in their churches, other sporting institutions -- all simultaneously. [laughter] i think that is a problem. it creates anxiety. . >> president bush and president obama basically got elected on the same platform and diverted from but in almost the exact same way. ideologically differently, but the exact same way. >> it would be a mistake to narrow a discussion about a possible third-party specifically to the realm of running for president. what you could see is 50

individual little laboratories if you want to fund an intellectual exercise, think about what could have happened if meg wittman of california had run as an independent and had not had to go through the republican primary process where she then became a republican and had to move to a vote right of her opponent. meg is not a perfect candidate but once she did that, it was hard for her to ever get? . t back. especially in these blue states, the republican brand on the west coast is tarnished. it was the one place where this red tied and never hit out there. >> obama is 50% in california. >> someone like a mega whitman of west running for governor, i think there could be responsibilities. >> we should not drop matt's

point. he is positing that we could be japan. if we are a more vibrant country than that and i think we are, if you think that our gross is 4% which is not a great post- recession, if you talk about 4% and a slow drawl of unemployment, i would think the president's does have a better than even chance of getting reelected. we are close to an argument that this has the promise of what do you think america's future is? these are big issues. >> i want to advise you guys to work -- who worked in politics to take a shot at me and and i will let to offend us if

necessary. -- defense doesn't necessary. if you look at the area of forces play out in the election and what we have in washington, those of us in the media, newspapers, television, radio, do you see us as an independent obstacle to achieving results for the american people, pragmatic religious it -- solutions to the country's problems or are we just describing the aspects of the problem that exists in the political system? >> it seems to me that the internet has changed so much and one of the things that has changed most profoundly is how people get their information. it was not that long ago that there were for five major newspapers in the country and they were all newspapers that

treated everything right down the middle and people got up in the morning and read those papers and their local papers -- >> ""the new york times"still does that, by the wide. >> and you can see what they are happening -- what is happening to them on line. the evening news was balanced. >> nbc still does that. [laughter] >> the viewership was or 1/3 of what was 25 years ago and people are increasingly getting news from people and sources that they agree with and the line with their point of view. if you are a republican, you get your news from the fox news channel. if you are a democrat, you get your news from msncb. if you are a young person, you think jon stewart is an evening newscast. [laughter] we have done focus groups with kids in their 20's and they don't read newspapers. they read everything on line and

they go to web sites that line with their point of view. it is not that you are doing a bad job, the mainstream, middle of the road does not have a point of view and it is becoming less relevant. >> without passing judgment on whether the new york times" and the major networks play things right down the middle which i would quibble with, i would basically, agree with the point of the poor for asian about less. marco rubio built up a two-one lead over a popular incumbent governor in his own party in florida without running a single page to television ads. without running a single ad pretty it was a stunning ample of the preparation of the information forces and the ability to communicate to large numbers of voters without doing the traditional things that we think move numbers. it goes to the point that you had all these republicans and

activists and marco created a national movement all without running a single television ad. >> are we and independence of problem? -- are we an independent obstacle to bipartisan progress? >> cable-driven aligned video which is for sure. i am not making a judgment about the major newspapers and a major network news. the cable process is not an obstacle, it is a fact. that is how people are getting their information i would rule out the fact that major stories that are in print journalism impact the way issues and stories play out you cannot have afghanistan -- these are major

issues were the media plays a part on how the public looks at it but also how everyone else lines up. >> how do you plead? >> how do i plead? >> i was thinking guilty or not guilty [laughter] >> i worry about that people are so hungry for something on either side. i wrote a book that consciously tried to come up through the and were made a conscious decision that there is a lot of polemic out there. i can be a reporter but i cannot write polemics. there were people out there did not understand what the tea party was. there is merit to say we can take an objective look. liberals think i'm too objective. we tried and i think we did a

balanced job. i worry that people are not that interested. >> do you think that tea party is bad? >> no. >> i'm just trying to catch you. >> there is a certain amount of content that comes from organizations like the new york times." >> what i think is equally worrisome to me taking off my republican had and political consultant hat and putting my american hat on, the total decimation of state press corps is in state capitals across the country is very alarming for the country. [applause] people on both sides are not --

and not just getting the news the way they used to bait. no-brainer stores are not getting rid many morend that is not good for democracy. >> i want to put one question to the panel before we ask -- answer questions. it strikes me as not totally ridiculous and implausible and it is a description of what might be a path to achieving some of the things that we have talked about that would be good for president obama and for the tea party. it would achieve some progress. i assume that the big systemic legislative programs are not happening in the next two years. it is possible that that is not what obama wants to make the next two years about anyway. instead, obama had long talks about a turn toward deficit reduction after the first two years.

