interpretation and there will be no constitutional political regulatory differences between northern ireland and rest of the united kingdom in the back stop? >> i say to the right honorable gentlemen, as he's invited me to do, i'm happy to say i continue to reject the protocol proposal that the so-called back stop that was put forward by the european union by the european commission earlier in this year. the fact that that would have affectively carved northern ireland out away from the rest of the united kingdom and kept northern ireland in the customs union and most of the single market would have meant that -- that is completely unacceptable to the government to the united kingd kingdom. >> nikki morgan. >> delivering a referendum result will always involve a series of compromises and trade-offs to support the position that the prime minister achieved with the cabinet on friday at checkers which absolutely puts business and jobs at the heart of any brexit deal. that is in the national

interest. i think the prime minister has the vast majority -- >> we'll leave this statement by the british prime minister as the senate democratic policy and communications committee is holding a hearing to discuss campaign finance and the impact of dark money campaigns. this is just getting under way. >> will put her into the order, but i think we can move fairly quickly to the witnesses, it's timely for us to be doing this hearing right now in the week in which president trump has announced a new nominee for the supreme court. someone who will protect the 5-4 republican fell lankz so reliably delivered decision after decision after decision for the republican party's election interest and for the big corporations financial interest. we have a lot that is we have a

lot that's relevant to today's conversation because it began with a highly unusual invitation by one of the five republican justices on the supreme court to challenge this aspects of a decision that was what in their confirmation guides, the republican judges would call binding precedent. we need to follow precedent, part of our conservative doctrine we must follow precedent and got on the court and smashed precedent left and right and center on the way to delivering results for republican election interests and corporate financial interests. >> this rolled on with faux litigation, with faux parties backed by big republican special interest and bringing cases they asked to lose so they could move

rapidly through the litigation process to their destination at the supreme court. where they believe five welcoming justices awaited them to deliver the promised outcome. of course the death of justice scalia interfered with that scheme and 4-4 is failed but it took almost zero time after gorsuch was put on the court for the same dark money interests to gin the litigation back up and come racing back to the court now with new plaintiffs and equally questionable standing but court overlooked all of those problems because it had a pet political project which was to get rid of this source of funding for unions. it rolls from the political to the personal and we have the teacher of the year from arizona and home care worker as well to talk about the personal side but

let me ask professor nancy mcclain, the author of a terrific book about dark money influence and the way in which very, very big money has infiltrated our public debate over many, many years and tried to control the narrative for big special interest. we'll start with professor mcclain, a truly wonderful book. >> good yafr noafternoon thank summer whitehouse for inviting me to participate in this crucial -- an author most recently as senator white house said of a book called "democracy in chains that bears directly on our topic. i spent the better part of the last decade researching and unraveling the historical roots of the ideas that the libertarian radical right funded by charles koch and dark money donors are applying to transform our country. this anty democratic libertarian

right consists of literally hundreds of organizations. including national bodies such as the kato institute, heritage foundation, american legislative exchange council and federalist society. assigned through the state policy network, organizing enterprises including americans for prosperity and concerned veterans of america, libre initiative and generation opportunity and campus based centers of allied faculty. most of us who are critical of changes coming from today's right have not really grasped what this vast apparatus is seeking. in fact, one top koch official gloeted at the donor summit in late 2015 that -- and i quote, we're close to winning, while the networks critics he said still don't have the real path. i found that path in my research so i would like to open today by

identifying some key elements of this causes belief system and discussing what that means for policy makers here in washington. without the broader understand, we tend to view cases in isolation. let me explain. many americans interpreted the janice decision as a pure and simle case of union busting. this was a crucial piece of the radical right's stelth plan to take power out of the hands of ordinary citizens and public officials alike. and make sure that that power never returns by radically altering the rules of our democracy as enshrined in our constitution. stealth is critical to their success. i learned from reading thousands of pages of documents that this cause has produced over a half century. why? because they understand that the only way they can achieve their radical anti-democratic

transformation of american government is by putting their plan in place piece by piece without announcing their true intent. in settling all of this in motion in fact, two decades ago, charles koch began with the presumption that -- and i quote, we are greatly outnumbered. we are greatly outnumbered to win therefore he said his cause must overwhelm the other side with what he termed interrelated plays. so let me guide you to six key elements of the radical right's over arching vision which link the linked plays that we have been seeing in this country especially since 2009. first, market forces should alone determine social outcomes with no interference from government. government has only three legitimate roles for this cause. enforce the law, ensure social order and defend us from foreign

enemies. everything else should in time be eliminated because it interferes with property rights and economic liberty. second, any attempt by the people to use use numbers as labor unions and government policies like minimum wages do is illegitimate and akin to gangsterism. the koch team believes we should only have the right to act as individuals, not muster any collectsive counter veiling power to that of corporations. as americans have been accustomed to doing for generations. free speech is not the end goal of the janice case. that goal is breaking down the collective power to block implementation of the radical libertarian program including ultimately privatization of public education and social security and medicare and medicaid and more. third, democracy does not

require majority rule. in fact, democracy is not an especially desirable form of decision-making. the radical anti-democratic libertarian cause believes in anunty. only if anyone above all the wealthiest among us supports a particular policy and voluntarily agrees to pay for it can it be said to be truly representing the common good. that's why koch allied organizations and officials are working so hard to limit voting by those most likely to oppose their agenda. including african-americans and lat nos and low income whites and young people of all groups. . fourth, elected officials do not care about the common good. they only care about getting re-elected using other people's money to dole out favors to ensure that. that's why we have deficits even in times of pros spert.

