question, but it did come to me -- when he brought medicaid, that is a state and federal program, but it is completely government-run, and it pays so little, we have that the massive number of doctors that will not take medicaid patients. . medicaid -- one factor about money not being spent wisely in the united states is the statistic that, and you can get this from an annual study by this from an annual study by dartmouth ity, the

upgraded every year. they have been doing this for two or three decades. if medicine costs were like a war from wisconsin over to washington state and from kansas north to canada, we would save 1/3 of our health care dollars. they would be in the medicare fund and make it last longer than it is. some of those are related to just simple things like how doctors practice medicine in iowa and do a good job of it. people in iowa are healthier than number. the doctor does not send it to the hospital at the job of a hat or a dozen specialists.

those are things that really add up on the cost of money. getting back to what you said about taking care of the eight or 10 million people that do not have insurance and deer and on that, well, we need to zero in on things where money is not being spent wisely. why do not you come over and stand by me and you can talk right into this microphone and everyone can hear you? >> this is a follow-up on the issue of the uninsured and people that have pre-existing conditions. i think that is a larger problem in this country than the uninsured. you cannot get coverage because of that. i am curious what your thoughts are about how to solve that

problem. >> that is a very good question. i'm sorry i did not touch on that in my opening comments, because it is one of those things that i think there is almost a consensus in washington that when we are dealing with health care that we ought to do away with the discrimination that comes from pre-existing conditions and then connected with it, we have this wide-ranging of high to low. we are going to narrow that down closer. between the high premium and low premium there will not be a big difference. in this particular instance, where we have been talking at this time is not to set up several insurance departments.

we will continue state regulation of insurance, but we will do it through what we call preemption. federal law will preempt state law or override state law in these areas where they would allow pre-existing conditions. >> to me afford insurance companies to continue [unintelligible] is that not going to increase everyone's premiums? >> the extent to which we deal with this business of the uninsured and having insurance, that brings more revenue into the insurance company. >> i am just trying to figure out what did this. but it is one of the most difficult issues we have to deal with. it is one that is not even

settled at this time. it is something that fits in with the american principle of individual responsibility. it is like the state if you decide to drive a car, and you have an individual responsibility to have car insurance. >> a few moments ago you said this bill, a john deere would not have health care. >> i did say that now. >> a few weeks ago you said you want better health care and you should work toward a john deere or the government. why would you predict them to lose their health care? >> you understand that i would not be for the provision that this lady brought up that i talked about. i do not think the exemption ought to be done away with. then he would keep the john

deere insurance. go back one step in that into question. i am not for doing what the house of representatives is doing. >> i work for the electoral corporate jet. -- a cooperative. [unintelligible] we have a real concern would be hr2452 climate change a bill. our concern is for individuals or members that there of victorville's, you being from iron ore -- electric bills, tubing from iowayou being from a [unintelligible] i want to know if you are for the bill as it is and what this

congress doing to make sure that electricity remains affordable and reliable and we can provide it? >> this is a bill that would increase your utility tax very directly every time you turn on the light switch it increases costs. everything you buy the goods three manufacturing process would be affected when you increase the cost of energy. this puts a real cost and the american family. it might be phased in between the year -- now in the year 2020. it to be major in three years and gradually ramp up to even more. the way it passed the house i would not vote for. that may not be the bill that comes up in the senate. there is not a bill out of the committee yet. i think we have until the end of the year to worry about this and

work are members of congress. they are working on me about the issue. it think it is one to be issued a difficult for them to get some sort of a compromise -- i think it is going to be difficult for them to get some sort of a compromise. i would like to answer your question about where i am coming from and not going to vote for a bill and i do not know what it is it does not tell you much. with the house bill, if you have a problem within the united states was not level playing field. the midwest and southwest are dependent upon cole and it is going to come out of this very badly. in new york and california, they are going to come out of it relatively well. the may even make a little bit of money. -- they may even make a little bit of money. when you go united states by

itself, if the rest of the world is not follow along, we need to go ahead and be the moral authority for the other nations -- suppose we are uncle sucker instead of will stand and where the only ones that and of doing it. then we have a very unlevel playing ball. how ironic it is that the ones that are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to china over the last 10-years for some the same people promoting cap and trade for calling it cap and tax, because that is really what it is. i do not want to unlevel the people for america, particularly when the director of theuta says if the united states doesn't by itself it will not do much. -- does it by itself it will not do much. i turn my tangent to copenhagen in december.

there are international negotiations. i do not know how to get china and india to come along. if they will go along with it and we will not lose all manufacturers to china -- you understand china is in number one emitter of pollution, not the united states. they do not want to do it. india is even more adamant about doing it. then we lose their jobs. we need to get china under the umbrella and it takes a 2/3 vote in the senate to get it done. i think there is some protection for our consumers and interesindustry. >> glad to see you again today. i am a veteran. i am very proud to be a veteran. [applause]

i belong to the american legion. in order for a person to be called a veteran that has to serve in the military, there are lots of people that are called veterans that cannot belong to the american legion. congress after world war roman one set up the american legion. is the largest veterans' organization in the world. we have a lot of people. in order to belong to the american legion, you had to be in the service during a war. we had a lot of people that after correa, vietnam, world war

i, if they are still alive, that not able to belong to the american legion. it is up to an act of congress to change that. we as the american legion can change that. i was just wondering if maybe you would introduce a bill to have that change. >> i'm going to do this. if you would let my staff have your name and address, and i want them to tell james on a washington staff to call you said you can be in the background. quite frankly when you started out to talk, i was thinking in terms you are going to ask me -- i thought only the american legion made this determination. if you are right about congress doing that, we have done it since i have been in congress, i do not remember that. i want to know what there is about that and in the

controversy is connected with it and maybe i will do what you want to say. i do not want to tell you that until i steady. i hope he did not get mad at me i do not do it. -- until i studied it. i hope you will not get mad at me if i do not do it. s>> if people can have five or 10 minutes and express their concerns without an answer. why do not we open it up for that for about five for 10 minutes? and not know how much more time we have. but my staff says there is one more question. i think what is being fought here is that i take too long to answer a question. i would be glad to just listen. >> [unintelligible]

some of them are very highly controversial. they have really radical views. i do not understand what we see in those people. >> 44 czars that have been appointed to the white house. the lady is opposed to it. >> it is good to see you. thank you for being here. i appreciate folks from union i appreciate folks from union county >> i came with eight questions but it has been narrowed down because some things have been addressed. in your conversation, since you are on the finance committee and the president did signal you out

as being one of the people willing to talk about various provisions, these seven things i would like to ask you. in your conversation, is that any provision for tax equity for persons who purchase their own health insurance? is there any provision for individuals to establish health savings accounts and for a tax incentive to do so? is there any provision for tort reform that adds substantially to health care costs? is there any guarantee that abortion or other life-ending procedures will not be paid for by u.s. taxpayers? the other thing that is frustrating me is, why is health care reform getting so much attention and the president's attention and congress posset attention when the jobless rate is the greatest common threat to our families -- and congress' attention? [applause]

>> one of the things that scares me is that when you hear the obama sound bites, his advocacy of the current keep your health insurance, etc. sounds very much like you. it scares me to death that there is so much misinformation around the we do not really know what is happening because the co-ops of the terms and debate. nobody can argue with what is being said because all they have done is say you'll keep your own insurance and do this or that. when you get to redeem the bills, that is not what it says. >> i realize the senses is part of the executive branch.

a portion is done by congress. is there anyway we can get insurance at all the citizens of the united states will have equal representation after its? >> short said. not unless we amend the -- short answer. not unless we in amended the senses losses to not tell people that are illegally here. >> congress counts only the citizens and not all the people. >> statistics come from beingcensus. -- come from a beingcensthe cen. >> [unintelligible]

there has never been made in the comment made about this. it is h.r.45. [unintelligible] this would make us report our fire arms on our income tax statements. it to make it have to pay taxes, about $50 each on our firearms. there is a top provision clause on page 16. guns must be locked and put away and gives the government a right to come into your home at any time and check things like this outcome. this is an encroachment on their second amendment. this is so sneaky because they

will sneak it in on the internal revenue act of 1986. this can be passed by the finance committee without anyone voting on it. i am opposed to anything that encroaches on their second amendment rights. -- on our second amendment rights. >> i am too. i am, too. >> you pointed out several times that there are states to run the coast that cost a lot more for medical care. >> i am for it to under the

thousand dollar cap on it. it as a medical -- $250,000 cap on it. it will save medical companies a lot. >> a clinic a comment about tort reform that will probably not be done. this is a really good thing. >> i am a farmer. >> this is regard to the inspector general. they are part of each government agency. recently the president fired one without a 30 day wait. -- 30 day wait period. we are going to have no police force along our government agencies? >> the one to answer that. the law that should have

applied that if he is going to be fired he had to give a 30 day notice and notify congress. senator obama was the author of the bill along with me. he forgot about it evidently after a got elected. that person is doing. what we have here is a big problem with inspector general's that we have to watch this administration on. there are bills that have more presidential appointments of inspector general and said it had in the department heads appoint them. i use inspector general's tremendously in my oversight work. i get more fraud and mismanagement sorted out by working with the inspector general's. i'm going to fight hard to make sure they maintain their independence.

one more question. >> it seems appropriate since we are the united methost church to lead to know that the united methodist church [unintelligible] we are in favor of a public option and health care. we do not believe that health care is a commodity to be purchased by the largest bidder. nor do we believe that the insurance company bureaucracy is any more trustworthy than any other bureaucracy. the united methodist church believes that healthcare is a right of all americans, all people living in the united states. healthcare should not be off oauctioned off to the highest bidder.

it goes to salaries, advertisements, and to maintain the health care bureaucracy which seems to be as large as -- as large as the government bureaucracy. the united methodist church voted for a public option for healthcare. >> thank you for telling me. i think we have to go. >> we would all like to thank the senator. [applause] >> thank you all. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> how are you doing? >> if you mandate the insurance

companies to carry everyone they don't carry, and don't carry people who are expensive, wouldn't that make everybody else's premiums to go through the ceiling? >> we are going to get a tax credit to help people under three number -- 300% of party. >> senator grassley one of the many members of congress holding town hall during the august recess appeared nat -- august recess. now and look at some of the other town hall meetings -- now a look at some of the other town hall meetings. >> i want to first say that i came here on my own free will, nobody called me, i am not paid. [applause] i am not and not see, i won't have a swastika or any tattooed. i came here because i'm an american. [applause]

it would only seem fair that all elected officials, senators and congressmen, who are in favor of nationalized health care, have the bill amended so the coverage includes all members of the congress as well. [applause] that said, if you vote in favor of national health care, are you willing to have you and your family participate in the same plan you will be voting in for your constituents? >> it is a fair question. let me say a couple of things about. first, there are two different visions. one is the idea we are mandating a plan for people. the other is the idea we are creating choice. this is a fundamental disagreement but i think we will not find a lot of common ground.

[unintelligible] so the idea is, and one of them as individuals can go and call an insurance company and they will get left out of the room. if you put 25 million of these together and you say to every insurance company in the country, you can compete for their business. the exchange is to create a grocery store where that group can buy insurance under the plan. by pulling the risk it becomes more economically competitive -- pooling the risk. some -- the debate about public option, if it isn't, insurance companies out there competing

with business -- for business. some people on high premium, low deductible, others want the opposite, etcetera. it is really trying to create options. let us say you at the public option. it doesn't create more or less competition? -- does it create more less competition? i have a pretty darn good option and my job, i think having a robust best practices public auction on the table could be a positive pressure if conditions are met. [applause and a boebooing] >> answer the question. yes or no. >> you are going on and on -- yes or no. if it comes down to what, if you have a healthcare plan everyone has to sign up -- you as my

congressman -- >> you will have a mandate to have health insurance, i will seriously consider whether to take a public auction. [audience boos] let me just say one thing. the question is, what you are suggesting is the option should be a really, really good option. should we ask all of those insurance companies to be extremely robust to require a range? >> that is not what she asked. answer the question. >> there was an amendment passed on friday that would include that as one of the options. the question is, one side says we are shoving it down people's throats and the other says it is about choices. if i tell you we will have a good choices, those saying it is shutting down the road is a non

answer. -- down the throats, it is and non-answer. >> did you get paid by obama? >> no. >> of course. >> what is your job? >> i don't have a job. >> i was wondering what your job was. >> what is my job? >> i am recycling coordinator, so, yes, i work for the government. >> why are you here? >> i am here because i want to get it done right. i think they are rushing to get it done wrong. >> wire year? >> i oppose obamacare and

socialism. i'm a capitalist and a proud american. >> i am here and nobody sent to me. i came here on my own. i don't belong to any group that is trying to upset this whole thing. we need term limits on our congressmen, senators, all of them. they are more interested in power. whether it is republicans or democrats. we need to change that. people need to wake up. >> i want my doctors and i don't want socialized medicine and this country. i have friends -- relatives in france and canada and they are extremely disappointed. don't shutdown my throat. and she seems to -- >> she seems to say we will not have a public. health plan, the president says we will have single pair and on the other hand he says we will not have a single payer. they are contradicting themselves and i would like to

find her opinion. >> i believe that this health care idea that obama is pitching is going to be bad for a lot of people. it could possibly kill some. >> basically to disagree. >> why is that? >> it is my children's future. and up taxes already. we've had it. >> did anyone send you here? >> no one. >> i came on my own. >> on my own. i don't want the government to have any access to my bank account. >> i don't support it. i think they are going to fast. i think they are putting in things that they don't even know about. and i can't support that. they went so fast that the stimulus. they need to slow down. >> i think it is time for a change. i think this whole process around the country is being hijacked by extremists. i would like to see more access

to health care for americans and health insurance is getting ridiculous. my family spends $14,000 a year for health care. it is obscene. >> i am an american citizen, i am a taxpayer, not part of any group and i am here because i still want to live by that dream that our representatives are supposed to support us and not just go along with what ever is being pushed through. i question why they have to push this through so fast. 84% of the americans have a good health care plan that they like and they are going to take that away before us -- from us, despite what the president says. i have a mother who is almost 80, two in-laws who are almost 82, and the answer to their physical maladies it's a pain pill and they are taking money away from medicare and medicaid, two areas that i work in, and i am very concerned. i hope he gets the message and

vote against this plan did and you just saw two of the citizen videos -- against this plan. >> you just saw two of the citizen videos. are you attending the town hall meetings and what you think of the proposals? share your thoughts with us on video at c-span.org/citizen video. members of congress being targeted during the august recess on health-care issues through advertising in their districts, nationally and online. here is a look at a couple of those. >> what does health insurance reform mean for you? it means you can't be denied coverage for pre-existing condition or dropped if you get sick. it means putting health care decisions in the hands of you and your doctor. it means lower costs, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, tough new rules to cut waste and red tape and a focus on preventing things before the strike. what does health insurance reform really mean?

quality, affordable care. >> washington's latest health- care reform idea, a $1 trillion health plan and a government-run public option with tax increases even on health benefits. federal deficits? the nonpartisan congressional budget office says the deficit will grow $239 billion, inflated taxes, swelling deficits, and expanded government control of your health. tell congress, let's slow down and reform health care the right way. >> president obama will be in montana this afternoon for a town hall meeting on his health- care plan. a rally is planned in belgrade, montana. organizers are expecting up to 500 people. you can see live coverage on c- span2 at 3:00 p.m. eastern. bloggers our meeting in pittsburgh. at 7:40 p.m., a conference by

the americans for prosperity foundation. a two-day meeting on techniques for online activism. "booktv" primetime, tonight an in-depth interview with christopher buckley, the author of 14 books, including, thank you for smoking, and the latest is losing -- "losing mum and pop." supreme court justice sonia sotomayor was at the white house -- we will show it as part of america and the courts. >> 40 years ago this weekend, half a million people gathered for woodstock. saturday, co-founder michael lang takes us behind the scenes. >> how is c-span funded? >> the u.s. government. >> private benefactors.

>> i don't know. i think some is government. >> it is not public. >> probably donations. >> i want to say, from me, my tax dollars. >> how is c-span funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a public service -- a private business initiative. no government mandate, no government money. >> back live at the convention center in pittsburgh, pa., site of the netroots nations conference and our continuing coverage this afternoon. it is a conference of bloggers an on-line activists. we will hear from democratic house members on way to implement legislative change. speakers including u.s. representative alan grayson, patrick murphy and carol j. porter. the event is scheduled to get underway now. it is a few minutes late. we will join it when it gets under way. our live coverage here on c- span.

in the meantime, a portion of today's " washington journal -- "washington journal" where we will hear more about the relationship between former president bush and vice president dick cheney. wondering about dick cheney, and i guess it is kind of a obsession for me now that i have written a book on him. my question for him is that what is he putting in his memoir because he is sort of the anti- memoir guy, and he has spoken out for years about the inside cover sessions and then -- host: let me read an excerpt from the piece that you wrote yesterday, that " when the president made decisions that i did not agree with, i still supported him and did not go out and undercut him. now we are talking about after we have left office.

i have strong feelings about what happened and i do not have any reason not to forthrightly express those views." guest: exactly, and the views are turning out to be somewhat of what we expected and somewhat otherwise. we knew he did not agree with all of bush's policy in the second term. by the end of the presidency, bush was walking away from secret prisons from a policy of complete isolation against iran and north korea. instead, he was engaging them. she not only disagrees, but what he is saying privately now is that bush was changing for the wrong reasons, bowling to public criticism. for cheney, -- bowing to public criticism. host: when is the vice- president's book expected to come out?

we're told that president bush's book will be out next fall. guest: cheney will be -- his book is scheduled for the following spring. host: we're talking with barton gellman, a reporter for "the washington post." "some old associates see cheney's new-found openness as a breach of principle. robert barnett, who negotiated cheney past book contract, passed word that the member would be packed with news, that the statute of limitations has expired on many of his secrets." what secrets do you think he is going to reveal? guest: i think fundamentally he is talking about the nature of the internal deliberations. he has always said that you cannot get candid advice as the president because everybody is worried that the competition

will be talked about later. that seems to be what he plans to do. the thing about dick cheney is that he is so focused most of all on the here and now, that the country is turning away from his views and that is a huge mistake, a danger, and he knows how to protect us. he is prepared to explain why, but his views on why they were retreated from. host: i would like you to go back to the summer of 2004 because in july and early august, there has been a >> live coverage. >> getting things done and washington, where the differences between what they might have been visions during their first campaigns and a reality of day-to-day life. before we begin, i would like to turn it over to you, congressman mercy. finally have words about the news from this morning -- congressman murphy.

>> thank you for your support. unfortunately i think we sometimes lose focus that we are a democratic family, and families fight and we have dif -- different caucuses, but one of the family members, democratic nominee for congress, 2008, sergeant bill kerr, was not successful but one on his third deployment. he was deployed twice and on his third deployment this time to afghanistan, was killed yesterday morning. our thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family, and his wife, renee, who is pregnant with twin daughters due in september. sometimes we get wrapped up in the politics of things going on in washington, but when you lose someone who is a democrat and who was proud to be a democrat, and marine who served his country, you have to sometimes

sit back and reflect on these heroes who are trying to do what is right for the country and why it is important for policy- makers that we get our foreign policy right. >> thanks very much. i am not sure if all of you heard that news this morning, but i think it is fairly important we all give some thought as to what that really means. thank you for starting us off. it is hard to turn the end -- of course, the discussion, but that being the part of real the and mike, we will talk about some of the reality of life -- being part of the reality of life, we would like to talk about some of the reality of life on the hill. maybe i will start with you and work back. some general thoughts -- tell us a little bit about what first motivated you to go out and run for congress. i do not think any of you were legislators before? correct? i would like to hear what

motivated you to run, a little bit about what you really hoped to get done when you were elected, and then may be an honest assessment of how difficult it may have been to see some of that come to fruition. if you've got some success stories, i would love to hear them. we are also a little bit interested in -- because we want to get to reality -- what are the frustrations and roadblocks? >> i remember in july of 2005, drinking liberally at the brewery in philadelphia and i set out was running for congress. a lot of folks didn't know who i was, rightfully so. i talked about how i just came back from iraq, was a captain and 82nd airborne, running convoys in ambush alley. the fact that 19 of my fellow paratroopers did not make it home. and i wanted to run for congress

to change the direction of iraq, bring the troops home, and also changed the direction of the country here when you talk about domestic policy. i am proud that we fought in the congress -- and i know carol and i served, we are both in the second term, and allen is a freshman, and doing a great job. but if you look at carroll and i -- and i don't speak for karrow -- we make tough votes. -- i don't speak for carol. we passed the time line in the house. i stood with then senator barack obama, offering the direct de- escalation act. then it passed the senate. then it was vetoed by the president. but then i promised my constituents when i ran for congress that i would not give

this president a blank check. after it was vetoed and they brought it up with really no time line, i did vote for that. for may, patrick murphy, the end of your congressional career -- for me. you want a close election, two 0.6%, and they said, there goes that 30-second commercial -- 0.6%. if my congressional career -- career was only two years, four years, i would look at myself in the mirror, be with my wife and my daughter, and she is going to be proud of her daddy and what he stood for. i hope it is more than swans of years. i hope i can win reelection. -- i hope that is more than a two years. i hope i can win reelection. both democrats and republicans in my district, want me to do what is good for the country.

