think about such a fundamental change? >> i think, first, on the reductions, i've seen this now in all parts of the department of defense. i've been particularly impressed with how the army went about it because they really did try to delayer the organization, increase the span of control for supervisors. i think this is something you never stop working on. headquarters grow back if you're not applying pressure in the opposite direction. so, i think the 25% reduction was a good start. i'd like to see how we rationalize that reduction or if we go further. as to the second part, the question about collapsing the staffs inside the military departments, i think there's a great deal of potential there. sort of fundamental guiding principles need to be, one, protecting civilian control of the military, but, two, also making sure the chiefs have the support and resource they need to give independent military advice. but i think if we keep cutting the headquarters in the form

that they currently exist in, we're just going to have weaker product delivered later. i think we need to have some reform as the next round. and i think there's enormous potential there, not just in the military departments but between the military departments and osd, within osd, and further out into the headquarters in the field. >> well, i thank you for that. and you are uniquely situated now to play a key role. and i agree with you. just flat-out reductions is just the first step. you have to -- it's a little bit like sequestration in that it's a meat ax when we need a scalpel and so i would look forward to having you play a role there given your unique background. finally, the source of great frustration this committee, all of us members, is this continued cost overruns on weapons systems. we've made some reforms. we're putting the service chiefs

more involved. you are aware. but it still seems to go on. and every time we really need something, we use that expedited process, which we used for the mrap and we used for others. so, i hope that you will make that one of your top priorities. we can't justify eliminating sequestration and increasing defense spending, which the majority of the members of this ommittee on both sides feel is% necessary given the nature of the events in the world today. but it's hard for us to go back to our constituents when we have a $2 billion cost overrun on an aircraft carrier. and numerous army programs that spent billions and then never became realities going all the way back to the future combat

systems to the presidential helicopter. you know, you're very aware of them. we have to stop it. and it's just -- if we're going to have credibility with the american people, we cannot have these horror stories. and i'm sure you appreciate it. >> i do. thank you, mr. chairman. if confirmed, one of the things i'd want to do in the army is initiate a rapid capabilities office like i worked with very closely in the air force. found it to be a very effective way for large programs, as well. the bombers inside the rco, the rapid capabilities office in the air force. i think the reforms -- the acquisition reforms in the ndaa will help with this, as well, and that's injecting the military departments, the chiefs, in the requirements process, especially as it is overlaps with the acquisition process, to help keep costs under control. and that's different than dumping requirements when you already have cost overruns because you can't afford them. it's making wise decisions at the proper times when you have

more information to make those trade-offs. so, i look forward to implementing those reforms and think it will help us greatly field things faster and avoid the cost overruns that we saw in the future in the past. >> senator reed? >> well, thank you very much, mr. chairman. and again, mr. fanning, thank you for your service to date and your willingness to continue to serve. and given your perspectives in both the navy and the air force, can you just outline what you think the most significant priorities you would bring to the secretary of the army's office? >> absolutely. well, first, i think for the army readiness has to be the priority. it's what general millie said is his priority and i would agree with him if confirmed 100%, we need to make sure the soldiers we're sending into harm's way into combat are ready, fully trained, fully equipped. so that would be the first priority. the second, as a part of these efficiencies, is the end result has to be maximizing the combat power of the force structure that we have.

and so, i think that is a continual culling process to make sure you're looking across all of your force structure and keeping the ratio as strong in the tooth direction as you possibly can. third, something i took very seriously and spent a lot of time on in the air force is maximizing the idea of one army, a total force, active, guard and reserve. we talk a lot about the army going from 490 to 450 and that's just the active component. we can't do what we're asked to do -- the army can't do what its asked to do if we just think in terms of an active component. we have to think more creatively going forward about how we operate as a total force. and fourth, which i mentioned earlier, i would really want to focus on acquisition form, specifically the standup of the rapid capabilities office. the army has some capabilities where we're seeing based on what's go on on the ground now in ukraine and syria and so forth that our overmatch is not

as great as it should be, as it needs to be, particularly if we don't change course, and i think specifically about position, navigation and timing, electronic warfare and cyber and survivability of our plat inform platforms. particularly aviation. and i see them as three problem sets that we could launch in a new rapid capabilities office. >> as part of your development of a one-army concept, i would presume that you're going to take an active role in engaging the tags, the -- >> absolutely. i already -- well, i spent a lot of time with general grass in both jobs, and whenever i travel to a state i always ask if the tag is available to meet and took the vice chief of the army out with me, i believe it was in december, might have been november, to meet with all the tags when they were gathered in colorado. so i bring a number of relationships with me from the air force and plan on increasing

that while in the army working with closely with the tags and the council of governors. one of the issues and the chairman made reference to this quite explicitly, the new legislation of which we guided through last year with respect to the services role in acquisition. i presume that would be one of your fant priorities getting the army engaged with the new responsibilities and acquisition. >> there are many great professionals dedicated in o ssd by my experience is i feel those who do are much closer to the troops and i think that's very important in terms of setting and monitoring requirements. what i would say about the new reforms, and i do think more

responsibility is the way to move, there are fundamentally lipged. they overlap and where i think there is the most potential is getting the requirements right. acquisition process bag able to make the tradeoffs. we learn more as we do, particularly if the technology isn't mature and a good program officers, program manager should have the opportunity to come back and say, i can get this to you a year faster if you can cut 5%, the requirement that you thought you set, i can meet that requirement in a different way. i can save money if we don't chase this. also that they're smart decisions other than the green vectors have turned red. >> i think one of the other aspects that you suggest in the comments is holding the program officers accountable and we have

noticed that accountability has been so diffuse that these systems sort of take a life on their own and i would assume in your dwoomt of the new approach you would have accountability in the forefront in terms of the program managers and others under your command. is that clear? >> absolutely. one of the things that's most intriguing is it's hold to hold program managers accountable. this is an opportunity it rate to design more fundamentally transparent ma trix to hold people accountable to. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. fanning. i want to thank you for your service. it's great to have your mom here.

i wanted to ask you about the size of the army and what your viewpoint is on that. as you know, we are drawing down the end strength of the army on 450,000 by 2018, as a result of that we're actually seeing about -- a huge number of involuntary separations of people who have served multiple deployments, who have served the country admirably, which to me is to get a pink slip after you've come home, served our country is pretty appalling. but i want to ask you two questions. number one, do you think that we have the right size army? and what about the reduction down to 450? and then, secondly, when general milly was before our committee in july, he said that only about 30% of army brigades are at acceptable levels of combat readiness. and he noted that that number should be between 60% and 70%. so, what do you view the biggest readiness problem? has it improved since july? and where are we? >> okay. i'll start with readiness. it has not improved markedly since july. it's still about a third of our bcts that are ready.

the army would define as decisive action. ready for a big, large, land fight that we might face against russia or north korea or what have you. the army has in plan ways to get there but there are many impediments in place. the demand on the force, the size that it is, makes it difficult to keep it trained. to keep it going through the training rotations. the friction the army -- >> when you shrink the army you get the deploy ratio is very difficult to meet. >> absolutely. because the demand is not shrinking at the same rate. >> so should we be pushing for more resources for a larger army given the threats that we face? is that something you would advocate for? >> i do worry about the size of the army today. when we were directed to go down to 450 in the active component by the qdr, general odierno testified this was with risk. i know he said this quite a bit. i was sitting across the table in the air force seat. and general testified we could

beat the requirements at 450, but the risk is increasing. i don't see that vector changing. two years ago when we targeted 450 we didn't have isil. we didn't have russia as provocative as it is. >> right. >> so i am concerned. it's preventing us from doing a number of things we want to do to the army to make it readier and to keep it whole. i look forward, i know that you directed the chairman of the joint chiefs to a force assessment on the army specifically. >> yes. >> by the end of the next month which i think will be very telling. >> good. i look forward to receiving that. especially as we look at this readiness issue, which is fundamental to the strength of our force, and obviously, how we treat our men and women in uniform. i think this needs to be a priority for you in this position. i also wanted to follow up on an issue that we have seen in new hampshire with our guard. and that's military construction. in fact, in new hampshire, the condition of our readiness centers in new hampshire is unacceptable.

according to the army national guard readiness center transformation plant master plan, if you look at where we are, we're ranked 51 out of 54 states and territories evaluated nationwide with our infrastructure. in total, the new hampshire army national guard, if you look at our readiness centers, all except one are rated poor or failing. and so, in fact, if you look at our manchester readiness center it was constructed from 1938 to 1940. doesn't comply with building codes. life, health, safety, or any anti-terrorism force protection standards. so i would ask you in the upcoming budget request, i hope the army doesn't continue to postpone its requests for funding for the new hampshire army national guard vehicle maintenance shops in rochester as well as our readiness centers in pembroke and concord because they're just in -- we're just in a very deplorable situation. you think about we're 51 out of 54.

and i hope if confirmed that you'll commit to examining the allocation of military construction dollars. not only between the active and reserve component, but also, the allocation among the state army national guards to ensure that the army is prioritizing what our guard needs, as well. as we know this is a total force situation. we could not have fought in afghanistan, iraq, or what we're doing against isis without the guard. >> i absolutely will. and i think we need to take a fundamental look at the total number of dollars, as well. this is a place where across all of the military firms where i worked we take the greatest risk. mil con, facilities sustainment. to the point -- because that includes ranges, testing facilities that have become in and of itself a readiness issue. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. fanning, and your family and all the support you have. you have quite a resume, sir. and all the experience you've had, which i think would be

tremendous asset for the army and what you can bring to it in organizational skills. the thing i would like to ask and everybody's talking about, our force. i agree with you. i'm as concerned as you are about the reduction of forces. give me the ratio of forces versus contractors. if adjustments can be made because we all know and i would tell you this there's not a west virginian i know that would not sacrifice to defend our country. not one. but they want to make sure we're using the money right. they don't think we're doing it as accurately or as efficiently as we can in procurement. they believe that we're sometimes become top heavy as far as contractors versus reduction of force. and every time somebody comes before us wanting more money, they tell us how they reduced the forces, and we check everything else, your command centers are high. all the administration is high. contractors are high. but the people that we actually want to do the fighting force, they're the ones that's critical need, and there's got to be an adjustment. and give me your take on this. >> first, i would say that there

are tremendous individuals and product that comes out of the contract workforce as an integral part of how we fight and how we mobilize, train and equip. that said, you know, we rely, we lean on the contractor workforce to surge when we need to. i don't think we do a good enough job of then rationalizing and culling afterwards. it's much like efficiencies. i think the contractor workforce is something that we need to be analyzing continually. it's never -- >> can i interrupt you? i'm so sorry, sir. but what -- being a former governor, and there's a few of us here, we know that we were in charge. we were commanders in chief of our national guard. it was our responsibility to do the things that need to be done and we had to have the support of the governor and the legislature. but we're the ones that led that charge. with that being said, we think there's so much more our guard could be doing in the role that we're paying high-priced contractors to do. we just think it's ridiculous the redundancy that we're paying contractors, that we already have a guard, in waiting, that's trained, ready to do the job, go to the front line, do whatever.

we don't see that correlation or that commitment to using what resources we already have. >> i think you certainly and general milly, he's talked about the total force and using the guard more, if confirmed, as i said, that will be a priority of mine and i spent two years working that pretty hard in the air force. not only do we need to do it as we draw down, it's the right thing to do to make sure that we're utilizing all the components properly. we're in a interesting position now where we're almost due the commission's -- the national commission's report on the structure of the army and i'm optimistic we'll get some interesting ideas out of that that will help push us forward in thinking more of a total force using the guard more productively. going back to contractor workforce. that's something we need to rationalize all the time. when i was in the navy department we started something called contractor's court where every echelon has to justify its contracts to the next echelon up. and it does an interesting thing because you would see each echelon strip or cancel a

certain percentage of the contracts because they knew they couldn't justify it to the boss. by the time you got to the top of the pyramid you had rationalized that pretty well. we did it in the air force to great success. the army has something similar but if confirmed it would be something that i personally -- >> can you get a handle -- have you gotten a handle on how many contractors we actually have? i can't get anybody to give me an accurate count. >> that is the first thing and the most difficult thing to know how many contracts you have. of course, we contract for services so we don't always know how many people are behind those contracts. >> and the amount of money we're paying. >> it's amazingly difficult to figure out what that number is. very frustrating. >> as far as procurement. that seems to be your strong point. what would you do? the bottom line is every time, you know, someone asks you, do we have enough money or enough in force, you always want to say you need more. but on the other hand, if you only had "x" amount to work with, what can we do here that allows you to be more effective, and to use that, you know, in a more prudent way? i mean, can we untie your hands? >> in my experience as bureaucracies are additives and processes are created to prevent

the last big, bad thing from happening. >> what would you change in procurement? >> i would give more flexibility to the program managers. those people that you're holding accountable and hold those people accountable. that includes whoever it is in the leadership positions, but then us inside of the organization, so that we can develop a more -- program managers spend the vast majority of their time putting briefing slides together and briefing people as opposed to actually running their programs. we're not nearly as agile as an institution as our adversaries are now or even private sector companies that don't want to compete with us, or work with us, because of all the barriers we put up for them to do so. and so, i'm looking -- i would look for ways where we can strip out some of these requirements that slow us down. allow us to be more agile, better tap into innovation, both in terms of technology but also processes so we can iterate more rapidly than we are now. >> let me just say, my time is running out but i think you're uniquely qualified because you're seeing three branches of government. very few people have come to

this position having the background that you've had and the administrative skills you've got. i hope you put them to good use and you use the forces that we have, make sure that our front line forces are strong and we have the right amount of people to do the job. make sure that we don't have an abundance of contractors that we don't need. overpriced using our guard more effectively. and building the force that we need to protect our country. we'll be behind you 1,000%. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, mr. fanning, for your service and your continued willingness to serve. i have a number of questions so hopefully you can answer these succinctly. yes or no will suffice on some of these. you and i have talked a lot about what's going on with regard to russia, the massive russian buildup in the arctic, as well as russia's other numerous provocations over the past few years, and as you know, general dunford and general milly testified, they saw russia as the biggest threat to the u.s. secretary carter here also testified that he saw the

significant strategic importance of the arctic and how we were late to the game, the coast guard commandant said we're not even in the game relative to russia's massive buildup in the arctic. do you agree with that? what secretary carter and the coast guard admiral said. >> i do think that we're not nearly enough in the game in the arctic as we should be. >> admiral harris testified here that he saw one of the greatest threats in the pacific was north korea. do you agree with that? >> i do. >> and we have been supportive, in a bipartisan way of the president's rebalance or pivot, the asia pacific. are you supportive of that strategy? >> yes. >> so as you know, last year the army decided to get rid of the 425 base that joint base almendorf richardson, 5,000 airborne infantry troops strategic asset for the country kick in the door capability. seven to eight hours can be anywhere in the northern hemisphere given the strategic

lift that we also have. general milly's credit he's put this decision on hold, re-evaluating it, thinking it may have been a strategic mistake. does the u.s. army have any other airborne brigade that is trained, equipped and ready to fight and win in subzero mountain climates like those in the arctic or those in north korea? >> no, not like those we have in alaska. >> and the 425 is part of the strategic reserve right now in -- with regard to a contingency in korea. general scaparotti called it the over-the-hill calvary could be there in seven hours. do you think removing these forces, emboldens the already unstable leader of north korea? or putin in terms of his buildup in the arctic? >> i -- >> when we're removing literally the only airborne bct trained soldiers in that part of the

world. >> if confirmed, senator, i would look for ways to reverse as many of the combat cuts that the army made last year as possible to include alaska. >> let me talk about just very quickly, you know, we've been supportive of the president's rebalance. matter of fact, in the nda we had language supporting it talking about how we shouldn't be cutting forces in the asia pacific. how does cutting the only airborne brigade combat team in the asia pacific support the president's rebalance to the asia pacific? >> yeah, well, that's one element of the army's rebalance of the pacific. you know the army created a four star leader there and increased the number of soldiers and civilians overall dedicated to the pacific. i think the number is 77,000 over 100,000 today since 2007. >> let me just, if the army retained the 425 at its full strength as you and i have talked about, wouldn't it send a strong message, a strategic message to north korea, to russia, and our allies about america's commitment to defend

our strategic interests on the korean peninsula, the arctic, and support our allies? don't you think that would be a strong message? >> i think it would send a strong message. the army last year had to balance the cuts that it needed to make across all of the requirements and priorities that it has. >> let me get to the 450 number. i believe and i think a lot of members of this committee think it's low. i think it's way too low strategically risky for the country. do you agree with that? >> i do believe it's a risk, yes. and that's been testified to by many others, as well. >> and to his credit, again, and you already touched on it and i appreciate you mention it, general milly is working hard to balance the tooth to tail ratio as you said earlier, making sure we have much more in the teeth category than the tooth. of the 450, how many currently have musician moss? >> in the 450 i believe that number is about 1,500. >> how many prisoners of the

fort eleven levinworth of the 450? >> of the 450, 1,100 of them are counted as prisoners. >> how many soldiers of the 450 are right now outprocessing? >> combined total of just over 15,000. >> so, when we talk about the 450, there are literally thousands, tens of thousands, who are not deployable, not capable of fighting. correct? >> that is correct. >> does it make sense to -- that the army is proposing cutting thousands of healthy, deployable airborne infantry soldiers to make room for tens of thousands of nondeployables and noneffective soldiers that are counted as part of the 450? >> it would be nice not to count them against the 450. and i don't think people realize what person of the 450,000 active component is not deployable. for reasons even greater than you've mentioned.

they have medical profiles. or for other legitimate reasons. they're a part of the generating force. they're training now. they are already deployed. so when we say we're heading towards a 450,000 active component in the army that's not 450,000 people ready to be deployed. >> my time is expired here. but let me get one final commitment, mr. fanning. and we've had a lot of discussions, but if confirmed, i need your 110% commitment to ensure that the very last soldiers that we're cutting are the combat effective, tip of the spear, strategically located infantry soldiers who can fight tonight if they need to, as opposed to so many of the other soldiers that we're talking about. in other words, that you and general milley would commit to cut this trigger pullers, strategically located like the 425 absolutely positively last relative to any other soldiers you're looking at cutting. can i get that commitment from you? >> you absolutely have that commitment, senator. >> thank you.

thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. fanning, thank you for being here. to your mom, thank you. to the cassir family, it's wonderful to have you here. you're dear friends. and mr. fanning, one of the things that we have seen again in the third quarter, a big spike in suicides, especially among guard members. what are your plans to improve mental health services and to make that number go down in the united states army? >> we have seen a spike, and with the shear size of the army, the number in absolute terms is large and it's too large. i think the army has made some impressive progress, increasing access to health care by embedding it at the brigade level so that it's more readily accessible. in terms of care across the board, sexual assault prevention, behavioral health,

suicide, i think that's a key component to making access to care as easy as possible for our soldiers. so that's one thing. but i think also a lot more work has to be done fighting the stigma against seeking behavioral help. >> one of the other things that's been done in the israeli army is -- or the israeli defense forces is they've pushed down to the platoon level that the soldier in charge keeps an eye out for the other members. and reports, hey, tim is getting a little sideways or kathy is getting a little sideways. are you looking at any ways to push the decision-making down a little bit lower as to enabling them to have the ability to say look, maybe we need to help this person? >> absolutely. i think we need to have it down to as low a level as possible

and the army is actually looking at this from my understanding and has a number of other programs like that, senior master sergeant of the army has started something called not my squad to cover a whole range of issues. part of that is training people to look for indicators that they should act on. and report on. >> it really helped reduce the numbers in the idf. in another area, the army -- you said before that the army recognizes tactical importance of the humvee flight and the enduring requirement to maintain a relevant and capable fleet. do you expect the army will continue to rely on a large humvee fleet after the jltv has been fully fielded? >> absolutely. as i recall the ultimate end state after they rationalized the requirements for their ground fleet was to maintain about 50,000 humvees. which also allows them to cull out the newest and best maintained of what they have. so, it will end up being a relatively young and well

maintained fleet and a sizable one, still. >> looking in the middle east, one of the things that has struck me is we've seen refugees all throughout the world. at the same time that we won't put in a no-fly zone or a safe zone. right in the same country where those refugees are coming from. do you support the putting in place of a no-fly zone or a safe zone? >> i actually haven't studied either of those proposals enough to give you an opinion on them. i'm happy to come back and talk to you. i do think we haven't done enough collectively to prevent the crisis. and now deal with the crisis. which is unlike any refugee crisis that i've seen. >> you're going to be working with the department of defense. you're going to be working with the secretary of defense. and this is a critical issue to all of us, and we need you to provide the unvarnished truth of your opinion to him. and, you know, i'm wondering are you going to look into this and

start to put this information together and come to some conclusions on this. >> i will, senator. as you know, service secretary's responsibility is to make sure that we have the forces that are ready and trained for whatever they're asked to do including if it's a no-fly zone or a safe zone. >> i do but i am also hopeful that, you know, if secretary carter asks you, you say, look, here's why i think it makes sense or why it doesn't make sense. here's a mission that's critical and important to the success of our nation's future and where this goes. >> absolutely. i commit to you i will certainly give me unvarnished opinion to secretary carter whenever asked. >> and on occasion, if not asked, if you see something a little sideways, will you take him aside privately and say to him, look, here's my view of this? >> yes. >> okay. mr. fanning, you have served this nation well and with distinction. we appreciate everything you've done for our country. and thank you for being here today. >> thank you, senator.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator fisher. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. fanning. i would like to begin by thanking senator sullivan for bringing to your attention some questions and comments that he has about our concern that we have with russia, especially in the arctic. i think many times we don't focus on that because of the truly large challenges that we see all around this world. comments, and i do share his but i do appreciate his comments, and i do share his concerns that he has about the 425.

modernization and force structure. and you've said that your top priority is readiness. you noted to me when we met last month the need for more investment in facilities sustainment. how do you plan to prioritize all those remaining demands? if we're going to be able to address needs in the future and be able to balance those? i want to see what your thought process is on that. >> sure, senator. i think that we take risk in all parts of our budget right now. and what i look at, having seen this happen incrementally, and part of it is the uncertain fiscal environment that we've been planning is is looking and sometimes we lose sight of the aggregate risk. and that's really what i'm trying to get at now, and if confirmed would do so in the army. and one of those places is not unique to the army where we have

taken an aggregate risk that i think a lot of people haven't fully realized yet is in mil con and facilities sustainment. it really is becoming in my view, a fundamental readiness issue for all of the services. as i said earlier, ranges are a part of that. and we need to make sure that we're not leveraging, mortgaging, i'm sorry, our future with the decisions we're making now. but all that means is, we'd be moving risk to another part of the budget. but we have -- we have taken year after year after year of layered risk in facilities sustainment and it concerns me greatly. the first visit i made in the army was to fort bragg and that's a critical, very busy base. and it just, from the minute that i landed, i could tell this base looks tired. and so we have to look into that very seriously. >> you know, as members of this committee we're hearing a number

of predictions, and ideas, about what the future is going to look like. do you see any kind of major shift on the horizon for the army, and what the army will do, how it will operate, what i will need in the future? >> i think, secretary gates always said we are -- we have a perfect record at predicting the future. we get it wrong every time. i think he was talking about the future kind of war we'll have. what i try to do, and if confirmed will try to do in the army, is less predict what that future is than take advantage of some of the reforms we're talking about to make the army more agile at getting new capabilities out to the field. we're -- i think we're losing the competitive edge we have at iterating against our adversaries, either in how to use technology, which is a big part of it. we've got to empower soldiers in the field with the tools that we already have and how to use them differently. but how to incorporate new ideas and new technology faster in to what we do produce and what we do field. >> are there resources or specific equipment that the army now has that you believe is outdated and should be replaced? do you have a list of what needs to be ended?

in order to move forward in the future for what you really are going to need. >> well, i don't know that, in the current state there are a lot of things i would say we could end because we're reliant on them all. and a lot of the platforms are old but have lots of new technology and capability on them. they sort of think three phases to procurement which is modernizing what you have now, recapitalizing it with the next generation, and then your science and technology to keep investing in what comes after that. the army last year, before i went over as acting under, just because of the budget pressures decided to invest more in modernizing the platforms they have and keep the science and technology for the long-term investment going and taking risk in developing the next generation platforms. that's a concern to me. and if confirmed that's an area i'd be looking at very closely. where have we taken too much risk in platforms that we're going to try and hold on too long? >> thank you.