his deficit commission willot have a big system megadeal but ay couldn't you have president that makes legislative compromise with the president on energy, not cap and trade but energy stuff. you then have the president and republicans go about spending cuts and government reform in ways that are not big dollar was that are symbolic and might have the capacity to raise the confidence of the american people that they look at where their dollars are going and being smarter about it. why is that not a recipe for calm down politics for the next few months and a way to make people feel better? >> i think it is a possible

scenario. most of the folks who are identifieds are would welcome that. -- most of the folks who are identified as independents would welcome that. >> it is in the political interest of the president to do it, to take a key to. -- to take the heat out of it. this house is not good for his politics. >> i completely agree. it is in the republican party's best interest to let some of that tension out of the tea party move and are held in two years, it will not be good. >> kate, does that seem reasonable? the next 12 months would be about modest spending reductions.

>> i think that's what people want. are republicans going to make statements on health care like obama did it? will they just want to repeal and make that their issue? >> i don't think he will benefit from any legislative victories at all, the president. i think the thing that he needs to do is figure out the best way to restore faith and confidence in math -- confidence in our system and what is the path forward in that system and how to do that in a bipartisan way. >> is spending cuts the way to do that? >> this is a much bigger deal. if you want to send a signal, from the standpoint of the future of the country, the best

thing that can happen is that he calls up john boehner and says we will have to put all our stuff a side and our economy is in shambles and will have to tell people where the promised land is and tell people how to get there. john banner may say good luck with that pare. his political interest is tied to whether people will have more confidence in the economic system. if they don't elect competence, he can do all sorts of legislative things. but he is dead. >> a little green progress, will trade progress, that does not do it. >> he has to go to 10,000 feet and convince the american public that he is a person that believes in our economic system and we can have some confidence of businesses start to invest again and small businesses feel like they have a partner in washington, not an anime. >> do you agree?

>> communicating a vision rather than doing little things. >> one thing that was so attractive as barack obama as a candidate for president was that he was positive, hopeful, and aspirational about the american future about what we can do and be an become again. but are many people out there who are feeling the economic pressure who wants somebody to stand up and say we can do this and this is out. how. if he can stand with republicans, that would be even better. they can do some things to restore people's confidence. what he needs to do is go up and say that this is where we can go to together and here is how we can do it then he has been able to do it. >> don't let they kumbayas get

out of hand. [laughter] in the end, there are big issues. there's the question of growth is not just rhetoric. democrats wanted to investment and infrastructure and do things. when you come to the election, that issue will be there. you'll also get to the tax increases. do wealthy people pay for deficit reduction? are they part of the pain? that will be a big choice in the election. this is fun in terms of getting there in the right way just as in 1996 with bill clinton. you had a big battle over the welfare state. there is ultimately a big battle. >> the policies of this

president so far has not been wrapped in the same kind of positive aspiration and narrative that he was so good that in the campaign. he needs to get his mojo back and to say that all these policies that the democrats are promoting in all these places where we can meet republicans in the middle are a path to get us to a better place and that is what this will mean for you if you are in ohio or michigan or one of the swing states. the larger narrative has been missing. >> he quickly transition from what people saw as the leader of the country to a leader of his party. people elected a leader of the country, not a leader of a political party. people perceive his decisions that was making whether they were right or wrong, he lost that. >> if you have a question, we

have a little bit of time and we have a microphone. [laughter] >> the american public did repudiate some of the tea party but especially some of the notable ones like sharon angle and joe miller and the comic relief on the east coast and california. some did get in. you've got these cats that are running around and it will be up to the republican leadership top herrd tyhem. better for the democrats to rally their support? >> the tea party is fuelled by a failure in washington.