>> congresswoman? >> first, i will say, i will never forget your speak budget speech on the floor of the house of representatives about iraq's -- i will never forget your speech on the floor of the house of representatives about iraq. what got me involved is watching what happened. i taught paulist six for more than 15 years and i was a social work and in a state -- i talked politics for more than 15 years and i was a social work administrator. i have great concerns about what was happening. but still, i thought my job was to get more involved, and i did. i became head of our city democrats and i were -- i worked in wesley clark campaign.

i wanted to find someone to take away one of the enablers for the george bush administration, at least defeat our congressmen and put someone who would stand up to the bush administration. for a long time i was working for that. and then i realized that we are the people we were waiting for. i went down to katrina. i came back and i said, this has got to stop now. this has got to change. people ask me to run -- i said, no, but i will help you run. after katrina, i never looked back. i knew we fail that so many levels that we had to do something. when i saw what happens to the people. i had to turn around a woman who had 78 cents to her pocket. she was elderly and she said, if you don't give me money or something, i can't come back. i am living in a campground and i have absolutely nothing. and i could give her nothing, in this country. i said, this can't happen

anymore. i came back and i decided to run and i will tell you that i raised $17,000 for the primary and i ran against the house minority leader. it was not much money, obviously. i started off with $100. my $100. my message is, if you think you have a voice, get out there and do it. i did it with regular people. i didn't have any paid staff members. no polls, absolutely nothing. the fellow members of the state of new hampshire that wanted to see change. they worked alongside of me. in my campaign literature in 2006 i said that i wanted to make this country safer by having an independent program -- energy program so we did not rely on countries not friendly to us and can prevent -- can protect the environment. we had an us to make the change,

we just had administration that did not believe in the american people. i ran on energy. i also ran on health care. for many years i have known people, i had people in my own family who have not had insurance coverage. i never supported the john conyers bill, medicare for all, i called for medicare that my mother has, wanting to leave it private so the doctors wanted their private practices, they could, or for-profit, they could, and it would be under the same rules. my mother makes an appointment and nobody comes between her and her health care provider. i support this plan, the robust public option. i also said that we need to believe in ourselves again. i have children that deserves the education and the same opportunity we had in our

generation. that really pushed me into running. the reason that i one was because it was a shared message, a message of everyone -- the reason that i won. my logo was, running for the rest of us. >> congressman? >> i was shocked to see how incompetent and sometimes malicious the bush administration was. in my case it was my direct experience, prosecuting war profiteers in iraq. i was the lead attorney for every case being litigated against war profiteers and iraq when i was elected and i saw time after time that the bush administration, old people who were cheating the troops, the taxpayers, at getting away virtually with murder and certainly plenty of mayhem. when you have troops being elected you did in the showers, being fed poison water by -- it electrocuted in the showers,

being fed poison water by contractors, something was very wrong. i saw a different stages. at the beginning i saw that the fraud was furtive, hidden, people tried to keep it out of sight. but when they went through a year or signs of this and the administration knew about it and did nothing to stop them, they became almost proud. everyone else serving honorably felt like a fool because the people who were cheating the government, cheating us and the troops, they would talk about their swiss bank accounts and all of the money that they were raping out of the war and raping the soldiers in the process. something had to be done. i found the only thing -- way i can do something about personally was to run for congress. >> thank you vermont. i would like to talk a little bit also about the mechanics of what it was like to arrive on

the hill. you didn't have prior legislative experience, but not everybody does. i am sure you found that most of the members are tied in some way to the legal profession. many of them are legislators when they arrive. what was it like in trying to secure committee assignments you were interested in? did you have committees in mind before hand while you were running? did you study that after you realized it was going to be a reality? did you get what you wanted? how did you select second choices? how did you find yourself on subcommittees'? >> in my case, i ended up on the financial-services committee and a science and technology. i wanted to be on both. i think the leadership does a great job matching ones interests to assignments, and one is district to assignments

-- one's district to assign it. it put me in ground zero for what we experienced in the economy and what we are doing to make things better. we passed some real landmark legislation already on financial services, and more is on the way. i have also seen lots of opportunity to affect legislation in many ways. i think the oversight function is sometimes underrated, but you can do a lot with it. i also think there are a lot of opportunities to change bills on the floor. as we get more experience than learn the ropes it becomes easier. i think in remarks -- earmarks have had a bad effect. we have brought money that are almost amazing. they are 500% more that what my predecessor was able to bring in. there are ways to do a job well that are not limited to how you draft legislation in committee.

but in the case of both committees -- financial services and science and technology -- the path is open for even junior members to contribute significantly to the process, and i am very happy to see that. >> as we address this, i interested in, when you have made your choice is, do you need what the chairman or representatives of the staff -- do you meet with the chairman or representatives of his staff? >> in my case, i was out of office and did not give in until a little after 10:00. just after i got in the receptionist told me that i had just missed barney frank. i thought, this is really bad. i actually never met him. he came into my office and announced to talk about my committee assignments and i just

missed him. -- into my office unannounced to talk about my committee assignments. the support is there. in this case, barney frank is a very active chairman. he spends a lot of time talking to us individually. we also have meetings open to people as a caucus. we learn a lot about the legislative come -- legislation coming up from the staff directly. lines of communications are wide open. >> congresswoman? >> when i arrived in 2007, january, the democrats were just taking over leadership, and so we had to jump right in and be fully engaged. there really was not much of a learning process because so much was happening, as you recall. we were really fully included right from the beginning, which i thought was wonderful. as for committee assignments, i was a military spouse and my husband was a veteran so i had a

deep and abiding interest in the military and also that spirit i receive an assignment for the armed services committee -- also the vets. therefore i received and assigned for the armed services committee. i have had an opportunity to quiz witnesses that have come before us. i have taken on issues about contractors. i just got a provision passed out of the house that would say if contractors -- i am not saying which -- but if they are found responsible for gross negligence, they won't get their awards and bonuses and the secretary of defense could then decide to bar them. this comes from my position and armed services committee, my knowledge of the. and the reason why i am one that committee is because of my

interest before and my background. i am also in that education and labor committee. i have been a social worker and administrator and i ran for the middle class. we have a terrific chairman, as in the armed services committee. he is a great proponent for americans, middle-class americans. so we have been able to work for -- on a lot of legislation that reflects my interest. i was never a supporter of no child left behind, it was a sticky point, and i am happy to be a part of issue. i received a waiver to be on the resources committee, natural resources. that is because i am an environmentalist, i ran on that platform. so we have a great opportunity to actually engage in the great issues and then to vote on them when you are in congress. i always said it is great to be, and we need people in the front

yard yelling, and i encourage people to be out there and express viewpoints, but the conversation and the votes are in the living room. as far as i'm concerned, it is a great honor to be in congress, in the living room, getting to vote on policies that serve the american people best. >> a technical point, and a follow-up. can you explain the waiver you had to get? normally it they are limited in committees. >> two committees and four subcommittees. if you ask and they look and you have been able to do your work and do everything they need you to do in the other committees, you can ask for a waiver for a third committee. >> it comes from -- >> right from the leadership. i have to tell you i have my legislative director, who has now taken on a greater burden, and i said, let me just ask for the committee and i will not be on the subcommittees. i couldn't resist when they talked about the subcommittees,

so i could see the legislative director going -- and i put myself on two subcommittees. you know what that means. both of you know. but, you know, you can't resist the opportunity to be involved in the issues of today. this is our time for change, and we have to seize it. i think that is what the three of us have been doing. >> i think why now americans love her because she is such an overachiever. she has three committees and the others have two. i serve on the armed services committee and the intelligence committee. i know carol and i have partnered, we sit next to one another. we often pass notes, because i also offered the iraqi accountability act. and on the intelligence committee, i want to make sure when it comes to the farm

policy, that we are getting it right. obviously overseeing what is going on with the cia. part of being in the intelligence committee, the unfortunate thing is you cannot always talk about what you're doing. it is a small committee, you are dealing with the nation's secrets, but it is really a chance to serve and make sure we are getting it right for those trying to keep us safe. but while we serve in these committees, does not think we -- it does not mean we cannot go to the judiciary committee. i have a passion for grain energy. i think one of the reasons why we are in the middle east is we are too dependent on foreign oil. there is no magic bullet. i call it the magic buckshot. wind, solar, geothermal, conserving. .

>> these are issues that we're passionate about. you have a responsibility, as a congressperson, to do right by your constituents and to right by your country. that is what we bring to the table every single day. >> thanks very much. i'm glad we had a chance to point out how the process works and i work for "the daily coast" and we also right in congress on

matters. it gives people a greater understanding of what you are doing and what you are facing and why things happen the way they do. >> could i add one point? it is part of the process and how we work together. allen came and sat next to me on the floor a few weeks ago. he asked me to think about signing onto auditing the federal reserve. we had a conversation and i listened to him and i look it up again and i did sign onto that. not only do we sit on our own committees but we talk to each other constantly. if you watch c-span, you will see us milling around there. we are actually sharing what we heard in our committees and asking people to either sign onto a bill or talk about a certain witness. sometimes i think it is difficult for people on other

committees to know what a witness said of the armed services committee. you know i have a particular interest in that so you will take it to them and let them know the general so and so testified on a certain committee and this is what he said. we share the information back and forth to help each one of us make better decisions as we go forward. it is an important process, talking to another and communicating what we have heard. >> i know people are watching on c-span, when voting is going on, they are probably wondering what is going on when you were watching on c-span, the sound is turned down and you cannot hear anything. if you are in the chamber, it can get very loud and it becomes difficult to hear. at home you are watching and you constantly hear from the chair pounding the gavel, asking people to take their conversations off the floor and no one at home years and a conversation. if you were ever in wondering, that is a sort of thing that goes on on the floor. >> can i mention something about

that? >> yes. >> it is amazing what you can't accomplish on the floor with regard to what carol just said. i introduced a bill not too long ago urging schools to teach the constitution to high-school seniors because many states don't have a civic requirements. we drafted a bill. it was a resolution to urge them to do that. in the course of three days, we got 200 co-sponsors for that bill, walking around on the floor. 218 means you have a majority. it is time well spent and a lot of business gets done that way. >> is that most frequently where you run into other members were not on your committees? >> that is your best chance to build relationships. this is the relationship business in that you have to work with your colleagues. you have to be accountable to constituents to represent and that have to have a certain

trust and confidence in new. your college in the congress have to know that you are a person of your work. when others come to me and talk about a certain vote they are interested in, i will take a look at it. if i believe in it, i will co- sponsor it. we will work together on certain things. some things, we can work on for whatever reason. as long as you are street with people, i have found in the congress, that people appreciate that your straight with them. you do not talk out of both sides of your mouth. that happens in politics too much. if you are straight with people, that provides a level of trust and confidence that breeds success. >> what about what the on boats? is that where you are most often found? other times when you want to get off the floor quickly before they get to you or is that expected to? where did they find you most often when they are counting votes?

>> nobody wants to answer that. i will answer that. it is part of the process. they will come around and take your temperature. you have a caucus and i want to know which way you are leaning. that is your first opportunity to stand up. by the way, you are not told what to do. you can be strongly encouraged. if you are down to two or three encouraged but the reality is you can make your own decisions. we each have to answer to our constituents. the day i arrived, i remember that the speaker of the house told us that we need to answer to our own constituents. never get confused about who you are and where you come from. i just wanted to make that clear. obviously, there is some legislation that you really want people to get behind. the energy bill is a good example and that was a tough one. they first started asking in

colchis and you can stand up. we have all stood up there. we can really argue something. you can continue it, as long as you want. they might -- you can ask for a private meeting if there are issues that are driving you crazy and they can work it and they do. they try to compromise and work it. ultimately, you have the bill and your protest may not be fixed. it may still stamp the way it does. you have to make a tough decision if it is good enough and serves more of what you want. are you able to vote for it. sometimes you up to swallow hard but to have -- but you cannot throw away a bill. you have all seen it. you are on the floor and it's very close and people are looking and saying if we can do this. what do we need to get you there? what is your concern? when they ask what we need to get you there, they are not promise anything. they are saying that is there

some way we can legislate again. is there something we can do when the bill comes in conference before it actually becomes a bill, when it goes to the senate and comes back. if the answer is no, the answer is no. i voted no on the afghanistan money. i explained that i simply could not. i honored and respected everybody who did because people had their reasons and they were good reasons. my reason was because my husband was in the military during the vietnam era and i saw many, many, many men and women who have been impacted. i felt that until we knew exactly, what our mission was and what the metrics were going to be and some kind of a sense of when we would know we would reach our goals, i could not do it. i know many terrific men and

women who voted for this and voted for the right reasons for them. it was one of those tough votes. you can vote your conscience either way. regardless of what the weapon was, i put my feet on the ground and said i cannot do others could because -- these are difficult votes. nobody knows this road map. >> i always felt the same. democrats want to fall and love, republicans want to fall in line. as democrats, we are a family but sometimes we battle like family members. we have disagreements. we all appreciate that. at the end of the day, sometimes carol and i will not agree. i respect her as a person, even though we of policy disagreements. i have a trust and confidence in her that she will follow her conscience and do what is right for her district and country, period.

she will do what is right for the country. i appreciate that. >> i think that whipping is a misnomer. >> it is a tough term, isn't it? >> i have not actually been whipped. i don't recall that happening. i would have remembered that. in the first meeting we had with the whip, congressman cliburn, he told us and promised us that we would never see the rubber hose. he stuck to it. i have been doing this for eight months and i have never seen any sort of pressure put on us either directly or indirectly to vote for a bill that the leadership really wanted. it has always been reasoning together. if you vote no, you will be sure that you will have at least one other 75 people boating note with you. that is a said that because the republicans always vote as a bloc. among the democrats, i think it is under -- easy to understand

why we take our approach. the first time i went to a caucus meeting, we were choosing the leadership before we actually got sworn in. it was very nice to be invited to that before got sworn in. i looked around and i saw america. i saw white people and i saw black people. i saw men and women buried by such english speakers and i saw spanish speakers in our caucus. that makes us really different for our diversity is our strength. when you have a divorce group, the way you increase solidarity is the shared values. the kind of discussion that we had -- have won a vote comes up and maybe it's a tough vote because of my district or because i have problems with it on the basis of constant, the discussion is always on the level of what is right, what is good, what is right, never what is in it for me or the leadership. it never takes the kind of turn. the result of that is that the

democrats do not always vote as a single block. some of our votes have been very close and some are unpredictable. there were a couple that took a long time to close the vote. the net result of that is that through our diversity, we have our strength. you compare that to the other side which seems to operate on different principles, it doesn't have anything resembling diversity. it seems to fight the very idea of diversity grade i remember one situation on the stimulus package where a republican member from louisiana from a heavily democratic district who most people think was elected because it is a pawn of was found with $8,000 cash and his freezer, that member learned that there be over $1 billion coming into his district because of the stimulus package. he announced publicly the day before the vote that he would vote for the stimulus package he needed that money. his district was hurt by

katrina and all sorts of other reasons. the next day, with every other republican member of congress, he voted against that bill. i can only imagine the whipping that took place in that 24 hour-. with him. it was pretty harsh because he had announced he would vote for it and the district needed it and the vote against it. we don't operate that way. we operate through collegiality and for consensus. >> i have been told many times by leadership, you have heard it, vote your conscience. >> i know we have a big difference in the way the two sides operate. we mentioned it university. we have sub-caucasus and some are the ideologically based in summer not. -- and some are not for it on the other side, i rarely say

this sort of thing. there may be more than one or two groups but they typically compete for being the most conservative. in recent years, we have seen the moderate group of republicans be defeated or disappear or go into hiding if they manage to survive. >> or turn democrat. >> that happens, too. how did you come to choose to affiliate with some of the sub- caucuses, the progressive caucus? were you approached by members and did you know where you wanted to go? what was the process lichen joining of a? -- was the process like in enjoining pop-up? >> i may blue dog democrat. that is not very popular. i am very frank with people. when i stood with netroots in philadelphia of july, 2005, it

fell 95 degrees in that room. the banner behind me told about progressive values. one of those progressive values is fiscal responsibility. i believe, as a father and a policy maker, i have a moral obligation to believe that we have balanced budgets. sometimes you cannot balance the budget. there is emergency spending in wartime and the stimulus bill by i happen to be a fiscal conservative on social issues, i am a progressive. i am proud that when it was a blank check for president bush, i voted against it because i thought it was irresponsible. when the vote comes up on "don't ask, don't tell" i think that is a national security issue. i think it has been a waste of $1.3 billion. [applause] i think it is a disgrace that we have kicked out of our military 13,000 troops since the policy

has been implemented. that is 3.5 brigades. these are valuable event. they are values of equality. we'll take an oath to support and defend the constitution. i taught the constitution when i was a professor at west point. i take that obligation very seriously. i have colchis with the blue dogs. i have stood with them when it comes to fiscal discipline and try to cut waste and abuse from spending programs and to what is right for the country. i happen to vote with a lot of the progressives when it comes to "don't ask, don't tell." it is something i am proud of. the blue dogs, frankly, caucus every week as a group that i learnj5ñ things of what is goinn in different committees. that is what that group happens to bring to the table. i think sometimes the disparity within the democratic family is a good thing. we should have these disagreements and arguments. we worked out and we do what is

right at the end of the day for our country. >> you do spend a certain amount time meeting with the blue dogs? it is a similar situation? is there weapon within the group? the power of the blue dogs in particular is the leverage you have. it has limited membership and you keep the number of members about at the level it takes to be able to leverage a bill off the floor, if you want to stand in the way or if there is someone who has a problem with something. it is clearly a leveraged group. how much time you spend? >> i am one of the whips for the blue dogs. i probably been with since i was a paratrooper. let's take health care for example the blue dogs -- you cannot just be a blue dog, you have to believe in those values and have a record of of fiscal discipline. in our group, when it comes to

health care, i happen to think it is a good thing. i am for public auction. as my personal opinion. it shows competition [applause] ] that is what we need. the blue dogs did not recognize the public option. some wanted it and some did not. i was one of the ones who wanted it. they said want to make sure that it was -- it is deficit neutral. we want to make sure that this is not a debt that our country will incur and pass along to our children or children's children i think that is, that fiscal discipline, is something that the president agrees with. it is something that many progressive agree with, as well. that is an element in health insurance reform that we need. most democrats would agree. >> there is room for disagreement, even among blue dogs? >> absolutely. >> members of the progressive caucus, i think, probably -- do

they meet as often? do they organize in the same way as blue dogs? >> we are progressive so we are disorganized. i belong to no organized caucus. i'm a progressive. >> that is the impression people have of what is going on in a progressive caucus. i do see is beginning to change and they are beginning to organize a bit. they are trying to exercise leverage of congress. >> i am neither one of them. i love both of these men and i will tell you that they are both driven by a moral compass that is just wonderful to behold. we share almost all the same kinds of goals and values and alan and i do as well. i do not belong to either group. i come from a family where both my parents, who are my heroes, they were republicans. they were the old time

republicans, remember them? there were absolutely wonderful. there were fiscally conservative. i share that with both of these men come here. i am very concerned about the size of the deficit. i'm very concerned that the cost of the iraq war in afghanistan was not in the budget. everybody needs to remember this. the bush administration drove us into the greatest deficit in history and three of these tremendous problems where we have had to reinvest in america. yes, we're spending money but we have not invested in america dñn many, many years. will not invest in our people. we are now trying to invest in our people. when i hear patrick talk and i hear the blue dogs talk, i agree with them about a lot of the issues they are confronting. i am concerned about when i hear the progressive caucus talk, i agree with them as well i joined the populist caucus. everybody needs to be somewhere. i'm a co-founder of that caucus. that is basically, we can stand

next to either group because the populist caucus deals with the issues that are affecting the people of this country. >> that is a relatively new or revised caucus. >> it is revived. we have the same issues where we support a public auction in health care will recall for fiscal responsibility, we want to see things on budget. the bush administration hid the true value of everything from the american people. as i have told people in my district, look around you. do you see a lot of that money that was spent around our state tax what do you really say? what we see is that that money was spent and those deficits were run up but they were not put on the american people. that is what we are trying to do now. and the populist caucus, we share the same values that the others do. we may be slightly different at times but i would tell people that the man that i am sitting

next to and the men and women that i sit next to in congress, they work hard every single day. the were to represent the district but also to try to do what is best for their country. they do not report to their state legislature every day. a report to the u.s. so, we have a huge task and we find common ground, most of the time. it is remarkable. >> i think these differences are sometimes exaggerated. if you look at the voting records, we have had something like 700 boats already since the beginning of the year, you will find that there is not a single democrat votes mostly with republicans prepare is not a single republic and that bodes mostly with democrats. the defense serious chasm is between the party of yes and the party of no. that is the reality we all live with every day, as democrats. it is true that sometimes the republicans come close to peeling off the 40 democrats that they need to put no into

effect. it is not so much the result of the caucus you belong to. it is more the result of the issue that happens to come to the floor. there are 39 caucuses at this point. there's no disrespect for the populist caucus but but remain caucuses are the progressives, the new democrats, and the blue dogs. what you find when you talk to people who are members of these is that they do not disagree about core democratic values at all. they do not disagree at all. what they disagree with is the question of priorities. in general, if i can speak for the others, the blue dogs emphasize fiscal responsibility. that is not to say that the rest of us are against it. that is not true in my case. the new democrats emphasized free markets. this is not the socialist party of america. is the democratic party and you find that people want free markets in general. in the case of the progressives, the emphasis is on a human needs. these are not things that are at

war with each other. they are not competing with each other. >> thank you very much. we have tried to take a close look at congress matters about who is voting with the larger democratic caucus and who deviates from that most often. ç4]the data is that it tends toe blue dogs and more conservative. you make the point that in almost no case, over the long term, is anybody boating more with republicans than democrats. it is sometimes difficult to gauge that because a great number of the votes are overwhelmingly in favor of things like suspension bills that will tend to boost the numbers. i think it is fair to say that people who are observing, more casually or close the, will find the blue dogs find themselves on the opposite side of where

progress of the observers are. i do think it is interesting to note the disparities between the mechanics of the with the group's work. the progressives, i don't think, do they meet weekly? >> yes, we made but i think we find that we don't need to spend a lot of time court netting because we have strong shared values. it is less important for us to talk things over. we pretty much know where we are. >> in taking a look at the voting patterns, the progressive caucus was much more cohesive unit voting together more often and there was a great deal of diversity inside the blue dog colchis. we found among the other side and some key votes, we found a much greater spread among the blue dogs on a graft than the progressives. among the progress of blogosphere, that has become a source of irritation. they say is a larger caucus with cohesive voting but they seem to

leverage things less often. than blue dogs with their smaller numbers. there's a difference in the pope is, perhaps, of what the groups are about. moving on from that -- i don't want to make anybody too uncomfortable. it is important part of how things are working. >> i think it is important to remember that when people are sent to washington, they are elected they do have to reflect, to a large extent, the values that the people back home have. it is critical i pointed out that you are in the united states government and that you have to look at all whole picture of the united states and the relationship to the world. you also have to make sure that you are speaking up and representing the people from your district. it is a delicate balance. sometimes, we'd be that on people too much. -- we'd be up on people too much.