>> mr. fanning, i certainly appreciate your being here today, and i have to say you're one of the most refreshingly candid witnesses i can recall being before this committee. and i want to join senator donnelly and really encourage you to carry that quality in to your work. you have a great deal of experience, a great deal of knowledge, and i've learned today a great deal of wisdom on these issues. share it. don't be hesitant, and even if it's -- might cause some friction, that's your value to the united states. and i hope you will maximize the input that you have because i believe you have a lot to contribute. >> thank you. >> there's been a theme in our discussions today, and it occurs to me, it's -- what bothers me is that what we're talking about is turning one of those expensive aircraft carriers. and we make strategic decisions

that have long-term implications and even long-term implementation based upon assumptions that turn out not to be very good. i was in iceland recently and if there's a strategic spot on this planet it's iceland right in the north atlantic. and yet, because we thought the cold war was over, we closed the airbase there. i think that was a tremendous strategic mistake in retrospect because the world has changed and now suddenly we're in competition with russia again. and i use the word competition advisedly. the army size that we've been talking about today, the assumptions upon which that decision was made were valid when they were made but they're no longer valid. and i share my colleagues' concern that we are facing a new round of challenges around the world. and we really have to revisit that decision. i'm not so convinced as some of my colleagues about the danger of contractors because of the

cost of training and high level of training that our army and our tooth, if you will, we ought to be using contractors for everything but fighting. we shouldn't be having somebody that costs a million dollars or half a million dollars to train to do work that contractors can do. so i think that's something that has to be constantly evaluated. do you agree with that assessment? >> i do. i think the contract workforce is an integral part of the workforce with the civilian workforce and the uniform force. the challenge is getting the balance right and making sure, in my view, the contract workforce provides invaluable services to the department of defense and is a place you can go to when you need to surge. >> and it makes sense to do that, rather than use trained army personnel, uniform force to do things that aren't war fighting. >> absolutely. the challenge is, and it's something we have to keep on all the time, making sure we've got those three components properly balanced.

the one that grows the fastest, if not properly overseen can be the contractor workforce because of the different ways it can grow. >> that's a management challenge. >> it is a management challenge. but i would never suggest, and i hope i haven't, that they aren't a very valued and important part of how everything's done. some things are best done in the contract workforce because it's something -- it's an expertise you need, don't need organically and want to pay for or it's a surge capability. some things you want in your civilian workforce and other things you want a uniform person to do. >> i do think that we need to talk about the army, the end strength and have a review of that. and i hope that that is something that you will initiate. the third area where we're talking about having made strategic decisions that now appear imprudent because of changed assumptions is the arctic. as senator sullivan has emphasized. huge activity by the russians in terms of their military buildup.

and the idea of depopulating or diminishing our force availability in that region it seeps to me, again, given changed assumptions. may have made good sense, two years, five years ago, i'm not sure it makes sense today, and we have to continue to reassess these decisions and be flexible in responding to the current realities. the final one that we've -- the chairman talked about is afghanistan. we have to assess what's going on on the ground as opposed to saying decisions we have to make certain decisions based on the calendar or to old assumptions. all of those are examples of importance of flexibility and constant reassessment of what the realities on the ground are. do you share that sort of overall concern? >> absolutely, senator. we like to say we're a learning organization. that doesn't mean much if we're not willing to make changes based on what we've learned.

in regards to the arctic and alaska, in particular, when i became acting secretary of the air force, about two years ago, one of the first things i did was reverse an air force decision to move a squadron of aggressors of fighter jets out of alaska because of the strategic importance there. because of the range space we had there. because of the proximity, not just adversaries or potential adversaries in the pacific, but proximity to our partners in terms of training and so forth. so i've had a particular interest in that region for a long time. >> and finally, i noted in your testimony several times you use the words agile and mobile. you remind me of my high school football coach who used to say he wanted us to be agile, mobile and hostile.& i appreciate your testimony, mr. fanning, and i appreciate your service to this country. thank you. >> thanks, senator./w9xe >> no longer possible for the senator. senator ernst. >> thank you, mr. chair.

thank you, mr. fanning, for being here today and for your service in so many different capacities throughout our various departments. want to thank your mother for joining us today, as well. thank you, kathy, for being here. as you know, mr. fanning, last month, secretary carter announced that all military occupational specialties will be open to women. i do support providing women with various opportunities to serve in any capacity. as long as we're not lowering standards to allow participation and that we're not decreasing our combat effectiveness. so in order to ensure that women are fully integrated into these previously closed positions, i believe the implementation strategy must be thoroughly and fully developed to include having an understanding of those secondary and tertiary effects so that we're not setting our women or our men up for failure. over the past few weeks i've had

the opportunity to visit with a number of soldiers and marines. i've visited ft. bragg, north carolina as well as marine base quantico in virginia. and during my trip to ft. bragg i was able to sit down with a number of special operators and airborne paratroopers from the 82nd to discuss the gender integration, and they did the same at quantico. both of these groups were mostly senior level ncos. some more junior and noncommissioned officers, and of course some junior officers. and both men and women. and really talked about gender integration. have you had the opportunity to go out and talk through gender integration with soldiers? and are you committed to doing that if you have not? >> i have. and i've been to ft. benning,

ft. bragg, ft. hood. i spent a lot of time at benning in particular discussing this issue down at ranger school. and if confirmed it would be a dialogue i would continue to have because i share your view that we need to get this right. it's critical that we get this right. >> absolutely. and i think we have to, again, make sure that we are planning wisely and that we're understanding what any follow-on effects will be, whether it's positive or whether it is negative, as well. one of the top concerns that i heard about the implementation is that it shouldn't be done haphazardly. and we have seen this recently with short terms of getting plans turned in and short turnaround for implementation. and i'm directing those comments at the marines. but we want to make sure the army does it right. we want to make sure everybody does it right. do you think having such a quick turnaround of 15 days for a

plan to work that out, do you think that's enough time to get it right? >> i haven't seen the marine corps plan or any guidance that they've been given. i will say that i think getting this right means doing it methodically, deliberately and however much time it takes to get it right. and the army plan as i saw it before i left is just that. it is a long-term plan that i think is carefully thought through starting with validated requirements for infantryman for example. what requirements do you need to meet to do the job of an entryman. and if you can meet the requirements then we start from there. but i don't believe in the army plan, and all the plans are with the secretary of defense for review, you're going to see anything that looks like a rush to judgment. >> all right. i am very hopeful -- >> that would set us back, set back the opportunities for women and take us more time in the end. >> yes. and i agree with that. we do have to be very methodical and talk about the implications of the standards and what that

might do to orders of merit lists and promotion opportunities. are we setting our women back or moving them forward? we don't know what those implications are yet. so i appreciate your thoughtful approach to that. also, do you believe that women, now that we've opened up those areas, combat, do you believe that women should be required to register for the selective service? >> senator, i think that's something that the administration has taken up and is looking for a recommendation for secretary carter. so i can't get out in front of him. i would say, if we're focused on equal opportunity, i think a part of that is equal responsibility. >> okay. thank you. i do appreciate your thoughtful manner as we work with our soldiers and the army. i also want to echo, i know senator sullivan had spoke earlier about the 425 and we want to make sure that we are protecting our assets in the pacific northwest. that is of great concern. many of us have talked that

through. and so i would appreciate your consideration with that, as well. thank you, ranking member reed, and thank you, mr. fanning. >> thank you, senator. on behalf of chairman mccain let me recognize senator heinrich. >> i want to thank the ranking member, and thank you, mr. fanning. welcome back. and i want to say i really appreciate your willingness to serve. you have served this country in many different roles. in particular, i want to thank you for the work that we did together on operationally responsive space. when senator king was talking about the ability to re-evaluate information and change directions, that's a skill that is often lost on people in this town. and i think you have it. and i appreciate that very deeply. in last year's ndaa, this committee expressed its concern about the lack of investment and

sustainment of major range and test facility bases. and the committee noted that some test ranges, and i know i have mentioned white sands missile range to you, but there are others, have not received a milcon project in over a decade now. the committee therefore. urged the department to complete its comprehensive assessment of the ranges. i wanted to ask if you know what the status of this comprehensive status is at this time. >> if i understand correctly, i think the assessment is -- the draft assessment is done and it's now in coordination. i haven't seen anything yet, but i share your concern on that. i saw it acutely in the air force. that's why i mentioned the readiness issue. not investing in the ranges and the testing facilities means we can't replicate real world scenarios and it becomes ineffective training and ineffective training.

it doesn't tell us much. >> do you -- do you have thoughts on what metrics you'll use if confirmed to assess the quality and the capability of the army's tests and evaluation infrastructure in particular? >> i think two fundamental metrics, first i would start with the end user to see what they got from the range, what they didn't get from the range facility, but i think if we're focused on investments in the facilities, a series of metrics is how often the facilities are actually available for what we need. >> switching gears a little bit. morale, welfare, and recreation programs are a key component to soldier retention and quality of life. it's important to continue providing high quality programs and sustain them for the future. i would say that's even more acutely important in remote and isolated insulations.

if confirmed, how do you intend to address those challenges in sustaining army mwr programs, particularly given the fiscal environment and in particular at those remote and isolated installations. >> i share your commitment to the remote and isolated installations and facilities. i think one of the most important things to do with mwr is to constantly assess what's of value to soldiers and their families. we lay on a lot of programs, and we don't ever rationalize them and pull money out of ones that aren't effective to put back into ones that are, and people can't access because we're not investing in them enough. to be on the lookout for how things evolve, how families are evolving and needs are evolving to provide new services in the area. >> i think that's particularly important because those needs change. and we need to meet people where they are. especially if we're going to

continue to be able to have the kind of people that we want serving at those remote and isolated installations. as a former engineer, i was pleased to see your commitment to expanding and in particular outreach programs that foster s.t.e.m. professionals. we need to make sure we're getting the best and brightest within the army and all of the services with regard to the next generation of scientists and engineers. can you talk a little bit about how you're going to approach that issue at the army in particular and how we make sure that we have a constant structure in place to engage those scientists and engineers early so that we can get them into the services and doing that kind of work? >> first, i would say that i think we need to start by explaining what the civilian work force is and what it's not. it gets kind of bantied about in

the political process and a lot of people assume it's just a large collection of bureaucrats. our engineers, scientists, our national treasures, i think it hit me the most and probably a lot of other people three years back when we were furloughing civilians, what was happening to our test ranges. these are people who could make a lot more money doing things out of the government but for committed to the mission. that's where we can do the most, capturing people earlier, which is finding ways to expose them to the mission and the problem sets we're on and get them excited for that. these work forces as we decrease the civilian work force, convert from contractor to civilian, we need to make sure we're keeping this talent organically that's very hard to recruit and very hard to replace if we lose it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much, senator heinrich. i have been informed that my colleagues may return from the vote which gives me the great opportunity to initiate a second round.

let me ask, you bring to this job extraordinary experience in management in the department of defense both in the navy and department of the air force. one of the persistent criticisms of defense, the department, is that it has not been able to successfully pass an audit. can you give us insight as to how you in the army but hopefully influence the department of defense across the board, can get d.o.d. on the track to a successful audit? >> i think first of all, for success to take place in this area needs constant senior leadership. we have a tremendous shot in the arm from secretary panetta who understood this better, probably, than most. that's the first thing, just the commitment if confirmed that i'll make to this process. i think as regards to the army, there are probably two things. i have seen it now in each of the military departments and it's different in each service, what the strengths and weaknesses are and what the way forwards are.

i have long been a proponent of learning from doing. we have gotten to a point across all of the military services i think where we had prepped enough and it was time to start testing what we had done. we're learning a lot from that. in '14, just now in '15, the army had an auditor who put down his pen so we didn't complete the audit or get a favorable opinion in the end, but we're learning two things. we're not only learning where we have weaknesses that we need to put more emphasis, we're learning where we have made enough improvements that we can pull resource off that. so finding the resource to put on the areas we have problems. in the army, the first thing is creating a series of work schedules based on those problems, sticking to it, and holding people accountable. the second, and this applies to all the military departments. maybe even more so to the army. the army is fortunate that some of its systems are more robust

and are fielded and making sure that you shut down the legacy systems when you're supposed to. the legacy systems aren't audit-compliant. you need to force the work force into the systems that are compliant. those are the two areas i would focus on the most. >> thank you very much. i notice that my colleague senator graham has arrived. let me forego questioning in the second round so he can have the first opportunity. senator graham. >> thank you. thank you very much. have you been following the media reports that there may be consideration at the pentagon to reduce -- to take a star away from general petraeus? >> i have. >> what's your view of that? >> i shared secretary mckee's view that no further action was necessary. i was acting under when he was the secretary of the army. >> i want to say for the record that i hope there's bipartisanship for this approach. number one, that's a great answer. i think general petraeus, like

everyone else who has been fighting this war, only god knows how many years he was deployed since 9/11. he made a mistake. he took responsibility for it. and his military record, i think, stands as one of the greatest in recent memory. and i would just urge the secretary of defense to follow your recommendation. and not go down this path. as to the army itself, i know you've been asked about structure. what does it mean to have 490,000 members of the army verses 420,000 in terms of things you can do? what's the difference? i know you have 70,000 more people, but what does it mean in terms of engagement? >> i think when you look at 490 down to 450 in the current construct, down to 420 is a possible number in sequestration. we testified, general odierno testified when we first -- when the army was first targeted on the 450 number, that it would be -- there would be great risk.

general milley has testified the same thing. the risk has increased. the number hasn't changed for our end strength, but the risk has increased. going down to 420 sequester would require new guidance on what the army is supposed to do and what the priorities should be. i'll testify what we couldn't do even as a total force, what we're asked to do if we wept down to what sequestration would force us to do. >> president obama in the state of the union address called for congress to give him force against isil. i think that's a reasonable request. you're about to be secretary of the army. i think you're well qualified. from an army perspective, would you like to see limitations on time when it comes to finding isil? >> my preference would be to not have a limitation. >> that makes perfect sense. if i'm in the army i don't want

to tell the enemy we're going to start and start all over again. one, that makes sense to me from an army perspective, i think from a national perspective, we shouldn't have a limitation on time. should we limit the geography? >> i think we should fight them wherever they are. >> they are in afghanistan today. i want to applaud the administration to allowing our military to go after them. that's a responsible deal. means, are there any means you want to take off the table? >> no. >> thank you. i look forward to voting for you as secretary of the army. >> thank you, senator. >> i don't think i can top that. so the staff has indicated there are no more of my colleagues that are returning. let me thank you, mr. fanning, for your service to the nation on behalf of chairman mccain, the hearing is adjourned. >> thank you very much, senator.

tonight on bama speaks at t israeli embassy. then oral argument concerning the constitutionality of mandatory life sentences for juveniles. a discussion about technology and politics. and attorney general loretta lynch talks about the justice department's prosecution of civil rights cases. this week, president obama attended the righteous among the nations awards assembly in washington, d.c. the award recognizes those that

risk their lives to protect jews during the holocaust. this year's ceremony was the first to be held in washington, d.c. and the first to include the participation of an american president. it's an hour and 20 minutes. >> mr. president, honored guests, it's a great honor for me to be here this evening with all of you. some of you may recognize me from television, but most of you probably recognize my voice and not my face from national public radio. we are assembled here at the embassy of israel in washington, d.c. to award medals and certificates of honor of the righteous among the nations to the late master sergeant roddy

edmunds and to the late valerie sveski of poland who risked their lives to rescue jews. the holocaust remembrance authority was created by the state of israel in order to gather all information about the holocaust to commemorate, document, preserve, research and educate. when it was established, the jewish people did not forget the non-jews who stood by their side in it the darkest hours of history, struggling with the enormity of the loss and grappling with the impact of the total abandonment and betrayal of europe's jews, the state of israel made a point of remembering the rescuers. thus the law establishing this added yet another mission to pay tribute to the non-jews who

risked their lives to rescue jews during the holocaust. since 1963, a public commission headed by an israeli supreme court justice -- i could say maybe that's why i'm here, but i don't think so -- has been responsible for making the decision as to who will be recognized as righteous among the nations. this title is the highest honor that the state of israel bistr s s on non-jews. our ceremony here today is unprecedented in that this is the very first time that american citizens are post ooh mousily receiving righteous honors on american soil. i'm honored to invite to the stage our host, his exlc excelly

ron dermer. >> on behalf of the state of israel, my wife and i want to welcome all of you to the israeli embassy in washington. i want to begin by expressing my profound thanks to you, president obama, for being here tonight. mr. president, your presence here on international holocaust remembrance day is a powerful tribute to the memory of the victims as well as a testament to the unique nature of this ceremony in which we have come together to honor two americans and two poles who risked their li lives to save jews. your presence is a testament to the unique relationship between israel and the united states. it is not every day, nor every

year, nor even every decade that a sitting american president speaks at a foreign embassy. in fact, this is the first time that a sitting president has ever spoken in our embassy in washington. [ applause ] so, mr. president, i deeply appreciate the message of friendship that you are conveying by being here with us tonight. i want to welcome the chairman, the rabbi. as a child, he survived a c concentration camp. he would eventually become the chief rabbi of the state of israel. i can think of few individuals who better personify the spirit of the jewish people. i also want to welcome the chairman of the american

society, leonard vilf who is a child of survivors. i want to thank you and the entire family for everything that you have done to support the mission. i want to recognize someone else who is here tonight who has done so much to preserve the memory of the holocaust, and that is steven spielberg. mr. spielberg, thank you for using your talent to spread awareness of the holocaust across the world and across the generations. and thank you for your remarkable work to preserve the memory of tens of thousands of survivors. some of those survivors are here with us tonight. and i would like to ask them to stand for a moment and be recognized. [ applause ]

finally, i want to say something to the nearly 60 members who are here. the jewish people are an ancient people with a very long memory. we forget neither our most wicked enemies nor our most righteous friends. tonight, the names of your four esteemed relatives join the names of schindler, wallenberg and other righteous among the nations to become a part of our nation's heritage to be remembered by our people for generations and generations to come. ladies and gentlemen, 71 years after the liberation of auschwitz, we still try to make

some sense of the holocaust. we still try to learn some lesson that will shine light in the darkness. for some, the holocaust represents man's inhumanity to man. its primary lesson is to be ever vigilant against racism, sdeen phobia and intolerance. for others, the holocaust shows what can happen when extremist ideologies come to power. its primary lesson is to always safeguard the cornerstones of a free society, to protect the rights of all. for me, the holocaust was the attempt to wipe out the jewish people. and its primary lesson is for the jewish people to never be powerless against our enemies. that is why like many jews, i

take great comfort in the rebirth of a sovereign jewish state in our ancestral homeland. the jewish people once again having a voice, a refuge, and most important the power to defend ourselves. but regardless of its meaning and its lessons, the holocaust poses two difficult questions for all of us. questions that challenge both our faith in god and our faith in man. first, how could a compassionate god allow the holocaust to happen? second, how could seemingly civilized societies produce so many individuals who could perpetrate such horrific crimes? in trying to grapple with these two questions, perhaps we should consider two other questions. two much older questions.