fifth, because the people cannot be trusted to restrain claims on the wealthy and elected officials cannot be trusted with the power to tax and spend, iron clad binding restraints must be put on both. the nobel prize winning economist whose ideas have been weaponized, buchanan, said the changes were so extensive they amounted to in his words a constitutional revolution. that revolution would put shackles on what government can do, including by making mandatory balanced budgets, making balanced budgets mandatory, congressional term limits and limiting the right to vote and requiring vast super majorities for any change of substance after the constitutional revolution. sixth, and perhaps most telling, the only way to achieve all of this is by stealth. spreading misinformation, like the myth of mass voter fraud and

relying initially on the branch of government that is easiest for corporations to capture and deploy. that is state government and shown by my own state of north carolina. since the 2010 midterms and great gerri manneder that followed, state politics funded by the long time partner art pope and allied officials have turned a once moderate state that was a beakcon to the wider south into a competitor with alabama and mississippi for which we'll do less for its people. and to keep future voters from reversing all of the radical changes they've made, they've put not one, but six constitutional amendments on the docket this fall, including voter i.d. and a cap on top income rates. with these elements of the end game and grand strategy as context, let me turn in conclusion to three key implications of what i have

outlined. first, what has made this audacious predictable, something we have never seen in american history, that is a concerted project by one extremely right wing mul billionaire who has taken it upon himself and network he has built to radically alter our world. let's be clear. never before has this much money, this much time and this much political power been wielded on behalf of individuals who are unelected and unaccountable to the people. second, gaining control of the courts is vital to this project. because the courts will decide how the law is going to be applied in the battle against democracy as we know it. the aim is to radically rewrite the overall rules of how our democracy works on everything from house we vote to what we're allowed to vote on and how we are represented. one of the greatest victories in

this quest to capture the courts would be something almost no one has been talking about this last week. but it's a key part of why the koch network is spending millions of dollars to get the president's supreme court nominee confirmed in short order. seeks so gut the interpretation of the constitution's commerce clause that enabled all federal regulations since the 1930s. as one koch allied legal strat get on public sector unions explained and i quote, we want to withdraw judicial support for the entire modern welfare state. my last and final point in light of all of this, what should be the goal of those who believe in government of by and for the people. inform, inform, inform. of course, inform your own colleagues and members and constituents but do not stop there, all americans need to

understand how this libertarian ethical system is at odds with our political traditions and the best of every major religion in the world. i'll close as i started, the janice ruling cannot be fully understood without recognizing the larger right minority project that produced it. if that projs is not stopped, and soon, by making use of the democratic tools that we still have, we will find ourselves living in a country that none of us would recognize and one that by design will be almost impossible to change even with super majority demand for it. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you very much, professor mac lean. we also have christine marsh here who teaches high school english at cactus shadows high school in arizona. as a member of the national education association, she sees firsthand the effects of janice. she was the arizona teacher of

the year in 2016 and democratic candidate for the arizona state senate now and we welcome her to this proceeding. ms. marsh. >> thank you, senators forgiving teachers a voice in this very important discussion. my classroom is set up in a circle kind of like this, giving students a voice. i want my students to know they have a voice and to know that their voice matters. the same philosophy has propelled me through 26 years of teaching and it is probably one of the reasons i was named 2016 arizona teacher of the year. giving teachers a voice is one of the reasons i have belonged to the national education association and the arizona education association for 26 years. during my tenure as teacher of the year, i went to the rarz

state capitol almost every single week where i testified before committees. someone from aea was almost always there. they were there fighting for our students just as i was. witnessing that firsthand has made me an even loyal -- more loyal member. in the post janice world, i expect educator activism to grow. i know from firsthand experience that teachers are not going away and you are not going to be sile silent. if anything, they've started to recognize the stealth that professor maclean has referenced. this spring before janice was decided, the aea teamed up with the hash tag red for ed movement. for first time in rarz mystery, educators worked out of classroom and gather at the capitol to protest working and

learning conditions nearly 70,000 people, mostly teachers took part in the week-long protest. it helped them realize that they do have this voice that i referenced earlier and that they can indeed use that voice. now the numbers of educators involved in related activities like ballot initiatives and legislative campaigns continues to grow in arizona. the red for ed movement gives me hope and i hope it gives some of you hope as well. and we need that hope in this post janice world, a world in which teachers and indeed all public employees are under attack. in response, we are becoming more engaged, speaking out and organizing both locally and nationally. as we have seen in arizona, and on a national level, we are

fighting groups with endless amounts of money that again, profess area maclean has referenced and they will not be giving up their attacks. but we also know that no amount of money can silence america's teachers. we will continue to fight to keep public education thriving and ensure that educators and students get the respect that they deserve. i'd like to close by thanking you again for inviting me and by extension teachers in general to be here and by assuring you that educators will fight any and all attacks on public education. thank you. >> thank you, plz marsh. >> we are delighted to be joined by ms. melody benjamin, member of seiu and home care worker in illinois and wrote an op-ed

featured in "the hill" that discussed the difficulties of serving as a home care worker and discussed the attacks on home care worker unions. ms. benjamin, please proceed. >> good afternoon. i'm a home care worker from chicago's west side. i'm also a proud member of seiu, healthcare illinois. senator whitehouse, i want to thank you forgiving me the opportunity to allow me to let you know why the importance of having a union means to working people like myself. and why the efforts to divide us and destroy unions by corporate powerful interest that hurt our country. in our union, we have a saying as home care workers, envisible no more. and that's because before that, brave home care workers back in the late '80s organize the home care workers and only making as little as an dollar an hour.

no one was recognized basically how hard of the work that it is and demanding that it is. basically give us real wages. and nobody as more home care workers have joined continue to out for better wages, training, and other improvements for the work that we love. alone, we are invisible. but together, we're unstoppable. we provide care for seniors and people with disabilities to live in a home. i didn't choose this profession, it chose me. i was 28 years old when i was starting to become a surgical technologyist back in 2008 when my mom started getting sick. as the years passed by, she later had to have a bypass surgery on both legs because her artery had blockage. after that day, both our lives changed forever.

my mom could no longer live alone. i left school and became a full time home care worker. i was making $11.25 an hour with no benefits. taking care of my mom is 24 hours a job. i don't get paid for overtime and i'm underpaid and most time i have to baby-sit just to do a side job to make ends meet. i joined the union not only just to have better wages but i joined the union to basically for other working people just like myself as home care providers. i quickly found out that my union was doing so much and making a difference in this industry. through my union, we were working to lift up other home care providers. together joined forces and

started advocating for more wages and increase training and different opportunities and affordable health care. right now i'm at $13 an hour. and we are shooting for $15 an hour. my union gave me a sense of hope. i thought i was alone and struggling. then my union coming out, i actually met other home care workers that do the same work that i do and are going through the same struggles that i go through. together we identify what needs to be changed in this profession and they give me the confidence to talk to my elected officials. my family members and my neighbors to create a home care program and system that works for everyone. in this industry, it has a high turnover rate. we're fighting for advancement that we can retain more home care workers as the demand is exploding. just consider 10,000 people turn