the greater the perception of failure in washington, the more- you put in the tea party tank. if you are a republican, you think that is great. the danger is that having that the tea party wave come crashing down on every establishment republican. people like warren hatch is looking at a primary challenge in utah. a few years ago, that notion would have been absurd. lindsey graham in south carolina. there will always be that element on the right better just angry. what really feels the tea party move in and david energy was all of the people who were not the ideologues are partisans. they were just angry and those

people need to be spoken to and their issues and concerns need to be addressed or they will be even angrier in two years. >> we have only a few minutes. i will try to limit it to one really wise responded to each question. we will move it around. >> if we look specifically at sells a security or government shutdowns, is there a disconnect between generalities that people talk about and what the specifics of that mean a tax obama wants health care reform. is there a disconnect between health care reform and health care reform this means is increased spending big? >? >> if 80% of people in this country voted who have health insurance, what they wanted, but

published about what they wanted was lower health-care premiums, lower costs, and some expanded access. what they got was higher premiums, increased costs, and there is still a question about what access is available. for the vast majority of the country, they want health care reform that they were delivered something different. people know we need social security. they would come up with a fairly quick solution to health care . anybody under 30 years old does not think they are going to get social security. my kids don't think they will have social security. they think it is broken and we are paying for a system that will never benefit them. there's a disconnect but the dionnect exists because leaders of both political parties many times are not

willing to communicate the harsh truth about what the situation is and how we solve it. that is fundamentally the problem. the public is pretty smart if they are given the right facts and told the truth. on seoul's security, they have not been told the truth by either political party. >> amne, next question parian [applause] >> how to respond to the argument that though nancy pelosi has on popular, she did the right thing? >> democrats can make that argument for the next two years. democratic direct mail producers are happy they canal out the same pace promoting her as they did before the.

>> if a republican leader had done what he was asked to do but was demonized, how do you respond to that? >> those are two separate questions. the political reality is very different from whether she deserves to be made minority leader. >> address that part. paria.n't care >> how did christine o'donnell get 40% in delaware? how did that happen? >> she is not really part of grass roots and kristi noem, was the ultimate proof that this was a grass-roots movement. the people in washington did not want to because they knew she

would will lose the general election. they thought they could win the two southern counties and that was enough to win the primary. there are a certain number of voters who willprocures always vote republican. >> what about the christian right and their agenda? my question is -- but do these folks get rolled over by the tea party? if they willingly signed up? considering the different parties that these two groups bring in terms of social o economic issues, is there a potential for some sort of sub plot playing itself out or the next couple of years as these groups began to struggle for control within the republican party? >> the religious right is alive and well. what happened this election

cycle is the economy washed out everything else. the concern about jobs and economic growth and the related governmental budget deficits and taxes and spending drove every other issue underground. >> my question is about marco rubio and the future of the republican party. he is in english-only, pro immigration controls, if he does not run on one of the big concerns, is that all for show that he happens to have a breakthrough with latinos? >> marco rubio showed how you can run as a conservative republican latino and win a majority of the latino vote in florida. i think he is a classic example

of how a conservative can win latino votes. >> for the record, marco rubio does not support a english-only. he supports english as the official language but not only english-only policies. to 86% of the latino vote in florida -- 56% of the latino vote in florida, we did well. if you look at the data in florida, the most important issues to latino voters were the same issues that were most important to white voters and african american voters and every other voter segment and marco rubio was able to tap into that theme we only have time for one more question. >> it is two questions but what

is >>. is it proper etiquette to collapse after a panelist says somethinyou agree with? [laughter] >> yeah, sure. ." there have been tea party- like groups in the past. historically, how do they end? is that like the for the tea party and their leaders? >> there have been other groups and i compared to the goldwater movement. he was allied with christian conservatives and that became the reagan administration. they tend to get absorbed them of people forget that the beaumont that all to only put barack obama in office was a

minority into debt for movement that started off with a pit bull with was that were way out and i represent a large segment of the population who then became -- who swept bush and republicans out of office. the tea party is not a party. it is a movement of frustrated voters that tea party people seem to speak for. in similar ways that barack obama got put into office because of anti-bush and anti iraq, this is similar but don't always be for the majority but represent the frustrations and anger of them. >> it is appropriate at this time, in answer your first question, to applaud [applause] thank you all again for coming. this concludes our morning session. we will take a brief break for

lunch and we have a limited number of box lunches in the ballroom. please don't go too far and we will convert reconvene at 1:00 p.m. to pick up our afternoon panels. we will see you shortly [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this morning, the ethics here against new york congressman charles rangel got under way with opening statements. this is a live picture from the building on capitol hill. he has been accused of 13 violations of house rules involving alleged financial wrongdoing harming the credibility of congress. a less income tax and disclosure violations and the improper use of government mail service is