they are recorded in the bible. they are the first question asked by god and first question asked by man. after adam and eve disobeyed god in the garden of eden, we read that they hide in shame as they hear god's voice. where are you god asks. the sages of the jewish people teach us that where are you is not a question god is asking for his sake, it's a question god is asking for our sake. it is a question meant to spur introspection, to instill in us an appreciation that we are morm agents in the world. that we are responsible for the moral choices we make. ladies and gentlemen, the six million jews killed in the holocaust were not the victims

of an earthearthquake, a hurricr some other random natural disaster that would understandably turn our eyes to the heavens for answers. the six million jews killed in the holocaust were murdered by other human beings. by human beings who had a choice. so perhaps the question where are you, a question that so many asked god during the holocaust, and which so many of us have been asking god ever since, is not a question for us to ask god but a question for god to ask us. where was man during the holocaust? where was the moral compass of the millions who simply looked the other way as the nazis and their army of willing executioners perpetrated such

monstrous evil? rather than honestly confront this question, people instead try to excuse their inaction. too often they justify their failure to accept our moral obligations to one another by hiding behind another question. they answered the first question asked by god in the bible with the first question asked by man in the bible. it was the question asked by cane after murdering able. am i my brother's keeper? am i my brother's keeper? ladies and gentlemen, we are all here tonight to honor four people who were their brother's keeper. we are all here to honor four brave individuals who saw their actions not as an act of courage

but as their most fundamental moral obligation to their fellow man. and that is precisely what makes them true heros. they are heros not simply because they had an answer to cane's question. they are heros because they had an answer to god's question. to the question, where are you, these four had an answer. in an age of so much indifference, they acted. in an age of so much cowardice, they were courageous. in an age of so much darkness, they were a source of light. so in honoring these four righteous souls tonight, let us not only recognize their remarkable heroism, let us hope that their light will inspire us to live our lives so that we, too, will be able to give the right answers to those timeless

questions and in so doing build a better future for all humanity. thank you. [ applause ] >> it's now my honor to call upon the rabbi, the chairman and holocaust survivor. >> president barak obama, we will never forget friday morning your visit signed by the president and the prime minister. your remarks is unforgettable for us.

thank you for joining us tonight. our host, the ambassador of israel and his wife, thank you for hosting this. honoring the honorees of righteous among the nations. all what we will say about you is nothing, is zero. what you deserve for your families knowing that your fathers or grandfathers did not only for the jewish people but for mankind. you are a symbol that a man can be good even in an evil period of time. we were in that dark tunnel six years.

i was in a city when i was born. the first ghetto located in poland was in our city. the first. october '39 started the misery, the suffering, the separating of families, the liquidation. in those six tunnels, six years, we thought that he concurred the whole world. every day a new transport came from where? from hungary, romania, bulgarian, greece, tunisia, paris, belgium, holland. so we inside diskeconnected fro media six years didn't see a

newspaper, didn't hear a voice of a radio whatever. what did we think? that he concurred the whole world. in this dark tunnel there were some stars. the righteous among the nations. stars. many of us other their lives, their survival to those stars. there is a professor in the illinois university. he founded the archives of the gestapo a document. there is a prisoner of war, a russi russi russian. he is risking his life in barrack number eight to rescue the life of a jewish child.

his name name is lulick. that's me. why? you have to investigate. maybe some jewish blood. why is he doing it? four months, rescue this life to save me. risked his life. he was a star. how many like this? from the whole world we have about 26,000 names. after all the investigations, we found them that they end right there. medal of righteous among the nations. 26,000 from a continent of so many millions of people. and they owed, our doctors,

educators, merchants, our industrials, whatever. 26,000, including from japan and schindler, sweden, germany, poland. no more than 26,000. mr. president, we have a long history speaking about righteous among the nations. because as the ambassador mentioned, we have a good memory. 3,300 years ago, we didn't have bread. there was no time to wait for bread. the same date, you attend us the passover. the same menu over 3,300 years.

four glasses of wine. what a memory. 2,200 years about, we found some oil in the temple. happy hanukkah. you grace us. on the same date, 25th, earlier to these two events, we had already a righteous among the nation. order was given by the king of egypt. all the boys who are born to the jewish people throw into the nile. the girls to survive. right and left, boys and girls. it's kind of a final solution. there was a baby of three months put in a box on the nile. his mother couldn't hide him anymore.

the thought of peril, not a jewish daughter, opened the box and said, this must be a jewish child. a jewish baby. she took him from the river, from the nile and he was brought up on the knees of her father. he is the first child survivor in mankind's history. the daughter of him is the first of the righteous of the nation. she saved him. we will never forget. and i want to say one word. as far as we are unable and not

authorized to forget the horror, we are ought to, we are commended to remember people who rescued -- who risked their lives to save us. we will never forget you did. we will never forget anyone who is assistance and helps for the mortality and eternity of the jewish people. thank you. [ applause ] >> let me call to the stage now, the chairman of the american society.

>> good evening, friends. it is a pleasure and an honor to address you on such an auspicious occasion. mr. president, you truly honor the state of israel and our courageous heros with your presence. your participation along with that of the ambassador and the rabbi and mr. spielberg underscores the significance and sing lairty of the event that will take place tonight. for that we deeply thank you. in the first years after the holocaust, when the jewish people were still grappling with the aftermath of the horrors that theyb understanding that along with memorializing and documenting the mass murders and destruction, the jewish people would honor and remember the unknown and silent heros. these were the rarest of men and women who did not go along or stand by as their neighbors,

friends and countrymen were rounded up and targeted for death. as risk to their own and family's lives, roddy edmunds and others were guided by a strong sense of morality to save jewish children and adults. whose descendants and families are here tonight. in doing so, they are identified by the state of israel as righteous among the nations. true exemparticulars of courage and heroism from us and our children. many elements of the ceremony make it distinctive. it's the first time in history that an american president has joined with the state of israel to honor united states citizens as righteous among the nations. it's the first time that american citizens are being recognized on american soil. it's the first time that a u.s. soldier has been so recognized. it's the fourth and fifth time that americans are being recognized as righteous among

the nation. that's a s this event, with its bond to american citizens who demonstrated enormous acts of bravery to a polish couple who saved a child would go on to build a life in america, gives me a strong sense of pride. my family and i have dedicated ourselves to furthering holocaust research and education both in israel and the united states. as chairman of the american socie society, i'm humbled to the task we commit ourselves, to ensure the world never forgets. tonight, not only do we give honor to these incredible men and women, we also proclaim that despite the years that have passed, these stories carry timeless lessons for us all gathered here tonight and for all humanity. thank you again. [ applause ] now, if you would turn your attention to the video monitors on each side of the room for a

video greeting from prime minister benjamin netanyahu. >> president obama, ambassador, former chief rabbi and all the family members whose relatives are being honored tonight, today marks the 71 of the anniversary of the liberation of uauschwitz. we remember the children who never had a chance to grow up. today is a day when we can be grateful for the establishment of the state of israel. the jewish people were once powerless and stateless. now we are a sovereign independent nation with a capacity to defend ourselves. but as we defend ourselves, we know that we do not stand alone. while israel counts other nations as friends, we know we

have no better friend than the united states of america. on behalf of the people of israel, i want to thank you, president obama, for coming to our embassy to mark this important occasion. and i thank you for your commitment to continue to work with us to bolster israel's security over the coming decade. your being here reflects the unbreakable bond of friendship between america and the jewish state. it's a worthy tribute to the four brave individuals whom we honor tonight. the jewish people owe gratitude to valley and maria and louis and to master sergeant roddy edmunds. we are indebted to them because of the jewish children and soldiers who were saved thanks to their bravery. their courage was a special courage. they not only risked their own lives but the lives of their families and the life of their

soldiers. there is no greater courage. god bless you all. [ applause ] >> so as we turn to the presentation of the righteous among the nations honors ceremony, i would like to invite the ambassador and the rabbi to the stage. you coming to the stage? i think they have chairs for you. it is my honor as a cousin of holocaust survivor elizabeth wilk to read the story of her rescue in poland. on july 22, 1942, the germans

began the mass deportations from the ghetto. by september 21, some 260,000 inhabitants of the ghetto had been deported to an extermination camp where they were murdered. two women managed to flee from the ghetto and to go into hiding. i'm named after my aunt yanina because my father thought by the end of the war when i was born that she was dead. my aunt and her daughter stayed for two months at the home of acquaintances. my aunt then brought her daughter to it the home of valerie and marila sbeski until my aunt was able to rent an apartment under a false name and

take her daughter back. despite the enormous danger the germans announced that helping jews would be punished by death, they carried for the girl and protected her until her mother was able to take her. i would like to call dr. voytek of johns hopkins medical school, grandson of the late marila and valerie. righteous among the nations from poland to receive the medal and certificate of honor. [ applause ]

so now let me introduce my cousin who was rescued in poland -- we witnell get this right. the sbieskis. [ applause ] >> i am here today because of acts of tolerance, kindness and heroism. when the war started, i was not either 3 years old. during the time of the nazi

occupation, there was fear, m menice and terror. when jews were ordered to the ghetto, my parents and i did so in spite of offers of help. my father said that he will go where his people go. he died there at the age of 41. my mother and i were able to escape from the ghetto. once outside, we didn't know where to go. my mother knocked at the apartment door of friends from before the war who took us in without hesitation. we stayed with them until bombardment destroyed their house. we did not have a place to live and my mother slept one night here and one night there. she feared for my safety. she turned to marila, friends

from before the war. they took me into their home and i stayed there for some time with them and their children and i do not know how my mother managed during this time. on posts everywhere there were notices by occupiers that anyone who fed a jew, knew about a jew in hiding and did not report it or hid a jew would be executed together with their entire family. there was always a possibility that someone might notice something or a child might say one word too many. these families who helped were in peril. we survived the war because of people like them and others some

of whose names i cannot even know. in time of an unspeakable horror, they all showed heroism and humanity in the highest sense of the word. history repeats itself. i am frightened by aggression, hate and a lack of tolerance. we cannot forget our humanity and the lessons of the past. thank you. [ applause ] >> i now invite to the stage, mark kalish, son of a holocaust survivor, who is here with us this evening to read the story of her rescue by righteous among

the nations from the united states of america lois gundon. [ applause ] >> 1941, lois, a 26-year-old teacher of french from indiana, volunteered to work for the mennonite central committee in southern france. she established children's home which became a safe haven for a number of children. including jews whom she helped smuggle out of the internment camp. there lois pleaded with the parents to give up their children and give them to her in order to save them from deportation and almost certain death. my mother, who is with us tonight, is one of the several children saved by lois.

my mother said at the time i was 12 years old and certainly scared. lois was kind and determined to take me and other jewish children to protect us from harm. she sheltered the children when the french police arrived. and she ran the children's home even after the united states entered the war and she herself became an enemy. she continued her work until january 1943 when she was detained by the germans, fortunately released in 1944 in a prisoner exchange. i, my sister elisebeth and her grandson eric are here today representing the scores of jewish descendents of the children lois saved. through lois, we are bound in gratitude to the gundon family. thank you.

[ applause ] >> i'm honored to call upon mary jean gundon, niece of the late lois gundon, righteous among the nations from the united states of america to receive the medal and certificate of honor and to offer some remarks. [ applause ] >> on behalf of my late aunt,

her family, friends and her broader mennonite community, i express our deep gratitude to the people of israel for this great honor. our family was blessed to have lois among us. she possessed an inspiring spiritual dignity and grace. humble about her many achievements, we knew little about her war-time activities. her flunsy in french allowed her to communicate with the 60 children in the home and their parents. lois was grateful for every opportunity to in her words add just another ray of love to the lives of youngsters who have experienced so much of the misery of life. from contact with other relief workers from organizations such as the american friends service committee, or afsc, and the jewish organizations, lois knew

the dangers her children faced. after a visit from her colleague from the afsc on august 9, 1942, she wrote, mary elms informed me of the return of polish jews to poland where death awaits them. learning that three children sought by police had been saved from deportation on september 3, 1942, she wrote, when i heard of how the children were finally snatched from the fate hanging over them, i felt as if god must have had a hand in preventing anyone from coming after them during these two days. had they been taken to camp, all efforts to save them would have arrived too late for any good. marking a year on october 31, 1942, she wrote, but my year's experience has taught me more than ever that one has to live one day at a time.

god's faithfulness towards those who put their trust in him can be counted upon throughout the particular problems of the day. without the assurance of his abiding presence and his sustaining help, i would feel lost in an impossible tangle of circumstances. lois refused an offer by the resistance to leave france and avoid german detention. she, a pa would not risk danger those helping her nor others that might be harmed in retaliation. this young woman, not much older than the children she strove to save, is truly an american hero. [ applause ]

>> i'm honored to call upon lester tanner who will tell the the story of how he and his fellow pows were rescued by righteous among the nations from the united states of america master sergeant roddy edmunds. [ applause ] >> good evening. i am honored tonight to present this narrative of my commander and my friend. master sergeant roddy edmunds of knoxville, tennessee, participated in the landing of the american forces in europe

and was taken prisoner by the germans. in january 1945, the germans ordered all jewish inmates in the pow camp to report the following morning. understanding the imminent danger in which this would place his fellow jewish prisoners, like myself, master sergeant edmunds ordered all the pows, jews and non-jews alike to report together. when the german officer in charge saw that all the inmates

standing in front of the barracks, he said, they cannot all be jews. i remember standing by his side when edmunds retorted, we are all jews. he did not waiver even when the german took out his pistol and threatened to shoot him. according to the geneva convention, said edmunds, we have to give you only our name, rank and serial number. if you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us. because we know who you are. and after the war, you will be tried for war crimes.

the german finally gave up and left the scene. and the jewish pows were saved from certain death. roddy could no more have turned 200 of his men over to nazi persecution than he could stop breathing. my fellow pows who are with us tonight, paul stern -- raise your hand, paul. [ applause ] paul was one of the jewish pows saved by roddy edmunds. he recalled, although 71 years

have passed, i can still hear the words he said to the german camp commander. according to his diary, these events took place on january 27, 1945. 71 years ago today. and tonight, my comrade paul stern is celebrating his 92nd birthday. [ applause ] i would also like you to meet one of my other comrades. he is actually the kid among us. he celebrated his 90th birthday

last august at s-- sergeant irwn fox, would you stand up? [ applause ] sonny is actually a tv star. he was president of the national academy of television arts and sciences. and at 90, he is still a consultant. thanks to roddy for saving us. and thank you. god bless america. [ applause ] >> all i can say is i, i want t

look like these guys when i'm 90. i'm honored to call upon chris edmunds to receive the medal and certificate of honor on behalf of his father and to offer some remarks. [ applause ] >> lester, you did good. thank you.

ambassador, mr. president -- might i say, it's an incredible honor to have you here. one memory that our family will cherish always. i might also say, it's my first time speaking at the embassy as well. [ laughter ] [ applause ] rabbi, senator alexander, senator corker, the gunden family -- i'm going to mess this up. i'm from tennessee. the sbieski family. there we go. i will get it right next time. and distinguished guests, tonight on this noble occasion, my mother mary ann who could not be with us and my family are

blessed to receive this remarkable honor. righteous among the nations on behalf of many i father. thank you god for our treasuresh bestowing this on dad. the first recognized for protecting american jews, our family is forever grateful. more personally, our family extends warmest thanks to our dear friends larry and barbara goldstein who shared dad's story. they could not be here tonight as well. being named among the righteous is a fitting tribute to dad, a man who lived by a christian faith and a love for everyone. we're very proud of him and we're humbled that he joins a small minority of ordinary people who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold

the goodness and dignity of humanity. my dad, like miss gunden and others are heros. in a defining moment, when evil demanded their conscience and a even their very souls, they refused to join the masses but instead, bowed to no one and chose what is right regardless of the risk. choosing right by their creator and right for god's children. what they did is right today. it's right tomorrow. it's right always. as we honor these enduring lives it's especially fitting that you have favored dad on january 27th, international holocaust remembrance day. as lester shared on this day 71 years ago, my dad fearlessly stood with his jewish and non-jewish brothers and told the

nazi commander we are all jews here. we are blessed to know dad's story and blessed by his actions but most blessed to know some of the men he saved. remarkably, you have met them, they have joined us tonight along with their beautiful families and their three jewish american veterans who stood strong and defiant with dad that bitterly cold january morning. staff sergeant lester tanner of new york. tech sergeant and medic, paul stern of virginia. happy birthday, sir. sergeant sonny fox of california. two men who were unable to attend but wishing us well are tech sergeant hank friedman of georgia and tech sergeant skip friedman of ohio. we must always remember the 1200 courageous and defiant doughboys of the u.s. army who stood in sharp formation that difficuday

heroic men and my father. all are heroes. gentlemen, we salute you. thank you for a job well done. my father's legacy like all of the righteous are the children, the grandchildren and the great grandchildren of these men. i'm often asked why would your father do what he did. dad would say son, what's all the fuss? i was just doing my job. but i say dad's life was guided by one eternal truth, that there is a god and that god is good. and god's love though free has one essential responsibility. we must be good to one another or as jesus proclaimed, we must love one another. that's what dad did. along with these others who are being honored tonight. and they leave an enduring

legacy along with the tribe we call the righteous. their actions were founded on god's love and their extraordinary -- and the extraordinary idea that all men and women are created equal. tonight we celebrate them because they acted on that idea and though we honor them with words, nothing honors them more than their actions. our duty now is to take strength from their example and resolve to live as they did. laying down one's life for freedom and human dignity. god's word says this. the godly people in the land are my true heroes. i take pleasure in them. gratefully, we do, too. thank you. may god richly bless all of you with his grace and his mercy. [ applause ]

>> it's my great honor now to call upon foundation founder and academy award winning director and producer stephen spielberg who will introduce the president of the united states of america. >> thank you. thank you, nina and good evening, mr. president, ambassador, rabbi, the families of the righteous among nations who are -- who we honor today and the families of those saved by these righteous souls and distinguished guests. i'm humbled to be part of this

historic gathering, particularly given the significance that this is international holocaust remembrance day. and i am here tonight to introduce my good friend, president obama. now, in these times with humanity worldwide, when humanity is buffeted by crisis after crisis, when the need for redemptive action has never been more urgent, i was eager to join you in washington to commemorate the righteous among the nations. many of those in attendance today are here because of courageous acts. the descendents of victims and survivors, second and third generations, they make a significant portion of world jewery today. lador vador is from generation to generation. these in particular i think are a living testament to the love of humankind and the refusal to become complicit in evil that

drove the righteous to risk their own lives to save jews. we gather tonight to honor four righteous persons, master sergeant roddie edmonds, louis gunden and valerie zbievski. i practiced that the whole way here. when we remember and honor the selflessness and bravery and loving kindness of the righteous among nations, we are actually committing our lives to their legacies by promising simply to listen to their stories because they can help us find our voices. i found my own voice at a very early age where i was barely able to reach the top of the dining room table, from where i could watch my grandmother teaching hungarian holocaust survivors english. there was no sesame street back

then but i learned my numbers on the forearms of survivors of auschwitz. they taught me how to count. this is an indelible memory and it set me on the path as a person who began to listen to everything. i have always believed you can't find your own voice for speaking on behalf for the world or speaking against those who would destroy the world, if you can't hear what the world is saying. and with that in mind, i wanted to make a film about the importance of not being a bystander as history passes close to you, giving all of us a chance to do something before it passes us by and so that film was schindler's list. oscar schindler one of the righteous among the nations saved more than 1,100 jews and made life possible for their offspring. from that film came the foundation, the institute for visual history and education,

which houses more than 53,000 survivors' and witnesses' testimonies in 39 languages gathered from 63 countries, ensuring that we will never stop listening, that their stories will live on for future generations and their voices preserved in perpetuity. now it is a great honor for me to introduce to you a man who truly understands what it means to find your voice. time and again, he has honored lifting up their stories and by standing firm against bigotry and hatred that fuels violence and genocide. in 2014, i was privileged to present president obama with the foundation's ambassador for humanity award and that night, the president quoted a holocaust

survivor who works to improve the world drop by drop by drop. and i believe that, too, is the president's lifelong mission. it's why some have said that this president has a jewish soul. he showed this when he created the atrocities prevention board and when he declared the prevention of mass atrocities a national security interest. he demonstrates this in his steadfast support for the state of israel at a time when israel has many enemies and when antisemitism focuses its hatred on a nation that emerged in the wake of tragedy to offer hope and a future for the jewish people. the president's support is needed and appreciated more than ever. and in his commitment to seek a humanitarian response to the syrian refugee crisis and every time he stands up for people who have been attacked because of their identity and denounces

antisemitism, islamophobia, racism and hatred in every form, he demonstrates that never again means we cannot be bystanders when people are stigmatized, oppressed, excluded or attacked because of their identity. the president makes sure that phrase never again is not a hollow declaration by giving it a powerful voice in his everyday life. so it means a great deal to have the president of the united states take part in the first righteous among the nations ceremony to be held on u.s. soil at the embassy of israel and it's my distinct privilege to introduce my good friend and president of the united states, barack obama. [ applause ] >> thank you.