65 every day. also consider that this is the fastest pace growing jobs in the country. there is not simply enough home care workers. well trained, well paid workers. we have a care crisis. you would think that people would make our jobs better and improve care. right? wrong. state policy network and freedom foundation launched serious aggressive attacks on working people like myself. these attacks include using power and influence to push cases like harris versus quinn, janice versus asmy to the supreme court. funding efforts to dismantle the foundation to support a thriving

middle class. this includes efforts to reappeal the affordable care act with no replacement. and using this with comments trying to keep us silent. president trump nominated brett kavanaugh last night and confirmed he'll take care of the democracy against working people. judge kavanaugh side time and time again against working people like me and myself. as you and your colleagues consider kavanaugh, don't forget that the decision affects me and my community. the supreme court may make decisions here in washington, d.c., but the rest of the world has to live with the consequences. so in my closing, in no amount of money will stop us. we will continue to fight to improve care we provide. and that we love.

fighting to protect medicaid for the people we care for. the freedom to come together in a union is a basic right. and it's about our future as home care workers as well as how our country will take care of our seniors and loved ones. we ask you to stand with us and stand up for those who use wealth and power to side with working people like myself and make it easier for working people to join a union and have their voices heard so we won't be invisible no more. thank you. >> thank you. i really appreciate that. and miss weingarten just arrived. her timing is perfect. i'll let her take a quick breath. she taught history at clairbarton high school in brooklyn and rose to become the president of the united federation of teachers aft local 2 representing teachers throughout the new york city public school system. she is now the national

president of the american federation of teachers. representing a significant population and we're delilted that you are here to make your comments. let me say that the order of arrival as senators arrive. you may begin. >> thank you, senator. i'm here on the eve of our convention which is happening in pittsburgh. and what we are seeing is an

amazing sense from our members that they're sticking with the union. something has shifted in the last few weeks and months. i, frankly, in the last 20 years -- the 25 years of union advocacy that i have done, i have never seen what i am seeing right now. so i want to start with there is a lot of hope in a very terrifying and dark period of time. we're unions of teachers, college faculty and health care workers and public employees. and what this year we talk about is caring, fighting and showing up. not just for our members but for the communities we serve. and ultimately, this is the through line that we've been seeing. not just in the states where there were teacher walkouts, but through millennials, others, people get that unions are still

the best vehicle working p em ha -- people have to make in their lives and workplaces. and unions, as all of you know, negotiated everything for class sizes to safe staffing levels at health care facilities, to insuring that special needs kids have the services they need to safety on the job, to safety in communities. workers covered by union contracts earn 13 and 20% than no nonworkers and are more likely to have paid leave and retirement benefits. but what we're seeing is in the places where the lowest density is where there is very little that helps people in terms of law like in west virginia, like in oklahoma, like in arizona. people are willing to reject despair as a strategy and are

saying enough is enough. but what we've also seen is that the states that most of you come from, the states that have still invested are also the states that have the greatest union density. and the best services and the flip side is also obvious. simply put, what we've seen in the union density that stronger unions equal stronger communities. and it's not just that our members get it. communities get it. even in this hugely polarized country we have right now, after in the midst of the teacher strikes, we saw from ap polls and other polls, not our polls, that people supported teacher unions and agreed that teachers were not paid enough. that's a huge difference than ten years ago. the janice case came out as we expected. but the justice nailed it in her dissent when she said that her

colleagues, her conservative colleagues were overthrowing a decision entrenched in this nation's law and in its economic life for over 40 years. as a result, it prevents the american people acting through their state and local officials from making important choices about workforce -- workplace governance. and it was her words, not my words, when she said the majority was weaponizing the first amendment. it is intended to secure political freedom, not an amendment that was ever intended to equate money to speech as senator whitehouse has said. let me end in my last minute with what i started with. so the same day that janice was decided, 2400 faculty at oregon state university joined the aft. and right now we're at our

largest numbers ever. and what it's done for us is change the nature of our union from where -- one where the members saw that they outsource their power to those they're elected leaders to where the members now see their power is within themselves. and as a result, before the decision of the 800,000 people who are affected by this, over 530,000 have already signed new union cards. the day after the decision, the center supported by betsy devoss spamed teacher e-mailed across the country. school e-mails, by the way, across the country. and what has happened is that people are pissed that they

actually use their school e-mails and regardless in our union meeting if there is ten people there, you're going to get 20 opinions. but what they don't want is the coke brothers or the devoss family to take away their power and their rights. people are joining. and you hear the defiance in my voice? it's because we're seeing that people are sticking to their union, sticking with their union because they understand that what we can do together is impossible for people to do alone. thank you.

>> thank you. senator whitehouse, thank you for organizing this and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. i'm sure your stories on how special dark interest money campaigns are really hurting or workers and unions and economy. we know that for more than a century unions have organized to lift up the voices of regular average workers who otherwise would not be heard and fought for fair pay and safe working conditions and better benefits. they are a essential part of our economies in this country. we know, randy that, unions are still empowering workers every day. to have a better workplace and better pay and including, by the way, the countless teachers who we have been so amazed to watch. they have spent billions of dollars on political campaigns

and lawsuits that are designed to chip abay the workers rights over the past few decades who have seen a decline in union membership. i'm excited this is going to create a backlash to that. but as a result, we're seeing wages really stagnant for our families. and meanwhile, the billionaires, of course, are getting richer. so this is a very important hearing. we appreciate your participation and i do want to mention the supreme court because obviously we're here talking because of janice. but we also now have a new nominee. and i have to say judge kavanaugh has a very long history of ruling in favor of corporations and big businesses at the expense of our workers. and the lives of millions of people are at stake with this nomination. so we're fighting back. i've been very proud to announce the workers freedom to negotiate act and the public service freedom to negotiate act. we understand how important this

is. your testimony will help us make the case so thank you for all being here. >> thank you senator murray. >> thank you so much, senator whitehouse for holding this important hearing and then also i want to mention senator heronos fine work with the freedom to negotiate act. i'm proud to be a co-sponsor. so i got excited listening to you and i was -- myself i was looking at some of justice keegan's remarks including what she said during the oral argument. she said 23 states would have statutes declared unconstitutional. thousands of municipalities, contracts invalidated. the contracts probably cover millions, maybe over ten million workers. so i am so glad to hear that people are sticking with and joining the union. but what are some of the strategies that you are

employing to deal with this? so thank you for that. let me know. >> so i actually think it comes down to one word -- engagement. it's community involvement. it's people understanding what the stakes are. it's creating pathways of -- it's getting through the fear and the frustration and the polarization and re-creating trust. so in february 2015, lee saunlders came saunl saunders came to one of our meetings. and we had a really intense conversation about how to re-engage in a different kind of

way. how to break and disrupt the notion that the leader can do it all for the members. how to create different kinds of path ways of engagement. but in january of this year, from february 2015 onward, from january of this year given what we saw in the briefs in the supreme court, we said let's not wait to re-sign up people. let's actually take the risk of having a recommitment strategy in the 23 states. so, yes, we're also doing a clearing house and legal work

and yesterday, for example, we had a conversation with about 60,000 members that denise speck was on on and andy palato was on and leaders from a couple other states were on. so we're doing all the other things you would expect. but it's really this engagement that is the key strategy. >> okay. thank you. i think you look at the pattern of the decisions. one of them was to actually find the consumer protection bureau unconstitutional, something that was set up to save average americans from bad behavior of wall street banks and the like. could you talk about how you see this as connected to those legal fights over the consumer financial protection bureau?

