point is that tai is a much more stronger candidate than she was in 2011, and the reason, you know, is that the widespread disenchantment with the kmt and

the ma administration, which alleviates some anxiety among the middle-class voter and some states, and kmt suffered from internal feud in setting an agenda in cyberspace and the media world. and tai should be reckoned with. i believe her campaign is best financed, best organized since 1996 in which they won the election by a very convincing landslide. and this is not well-known here. actually tsai in the last four years as a fourth time candidate for the 2016 has actually built up a very robust and elaborate

gra grassroots support organization in a way not before for the dpp. last time she was quite frustra frustrated, but she had to rely on the faction. not the local faction but within the dpp there's the new faction. everyone has their faction. so they have to -- she could really have, you know, a firm grip on the grassroots organization work, but this time she learn her lesson. she established more than 800 friend of local chapters throughout taiwan and also there are more than 1,000 groups, you know, to own the line, the social media. so that's why i know she

searched on the very top in the early stage of the campaign. so this is the most interesting question whether this will be going to be replay of 2012 or 2000. obviously i agree with tim it's very likely to be a replay of 2000 rather than a replay of 2012. so under that scenario the pan blue voter will be torn between hung and sung and could not make up their mind towards the very end. under that scene, dpp will benefit notoriously from tai's election. and that deals kmt with a humiliating loss. but another probability scenario in which hung and sung emerge in the next two or three months

as the more clear cut runoff and that might trigger a massive scale of voting pong -- among the pan blue voter. so in that case both the credential in the presidential races will become more competitive as a result. in that scenario, you know, probably would not in any way undermine the prospect of tai winning the election in my mind. now, obviously we should pay more attention to ly.

and this is one scenario based on the taiwan future of change. this is a website. and this is -- you know, the first pie chart is the current distribution. so dpd 40. and people's third party, two seats. tsu three. there's one little known party set up just recently by a former kmt ly member. that was very interesting acronym, kmt and then some independent. and according to the taiwan future of change, it will become mental image of current seat

distribution. so it is likely that the dpp can get as many as 63. that also means a clear majority in ly. and the kmt might end up with only 43, a very substantial setback. the third party may get as many as five. the tsu might disappear. the only new party that might get a very small foothold could be the new power, but according to a lot of poll figures, including the taiwan future of change, it's very unlikely that the new power will get -- will be able to get -- to walk across the 5% threshold for the party list. so this is one scenario. another scenario which suggests

that, you know, that -- sorry, let me see. scenario one. under this scenario, i will argue that tai will become the most powerful president. okay. the reason this action will also trigger a generation shift in dpp leadership is that leadership will be completed. that means that -- the existing infection will become weakened. the position will be much better. tai, her position will be much better. under that scenario, i predict the executive branch will regain

the control over the legislative agenda, which is not the case for most of time under ma's presidency. another significant change that might happen to ly is the system and scheme centered around the speaker, mainly speaker one, will be curtailed if not dissolved. so this is a very specific development in terms of politics. actually since they won, ma has to live with a co-president, who is speaker one and who is not a friend of the president. so under this scenario the ascendance of the legislative power, which has taken place under speaker one, will be arrested, if not reversed.

however, i wouldn't rule out this scenario completely under which the dpp couldn't win the majority outright. and actually, the first party might turn out to be the critical swing in there. why? the kmt might do slightly better than the first scenario. if that's the case, i will predict that tai will be pressured into forming a coalition government most likely sign up people's first party. under this narrative, this party will become a critical voting block that can make or break the dpp's control and make or break the legislative agenda. and they could retain the

cohesion and avoid breaking up. also under this scenario, the ly might become very mercurial. it is hard to say, even the pfp in the beginning -- it was hard to say whether the dpp will last. can they survive a litmus test over policy? it's very difficult to predict. and under this scenario i think the dpp government will be haunted by its mirror image in the sense the kmt will revenge with some disruptions with the legislature. something we are all familiar with over the last eight years. and then let me use some political science benchmarks to evaluate the importance of this coming election, whether this is 2016 election will become a

critical election for taiwan's electoral politics. usually you can apply these four criteria, okay. and i would say the election is important election for lot of reasons. although it probably -- the first criteria is, you know, whether this election would trigger a major party realignment and reconfiguration in the party system. i will actually say unlikely that taiwan will remain two-party system plus, you know, one, you know, a minor party. and its questionable whether tsai can survive. and the new power despite the media attention probably, you know, will get a very, very small portion of seats. you know, they're not significant a significant third party. so that is probably a first criteria there, but it will not

apply here. however, it will introduce a restructuring of the relationship, as i just mentioned, which is very important to the day-to-day operation of our government system. and also i think it will accelerate generational parties. because it will be last battle, obviously. and to what extent this will re-election define the party's parameter of competition or even change the underlined image? to some extent. but i still think the identity irks will stay as a dominant cleavage for sometime to come. although distribution issue, how they got the wide income gaps, things like that. that will get attention among the young voter.