-- we beat up on people to much. we have to pay attention on many different levels. >> some of the beams you hear about between the three of us, accountability. that is what democrats stand for. we made the point about auditing the federal reserve. i happen to be a co-sponsor of that and that is partnered with republican ron paul. i thought that was the right thing for the country. i want to make sure we know where we are spending our money and where that money is going. i think that accountability that the democrats bring to the table. we don't write blank checks. we want to make sure we are getting bang for our buck. that is what the party brings to the table. most americans appreciate that and as that -- and that is what we have a responsibility to govern and. >> i don't think you can expect either party to vote against their district. if they do, they just won't survive. because of the success of our party, there are now 50

democratic members of congress who are in districts that john mccain carried. we are an/ large, diverse colcs that reflects even a larger and more diverse america. the result of that is that we have members of our caucus to vote their districts and properly so because that is what we are therefore. >> i think it is a source of frustration. that is only because the group observing and to whom we are speaking for themselves cohesive and have a position that they would like to see voted. as you pointed out, i think that is the flip side of what you started out with in saying that the leadership is very clear in speaking to members, that they have the freedom to vote as they need to in order to represent their districts. it is very important to bring both sides. while that is a frustration -- >> that frustrates us when we are getting to a certain vote.

there is a lot of passionate debate in caucus about what we will do as we try to comes cuts -- some kind of consensus the wonderful thing is that there is a debate in the caucus, that everybody can stand up there and say whatever he or she wants to and we can work to persuade one another. i can be persuaded by a very -- by a very good argument and everyone else can too. we have that dialogue. i think that is what people should hope for in a democracy, that each one of us will engage with one another and keep our minds open. >> ultimately, it would be the hope progressives, that would never come to the point where the leadership was twisting arms so are the people were not able to vote their conscience. that is not progress of value, in itself. the consequences of having the kind of freedom and engaging the

kind of debate is that occasionally, things don't go your way. >> i thank you for addressing that. if i can jump back quickly -- if we have some questions, i think we will save the last 50 minutes or so of our session for that. one last question before we go. congressman grayson, you mentioned your marks that you're working on for your district. i know that is light whipping. if it is not an on fair terms, it picks up people's ears. i'm interested whether you came to congress with any kind of idea about earmarks being a problem. i would like to describe a little about what your position is on that, in general. that is something that i think it's a little experience in the house before you really make a decision on what you want to do. i noticed that many people campaigned on that as an issue.

if we can start with you and move over. >> in the case of my district, we have been short changed over the years on federal spending. essentially, we export taxes and import debt. we send our tax money to washington, we get back very little in return for it is easy to see the result of this. if you look at the phone book for chicago and you look at the blue pages and look to the federal government listings, you see page after page of the federal government listings, telephone listings in chicago. you look at orlando, you are talking over 2 million people, there is less than one page. we have no military bases in my district. we have virtually nothing in the way of federal facilities. we have some military recruitment centers and not much else. the result of that is that our money keep going out of the district, year after year that saps the strength of the local economy. i think it is our turn. last year, my predecessor in

his eighth year in congress brought $1.8 million to the district in designated spending. we are already over $13 million. we're working hard to increase and improve that all the time. i understand the arguments for and against your marks but in my case, i do not understand why some federal bureaucrat who worked for the federal highway administration would be a better judge of how to spend highway money in my district then we are. i don't understand that. i do not have any hesitation about doing everything i can to bring every fare dollar into our district especially when you're talking about a district that has been hit with 10% unemployment. the housing market is down over 30% in my district. we have the highest rate of home vacancies in the entire country every stray, spare dollar i can grab, i grab for my district and i am proud of it.

>> when i was criticized at a town hall meeting about earmarks, which i support, i said to the crowd there that if you think that the 53 members of congress in california are wondering how new hampshire is doing, you are wrong we have exactly two members from new hampshire. we were receiving about 68 cents for every dollar that we were sending. the rest of that dollar was being sent to states like alaska i believe them congressionally-directed spending. we know our district. what i don't believe in is the waste and fraud and lack of accountability and transparency. when patrick and i came in, that was part of what we talked about in government. we fixed that. we've requested in your market is post and we have to sign a financial affidavit that there is no way that anyone in our family will receive a benefit and we should have that transparency and accountability. i completely support that. i just got money for men and women who need it because they were in a iraq and afghanistan

and they are closing is out. who would say no to that? it is for a naval shipyard which is crucial for national security reasons. a number of them was for health care clinics. we have to make sure that it is justifiable. we also need for people across the country to go to these websites and look at them. the only way we can reassure the american public, who had been burned and times, many, many times, they should look and make sure. every time i sent a letter to anybody in my district, i also tell them how to go look up my record. i think we should have to do that, too. on my site or the earmarks and other information. we have to have the accountability and we now do. we have to have the transparency and we now do. if people are not happy with it, there is an election.

if they don't think there should be money for health care centers and there should not be money for the military or to take care of our veterans, say so in the next election. democracy is not a spectator sport. everybody needs to be involved in watching all of us. >> lastly, i think part of it is it is frustrating when politics is behind it in that when carol and i came in, we want to be completely transparent. we cut the earmarks and half of what they used to bait. the third thing is that people can look at these things on the website because it is more transparent. are there abuses in the system? absolutely. that is why we have to make it transparent. that does not mean that the whole system is bad. it goes back to when i used to teach cadets at west point and there are three branches of government. one is not more powerful than

the others. sometimes, the executive branch get to a robbery case in point -- our troops in iraq and afghanistan really utilize the predator and drown. it is an unmanned vehicle in the air that helps them out. that was an earmark. the department of defense that it was a waste of money. that has saved american lives in a iraq and afghanistan. that is important thing. i am proud about that. that was something that was right. their actions were abuses from democrats and republicans and that is what we have to go after. we have to say no more and we have to change the policy. we have to make sure we are on top of it. we have to make sure that we have the full faith and confidence of the american people moving forward. >> patrick boyle of the good point. -- patrick brought up a good point. the accountability and transparency should have been there all along. that is something our class did. >> i agree.

you cannot say that all earmarked about like you cannot say that all earmarks are good. if you look at every year marks, they do two things -- they meet human needs and secondly, they bring jobs to the district. from top to bottom, that is what you say. what are your march is for providing surgery -- one of our pierre market is for providing surgery to troops in the field. one of our earmaks is providing surgery for troops in the field. another is rebuilding a bridge in our district which is the only escape route from hurricanes. that is an 80-year-old, one-lane bridge. i will defend that earmarked two. -- i will defend that your mark, too. -- earmak, too. out of 435 members, there are

only 70 the consistently vote against your marks. most of congress understands that we know more about how money should be spent in our district. >> i have watched members from the other side, specifically them read about earmarks come to the floor every time a congressman flake comes with this amendment to limit them. the majority of the republican caucus is happy to see that money earmarked. they know that they have their own and it makes a certain amount of sense. >> i think the frustrating thing from our perspective is that you want to be straight with the american public. i get frustrated when it comes to spending issues. when people criticize the stimulus our economy was in recession under president bush. every economist said it would

potentially turn into a depression. we needed to jump-start it. i voted for the stimulus. it was a big price tag but was frustrated from my perspective is that i voted for it and i thought was the right thing to put our country on the right track for the ones who voted against it, the ones that say these dollars are tight and wait for my britches, they voted against it. by our home saying what they brought to their districts. that is not being straight with the american public. that is what ticks me off. stop being a hypocrite. at least stand for a principal and don't try to play both sides. that is what the american people want in their elected leaders [applause] , democrat or republican >> there are certain amount of people who rail against your marks and insist that will have nothing to do with it and they vote for them and they go home. if you are going to support this, be bold.

tell the truth. the american people are very smart. just tell them the truth and explain why that is our job to take the top boat and explain to our people. by playing both sides and thinking this story will not catch up to them, that infuriates us. >> you have questions? >> thank you very much in my fifth year as a state legislator, i have only had to deal with one issue that goes over 1000 pages in the bill and that is our budget. everything else is only about 36 pages. i know you folks get bills that are 1000 pages and more. how you deal with it? how do you know what may be hidden in between? how do you find out the information that gives you the ability to vote on something that may be a very critical but

is so huge that you know you cannot read through it in time? >> thank you for your service to your community. for me, if i can talk about the health care bill, it was 1018 pages. the buck stops with me. i am the yes or no vote on a specific bill. i make sure i read every single one. i also have an incredible team of 22 folks who worked their tails off for our country. i split builds up. the bigger ones, they all take a section and we work as a team and we decide what is good and bad and how it will affect our district. we call and other experts and ask them what they think. we make amendments that would really ask people's advice. my right -- my wife reminds me and says god gave me two years but one out for reason. i try to make sure i do my homework and do what is right for our constituents.

that is how my office is able to succeed and do well. >> on the health care bill, i was one of the three committees of jurisdiction in the house. i certainly knew and followed all the. it is a huge bill. but patrick said is what happens -- you have these people and your staff, you choose them because of their ability and talent and you work with them every single day. they are working, you are working, you are talking to people, if it is not your committee, and we had so many meetings. we had like 75 meetings for people to stay up to speed on the changes in the health care bill. we had outside experts come in. when we had the tarp bill, i voted against it but i read it and my staff read it and then we called congressional research service and brought professionals and. we reach out all the time. we have tremendous resources available to us. we read newspapers like everybody else. we probably read many more newspapers and get more

feedback. our constituents -- i have people who will help me from the banking committee who want to express their opinion. i have people from health care. i have meeting with different groups. i am about to meet with two groups of physicians. i have already met with physicians and hospitals and consumer groups. all this state very engage on these issues. it is a tremendous workload. i can talk about congress and a positive light because i think we worked extremely hard. the average american would be shocked to see how many hours we put in. i had somebody fall in a couple of weeks ago for two days and he wrote me a note saying that he had no idea how much work we did and how long day's work. -- were. i am happy to do it and i know my colleagues are, too. we are happy to be the voice of the people. we are pretty responsible in making sure that the

legislation is what we think it says. occasionally, something happens and somebody has something that i am not happy about. we do have a -- we do a very good job of following legislation. >> i have people follow me all around from the nrc, but i did not get a pat on the back. we have american-size problems and they amount in america-sized bills. no one can think we can inform -- reform the health-care system with a five-page bill. the result of that is that we all understand that it is incumbent upon us to create the best bill we can. the result of that is that we spend an enormous amount of time doing it. we had a session a few weeks ago in the democratic caucus that lasted five hours, going for the bill paid by page. i am pretty sure the republicans did not. the result of that is that we do

make, in the end, good choices based on real facts and not misinformation, setting a sharp contrast with their opponents. >> we would take another question? >> after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars in bailout funds, goldman sachs and other banks are reporting record profits and paying enormous cornices. -- bonuses. how can change the situation and regulate banks and ensure that banks that are too big to fail are regulated so another meltdown does that happen? >> i think i heard you. we will see have my answer is correct. i know that what is being proposed is that these banks will have to put more money and they will have to prepare what is called their funeral so they will set up what they have to do if they do fail. the call is for them to have more resources to deal with the

problems and a plan in case they do not. when you have too big to fail, you have a huge problem. >> i think too big to fail means to big to exist. that is my own opinion. i hope that is reflected in legislation before too much longer. [applause] i voted against every bailout. i think that is a gross abuse of taxpayer funds all of us who are fiscally responsible feel very uneasy with the very idea of taking hard-earned taxpayer money and spending on private enterprise. in the case of goldman sachs, we sent a letter recently to the chairman of the federal reserve explain that goldman sachs was taking advantage of their status and borrowing money from the federal reserve discount window while still having enormous appetites for risk, according to their chairman of the board. he said they have a high appetite for risk. we are doing what twhat we can to make sure they are not taking

advantage of the taxpayer. >> our job is that it is transparent to you know where the government dollars are being spent there should also be read the accountability and you don't let them get away with it for you have to make sure that there is accountability in legislation and execution of that legislation >> we are actually out of time. if we have a few minutes afterwards, we will be able to answer questions. i don't know if our next panel is ready. i'm sorry we did not get as much time for questions. i think we had a fairly free- wheeling discussion. >> thank you. [applause] [no audio]

>> the live coverage of the netroots nation convention. this is bloggers and online activists continues in pittsburgh this afternoon. we will be back at 3:00 p.m. or thereabout with a discussion on the constitution and the supreme court. earlier today, maria shriver eulogized her mother, eunice kennedy shriver at a funeral service in hyannis, massachusetts. during this break, we will show you her remarks.

>> on supposed to be joined here by my brothers. vice-president biden, governor patrick, we want to thank all of you for coming here today. to honor and celebrate the life of their mother. over the past few days, our mother has been called everything from a st. to a pioneer to a trail blazer to a true original to a civil rights advocate of legendary proportions to a force of human nature will more than held her own in a family of highly competitive, high-achieving man. she was indeed a transformative figure. to her five children, mark,

bobbie, timmy, and anthony, to all of us, she was simply money. mummy was our hero. she was scary smart and not afraid to show it. she was tough but also compassionate. she was driven but also a really fun and funny. she is competitive but also empathetic. restless, and patient, curious and careful, she liked to hang with the guys but all her heroes, except for her brother jack, were women. she had a husband who was totally devoted to her in every sense of that word. a man who marveled at everything she said and everything she did. he did not mind if her hair was a mess or she walked around in a wet bathing suit, if she beat him at tennis or challenged his ideas. he let her rip and he left for rohr and keep loved everything about her.

add that to five kids who adored her and love to be with her and you have the ultimate role model. mummy was all of our best friends. it was an honor for all of us to be her children and a special privilege for me to be her daughter. that is not to say it was always easy being her kid because she was not exactly like other mothers we have ever seen. as a young girl, i did not actually know how to process her parents much of the time because most of the mothers or dressed up and kind of neatly coiffed. she wore men's pants. she smoked cuban cigars. she played tackle football. [laughter] she would come to pick us up at school in her blue lincoln convertible. her hair would fly in the wind and would usually be some pencils or pans in it for the car would be filled with all of these boys and their friends and they're animals. she would have by kashmir sweater with little notes appended to it to remind her of what she needed to do when she

got home. more often than not, this water would be covered a bathing suit so she could lose no time jumping into the pool to beat us in a water polo game. needless to say, when the nuns announced her is grovel, i would run for cover. when she was not trying to beat each of us in a game of tennis or on the football field, you could usually find her at mass, with their father, praying or working. i mean really working. she was determined to change the world for people with intellectual disabilities and she did. you had no choice but to join her in her mission. it took all of us from our backyard to every state in this nation in just as many countries around the world. our mother never rested. she never stopped. she was momentum on wheels. she was focused, relentless, and she got the job done. today, when i closed my mind,

and i'm sure this goes for my brothers, as well, and we think about our mother, we see her clapping her hands and cheering us all on in everything she did. in everything we did. i see her encouraging me to beat my brother's in tennis. i see her moving my books from the back of the bookstore to the front of the bookstore. when the manager would call and teller she could not do that, she would tell him to go behind a desk where he belonged and be quiet. [laughter] i hear her when i would call on the pawn one at 15 -- a call her on the phone and called to complain that there was no running water and no toilet and i was sleeping with five men. she5) said she did not want to hear it and get your job done and don't come back to your finished. [laughter] i heard i don't want to hear one more yet out of you a lot. i heard urge my father to take us everywhere with my brothers including a baltimore oriole

locker room. i see her, as my brothers do, laughing, praying, sailing, loving each everyone of us equally. while she counseled me that she was raising the in a man's world, she let me know that there was no doubt in her mind that i could compete, that i should compete, and that i could win. mummy was indeed a trailblazer. she showed up in her life as herself and that takes courage. she took adversity and turned it into advantage. inspired by the rejection she saw many women face, especially her sister rosemary and her mother and other mothers of special children, she turned that into our lives focus and her life's passion and mission. her own brand of what i call maternal feminism. she believes one of% in the power and the gifts of women to change the language, the temple,

and the character of this world. her heroes were the virgin mary, mother teresa, dorothy day, her own mother, her sister rose mary. all of home had already done that. she would always challenge each of us to do the same period she said you will, you must, you can. if she were here today and speaking here, and i think we all wish she were, she would pass on this podium, she would " chardin and ask each of you what you have done today to better the world. she would tell you stories about her special friends and what they have accomplished. she would ask each and everyone of you to join her in making this world a more tolerant, just, and compassionate place. she would and by talking about her own family, how grateful she was to her parents and to our brothers and sisters. all of home, she absolutely adored.

she would tell you how proud she was a sergeant and she would tell you how proud she was of each of us and to tell you about each thing that each of us did and she would ask you for money for all four of my brothers. [laughter] who run nonprofits. it will probably ask you later but she would ask you. on behalf of them, save the children, best buddies, special olympics. and then she would remind all of you that you had not done enough and there was much more to do. you would leave this church simply in all of her. mummy was a towering figure. everyone in this church as a story about her, a story that would make you laugh or make you cry, a story that would make you roll your eyes at her audacity and her brilliance. she was the real deal. a woman who did everything women aspire to. she had a great husband. she had a great family.

she had a deep, deep faith in god. she combined that with being a fearless warrior for the worse last. people all over the world are hearing about for this week in editorials and on television. they need to hear stories about individuals like mummy. i'm especially glad that young women are hearing about her. she was a woman who did not choose and women are often chose -- often told they have to choose to be a certain kind of woman, talk this way, what this way, at one opinion. mummy was not like that. she let all the different parts of her go out and that is what made for you make. she did not allow herself to be tamed or content. she achieved her true authentic supper at the very same woman who made a grown man quake in their boots when she set foot on capitol hill was the very same

woman who spent quality time with each and everyone of us, making us feel loved, making us believe in ourselves. she spent quality time with each of those grandchildren you saw here on this altar. building sand castles, looking for leprechauns, looking for mates. she did not choose between being strong and soft, complex, or simple. as her story goes out this week, i believe that she will become a new torchbearer for women of our time, sending a message that you don't have to be a certain way. you don't have to fit the stereotype but over your life, you can have a full, complete, spiritual life, a life that is about others and they like that is about family. her story teaches us that women are complex and that they can live out every simple, single aspect of the complexity. in closing, let me say that in the last few years of her life, i ,mummy to be almost more of

inspiring them in her 85 years. she who never sat still was forced to confront thomas. it was hard for her. she never come plain and she never asked for pity. she fought and fought and fought right up to her very last breath. over the years, all of us learned some much from her. by listening to her, by watching her. in this past year, i learned from her as well as she softened, she gave me permission to do the same, as she sat still, she taught me how important that is in one's life. she taught us that real strength can also be found in real vulnerability. and that is okay, even important, to lean on those who love you. if you had told me a few years ago that at the end of my mother's life, she and i would

sit in a room and just be, i would have said you were crazy. if you had told me that at the age of 52, i would finally get up the nerve to crawl into bed with my mother, told her, and tell her that i love her, i would have said you are not. if you had told me that mummy and i would write poetry together, i would know for sure that you have lost your mind. all those things really happened, as mummy learned to let go. at the end of her life, she was strong and vulnerable. she was tired and tireless. she was determined and ready to surrender to god. she did it all, she lived it all, and she loved us all. to be honest, i think it is impossible for each of us to think about our life without mummy. .

but i wanted to leave you with this little poem that my mother and i wrote together in a hospital room in boston. i read it to her several times, and she liked it a lot. it has no name, but i thought she would like me to share it with you. it goes like this -- thank you mummy for giving me the breath of life thank you for giving me a push over and over again thank you for doing your best

here we are you and me now it is you needing the breath of life now it is you needing the push you did it for me let me do it for you your love has brought me to my knees i cannot breathe without you i cannot think without you i am lost without you here we are you and me the clouds are gone the sky is clear you are the star in my sky you are the music in my heart do you hear it? listen listen mummy, you are the trumpet of my life. amen.