>> sorry. politics are looking at these issues of the court and in quite different ways. so what one sees on the moderate liberal democratic side is a focus on particular issues, right? whether it's health care or it's abortion or it's, you know, workers rights or other things. what you see happening on the right though is a very systematic and steady focus on framework. the framework that supports all of those issues. i'm concerned as i watch the national discussion about this judicial nominee and long legal movement that is so heavily funded by the dark money network convened by other partners in the operations that people are not getting that this is really to transform the constitutional

framework of our country. these are very smart people. very strategic. it's a long game. it's an intergrated plan. you don't go to the most extreme thing right away. but it is systematic. i want to give you another quote from someone involved in this network so you'll understand how they feel about things like the affordable care act which to millions of americans meant they got health care for the first time. they didn't get rejected because they had a pre-existing condition. their children could get health care. all of those things that people in this room regard. here is what the legal strategist who started the frederic's case founded the center for individual rights said of the aca. i won't use the first word because it it is a word i shouldn't use on television. he said this has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene. i do not care how it is done. whether it's dismembered, whether we drive a stake through its heart, whether we tar and feather it and drive it out of town or whether we strangle it.

now this is a law professor in a coke funded law program. i think that tells us a lot about the strategy of this network which ultimately wants to undermine the judicial framework for the entire modern welfare state and regulation. it sounds so extreme that people don't believe you. i said this can't be possibly happening but it is. i'm not going to ask any more questions but i want to thank you for your good work teaching. my mom taught school until she was 70. a proud member of her union. thank you for that. and thank you also miss benjamin for your work. i'll ask you about the silver surge we're seeing later, the aging community and how that's going to affect the need for care workers like yourself and how it becomes even more

relevant. so thank you. >> senator? >> thank you very much for holding the hearing and thank you to the witnesses for holding the testimony. i want to follow up on point you just made which is as you say, the average american doesn't believe that this is happening. and one of the challenges that we have is how to convey to them that this is real and that we really do need to do something about it. i was struck by the last comment, if we don't do something soon it will be irreversible. have you thought about how to get across the message to americans that this is real? >> yeah. i think that is such an important question. i can say, i don't know that my experience is representative, but i've been traveling over the

country over the last year and stunned and inspired by the degree to which americans from all walks of life, all sectors of commitmentes, different kinds of churches, community organizations, unions, civil rights groups. when people are understanding that something is going radically wrong in our society that our democracy is being rigged, is being strangled in different ways. find that people in red states like my own north carolina and like your arizona understand this particularly well because they have seen this happen with measure after measure after measure. many of them done in secret in the dark without the usual procedures. so i think the american people might understand more than we give them credit for and then the pollsters give them credit for. i don't know the pollsters know how to ask the question to get to people's sense that the system is rigged. but i do think it is quite interesting that the two of the surprise presidential candidates in the 2016 election both had a message that system is rigged.

and that was quite rez nant with the american people. i think it's extremely important we approach this with a sense of how much we have built together as a people over the years. how much we have done from -- you know, we used to have rivers that started on fire. remember the river? we don't have that anymore. we have so many other things that we've done together. i don't think we've sane adequate credit for those or help the american people understand how important government is to that. you know, the representatives that we elect and the work that they do. so i think it's very important to reclaim that and reshape the national conversation so that people understand if we're not in this together as a democracy, we are all on our own. you are on your own for everything. and if this coke led cause this libertarian cause wins and achieves what it wants to, you'll be on your own for everything, to pay for your children's education because it will be private and no public provision. to pay for your retirement because they will have

privatised social security and medicare. to pay for your health care. and to not be able to look to your fellow citizens for help. i think that this is just such a radical vision that if americans understood it they would stop it. i think that's why this cause operates in stealth because they know that too. >> sadly, the master rigger won the election. we have to get through that challenge first. let me thank miss march and miss benjamin. what you said about home care work se workers is absolutely true. i hear we don't have enough. and people have to leave because they can't afford to stay in the field and, of course, with teachers we know that we need more. i started my career as a teacher. i have a real appreciation for teachers. can i ask if both of can you talk about what a difference being part of a union has made to you in your career and your ability to stay in your field?

>> i now have a strong voice for my family and community and other home care workers that provide the same care that i do. i joined sciu because i wanted to be a part of the union. i wanted to be a part of the change. the work that we do is very vital. and it is just, you know, we're able to join collectively and have better wages and benefits. health care that some people just take for granted, health care is big. sciu has provided that. because members like me stood up and basically we bargain for it. it gives us the right for $15 an hour to have a living wage. they already passed it in massachusetts. oregon, seattle, washington, los angeles. this gives us hope as home care workers that if we stick

together and have a unity and people power, with he can change bills. we can change the laws. and we can make people's lives better. >> thank you. >> yeah, thank you for the question. so being in the union has, as i kind of eluded to in my speech certainly given me a voice and certainly have given other teachers a voice. but i'm going to actually go to one specific anecdote that delineates the power of unions, period. in the spring in arizona, the red for ed movement was taking off which was actually coming and going around the country. and that was pretty much grassroots. aea, the arizona education association came in and supported as red for ed which was just grassroots teachers who had enough. finally started to realize the

stealth and recognize the nonsense that is happening. so this grassroots group is rising up without the infrastructure to really do anything, to rent port-a-potties at the capital, for example, to have the resources to buy enough water to make 60 or 70,000 people safe. so aea came in and offered that foundational support for this grassroots movement. that is pretty much what the union has done like throughout my entire teaching career. and, of course, a much smaller scale. but it's that same concept of allowing the voices to come forth by providing the foundation and support that individual teachers or even a big group of teachers need in order to be effective. >> thank you.