thank you. good evening. if a person destroys one life, it is as if they have destroyed an entire world. and if a person saves one life, it is as if they have saved an entire world. what an extraordinary honor to be with you as we honor four righteous individuals whose courage is measured in the lives they saved. one child. one refugee. one comrade at a time. and who in so doing, helped save our world.

i deliver a lot of speeches. very rarely am i so humbled by the eloquence that has preceded me. not just in words, but in the acts that we commemorate today. to my dear friend stephen spielberg, thanks for your moving and generous words. you spoke of the importance of finding your voice and using it for good, and i know that your work, whether a masterpiece like schindler's list or the stories that you have so persistently preserved through the shoah foundation is deeply personal. steven once said the story of the shoah is the story that he was born to tell, rooted in those childhood memories that he just gave you a taste of, the relatives lost, the stories you

heard from your family and stephen, the whole world is grateful that you found your voice and for the good that you've done with that voice. it will endure for generations and so on behalf of all of us, we are grateful. to ambassador and mrs. dermer, to nina totenberg, our friends from the israeli embassy, thank you so much for hosting us today. let me just add tonight that our thoughts are also with former israeli president peres. i had the opportunity to speak with shimon earlier this week. i thanked him for his friendship which has always meant so much to me personally and i thanked him once again for the shining example of his leadership with his extraordinary life as a founding father of the state of israel, a statsman who has never given up on peace, embodiment of the great alliance between our two nations.

he inspires us all. this evening we speak for all of us, israelis, americans, people around the world in wishing him a full and speedy recovery. i also want to just note the presence of two of our outstanding senators from the great state of tennessee. i know that it's rare where you have such an extraordinary native of the state being honored in this way but i think it's also worth noting that this represents the bipartisan and steadfast support of members of congress for the security and prosperity of the state of israel, and they act on that every single day. the survivors, families of the righteous and those they saved to all the distinguished guests, we gather to honor the newest of

the righteous among the nations. and make real the call to never forget. not just on this day of remembrance, but for all days and for all time. in moments like this, as i listen to the extraordinary stories of the four that we honored, memories come rushing back of the times that i have encountered the history+ horror of the shoah. growing up hearing the stories of my great uncle who helped liberate buchenwald and who returned home so shaken by the suffering that he had seen that my grandmother would tell me he did not speak to anyone for six months. just went up in his attic, couldn't fully absorb the horror that he had witnessed.

then having the opportunity to go to buchenwald myself with my dear friend elle and seeing the ovens, the little camp where he was held as a boy. standing with survivors in the old warsaw ghetto and then the extraordinary honor of walking through with the rabbi and seeing the faces and hearing the voices of the lost, a blessed memory. then taking my own daughters to visit the holocaust museum, because our children must know this chapter of our history and that we must never repeat it. the four lives we honor tonight to make a claim on our conscience as well as our moral imagination. we hear their stories and we are forced to ask ourselves under the same circumstances, how would we act?

how would we answer god's question, where are you? would we show the love of valerie and marila zbievski. not bad, right? there in warsaw, they could have been shot for opening their home to a 5-year-old girl. they cared for her like one of their own. gave her safety and shelter and moments of warmth of family and music, a shield from the madness outside until her mother could return. would we have the extraordinary compassion of lois gunden? she wrote that she simply hoped to add just another ray of love

to the lives of these youngsters who had already endured so much and by housing and feeding as many jewish children as she could, her ray of love always shown through and still burns within the families of those she saved. would we have the courage of master sergeant roddie edmonds. i know your dad said he was just doing his job, but he went above and beyond the call of duty and so did all those who joined in that line. faced with a choice of giving up his fellow soldiers or saving his own life, roddie looked evil in the eye and dared a nazi to shoot. his moral compass never wavered. he was true to his faith and he saved some 200 jewish american soldiers as a consequence.

it's an instructive lesson, by the way, for those of us christians. i cannot imagine a greater expression of christianity to say i too am a jew. i ask these questions because even as the holocaust is unique, a crime without parallel in history, the seeds of hate that gave rise to the shoah, the ignorance that conspires with arrogance, the indifference that betrays compassion, those seeds have always been with us. they have found root across cultures and across faiths and across generations. the ambassador mentioned the

story of cain and abel. it's deep within us. too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give in to a base desire to find someone else, someone different, to blame for our struggles. so here tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, antisemitism is on the rise. we cannot deny it. when we see some jews leaving european cities where their families have lived for generations because they no longer feel safe, when jewish centers are targeted from mumbai to overland park, kansas, when swastikas appear on college campuses, when we see all that and more, we must not be silent.

an attack on any faith is an attack on all of our faiths. it is an attack on that golden rule at the heart of so many faiths that we ought to do unto others as we would have done to us. for americans in particular, we should understand that it's an attack on our diversity, on the very idea that people of different backgrounds can live together and thrive together. which is why your father was right. we are all jews. because antisemitism is a distillation, an expression of an evil that runs through so

much of human history, and if we do not answer that, we do not answer any other form of evil. when any jew anywhere is we all have to respond as roddie edmonds did. we are all jews. we know that we will never be able to wipe out hatred from every single mind. we won't entirely erase the scourge of antisemitism. but like the righteous, we must do everything we can. all of us have a responsibility. certainly government has a responsibility. as president, i have made sure that the united states is leading the global fight against antisemitism and it's why with israel and countries around the world, we organized the first united nations general assembly meeting on antisemitism. it's why we have urged other

nations to dedicate a special envoy to this threat as we have. it's why when a statue of an anti-semitic leader from world war ii was planned in hungary, we led the government to reverse course. this was not a sidenote to our relations with hungary. this was central to maintaining a good relationship with the united states and we let them know. it's why when voices around the world veer from criticism of a particular israeli policy to an unjust denial of israel's right to exist, when israel faces terrorism, we stand up forcefully and proudly in defense of our ally, in defense of our friend, in defense of the jewish state of israel. america's commitment to israel's security remains now and forever unshakeable and i have said this before, it would be a

fundamental moral failing if america broke that bond. all nations that prize diversity and tolerance and pluralism must speak out whenever and wherever jews and other religious minorities are attacked. in recent years we have seen leaders in france, germany and great britain stand strongly against antisemitism. in israel, president rivlin has spoken about tolerance and acceptance among all israelis, jewish and arab. meanwhile, governments have an obligation to care for the survivors of the shoah because no one who endured that horror should have to scrape by in their golden years. so with our white house initiative, we are working to improve care for holocaust survivors in need here in the united states, and with the compensation fund we helped create, claims are finally being paid that even more jews

deported from france during the holocaust, including survivors here in america, can benefit from. but the task before us does not fall on government alone. every faith community has a responsibility, just as all religions speak out against those who try to twist their faith to justify terrorism and violence, just as all faiths need to speak out when interpretations of their religion veer in an ugly direction, so too must they speak out against those who use their faith to justify bias against jews or people of any faith. we know that there were muslims from albanians to arabs who protected jews from nazis. in morocco, leaders from muslim majority countries around the world just held a summit on protecting religious minorities

including jews and christians. his holiness, pope francis, has spoken forcefully against antisemitism saying every human being as a creature of god is our brother regardless of his origins or religious beliefs. these are the voices we must heed and anyone who claims to be a religious leader must project that vision. that truth. and finally, all of us have a responsibility to speak out and to teach what's right to our children and to examine our own hearts. that's the lesson of the righteous we honor today. the lesson of the holocaust itself. where are you, who are you? that's the question that the holocaust poses to us.

we have to consider even in moments of peril, even when we might fear for our own lives, the fact that none of us are powerless. we always have a choice and today for most of us standing up against intolerance doesn't require the same risks that those we honor today took. it doesn't require imprisonment or that we face down the barrel of a gun. it does require us to speak out. it does require us to stand firm. we know that evil can flourish if we stand idly by. so we're called to live in a way that shows that we have actually learned from our past and that means rejecting indifference. it means cultivating a habit of empathy and recognizing ourselves in one another, to make common cause with the

outsider, the minority, whether that minority is christian or jew, whether it is hindu or muslim, or non-believer. whether that minority is native-born or immigrant. whether they are israeli or palestinian. it means taking a stand against bigotry in all its forms and rejecting our darkest impulses and guarding against tribalism as the only value. in our communities and in our politics. it means heeding the lesson repeated so often in the torah to welcome the stranger for we were once strangers, too. that's how we never forget. not simply by keeping the lessons of the shoah in our memories but by living them in our actions. as the book of deuteronomy

teaches us, justice, justice, you shall pursue. i want to close with what i'm told is a jewish legend. it's said that within every generation, there are 36 virtuous individuals, individuals so honorable, so filled with compassion that their good works sustain the very existence of the world. they are called -- and without them society crumbles, according to the legend. we don't know who they are. they are entirely indistinguishable ordinary people like valerie and marela

and lois and roddie. you wouldn't necessarily recognize them in a crowd. but i believe that their jn rati generation, the generation of schindler demanded a lot more than 36. it called for more than 26,000 righteous among the nations. it called for the millions of heroes who did not go quietly and who stood up and fought back. may we all strive to live up to their noble example. to to do our part to sustain each other and embrace the humanity we share and in so doing, save our world. may the memory of the lost be a blessing and as nations and individuals, may we always

strive to be among the righteous. god bless you, god bless the united states of america and god bless the state of israel. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, please stay in your places for a few minutes. >> with the iowa caucuses on monday, "washington journal" talked to students at simpson college near des moines, iowa to find whout what they think of t presidential race.

>> olivia and zach are sophomores here at simpson, both active in politics on campus. olivia anderson, you came to simpson college specifically for iowa politics. what did you find? >> absolutely. when i was making my college choice i saw simpson and i saw its location near des moines and i wanted to come here for politics. since coming, it's been a whirlwind of opportunities. whether it be senate or house elections, or even presidential elections that are currently happening right now, i was able to be a fellow with the hillary clinton campaign this past summer just due to the fact that i conveniently live in iowa. >> you are also president of the college democrats. were you always a democrat? when did you start becoming a democrat? >> actually, whenever i was growing up, i grew up in a fairly conservative area. i grew up a republican but after just learning more and just really trying to educate myself, i figured out i aligned more with democratic values. so that transition happened in college and it's definitely exciting that it happened here

in iowa, too. >> zach goodrich, alining a little differently. active in the rubio campaign. what do you do with the campaign? >> i'm the chairman for the warren county campaign. i also help run the campaigns across college campuses in iowa. >> what do you do in that role? >> we work with the different students, all the chairs for the students for rubio at colleges as big as the university of iowa and as small as schools like simpson. we make sure that they have events planned whether it be debate party or even just coming out and let's discuss the candidates and the issues. >> do you think your generation is as active in politics as previous generations? >> i like to think we are. obviously we will have some people who are pretty pessimistic about our generation and they like to think we are not as civically engaged. from what i have seen here at simpson and across the state there are plenty of young people who are concerned about the state of our nation and who want to be involved and help make sure we get back on the right track. >> how did you become a republican? >> i became a republican because like olivia, raised in a fairly

conservative household and i like to tell people i bleed red because it's just been part of my family for generations. my great grandfather actually involved with the republican party of iowa, served as its treasurer, helped run president ford's campaign in '76. it's just something i have always taken pride in. >> where are you going to be on caucus night? >> caucus night i'm going to be supporting marco rubio. >> olivia, where are you going to be? >> i'm going to be here on campus. we have caucus locations. i will be supporting hillary. on saturday's "washington journal," iowa state university professor stefan schmidt with a preview of monday's iowa presidential caucuses. then former senator tim hutchinson, a supporter of marco rubio's candidacy. and hillary clinton supporter, former senator tom harkin. "washington journal" live with your phone calls, tweets and facebook comments at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. we have main engine start.

four, three, two, one. and liftoff. liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower. >> every weekend on american history tv on c-span 3 we feature programs that tell the american story. some of the highlights for this weekend include saturday morning at 11:15 eastern, author and new york state supreme court judge dianne keisel discusses the life and accomplishments of dorothy ferraby. at 10:00 p.m. eastern on real america, 30 years ago this week, the space shuttle "challenger" exploded shortly after liftoff killing all seven crew members. watch president reagan's address to the nation about the explosion. and a 1986 nasa video report detailing the accident's causes. >> today is a day for mourning and remembering. nancy and i are shaken to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle "challenger." we know we share this pain with all the people of our country. this is truly a national loss.

>> sunday morning at 10:00 on road to the white house rewind, a look at the iowa caucuses including howard dean's 2004 speech featuring the dean scream and the conference on the history of the iowa caucuses whose speakers include retired democratic political advisor tim kraft, the campaign manager for jimmy carter in 1976. also two panels with former campaign managers and political reporters. and at 8:00, journalist paul brandis on his book under this roof, the white house and the presidency, 21 presidents, 21 rooms, 21 inside stories. he explains how presidents from george washington to barack obama have left their imprint on the executive mansion. >> here's what i find interesting about the theater. if you look at records of what the presidents have watched over the years, the tastes are obviously eclectic and everything and they reflect the tastes of the presidents, they

reflect the times in which they lived and everything, but there's one movie, this is a quiz section of our evening here, there's one movie that really resonated with more presidents than any other. can you guess what that one movie might be? >> for the complete american history tv weekend schedule, go to c-span.org. in 2012, the supreme court struck down mandatory life sentences for juveniles. this week, the court ruled in a 6-3 decision that those life sentences should be struck down rets actively. justice anthony kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the case of montgomery versus louisiana. here's the oral argument from october. it's an hour and 15 minutes. we'll hear argument this morning, case 14280, montgomery versus louisiana. mr. bernstein. >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court.

the issue is whether to decide the question of miller's retroactivity in this case or in a federal habeas case such as johnson versus mannis, number 15-1 on this court's docket. in today's case there is no jurisdiction over that question because the point is enforce the supremacy clause which states that when, quote, the laws of the united states, unquote, apply, quote, the judges -- these are the key words -- in every state shall be bound thereby. there is no such thing as supreme federal law that depends on whether a particular state voluntarily makes federal precedents binding. when a state does that, when a state voluntarily adopts non-binding federal precedents, that creates no right under federal law, which is what 1257 requires, and michigan versus long does not apply. >> how would you describe the adequate and independent state

ground on which this decision rested? >> i would say that the lack of a binding federal law question is an antecedent requirement, to borrow the terminology of the sg's brief, before you get to the adequate and independent state ground analysis. >> why don't we have jurisdiction to answer that question? >> you certainly have jurisdiction to answer the question whether teague is constitutionally required in state collateral review courts. the second part of the brief said why it is not constitutionally required in state collateral review courts, and that's basically this court's precedents from danforth to the beginning in desist and in kaufmann have said the teague, what have become the teagu exceptions are matters of equitable discretion and not

matters of the constitution, and the federal habeas statute on its face, only applies in federal court. so the federal habeas court can grant relief if relief is warranted under the teague exception. >> if a state says we acknowledge that we are holding a prisoner in contravention of federal law but we choose to do nothing about it, then the answer is federal habeas corpus, there is not a second answer that the state can be required under the supremacy clause under its own procedures to enforce the federal law? if i am -- if i were to take -- to argue the second position, i am not quite sure what case i would have to support me. >> well, i think that your honor's opinion for the court in martinez versus ryan. 132 supreme court at 1319 to 1320, suggested that there are advantages to citing the federal habeas right in the federal habeas statute rather than what the court called a free standing

constitutional claim. a major advantage here is, if you say that the state courts are bound by the teague exceptions, by the constitution, then when it goes to federal habeas there will be deferential edba review. if you say that the redress question, as the rationale of danforth indicated, in state court is a matter of state law, then, when the issue goes to federal habeas, it will not apply because the state court will not have decided the federal issue. it is a major difference. you would actually be weakening the federal habeas statute to recognize jurisdiction in this case. and this court will benefit from having de novo percolation in the lower courts, the lower habeas courts, which all would be out the window if there is jurisdiction because the lower federal habeas courts will only

be able and the courts reviewing them on appeal to apply the highly deferential edber review. >> are you saying the supremacy clause binds the states only in direct criminal proceedings? >> no. >> is that another way of phrasing your argument? >> it would be that the supremacy clause only binds the states in direct proceedings and in collateral proceedings where it's an old rule. because that's the equivalent of a direct proceeding. but if you are talking about the retroactivity of a new rule, then -- that's where the teague -- the two teague exceptions apply. they apply to new rules and they apply to collateral review. those are based in statutory equitable discretion rather than the constitution. the court has already held that both direct review and the application of old rules present federal questions.

>> how do you differentiate this case from standard oil? >> in standard oil the issue was the underlying status of the federal government arm and the court said that question is controlled by federal law. standard oil is like miller itself where the issue was what does the 8th amendment require. that's a federal constitutional issue that applied. in standard oil, as a combination of statute, regulations and federal common law, federal law controlled the question. here the statute doesn't apply in state court as danforth and numerous other cases have held, like the federal rules of evidence don't apply in state court, even though many courts follow similar provisions and certainly follow federal precedents in interpreting. >> we did say that that state could define the exemption any which way it wanted. >> correct.

>> it's almost identical here. we would announce what the federal law is, send it back. the state has already said it's going to follow teague. but i guess it might or might not be free to change its mind about doing that. >> i think the difference and what makes this case special is that this court has held since murdoch versus city of memphis over almost 150 years ago. 87 u.s. at 326 to 327 that the 1267 jurisdiction is question by question. it is not like 1331, case by case. it is question by question. and i do not believe the court has jurisdiction to skip over the question of whether federal law applies and then answer the hypothetical if federal law applied, what would it be. i think the question of whether federal law applies is a jurisdictional question. >> how -- let's think of the first teague exception.

suppose, substantive matters. suppose that many states had sedition laws, that make certain conduct unlawful so there are 1,000 people in prison. this court, in a new rule, holds you cannot criminalize that behavior. all right. what is the law that would make that retroactive to people in prison? it sounds to me that it isn't like some kind of statutory discretion. rather, there are human beings who are in prison who are there without having violated any valid law. because it was always protected by the first amendment. if that's right it's the constitution, the due process clause, that says they are being held, even though they committed the crime 22 years ago, they are

now being held in confinement without due process of law because you cannot criminalize their behavior. you see where i am going? that being so, teague drops out of the case, the only question is whether to satisfy the two exceptions. >> well, in your hypothetical, respectfully, i don't think that would be a new rule. >> i have made it a new rule for purposes of my hypothetical. i'm making it a new rule. >> if it were a genuinely new rule, then under danforth and going all the way back, the justice harlan's opinion in mackie said we're not creating the substantive exception because the constitution requires that -- >> danforth is a case saying the states could be more generous. it wasn't a case -- this is a case that the opposite of being generous. can they be more stingy. and i cannot find anything in harlan. maybe i'll read it again, but i

cannot find anything there, nor can i find anything in danforth that answers the question. so i thought, it is a new question. hence, that question i posed you because i want to get your response. i don't think you can answer it by means of precedent. i think you have to try to figure it out without the help of precedent. >> if it is a new rule, the court has held and sorry to cite a precedent, linkletter held retroactivity on collateral review that it's not constitutional. >> then we have teague and teague is saying we don't like linkletter and -- >> teague said we don't like -- >> you're saying that we have -- maybe then that's wrong. i mean, why doesn't it violate the constitution to hold a person in prison for 20 years for conduct which the constitution forbids making criminal? >> well, it does violate the constitution. >> it wasn't criminal at the time.