involved. congressman rangel made an appearance this morning and ge his opening statement but he stated that he will not be appearing for the duration. the committee is in recess right now for a lunch break and i have said they will resume at 1:00 p.m. eastern. see live coverage of this hearing on c-span 3 where we are also taking your phone calls on the proceedings. congress returns to session today for a lame duck session. both the house and senate gavel in at 2:00. the house will consider 10 bills and later this weekend, a vote is possible on federal telework policy. both bodies will have to deal with federal spending and a number of other issues during this brief section. you could see the senate on c- span 2 and the house here on c- span. >> this week, i look at the future of smart phones. we will talk with qualcomm ceo

tonight on "the communicators." >> provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history available on television, radio, online, and social media networking site and find our content any time through the cspan video library. we take cspan on the road with their digital bus, bringing our resources to your community. this is washington your way, cspan now available in more than 100 million homes of the provided as a public service by cable companies. the new congress comes into session in january and early as elected members will be on capitol hill this week to let leadership for the 100 tel, congress. -- water 12th congress. democrats and republicans are meet separately to march to elect leaders and in dallas, both parties will both saturday. the new north dakota rep

defeated a nine-term democrat. north dakota has only one house seat. unlike ohio which has five new house members. mr. shavitt is a lawyer and teacher. comments by the deputy commander of u.s. central command on u.s. policy in the arab world very the national council on u.s.- arab relations held a, this portion is about half an hour. [applause]

>> as dr. anthony said, i was the first marine commandant at the naval academy. i have been so far the only marine command -- commandants of the naval academy and my navy classmates from the great bicentennial class of 1976 say they will call this the great experiment and we will see where that goes. i would normally get dressed up for a conference like this [laughter] it certainly is worthy of a little bit of polish a morning like to day. i have to apologize to you from the outset that i have to walk straight off the stage to go to the retirement of our great 34th commandants of the marine corps and straight into the command of general jim conaway and are soon to be instituted in general jamaimus. salaam aleiccghem.

it is a pleasure to be with you this morning and discussed the future of u.s.-arab relations. given my current assignment and profession and for personal experiences, i believe there are a few areas of more critical importance to our nation than having a solid understanding of not only where we are but where we see our relationships progressing in the arab region. before i begin, and because the central commander region embraces so much of that portion of the middle east that is home to our our boyfriends, i would like to take a few minutes to describe the u.s. central command and our area of responsibility. centcom is the smallest of the six regional u.s. combatant commands. it is the one with the greatest number of challenges. the region embraces 20 countries from egypt in the west to kazakhstan in the north, pakistan in the east, to yemen

and the waters off somalia in the south. it is an area of more than 4 million square miles, three major economic and geographic points, the suez canal, [inaudible] and the strait of hormuz. there are a number of areas within that portion of the world where central government's strain with very levels of success to extend the rest of their authorities. sometimes it is called under- covered spaces but that is not the issue. is the string of the central government to extend their risk. our region includes 530 million people from at least 22 major ethnic groups to speak 18 major languages and in numeral bull dialects. -- and innumerable dialects.

64% of the known oil reserves and 46% of the known gas reserves, the area is abominably rich in energy resources but desperately poor in fresh water. as countries of the highest per- capita income in the world. one of them was a per-capita income somewhere between 88 and $100,000 per year. others rank in the lowest five and the world with per-capita income of less than $800 per year. regional birthrates are nearly twice what they are in the united states and in 18 of the 20 states in our region, you people between the ages of 15 and 29 constitute over 40% of the population. economic opportunities for many of them are insufficient, often leaving large segments of the population of this region with little economic hope. central command is overseeing

major operations in iraq and afghanistan as well as a theater-wide campaign against al-qaida and its extremist allies. overall, the central commander region remains an area in which the most pressing security challenges include transnational and extremist groups and states that pursue destabilizing actions. that is one of the reasons why we keep very close eye on iran. these other challenges on which we all focus our efforts every day, recognizing that there hard combinations of trans national group cent stakes in some cases in destabilizing actions and protecting those of other states within the region. the nexusf the challenges were sovereign states purport -- support extremist elements, that nexus is of particular concern for us.