[applause] >> back to the david lawrence center in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, as we continue the netroots nation conference of bloggers and online activists. coming up a discussion of how the progressive movement can influence the supreme court and constitutional issues. among the speakers, gerald nadler of new york. until the conference does resume, we will hear from the executive director of netroots nation who spoke to us today on "washington journal." .

fred kaplan, thank you for being here. >> thank you. host: raven brooks is the executive director of netroots nation. guest: we have seven panels and 20 training sessions. we've heard from bill clinton last night. we will hear from governor howard dean. and senator specter. we have a bunch of on-line activists that are connecting with us and helping us plan for how we're going to get their priorities host: passed in: this passed. host: this began as the yearlykos convention. caller: we decided we wanted to have a chance to meet the persons we had been talking with

on line. it became something a lot bigger. we had a big convention with a lot of panels and our elected leaders wanted to come out to it. in 2007 we changed the name to netroots nation. we were bigger than one web community. netroots is something composed of a lot of different communities on line. composed of people that primarily are on twitter and facebook or people that use online organizing techniques to organize their community around some kind of issue. host: you are meeting at the the david lawrence convention center in pittsburgh. .

pittsburgh is really revitalizing itself with a green technology. it is also an example of 21st century innovation. now, the online conference, they basically decide they want to do follow-ups -- i think they are trying to grab on to what we are doing, regardless of what city that's in, just to capture some attention. >> we leave this reported portion of today's "washington journal" to take you back to pittsburgh as the netroots nation conference gets underway. our live coverage on c-span. >> for women it meant the restoration of the still

abusiness mall but improved 2-7 ratio of women to men on our supreme court. this milestone achievement was marred by the significant number of votes against this scaptly qualified judge. the debate in the senate had an unseemly focus on out-of-context statements and speeches and an almost bizarre fixation on a difficult case whose facts almost seemed concocted for a law school examination, in which the decisions were the same as a majority as the second circuit and in which she never authored an opinion. that senate debate raised questions for many of us. and yet, the very difficult debate marked a supreme court appointment that will result in no significant change in the usual philosophical line-up of the supreme court. clearly her record indicates that justice sotomayor is a moderate within the mainstream of the american judiciary. she replaces david suitor --

souter who is in perhaps the more moderate wing of our supreme court. that's the context of our discussion this afternoon about progressives and the discussion of the constitution and the supreme court. we have exextremely outspoken speakers, and i will ask each of them a question to launch our discussion. chris. y hardinsmith is a recovering attorney. she writes daily for the popular liberal blog firedoglake.com. christie, there have only been a handful of decisions that have changed daily life for a huge portion of our nation's residents. brown vs. board of education.

rolonda: -- roe vs. wade. in essence, these kind of foundation-shaking, daily-life making decisions don't come regularly from our supreme court, despite the fact that they decide dozens of decisions yearly. given that history, why should the american public pay particular attention to the supreme court, its congressman -- its composition or its decisions? >> good question. as someone who has been a practicing attorney both for her professional life both in private practice and as an assisting prosecuting attorney, i can say the courts cover pretty much every aspect of american life. and i do mean every. i have done cases from divorces to child abuse and neglect, juvenile and criminal matters to

wills, which are a huge source of conflict at the moment in the back and forth. some of which is very misleading about the health care reform that we're trying to do. and the courts touch on all of those. when you look at especially appointments to the federal bench, be it to the circuit court or the appellate court level or to the supreme court itself, those are lifetime appointments. the people that we put on the federal bench sit as judges and sit in judgment of cases which affect all of our lives for a lifetime appointment -- lives. for a lifetime appointment, look at that. that is a huge responsibility. those decisions end up impacting all of our lives in ways we may never fully appreciate until we get pulled into a court case. you look at the case that came

out in 2001 with lilly ledbetter. lilly's case was thrown out by the current supreme court, not with justice sotomayor on it, because she was not with the court at that time. essentially she was being paid less because she was working while female. to be told that you could be paid less when years and years of precedence said otherwise was a huge sea change. that came about because there ways different make-up in the court which was much more conservative and much more atune to a corporate argument than it was toward individual arguments. you look at any other areas we've had questions, especially in national security and those other areas in the last few years and presidential power, the court in the way that our government is made up, really do

serve as a stop gap on the other two branches. without the court serving fla in that capacity and really being interested in doing that job, what you have is the potential for a wholesale power grab, especially in the executive branch where that is a much tougher thing to stop. the court served as that stopgap in a number of cases in the last few years, but only when you have a diversity of opinion on that court do you see that happening. and that's why americans need to pay a lot more attention to what's going on with that. >> thank you, christy. >> doug kendall is from a -- founder and president of the constitutional accountability center, a think tank and action center in d.c. it has been four years since the warren court and almost 20 years

since william brennan, the architects -- architect of many of those decisions left the supreme court. i don't think there is a liberal wing of this court since brennan and marshall left the supreme court. is there any hope the supreme court will play a meaningful role in promoting the liberal agenda in the future? >> i think the opposite is more likely to be true. i think in the foreseeable future, and i think what we learned most in the sotomayor confirmation process, is how thoroughly conservative our -- are dominating both the judiciary and the conversation about the current judiciary. let me make three points that flesh that out. first is a question of pure numbers. it's going to take well into the second obama term, if there is such a term, for the lower

federal courts to start to move in a progressive bregs direction. it could well be that after eight years of an obama administration, a two-term obama presidency, the same five conservatives that are dominating the supreme court right now could still be there dominating the supreme court. so there is first a question of pure numbers. the second is just the conversation in the political landescape. president bush nominated sam leto to the supreme -- alito to the supreme court. by most accounts it helped him politically, bush. we have now had successive democrats who have worked studiously to nominate anyone who would be easily labeled a liberal. and yet the fact of the matter is, that conservatives have learned to develop talking

points that simultaneously speak and rally to their base, and they at the same time speak to the political center of the country. i don't think liberals have learned that trick thoroughly yet. justice sotomayor, for the most part, adopted conservative talking points, and pulled back from some of the more progressive things she had said in the past. that approach obscures rather than clarifies the very real differences in the way progressive and conservative judges interpret the constitution and the law. and then finally, knchtiffs are dominating the agenda of the federal court. conservatives have gotten very good in recent years about looting their political objectives in the constitution. think gun rights and the second amendment, think property rights

and the takings clause. and progress siffs -- progressives, i think, are rarely looting these decisions in the court in the constitution. we sensibly, in some cases, just avoid it all together, the courts, fearing devastating victories in a conservative-dominated judiciary. the result of that is we have most of the cases that go to the supreme court right now are cases brought by corporations or conservative organizations to move the law in a conservative direction. what we have right now, and what we have to face as progressives, is a judiciary that is not likely to be the engine of progressive change but rather the hindrance to it. over the course of american history, that's been the more common type of situation where conservative justices have thwarted progressive political progress rather than as in the

warren era where the -- where progressive judges have moved the conversation along and stood up to a conservative political process. and i think as a result we have to kind of fundamentally change the way we think about courts. we have to, first and foremost, say why the law itself and the constitution points in a progressive direction. rather than asking for judges who will bend the law in a progressive direction, we have to explain why the constitution and the law themselves point in a progressive direction. and we have to demand judges who will follow that law in the constitution. and second -- and this is the most relevant to people in this audience -- we have to devote the political attention to the

roberts courts that the importance of the rulings of the roberts courts merit. just look what the court did on the last day of the term. they decided whether they should hear two foundational cases that decided whether you could treat corporations and corporate expenditures differently than you can treat individual expenditures. that calls into question the entire 100-year system we have which limits the corporate influence on elections. if you care -- if you think that the bush administration was too beholden to exxon corporation and haleburton just think what would happen if those corporations could divert their funds into buying elections. you see how important the federal cases are, and we need to respond in that fashion. i will just end with one thing

with representative nadler to my left here, i think it is really important for the political ranches of government to respond to the activism of the roberts court. if you watch the sotomayor hearings closely, you saw a beginning of that, i think, very promisingly through senators such as al franken and judiciary commission chairman patrick leahy. but we have to be more careful with that. christie mentioned the lilly ledbetter ruling. we need to respond to that ruling by overruling it. there's no better way to spend -- send a message to the supreme court that they are overstepping their bounds than by doing precisely that. i think what we need is a more coordinated effort to -- there's a lot of corrective legislation that's bottlenecked in congress right now, and we need leaders,

representative nad letter -- nadler being a perfect candidate, who will view the roberts court ruling as an end in and of itself and as a part of a coordinated effort to spont to the activism of the roberts courlt. >> jerry nadler is a nine-term congressmember from new york's ninth congressional district. congressman nadler, sonia sotomayor is clearly a moderate, but there were 38 votes against her. some acted like it was a last stand against liberal judicial activism. is this unique to the supreme court or will we see it in other kinds of nomnages to lower courts or other positions in the

government? >> well, it is certainly going to be more prominent in a supreme court nominee because people pay a lot more attention to it, the media does, and so forth. you will see more of it in the lower courts, although the records are not nearly as folsom to make the case. and i think it has been tade said on this panel -- been said on this panel already, we're coming off -- not coming off, we're in the middle of a period for the last 30 or 40 years, the conservative movement has made a concerted effort to pack the courts. they have pushed their presidential candidates, they have enlivened their base by so doing. they have affected republican presidential primaries by who is going to pack the courts with people who are going to be movement conservatives. not just conservatives. justice stevens said about his nomination by president ford every single nominee was more conservative than the person he

or she replaced. that is true. there are no liberals on this court with the exception of possibly justice stevens. there's no marshall, there's no goldberg, there's no brennan or black or douglas. you don't have that kind of leadership on the court today. you have moderates, and you have three or four, depending on whether or not you count justice thomas, movement conservatives who are really right-wing corporatists. and you have holding the swing vote justice kennedy who although far more conservative than the previous swing vote, justice o'connor, very conservative but not quite in lockstep with the other four. and these four are fairly young. they are going to be with us for a long time. the conservatives have made this effort. they have done several things. they have had a chain of

promotions from the solicitor general to appellate courts and to the supreme court. and they have a whole chain of candidates. they are still in the wings, god forbid, should we have another republican president. and they have also done something else -- they have developed two doctrines over and over again. liberals are activists. they are going to overrule the democratic branch of the government. now the only semi-objective measure of activism is how often do you overturn laws passed by congress? this is the most activist court in the history of our court by far. this is extraordinary. it is also an activist court by

overturning previous law. although roberts doesn't want to overturn this law, so he carves it out and leaves you with a shell in name only. he didn't lie -- he can say he didn't lie to the senate and to the senate judiciary commie committee and the confirmation hearings. i am glad i was one of the authors of the bill to overturn that, was a perfect example. it was 40 years of settled law. they have somehow gotten the mantle that liberals are activists as a hangover from the warren court and from 40 years of propaganda. secondly they have the doctrine of originalism. they claimed that we shouldn't go beyond the law if you don't

know the origin tent of the framers of the law. tell me thomas jefferson's position on abortion? i am sure he hm a well thought out opposition to abortion or other issues that didn't exist in the 18th century. the constitution exists of some glittering phrases, due process of law, equal protection that exists in modern reality. you can look at origin tent in modern reality, but nevertheless it is an appealing thing to say, and they have claimed a mantle for it. liberals or nominees, we have only had two presidents, only one nominee for the supreme court from this one, but we have only had two democratic presidents in the last 40 years or so. and they have nominated moderates. breyer and beginsburg --

ginsburg are moderate. now, we have to start emulating what they did. we have to seize -- we have to show how their being activists is against the elected rules of government. i think they have a number of goals now which are very dangerous. number one they want to go back to pre-new deal and restrict the ability of the states to restrict corporate power. which is another way -- to regulate the economy, which is another way of saying restrict corporate power. this case where they ask for reargument on -- and which they look determined to overturn the ability of congress to restrict corporate campaign contributions, if that happens, that will be a complete disaster. imagine if general electric can decide that it does president like some senator or congressman and puts some $20 million into one campaign out of corporate

could havers. -- coffers. it will make national what you have with mayor bloomberg who put $100 million into his own campaign, but it would be with every campaign. this would be a disaster, and we may have to decide how to fight it. we may have to dupe indicate what they did. we have to press democratic candidates to nominate liberals, people who will be leaders on the court. justice sotomayor seems to be moderate, but you never really know with a new justice. so who knows. we'll see. maybe she'll turn into a great liberal leader. hopefully. but there is no really great reason to expect that, but it could happen. we can pray. but we have to push president obama for his next nominee to give us someone who obviously is going to be a liberal leader

having been a liberal leader either in private life or in the senate or in the house or in some other activity or in a lower court. >> you. nan aron is from the alliance for justice, working to promote justice for all americans. she's a regular commentator on these issues. nan, in the last 20 years we've had three republican presidents, none of them lawyers, but they have been careful and strategic about packing the federal courts. so much so they have almost made the federal society into a prerequisite for anyone to be appointed republican to the federal bench. we've also had two democratic presidents in the last 20 years, both of them lawyers, and at least the first one didn't appear to take much of an interest in transforming the

federal courts. our latest lawyer democrat has only been in office a few months. what can we expect? will the obama administration focus on judicial appointments more? will they focus on changing our federal courts? district court? supreme court? what can we expect? >> thank you very much. it is really an honor to be on a panel with these individuals, long-time heros of mine, and tom just became the head of maldef, which is wonderful fofert community, and for all of you who have done this workday in and day out, we are all very, very grateful to all of you. let me just start out with something that jalen owe, not necessarily a hero of mine, but nevertheless, when souter announced he was leaving the court, jalen owe said, "a

vacancy on the court? let's just hope the president is better at picking a justice than the justices were at picking a president." [laughing] and i think with justice sotomayor, we have a really fine jurist on the supreme court. i know that her record, and certainly alliance for justice produced several reports for her looking at her cases over the years. i think she will be excellent. she has a wonderful record. and i think we will see from her something like we saw from thurgood marshall producing something like a marshall effect on the supreme court. i think the dialogue, the conversation among the justices will change, not only because of her substantive input, but also because she is a person of color. and i think that will inevitably shape a lot of what transpires at the court, and that's a very

positive thing. having said that, it's important to recognize that not one court of appeals nominee has yet been confirmed by the united states senate. now, court of appeals judges, i don't know that many of us have a firm understanding, but think of it -- think of two numbers when you think of a court of appeals glug judge. 200 and 300. there are only 200 court of appeals judges in the country for 300 million americans. think of how powerful those 200 individuals are. years ago, when warren burger was at the supreme court, that supreme court decided over 150 cases a year. now the court decides less than half of that. which means that these

appellate-level judges are that much more powerful and that much more influential, and yet not one has been confirmed because of holds in the senate. what does that suggest for us? going back to the question that tom has raised, this president is going to have a very difficult time marshalling the political power in that institution to move his judges through to confirmation. we saw during the clinton years, do you know we saw durpg the clinton administration over 60 judges were blocked by senate republicans. if you look, and i think everyone has menged it, if -- mentioned it, if you look at that vote on the sotomayor confirmation, we only got eight republicans, and this was a

nominee with a mainstream record and a stellar academic and professional record behind her. which means that no matter who president obama sends to the senate for the court of appeals to the supreme court to the district court, those republicans are going to vote against that nominee. there is no question about it. ds -- it's a critical issue to the right-wing base of the republican party. and even though this woman enjoyed broad public support, represented a critical constituency group and growing constituency in this country, very few republicans ended up voting for her.

so what does that mean for us going forward? one, the president has to make a priority of naming progressive justices and judges to the court. these are individuals with a strong commitment to core constitutional values who will be leaders and strong voices not just on the supreme court but the lower courts as well. two, it has to become a priority for our united states senate, and for harry reid, he has got to begin to work with not simply republicans, they are not going to vote for these democrats, but for democrats, the moderate democrats who are afraid ever standing up and voting for good, progressive judges. he has to approach those moderate democrats. he's got to butt recess those democrats.

we have to give those democrats, and we know who they are, confidence in standing up for good judges. we need to ensure that the senators on the senate judiciary committee step up to the plate as well. now we know that justice sotomayor was a little bit tim id at those hearings -- timid at those hearings, but she had a job to do, and that was to get confirmed. the senators on those panels have to articulate, as everyone has said, a very broad vision of why judges are important, why courts are important, and why we need strong progressives on these courts. so we have all -- we all have

our bit to do. i am confident that people listening will do our job, and we have to ensure that at the end of eight years of the obama administration -- and i'm an optimist -- eight years of the obama administration, we'll have these courts of appeal and district courts and the supreme court in doing justice around the country and protecting our prithes rights and freedoms for all americans. thank you very much. [applause] >> christy, you talked about the importance of what the supreme court does to the american public and then alluded that justice sotomayor will be a different kind of justice. she brings personal experiences and professional experiences that are not currently represented on the court. and they will bring that unique perspective.

it's also true that in our history there have been a handful of justices also alluded to who have been surprises. they are surprises from what was expected when they were nominated. in deed, justice sotomayor is replacing justice souter, who was a surprise when bush nominated him. given this information to the supreme court, what should the public do to influence justices as they develop, particularly new ones, to influence the choices, the kinds of experiences that we're looking for in judges and justices? what should the american public do to manifest the very important interest in what the supreme court does that you talked about earlier? >> i think one of the best things that people can do is stay involved in politics, both

at the local level and at the state and national level, especially. and i know one of the ways is we have an election every couple of years where we re-elect folks in the house and a third of the senate just at the national level. i'm sure that representative nadler is all too other ware of that a but we need to elect more progressive folks into office. from there those folks are -- especially the ones in the senate -- are going to be the ones who make decisions, who vote on judges coming through not just for the supreme court, which does get the lion's share of the media attention, but also forethose circuit and appellate-level -- for those circuit and appellate-level judges that come through. right now there is a judge whose nomination has been stalled for a little over seven months. his name is jim havepl.

congressman inhaas has had a hold on him since his nomination came forward. so he's basically stum stuck in -- basically stuck in limbo. it is something that's been bumbling up since the days of ed mees and the reagan ad mrs -- administration, and it's been a planned effort on the right. we don't see that same plan from the folks on the left, and that really is a shame. because if we're not exerting the same pressure on the left, if we can't be bothered to pay attention to care to make phone calls to our members of congress, to write letters to the editor, to work on these issues in our own town with our union groups or with with individuals -- individual women's rights groups or all the different aspects that go into this, if we can't be bothered to do this, then the only voices people inside the beltway are

hearing are loud angry voices from the right. which means we get moderate to right-link leaning candidates and the left wing candidate gets shut out all together. when i was growing up my granny used to medical me the squeaky wheel gets the greece. we need to be the squeaky wheel. pay attention to decision whs they come down. we talked about the ledbetter case. there have been any number of national security cases which have been decided. the five cases snead of being looked at -- cases instead of being looked at by the court were denied which would have been a classic battle between the legislative and executive and -- executive branches, but they declined to take that case. there should be cases they should look at because they deal with civil liberties thank are enumerated in the bill of rights. they are our constitutional

rights. they deal with so many things that impact our daily lives. if we cede the floor on those, and if we don't stand up and make our voices heard, then the only voices they are hearing are the voices from the federal society, and operation rescue and all those right-wing groups who fund raise on outrage that they manage to get from the right wing base. we need to do the same thing. if we are not talking loudly about what we believe in, nobody is going to hear us if we are not doing it. >> thank you, christie. you talk about conservative activist, one of the things justice sotomayor was criticized for was acknowledging something that i believe is self-evident -- that judges make policy.