>> thank you for calling this together and for debbie also. all four of your stories, you know, coming from a little bit different perspective, are just in conspiraciational, hearing you echo. i don't remember the sticking with the union song. but it was a woody guthrie or -- okay. it's a wonderful theme. i'm wondering if you, miss benjamin, have you seen that what she's talking about? over the last 17 months and this janice decision and the things that have come down. are average grassroots folks getting riled up and, you know, really, really wanting to fight back? >> yeah. in a word, yes. >> okay. >> the teachers are woke as the kids would say. >> and because of your actions, there is absolutely no doubt, is there, that that's why you got that 20% raise in arizona?

>> well, it's no the 20%. that's part of the false narrative. but, yes. why we got that 9%. yes, that's why we got a significant race. >> home care workers are fired up. we're underground knocking on doors and talking to other home care workers and letting them know how valuable the union is. and that's our only platform. nobody else is going to give us a platform to have a better wage, living wage, benefits. so, you know, yeah. they get it. once talk to them, they get it. and once you explain to them and let them know how it's going to affect them directly, they get it. we're ready to roll. we're not going to stop. >> that's great. that's great. >> professor mcclean, you talked a lot about the coke brothers and the secret money and how they're hiding it all. and this question goes to both

you and randy ve irandi very qu. if you add the money up and have a scale and it's hard to detect it but you're in the field and fighting the battle. my sense is we're being totally outgunned on the money s th. is that your sense. if you add the right-wing money and talk radio and all the things like the universities and everything you're talking about and then add up what we're doing on our side for working people and what do you think we should be doing about it? both of you. >> so once citizens united happened, we were going to be outgunneded by money from the get go. >> yeah. >> but i think we're outgunned by one other thing which is what i see changing right now. which is frustration and despair. that's what the -- that's what donald trump did and what the

right-wing does. they use the dog whistle. they use despair and fear. so it in some ways immobilizes people. and what as christine was saying, when you have that human shield in arizona, if you were on the ground in arizona and oklahoma and west virginia, the human shield of that many people wearing the same color created a political necessity for these right-wing governments to do something. and so it really is this kind of old time people versus money. we have to call them out. and in our space, people get it about betsy devoss. frankly, because of the amazing hearings that senator murray and

others did in her nomination. we're doing what pro fersor -- professor mcclean talked about, we're exposing them. the education is important. the second thing that is important, and i'm sorry i'm a broken record about this, but it's the engagement and connecting the dots and connecting it to the things that matter to people like the fight on pre-existing conditions. >> yeah. i think a tremendous -- a tremendous amount of money is being spent on the right as you say. that doesn't have a counter part on the other side. yet, i would agree with randy to say that old adage says there are two sources of power. money and people. and the reason that this coke network has mobilized billionaires and multimillionaires in the way that they have is because they

disagree with a majority that believes in social security and believes in public education that, wants action on the climate, that wants to support teachers and all of these other things. they understand they can't persuade that majority so they are trying to go around that majority by funding all these organizations, by operating in stealth, by misleading people about the climate, about voting, et cetera. so i do think that we need to keep in mind there is a latent majority that can be activated in the ways that my union friends here at the table are talking about. and we also though, i think, could think more strategically going forward. there is so many good people on the other side who are focused on the issues of homeless or police violence or women's rights or what have you. and we tend to be in sigh lows, right? we tend to be not in conversation, no in the any kind of alignment. i think one challenge that this

threat to our democracy presents to us and creates an opportunity for us is that we have to recover a narrative of who we are as a people. right? and as a majority together and the things we share, the values we share, our commitment to fairness, transparency, et cetera. i think we can do that. i think also though as we do this work of organizing that people are talking about, we also have to pay a lot of attention to this rules change. that is the straty egy of the other side. if you don't like the outcome of public policy over a long period of time and they don't like the 20th century, i'm serious, if you don't like the outcome of public policy over a long period of time, stop thinking about who rules and think about the rules. so the strategy on their side is not to talk about personalities or who is in office but who is going to get them the framework changes they want. and so i just think we have to also be laser focused on these

rules changes like janice in order to stave off this effort. >> thank you very much for gathering all of us. there is no question that these kinds of rules changes have been a decade's long effort by the extremely conservative groups in our country with a lot of money. millions of dollars were spent just to get neil gorsuch on the court. they're not going to stop with gorsuch. so i did want to acknowledge senator murray's bill that would strengthen the national labor relations act. i just want to mention that there is the counter point to that the freedom to negotiate act which many of my colleagues, 33 of my senate colleagues have joined me and this act sets minimum standards that all states should follow to enable

public sector workers to unionize for better paying working conditions. so that is a really important marker for us to put. i do thank all of you for being here. i'm really glad that teachers are woke. they've been leading the charge with the walkouts. i think it brings to the fore how important it is that our public sector unions and our workers provide the kind of services that we all rely upon every single day. i did want to ask miss benjamin, thank you for being here. i don't know how many home care workers are members of sciu versus the number of home care workers there are in this country. i am am very aware of the home care workers. i have a home care person that comes to my house to take care of my mother 12 hours a day every day. and i don't think we can even

contend with a situation if it weren't for that. so if you know how many people who do your kind of work are in the union and also whether you and other members in your union have been contacted by these very conservative forces to stop paying your fees. >> yes. i don't know how many home care workers as far as internationally but our local alone, i think we have 13,000 personal assistants in illinois. you can get out and opt out of the union and still get the benefits. incorrect. you know, just another way of them trying to cripple us. and they're basically false leading other home care workers that really not into the

organization. like illinois policy institute is one of them. >> they're reaching out to all of the thousands and thousands of teachers across the country as well as all of the people who would be impacted by the janice decision, public sector union people. is part of the pitch that they'll say well, don't you want to have another $300 a year more to help, you know, your own family fay for grocery bills and all that. it's appealing that the pitch that they make. yeah. you put no money into broke people pockets, they're going to think about it like, you know, i'm going to have this much in my pocket. but in reality, they don't want what is good for them. they're trying to keep them down. we bargain health care and better wages. i've seen improvement of people's lives that never had it before and they're aekt iffed by it. once you talk -- i don't signed

up. home care workers back in 2014 when the fair share took place. i re-signed up workers from then. they didn't know they were not part of union anymore. they didn't know what happened. once we educate them, knock on the door, educate them and let them know what is going on with their jobs and inform them, they sign up. they want to fight. they want to keep their jobs. so, yeah. >> thank you. >> senator core says and then senator houser. >> thank you. senator whitehouse, thank you for this hearing and senators. thank you to all of you. i'm from nevada. we have a right to work state. we have the strongest unions in the country. i'm here today because of unions. and everything that you said today i experienced in and we're experiencing in nevada. that's why i'm so glad we're having this hearing and so proud to fight alongside all of you. let me follow up on a conversation that you started