that concern is shared in virtually every country in the region. it is shared in the adjacent reasons and certainly in our homeland today. according however, even while we are concerned with these challenges and continue to carry out 12 major military operations, building and during partnerships in the area is a major goal of the central command. helping to increase the capabilities of other nations security forces to address the challenges endemic in the region. nearly 200,000 u.s. military personnel and tens of thousands of american civilians are deployed in this area. conducting mostly multi-lateral operations, these run the gamut from extensive counter- terrorism, counterinsurgency operations with a number of like-minded nations to active counter piracy, countered

narcotics, counter human trafficking operations at sea and on short. just as important, we are engaged in stability and support engagement with the fragile governments. pakistan comes to mind immediately and the tremendous flood that has changed the political dynamic. you may be thinking that this does not sound like the the main of the military. the difference between some of the traditional functions performed by the military and our state department, those traditional activities have in fact narrowed over the past decade. we remain in very close coordination and in cooperation with our state department colleagues in this town but also in the embassies throughout the region. we work very closely with governments while conducting military exercises and for

getting substantial security assistance efforts throughout the region. with such a large number of the century -- potential topics this morning, i would like to discuss the close ties that centcom and the united states enjoy with the area. we want to make sure these divisions remain strong. i would like to offer my support -- my thanks for the aprils/ourthe u.s. dea relations. it has also improved our nation as an understanding of our era brother in the middle east. -- our hour of a brother in the middle east. i served in that area is much in my career but found my life

changed dramatically after might stand in iraq. this time was during the darkest days in the violence in iraq. while we were there, we sought to empower the arab population there and resist the ravages of the al-qaida onslaught. during this time got was personally in motion, traveling throughout the desert along that you phrased in beijing with the sheik send me the meeting with business leaders and doing so not only in many cities in iraq and dubai.an i can tell you that during my time in alanbar, i grew to

respect the people. specifically, i came to admire their resilience, spirituality, and their faith. i came to respect their courage and almost without exception, there uncommon fighting capabilities. i would come away from the experience a changed man, changed for the better. for my exposure and my immersion in the arab culture. that admiration continues today in my current duties. i am completing my 40th year of service in 2011. these will have been the best, most formative experiences of my career. all this colors my dedication to relationships in the region and

relationships with arab states. the arab-u.s. policy makers conference and our house the national council on u.s.-arab relations has posed the question -- our-u.s. relations going where? centcom is not a policy-making antedate. but the command participate in policy formulation but our role is primarily the opera is a civilization of policy. it is here where perhaps on the ground in the arab middle east where part of the answer can be found to wear arab-u.s. relations are headed. there are many and constant challenges, frankly i am personally optimistic. without hesitation, i can tell previous centcom's

commander general petraeus is dedicated to forging the closest possible relations with our arab friends and partners in the region. the many years of service those men have given to the region have led them to the same conclusion --centcom remains committed to the security of our our partners in the area and to military relationships we seek to deepen and improve u.s.-arab relations with virtually every arab state in the middle east. this is not a recent phenomenon. relations have been improving for years under the noted leadership of a succession of centcom commanders. one of them is here with us this morning, general jo hore. he guided this substantial improvement.

we have reinforced a commitment to improve relations with the arab world. sometimes there are formidable challenges, on ball, the military to military relationships reflect commonly shared security goals, aspirations for the region, and reflected growing concern over the rhetoric and actions of iran, a particularly over its nuclear program. pari-u.s. relations have evolved dramatically since the period of operation desert storm, following september 11, 2001 and including regional support of operations enduring and iraqi freedom. operation new dawn in iraq -- in afghanistan, we are in new discussions about the what -- what the u.s. regional posture should look like in the gulf and in the middle east or the long

term. simply put, the u.s. will not depart the region. indeed, we are committed with long-term political and economic stability. we are committed to the sovereignty of our friends prayed we are committed to the free flow of commerce. and energy resources. not just in the region or for the region but for the global economy. our presence over the long term will be an unambiguous emblem o u.s. commitments. to the stability of the region as we discuss america's long- term posture in the middle east. all of these factors, particularly the sovereignty of our friends and their political and economic stability and viability will figure prominently. to give purpose to these close relations and provide for increased capacity and interoperable to with our partners, we have undertaken the