it wasn't prohibited by the constitution at the time he was convicted, right? >> fair enough. >> would be the reason. >> fair enough. >> but the -- the constitution, according to the cases, is satisfied by the federal habeas remedy. i think this is where -- >> is there anything else you can say? i could say, which -- witches, being a witch. some people in salem were imprisoned for being a witch. lo and behold, in 1820 it was held by this court that that violated the constitution. now, you see, i just make a more outrageous example of the same thing. i want you to say, okay, i got your point. it didn't violate the constitution at the time. i also got the point you have some authority. anything else? >> this court has been reluctant, even when there is a violation of the due process

clause, to create an implied judicial remedy on top of the federal statutory remedy. that's cited in our briefs. >> that's not what's happening here, mr. bernstein. i mean, if you assume the premise of justice breyer's question, which is that there is a constitutional violation in keeping somebody in prison for some conduct that can't be criminalized, the state has set up a collateral review mechanism. we're not asking it to set up a new mechanism that it hasn't had before. it has a collateral review mechanism. and the only question is whether it's going to comply with federal constitutional law in that collateral review mechanism. >> and the other question is whether that issue of retroactivity is itself a federal constitutional issue. if it is, obviously there is jurisdiction. if it is not, i would submit there is not jurisdiction and

that the proper remedy is federal habeas. if i may reserve the remainder of my time. >> thank you, counsel. mr. plaisance. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. miller versus alabama established a new substantive rule prohibiting mandatory life without parole for juveniles which should be applied retro actively. this court has jurisdiction to hear henry montgomery's claim because the louisiana supreme court relied exclusively on federal juris prudence. in miller this court held that mandatory life in prison was unconstitutional. it also held that life in prison would be an uncommon, rash sentence even today. >> isn't it just like a state saying, we have a fourth amendment, and the federal constitution has a fourth amendment. we are going to apply our own constitution, but in applying

it, we will follow the federal precedent. i think we would say, in that case, the case has been decided on the state constitutional ground, even though the state court, in interpreting that ground, is looking to federal decisions. >> in this case, your honor, the louisiana supreme court did not state that it was exercising any independent grounds at all. under michigan v long -- >> i thought the case it cited said that. the case -- i thought it cited an earlier louisiana supreme court case, which made it very clear that it was following the federal rule as a matter of discretion and not because -- not because it had to and it could, in a later opinion, decide not to follow federal law. >> it is my interpretation of the earlier case that the louisiana supreme court said, we

have a choice. and they made the choice to apply teague. in fact, they said in that opinion, we are dictated by the teague analysis. and that's what was done in this case. under michigan -- >> did they not say in taylor that they were not bound to follow teague? didn't they say we're going to follow teague but we want to make it clear we're not bound to do that? >> they did say that. >> they've never retracted that. >> correct. but the choice itself is not necessarily a matter of state law. while the supreme court had the authority to make that decision, it said, we believe by choosing teague we believe that is the better law and therefore we will follow the federal guidelines from teague, the federal juris prudence in doing so. i believe that under michigan v long, unless they state a clear and independent ground, this

court can conclusively presume that they applied federal law as they believe this court would apply. >> i thought it's unless they clearly state otherwise, we will assume that they're applying federal law. and here they did clearly state otherwise. they said we don't have to follow federal law, but we're going to model our state law on federal law. it seems to me that satisfies the exception requirement of michigan. >> it is my opinion that michigan v long indicates the reverse, your honor, that the state must say we are following state law in making this decision. we are applying state law rather than federal law. >> they did say that here. they said that. this is a matter of state law. we don't have to follow teague, but we choose to, as a matter of state law. i thought that's what they said. >> and i believe that that's

sufficient to indicate to this court that it is applying federal law. it is not applying state law. >> mr. plaisance, i think what people are saying to you is that this is different from your standard michigan v long question. i mean, this is a different question. it's a state that says, we're not bound to follow teague. we know we can do something different. but we want to follow teague. that's what we want to do. and then -- in all its particulars, all right. then the question is, if the state commits to following teague, it's not -- it doesn't think anybody else has committed it, it self-commits to following teague and to following federal law, then what happens? is there enough of a federal question to decide this case. that's not a michigan v. long question. it's more like a merrill-dow question or something like that where federal law -- the state has chosen it but it's part and parcel of the clam because the

state is so committed to following federal law in all its particulars. >> i agree with your honor. even in danforth this court said that the question of retroactivity is a pure question of federal law. >> i'm sorry. why don't you finish. >> that's the answer to your explanation or hypothetical, that you said if the state decided that they were choosing federal law, then what's the next step. and the next step, the question is retroactivity, which both the majority and the dissent in danforth said the question of retroactivity is a pure question of federal law. >> federal statutory law. right? i thought that was the point of danforth. that the reason the states can go beyond the federal interpretation is because we're are talking about the federal habeas statute. right? >> that's correct, your honor. but even in yates this court said that, on state habeas if the state considers the merits of the federal claim and the

merits of this claim are, is mr. montgomery serving an unconstitutional sentence. is miller retroactive to address the fact that he is serving an unconstitutional sentence. >> how do you deal with mr. bernstein's point that your client would be worse off if you are correct, that is, if the question comes up on federal habeas, then the federal court decides it without any edka problem. if the state court goes first then the federal review is truncated. >> that would be my understanding, your honor, that, while mr. -- while henry -- while jurisdiction in this court does not depend on what has occurred so far, it depends on what this court does decide. again, whether he can go to federal court or this court

doesn't affect the jurisdiction that i believe this court has today. and the question is -- >> but in -- how do you answer the argument -- all right. suppose you're right. but your victory is going to leave your client in a worse position because, when he gets to the federal court, he will be saddled with edba. >> not if this court rules it has jurisdiction and it would be retroactive. makes miller retroactive. then at that point he would not be going to federal court. the question is is mr. montgomery being held unconstitutionally. in miller the court said a mandatory life in prison sentence is unconstitutional because it fails to address the fact of the matter that this court believes kids are different. >> mr. plaisance, on the jurisdictional point, let me see if i understand what you're arguing. a lot of state rules of procedure are modeled after federal rules of procedure, and

a lot of state courts simply follow the federal rules but they follow it as a matter of choice. and not because they think they're bound by the federal rules. so let's say that there is a disagreement in federal court about what federal rule of evidence 403 means. the state court says, well, you know, we're going to follow the federal rule, and we think that the right course as between these two divergent federal courts of appeals is the second circuit. so we're going to follow the second circuit's interpretation of federal rule 403. would we have jurisdiction to review that decision as a decision on a question of federal law? >> if it was clear to this court that the state court made a conscious choice and sent enough of a signal to this court that

it was adopting federal law to use as state law but in this case there is no indication that the state of supreme court of louisiana was making that decision. they said that we are -- our analysis is dictated by teague. and in doing so, they found that mr. -- they would not apply miller retroactive. that's the real issue of this case. >> suppose we hold that we can review the -- we have jurisdiction because the state court said it was going to follow teague and then we go on and we say that, under teague miller can be applied on collateral review. then the case goes back to the louisiana supreme court and they say, well, we said previously in taylor we were going to follow teague, but that was based on our understanding of teague at that time. but now that we see what it's been interpreted to mean by the

u.s. supreme court we're not going to follow teague. then what would happen? >> i think louisiana would be bound to follow this court's ruling, as you set forth. >> why? because it said that we would because it said that we would voluntarily follow it in taylor? that bound them? >> i think they made the conscious choice to follow this court's laws, this court's juris prudence. in doing so, it must follow this court's juris prudence. as i said before -- >> they changed their mind. they have now chosen the course not to follow our juris prudence. what forces them to stay where they were? it's a matter of state law. they decided to change state law. >> they didn't do that in this case, your honor. >> not yet. if we agree with you and send it back and they look at it and they say, oh, if that's what teague means, we're not going to follow teague. what stops them from doing that? and doesn't that make us look foolish? >> no, it doesn't, your honor. >> we render decisions that can

be overruled by somebody else? >> if a state considers the merits of a federal claim, it must grant the relief the federal court -- >> but the question is what's the federal claim. why isn't you cite standard oil versus johnson in your response to questions from justice scalia and justice alito? >> i believe my friend the solicitor general -- >> the name of the case. standard oil versus johnson. >> that was a case cited by the solicitor general. i believe my friend from the solicitor general's office can answer that question a little bit better. >> are you asking us to decide the question of -- left open in danforth? danforth said that it was a minimum -- there could be a cons -- constitutional minimum but it wasn't answering that question. are you asking us to answer that question? >> i am saying, your honor, you don't need to get to that question. >> let's assume --

>> under michigan v. long this court has jurisdiction. i reserve the balance of my time. >> thank you, counsel. >> mr. dreeben. >> thank you mr. justice. may it please the court. this court does have jurisdiction to decide the question of miller's retroactivity because louisiana has voluntarily incorporated into its law a holy federal standard. in this court's decisions in standard oil, merrill-dow, three affiliated tribes and most recently ohio versus reiner the court recognized that when a state chooses to adopt federal law to guides its decisions and binds itself to federal law there is a federal question. >> they can change their mind, right? you said voluntarily chose to follow it. they can voluntarily choose not to follow it any more. >> the same is true in any michigan versus long case.

what that says said is that this court has jurisdiction under section 1257 to revolve state court resolutions of federal law and it will presume that a state constitutional decision of a mirror image say of the fourth amendment will be binding but recognized that the only circumstance in which the court will not treat federal law as governing both questions is when the state makes clear that it would reach the same result under state constitutional law as it did under federal law. it did not preclude the option of the state going back and reaching a different decision once enlightened by this court as to the content of federal law. standard oil is completely clear on this. it says the state chose to use federal law to determine whether a federal post exchange was a federal instrumentality. we're going to correct its understanding of federal law.

on reman, the state now freed from its misapprehensions of state law decide what it thinks state law requires. >> how does it work. should be pretty elementary. i mean, i looked at the indian case. that seems a little far out. the -- definitely gives you support on your statement here. suppose you took justice scalia's example. we have iowa state rule 56. we interpret iowa state rule 56 the same way as the federal rules of civil procedure. that's our rule. now this is what it means in that case. they say but we're doing it under iowa state rule. you say we can review that because they said that iowa state rule is the same as the federal. is that right?

how do you fit that in the words of 1257? >> i doubt that that would satisfy the court. there is a theoretical answer and a practical answer. let me give the practical answer first. the states that govern the federal rules of evidence and civil procedure uniformly say we will treat federal precedent as guidance in our decisions as for its persuasive value. they recognize that there are state rules of procedure and state rules of evidence that will belong to the states. >> they say in a particular case, it's guidance. it's great guidance. we agree. our interpretation is the federal interpretation. >> well, i think -- >> how can we review that because it wasn't in fact the federal interpretation. but can we review it? yes or no? >> there is a distinction between this case and that that may suggest that this case the court has jurisdiction over and that one the court does not. >> you say the court does not in the example of the federal rules of civil procedure that justice scalia --

>> this is a stronger case. i doubt the court wo5+=y jurisdiction or would choose to exercise it because i accept for premises of argument your honor's hypothetical but in the real world it doesn't happen. >> you are implicitly acknowledging that, if we adopt your argument we are going to get that case and lots of similar cases. and we are going to have to parse the words that -- the words that were used by the state supreme court. well, we're following -- we're going to be guided by it, we're going to be strongly guided by it. we're going to adopt it. we're going to get all of those cases. why should we go down that road? when there is more perfectly available and possible superior yore remedy available to the petitioner by filing a federal habeas petition. >> there are several reasons. first of all, i don't think that it is going to come up in that way to this court because that's not the way states treat their own rules of procedure. i don't think it will be very difficult.

there is a principle in the courts' cases that when federal law has been adopted as such the court will review it even if the state could have chosen a different path. >> mr. dreeben, what's the problem -- >> did you misspeak? when federal law is adopted as state law, the federal courts can review it. isn't that what you meant to say? you are very careful. you don't make mistakes, but i -- >> i think, justice kennedy -- >> you said -- >> this is. >> when state law adopts federal law as federal law then there is review. okay. >> the state has adopted teague for a reason that does not exist in any of these civil procedure cases, and that is that the state knows that that federal law will be applied to the very case in a habeas case. so the state has decided consciously to synchronize its law with the law that it knows will be applied. this supports a very important purpose.

the state says, if we have to rectify in a constitutional error in our case that's become final we would like the opportunity to do it. if the federal habeas court is going to treat the decision as retroactive we'd like the first crack at it. >> you're saying hooray that the federal habeas court will thereafter be found by it. >> no. this is a reason. 2254 d applies to state determinations on the merits. that's the only time that the deference provision kicks in. a determination under teague is a threshold determination that comes before the decision on the merits. this court has said that in any number of cases. it's not a merits resolution of the case. so deference to a state determination on retro activity would never occur. what i -- >> i was going to suggest maybe you're a little bit more on the merits.

>> certainly mr. chief justice. the rule in miller versus alabama, in our view, is a substantive rule because it goes far beyond merely regulating the procedure by which youths are sentenced for homicide crimes. it compelled the state to adopt new substantive sentencing options. an option that is less severe than life without parole. the only other time that this court has ever invalidated a mandatory sentencing provision was woodson versus north carolina in 1976. so we went something like 36 years before we had another decision that concluded that the law must change to accommodate the compelling interests in having the characteristics of youth that mitigate culpability included in the sentencing process. >> is it that the states say with with respect to people

sentenced to life without parole we agree it would be parole. >> that would be the same remedy the court ordered in a graham versus florida case which held that youths who do not commit homicide cannot be sentenced to life without parole at all. the court's remedy for what problem could either be a sentence of a term of years or also converting the life without parole sentence to a life with parole sentence. >> mr. dreeben, how do you explain how your articulation of your test wouldn't apply to the guideline change that we made. >> i think the key difference is that, with respect to the guidelines there was always a minimum and a maximum set by statute, and the guidelines, even when they were mandatory, did not preclude judges from

sentencing outside the guidelines depending upon the presence of aggravating or mitigating factors that weren't taken into account. and as justice alito's opinion for the court in united states versus rodriguez recognized, even the top of a mandatory guidelines range was not truly mandatory. so even under the mandatory guidelines which for sixth amendment purposes were treated as if they established elements of the offense, for the purposes that we're looking at here, they are not mandatory in the same way. so booker brought about a procedural change. >> what is the substantive difference to pardon the use of the word between your formulation and petitioner's formulation that says this is substantive because it did away with mandatory life imprisonment? you're articulating it slightly different. tell me what you see as the difference and why your articulation. >> justice sotomayor. i don't think there is substantive day light between .petitioner's use and ours.

it meant in treating it as a category. i think sums up the reality of what is happening. we broke it out into its component parts because i think it facilitates the analysis of it to understand that miller does have a procedural component. sentencing courts must now consider the mitigating characteristics of age. but it also and more fundamentally, in our view, contains a substantive component that required a change in the law. now, the change here was expanding the range of outcomes. previously when this court has analyzed substantive changes in the law there have been changes that restricted the form of outcomes, say, for example, in justice breyer's hypothetical forbidding punishment at all. i think that, if you trace back the origins of the substantive category to justice harlan's opinion in mackie, this is still faithful to what justice harlan

had in mind. justice harlan said the clearest case of an injustice in not applying a rule retroactively is when it puts off limits altogether criminal punishment. he did not say it was the only case. if you consider what's going on in miller and the reasons for the rule, the court made clear that it believed that, of the 2,000 people that were in prison under mandatory life or juvenile homicide, the court believed that that penalty was frequently disproportionate, that it would be uncommonly imposed in the future and that it was not a sentence that was consistent in most cases with the mitigating characteristics of youth that had been recognized in roper and in graham and in miller. >> would it be accurate to say that a rule is substantive if it makes a particular outcome less likely or much less likely or much, much less likely than was

previously the case? >> probably the last, justice alito. when the court characterized substantive rules most recently -- >> is there's a different between much less likely and much, much less likely? >> i would butt it in words the court used previously. the court said previously that a substantive rule creates a significant risk that the person is serving a sentence that's not appropriate for that person, maybe not even legally available for that person. did not say absolutely conclusively proves it. it said "significant risk." in contrast, when the court has talked about procedural rules, rules that govern the manner in which a case is adjudicated. it has said that the likelihood or potential for a different outcome is speculative. i think, if you put this case on the speculative significant risk axis, this case falls in the significant risk domain precisely because of the reasons why the court said it was

deciding miller. the reasons why the court decided miller had to do with the reduced culpability of youth and the capacity of youth to mature, change and achieve a degree of rehabilitation that is consistent with something less than the most harsh sentence available for youth who commit murder, terrible crime but still the harshest sentence the court thought would be reserved for the worst of the worst. which is what it said. it said life without parole should be reserved for the worst offenders who commit the worst crimes. when you combine the fact that this is not a rule that only governs procedure, it doesn't just govern evidence. it also mandates changes in outcomes as an available option with the very genesis of the miller rule in a conclusion that, for the people in this class, the appropriateness of the punishment of the harshest

degree, life without parole, will be relatively uncommon, it seems clear that the miller rule falls on the substantive side of the axis rather than on the procedural side. >> have any states treated miller as retroactive on state habeas? >> yes. the majority of states -- it's a close call. i think 10 to 7 or 10 to 8. the majority of states that concluded that miller is retroactive. most have done it as a matter of substantive law. there are a couple opinions that talk about the watershed exception which is not the way we think this case should be analyzed. not only the states have done that, but the united states has taken that position with respect to the juveniles that were sentenced before miller to life without parole as a mandatory sentence, and in the re-sentencings of those that have taken place so far -- it's only been about ten, but those defendants have almost uniformly received sentences that are

terms of years significantly shorter than the life -- >> what is the population we're dealing with if most states do i apply miller retroactively? i think there was a figure of 2,000 people with life without parole. >> i haven't broken it down -- may i answer. >> sure. >> i have not broken it down numerically, justice ginsburg. michigan has not applied it retroactively. it has a large population of juveniles in the miller class. i don't think pennsylvania resolved it yet favorably for the defendants. >> thank you, counsel. >> mr. duncan. >> mr. chief justice. may it please the court. i was going to begin by saying i would proceed directly to the merits but i gather from the drift of the argument the court has serious questions about jurisdiction so i'd like to briefly begin there. we are in an odd position with respect to jurisdiction. we won below and would win in

the fifth circuit on habeas which found miller was not retroactive. we believe this is a straightforward case not -- justice kagan it is not a standard michigan v. long case. it's an interwoven case. the state court took teague lock, stock and barrel. no doubt, justice scalia, in the previous louisiana supreme court opinions that the state said we are voluntarily adopting teague, there is no doubt about that. we think the question is whether that raises the question of an advisory opinion from this court. why do we say it doesn't? because in cases like coleman v thompson, the court said where the federal law holding is integral to the state court's disposition of the matter there is no risk of an advisory opinion, and later in coleman the court said only if resolution of the federal issue, quote, could not affect the judgment is there the risk of an advisory opinion. here we don't think there is the

risk of an advisory opinion. of course it's within the realm of possibility. it could happen that on remanned the court could say we've seen what you adopted on teague and we'll adopt our own retroactivity standards. the question is does it make this court's opinion advisory. the assistant solicitor general talked about cases like standard oil v johnson where the state was under no obligation to tether its state law to federal standards. >> it didn't say so, though. in standard oil, the -- this is a quote from the opinion. the relationship between post exchanges and the government of the united states is controlled by federal law. >> right. that's right. my point, justice scalia, is -- that was embedded in a tax exemption statute. the tax exemption made certain

taxes exempt from the statute and the exemptions -- >> it would have been true no matter what the state did, right? we're deciding a question of federal law that would have applied on its own. >> well, my -- no -- well, with respect to standard oil, my point is that the state didn't have to make its tax exemption status turn on a federal question. it did so the court will jurisdiction to resolve it. >> don't you think the state made its tax exemption law turn on federal law because there are federal constitutional requirements in that area? could the state have taxed -- i mean, there is the question of whether or not the supremacy clause would permit the state to tax sales to the post exchanges. >> i think that's possible. this court didn't make its jurisdiction dependent on that. a case like ohio -- >> in the provision i just quoted it said that the relationship between post

exchanges and the government of the united states is controlled by federal law. that's what our opinion said. >> well, so take the -- the assistant solicitor general brought up the ohio case. this court addressed that embedded and discrete federal issue. >> mr. duncan, isn't it similar when justice scalia used the controlled language, louisiana supreme court used similar language. it's dictated by teague. it's only dictated by teague because they've chosen to make it dictated by teague, but once that choice has been made, all outcomes are dictated by teague. it's the same issue. >> well, we think -- we agree with that. we think it's binding, quote-unquote, binding within the meaning of binding federal law because the state has chosen to do it and it's never shown that it wouldn't do it. so we -- we think that -- look, if the court disagrees with us on that -- >> ohio versus reiner which you

just cited, was there any other way that the state could have retained review of the state supreme court's erroneous determination that the witness in question there did not have a fifth amendment privilege because she said that she didn't commit the crime? >> i don't think so. because this -- >> do you think that's not a distinction between that case and this case? >> if is the teague standard is a discrete federal standard that the state has made, has incorporated, then the only way -- the louisiana supreme court could -- the defendant could go to federal habeas and get an interpretation that way, sure. it doesn't seem -- the difference between federal habeas and the review of the supreme court's decision makes a difference with regard to jurisdiction. it might mean this court would wait for a more robust split to develop and take a federal case that way. but in this case -- this goes to the second reason why we haven't strongly contested jurisdiction. there is a robust split on this specific issue that extends to something like 21 state and

federal courts. they're all deciding the same federal issue. it seems to us that, as a practical matter, this court ought to weigh in. it's going to weigh in sooner or later. >> we weigh in when we have jurisdiction. you think that doesn't matter at all? >> of course jurisdiction matters, justice scalia. >> so what you've said doesn't make much sense. >> i think it makes sense -- >> let's get in there quickly whether we have jurisdiction or not. you're not saying that, are you? >> we're not saying that. if a federal issue is genuinely interwoven with state law and there is no state grounds this court has jurisdiction. otherwise it has to wait for a federal habeas case. proceeding to the merits. >> we clearly have jurisdiction. just trying to figure this out in my mind. we have jurisdiction, where there is a person, that's the defendant. and the defendant says the court's decision, that's your court's decision, is contrary to

the constitution or statute of the united states. that's just what they say. so we have jurisdiction to hear the case. the question is how do we dispose of the case in which we have jurisdiction. in three instances, i guess, the court has done, in disposing of such a case, what the solicitor general says. namely, they have said we are -- we are not going to say whether he is right in saying it's contrary to the constitution. that's because there might be an adequate state ground. there might not be. it was one that was, was explained as flowing from a certain intrepation of federal law. we will say their interpretation of federal law was wrong, and now we'll send it back to see what they do. >> yes, the cases that -- >> is that right? >> that's our position. and by the way -- >> what is the federal law that you're talking about? >> the application of teague to miller. >> that's not a federal law.