with, senator about, the coke brothers now after this decision, this janice decision now reaching out to public sector workers and saying you don't have to be a part of the union. what you are doing to counter that if anything or do you see a need to counter it? is there any type of strategy that you're looking at or taking? just curious. or is it something we don't want to share? >> well, i can tell you what some people have done. we have had members in various different locals who have set back their e-mail that's they gotten with words that, you know, if i use them right now -- as professor mcclean said, i'd have too much money in my swear jar. there's -- so actually individual members and locals

have basically sent a whole bunch of things back to these folks saying don't bother us, you know, i'm going to sue you for invading my privacy. number two, we're looking at a bunch of different legal options. but number three, we are exposing it. and what is interesting in the last few weeks, there are ten lawsuits already. they really -- they really want to defund and destabilize us. as the professor said, they're smart. you can see the through line is they want people to have to fend for themselves. they want to disable everything that is about collective work.

i also want to say that work that you did the next day after the janice decision with the press conference, all of you on the bill, was so important because that sends a counter message. so one, we expose it. we're in some ways just trying to think about how do we back to school? how do we do engagement? how do we show them that their misuse of the law and of the courts are not going to defy people who want to join together? >> that's great. i think that is the answer that we all need to be doing is shining a light. and showing who is really behind

these activities and education. so the discussion earlier on, now we need a strategy that -- to focus on education and engagement is key. we want to make sure that we're partnering with you. >> educate, engage, expose, and empower. thank you. >> yeah. i think that's it. and miss mcclean, thank you for the work that you have done. when i go into nevada, people know the coke brothers. they spent millions of dollars to defeat me and there is a reason why. it was for their own political gain. we know that. i think the more we shine a light is going to be key to workers fighting, to individuals

fighting for families and communities. so miss marsh, miss benjamin, thank you for being here. i sat down with health workers that have the same concerns you do. and there is strength in unity. there is strength in coming together. and we do, because of unions, do have once we have those stronger unions, we do have stronger kmunlts. and that is key and miss marsh, i cannot thank you enough for not only being a teacher in our system and public education system but fighting for our kids and continuing to fight or other teachers. thank you for being here. we look forward and i look forward to continue to collaborate and fight alongside of you. >> thank you senator whitehouse for convening this meeting and thank you for your commitment to the people of our country and to the concept that when we're a self-governing people or union, we can actually come together and decide what we want to do as

a team, as a group. and i thank you too for shining a light on the recent anti-worker supreme court decision. it is truly an unfortunate victory for corporate special interests at the expense of hard-working americans. it's that simple. the decision weakens the ability for people to fight for good wages and benefits for workers undermining efforts to ensure that all of us in all workers in particular can share in economic growth. i'm going to continue to fight to protect workers' right to collectively bargain and ensure that all americans have the ability to get ahead and stay ahead. i want to use the rest of my time today to focus on a particular workforce challenge that will impact us and that is the one you represent miss benjamin. you talked a little bit about

what benefits you and your colleagues have been able to gain by membership of union. i want to drill down a little bit too on what the impact of receiving better pay and benefits means for workforce but also for the people you serve in that role. in new hampshire, it's estimated that 70% to 80% of paid hands on care for older adults and those with disabilities is provided by direct care workers, personal care aides, home health aides and nursing assistants. the demand for direct care workers is expected to increase 49%, 49% between now and 2022. further exacerbating a workforce shortage that already exists in many communities across my state and across the country. miss benjamin, from your own experience, what do you believe are contributing factors to the shortage of home health care

workers? do you believe the actions will exacerbate the shortage? >> i would say the reason why there is a shortage as far as being a home care worker provider, because you can't live off this work. >> right. >> theres no future it in. there's no benefits. you basically have to have another job to just make ends meet. what i do believe is that all this money that the billionaires are putting into tearing this program down take that money and put that money into the program. >> right. >> put it into the community. >> in my experience, families served by a direct care worker are in a situation if it weren't for the direct care worker coming into the home and helping that loved one with a disabilities or chronic illness or disease or who is aging that, direct care worker is enabling

other family members to go to work and support the family. am i right? >> yes. >> so when there is a shortage of direct care workers, we end up with a situation where more family members may in fact have to give up working themselves and rely on public assistance just in order to keep their loved ones safe. >> exactly. because they don't want to put them into a home. >> right. >> if they put them into an institution, that, too is going to cost more money. we're giving them the dig nnity and care they deserve. >> i think for all of our public servants to be able to advocate and collectively bargain for dignity and n. return. >> yes. >> which is really what you're asking for. >> that's all we're asking for. >> thank you very much. and thank you, senator, for convening this hearing again. >> senator? >> thank you, senator whitehouse and thank you for organizing

this gathering. thank you all for your testimony. i do think it's important that we always remind folks that unions have been the engine of economic opportunity in the united states or a very long period of time. it was the ability of people to come together to bargain with people that didn't want to pay them more that allowed more people to get more of the productivity that they provided back in the form of wages. we know as unions have diminished power offer a long period of time that the productivity that workers put into their jobs has not been matched by constantly rising wages. i think that is the biggest challenge of our time. and it's been as you said professor mcclean, a very concerted effort, right? the people who don't want to pay workers more money are determined to undermine the vehicle that empowers those workers which are unions.

you also see it when it comes to the effort to prevent class action lawsuits f you're a big corporation and you take away the ability of the consumer to band together with other consumers to bring a lawsuit, it means that one cheated person against a big corporation and they don't stand much of a chance. and so we see this in many forms. i am, miss marsh, really interested in a little more detail on how you were successful. because we're looking at arizona. we also see -- saw the teacher movements in west virginia. we saw them in oklahoma. and in the past, the sort of right-wing organizations have been pretty successful at convincing some folks in the public that the unions are just out for themselves. and you were clearly successful in persuading the broader public in arizona that the public had a stake in helping teachers to

succeed. teachers were also fighting on the front lines to help students succeed. can talk a little bit about how you were successful at converting your movement into public support? because that is going to be essential, it seems to me, as we go into this battle over supreme court justices, making those connections. and i'm really curious as to how you did that. >> i think a lot of what unfolded started years before. we have a couple of local columnist who's have been very much on teacher's side and publishing op-eds. i published an op-ed. there has been just a lot of kind of bubbling support for the fact that teachers are -- that in arizona we have a teacher retention crisis. i mean we are at crisis proportions. we finish the school year with

roughly 2,000 classroom vacancies which means roughly -- actually really conservative. my classes are not at 30 students per class. but i think that that narrative teachers and the help of other more friendly powerful people really brought that attention up by the time teachers walked out, we already had support. there is one thing that i think we did that was a game changer. and i don't know if other states did this as well, but we have walk ins. so we -- a couple weeks before our eventual walkout, we had walk ins on wednesday morning.