development of a regional security architecture designed to serve as a construct within which our partners may strengthen national and regional defense capabilities. this is done by building networks of systems and activities that enhance regional security and stability. over the past few years, we have worked closely with countries of the arabian peninsula as well as others of our regional partners to develop this constant, this construct for addressing common security challenges. it is important to note at the outset that participation in the regional security and for structure is a sovereign decision of each participant per there are no trees. there are no binding, formal agreements. it is simply common sense steps -- security apparatus put into action. is this is how it works. theoretically, the architecture is a core focus involves detecting and improving our

mutual defense capabilities, a strengthening our by level -- bilateral cooperation, it developing interrupt the national -- interim operational capabilities. practically, the regional security architecture is made up of an average -- an array of major activity spurted one is the early warning system and a growing and increasingly potent integrated air and missile defense network in development with our gulf and regional partners. our nation's efforts have developed several intense. ts. to declare to -- to the -- to deter aggression. to combat violence and extremism and terrorism, counter piracy, and illicit trafficking

including the tragedy of human traffic. to defend lines of communication including economic trade, to secure borders and infrastructure and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and to conduct both the preparation for and if necessary the execution of consequence management. that is a lot of activity. in support of this growing security architecture, many countries in the region actively participate in an extensive array, ground, maritime, aviation, and special operations each designed to respond to different types of known and emerging threats. these bilateral exercises, about 40 per year, are known as a bright star, eagle resolve, hamalan and our

newest one, eagle lion, maintains security inside the country's borders, protect critical infrastructure and create or enhance interest portability with the united states forces and regional military as a joint undertaking, particularly in deterring regional aggression. the partnerships that have evolved from these activities have contributed directly to improving our overall effectiveness in ongoing multilateral operations and security initiatives. ultimately, the net outcome of these efforts has been the establishment and the refinement of mechanisms and capabilities which while valuable in for netting activities in one area such as encountering piracy and smuggling, frequently provide enhanced capabilities and flexibility to address crises in other areas. often the progress made in

general and cooperation for one set of issues will have symbiotic effects elsewhere such as disaster relief capabilities improve the nation's abilities in consequence management. thereby promoting greater individuals and collected capability. in conjunction with the efforts already mentioned, centcom has also worked hard to increase significantly the numbers of personnel from the region attending programs such as the international military education and training program. you know it -- you know a asimet > this promotes foreign military, usually of officers, at u.s. military schools. the befit the program which is ultimately a strategic investment in ideas and people is that it allows us to better understand each other. it increases our friendship and

in crisis, and hence as coordination and interrupt ability. my own view is that this in crease of exposure to our our friends at u.s. schools has been nothing but good for the u.s. military. i believe because of that for the region. we will continue to endeavor to increase the quotas up wherever and however we can. another aspect of the regional security architecture and one that is boosting significantly the individual and collective capabilities of regional hour of the military's is the development of the power operation of centers of excellence which focus u.s. and regional expertise in key capability areas. for example, in special operations, in air warfare, in integrated air and missile defense, in command-and-control

the maritime security and others. it is located and distributed across the region, these centers of excellence, some built and some to be built, are increasingly upping the game with their u.s. partners. our goal will play a vital role in the region and will permit states to come together at an individual or collective level for default -- for training that is a high-quality, cutting edge, and economical. while there are other powerful aspects of regional security orchestra -- architecture. . i have spoken about relationships in cooperation and help the u.s. central command is forging partnerships bilaterally and multi-laterally -- latterly as a means to responding to security challenges and concerns

and threats. as we built the regional security architecture, we have done so mindful of the ancient history of the sovereign and celebrated pride of the arab people and their governments. one lesson we may draw from the tapestry of the sweep of great history of our arab peoples is that when various elements of the region of interactive and work together, the sum has the ball to be far greater than the parts . this is like the effect of the spread of histories -- one of history's great mathematical discoveries, the arab invention of sypha, the invention of zero. we hope the kind of combinations under way today, military to military cooperation, will create further opportunities to

enhance not just the region but the remaining portions of the world. at gatherings such as this, there will be inevitable debates over policy. this region is beset with crises. it has known little piece during much of last century and brazil of in this one. it will be attending in the context for policy by the ancient and contemporary to be blamed for the situation where all fading in this region today. if we're looking for bright lights, if we are seeking examples of cooperation where policy has given birth to encouraging trends, i suggest that the regional security architecture and its component parts is evidence in the direction of u.s.-arab relations today and over the long term. i would like to emphasize that the security effort being pursued by our arab partners are