you talk about some of the other dialogue that was set by the right. how do you combat criticism that is based on something so ludicrous that -- as an assertion that judges make policy. as i said, if judges didn't make policy, all of those conservative guys wouldn't be interested in being on the bench. how do we combat that kind of dialogue? >> that's a tough question. i don't know that -- i think -- i mean, it was even worse than that, because what she said was actually that judges set precedent for lower courts, which is the most banal point you can possibly make about the role of the supreme court and it was turned into an assertion that she was saying that judges make broader social policy which was in context absolutely not what she meant. so it is one off from the point you are actually making. i don't think you can ever --

you know, the confirmation process has bogged down to the point where we're talking about -- just about nothing in them. and it is all focused on the critics of the nominee because that's where the press sees the action, and the critics of the nominee focus on -- they have three cases out of 3,000 that she decided, a few snipets taken out of context against justice sotomayor and all these important issues about what the supreme court has before it, what it's deciding, what the court -- where the constitution points and these profound differences between conservatives and liberals about these real issues get drown out. and one of the things i think was interesting about the hearing was how many democratic senators -- russ feingold, al

frank general, senator spectre -- talked about we need to make this process more informtive. we have to make this about the many very real issues that the court is actually wrestle with and dwage. -- debating. how we get there, senator cole and senator feingold made some suggestion. i don't know that any of them have any real life in the senate process, but it is something that we should all be, as citizens, insisting upon. >> thank you. congressman, doug mentioned earlier that you had been a senator that helped overturn the ledbetter decision. there have only been a few cases where congress skews chooses to overrule a decision made wrongly by the supreme court, and the prospects for getting them passed are always daunting. so is there a role in the future

for these kinds of legislative acts that overrule decisions by the supreme court? is that something the progressive activist community should be focused on? >> it is something the progressive activist community can be focused on, but only where several conditions hold. one where the decision of the supreme court is based on statchtri not constitutional -- statutory not constitutional grounds. the ledbetter decision was a decision interpreting section 7 of the civil rights act and they completely went against not only 40 years of interpretation but the plain meaning of the text, and it was an egregious grab for power. we couldn't pass it the year before. we had a majority in the house, the president signed it, we were able to do it. there are others, we should go through and do others. many of the very bad decisions are going to be constitutionally grounded and that you can't do anything about except for wait for a new supreme court or pass

an constitutional amendment, which given the make-up of the senate these days is almost impossible. so there's one other role for congress, believe it or not. the supreme court has also done something that as -- i as a democrat with a small "d" find very offensive was the bernie decision. i found it offensive because it over turned a law that i helped right. butting that aside, part of the decision said that congress can't do something unless it makes a record that it's reasonable to do and we the court will second guess its reasonableness of it. well, the reasonableness of something is a quintessentially legislative decision. it is not for the court, but

they have made this ruling now. i presided personally over 17 hearings designed to make the record that section 5 of the voting rights act was still necessary. we did this back in 2005, 2006, 2007 -- i shouldn't said i presided. i was the ranking minority of the subcommittee at the time and later became the chairman. we went through thousands of pages of hearings, thousands of pages of testify to make the -- testimony to make the record. we made that record, and yet the court almost overturned it now. so we're going to have to spend a lot of time and record making an effort to defend the attack on the supreme court. the other thing is making a record in a different way. one of the major thrusts of the bush administration, certainly, and one of the major dangers is the aggregation of power in the

executive branch in the name of national security. under war powers the doctrine of the ability of the president, the unitary executive, the ability of the president to do things on his own for national security, we'll hold you in jail forever because you're an enemy combatant, without due process, the torture cases we're getting. we are going to have to be very energetic in pushing back against this. the supreme court by one-pothe vote margins pushed back against the most energetic, most extreme claims. some of these claims go back to overturning magna carta. i mean, 800 years of tradition,

by one vote. it is important to show that it was done. to show the torture. to show the reasoning. to push the administration now, to hold accountable people who violate our laws in the previous administration, the war crimes, all of this. the supreme court exists to a large extent above the political fray but also part of it. it was mr. dooly that said the supreme court follows the election sometimes to a point and we can push back on that. >> thank you. taking off from that, earlier the congressman talked about the notion of originalism and the only thing that matters is what the founders of the constitutio meant, but there is a counter current that says the constitution is a living document and that all of us then have something to say about what it means and what it might mean in the future. what can the general public do, what can the american public do

to try tro frame what that living document means in the future? particularly as we look to a future as issues that were never anticipated, like abortion that was mentioned, but also like gay marriage, that was never anticipated by the founders. what can we do to lay the groundwork for progressive decisions in the future with our constitution? >> well, i think conservatives on the supreme court have long articulated the view of originalism. that you go back to the origin tent of the founders to determine some meaning and application of the law to everyday problems. and i think most of us recognize the founders of that constitution were a very small select elitist set of individuals, if i'm not

mistaken, all white males, to name name one. doug kendall has done an awful lot of thinking and writing about this. we think as a constitution not so much what those individuals thought but in terms of everyday reality of life. and therefore we've seen some amazing decisions come down from the supreme court on privacy, civil rights, some in terms of environmental profed exes -- protections. gun rights is another one that gets caught between originalism and an evolving constitution. but i don't really think -- i mean i think that's the heart of the intellectual debate that goes on around the courts.

but i think the debates are much more at this point a political one. to debate between origin tent and evolving notions of d.c.encey and -- of decency and certainly an underpinning of how wrins -- republicans talk about the court. but i think for us progressives, this is a debate about power. and we have to recognize the fact that in order to control the debate that takes place going forward, that we've got to amass political power and leverage around the court. how many times did we hear republican senators use the term "judicial activists"?

or "we want judges who interpret the law, not make the law"? that's really just a smokescreen for republican attempts to prevent the obama administration from confirming judges who respect constitutional rights and supreme. it is just a smoke screen. but as christy said, it sends an mortgage message out to the right -- important message out to the right-wing base of the republican party that, don't worry. we're there for you. we'll keep these progress siffs off the bench. we'll wait. we'll hold seats open until the time we can get a republican president elected and butt more sam alitos and more john roberts on the federal courts and on the -- put more sam alitos and more

john roberts on the federal courts and on the supreme court. so let's remember thr there's a very intellectual decision going on with the courts and other groups are doing some great work of articulating a different notion of justice. but for all of us in this room, this is a political debate. and as much as we may not like the fact that the confirmation process has been dumbed down over the years, judgeships have been political from the beginning of the republic. even george washington's first nominee to the supreme court was defeated because of a vote he took on the j. treaty. judgeships are designed to be political decisions. that's why we've got a president who nominates and a senate to confirm. so let's all decide once and for

all that we're going to just beat the other guys at this game. >> thank you, nan. those of you in the hall, i invite you to join the discussion. if you would like to, go to a microphone and ask a question. go ahead, sir. >> i have a question. people who follow the general news are not able to understand what goes on in our country. secondly, we have the problem of the basics you're talking about. >> we can't hear you. >> talk closer to the mic, perhaps. >> the first point is that if people follow the regular news in this country, they cannot understand the issues. the news is not dealing with the congressman -- complexity. but on this issue, the basic understanding of what you are talking about is not known in our country, and now in many

states civics is not even taught in high school anymore. we have maybe a generation of people who need to be educated on this. >> that's why people should read firedoglake.com. there are a lot of sources and media sources trying to fill in those gaps. a lot of the media has been shortened down to 30-second soundbites for what everybody has to do. and the longer form discussion or, you know, intelligent debate source of shows that a lot of us grew up on don't exist anymore, although i think bill moyers still does a fantastic job on pbs on saturdayed, but the information is out there, if people dig. that's where we come in. and making sure that people we know in our communities or our

families or friends, know that there are better sources of information and can look for them themselves. that's a good first step. it is not a solution, but at least it is a first step. >> and what about the next generation? we all learn in high school that the judiciary is the third branch of government, but not much more. what should our teachers be teaching high school students and middle school students in order to make them emgauged in this process? >> well, obviously they should teach civics, but they should teach reality, too. and the reality that they should teach is that the courts have played a major role in american government. not just as umpires. to hear the nonsense in this confirmation hearing, the courts are umpires, they just call the balls and strikes, they don't decide things. well, that's absurd. the courts decide very profound issues. the united states is one of the

few places where we have judicial supremacy. the courts decide because they are final, they are supreme, and they decide issues which you can't second-guess them. another branch of government cannot second-guess without extraordinary difficulty. i also think we should teach the history of the court. the questions. the questions of individual liberty. how that has fared. the question of the incorporation of the bill of rights to be binding on the states, not just the federal government. the fact that property rights are elevated at almost times in the history of the republic except for after the -- after 1937 with the new deal, and the warren court, now we seem to be going back in the other direction, and the fact that the supreme court, for most of its history, james burns, one of our best historians just wrote a new book on the history of the supreme court, has a major reactionary bow work except for

a few years after the new deal and the warren court. and the other thing, which comes out nicely in that book and which any student of the court knows but would be useful to point out especially in terms of current debates, things are not foreseeable. f.d.r. placed, i think, nine members of the court -- appointed nine members of the court, destroyed the anti-new deal, anti-government regulation pro-corporation that existed, and every one he put on the court was able to say the government has the ability to pass wage and hour laws to regulate the economy. but then new issues came along. what about laws that came along to make it a crime to be a member of the communist party? what about laws that restrict free speech after the cold war? the f.d.r. went in one direction, black and douglas in another issue, because of unforeseen issues, and you have a completely divided court from what had been uniformly liberal appointees? one thing we should also teach

is new issues come up, and you can't always assume -- we can't even be totally, unfortunately now, we can probably be pretty sure, but you can't be totally sure that 20 years from now the conservatives in the court will all agree on issues that we can't foresee right now. >> i'd put $50 down that they still would be. >> probably. you can't be totally sure. . 1ñ1ñ1ñ1ñ1ñ1ñ1ñ1ñ

>> those amendments more than any other part of the constitution are the heart and soul of the progressive constitution. the framers of those amendments should be on a level of madison, hamilton, the people who are originally wrote the constitution. they are viewed in our history textbooks as drugs and people who did not know what they were thinking about. it >> scalawags. >> we are still learning, but history is now out of the ph.d history books and out of the constitutional historians books, but it has not filtered up to the supreme court and has not filtered down to the high school textbooks. you are right, we have to not just talk here. we have to go into our schools and teach history right if we are going to turn this debate around. >> i want to ask you about how the structure of the legal

profession creates a problem for getting progressives in the court. the with a hiring practice works for the lawyers who are identified at the earliest in their careers as being exceptionally talented, the ones who -- go to the best schools, do very well, a clerk for the best judges and so on, is it very easy for those attorneys to find jobs in the lead corporate side law firms? and actually, almost all of them do. it is very difficult to find a job early in your career and a matter what your resume says. there are just not the volume of jobs there that are available. what this means is that, first, someone could be a democrat in good standing even though they spend their career helping drug companies get immunity from state law or helping cigarette companies get immunity from the verdict that they think are too

large, but if someone spends their career working for a plaintiff's firm or a union firm or a public defender, they might as well as erect a sign over their head that says "communist" when they come up for a confirmation hearing because they have made a very good -- visible decision to not take the path of least resistance and demonstrates their liberal values. at the same time, when john roberts was up for confirmation, no one looked at the fact that he was a partner in a big corporate law firm and said, oh, this is a sign of his values because it is considered perfectly acceptable for a democrat to have that same job and work on those same cases and we do not impute an ideology to them because of that. how is that i framework we can work within? do we need to push lawmakers to hold people who have john roberts resumes, you note to

imputes of the on to them -- you know, to give you something on to them? >> the one other point that was left out -- it was a great question about john roberts. he actually hit his involvement in the federal society from the senate and the rest of the public until some enterprising reporter disclosed that he had long been involved with the workings of the federal society. you're absolutely right,ç thers almost, i think, almost one- fourth of the republican appointed court of appeals judges belong to the federal society, which as you all know is the organization which encourages young, conservative republicans to become judges.

it actually recruit young conservatives for judgeships around the country. and we saw during the clinton years that the individuals that belong to the aclu, the naacp, anyone who had been involved in work against robert bork's confirmation in 1987 was automatically excluded from the list of candidate -- candidates. i am pleased to say that we have submitted a slate of candidates to the white house of individuals who have spent time in public defender's offices, legal services offices, union side law offices. president obama is about to nominate some union side lawyers for some of the influential court of appeals. but let's not kid ourselves.

that is wonderful, but once these nominees hit the send -- the senate, they're going to be attacked based on their record. that is the work that is before all of us, to stand up for them and to ensure that the senators do not get fearful of attacks by the right because those attacks will come. but we have got to push lawyers from many different backgrounds. we have seen eight years of not only members of the federal society ascend to the bench, but also u.s. attorneys, prosecutors, and a large corporate lawyers. at the very least, we ought to have corporate leaders who have demonstrated commitment to public interest causes. they need to have shown in their careers that they have done work

in furtherance of the poror and people living at the margins. i think that is a good point and something that we really ought to work for. >> we see a pattern even with democratic presidents -- when you look at the lower federal courts, federal trial benches, if you look at the state courts, certainly, i can talk about new york. if you look at the state courts, you see people who come from legal aid. you see people who come from da's office is, legal services, all kinds of things. but the moment you get to the federal court, it is corporate law. people who were never involved in local politics or the local bench. the democratic nominees -- i mean, first of all, center schumer, i do not mean to pick him out, but they form review committees to look at the nominees for the courts and the

first thing they want to know is what white shoe law firm were you in? if you were not in a white shoe law firm, then you can be a supreme court -- a state supreme court justice, but you will not be on the federal bench. >> my question sort of comes off of -- i actually do not know his name, but the gentleman who asked the question before me, which is, how do we develop a stable of highly qualified advocates for the progressive movement? the reason i asked this is, 40 years ago, the most supreme -- experienced supreme court advocate were the gc for the naacp and gc for the afl-cio.

now the most experience non- profit attorney is jay secours loew of the american superior court of justice, which is denied jobs for the aclu. there has been a lot of research, identifying experience matters before the supreme court, talking about corporate capture of what they call the supreme court bar. and talking about how the presence of the supreme court bar, whether representing corporate interests or public interest has had an enormous effect on the court in public interest law. when theseç highly experienced advocates, including john roberts when he was an attorney , appeared before the court, they win 51% of the time. which is remarkable considering that the court reverses a lower-

court 55% of the time. my question is, how do we get some of that power that advocates have over the supreme court and bring it into our movement? >> one of the ways that i think liberals especially and progressives really need to do a lot of the work is in infrastructure building, especially in the legal areas. you look at infrastructure that the right -- the right wing started building when they put together the federalist society, when they put together a lot of the legal groups. they put together advocacy groups to back them up. they put together a very strong organization in the college republicans. the actively recruit from college republicans to find people who do media work. the fund media's coverage of to do media training to go that they can appear on tv shows and learn how to do those 15 seconds

sound bites that all of those talking head shows absolutely love. and you see that same thing in the way that recruiting is done for folks who are in law schools. if you are known as a conservative law student who is a member of the federalist society with in your law school, you may get tapped to a special clerkship for one of the more conservative judges. i know several of the judges on the d.c. circuit specifically do a lot of recruiting pretty heavily from the d.c. law schools and from harvard and yale. laura ingram, who is a fairly well-known talk-show host, used to be a clerk for justice clarence thomas. you have seen a lot of that through the years and the infrastructure that underpins that pays for salaries, pays for housing, pays for a lot of stuff for folks who work on magazine internships with, you know, the national review or some of the other organizations involved.

there is no liberal response to that. i mean, there is none. by blog every day. the little bit of money it takes to keep the servers going comes in a lot of times either from advertising revenue or from donations that come in from our readers who are fantastic for the website. i do work on legal issues every single day. we have had -- i know a panel that i did a couple of years ago with chairman conyers, he scolded me for sending far too many phone calls to his office and a couple of weeks before we did the panel because he thought i was just trying to say hello before we did this panel. it was funny, you know, we get a lot of push going on the liberal side, but we do not get -- there may be the myths that george soros funds all of us, but i'm still waiting for that check. that does not happen. and on the right, this case who

are the expert alumni, people in several different groups on the right fund a lot of that. we do not do that. we do not set the infrastructure up to push left-wing judges forward to my lawyers forward. we need to think about ways to do that. -- left-wing judges forward, lawyers for. we need to think about ways to do that. >> conservatives have done everything we have talked about. liberals on the other hand, people who have a lot of money and want to contribute tend to contribute to human services. and that is all for the good, but it means there has not been a lot of money to set up the huge foundations on the left. that is changing in the last few years because we realize the necessity of it. the same thing goes for the judicial area. you've got to find it from those philanthropists.

>> i thank you both for your answers. unfortunately, we only have about four minutes left. i want to give the panelists one minute each to some of what you think the action plan from here should be. >> you know, i think people being more involved is the plan that i would say. call your members of congress. call your senators. one thing i would like to see happen in the next few weeks would be for don johnson's nomination to the office of legal counsel to finally get approved. [applause] she has been held up for far too long and we need to make law, especially progress of law, a priority. -- progressive law, a priority. we need to all the following what the robert court is doing and responding to them directly as their rulings come along. it is kind of hard to do because they do not always roll -- rule

when you expect them to or how you expect them to. but over the next seven or eight years, the roberts court is going to be showing its stripes over the course of rulings. it could come very quickly in the citizens united fund finance case, but we have to look for opportunities. this is what we started doing 40 years ago when they started to pounce on the procedural rulings of the warren court and ban them as an activist and start running campaigns against the warren court. we have got to start doing the same thing with the rulings in the roberts scored. we could see them quickly or overtime. we need to be looking for them and starting to , startingna as,

put these things to work. >> if the -- if we pressure the administration to say, we want to see you liberal, leading judges and the second, we want to see the administration take good, a legal positions. we want to see, for example, the accountability for the torture. [applause] and we want to see that the people who wrote the torture membermemos are not world up for consideration of prosecution. maybe it did have been intent or maybe they did not. but you cannot say automatically that is prosecution of the small fry. these are the kinds of issues that are very important for civil liberties. >> the last word is yours. >> i would agree with everyone. i think we have to pressure harry reid and let him know how important it is to start confirming some of these judges,

as well as christie said, dawn johnsen and other executive positions at the justice department as well. when our senators come home, you know, they get a lot of questions about the health care and the environment and obviously, that is really important. we ought to make sure that any time any of us meet with a senator we talk about judges. they do not hear from us enough. and there ought to be at least one question any time they are home about the appointment -- the importance of appointing strong and progressive judges. and finally, we have all pointed out a lot of this is local. and what the right did very effectively is in communities are around the country recruited candidates for the federal bench and then helped to put together a little campaigns so that they would be selected by the

senators in their states. we have got to do the same. it is a local issue. and we can identify some wonderful judges, but it means that we have got to coalesce around these candidates and work with them so that they are chosen by the bar association and the senate commissions. and we will be there at the national level to try to fend off some of these attacks. we saw more involvement, more engagement, more law professors, more law students so -- support sonia sotomayor than any other supreme court nominee. i know the enthusiasm is there and we have just got to act on it. thank you. >> there you have it, the beginnings of a recipe to turn the supreme court into the supreme lee accountable court. i want to thank all of our participants this afternoon. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> bloggers from across the country are meeting in pittsburgh today. you just saw some of our live coverage of the net rootsç natn conference. coming up, we will have live

coverage at the right online conference, hosted by the americans for prosperity foundation. it is part of a two-day meeting for strategies and techniques for online activism. again, that is at 7:40 p.m. eastern. and put tv begins tonight at 8:00 p.m. on c-span2. tonight is with christopher buckley, author of 14 books including "thank you for smoking." >> british voters are expected to go to the polls in national elections next spring. this began, conservative party leader david cameron on british politics. sunday night, on c-span. >> radio talk-show executive brian jennings on the new fairness doctrine, why is a bad idea, and alternatives to censorship. he is interviewed by radio and television commentator monica crowley on afterwards, part of c-span2's a a a tv weekend.