teachers were read. we had signs. we went out of school boundaries and invited the community and kind of held signs out in traffic for a while. but then walked in, literally, arm in arm and walked back into campus. and i think that that visual of that happening across the state was incredibly powerful. >> i see in your testimony you believe in the post janice world that activism is going to grow. >> absolutely. >> now people are realizing that you've got a supreme court stacked against teachers.

we want to let the public know that when you have all the vacancies, it is really hurting the kids. >> it hurts the kids. >> and the future of the state. the same is true when you got hospital workers not being paid adequately. you clearly connected the, you know, low pay for teachers with the fact that people's kids and the education of their kids was suffering as a direct result. >> our last two members to engage with you. senator widen has a vital position as the ranking member of the finance committee and touching on many of the issues that we've talked about.

>> thank you, senator whitehouse for put together this very important hearing. i want to thank all of our guests as well. we've all been reviewing the record of mr. kavanaugh. and he looks to me like if confirmed he would be a poster guy for powerful corporate interests in dark money. there is a path to higher rates for the working families that all of you represent. and it's not as if we don't have incredible challenges right now trying to keep dark money from seeping into the holes and

campaign finance law. we barely held off an effort to repeal the johnson amendment which would have been the biggest gift to dark money since citizens united. basically would have allowed the churches to be used to carry out this far right agenda by in effect abusing the tax laws. all of you have given us very thoughtful presentations. i think what i would like to ask of you miss mcclean is if he's confirmed, what would you be most worried about? for example, having listened to senator whitehouse and other experts, my sense is that a sympathetic court would take

citizens united and say no limits at all. no limits whatsoever. and in effect, senators could practically be sponsored by a powerful corporate interest. it wouldn't have it written on their hand. but for all practical purposes, that is the case. so why don't you, if you would, because you're really an expert on these issues, campaign finance, corporate power, dark money, tell us what you would be most worried about if this individual was confirmed and seated on the court. >> sorry. i would -- who can predict? but i think the affordable care act is going to be crucial. and i think revisiting a strange

piece of justice roberts' decision in the affordable care act case will be an occasion for, as i said, undermining tern interpretation of the commerce clause. so a justice roberts upset manufacture h many of his colleagues on right by supporting the affordable care act. and yet he said something very unusual in thinks decision. he said the commerce clause may not be as exact words, but close, shouldn't be a license to regulate citizens from cradle to grave. it was a very strange comment. nobody had suggested that. there was no reason to put that in the record. but he did put that in the record. and some astute court watchers have suggested that that was creating a kind of a precedent that could be built on to undermine the affordable care act which depends on the interpretation of the commerce clause that allows the federal government to regulate. and one stanford law professor called it a loaded gun that those words, a loaded gun aimed

at the interpretation of the commerce clause which holds up not just the affordable care act but so much else that american citizens rely on. so i would look to that. i would also say though that -- >> can i ask you a question about that? i think that's very perceptive. you've got three members of the senate finance committee that obviously care a lot about the affordable care act, isn't it the case that depending on what he did with the commerce clause in a case like the one that was making its way through texas and we believe will end up in the supreme court, that could be used as a precedent in terms of the commerce clause stretch to do even more damage on health and environmental policy and the reason i ask that and senator whitehouse, but apparently late last night the white house sent out a sheet with respect to all

the cases where mr. kavanaugh had ruled in favor of these far right corporate interests. so i gather that you're concerned about the commerce clause both from the standpoint of the affordable care act and possibly what it might mean as a precedent for even more damage. >> absolutely. >> environmental and health area. >> the commerce clause sounds wonky, but the fact is it is the framework for so much of what we depend on in our country and we need to help the american people understand that. i also think there's another element that is involved here that we also need to have hard conversations with the american people about and that is the simple reality that a good and functioning civilized society requires some elements of coercion to function. for example, traffic regulations, right? speeding tickets, things like that. this use of the first amendment to say no one should have to pay dues to a labor union because

that violates their first amendment rights to freedom of speech, why can't that be used against our tax system. i would not be surprised if we start seeing libertarian litigation outfits attacking the requirement to pay taxes for things they don't support. that could easily be next. i would just come back to these framework questions that we would not understand the game plan on the other side if we put these issues into sigh lowes and baskets but we need to think about what is the framework of juris prudence for a healthy, functional, society. >> i'm over my time. i would be the first to say that you can't walk in to a coffee shop and start people getting all interested in a conversation about the commerce clause, but i do think -- i do think that if people see the government from

walking away from common sense, health and safety policies, that will be something that republicans and independents care greatly about. so i hope you will continue this work as we continue in the days ahead to examine the record of this justice who i believe, based on what i see and your answers confirm it, really looks like he'd be a poster guy for dark money and powerful corporate interests and the american people have a right to know the details about it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> and now the chair of the dpcc, the senator from michigan. >> thank you very much, senator whitehouse for a terrific hearing and for all of you being with us. one of the opportunities that we have when we can't have a regular hearing before a committee on something as important as this, we do have the capacity through the democratic policy and

communications committee which actually the policy committee's both a republican and democratic policy committee is setup by rule in the united states senate and so this is the one committee where we can actually hold a hearing and i'm so glad that all of you are hear and senator whitehouse has done incredible work for so long on the whole question of dark money and what has happened for us and i apologize for being late, but through the wonders of facebook live, i actually have been listening even when i wasn't here and so -- and we thank everybody who has been listening to us as well. a couple of comments and a couple of questions. when we really think about -- step back and we look at the years actually decades of history now of a few multi billionaires startsing with the koch brothers who were concerned about inherited wealth and they thought that was a great thing to try to get the average working person to really rally

around, how to protect a multi billionaire's inherited wealth, and as oil company owners and executives not liking it in the '70s when the epa was set up to actually look at how from a public standpoint we could protect the water and land, they decided we better start controlling the rules. that's basically where this came from. we should control what people hear so they certainly -- who owns radio stations and who owns tv stations. they fund indowd chairs at universities. they can say an esteemed professor said whatever they want him to say and go on to rig various system whether it's voter suppression or trying to rig systems around