it's a federal habeas statute is a federal law, right? and teague is an interpretation of that federal law. was that federal law at issue in this case? >> the teague standard-- >> of course it wasn't. >> but the teague standard, the teague exceptions could well be constitutionally required. teague doesn't apply. >> that's why we don't take a position. particularly -- >> you want us to hold that in this case? >> we do not want you to hold that in this case. >> can we say the opposite in danforth? or the majority say the opposite in danforth? >> could you tell me why you would think that something like atkins would not be retroactive to states? as a compulsion, meaning not as by election of teague retroactivity. >> that is a difficult question that we don't take a position on, but to answer your question, justice sotomayor, the argument goes that danforth made clear

that teague is an equitable interpretation to federal habeas statute. it's not constitutionally binding on the states, and that -- the court left open whether the exceptions are binding, but the exceptions were part and parcel of justice harland's mackey understanding of how he thought federal habeas ought to apply. and so whereas atkins -- i mean, atkins creates a binding constitutional right. the question of remedy, though. the question is a state constitutionally bound to offer that remedy? and this court has recognized in cases like pennsylvania v. finley, for example, that states have wide discretion in structuring their post conviction. and the next point, though, has to do with -- >> that has to be different because as justice breyer pointed out, you have wide discretion to structure it as you want. but if you structured it in a way that you're going to say i'm offering due process, isn't there a check, a substantive

check by due process that you have to offer the minimum? >> well, i mean, that is the question. so this court has found that there's a substantive check on due process in griffith where we're talking about direct review. when we're talking about collateral review, i mean, our view although we haven't taken a position on it, collateral review is a different animal. >> we have any number of cases where states have viewed exceptions as controlling the fact that they have to offer the constitution. >> but this court has never held that. >> hasn't yet. why shouldn't we? >> understood. >> that's really the serious question. >> it is a serious question. and, again, we have not taken a position on that question because we feel that this case is interwoven with federal law as a matter of state retroactivity. in miller, on to the merits, in miller this court was invited to create gorically bar the penalty of life without patrol for juveniles who commit murder, but it decided not to do so. now, that decision leads directly to the conclusion in our view that miller is not a substantive rule under teague's first exception. consideration of the teague

framework, teague policies and teague precedent points instead to the conclusion that miller is not a procedural and not a substantive rule. so we think summerlin sets out the framework. >> suppose there's a state and it has a mandatory minimum for a theft. it says the mandatory minimum for theft is 20 years. and suppose a court looks at that and says, you know what, that's incredibly disproportionate to a lot of theft. and so strikes the mandatory minimum. says you just can't have a mandatory minimum like that. make it lower. would that be a substantive ruling? >> we don't think so, justice kagan, because the mandatory aspect of it goes to the manner of imposing a penalty. >> it does not go to the manner of imposing. it says nothing about the manner of imposing. what it does is it just increases the range of sentencing possibilities. it actually leaves it to the

court. it says absolutely nothing about what factors ought to be taken into account, nothing about that at all. all it says is you can't have a mandatory minimum of 20 years for theft. make it lower. >> well, so if in that hypothetical that doesn't go to the manner of imposing a penalty, then it's different than miller because miller made very clear that the mandatory aspect of the penalty goes to the manner of imposing the penalty. not the substance. >> so if you're saying no, that's different because there was something else in miller, there is something else in miller. there is a bunch -- there is -- there is a process component of miller, no question about it, where the court says what courts are supposed to look at are the characteristics of youth and are supposed to try to figure out whether these terrible crimes are functions in part of immaturity or not. whether you really are looking at an incorrigible defendant. so there is that process

component. but that process component does not take away the fact that there is a completely separate self-sufficient component as to what the range of punishment has to be that's completely on all fours with the hypothetical that i gave you. >> well, justice kagan, the relevant difference in terms of the teague analysis is that this court in miller did not take the punishment of life without parole. the distinct category of punishment of life without parole off the table, this court has never held that a noncategorical rule is substantive under teelg and for good reasons because that would fly in the face of the policies that inform the teague analysis. >> no, you're exactly right. it did not take the lwop punishment off the table. but similarly in my hypothetical, a 20-year sentence for theft has not been taken off the table. what the court has done is to say there have to be other options. there has to be an option of ten years or five years or two years, whatever it is. so they've expanded the range of

possibilities. they've just made the sentence different because a sentence is defined both by its upper and by its lower end. and so they've made the sentence different. >> understand that, but making the sentence different doesn't necessarily mean make it substantive under the teague framework. here's another way of looking at it. the defendant, a juvenile murderer who committed murder and is serving a life without parole sentence today pre-miller is not facing a punishment that the law cannot impose on him. and we know that from miller because miller said the court's decision does not preclude that punishment. and so that goes to finality. the finality interests underlying convictions do not yield whether the state still has the power to impose that punishment. finality interest yield, justice harland explained in mackey and this court adopted in teague, finality interests yield only where the state lacks the power. that's where the finality interest crumbled, so to speak, because the state no longer can impose that category of penalty.

so that would go for roper, graham, justice breyer's sedition or which crimes. if somebody's in jail because they were accused of being a witch, the state has no finality interest of keeping that person in jail. by the same token if the punishment is death for a juvenile, the state has no finality interest in doing that. so leaving the punishment on the table is crucial. if it doesn't take it off, it's not substantive. the second policy reason for teague is avoiding the adverse consequences of retrial. and we think miller is even more clearly not substantive under that standard because categorical rules apply retroactively because they don't carry the adverse consequences of retrial. they don't make you go back and redo the trial and unearth old facts and drain state resources and come out with a distorted -- distorted retrials. miller, by its nature, envisions a fact-intensive hearing that considers multiple

characteristics at the time of the trial. >> you don't have a distorted new trial if you just grant a parole hearing. >> that's right. that's right. but that's, of course, not what miller would require. that's what graham would require, justice kennedy, because graham is obviously a categorical rule that says you can no longer impose that punishment so you have to give them a parole hearing or some meaningful way of release. miller is about the step before whether to give a parole hearing. whether the person can be eligible for parole at the outset. that's the inquiry that we're talking about in miller, and that's quite different from a parole hearing. the fact of the matter is, though, is that applying miller retroactively inevitably turns the retroactive miller hearing into a parole hearing which shows that it doesn't quite work. in terms of adverse -- >> are you going to say at some point you started, suppose you look at the watershed procedural change. my impression from the case you

cited, summerlin, is that deciding whether that's retroactive has two parts. i think we are unanimous on this point. the two parts were is it implicit in the concept if ordered liberty. and here it would seem to be because it's applicable for the states. and the second is is it central to an accurate determination that life without parole is a legally appropriate punishment? and the rule that a mandatory can't exist is central to making that -- that was the whole point of the miller opinion. so if that's the correct analysis, for watershed rule procedural rule that's retroactive, if i'm right about that, why doesn't it fit within that category? >> well, let's take the first one. it's not just implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. the way that the watershed rule has been stated, the first prong of it, it has to all ter our understanding of bedrock procedural elements necessary to fundamental fairness. and this would be a strange case to find that in because miller itself doesn't represent a bedrock revolution in sentencing practices.

it takes sentencing practice from another area and puts it in this new area. so it's an incremental change in that sense. it's not a wholesale discovery of a new bedrock procedural element the way we had in a case like gideon versus wainwright. and i think this court explained in wharton versus bocking that it's not enough that the rule be fundamental in some abstract sense, right, but it has to itself represent a change in bedrock procedural understandings, and we don't think miller does that. we also don't think it's necessary to an accurate determination of a sentence. it would enhance the accuracy of the sentence, but it's not necessary. and the other point there is this court has never held that a pure sentencing rule can qualify under watershed because after all, this court has on many occasions said that a watershed rule is necessary to the accurate determination of guilt or innocence. and here we're talking about a sentence. so we agree with the united states that watershed procedural analysis is not the way to go here, but it does raise an interesting question.

in summerlin, because after all, we do part company quite strongly from the united states when the united states says we need an outcome expanding alteration to the definition of substantive rules under teague. we say that's not just a slight tweak to teague. what that is is a change in the understanding of what a substantive rule is. substantive rules under teague analysis have never depended on the frequency with which new outcomes might come about under the new procedures. in fact, in summerlin, and this goes back to my original point about the framework, summerlin explained that a criminal defendant under a procedural rule does have the opportunity of getting a more lenient outcome under the new procedures. so -- and nonetheless, summerlin said that such procedural rules are not applied retroactively. and so as justice alito, as you were saying, the difference between a substantive and procedural rule under teague is not whether it's very likely or very, very likely to result in a

new outcome. it's about whether the new rule categorically removes the power of the state to impose a category of punishment. that's what a categorical rule does. that is not what miller does. right? miller may express an expectation about the way that miller hearings will come out. and that may or may not come to pass in the future. who knows? right? we can point to cases where criminal defendants have had miller hearings and have still received life without parole. and i can point to several in particular from the state of louisiana under its new miller procedures. but the point being is that the idea of changing outcomes, which is what the united states' entire argument depends on, is built into the procedural side of teague and not the substantive side. the substantive side is about -- >> i think not, i think by your own definition this fits on the substantive side. you said you categorically remove a certain outcome. and that's exactly what miller does.

if you -- as long as you understand a sentence, which i think you agreed with, as defined both by its upper and by its lower end, effectively what the court said in miller was that that sentence which was the mandatory sentence cannot control for juveniles. there has to be a different sentence, one that includes other punishments. >> well, there's no doubt -- >> that increases the range. >> right. miller quite clearly said, as you know, justice kagan, that it does not categorically bar a penalty. and so what did it mean by that penalty? >> it allows something within the range, but it has -- it has completely changed the range that is given for any juvenile department. the range is important. this is what we said in alain. that you can't think about a sentence without thinking about both parts of the sentence. both the maximum and the minimum.

and when you decide whether a substantive change in that sentence has been made, you look at both, the maximum and the minimum. >> well, look. i hope this is responsive. i mean, i think after miller we would see two categories of punishment on the table. we would see a life without parole category and a life with parole, for example. but my point is is that miller does not band the first category. >> i would not describe changing the range of sentences available as changing the sentence. >> it puts another one on the table i think is the most. >> it doesn't change the sentence necessarily. >> well, this is what we -- >> you still get the same sentence. >> you could still absolutely still -- >> this is what we said last year. we said it's impossible to dissociate the floor of a sentencing range from the penalty affixed to the crime. and similarly, we said criminal statutes have long specified both the floor and ceiling of sentencing ranges, which is evidence that both define the legally prescribed penalty. that is the penalty. is the range.

>> a life without parole has the same floor and ceiling, of course. it's got the same floor and ceiling. what miller does is create the procedural circumstances for finding -- for putting a new penalty on the table, which is -- that's the point of the united states argument. there's a new possibility. and our point is to say that putting a new possibility on the table doesn't take away the states' power to impose the old category of punishment. >> mr. winston -- mr. winser -- >> duncan. >> i know that we didn't ever look at this issue. i'm sorry. i'm reading the wrong one. i apologize. but do you really think that any state would have not applied woodson retroactively? they all did. >> probably not, your honor. but the question -- that, of course, is a pre-teague case. it raises the question is woodson substantive or procedural under teague? and our argument is it's a

procedural rule. >> it just said you couldn't have mandatory death penalties. just like here u, you can't have mandatory life without parole. >> it required an individual sentencing process which we say is a procedure. >> to give sentences less than mandatory death. but they could have still given death. >> they certainly could have. so the question is whether is it substantive or procedural under thepre-teague rubric. it raises the question, is it a watershed procedural rule? >> that's the language -- bedrock is -- i don't think is the right language because that was the language he referred to in a sentence in mackey, correct. i've just been looking it up. but then in teague itself, justice o'connor tries to get the right words. and what she ends up with here is that the procedural is the first test, first part, can be addressed by limiting the scope of the second exception.

that's the watershed rule, to those new procedures without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished. okay. >> that's the first one. >> that's joined by the chief justice, justice scalia and the fourth i can't remember. so is it seriously diminished? now, we read through miller. it's pretty hard to say. i mean, my goodness. miller is just filled with paragraph after paragraph about how a mandatory requirement for life without parole fails to take a count of all the characteristics or many characteristics adherent in youth. and it's pretty hard to come away from that without thinking gee, accuracy under a mandatory life without parole does seriously diminish the accuracy of imposing life without parole when you apply the mandatory to

a youth. >> but every eighth amendment rule goes to accuracy. >> no, but you have to say the accuracy is seriously diminished then she says i don't think there will be many such cases. >> we haven't talked about the capital sentencing cases but take a case like o'dell where the capital jury was not informed of the defendant's parole and eligibility while considering his future dangerousness. i mean, one could easily say that the accuracy of the resulting death sentence under the old rule was seriously diminished. and yet this court said in o'dell that that is not a watershed procedural rule. and you can go down the line with all those cases. the beard case and the sawyer case. those are cases in which a defendant could have said, well, seriously diminished accuracy and yet the court found no watershed rule. and, of course, the bedrock is

the word that this court has used in referring to that exception. particularly in wharton v. bock. >> is there any watershed procedural rule other than gideon? >> well, this court has said it's doubtful that any will emerge. and so we think this case is an implausible case for a new watershed rule to emerge since this rule and back to the bedrock point is not creating a -- it's not a revolution in bedrock understanding of procedure. it's an incremental step in sentencing juveniles. you know, if a case like crawford is not a watershed procedural rule, then it's difficult to understand how this one would be. >> we have one brief that tells us that this court has never barred punishment as cruel and unusual under the eighth amendment but refuse to make the decision retroactive. is that so?

>> we disagree with that. there are cases that take the case that refused to make retroactive the rule in call caldwell versus mississippi. that's an eighth amendment case. it goes to the accuracy of a capital sentence jury determination of death and this court didn't make that rule retroactive and found that it was procedural and non-watershed at the same time. so we take issue with that. just a few more words about the united states proposed expansion of teague. it would re -- it would shift the whole focus of what a substantive rule is from the categorical nature of the rule to the effects of the rule. and so any defendant in these capital sentencing cases we've just been talking about, o'dell and sawyer and beard would now have the argument handed to them by the united states new rule that says well, that new rule gave me the opportunity for a better outcome. i might have not gotten the death penalty. if my jury had been properly instructed. we don't understand how the

united states new rule in this case can be cabined only to where a mandatory sentence is taken off the table. >> i think you yourself cabined it when you said that the difference is one -- there is some category of cases which do refer to process, to how a decision makes a particular result. and another category of cases which refer to what we've called substance, which is what results are on the table. what category of punishment is on the table? and that's the difference between this and all the other kinds of things that you're mentioning. this is not about the how or it's partly about the how. but there's also about what punishments are on the table. >> well, i just have to push back on the premise a little bit. our position is not that a substantive rule is about what punishments are on the table. a substantive rule is about whether a state categorically no longer has the power to impose a category of punishment. here it's clear from the miller opinion and from the graham opinion that the relevant category is life without parole. the state still has the ability to impose that punishment. and that's a sharp distinction

from what a procedural rule is and the united states' new conception of what a substantive rule would blur that. it would blur that and call into question all the capital sentencing cases and a heard i question, i don't remember which justice asked it about booker. and my reaction to that is but booker is a matter of the sixth amendment, made a sentencing guideline nonmandatory. and it surely opened up new sentencing outcomes. and so by what reason could a federal habeas petitioner now not say under the united states' new test booker is now retroactive or aileen for that matter. aileen overturned the mandatory minimum under the sixth amendment opening up new sentencing outcomes. why couldn't a federal defendant on federal habeas say now i ought to get the benefit of that rule retroactively? our position is those cases, booker aileen, aprendy are clearly procedural. as this case explained in summerlin. they're clearly procedural. and what the united states would do is blur those categories. if there are no further questions. >> thank you, counsel. mr. bernstein, you have three minutes remaining. >> what this fantastic discussion has shown is why the court, as it always has in the past, should keep the teague exception as a matter of

equitable discretion rather than constitutional requirement. the court has much more freedom, generally speaking, on a matter of equitable discretion than it does on constitutional requirements. there's no way to look at the prior precedents of the court in teague and any of those courts to say oh, here's what our equitable discretion is. the only time you get retroactivity is when the constitution requires it. that would have been a really short opinion. and that was not that. now, to turn quickly to the cases that have been cited, the critical difference between this case on the one hand and merrill dow and three affiliated tribes on the other hand is that jurisdiction under this statute is question by question under murdoch. in merrill dow, the question of whether the defendant's conduct had violated the federal drug labeling laws was a federal question. the court never would have gone on to say and we're also going to federalize the remedy. we're going to decide whether it's lost profits or

out-of-pocket costs. similarly in three affiliated tribes, there was no question that there was a federal statute that limited state court jurisdiction. the only issue was the scope of that statute. here we have the opposite. there is no question that the federal statute does not apply to the state court. and yet people say you should decide the scope question even though the underlying issue may be one of state law. and then finally to the solicitor general's new argument that there's going to be review in this court and de novo review on habeas, the statutory lang wage in 2254d is pretty broad. quote, any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court proceeding, the only claim in this case is remedy. this case was filed after miller was decided. the only issue in this case is redress.

and it would be very wonderful turn if you could say on the one hand that 2254d doesn't apply. but on the other hand, 1257 applies when it requires a, quote, right claimed under federal law which gets to your question, justice kagan. is it enough that'll a state court says we voluntarily want to be bound? and the best answer to that is not only in the cases i would recommend moore which is cited in merrill dow which goes out of its way to show how federal law is binding on the interstate commerce conduct in that case, but it's also plain in the language of the supremacy clause. binding federal law means binding in all 50 states. and that's why the statute also says right under federal law. thank you. >> thank you, counsel. you have three minutes remaining. >> your honor, i'd like to make two quick points. first of all on jurisdiction.

resolving this case under teague avoids the serious constitutional question of whether due process requires retroactivity for miller. my second point on the merits, merrill says juvenile defenders should not have to die in prison with no chance for rehabilitation and no consideration of youth. that important rule changed the substantive outcomes available. indeed this court said that life without prison should be uncommon. the individual sentence before miller there remains about 1500 deserve a chance at redemption. thank you. >> thank you, council. mr. bernstein? the court appointed you to brief and argue this case against this court's jurisdiction. you have ably discharged that

responsibility for which the court is grateful. the case is submitted. >> c-span is taking you on the road to the white house for the iowa caucuses. monday, our live coverage continues on c-span and c-span 2. we'll take your phone calls, tweets and texts. and and at 8:00 p.m. eastern, eel ta we'll take you to a republican caucus on c-span and a democratic caucus on c-span 2. be sure to stay with c-span and join in on the conversation on c-span radio and c-span.org. the. >> the c-span bus is in iowa ahead of monday's caucuses to spread the word about c-span. here's a tweet showing some of the our recourses on the ground. all hands on deck as we prepare

for our coverage of the iowa kau kpups martin o'malley stopped by and met simpson college students, who tweeted this. simpson ocollege students and professor hang out in the c-span bus while martin o'malley is interviewed. republican presidential candidate mike huckabee visited the bus. and marco rubio supporters tweeted this, hello to supporters here. traveling with the c-span bus. >> now a discussion about how technology affects politics. a former communications adviser in the obama administration took part in a discussion hosted by the commonwealth club of california in san francisco. this is just over an hour. >> i'm excited to see we have a full house tonight. thanks for being here. now is such an important time

for us to have this conversation about the relationship between government and technology. especially with the advent and rise of technology platforms that are creating new industries and literally changing how we live our lives every single day, it's prosecute etty clear that technology is outpacing -- fast outpacing federal and state regulations. but if there is one critical factor that really drives this merging of tech, policy and politics, it's constituents themselves. gone are the days when constituents used to say, that's just government, i don't respect a response. we're in a different time now. swepts deserve and expect an engaged responsive government, powered by the elected officials that they sent to congress or to their government to serve them. and this is all made possible by the use of technology. technology is magic, and i think that by bringing constituents and government together, it has proven its worth. and with that, i would like to get started. i'm pleased to be here in

conversation with matt mayhem, jennifer palca, founder and executive director of code for america. and dan pfeiffer. he has an amazing long title. currently the vice president of policy and communications for go fund me. previously, recently, he was the senior adviser to president obama for communications and strategy. thank you for being here. so let's get started. jen, my first question is for you. ladies first. i would like to talk about the modernization of government happening across all federal agencies under president obama. there is definitely an uptick in talent going from silicon valley to washington, washington to silicon valley. the administration is recruiting top notch talent with the intent of delivering a better online experience to their constituents. and you were one of those recruits. so you went from silicon valley to washington. you were, you know, what we would love to hear from you is about your role as u.s. -- you know, deputy uscto in the white

house, and specifically and the advent of the united states digital service under your tenure and how that's modernizing government. >> great. well, thank you. and thank you so much for opening with the question about the government side of it. i think very often we think about this is just politics and politics and government are v y cleesly tied, but they are two different things. i think it was sort of, you know, when obama was elected and everyone said that it was the first -- he was the first president to be elected by the internet. there were these years in which there was an enormous disruption of sort of politics by the internet. and then that was sort of starting in 2008. then starting in about 2002, we started to see this really take root in government. and i think it was led, to be honest, by the folks in the government digital service in the united kingdom where they took it very

seriously, bringing in digital talent and not having it be sort of innovation at the edges, but really saying, we can provide digital services to citizens that meet a far higher quality bar. that really create an experience for citizens that meets this expectations that you have now when you're on your mobile phone or onlieng all the time and everything is so convenient and so different than it was ten years ago. i was running code for america at the time. we were running out of inspiration of the ways in which the internet had disrupted politics, and said well, how are we going to bring the principle s and values of the web not just to get folks elected but actually governeding. it matters. if we have good experience with government, we're likely to be much more involved, much more