>> this fall, enter america's highest court from the grand public places to those only accessible by the nine justices. the supreme court, coming the first sunday in october on c- span. >> and now to the net route conference in pittsburgh where progress of on-line activists, loggers and politicians have gathered for four days of panels and discussions. former president bill clinton spoke to the group last night for just under an hour. [applause] applause] thank you. thank you for the warm welcome. thank you, raven brooks, representative miller for that great talk. i was backstage listening. it is funny when he said 47% of

the north carolina republicans do not think president obama was born in america i am glad it is that low. [laughter] thank u for being here, mayor. i just had a visit with the allegheny county executive and i thank him for giving us a convention center that is actually a leed-rated building so you could meet in a place that is doing the right thing. [applause] i apologize for my voice. i have been on too many airplanes for the last few days. [cheers and applause] first, i would like to thank you

for what you do and the contribution you have made to dramatically elevating the level of our public discourse and the base level of knowledge of people who participate in reading all of the things that you put out through the netroots nation. i keep a file with me on economics and a file on energy. i was looking through it the other day and i was stunned of the percentage of articles that i printed out and the cat that came from web sites as opposed to newspapers. i think that one reason is, you can have more authors because you are open and because people have more opportunities and often the full-time staff newspapers due to write one piece a week or two pieces a week and really look in depth into things. so i think you for that.

i also thank you for another thing which i particularly appreciate. if you have an opinion and you are taking a side, whether it is on an issue or an election, you don't have to feel like you are pretending you are not. i appreciate that and think it is very important. [applause] i have had two sessions with bloggers in my office and that found them very helpful. this year between september 22 and 25, right after the g-20 meets here in pittsburgh, we are having the fifth annual global initiative. last year, we had more than 70 there. i hope we will have more than 200 this year. i want to invite you to come and cover it and see what is going on.

because what i tried to do with that, the next logical step, i believe, to the activism that you represent. when i left the white house, i knew that i wanted to continue to work on things that i cared about when i was president, where i could still have an influence. the last phrase is important. the right thing about being a former president is that you can say whatever you want. but nobody cares what you have to say anymore unless your wife becomes the secretary of state, then they only care when you screw up. [applause] hillary and i basically switched roles. when i first met her she was already active in a lot of non- governmental organizations. i just thought politics would be my life. when i became president under

her influence, i began to met with leaders in turkey, africa, south asia, all of these places that i went. i thought that i would like to do that work when i got out. it has changed my perspective a little bit. most of the time when i was in politics, i noticed we debated two questions. what are you going to do and how much money are you going to spend on it? both of those questions are important but i would argue that in the first few decades of this new century, there is a third question which is equally if not more important, which is how do you propose to do it? how do you propose to turn your good intentions into positive changes for people around the world? that is basically what non- governmental groups do. that is the business i am in. the "how" business.

we offer the world's least expensive, high-quality retro virals to 2 million people in 70 countries. [applause] about two-thirds of all of the children that get pediatric medicine. last week after working for years only with the generic drug companies principally in india and south africa, we announced our first big agreement with a large pharmaceutical company, pfizer, the biggest of all, has agreed to work with us to cut the price by 60% of the only drug we know that is affected at treating tubular chlorosis with people who have had aids for a long time. in other cases, all this medicine almost makes the conditions were spread half a million people die from this disease who have aids.

the interactions of the madison and the t.b. medicine is often not good. the fact that they were willing to cut the price 60% will save a couple hundred thousand lives a year within two years. that is answering the how question. we tried to do the same thing in climate change where we are working with 40 cities around the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by retrofitting public housing, or big public buildings, or changing the street lights, or putting in new led streetlights in los angeles, or making ports more efficient, are working on better public transportation. my presidential library is the only ptinum leed building in

the entire system, and that is something you can help on. [applause] i say this to set up the point i want to make now. all this is important, but politics matters, too. it matters whether we get a good congress -- a good climate change bill out of the congress for the president to sign. it matters to get a new agreement, and the one depends on the other. [applause] it matters whether we correct the single most significant efficiency of our economic recovery, which i do believe it is well underway, 9% of the home owners eligible to mortgage relief have gotten it because too many of the people find it more profitable to collect fees for closing on houses and then selling them again. we have to find a way to do that. that matters. [applause]

it matters whether this congress passes a comprehensive health- care reform bill that the president can sign. [cheers and applause] it also matters that notwithstanding the work that i do, it matters a lot, and i can see it already, that we have taken a new approach in our relationships with the rest of the world, offering a hand in partnership wherever possible. it matters. [applause] heathery is concluding a trip to africa now with the only female elected president on the continent in liberia. a couple of days ago, she was in the congo, one of the most

difficult refugee camps in the entire world. i don't know what you think, but i think the american secretary of state should be in the places of human misery around the world. i think they should speak up for rape victims, for women who cannot get an education, make a living, or do these things. i think that is a very important thing. [applause] consistent with the message president obama has delivered in gonna and in the united states, and every other place he has traveled, america wants to share the future. we would like to lead the world in a progressive way but we do not want to dominate it, and we know we can't. we seek a feature of shared prosperity and peace. these things matter, and you can help them happen. now, i would like to offer a few

observations about this. first of all, briefly on the politics. we have entered a new era of progressive politics, which if we do it right, it could last 30 to 40 years. [applause] it is something i have literally spent my entire adult life working for. i was a 20-year-old intern in the united states congress working for my senator who is chairman of the foreign relations committee when the last conservative era started in the midterm elections of 1966, when the democrats suffered terrible losses, and i knew after that it would be very

difficult for us to hold the white house. the people were voting on fear and division, upset about civil rights, women's rights, by saying rights in the street, vietnam, you name it. the republicans developed in that election a message that exploded the resentments and exploded the fears and exploited the divisions. we had a chance to overcome it in 1968, the first election in which i was old enough to vote, because robert kennedy explicitly tried to reach across the divide, but when he was killed we lost our chance and they won. president nixon who was actually a communist compared to most people that came after him in the republican party -- [laughter]

he believed in the affirmative action, he signed a bill creating an environmental protection agency. he still thought arithmetic mattered when you put budgets together. [laughter] he went to china. they were really good at dividing people and building on resentment, the silent majority, and all of that, which was a racial call to signal, really. they went along with that and tell president reagan came along with his unique contribution to this. reagan could tell a story like nobody. he convinced everybody that the government would screw up a two- car parade. trickle-down economics was actually good for poor people and middle-class people, he

said. with those two constraint, the cultural division and a corporative economics, they managed to triple the government debt in 12 years while in comes continued to drop for middle- class people. and then came the second president bush. i will say more about that in a minute. from 68 to 2000, the democrats only won the presidency twice. once because of watergate and president carter won and then when i was elected in the country was in trouble economically. i was reelected partially because the country was changing and part because people believed the government could make people's lives better. in this whole period, the republicans had a bass boat of about 45%, and ours was about

40%, which should tell you all you need to know about why we did not win the white house very much. we either had to be twice as good as they were as politicians or we had to have very bad conditions. all natural elections are determined by three things. the political culture, the conditions of the time, in the quality of the candidates. sometime in my second term, our political basis began to even political basis began to even out. because of the performance but i have to give credit where credit is due. i think the biggest reason because america was moving away from being a biracial nation to being a multi ratio, a multi religious nation, more oriented psychologically to solutions. in 2000, in 1998, the democrats

won the midterm elections for the first time since 1822. thanks in no small measures from some of you in this audience. in 2000, the republicans got close enough to win 5-4 in the supreme court in a decision that i will think will go down as one of the five worst decisions ever handed down by the united states supreme court. [applause] buto give credit where credit is due, president bush ran a terrific campaign in 2000. it was a brilliant slogan, which reflected his guide to understanding that the country had changed, they would not tolerate overt racism any more,

plus he had a good relationship with the latino community in texas, and a fairly progressive stance on immigration at the time. they haven't quite come over to the side that the government should be an integral partner to our future designs. compassion conservatism meant to swing voters, not their base, hey, i will give you everything bill clinton did with a smaller government and a bigger tax cut. wouldn't you like that? but then, after he won, he ran into the old adage that life's greatest curse can be answered prayers because the sense the first time president nixon was elected in 1968 and president reagan added to their message, the american people actually got to see what would happen if they could do what they had been talking about all of this time. they did not like it very much.

in 2002 and two dozen for elections occurred in the shadow of 9/11 could we never replaced the president during an ongoing conflict but the margin of victory was the smallest since 1916. in 2006, the democrats won the congress. just like 40 years earlier, in 1966, it was the canary and a coal mine. i told hillary if we don't nominate a convicted felon, we are going to win in 2008. [laughter] there is nothing they can do about it. so look at what happened in 2008. we had a better candidate. they had terrible conditions. and the culture it was with us. america is a different place today. we don't have time for these divisions over race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything

else. we know we live in an interdependent country and an interdependent world. everybody knows that one major significance election is that he is the first african american president and for people at a certain age, that is a very big deal. it lifts a burden off of the history of the presidency and allows parents to tell their kids that they can live to their dreams. that is important. [applause] but for your purposes, the second element of significance of the obama election may be even more important. particularly for those that are younger, for your future. this was the first presidential election to occur in a country that is self consciously communitarian. that is not always more liberal

on the issues but understanding that we are going to rise or fall together. we don't have time for these phony divisions anymore. we'll have time to pretend that we don't need to care what other countries think of us anymore. we are too diverse and in every other way. for a long time, hawaii was the only state that had no majority race. for the last several years, california has had no majority race unless immigration slowed to nothing, the united states would have no majority race by 2015. . .

in order for them to join, and they have to abandon -- you know, you ought to go to one of those congressional health care meetings. you do really well there. [laughter] i will be glad to talk about that. if you will sit down and let me tell. -- talk, but did you stand up and scream will not be able to talk the other guys love to have the.

-- talk. the other guys would love to have the. here we are. it is a different world. it is not like the 1990's. you could not deliver me any support in congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempts to let gays serve in the military and the media supported them. they raise all kinds of problems. most of you attacked me and says the congress. that is the truth. secondly --it is true. you know, you may have noticed that presidents are not dictators. they were about to vote for the old policy by margins exceeding 80% in the house and exceeding

70% in the senate. they gave test vote to send me a message that they were going to reverse any attempt i made by executive order to force them to accept gays in the military. the public opinion is more strongly in our favor than it was 16 years ago. i have continued to support it. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under may was against lifting gays serve and is now in favor of it. this is a different world. that is the poin and tryt to make. -- the point i am trying to say. when general colin powell came up with this, it was defined while he was chairman much differently than it was implemented. he said it he will accept this,

here is what he will do. we will not pursue anyone. any military members out of uniform will be free to march in gay rights parade, go to political meetings. whatever mailings they get, what ever they do, none will be a basis for dismissal. it turned out to be a broad because of the enormous reaction against it among the middle level officers and down. nobody regrets how this was implemented it anymore than i do. the congress also put that into law by a veto-proof majority. many of your friends voted for that. they believe the explanation about how it would be eliminated. i hated what happened. i regret it. i did not think that the time

and the choice. if i wanted any progress to be made at all. can you believe they spent $400,000 to get rid of a speaker recently? the thing that change may forever on do not ask do not tell was when i learned gay certification below were allowed to risk their lives in the first gulf war, their commanders knew the war gay, as soon as the war was over they kicked them out. that is all i needed to know. that was all anybody need to know that this policy should be changed. [applause] while we are at it, let me say one thing. the reason i signed delma was --

i thought the question about whether gays should mary should be left up to states and religious organizations. if we were attempting to head off to send a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage to the states. if you look at the 11 referendum if you look at the 11 referendum much later in 2004, i nk it is obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the republican congress from sending back. the president doesn't get to be to that. i did not like signing delma and i did not like the constraints that were put on benefits and i have done everything i could. i am proud to say the state department was the first federal

department to restore benefits to gay partners in the obama administration. i think we are going forward in the right direction. all these things illustrate the point i'm trying to make. america has rapidly moved to a different place on a lot of these issues. what we have to decide is what we are going to do about them. the republicans are sitting around reading for the president to fail. one reason people are so hysterical about all this health care meetings is they know they have no chance to beat healthcare unless they can mortify with the rooted fears. why did they know that?

they do not have the filibuster this time. last time all that was necessary -- i offered to write a health care bill with senator dole to do you cannot let the democrats pass any kind of health care or we will be a minority party for a generation they had 45 senators. they got their filibuster. this time there is no 45 senators thanks to a lot of you. there is no filibuster option. there is no option year but to terrify people. let me say a word to about healthcare. reword or two about health care. -- a word or two about healthcare. there are three things that make healthcare really hard.

first of all, it's complexity. anything that complex can be easily misunderstood and this honestly manipulated. it is hard. secondly, and not a step that will make the most difference over the long run is to cause doubt. you saw the cbo giving a body blow to the house. why is that? the only things they can count today are tax increases and medicare and medicaid cuts. they are tangible and hon. things. we know how much money and electronic medical records will save it directly. it is hard to know when those things will materialize. we know that delivery systems

like the guy sing your health plan in eastern pennsylvania which has hundreds of doctors following what the president wants to do has enabled them to offer a guarantee to every in early that if you have any complications with surgery, and the complication with surgery, within 90 days of leaving the hospital and you have to come back, they paid for it not you. it will be no cost to you and no change in your premium. the error rate has dropped to nearly zero because it has gone down and do not have the same kind of inflation that to do elsewhere. if you have a delivery system for doctors are paid for performance not procedure like the mayo clinic, you can get higher quality care that much

more modest costs. the mayo program was cheaper than 70% of the alternatives anywhere in america offering the same kinds of coverage. it is hard. the third problem the president has was articulated by machiavelli in the 15th century. he said there is nothing so difficult in all of human affairs than to change the established order of things. because, i will switch now to clinton's jargon -- because the people who got it are certain of what they will lose in the people who will gain are uncertain of their advance. [applause] if we spend 16% of gdp on health care in canada spends 11%, that means we are spot in all of

competitors a hundred billion dollars a year. if we ensure 84% endanger 100%, where is the money going? follow the money. that is what we are all facing. that is what the president and congress is facing. what should you do about it? if you do nothing for plan is good enough, it is time for you to advocate a public auction. i personally favor that. i always have. i also favor letting people buy into the federal plan because there are 36 different options of the single people who would want a more catastrophic type coverage. there are all kinds of options here. first things first . i do not know how many of you

saw the present town hall meeting. i thought he did a terrific job with it, because he may be essential case. i read a lot of your blogs on healthcare. they basically assume that everybody is reading -- that is reading has is a base level that you do. they start off here and go up. i do. so i like him. the president did an important thing that only a president can do unless everybody is reinforcing its. i would like to suggest that if he did not see what he said, you go back and look at it. even if you want to disagree what is in the house or senate plan, start with what he said. he had a three-point argument. number one, the worst thing of

all is sticking with the status quo. it is a gripping america, making families insecure, and undermining the future of the country. [applause] in but am -- a lot of americans were touched about the man screaming at senator dingle. i have been working at this for 17 years now. i went to 300 towns in america in march through may last year. 300. i did not meet in the disabled children worried about losing their coverage. i'm a disabled children and their parents to a party lost their coverage who did that get in a covered in for worried about whether they are going to double to put food on their table. that is far more important. you have to make the case that the worst thing we can do is the

status quo. you have to figure out the three or four things at 100% will agree on. it has to be in the bill. and the three or four things and none of us wanting a bill that we are being accused of. helping someone draw up a living will is not the same thing as an by the seniors to die. [applause] it is a legitimate thing. in order to save our expenditures, -- when they have their wits about them, there is nothing anti-life or anti- american about when hillary's dad had a stroke, he hung on for a long time. with the first things we did after we went to that experience, both of us, was to make out a living will.

that is not have anything to do with all these crazy charges that are being made. then you can say whatever you want about what is wrong with the senate or house plan. whenever you believe is fine. trying to get the best bill you can is fun. first, we have to win the big arguments. the worst thing to do is nothing. hear the things that everybody wants. hear the things that nobody wants. -- here are the things that everybody wants. here are the things that nobody wants. the president need your help. because need your help. this is really important. i wish many of you would write -- it is not all of the morally right thing to do, it is politically imperative for the democrats to pass a health-care

bill now because one thing we know -- [applause] one thing we know is that if you get out there and do not prevail the victors did to rewrite history. -- get to rewrite history. everybody knows what happened in 1993 and 1994. a bunch of them are just wrong. of the two or three examples. not to go back there. i want to point out what could happen now. we have to preserve this progress of majority. we have to. everybody knows that hillary presented a complicated 1300 page bill which would have broken the backs of the federal statutes. what she should have done was

refused to present a bill and it does have her committee issued a report to congress with recommendations. here is the problem with that account. the bill she presented to account for hundred more pages of federal law that it put in. it reduced the number of pages the federal law devoted to health care. it simplified the system from what it and then was. why do people not know that? the insurance companies got to rewrite history. second thing, we actually pleaded with the chairman of the house ways and means committee to let us send a report with recommendations and have the right to the bill. he said of the court i will not take this up and less to send me a bill. there is not enough base level of knowledge to resist it. we will never get anywhere. this will not happen unless you get a bill. we did as we were required to do

by the congressional order. the point i'm trying to make is if you want to do that again. i do not care how low they drive support with misinformation, the minute the president signed a health care reform bill, approval will go up because americans are inherently optimistic. secondly, within a year when all those bad things they say are going to happen do not happen in the good things to begin to happen, approval will explode. we cannot let people lose their nerves. i am pleading with you, it is ok with me if you want to keep everybody on. a vice is a big you do not agree with, criticize me. try to keep this thing in the

lane of getting something done. we need to pass a bill and move this thing forward. it is imperative. it is so important. it is so important. i feel the same way about climate change. [applause] a.q. dentists, the bill that the house is working on -- if you notice, the bill that the house is working on says it will not reduce emissions. once it will be twice as much as they thought. it was all due to the theme with cap and trade in everything to do with accelerating our movement to efficient buildings, accelerating our movement to efficient electricity generation and closing some of these old coal powered power plants. again i say the same thing.

the president stuck his neck out here. the congress that its neck out. we have to have a bill. will never get china and india to play unless we have a bill. if you want the progress, but look of what really works. -- let's look at what really works. i'm asking for your help having nothing to do with washington. we work with 40 cities on different continents to help them reduce their greenhouse gases. we work with 1100 cities to get them discount clean energy technology. we are trying to retrofit the empire state building to cut emissions 40%. i met to the budget people in puerto rico yesterday you want to make their island energy independence with a clean energy and efficiency. these are things that can be done.

there are a lot of practical things that need to be advanced before we can get there. i will give you one example. this cash for clunkers program has worked great. it has been better than all the mechanisms of reorganizing the auto industry. we ought to put that on steroids when we can sell electric cars and buy them. there ought to be a six month waiting list for every electric car that any company can turn out before the first one is sold. because of the financial incentives. we should advocate it. it would make a huge difference. the other thing i would like to say is, the biggest thing we can do to help the president economically and help our country is to concentrate on the least sexy parts of the climate change debate, efficiency.

the american council of energy efficiency says we can get half the greenhouse gas savings we need by 2015 with only efficiency. mckinsey says if we spend $520 million on energy efficiency we can save almost $1.20 trillion in the lower electric bills. what is the problem? the problem is there is no parallel financing for clean energy in america. if you want to build a coal powered power plant, began finance of over 20 years. 12 building a clear one, 30 years. california has decoupled their rates. a few others have followed suit. california will let the utility finance this. that is the best we need to get

banks to do it. before the banking collapse, i have the agreement of five banks spending a billion dollars on retrofit as long as the savings were guaranteed by energy service companies like honeywell. the consumer paid back only for utility savings. then the bank's collapse. they do not want to do it anymore. let's take taxpayer money and create a small business guarantee fund like the one for the sba and has 10 times as much retrofitting down. that is the kind of thing you need to think about. i do not want to bore you with statistics. let me ask you to think about one thing. the banks of american today $900 billion in uncommitted cash reserves.

that means that tomorrow, in theory, they can make $9 trillion in loans. do you think that would end the recession? think about that. that is their lending capacity. if we could dramatically accelerate the retrofitting of all large public buildings, housing projects, everything with user-friendly systems, we could put more than 1 million people to work. we the lower people's power bills. we could close 22% of markell power power plants -- coal howard power plants. we are not doing it because we have not found user-friendly systems that have parallel financing. this is the kind of stuff i

spend my life working on. i hope that you will think about that. that is the last thing i want to say. i hope i see more blocks sides saying that this is what i want president obama to do. this is what i want congress to do. this is why i think the trades are wrong. here is something you can do, reader, to help solve the problem no matter what is going on in washington, d.c. [applause] i wanted this to last 40 years. i want us to be mindful that sometimes we may have to take less than a full load. in 1992, i ran for president saying that i wanted to have 260,000 young people serve in

america. by the time i left office, a total of 700,000 had. i just went to president obama's bill signing saying there will have 2002 under the thousand people a year -- 220,000 people a year. it is still a great thing for america. we have to be willing to understand that. when i was president, we started having the federal government issue and guaranteed student loans. it saved every student $1,300 in repayment costs for every $10,000 they borrowed. in eight years, the taxpayers pay $4 million to save the students $9 billion. now president obama wants to make that a universal program in america. do i think we should do it? you bet i do. is it worth the 16 years it took? absolutely. the secretary of education is

going to state after state asking them to abolish the limit on charter schools. as long as there are standards and accountability. when i campaigned, every advisor i had said i was crazy as a loon because there is only one charter school in america and their only two states that were authorized. when i left, there 2000. i left money for another thousand. if arne duncan has his way, there'll be 10 or 20,000. was it worth a long time to get it right? you bet it is. you hold the seeds of a genuine revolution in our public life. you do it by mobilizing people and generating emotions and getting people to think. people trust you. even people who do not agree with you, they believe that you believe what you put down.

they do not believe that you budget the facts -- fudged the facts. if you make a mistake, it is a mistake of the head not the heart. they believe they can engage with you in this debate. they believe we can create a great burgeoning american community where we argue these things out. i am not against are doing. we should not pretend that we are all going to may [unintelligible] we should realize that we have been given this staggering responsibilities. i have been waiting 40 years, all my life i worked for a time

when people believed our common humanity was more important than our interesting differences. all my life, i waited for a time when people would in theory believe that we have to search for more win/win solutions and system win/lose solutions. i waited for a time when people with respect and find fascinating all these differences that make america. you are the trustees of this moment. most of you work like crazy to get it. we have to make the most of it. brian miller is living in a state that this pretty evenly divided. this battle is not over. we have big time responsibilities. it is an honor for all of us to be alive and to carry the responsibility. we cannot be in the peanut

gallery. we have to-- we cannot ask the president or congress to do it alone. you have proved this the do you prove did work. do not give up now. for goodness' sake, do not the downtrodden and not get pessimistic. do not lose your energy because things do not work out the way you want. it will not take you 40 years to get the legislation you want. it cannot take 40 years to get america on the right side of global warming. politics better prepare you can help. in the four years of my second second term, w[unintelligible] that is the suspect i am most proud of.