redistricting. we've certainly seen that in michigan and so now we come to one of the most democratic institutions and that's in organizing and unions, and so the freedom for somebody to decide they want to get together with other workers and be able to stand up for their safety in the workplace and their wages and be able to collectively bargain. they've gone to the heart of what has been essential, really, for people to be able to stand up and be able to organize and certainly michigan is a proud state where unions created the middle class p. we like to believe we create the middle class with the automobile and the assembly line, but even in a place like michigan now because of the way things have been so rigged, we've seen right to work for less laws passed and most recently the elimination of

prevailing wages on construction projects and so on. from my perspective, you know, i think people want to know that somebody's got their back, whether that's the rules are fair, public rules, or its a union. people want to know somebody has their back and they're not in it by themselves and the one other thing i would just observe is that, the reality is we know when collective bargaining units go down, the middle class and wages has gone down and we've seen in michigan, when we debate things like nafta and our partners are canada and mexico. in canada, we don't have a problem because they have collective bargaining. they have unions, they have environmental rules and so on and so we have similar standard of living. mexico, different. in mexico it's a race to the bottom. so when a plant moves to mexico

and i've had ceos tell me, you know, michigan can't compete with a 1.57 an hour. i had a ceo say that a few years ago. that's literally a race to the bottom in terms of standard living and so on and you wonder why people are upset and frustrated what's going on. so there's a lot to this. this is a very, very big deal which is why i'm really grateful that you are all here and you've been doing wonderful work where you are and i'm wondering if just as we close things out if each of you could just, again, say what you would like people listening today on facebook live as well as all of us to do, what would you like us to do, what would you like us to know, what should we know that gives us hope that this can change?

so, ms. weingarten, start with you. >> so the most important thing in my judgment is when people have the freedom to work together to aspire together, they can do what individuals can't and the right wing and these dark money groups are doing everything in their power to disrupt that and defeat that at the bargaining table and the ballot box, but if we expose them, educate members and the broader community, engage people so that they feel their power, not their powerlessness, they will be empowered. >> thank you. professor? >> i believe -- you'd think i'd

be trainable as a professor. i believe the american people are good and fair minded people and i believe most americans are deeply frustrated on issue after issue, majorities have made their will felt. they want to take care of our school systems and they want to pay our teachers more, and they want people to have the right to organize and clean up the environment and yet that hasn't been happening. there's tremendous frustration. i think what we can do is help people understand why the system is not working, how its been clogged up and how its been rigged and ask people to come together and say this is a crucial moment. recommit to our society, you know. come together, care about one another, believe in this project that we have and let's make it work. let's change the rules so they actually serve the people and don't serve these interests and figure out how we do that together. >> thank you. >> thank you for hosting this, by the way, or for being the starter of this. yeah, i think that what i would want the community to know, the

broader community is two things. one, all of this is not a conspiracy theory. this is all true. we were talking about this ahead of time. some of our friends might think we're a little crazy, we're not. we need -- we flat out -- we need people to vote. if democrats had voted when they should've for the last ten years we would not be in this situation, if the 60,000 people who are down at the arizona capital actually voted and maybe all of them spent one hour on a local campaign, because we can't fix the framework that nancy's talking about being so broken but we can slow it down by electing the right people into office. >> thank you. >> i'm going to piggyback off of which ms. marsh said. we need to get out and vote.

sciu is a platform for me to be the voice of 13,000 personal assistance. when i come knocking on your door, open it, because that's how we get down. thank you for having me here. >> let me wrap up since we have just a few minutes left. this hearing has touched on a lot of topics but it's related fundamentally to the janice decision and to the sentiment that many of us has was a pet political project by the five republican judges on the court that they went out of their way to single to the big special interest lawyers that they would undertake this task for their corporate clients and then we went through the whole freed rick's saga and it's a three case long-term project that shows all sorts of bizarre signals.

i am a lawyer. i have been a litigator. i was my state's attorney general. i was my state's united states attorney. i was legal counsel of the governor, i was a staff lawyer doing cases in the attorney general's office. i have never in my life seen a case in which somebody deliberately went into court to lose. please, your honor, let us lose so that we can rush up to what we think is going to be such a friendly reception at the supreme court that we're willing to have the record of this case have a loss below because we're so confident that these judges are baked in for us that we don't care. that is a very peculiar set of facts and that ought to be an alarm bell about where this supreme court is. this is a supreme court that 5-4 installed a republican president in bush versus gore stopping the national election process. we have a president right now who was not elected by the

popular vote. our candidate won the popular vote. back in 2010, the jub by layer decision, five of the judges opened up the opportunity for what was called the red map program. the red map program allowed bulk gerrymandering off the entire congressional delegation from a battleground state. the results of the decision by the supreme court followed up by the republican red map project was that in 2010, congress went democrat in the popular vote by over 1 million votes, but went republican because of the gerrymander by over 30 seats. so we have had cases in which the popular vote has not been respected at the presidency because of a variety of machi

machinati machinations. we had gerrymander cleared in advance and right now the leader of the senate, the majority leader, mitch mcconnell is the majority leader because dark money artillery barrages of negative commercials took out three senate candidates so early in the process that they didn't have the chance to get their campaigns up and running in an effective way and it was enormous amounts of the dark money that they put in place that then were deploy today take out by strickland and fine gold and had those three seats gone the other way, chuck schumer would be the majority leader right now and we wouldn't be having a conversation about a far right extremist being appointed on a mission given by

the president to undo roe v. wade. even though we still do not control the senate, not withstanding all of this, democrats in the senate represent 40 million more americans than republicans in the senate do, because of the built in small state bias of the senate largely in the american west. so we need to have the courage of our convictions to your point, ms. weingarten. we need to understand that we are not really in the minority. we got more votes for the presidency than trump did. in the past we have won the house but not actually got the house because of machinations and gerrymander. what you have said and what we've seen the teachers do in states where many of us felt that was highly improbable has been fantastic and inspiring and

proves what can be gone. so thank you all so much for your testimony, thank you for participating in this hearing and we will conclude with that. i'm very appreciative of all the witnesses and so many colleagues who attended. thank you so much. it was a really big turnout by our caucus. thank you. shows that it matters. with that, we are adjourned.

president trump left the white house this morning for a four nation european tour including a nato meeting in brussels and a summit with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki. the president stopped to talk with reporters on his way to marine one. >> well, it's an interesting time in the uk and it's going to be an interesting time w