engaged as political citizens. so i was running code for america at the time when todd park, the cto, second ever chief technology officer in the united states which is a big deal. this is he asked me to come and work on a program that he started that was modelled after code for america, the presidential innovation fellows program. an i know of at least two people in the audience who westbound presidential invest tors. this brought silicon valley to government. i sort of reverse pitched todd on the notion that we really need to bring, not just folks into agencies to help with open data and create value for the american public and the wide

variety of benefits people have been seeing for this. but also people put more digital competency at the center of government and changed fundamentally how we create the technology that mediates our interaction between government and citizens. and so much incredible has happened. i think we probably would not have been terribly successful if healthcare.gov hadn't failed. i'm sorry if that's. >> a controversial statement. >> i'm not sure that's a price worth paying, but hey. yes. >> hey, it worked. >> and some of the people who made healthcare.gov work are in the room. hello. in the end, we enrolled more people than we even had thought. we would be before the site failed. that's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. >> that's amazing. >> that's pretty amazing. i think partly because of that, though, the plans to create an internal group that we ended

calling united states digital service were under way before healthcare.gov. that crisis which turned into such an enormous opportunity really gave us the air cover to say nope, we have to gave us th cover to say, nope, we have to take a fundamentally different approach to how we create technology that works for the american people. it has to be user-centered, it has to be data-driven and it has to work a lot more, but not entirely, but a lot more like how silicon valley works. i'm just incredibly proud the people who came to this task with such an amazing desire to serve the public and have brought so much incredible change. so we've seen things like agile procurement now happening. we've seen wholesale reinventions of services that the government provides the citizens. we've seen that working at the local and state level through code for america. and i think it's an amazing thing, because as people start

to have experiences with government that more match the experiences they have in their personal lives, my sincere hope and my wish for the world is that really makes people have a confidence in government that changes their experience with the political realm. >> i mean, that was amazing, thank you. fantastic answer, and i think you're absolutely right, this administration is doing a great job of taking a page out of silicon valley's book. bringing those best practices back to the citizens. matt, i want to go to you next. i'm fascinated by what you're doing at brigade. in any successful democratic society, civic participation is absolutely critical from everyone, from the elite to the grassroots. but the problem is, not everyone feels like they can be heard or make an impact. so with social media, we know that has changed how constituents interact with each other. so here's where brigade comes

in. if democracy is your start-up and we know that it's a hard job to mobilize constituents to play an active role in their own governance. if democracy is your start-up, how will brigade help to scale democracy? >> great question. let me start by saying that the impetus for brigade was a deep-seated fear as we looked at the electorate and voting behavior and citizens' attitudes toward government that we're really worried about where the country is going, because we think that citizens are losing faith in their own efficacy. when you say it's hard to participate, it is. and yet people who have educations, make money, participate at a very high level. and their needs are often pretty well represented in government despite obvious gaps in technology and other dysfunctions that jen said we're

trying to resolve. so if you take the last california midterm, for example, anybody want to guess what turn-out was for younger voters, for the 18 to 25-year-old crowd. any guesses, here in california? >> 16%? >> about half that. so about 8% turn-out for millenials. latinos as a whole, only 6%. low-income voters, i don't know the stat, but it was in that ballpark. and yet for educated, white, middle-aged to older voters, turn-out was closer to what you would expect, 50%, 60%. so i think that ends up being an issue of kind of justice and responsiveness of our government and of our elected representatives. when we look at the problem, particularly thinking about this next generation of voters, we've identified two components to it that we want to try to tackle. one is complexity.

democracy is not scaled well offline. there are over 500,000 elected officials in the u.s. we are each represented by over 40 elected officials, 30 or more of them are at a local level. you probably couldn't name more than a few. i know i personally can only name a handful. you probably don't know what they're lekted to do, what decisions they're making. the federal budget is about 2.something trillion dollars. all of those local representatives spend just as much money and they make a lot of decisions about things like public safety, transportation, education, many cases health care, parks and rec. a lot of local decisions about spending and regulations that actually have a bigger impact on your quality of life than the decisions that the president can make, not that he or she could make that many anyway. so i think complexity is one matter. how do you help people make sense of this massive opaque

system? not just who the reps are and what the issues are, but how do decisions get made, how does power get exercised? and the other, even if you can overcome that problem and technology offers obvious solutions. i was given this solution earlier today. if you want to travel to dubai and then london and then singapore and then back home and you're gonna need hotels and cars and you want to book all that, you put in a few parameters and kayak gives you a bunch of options to sort different ways. and personal preferences, you can sort it and make it accessible and understandable for me. so there's a complexity problem and i've indicated what i think some technology direction we could take there. but there's a deeper cultural problem. even if i can make sense of the system and i decide to participate, is it going to matter? it's not apathy. we often think these people don't care, they can't be

bothered. it's a crisis of faith. if i participate, is it gonna matter? and the hope and the promise there in that long tale of local offices and elections, if you're voting in california for president, your vote probably doesn't have an impact, unfortunately. but we did a local election test in manchester, new hampshire, and the mayor got elected by a 100-vote margin. so a handful of people could have organized their neighbor and said, we're going to vote because of that and determine the outcome of that election. so i think making those things transparent, building socialized tools and connect that to the political process in a direct way is how we scale up participates and make it more representative and more responsive to it the needs of everyone. >> thank you for that. i think i'm definitely going to become a user after this. so, thank you for that. and dan, i want to come to you

next. jennifer and matt have both spoken about things that you can give us insight on. specifically, i wanted to go to jennifer's point about when she was in the white house and your experience when you were there. before i get to your actual question, if you could give us a tidbit about what you did around the state of the union when you brought it to life. >> sure. the state of the union is for the white house, it's the biggest audience you're going to have at any point in time. but over the course of time, state of the union audience viewership, has dropped dramatically. that's partly because president obama has been in office for seven years, you've seen it before. but it's been going precipitously before because people have more choices now. for decades, it was more channels. now it's their phone, their tablet. people don't particularly believe in this idea of appointment television anymore. you don't show up at 9:00 on a

tuesday night to watch a speech. you watch it when you want to watch it. so we thought, in 2015, we spent a lot of time thinking about, how can we engage people more with the state of the union. and we thought of -- we sort of divided it into the kind of viewers we had, and tried to design content to reach them. the first group of people are the television watchers, people who watch it on tv. that's easy to deal with. you make sure they know it's on tv and you write a good speech and have the president deliver it well. do that. second group of people will be people who will watch it on tv, but watch it not in the traditional way, but will be watching it with their phone or ipad or computer. what we call the two-screen experience. so what we did for that was to have a set of content that would be able to be -- that would highlight moments of the speech, would be info graphics that highlight parts of the speech,

photos and short videos that would provide depth and nuance and share those on social so you could see that as it was happening. the third group were people watching it entirely online. we tried working with google, tried to drive people to the white house website, do a live stream and you would get that what we call the river of content, where you see the graphics and the information as you were watching it. and then the last group are people who were never going to watch it on television, on demand, or on their phone. how can we engage those people? and so we did a couple of things there, which is, the most notable one, for the first time ever, we put out the text of the state of the union on medium in advance. so people who were a part of that platform, who visited that platform on twitter or facebook, would see the speech. they may not ever watch it, but they had an opportunity to read it or see parts of it and see what people highlighted and how they engaged with it. and we would also take -- we

didn't view the state of the union as this one-hour moment on the first tuesday in february. it was instead a period of time leading up to and beforehand. so we were announcing the policies on facebook or in actual real events leading up to it. afterwards, we would take parts of the speech on climate change for instance and motivate people to share that content, so you have a chance to interacti with it. we saw more engagement than if we had -- i think 30 million people watched it, but compared to the 100 million who would have watched it years ago, it's a fraction. we this would get probably an additional five million people to watch the speech. >> that was what you did for the president. now i want to come to your question about the president himself.

someone who's been with the president since his first campaign. you had the privilege of working with one of the most powerful start-ups. you've been able to do good in your job, to serve the american people and bring technology to government. so, speaking about the president, how would you say that he has -- what key objectives would you say that he's achieved in the administration that are solely or exclusively driven by the use of technology? >> well, i think a big part of it is communication. it is a fundamental role of the president to communicate with the american people. now, that serves a strictly governmental function at times, to tell people about how they -- can get health care, a tax refund, or prepare for a hurricane coming. the traditional tools that allow you to do that -- network television, cable television, and newspapers -- reach a dramatically diminishing part of

the audience. so a huge part of what we had to do in that course of time, was learn how to leverage tools to do that. that's incredibly important on the governmental side. then you have to communicate in two other fashions. one is to try to get your agenda passed. that's to motivate public opinion. and the president has had very good success with that in some areas and ran into a wall in partisanship, the split government we have in washington. but one way in which we think of the long arc of this presidency where he's been most successful from a communications perspective, in his willingness to experiment with new technologies, viewing the presidency as a platform of engagement, not strictly communication, has been in helping move the ball forward in public opinion on things that are very core to him. when we started running for president, think about this, the idea that marriage equality was

something that was opposed by a majority of this country and something that almost every political figure would be afraid to touch. >> that's right. >> republicans, the conservative economic view from reagan of smaller taxes -- lower taxes and smaller government, was the predominant way. the idea -- in immigration, in the democratic primary, if the president got a question on immigration, in most states, it was from the right, about loose borders and people taking jobs. these are democratic primary voters asking the president the sort of questions that you now hear eight years later at a donald trump event. and on climate change, was sort of a much more picky issue politically. the democratic party itself was divided on it. and over the course of a very aggressive and concerted effort over time, let's take guns too,

because that's in the news right now -- moved to a place, moving public opinion. action hasn't happened on all of those things, but he views part of it as helping shape the public opinion environment so that after his presidency, additional progress on these areas is possible. if he communicated like a traditional president, which every time we did something unconventional, whether it was the president holding a selfie stick, or getting with zach galifianakis, or do a youtube interview, which now seems completely normal. in 2009, the conventional wisdom flipped out. like, we were demeaning the president, you're putting him on the internet! like doing all those things was -- >> it wasn't the internet. it was zach galifianakis. [ laughter ] >> right, but even sitting with youtube and taking questions. zach galifianakis is up for fair

debate, i will say that. but doing all that was crucial to fundamentally changing the way that all presidents going forward, republican or democrat, will engage with the public. >> totally agree. even back in 2008, like what you did in 2008 it almost seems archaic compared to what we're doing now. so he brought those issues to life. he was able to engage and mobilize. matt, how would you respond to what dan is saying about how the president used technology and how we can marry that with what brigade is doing? >> great presidents figure out how to level the pulpit. the president's done an amazing job of figuring out how to navigate a really complex media landscape and get a message out to a lot of different audiences. one of the things going back to 2008 that i think is very

interesting is that many of you in this room may have been familiar with my barack obama.com and some of the technology that was built there to help groups of people organize together. i think there's a promise in that idea and i think you saw it in the dean campaign, using meet up, and you've seen that in these different moments of people trying to use the internet. there's a promise there that hasn't been realized. and what i think it is, is the opportunity for more bottom up self-organization that can plug into something formal and somewhat centralized and top down. you kind of have to have both of those. and for a long time now, our media, our mass media has really been very centralized and has tapped into a model in which candidates and non-profits raise a bunch of money and do direct marketing to mobilize people who don't really want to hear the message. and trying to nudge them to give

that one dollar because of guilt or whatever it is. and oddly enough, i just downloaded the field the burn app. how many have you checked that out? a good number here in san francisco? i won't even go to the other side of the aisle. interestingly, i downloaded the app and it had a deep dive on all the issues with info graphics and videos, which was amazing. it had this cool map for me to geo-locate myself. but i was looking at it, saying, where are the people? like even there, there's no conversation and bottom up power-building through creating a community of action that can sustain itself over time. and even with successes online today, like sopa pippa, it was a very quick "no." it wasn't where a group of people who maybe want change around gun laws who are going to build power and capacity over time. my background bias is towards grassroots organizing, so that's how we see the world in our company. but i think there's a promise

there that technology hasn't realized and that for everything president obama has done, that's going to be the future of getting elected, but also sustaining efforts to get things done once in office. >> wonderful. and jen, what do you have to add to that? >> i would just extend that. you have getting people elected and sustaining that agenda, sustaining that community, that set of values. and i think what we see also through our work with local government, it's also not just the "i want to have a voice" in the policy, but it's also "i want to lend my hands to making my community better." and that's also something we're seeing the power of the internet be able to bring together. for us at code for america, people do partnerships and take a user of had centered approach --

>> the fellows? >> these are the fellows. and we welcomed our new class of fellows at code of america, but in the first class, 2011, they're coming from tech jobs and doing a year of service with local government. we had a team that was working with the city of boston. as a side project, it was 2011 in boston, it was snow pocaly e pocalypse. remember that? >> isn't that every winter in boston? >> that's true. but this was really bad. it was the first year in a long time. and these are programmers from start-up and google and apple. and they're sort of in these operation centers in boston city government during this massive snow crisis. so you really get part of what government does. we think of government is sort of policies and stuff. but government is clearing the show. government is helping people who are stuck. government is, like, who is getting the snowplow?

and my neighborhood getting the snowpl snowplow or another neighborhood? when the snowplows clear the streets, it covers the fire hydrants. if they're covered, and there's a fire, there's a long time before they're dug out. we don't even think about that anymore. he's going, if i live in front of a fire hydrant, i'm incentivized to dig that fire hydrant out. and eric michaels wrote, like in a day, to try something out, wrote an app called adopt a hydrant, that allowed the citizens of boston to say, i'm digging out that fire hydrant if it's covered in snow. and it's just this crazy thing that took flight. anyone here live in oakland? you can adopt a storm drain in oakland. why should the city come out and clear that storm drain when it's

full of leaves? when you can just walk out and do it. i will say, i've done it, and it is gross to, stick your hand in a storm drain. but once you get over there, you've saved the city, like a whole crew, right? and your street isn't backing up. there are things that we as citizens can do, to make our communities and neighborhoods work better that are things that we've asked institutions, local governments, to do them for us. they do them at very great cost. it is free to stick your hand in the storm drain. adopt a siren in honolulu, where it really matters, that you know when the tsunami is coming and you need to know that your thing is working. so i just think there's that element too of not just, where is my voice in politics, but where are my hands to help make my community better and how do we use internet technologies to make that easier and better and i would just echo everything matt had to say about really the incredible relevance of the

local level of government. >> and staying with that, and we're talking about adopt a hydrant. so just out of all the different technologies that you've seen foster through the code for america, follows your program, what would you say has been the most critical for digital civic participation, number one, right? and then relatedly, how would providers of such similar technologies engage with the government? because code for america is doing such an amazing jobl -- job, but how do we cast a wider net? >> to your last point, one of the things that's happened in the last three years, many wonderful people in silicon valley and we say metta physical silicon valley, it's not limited to the bay area, as much as we would like to think. there are amazing entrepreneurs who take this user-centered approach all over the country. but metta physical silicon valley is getting over its

horror of government and actually doing start-ups that will provide technology and services to government in a way that are enormously changing the eco-system, giving people in government many, many different options that are not just the large system integrators, god love them, but we need start-ups doing things in an agile way. it's a huge thing. seven of them have been spin-outs of code for america, but there are many, many others and we support all of them because it makes government work better for the people. so your question about what technologies have been -- >> like, let's say, is it a mobile technology, is it texting? what is a good way to ensure digital civil participation, something that's in your hands to drive that easy? >> i would answer before technology, we hear this question, what are the things that really open up this opportunity in government. more important than any particular technology, i would

say, and i'm sorry if i repeat myself, i'll say this over and over again. an iterative, user-centered approach. whatever technology you're deploying is just critical and is just very different in which the ways government has codified their approach to technology in the past. and frankly, for all good reasons, we've created procurement and ethics rules because we wanted to do right by the people. but they've had an unintended consequence in a universe where things move so quickly. that's what works and that's very hard to do in a government context, but that's what the u.s. digital service has been doing. that's what 18-f, which is their partner, who has an office nearby, in san francisco, that's what code for america is doing. that's more important than any technology, and it's very important that we support all of

our government entities that are trying to take that approach, despite a whole bunch of rules that make it a little bit difficult. but to answer your question, i do think that text messaging, for us at the local level, there are many different things we've done. the aggregation of data in just making it useful for citizens is really huge. when you're dealing with populations who are relying on digital services for things like food stamps or housing, we have found that finding very simple ways to text message someone, for instance, if you apply for food stamps in california, follow up and say, did you get the benefit? or hey, it turns out, you're about to fall off the rolls because you didn't reply to some of the communications that we sent, very long letters written in legal ease that you don't understand. when you don't reply to them, you you may fall off the rolls. you need to call the office or

you'll be at the grocery store, trying to use your benefit and it won't work. when we don't have everybody on a smartphone, text is huge. >> it's important to take the messaging to the people. >> yeah. >> that's really critical. and to your point about open data, it's evidenced by the fact that we have our first chief data officer at the white house, but the congress department has their first chief data officer as well, a good friend of mine, ian kalen. >> first year. >> so i think there's just a lot of -- there's a lot of coming together between what you're saying, the roles that people are playing and the relationship between the public and the private sector. so thank you for that. and matt, i want to come to you next, and i'm going to read you some stuff back that you've said before. >> uh-oh. [ laughter ] >> don't do that to me, please. >> so i promise it's all good. >> my wife is in the audience. >> this is about brigade.

in an op-ed, you wrote that voters, special millenials have well formed opinions like on whether air bnb should be regulated but they didn't believe that their voices count. and according to congressional quarterly, 2015, 23 states advanced 60 pieces of legislation to restrict short-term rentals like air bnb. how would you engage voters, with the decision makers at the state level and stop legislation from passing or at least be heard that we don't want this to happen? >> what we built last november, i mentioned the test in manchester, new hampshire, we did the same test in san francisco. it was iterative, it's scrappy, we built it in five weeks, we

looked at data, learned a lot, made a ton of mistakes and now we can take that forward with our next test in the primaries and the general this year. and i will get around to answering your question, if i don't, you can hold me accountable to it. what we wanted to test was basically three things. will users of brigade express their political beliefs in a way that can help us inform, help us help them inform how they may want to vote and participate in the election. if we make those recommendations on how they may want to vote, are they willing to then do a little more research and confirm how they're planning to vote in advance of the election? and can we motivate them to pull their friends in and engage them in that same process? one of the difficult learnings was driving mobile app installs is really difficult. that's a niche tech problem, but it's a big deal. really hard to get people to install apps. that was hard. we tried a lot of different

marketing approaches. i was joking with dan that not a lot of people wake up in the morning, saying, i wish i had a better tool for voting, for engaging in politics. [ laughter ] somebody understands. so the barrier to entry was really high. i think part of the tactical lesson for us is to meet people where they are, build more on web, maybe through text, easier interfaces and touch points for people because there are a lot of people visiting facebook every day, there are a lot of people in a lot of different places where we can build more hooks. once we got them into that experience, though, which was focused on taking positions written by the chronicle. so a position might be something like, we should enforce more restrictions on my ability to rent out my extra bedroom to a stranger or something like that. or we should increase taxes to fund, you know, a larger health

benefit for workers in the city, so on and so forth. we took a bunch of positions and partnered with the chronicle and produced some background information. people were incredibly willing to dig in and voice their opinions. they generally knew where they stood on a lot of these issues. i agree with that, i disagree with that, for the mission moratorium. didn't take a lot of information. voters are not dumb, and they're not apathetic. you just have to figure out how to reach them. so the completion rate was really, really high. you took a side, got to see what other people think, competing responses for why people took different sides. and we then said, given everything you've told us about your political beliefs, here's how we recommend you vote. a high percentage of them said, i'm going to fill out my ballot on my phone, so i have this rich

source of information before the election and many of the people said they kept that with them or took it into the voting booth with them. it was accessible, better structured, it recorded their answers. i filled out a bunch. helped me keep track of where i was. and then on the last piece, we didn't probably get the peer-to-peer part as right as i would have liked, but we had power users for something like, i think it was prop f, who sent a lot of messages to their friends, trying to recruit them, saying, i'm voting "yes" or "no" and here's why. so to answer the question, i think there's a general question around distribution and how you get the new tools in front of people and how much demand is there that i think is going to have to be driven by creating cultural and social norms around

participation and make it something people are talking about facebook and twitter, use technology to reintegrate or social and political lives. how do you make it mainstream and we're not the only ones doing that. change.org and nice citizen and pop vox, and a bunch of others in the space trying to figure it out. but then it's about making it really simple, immediate feedback, personalized, transparent and a useful tool for people. when we got that in the hands of people, they used it and they loved it, and the response was really positive. and here in san francisco, it was on the order of about a thousand voters. so in an election of 160,000, for us, that's a pretty good validation, at least from the feedback that we got, that was so positive from those voters. >> i think that's a great quote, integrating or social and our civic lives.