-- the statistic i am most proud of. this matters. this matters. in these four years and the next four years and four years after that, we can go far beyond all of the changes if all of us do what we ought to do. this could be the most exciting time in all of human history. are there dangers, yes. we are assaulting the inequality and instability and on sustainability that the devil of the modern world in america. we have good people and government. they are working hard. they are trying to do the right thing. so are you. allegis all stay in the same boat so we can reap the reward

-- let's just all stay in the same boat so we can read the same reward. thank you. god bless you. [applause] >> at 7:40, we will have live coverage of the rightonline conference organized by the americans for prosperity foundation. tonight, our in-depth interview with christopher buckley, an author of 14 books including "thank you for smoking." >> three days of peace, love, and music. 40 years ago, a half meet -- a half million people gathered for woodstock. co-founder michael lang takes us

behind the scenes at 9:00 p.m. eastern. >> how is c-span funded? >> private benefactors. >> i don't know. >> it is not public funding. >> probably donations. >> i want to say from my tax dollars. >> america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >> and even with the head of the public safety and homeland security bureau at the fcc. jamie barnett speak with reporters in washington for almost 40 minutes.

>> i appreciate you coming. i have been in office now for about three weeks. i think i worked it out to about 17 business days, which is one day for every year that david has been at the commission. that is a tremendous experience on both sides of me. i did think it was a good idea to get together, meet each other, and i will tell you why. i am flank here by one of our deputy bureau chiefs who has tremendous experience and is a point person on a lot of policy issues. then bringing back to the commission, our new deputy bureau chief who has tremendous experience and is one of our

point people on public safety broadband issues. i do not have with me, because they are off working, lisa who continues as a deputy bureau chief. we will take them a bill not later. other people that i am glad to have, tim peterson, our chief of staff just walked in. jim howard, press secretary. we appreciate you being here. we got that tremendous experience and we also have some new, young folks who are working within the bureau. the combination provides an extraordinary opportunity for us, having that experience, new

ideas. i spent some time in the navy. my first job was a communications officer. since then, going through the navy service, including my last job, which prepares -- we had about 30,000 sailors that were specially trained, mostly for grounding. we had about 8000 people in iraq on the ground. it gave me an idea on what it is like to support people on the front lines. working at the pentagon gave me an appreciation of the acquisition of technology and what they can do to further the people who are on the front line. in another life, i was an attorney representing and advising police, fire,

firefighters, some emergency responders, sheriffs, local governments of all sorts. that gave me an appreciation of what they do and what they are up against. public safety and homeland security bureau is a combination of technology and policy to support this first responders. public safety communications in general. our mission is to collaborate with the public safety community, with industry, with all of these things to make sure that we a license, we facilitate, we are able to restore and recover communications when something bad happens. all that is for the american public, including the first responders. before, during, and after we can make sure we have good and

effective communications. the bureau takes the lead in administering the sec's policies on communication issues -- the fcc's policies on communications issues. survivability and security of commercial networks, and 911 services, emergency alerts and warnings. to do our job, we have to be the data-driven, fact-based, and transparent, and that is what the chairman has come in and has impressed upon us. we have great professionals but we need the public safety community, we need industry, and we need all the local jurisdictions. that is one of the reasons why i want to establish this relationship with you because we see that as part of the loop, to be able to talk to your readers

and viewers, to make sure we are getting information out and information back in to build records so we can do the absolute best on the many challenges that facing us right now. in some ways, it is a transformational year. each one of those challenges is a big opportunity to take public safety into new technologies as they become available. the next generation of things can make a big effect for us. we are committed to do it, to reshape the nation, and all of the other things that are before us. i think you will find the bureau open to you. we want to be supportive of your viewers and readers. transparent to the absolute degree that we can. we are interested in new technologies, faster processes, and everything else that can

support public safety in our community. let me mention some of the things that i think our on our plate right now. certainly, when i came here and as i was coming here, the merging broadband issues were high on the list, in making sure we meet the challenge of pushing public safety into broad band. for that reason, i may call on jennifer and david later on to speak about that. absolutely, and as we approached the eighth anniversary of september 11, absolute committed to interrupt ability. -- interoperablability.

david gave me a brief on that to get an update on that status. 911 emergency alerting in all of its aspects is something that will be in the forefront. cyber security is one of the things that i have been working on. i come to the commission directly from a science and technology think tank for policy studies and that was one of the things that they were interested in. that interest in cyber security continues here as we come to the fcc. we will be reaching out to the public safety community, both through your media but also we are going to be going out to the

association of public safety communications officers next weekend in nevada to make sure we have good communications there. we will continue to work with all of our federal partners, which some of you are here. utility services, we appreciate your presence here. our other federal partners, to make sure we are doing the absolute best to work with them for public safety. with that, i would open up to any questions or discussion. i met you all now but if you would not mind rhee identifying yourself and your medium. >> one of the first memos that

the chairman put out right after coming on board, he asked for a top to bottom security type review. have you done that and can you talk about that at all? >> it was one of the very first things, the first week, he put out a memo or a requirement to the entire commission to review emergency preparedness. both our internal ability and capability to respond but also our capability to respond to any type of alert or incident or emergency across the nation. that was in the first 30 days. some places in washington get 60 days. we had 30 days to do that. that was delivered to the chairman on july 30. let me tell you about what went

into that. every office of the commission was involved in that. our capabilities do not just reside in the public safety homeland security bureau. they go all the way across the nation. it was comprehensive. one of our people said they burned the midnight oil. it was a very significant review. when it was delivered to the chairman on june 30, he had questions about it and went through it with us. it is under review in his office now. i feel good about the results of it and i think you'll be hearing from him on that very soon. he commissioned it on june 30 and it was delivered on july 3. >> [inaudible]

>> i think that i would defer to him on that. i feel good about where we are. he focused on things to make us more ready and i think you will hear from him on that. >> you mentioned the 700 mhz. one of the issues right now, pending issues, localities and states, regions, want to build that early. can you give us some sense when the fcc might act on those waivers? will they be likely before the commission looks at the broader issues? >> that is a great question. we have received 12 petitions for waivers, so naturally we understand these jurisdictions

need to move forward as quickly as possible. those are under review right now. we are trying to figure out what the best process to move forward on that in context with all the other things going on including the 700 mhz proceedings and the broad band. i think will be coming out with something on what we are going to do next on that soon. >> there has been some indication that it will be put out for comment this week or next week. is that likely? >> that is one of the options that we are looking at. we are committed to moving forward on the process and we will try to make a decision on what is next very soon. >> how do you approach the d block since taking over this commission? the last commission had some

troubles getting that forwarded. how do you approach that issue and what are your thoughts on it? do you think congress is to help the commission out? >> it has been one of the things that i have been very concerned about, particularly on what has occurred on 700 mhz d block. it is under review right now. we are trying to look at the record to see where we are on that. we are doing all this in context with all of the other things that are going on, including broad band. it is very high on the list. i would say we seem to be devoting 700% of effort, 700 mhz, something that we do every day. anything else that you would say on that?

>> at this point, is it fair to say that all the options are on the table? do you do another auction proved do you petition congress? are all the options on the table? will you make a recommendation to the chairman about what you think -- [unintelligible] is it your expectation that you will be making a recommendation to the chairman? >> you hit on the main thing. right now, we are looking at the options. these folks are doing a great job digging into, everything is on the table. come out with -- come up with wild ideas, innovative things,

the variations on that. what are the various risks? water all the factors that we need to take care of and how does each option play in that? i think the chairman will talk to us about those options and maybe make recommendations. when i say the 700% effort, it is a lot of information going into that right now, side by side with the broad band, too. >> i guess i am confused. will you recommend a course to follow or certain options? how do you handle that ultimately? i am interested in the actor -- in the interaction. >> right now, what we are going

to do is come up with the information. i am sure at some point they will ask for some type of ranking of what the options are and we need to be able to tell them what are the factors, the pros and cons on each one of those. i think it will rise to the top and there are a lot of factors that we are looking at. >> the big problem in the last go around were carriers -- in your analysis, r-utah king with anybody in the private sector -- are you talking with anybody in the private sector who could weigh in on that? corks we are talking to a lot of

folks. -- >> we are talking to a lot of folks. we are actively seeking information on that. the chairman wants us to be proactive to get as much information that we possibly can. we are looking for information from industry, in it -- information from the public safety community, and quite frankly anybody else that has interest or a good idea. anything else? >> as you mentioned, david is the point person on the 700 mhz. the sec basically said you have until october and if you won past that, give us justification on why you need more time. have you gotten that yet?

is there a sense of some of the larger systems and about how many waivers will be given for past october? >> i am going to let david answer that. 800 mhz presents some interesting factors. it has spent an interesting process. 44% companies converted. you might want to mention about the progress with mexico and our border regions as well. >> to answer your question, we have not yet started to get a waiver requests for folks seeking more time passed october. i think there may have been a

few that were filed. i expect we will get still a fairly significant number of requests for permission to extend the time past october. i can say how we are going to address them. in who -- i can't say how we are going to address them. colorado and utah are practically done. there are some other regions that are fairly close, and then there are some other regions that are going to take longer time. that is primarily what we are focused on at this point, not just how much time people are asking for but what are the reasons? we have a pretty good understanding of where people are. we want to continue really push everybody along to move as

quickly as possible but we understand there are variations in what is possible depending on the interim ability relationships. we will take a look at them when they come in and obviously we will need to make sure we have the chairman and the new commissioners engaged in terms of what the path forward should be. >> any time line? >> i can't give you a time line. it has taken longer than we had hoped, obviously. we have had quite detailed discussions with both mexico in conjunction with the state department and with licensees. the good news is that those discussions are really about the technical details about how do

we do this. it is a question of how we do it, not when we do it. we think an agreement with mexico is achievable. >> [inaudible] we don't really know when this is going to be finished? >> we actually have a pretty good idea about when many regions will be finished. when the last region will be finished, and that is our goal, to get everybody done. we are working as hard as we can to move it forward, but no, i cannot give you a date for the last system. >> there have been some really good indications of making progress. an underlying principle going back to paul's question, we are supporting and making sure we

are supporting public safety communications, its reliability and continuity in these regions. we will keep an eye on that going forward. >> national broad band plan has a public safety component to it. are there any other ideas or requests or suggestions floating around out a national plan would incorporate public safety? >> the broad band offers just a tremendous range of capabilities. we absolutely have to pursue that. i think you will find there is an incredible amount of energy that is devoted to this right now. how many workshops to be have going on on broadband right now progress we have well over 20 workshops.

we will be posting very shortly the agenda for the august 25 workshop on broadband. you will see that is very encompassing. it is going to cover issues that were raised in areas such as the next generation 911 for instance, learning issues, cyber security, network survivability, opera ability, reliability. we have had to extend service into more rural areas. it is a pretty far reaching examination. we are looking to come out of these workshops and is encouraging the folks that her interested in the plan especially the public safety committee is to bring us the data. we really need data and fax so we can make sure we have the best plan possible for the

american public. >> an issue was raised yesterday in a letter was the issue of data and modernizing costs. i am just wondering, was that a cancer -- is that a concern at the fcc right now? is that something you all are giving a lot of thought to these days? >> you are talking about boys versus data? >> right. >> we are examining this on the broad band side of it. no decision has been made. a lot of information is coming in. we want more information. that is what we are encouraging. all jurisdictions, we are

encouraging them to give us information on what the factors are so we can build a record. voice and data would be some of the information that we would like to hear about. >> where does eas fit in your priority scheme? when are they going to get -- whenever they going to need to get those new encoders and decoders progress we are pursuing our partnerships with fema. the chairman has established a good report with an administrator. they have talked. we are going over to meet with some of the fema officials. e.a.s. is one of those things

that is very interesting to me personally but very high on our list. with regard to the cap, i know that is still being developed. i am not positive. i can give you a time frame on that. the next generation, i think, will provide some really great capabilities. the ability to zero into the geographic area where the alert the to occur, being able to tell people specifically based on their location what they need to do is a tremendous kick ability and one that we need to pursue with great vigor. anything else? >> [inaudible] >> the timing is dependent on that. >> the broadcasters are worried about that shot clock.

the broadcasters are like, when do we have to put the equipment in? >> the capabilities is the part that excites me. >> >> fema and e.a.s. are still working on the [unintelligible] program. dhs is still working on the federal alert protocol. is there disappointment from the fcc decided knowing that that is not done yet? >> it is the ability to alert to your hand held or wireless

device. next generation e.a.s. is a great capability. as far as a disappointing, all of us want to go as quickly as we can on that. the ability to tell people exactly where they are, what is going on, and what they need to do is a great thing, and it is really the next big step forward. it is certainly one of the things we will be talking to when we go to fema next week. once they come out with the gateway interface specifications, the participating service providers will have like 28 months to test, developed, and get that into place, so we want to encourage and support that process any way that we can. i will certainly be talking to

them about that. >> you mentioned that cyber security. what do you envision is that the fcc possible insider security? >> i don think the sec's role is ever going to be the lead on that. -- i don't think the fcc's role is ever going to be the lead on that. during an attack, their reliability and continuity is maintained, and afterwards, it is restored very quickly and threw out that we have a reliable and effective communications for first responders and emergency workers as fast as we can. we are continue -- we are continuing to evaluate what our roles should be and what our capabilities are.

do we have the right expertise, the right roles, and the right tools on that? it is big across the united states. everybody has a part to play and we want to make sure the fcc is maintaining our part. >> it might be more of -- who do you have to fit in -- what are the other agencies in the government -- are you taking the lead on that? >> dhs, the national communications, the people that work over in cyber security and communications director read in dhs, i have not met with yet -- with d director yet.

establishing that report, working together with him is very important, because i do think it is a support role that we have. it is important because of our relationship to the communications system and the networks. the fcc has always been about networks. >> i realize we ask a lot of detailed questions. since the chairman is not here, i will ask you. >> i will be glad to pass your question along. >> i can wait for him. >> we have pretty good cellphone coverage in this building. >> one of the pending items for the previous administration was the [unintelligible] it is still pending. is there any sense you can give us about the timing of action on

that item which has been pending since last fall. >> idle think i can give you a sense on that other than it has been a matter of discussion in some of the meetings i have been in. when somebody picks up a cell phone and needs to call for help, they have every reason to expect that the emergency workers can find them no matter where they are. there are technological tools that can be used to do that. they need to be continued -- they need to be developed continually. i am not positive that i can give you an idea about when that can be acted on. i will be glad to ask the chairman for you. > let me ask you more of the

general question. why did you want to take this job? coming from a military background, a lot of times people will get another job in the pentagon. why are you interested in coming over to the fcc and doing this? >> i don think the chairman would mind me saying this. i did not seek this job. it sought me. quite frankly, i asked the chairman the same thing. i am not a communications lawyer. i have not done anything with or for the fcc. you might have to ask him that. i will say this. i do think there are parallels, at least, with regard to

readiness and preparedness that i have done in the navy pretty much all of my professional life that may have a direct application what we do here. being ready to respond, prepared ahead of time and the ability to respond to the nation's emergencies, whether here or across the nation, i think is something that he was interested in. this bureau is well suited. we already have a lot of professionals that have great experience in preparedness and response. i fall in with them. hopefully my experience in the baby transfers over directly. >> when you represented localities, on what type of matters? not communication issues? >> not directly but some of those things came up.

i was probably advising cities and counties more on acquisition of systems, some of the rules and procedures. i represented a number of municipalities and counties, and part of that advising them on the policy development, trying to keep them out of court and then representing them when they were in court. some of it was police officers and sheriff's who got sued in defending them in court. that is how i got close to the law-enforcement community. that did not crop up as much with the fire fighters although there were items that would come up on policy where i was advising them on well. >> policy like? >> personnel, emergency response, any of those kind of

things, what their procedure was. >i'd appreciate you being here. i think i still see some doughnuts over there. we need to take care of that. >> i think we need to save them for david. [laughter] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> bloggers are meeting in pittsburgh today. we will have live coverage of the rightonline conference posted -- hosted by the americans for prosperity foundation at 7:40 tonight. tonight, our in-depth interview with christopher buckley, the author of 14 books including " thank you for smoking."