my last point is about, okay, what kind of challenge awaits our next president? i have to say, i wouldn't envy the job of our next president. a whole list of full array of daunting challenge await our next president. economic challenge. you know? the slide, visible slide in our international competitiveness. whether we can sustain the growth momentum. it's going to be a huge challenge. and we are facing an unfavorable demographic trend, just like japan. asia in very low reproduction rate. and the next president will have to face a huge tradeoff between growth in the environment, whether the government can guarantee a reliable supply of water and power. with the nuclear power plant,

moth balled. probably not going to run in the future. and we have the huge mismatch in the labor market. we have too many college graduate without marketable skill. and also we are facing brain drain. a lot of people with skill and transportable assets. they actually might be attractive in hong kong, singapore and shanghai. not to mention the widening income gap which, you know, make a lot of younger generation frustrated and feel deprive and the challenge of government itself is quite i would say, quite serious. the government as a whole have to deal with the deteriorating fiscal health. and also taiwan have the, you

know, the phenomenon what i would call the hypocrisy if i call fukuyama's new term. we have witnessed the proliferation of the many single issue groups. strong minded and botched a bit with any chance for compromise. for example the semiconductor. they want to make it the latest expansion in the park. the whole project was held up for many years because of one group in the region want to protect the old trees. okay? and on that issue alone, okay, the whole important multi-billion project has been held up. and finally, obviously, we have to handle an external challenge. in taiwan we have to navigate very carefully when this

competition between quite and china, you know, heat up. and we have to worry about our status in the regional process ge integration, whether we can get membership in tpp. and there's the modulation issue. especially for dpp's president, it might be very pressing and a challenge. the next dpp president might face this dilemma. accepting one china and enduring the backlash from the green camp or facing diplomatic setbecome and major rupture in economic exchange. so my prediction is that it will be very brief. i stop right here. thank you for your attention. [ applause ]

>> thanks to each of you for outstanding presentations. you have covered a lot of ground and have covered all the right issues and even some i didn't think about. we have a half hour. i'm sure you have lots of questions. i have lots of questions but i'm not going to take up your time. because we want to hear from you. the ground rules are, once i recognize you, wait for a mike, identify yourself, designate to whom you want to pose the question and keep your question brief. these are very smart people. you don't have to give a paragraph for them to understand the question. just one sentence will do. so who has the first question? yes, mike. >> we have had some speculation about how the prc might react to the results.

is there any way of divining how the prc reacts just to the fact of this process? that you have the most vibrant democracy in asia, a lot of changes in power, tourists, business people travel from the mainland to taiwan. there's at least some media seepage into the country. how do they react to this democratic process going on so close to them? >> anyone want to speak to that? go ahead. >> i think it's frightening to them. when their citizens travel for tourism, one of the things you frequently things you hear is they want to stay home to watch all the talk shows, political debate shows. there are six or seven channels that are running these almost continuously. and this is something that they are very interested in.

i think they have also been shocked by the potency of the sunflower student movement. and a similarity to that. it bears to the umbrella movement in hong kong. and that these are things that for a government that is paranoid about its maintenance of political control in its own society, i think these are very disturbing phenomena. >> anything in addition? >> well, i think for both the policymaker in beijing, and also, for the general public, this is a very predictable election. so i don't see the outcome to come as a surprise to any audience in mainland china because this popular opinion poll has, you know, primed, you

know, the potential audience for a long, long time. but obviously, people like xi jinping and his senior staff, once they get elected, they will go back to the drawing board on how they will continue this peace and development strategy, or they will revisit the assumption of their past policy. i think this is obviously what creates a hard choice for the beijing leaders. >> a couple of additional points. first of all, i think it's actually good that this election will not have -- not be a surprise in its results. if there is a surprise, it sort of tends to create more of a reaction. i would also say that i think

fundamentally china's leaders and the ccp worry in a system like this, a relatively new democracy, it is very easy for demogogic politicians cannot reflect the will of the people or what they think it will be and makes it unpredictable and difficult to manage. next question? yes, right there. yes? >> i started to -- expected outcome is recuring within the structure, affecting the international relations or it is more characterized as --