that's wonderful. before i go to the last question with dan. in about five minutes, we'll go to q & a. so if you're starting to think about a question, the mike is there. you'll probably want to start lining up there in about five minutes. dan? >> yes. >> back to you. i have a multi-part question for you. so i hope that's okay. with your new role at go fund me, right, you've gone from taking tech to politics and connecting the dots from silicon valley back to washington. tell us what does your new role entail, specifically in what kind of policy changes are you trying to impact? are those going to impact the -- are they going to affect the whole tech industry, or just a specific sector? and will it be easier to make those changes from the outside? >> look, i think the best way that anyone can make change, is if you have a chance to serve in government. that's the ultimate place to do

it. >> agree. hundred percent. >> when you think about the people that jen and others recruited from, and you talk to them in the hallways, people who have worked at google and facebook and been part of these incredibly lucrative things, and you talk about the chance to give health care to more people, like the people who came in and saved health care.gov, there was no other opportunity to have an impact on people's lives like that. that's the ultimate way to do it. you can do it on a local level. ultimate manifestation is in the white house. so that, i think, everyone, if they get an opportunity to do that in their lives, they should do that. >> here here. >> thank you. for me, you know, what i -- when i left the white house after six years, and i've thought about what i want to do with my life, i didn't really know. because you had asked me when i first got in politics, what would be like your ultimate dream would be like find a

candidate you really believe in, get started early with them, go on a journey to the white house and get to be a part of an important presidency in an important role. check. i got to do that. thank you, barack obama. >> and did it very well. >> thank you for finding myself unemployed about the time barack obama started to run for presiden presidency. so that was good. didn't know what i wanted to do next. i had spent some time, especially in my last two years in the white house, where we were beginning to engage more with the tech world and the tech space and trying to make those changes. i felt a cultural affinity with silicon valley at large. geographically, because i moved here, obviously, but -- and i think there's -- when i went to go fund me, to do my first interview with them -- go fund me is a young company. only been around a couple of

years. it was very small until a couple of months ago, about a hundred people who work there. i went to the first office, we're going to move from it soon, it's above a nail salon. and the ceo knows i'm coming from the white house. so sorry about our office. it's people working in the hallway, all at standing desks. and i said to him, i was like, this is better than every campaign office i ever went to work in. >> in the fourth floor of the eob. >> in all of the eob. there's actually heat in this office. >> this is the executive office building, our offices. >> and so you feel like -- the obama campaign was the ultimate start-up. and all campaigns are start-ups in some way. what i think has drawn people from washington to silicon valley, and there are more of them moving out here every day, and people from silicon valley to washington and why those people in silicon valley are so valuable in washington is a bias

for action. right? in start-up world, you have to move fast. you have to decide quickly and you have to act. in campaigns, it's the same thing. you cannot wait. if you sit around and dilly dally for hours, like, people want to try something and get it done. if it doesn't work, you try something else and you learn from it. so there's that cultural affinity. what lead me to go fund me, which is a personal crowd-funding site, rapidly growing. most of our business is people who are raising money to pay for medical bills, or to help someone in their community, or fund textbooks for schools or stuff like that. but we do all kinds of projects. i didn't know i really wanted to take a job. i thought i could do the consulting thing, and do panels and work in coffee shops and do conference calls. but what really drew me to go fund me, essentially what go fund me is doing is using

technology to empower people to help others. sometimes they're helping their family. sometimes it's themselves. a lot of times it's their community, and that was the core of -- that's the obama promise. >> so you're still doing good? >> it's the obama promise. we're a for-profit company. we want to do business. the better we do, more people will help each other. but the core obama promise was not -- it gets lost in a lot of the -- but if you listen to the speech in 2007 and 2008, it's not, i'm going to do all these things for you. it's that we are going to do them together. we are going to come together and change our country. change comes from the bottom up. barack obama's background is similar to matt's, it's about grass-roots organizing. and what's most important about technology, good technology is bringing power from institutions down to people. right? you look in terms of, like, what are the internet and the ability to blog, gave normal people the

same power that newspapers their community. that's what led me to government in politics and that's what led to go fund me upon. >> i would just like to echo what dan said about public service and to draw that very deep, i think, emotional connection between a lot of the ethos that i see and feel in silicon valley and what the experience i had and others had in federal government or in any

level of government. the team that saved health care.gov worked about 20 hours a day every day for about 150 days, in some cases. it was incredibly intense. it was sometimes i was not on the team, i was in that office and i was working in some issues at the time, but these were people who were motivated by an intense desire?&ggaq= save hea care for their fellow americans. and there were times when todd park, who was our boss -- i'm saying "our" because my colleague is in the audience -- would bring the letters that the president had received about the affordable care act into the office and read them. and there was one -- i think each letter hit various of us on the team differently. there was one that i can never forget him reading that was from a mother, who said, i have spent the past 20 years, choosing

between health care for myself and for my kids. and because i was able to sign up through health care.gov, i'm now going to see a doctor for the first time in a long time. i just thought, oh, my god. that's not a choice i've had to make. this is a choice she's made. and everybody on the team was just so inspired to do this amazing work. and work, you know, we always joke at code for america, that when you end a code for america, you go work at a start-up to have an easier job. [ laughter ] people who work in government, particularly around technology, what they do, it's just profound. we saw that working with the state of california this year, to help them change the way they're approaching the procurement of the child welfare system. so it's very easy to get lost in the abstract things. it was going to be a five or $600 million procurement.

it was going to be very classic, old-school approach, waterfall methodology, five years to build, we wouldn't see anything until the end. these are the hall marks of failed government technology program. you can look at it and say, we have tools to bring to bear on that, we have different methodologies for procurement and you're doing all that work in an abstract way. and our team was coming home from a meeting in sacramento where they agreed to make the changes and reflected on the fact that this is not a piece of technology, this is the way that bee take care of kids who are at risk in our state. there are 475,000 reports of abuse and neglect of children in our state. and when the technology doesn't work to manage those cases, those kids have bad outcomes. >> absolutely. i think that's such an important point that you're making. the technology is solving an issue. i know i have to go to our questions from our audience, but

i do want to end on one quick thing. dan, what you said about demockraitizing, that's what brigade is about. so we thank you for doing that. >> that should be our tag line. >> demockraitizing democracy. i was going to put that in my original question, but i liked democracy as your start-up. at this point, i'll turn it over to q & a from the audience. if you have a panelist, please let us know who it is and please ask a question. thank you. >> okay, my question will be about database sets. my name's peter gisele, i work in a hospital laboratory, i'm not a computer geek. as a military veteran, i was interested in a bill that was in the congress a long time ago. my frustration is that 99% of the people i contact i never get feedback from. what i want to create is a

website, a viewer easily available database that has database sets in it of like the members of congress, people in the executive branch, but also governors and that. but also academic professors so that i could, over my retirement years, contact these people and try to get feedback, but at least document on this website that contact has been attempted and no response has been given. database sets are very expensive and i just don't understand why the non-profits and the computer doesn't just generate these for all the different non-profits in the company. there's a company called leadership directory that provides it, but costs tens of thousands of dollars. >> the question being, you'd like to see that contact listed in a database? >> a database itself is very expensive to produce. i can't produce it. i would think that if they're created by various non-profits in the country, it would be shareable for everybody in the country.

>> somebody want to take up database sets. >> i'll take a stab. i heard two parts to your question they might be able to respond to. one is on the database of elected officials and who represents you. i think you're absolutely right. that data is not easily accessible enough. there's no definitive database of every elected official in the u.s. and here's who i am as a voter and who are my reps. there are some good attempts and there are some groups working really hard on that. google civic aid, map light over in berkeley has been working on aspects of the problem for years now. those data sets are getting better. you're absolutely right. i think the second part of the responsiveness of those reps, did they hear what you said and did it count? that's another piece that we're worried about. a lot of that comes down to snent incentives. this is not a new story. but i talk to a lot of officials

who spend a ton of time fund-raising, talking to interest groups that represent money in their district and have less time to think about how to engage a wider audience and they're not incentivize said to do so. so we're hoping to aggregate votes and voters in a way and constituents, so that their opinions actually tied to the identity of someone who votes, can incentivize elected officials to spend more time with them. they're figuring out a lot of time on how to get the money. if you could figure out how to get it to the voters, they would be incentivized to go spend time with them. but it's an unsolved problem at this point. there are some good people working on it. >> next question. >> my name's shayna, i'm a student and also an elusive millennial as you spoke of. for me, the flip side of the proliferation of social media is that a lot of my peers and young

people feel like clicktivism and liking something on facebook is enough, and that's engaging with a cause. for me as someone who has a twitter and a website and has tried to praise technology, it's been difficult to see how social media can be used to sustain involvement and make sure that civic engagement goes past a social media presence. i'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that. thank you. >> yeah, great question. just quickly, there's a huge amount of engagement online with millenials like shayna, posting articles, commenting on political topics. then when you ask millenials what are the most impactful things they do to help their community, it's actually offline, and/or giving money. volunteering, direct service in their community, where they can see the people they're serving or actually work on things with their hands. it's giving money where they have confidence that the money is going to be used to actually

fund something that's impactful. so i do think there's a disconnect right now between the discourse in self-expression that maybe feels satisfying in the moment because you won that argument or you got three likes on the thing you posted. even if it's -- and it may be political, but you have to ask yourself what do those likes actually amount to and probably the answer is not much. and where millenials are saying they're most satisfied and most engaged which is offline, through volunteerism. i think there's a gap. only 8% of millenials voting in the last california midterm. millenials just don't believe voting matters. that's a huge problem. that probably sounds like a depressing non-answer. i think part of the way you solve that, though, is -- this is a terrible word -- you gamify it, you make the data explicit. you show them they're not alone.

you show them how many voters there are, how much the potential impact is. this thing, which i just got as a holiday present, and it changes behavior. just tracking and making explicit how many hours i sleep, how many steps i take, how much water i drink, just making some data explicit and easy for me to understand and consume and these nudges to do things, has dramatically changed my behavior. i go for a walk after dinner. i try to go to bed earlier. it's not quite as simple in the civic space. but if this is the kind of technology that we're responsive to as consumers and younger people in particular, we're going to have to build those kinds of tools for the civic space. and there's been a huge underinvestment in that in silicon valley for a very long time. government's been the enemy. we're hip and cool and solve problems. they don't. jen speaks eloquently as to how to bridge that gap and why it's

imperative that we do. >> and if i could just add, there's a particular opportunity that sort of bridges that sense of social media in digital ca competence with that sense of hands and working in your community. the code for america brigade, there are 44,000 people that build technology for their city government, for their local community, and two of the most active communities are here in san francisco and oakland. san francisco meets on wednesday nights at our office on ninth street. one of our sponsors, who is in the back for microsoft, who helps out with that community. and open oakland is also in city hall weekly. so it's activism that's digital that helps out in your community. >> that's wonderful, thank you. we have time for two more questions. we'll take the next one. >> my name's ruth shapiro, and

right before i came here, i was watching the town hall with president obama about guns. and there seemed to be, in the audience, quite a few people who were very much galvanized by what i believe is completely untrue information about guns. so i think the underbelly, or the dark side of proliferation of information, is the proliferation of untrue and destructive information with isis recruitment being obviously way, you know, a worst case example of this.5 so i wonder if you can just discuss the fact that there's a lot of untrue destructive information out there, which people are organizing around and how do you deal with that. >> sure. [ applause ] >> i can take that. there are upsides and pros and cons to all things, right? and the dramatic proliferation of information has done great things for the world. but there are people who can use

it in nefarious ways, isis being the most obvious example. there has been evil in the world before there was social media. there was prejudice before it. social media really allows people to express opinions they otherwise had in different ways. what it does do is allow people to confront opinions they would not otherwise ever see. now, you raised guns and guns is a very interesting one. because guns and climate change are two of the hardest issues to communicate on, because we don't live in this broadcast world where you just go to the news and everyone hears what you have to say. people are now communicating in networks and these networks are becoming, in many cases, more homogenous. so it becomes very hard for someone who is outside of that network to convince a bunch of people in a different network that climate change is real. or that actually no one's coming to take your guns, right?

so that presents -- that is a challenge. now, i think that as we, as people learn and politicians learn how to better communicate in this area, you're going to have some more progress there. but i think social media is a tool that, i think, does way more good than bad. but we're going to have to sort of look and learn about how we can deal with, you know, these closed communications. i think it's worth noting the fact that people have facebook friends or twitter followers, who basically believe the same thing, is more of a symptom of something larger that's happening in so tciety. offline it's happening too. people are hanging out and living in and going to school with people of the same opinion. so there are precincts in this country, in san francisco and new york, where mitt romney got

zero votes. not a single person voted for mitt romney in that area. and there are precincts where barack obama got not one vote. so it always becomes easy for people in politics and the media to blame twitter and facebook, and it's made our politics uglier, more confusing, or now people are less informed than they were before. we got to think on bigger things, rather than just what the social media platform of the day is. >> and because of that point, we made a specific design position on brigade, maybe it's background checks required for gun purchases, on what informed citizens do, they take a position, they agree or they disagree, but then they have an ability to leave a reason, to comment, to vet, to post more content. so we made a design decision to

structure it as a debate with different perspectives. i would rather in the long run, have a crowd-sourced multi dimensional debate where truth gets created over time and can be revised and updated, more of a wikipedia model, than a kind of expert-driven, you know, encyclopedaedia britannica mode. the internet offers that, but it's going to require time and tools and social norms for that to work for. >> everyone. >> if you haven't downloaded brigade, i encourage you to do it. there's a cool feeling when, because what happens is, you leave a reason, and if someone changes your mind because of your reason, you get a notification. so and so changed their mind because of what you wrote. that gives you a rewarding

feeling. so on guns, taxes, women's health, maybe i'm not gonna convince a bunch of people, but in the course of reading about this, the first san francisco election i ever voted in and reading the back and forth on that, you hear really interesting arguments about things you wouldn't have otherwise thought of. so it's a totally interesting thing when you do the -- my first time of the million ballot initiatives here -- [ laughter ] -- incredibly helpful. >> bring that one to california. i feel like you're talking to me. i've already said i'm going to download it. >> i wasn't trying to be subtle. >> that was great. and with that, we'll go to our last question of the evening from the audience. >> it's interesting. i was going to ask about what you were talking about, which is the unintended consequence of technology actually helping polarize the nation more. i was going to compliment you on what you just mentioned at brigade, it's the only place where you see both points of

view. my question is, what role do you see yourself having on actually using technology so we can graduate and use it as a way to work together? there's so much overlap on issues like immigration that different groups on the different sides agree on, but when you go into this world of sorting and dividing, i'm not going to work with that person because they're so evil, that even though we agree with each other, we're not going to work. and that's what's happening. so my question is, how important is that for you at brigade, and what are your thoughts about how to work on that? >> thanks for the question. i think in the long run, it's absolutely critical. our mission is to empower people to play an active role in their democracy through collective action. we want to help people build real influence. so discussion and getting informed and learning about yourself and where you stand on the issues and forming an opinion on things is a really important starting place. but we have a long way to go to

figure out, to build the tools for people to take action and collaborate. jen mentioned brigade -- we both like that name. -- mentioned the code for america brigades, which are exactly that. those are people with a common vision for wanting to get something done. they have resources and tools, they use technology to meet offline and work together to building amazing things. similarly in the realm of policy and electoral politics, we want to connect new people to work together. which of my neighbors care about the same issues i care about? i wouldn't know where to begin to work with them. and finding ways to reconnect those people and give them tools to organize and get things done is absolutely the long-term vision. >> i think the other place is, we can connect on getting the policy that we think matches our values. but particularly here in silicon valley, we can connect around

the implementation of that policy. if you care about immigration, one of the things i was doing when health care.gov was doing their stuff, was working with the immigration and the domestic policy council. that was when we still thought we would pass immigration reform at the legislative level. and we said, wow, if aca is vulnerable to being threatened by implementation, so is immigration. now, since then, many wonderful people have come from silicon valley to help the immigration -- the straightive things that have to happen if we're going to process many more people through. so there's common ground, i think, particularly in this community around getting the policies to actually work, using digital technology. >> absolutely agree. thank you for that. that was our last question. thank you for the audience, really appreciate it. before we close out, i want to go on to tradition. we'll start with you and work our way back. i would like to ask each of you,

what are your 60-second ideas to change the world? [ laughter ] >> i had to go first on that one. obviously personal crowd fund-raising. [ laughter ] >> obviously. >> yes. >> would you like to expand on that? [ laughter ] >> sure. i was trying to be efficient in silicon valley style and do it in ten seconds. i think the most important thing for changing the world is education. right? it's bringing more -- it's giving people the opportunity to reach their full potential. that can happen in a whole wide array of things. but people's fates are being determined at too young an age. start with early childhood, work your way to learning a specific skill set, that more than anything else, that's on the long arc of the world that will make our country a better place. >> agreed. jen? >> i guess i would say that i

think if we all believed and held government accountable to it working for us and for the people that it needs to help, not just us, but people who need to rely on government more, we would live in a different world. we have a lower expectation, and i think the belief that it could be and the ability to help make it as effective as we need it to be is a powerful idea. it's not only about the delivery of government services which is where we focus at code for america, but it turns out that if we make the delivery of those government services work in the way that, say, uber works, then we get realtime data about what programs work and then government can work effectively, not just at the delivery level, but at the policy level. >> couldn't agree more.

matt? >> i feel like i've been talking about that the whole time, probably selfishly, i'm sorry. i guess i'd just slightly reframe it as a better answer to shayna's question, which is that i want to live in a world where people take pride in having opinions and being civically engaged, not just with their voice, but their hands. and this is a sad statement on humanity, i point back to my health tracker. but i think we're going to have to measure those things and they're going to have to be recorded and it's going to be part of our civic identity online and part of our identity of who we are. but if more of our lives are moving online, my big idea is that being rooted in a community, having opinions, having a stake in society and contributing through my voice and my hands, making that accessible and making it

something that's aspirational is the big idea and what we're trying to build. >> thank you. thanks so much. i'm so thrilled to be on stage with you tonight. can we just give our panelists a round of applause. [ applause ] thanks, guys. don't move. thank you, everyone. is there still wine? no, i'm just kidding. [ laughter ] i was going to send you guys to the wine. >> sunday night on q & a, author scott christiansen provides his thoughts on the documents that had the greatest impact on the

world, from the magna carta and the declaration of independence, to martin luther king jr's i have a dream speech and wikileaks. >> there's a lot of criticism of snowden, but there's also a very strong feeling that he's an american hero. and he's viewed as such around the world. so it does really cause people to question, you know, who controls documents, who owns documents, what's the power of documents, who are these things really about, that the government is collecting. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q & a.e2 >> des moines, iowa, simulcasting with c-span. >> here in the state of iowa. >> here in iowa. >> god bless the great state of iowa. >> go iowa! >> the republican party of iowa. >> in iowa. >> in iowa. >> in iowa. >> in iowa. >> in iowa. >> here in iowa. >> in iowa. >> i'm so pleased to do this

with wonderful friends in iowa today. >> if you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in iowa, we would have given anything for that. >> oh, it is good to be back in iowa. >> people didn't know much about the iowa caucuses. ♪ >> is there an average caucus? >> that's hard to say. it's the third one i've been to. they're all different. >> 17, 18, 19, 20. ♪ >> it is good to be back in iowa. >> i thank you, iowa, for the great send-off you're giving to us. >> you got to show respect for iowans, they're discerning voters. >> i want to thank the people of iowa. >> i want to thank all the people of iowa. >> iowa is the first. >> i love you all. if i lose iowa, i will never speak to you people again. [ laughter ]

♪ >> attorney general loretta lynch was the main speaker at this year's martin luther king day breakfast, hosted by the national action network. she discussed the justice departments civil rights prosecutions. other speaker, eric holder, john king, and national action outh network president al sharpton.s. this is two hours. >> hey, where's the line?wher all right.that that's a little better.r.ha happy king day. happy kingpp day. >> happy king day. >> oh, come on now. remember when we used to have t? sneak in happy king day, it wasn't really official, so you'd sneak and not show up. you go to work and they say,

where were you yesterday? knowing we all took the day off for king day, so let mesay i heu all say it. happy king day.tter. >> happy king day. >> that's a lot better. it's my pleasure and privilege to be able to bring up reverend al sharpton, who is the founder of this glorious band. like t but before i do, i'd like to take a note of personal privilege, because we always talk about reverend higgs that tomorrow is not promised.pro and for me it was almost not re promised because i was almost i not here htoday. i had a very serious surgery last year, that almost took my m life, left me paralyzed on my a left side, and i had one call tl make. and i to called reverend al sharpton, who prayed for me. and i want you to know, reverend, all of that paralysis, when they said, get ready, you might not survive, i couldn't lift my hand, that healing that, you gave me, they ought to just

look right now. thank you so much for the prayer that you gave. this man looked out for the disenfranchis disenfranchised, the turneded out,,l the shut in, he'sad been doing e for years. let's bring up the head of our wondererous band, the one and only, the reverend al sharpton. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you. thank you very much, and thank o you nate u, nmiles. i grew up in the church of god and christ for reverend jens ans reverend hicks baptized me baptist. ba so we believe in healing. i might have to go back in the healing business. let me welcome all of you to the

king day breakfast for national action network in washington. this is what we do annually. but this is the 30th anniversary of it being an official holiday. and we must remember that even the holiday was not automatic.hd had it not been for mrs. corettn scott otking, and congressman jn conyers, and reverend jackson cr and s others, we would not havea had ave federal holiday. i was asked this morning, what does the holiday mean?an. when you think of 30 years ago,r whens i was a younger man, we never thought, 30 years later, l on the king holiday, that we would have a black president, a black female attorney general --

[ applause ] -- who succeeded a black male attorney general. [ applause ] it's a long way from bull conner to eric holder. it's a long way and a long but journey, but we have yet a long way to go, because even as we e celebrate that black unemployment is still high, questions of policing and profiling is still before us. economic challenges are still o before us.re and we still must face those challenges.se and that is why national actionl network and others must stay on the forefront of raising these g issues. it'shese not enough to remembee king and not really try