>> british voters are expected to go to the polls next spring in national elections. this weekend, david cameron. british politics, sunday night on c-span. >> radio talk-show executive brian jennings on alternatives to censorship. he is interviewed by monica crowley. >> this fall, enter the home to america's highest court. the supreme court, coming the first sunday in october on c- span. >> now, a health care town hall meeting with howard dean, the former governor, committee

chairman, and commission -- spoke this morning in pittsburgh. this is just over an hour. [applause] >> do you want to start your opening remarks? >> i am really looking forward to this. the people in this room are going to be the most important people in america over the next eight to 10 weeks while we get this thing done. we are seeing extraordinary things being said that are flat out not true. they are maliciously on truth and the only way to counter those is the internet. there has been talk about health care reform. there is only one piece of real reform in this bill for health care. health care reform.

there's only one piece of real reform in this bill for health care. there's a couple of pieces of insurance reform which are worth doing, but the only piece of health care reform that's worth doing left is the public option. the public option -- [applause] >> people say can't there be a compromise. we have already compromised. the public option is the compromise between the single payer and the private sector. we can't go any further. there's nothing else to do here. if you give away the public option, you have no health insurance reform and we ought not to put the next generation into $60 billion worth of debt every single year. just get rid of the bill, do insurance reform, guaranteed community rating and call it a day. we need the public option. if anyone is serious about real choice for the american people, we need the public option and we're not asking to put our stamp of approval on what americans have to do. we're asking this. let the american people reform health care. we know the congress won't do

it. give the american people the opportunity to reform health care. give them the choice. all we're asking is let them have the choice of a public program or a private program and they will reform the american health care system and you have to make sure that they understand, this is a clear vote. this is not a vote between democrats or republicans or conservatives and liberals. this is a vote, 72% of the american people want the choice and 50% of republicans want the choice. this is a vote for whether you're standing up for the insurance companies or standing up for its american people and we're going to track every single one of those 535 votes. thank you law. [applause] >> so governor dean, i work with the teachers union, and we have members all throughout the country, but in texas, for instance, we have members in fort bend texas, some of them are teachers aides and they make $17,000 a year.

we fought for a pay increase, we got only half of what they needed. they do have health care, but the thing is even with the pay increase, because there's a scheduled increase to their health care benefits, that increase is eaten up right by these rising costs, so my question to you is -- and i know there are a lot of very smart people here that know all the ins and outs of health care policy, but for folks like that who are being squeezed, how do we make the plain english argument? they're hearing a lot of misinformation, but how do we make a very plain clear english argument to them? >> you have to control costs. we need to control costs without rationing, which is a no-brainer, because we waste 70% of the -- we spend 70% more than the next most expensive system, which is canada and germany, to there's plenty -- one of the biggest wastes honestly is the return on equity the private insurance companies get, because there's just a tremendous amount of money that goes out of the health care system, so how do you control the cost? one, and doctors and hospitals

in massachusetts just vote today do this, eliminate fee for service medicine. that's not in the bill. that's not in the bill. but most doctors in this country, most primary care doctors would be glad to do that, because we actually get paid less here, primary care doctors get paid less in the united states of america than in great britain, which is one of the bugaboos of the right wing. there are some fundamental reforms, but you can't get to the reforms, unless you have shall more marketing power, which is why the public option is so important. so if the public option takes hold and folks, whether they're in the teacher's union or private sector wor or working fa small business and choose the private option, if that gets home, there will be ways of controlling costs. kaiser is actually a model for this. it's in the non-profit sector. they are the insurance company, the tertiary provider and the primary provider and because they're totally integrated, they

will make investments in prevention because they know they get the savings at the end. but in order to get that kind reform, you can't continue with the current system that we have based solely on private insurance. it doesn't work. it doesn't work. >> so in plain english, it would be like the current system doesn't work. >> the current system will not control costs ever. medicare does a much better job of controlling cost, one because it's more efficient and two, because they have some price control structures that work for them. now, that's now perfect either. medicare has one of about two points above the rate of inflation over the last 30 years. it's just too much. but the private sector has gone up at 2.5 times the rate of in plagues over the last 30 years, which is making working people really suffer, because their health care costs go up higher than their salaries do and therefore they never get an increase and it's making our business community suffer. what we're doing now is madness for our business community, because they're paying for a commodity that goes up 2.5 times

the rate of inflation and we can't compete on china on labor costs, we can't compete with canada, germany and france because testify government-run systems and the community doesn't have to pay for them. >> dr. dean, i have a question from bobby, at i am really, really, really, really angry.com. are you going to seek appointment to the death panel and will there -- is killing my grandma mandatory or will there be an appeal process?@@@@@ @ @ >> you have to understand what is happening in this country. these meetings are not about health care. they're not. [applause] i am not talking about people that ask questions and disagree. i have plenty of people that come to the book signings and

ask questions and they are great. the people that are shouting down there congress people are very angry one, the republicans have been running on anchor for 40 years. anger against the people who are protesting in the vietnam war and so forth. you know, against the people who are protesting the vietnam war and so forth. and karl rove used to talk about polling for anger points and finding them and that's why various minority groups, african-americans, immigrants, gay people, hispanics, have been the target of the republican party over the last eight or so elections. because he polls for anger points and then makes people go to polls because they get angry, so these are the angry people. they're not going to turn their anger offer. secondly, look carefully at who is shouting their congress people down.

they don't look anything like the generation that elected barack obama. barack obama. this election was the first time voted who were under 35 than over 65. that's incredible in politics, which means this is the new generation's president. so this is a group of people who feel incredibly threatened and incredibly angry and of course, the politics of the younger generation is different than the politics of think generation. they're pretty contentious and polarized and it's not and it's important not to stay so polarized for the future of the country. what you see happening is a small group getting smaller and smaller because of the politics and the way they express themselves is less and less attractive than the younger generation who is now in charge of this country and as they get smaller they get angrier and the third thing is that they have a president who they're not accustomed to -- the kind of president they're not accustomed to seeing in the would you say.

and -- in the white house. tough is change in america. i thought about this a lot and my initial reaction was to be mad at all these people who are yelling and screaming. it reminded me a lot of when i signed civil unions, which is the first bill of its kind in the country, and i'll tell you why. you know, i always had a lot of -- i'm actually not as liberal as everybody thinks i am. and i actually had a bill following among sort of moderate people and even republicans and independent business types, not certainly the right wing and people were really angry. i'd go to neighborhoods that i had been popular if before and people would be creaming the f word at me and i had to have police people with me and stuff and it was an extraordinary degree of anger. it wasn't that their marriage would be in trouble because gay people have equal rights. it was the change. it was the idea that they counted on before, a certain set

of things they believed in before they couldn't believe in anymore. that's what's really going on in these meetings and of course our instinct is to say no, that's not really in the bill. i saw arlen specter on television the other fight, somebody said something did the death penalty and he said that's not in the bill and he said yes, yes, it is. in the bill. they don't want to hear what's in the bill or not because this is not about the bill. this is about a major generational change in america, a huge transition. the election of barack obama was an enormous transition. the same kind of transition we had when john f. kennedy was elected in my generation. a new generation taking power in america with a different way of doing things and that is what the real issue is in these meetings. [applause] >> when i asked folks on facebook and twitter and things like that what questions i should ask you governor dean, i got a lot of response from women bloggers and those who blog about universal health care and

reproductive rights. one thing that seemed to come through, is there's some confusion about whether or not women's' access to choice is going to be protected in all these various bills. irrealize we don't know -- i realize we don't know exactly what's in each bill, but tom foley pointed this out and he talked about the language about protecting the access to abortion, planned parenthood mentioned this too, so how do we make sure that women's health care and choice is protected as we move forward in health care reform? >> well, first of all, we're talking about the public option here, because the government doesn't have a right or i don't think this government is going to start talking to health insurance companies about what they can and can't cover. secondly, the way this bill was originally set up, and tears been many iterations of it, but the way it bill was originally set up is the congress is not going to design the benefit

package and it never was. it makes no sense for congress to design the benefit package. the benefit package is going to be designed by a separate panel that will be set up, so the people who have injected this issue into the debate are people who are trying to sidetrack the bill. this was not an issue in the debate, because everybody who was in congress knew that the question of reproductive rights was going to be addressed when the benefit package was designed by an independent panel, presumably appointed by the president or the secretary of h.h.s. more likely. the debate we're now seeing, in my view, ought to be handled not by putting language in to prevent access to reproductive health care, but by letting the panel make that decision. the panel is likely to be a panel of fairly distinguished health care providers, i would guess, and some people in the

other associated industries, what i call the medica medical-industrial complex. i don't think that they are going to break ground, huge new ground in terms of abortion restriction. maybe they will. but i think we're much safer having this issue dealt with in a panel of people who are not politically appointed and politically influenced or influenced by being special interests, than we are of having -- starting to decide which benefits get what, who gets what benefits in the congress of the united states. that's not a debate we need to have in congress. that's a -- that's an actuarial situation and i think it ought to be treated that way. >> when we are working on the health care issue in the early 1990's, in the clinton white house, i remember you were down a lot, you were sort of a point person for the democratic governors on the issue. what do you think is different about today's debate andry

hopeful that we can overcome a lot of the same obstacles that we had then, that are rearing their head. are you hopeful that the politics of it has changed enough that we can get something done? >> i know the politics has changed a lot. it's enormous. we're winning this debate and the reason you know that we're winning the debate is because when folks have to get to the level that they've gotten to now on the other side where they just invent stuff, you know they're desperate. they're absolutely desperate. they're just making things up and they're telling an increasingly smaller group of folks, who are a behaving i would say outside the mainstream usual behavior, what happens when people go to meetings. and again, -- i think actually, i know this is probably not a popular thing to say here, i think the blue dogs have had a very positive influence on the bill, because you need -- you're going to have a bill that's going to apply to all americans, you need to have somebody representing conservatives and moderates. the republicans basically have

refused to engage if any serious discussions about this bill of any kind. somebody has to do it, it might as well be the conservative and moderate wing of the republican party. one thing they have done is what they're doing for small businesses. one of the things the blue dogs have insisted on and i hope this continues as the bill moves through. if you have a small business with a payroll of under half a million dollars, you don't have any requirement to get health insurance for your employees at all. that's basically left up to the government which will supply subsidy based on income and why is that great 70 small business creates 80% of the new jobs. we never do anything for small business in either party, we always talk about it. this would be a huge boost to the small business community, would allow them to compete with bigger businesses and create por jobs. that's a very positive thing. there are a lot of things in this bill that -- there was a few things that blue dogs did i didn't agree with, but mostly that's a positive bill. we're in good shape in this bill. the press never covers substance, you wouldn't know that from reading the papers, but the fact of the matter is

this bill has passed four committees, three in the house and i believe there will be a good bill in the house with a strong public option and one in the senate. dodd has done a nice job, the senate bill is very good. their small business approach is 25 employees or less. i would like to see a million dollar payroll or 50 employer he's on less on the small business side. but i think we're making real progress. i think beer winning this fight. i think after all is said and done, we're going to go back to washington. i actually predict this is going to go past the senate and reck sellation, because i don't think any republicans have any intention as grassley said the other day of supporting this bill under any circumstances. even the ones who would cooperate in a reasonable way are going to get so beat up by their caucus and their base, that they're not going to dare, which is what you saw in des moines the other day, when senator grassley was talking. i think we'll pass the bill, i think it will have a public option, i think we'll use reconciliation in the senate to do it, but i think it's going to be an ugly process.

>> i want to ask a question from the single payer perspective. we have a lot of single payer folks who are here. [applause] >> i had a feeling that would get, you know, and i've gotten a lot of questions on twitter and facebook about why didn't the democrats start with the single payer option and try to move the debate toward the middl sort of as you were suggesting at the beginning. do you think that was a strategic mistake and do you think there's something now? we've got a question from twitter, how can we move the public debate now, so that it -- the public option is more of the centrist option as opposed to the option on the left? >> i do i it is a mistake. i think it was a hangover from the old democratic party. what happened was i think people -- people thought initially, both in the house and the senate leadership in the white house, that somehow single

payer had become a word like liberal, which the framers on the right managed to define in the american lexicon, as a bad word and so they thought that by saying single payer is off the table, they would have a reasonable debate. er we're not going a debate about health care this country anymore. we're having a shouting match and the other side is not interested in health care reform. they just know they have to say they are because franklin has told them so, so the debate is done. they're not interested in debate. and the public option is a very reasonable position, but it is the compromise. it is the compromise position, and without it, there's no -- there's no serious reform can take place, as i said before. looking back on it, there are some things, whether you like the single payer or whether you don't, you have to respect the facts. the facts about a single payer, whether you like the single payer or you don't, is it is more efficient, it only expense about 4% of our money on administration, and the rest is spent on health care, unlike the

private non-profit sector which expense 12% or the for-profit which at best expense 20% on overhead and therefore only 80% and some companies of course take out much more than that. so i think with the single payer should have been on the table from the beginning. i don't think we would have had votes for it in congress but we would have had a better, more comprehensive debate if we had a discussion about 676. >> i wonder if judy just wrote that on your facebook page? mike lux has a question, how can we involve more health care professionals in the debate and actually, i got the same question from mara in massachusetts. she asked me the same thing, because she's actually having doctors tell her, once obama gets his way, like this that and the other is going to fall apart, so the health care progressional themselves, some of them, seem to be against the

public option or are afraid of what this is going to do to the health care. >> i'll telling you about the polling on this which is very interesting. first of all, the american medical association, you could have knocked me over with a feather with this, which i've never been a member of, has endorsed henry waxman's bill. that is like ronald reagan and mikhail gorbachev shaking hands. it's incredible. secondly, over the last 15 years, the health insurance industry has treated both patients and doctors so badly that people prefer the single payer. anecdotally, i am sure that doctors are worried and they say things but as i said before,

most doctors wages in primary care are lower than that are in great britain. doctors are not dumb and they figured this out. they are better off with real health care reform. there are some doctors that react just like everyone else in america, change makes you nervous, but i think that most doctors want change. you should have a single payer. >> i want to ask a follow-up question. i was in oregon recently and i did a panel there with some folks that are here today. there was a great young woman there who might enjoy talking to who is going to medical school. she was talking about the incentives were all on going into specialties. she was worried that for people like herself who wanted to go into general practice the

economic incentives were not their. it was going to take a long time to change that. what do you think that we should be focusing on in terms of health reform that can change that? have you seen things in the different bills that can take us in the right direction in terms of more primary care physicians? primary care physicians. >> interestingly enough, another area where the blue dogs made the bill better in the house. they said you can't use medicare rates and a lot of people reacted negatively to that. medicare rates are one of the things that is making it so impossible to practice primary care. they're too low. in my state, when i was governor, we did guaranteed issued rating and a lot of the insurance companies left, which was great, because they're all the ones you wouldn't want in your state anyway but the ones that stayed are doing a pretty good job and the other thing we did was raid pediatricians medicaid rate i can't matically. why? we got a waiver from the clinton administration to use medicaid

to make health care, middle class entitlement for people up to 18. if you make $66,000, i think it is now, in vermont, everybody under 18 in your family is eligible for health insurance if you pay $480 a year. it's a pretty good deal. so essentially 99% of everybody upped 18 years old in my state is eligible for health insurance. and 96% have it. 3% we can't find to sign up. which actually sometimes happens in european countries as well. so -- but in order to do that, we had to raise pediatricians' reimbursement rates, because they were horribly low under medicaid rates. so theirs thing is to raise reimbursements rates to primary care. secondly, if you want to get more primary care physicians, then you've got to deal with the debt they incur. the reason they go into specialties, not so much for the money, there are doctors who

just go to medical school because they want to make a lot of money, but most of them go because they like patients and like people and want to make the world a better place and if you make it easier for them to go and practice primary care, but not having them have a debt load of $100,000 or $150,000 when they leave, they're more likely to go into primary care. [applause] >> and the 3rd is -- third is we all have to get with the program on primary care. doctors consequence don't always like to hear me say is a qualified, competent, nurse practitioner can do about 65% of this stuff as an internist. so we have to get the medical establishment and the american people used to seeing, a phrase that i hate, called physician extenders, or nurse practitioners, physician assistants. the most important quality of a great nurse practitioner is not how much medicine he or she knows. it's how well they know what they don't know.

in fact, that's the most important quality in a primary care physician is well, is how much up know about what you don't know so that when something really complicated gets in, you can refer it up the chain hand that's the key. so again, physician extenders, so-called. i'm an advocate of allowing nurse practitioners to be able to practice independently from physicians without supervision. especially in rural states, that's very, very important. helping people with their medical school bills so they don't -- if you go into primary care, you don't end up with a huge amount of debt and increasing reimbursement in the primary care track, those are all ways that you can get people into primary care. the last is federally qualified health insurance clinics. they are a mold, they are upgraded. i shouldn't say anything nice about president bush and there's not a lot of nice to say about him, but he did put a lot of money into fqhc's, which is

great and they're now not a poor people's clinic any more. middle people can go and get the kind of health care their accustomed to and that's a good thing in the future for expanding primary care and giving opportunities. some person that's asked the question about the medical school and when her kids should be doctorsest answer is absolutely yes. if you like people and like science and we have this reform bill pass, we can do those things and some of these things that i talked about are in fact in the reform bill. >> well, nothing brings along a bunch of doctors than helping them pay back their debt. some way to involve them in the whole thing. from the audience, linda underwood from new york says, i am a candidate for county legislature, she'd like to know, governor dean, how do i frame the health care debate for a local election? >> two ways to frame it. the first is, who gets to choose, do the american people get to choose what kind of health care they want or so the

congress and the insurance companies, are they going to make that choice for you? do you get to choose whether you have a public program or a private program or is the congress going to do that for you? and i think the answer is we'd like to make that choice ourself. the second way to frame it is, the american people have made it very clear what they want. they want the choice, so are you going to vote for the people who pay your salary or are you going to vote for the people who contribute to your campaign.

you discover this is not for you, you can get out of the public auction and then go sign up for the insurance companies. i think that this will make the insurance companies behave more responsive because people have a choice. right now, the only choice they have is signing up with contracts that they can kick you off if he gets sick. that is not much as security. the problem is that the health insurance co. is not into health insurance, they are into making lots of money. they are an extension of what has been going on in and wall street. [applause] if there was a public auction, it might not be the most perfectly run thing, but it would give incentives for the insurance companies if they want to stay in business to start becoming more consumer friendly. >> one of the least talked-about issues in this whole debate and one of the most important at the

end of the day when people are judging how good a bill this is is the whole issue of affordability. lth insurance, but how to make sure that it's affordable, that there are subsidies for lower income folks. do you have a view as to how to best make this bill affordable for middle income folks as well as the folks at the very low end on the poverty level. >> well, let me say from the outset, before i answer the question, that when i was writing the book, i promised myself, after i got about halfway through it, the only thing i was really going to focus on intensely was the insurance reform that's essential guaranteed issue in community rating and i mean real community rating, not a band of 100%, where you can charge somebody twice as much if they're sick. kind of like in vermont, the only thing you can charge a sick patient is 20% above the bottom rate of a healthy patient and the public health care reform. but i wasn't going to criticize or make a lot of public

suggestions about anything else in the bill, whether it's tax policy and the reason i'm not going to do that is people in congress do have a hard job. no matter what at the do, tier going to make somebody mad at them in an issue like this, it makes them very uncomfortable and it's easy for me to criticize everything they do, since i don't have to cast a vote. so the thing i want to focus on is the most important thing, the tax policy is important, but it's not as important as the public option. the insurance reform is important, but if you do the public option, the insurance companies will have to reform themselves or they will be out of business and they'll make that choice for themselves. so now i'm going to give a theoretical answer to the question, but not one that i would go to war on because i think the public option is so important, and the stakes are so high for that, it's not worth fighting about much else. and that is, that if you really wants to make this cost efficient, we talked about ending fee for service medicine, i think that's going to happen over time because i think the doctors themselves -- the primary care people themselves will realize they'll do better

if they do it and frankly, they don't want to be told that they've got to see patients every six minutes in order to make a certain quota. they don't want to be told and encouraged to do stuff that's not necessary. they'll do it beings but they don't like it. they don't like to practice the way they're practicing either. it's not just the patients that are upset with what's going oranges it's doctors that are upset with the incentive system we have. it's all backwards and encourages them to practice bad medicine and do too many things to people and it's not a good setup. the public option will encourage them to do reforms. drg's were a way of paying inside a global budget how you could deliver health care and once you go in if you're on medicare to the hospital, they can do a whole lot of stuff to you or not so much stuff and they don't get paid much differently except for -- well, i'm not going to get in to that because it's too complicated, so i do think there will be cost controls, the public option will probably lead the way on cost control and they'll force the insurance to do more cost

controls. right now they do cost controls but they do cost controls that are incredibly consumer unfriendly and they also do cost controls because they want to crank up their bottom line to their quarterly reports look good for wall street and that's the wrong way to do cross controls. if they continue to do that. they'll put themselves out of business if we give the american public aecent option. [applause] >> i was emailed a question from gail, who is in d.c. her sister's leukemia is now in recession, largely due to an experimental medical trial that she was a part of. so how would you say we can keep innovation -- medical innovation as a part of this discussion in health care reform? >> this is a complex answer for this. which also may not be as popular among some quarters here as it might be. there is a role for the private

sector in medicine. everybody likes to beat up on the pharmaceutical industry. the pharmaceutical industry only costs about 10% of the total health care budget. they are incredibly innovative. the drugs that put your sister in remission were invented in some pharmaceutical company's lab. we want to keep the extraordinary innovation of the system. there's also another area where there's a lot of innovation. i've beat up on insurance companies i think with good reason. but there are some insurance companies that are better than others, a lot of -- you know, one of the big issues that i talk about if the book also, one of the problems has to do with the whole model and we're all guilty of this. we need to move from an illness model of medicine to a wellness model of medicine in this country. [applause] >> and the government has done some things in this regard, and the insurance industry has done some things in this regard. the very best people who have done the most to move this --

and we haven't made much progress but we're making some but the people who have done the most are a, integrated outfits, like kaiser, or large corporations which are self-insured. when you think about that, if everybody could be in that model, we wouldn't solve the cross probl, but we would solve two other problems. we'd solve the community rating problem. if you went to work for a big company like microsoft or ibm or general electric or someplace like that, you get pretty good insurance coverage, no matter in you're 60 years old with a series of illnesses or 20 years old and you've never been sick a day in your life. so you have community rating an guaranteed issue. you can't lose your insurance unless you lose your job, which, you know, is a big problem, and those are exactly the companies that are doing the best job in terms of encouraging wellness. they do a better job than anybody else in the system.

they start to change the incentives. they get rid of all the crap in the cafeteria that you shouldn't be heat and put in healthy stuff. they often give free health club memberships. some of them unfortunately take attendance to see if you go to the health club or not. which we probably could do without. but because they have control over their health care world and they're responsible for the cost. that's one place where people actual are part of the prevention because they know they will pay the price if they don't. the point in trying to make is that i will take a non ideological approach to this. i think we need a public auction and we should allow people under 65 to have what people over 65 to have that. we should not run away fro