vessels heading -- facilitating a global environment that enhances and increases confidence among neighbors. it improves deterrence and mutual defense and enhance the security and stability. these are global returns. on the investments of our friends. the u.s. central command is honored to work closely with our arab partners as we address common security challenges and we have done frequently of late. we encourage our arab friends, the arab states of the reason to embrace and help shape the increasingly capable iraqi security forces. much can be done within the context of rsa in conjunction with our partners to bring iraq into this strong security relationship. much remains to be done in the form -- formation of the government in iraq. knowing the iraqi people as i

do, i am optimistic over the long term on how this will turn out. we would encourage our arab friends now to embrace and enhance the iraq security capabilities. such a step would benefit the entire region as we continue to draw down american formations under operations new dawn. i told you were with the smallest of the u.s. combatant commands but with the greatest number of challenges. that is certainly true. i have never seen the bottom of my in box. however, the experience throughout our area, many success stories reflecting close, longstanding relationships dedicated regional partners who are intimately involved in our many efforts to set the strategic state to support our common cause. on behalf of the 200,000 u.s. service members and the tens of

thousands of american civilians serving, i want to thank you for your participation in this important conference. again, thank you for the opportunity to visit with you this morning. [speaking farsi] [applause] >> the u.s. house will have 93 new members when the new congress convenes in january. 84 are republicans, nine are democrats. those members will be on capitol hill this week electing leaders for the 112 congress which begins in january. senators will hold elections tomorrow and house members will vote on wednesday. from georgia, the republican austin scott gude defeated jim marshall. he has been on this state house since 1997 as it is among many

of the members here for or orientation this week. >> look at the future of smart phones this week and federal policy with the qualcomm ceo, paul jacobs. that is tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. videos year's studentcam documentary contest is in full swing your document. three should include more than one point of view along with cspan programming grid of love your video before the deadline of january 22 when a grand prize of $5,000. there is $50,000 in total prices and competition is open to middle and high school students. on how to off load your video, go on line at studentscaom.org. >> i live picture from capitol hill where the house ethics panel is going ahead with the

trial of new york democratic congressman charles rangel. charles rangel has chosen not to be there. he fought -- he informally requested a delay in proceeding so he could get a new lawyer. if that request was denied such proceedings have continued. there are 13 charges called alleged income tax and financial disclosure violations and the improper use of government mail services and letterhead. mr. riegle said he would not attend any more of the proceedings without a lawyer esent. you can see the committee hearing room in the longworth health office brianne carter the committee is taking a lunch break right now and is expected to resume a couple of minutes. when they return, you can see the proceedings on c-span 3. congress returns at 2:00 eastern today for a lame duck session. the senate will work on food safety legislation this week and you can see the senate on c-span

2 and the house has 10 bills and resolutions today. later in the week, members plan on working on a bill setting a tlecommuting policy for federal workers. >> "washington journal" continues. paul cain is with "the washington post". what is on the agenda? guest: one thing that was not on the agenda was the fire arm for freshman orientation. i am still waiting to hear exactly what happened. basically they are coming back now with a big, full plate of agenda. still deciding what to do about the bush era tax cuts. they have an unemployment insurance benefit expired. those are for people who had the limit, 12 months been the usual limit. those expire november 30. they might havto tackle that.

they also have the jury may have to come up with something to fund the federal government. that could probably be handled the week after thanksgiving. but that is still a major issue. they can't figure out whether to fund it for a few months or just punted for an entire year. that is just the big issues. they're a lot ofmall ones underneath. there also leadership elections that you talked about. an ethics tria for charlie rangel. and a couple of key internal party caucus of votes about things like earmarks, what to do about that, some committee chairmanships. there are just lots of big issues of taba in terms ofaxes and spending and then just sort of politically underneath they really have to figure out what to do, but each of -- each of

these caucuses. host: we were just talking about the issue of transparency. is this some been the public needs to watch and see and know about? guest: know. -- no. senate leadership election will be on tuesday. there is no suspense there. both the house, senate republicans and senate democrats reelecting their top leaders without any challenge. on wednesday, the house does it. these are always done within their own caucuses, behind closed doors, several speeches are given, nominating speeches by a friend, mitch mcconnell, for instance, to reelected, will have john cornyn speaking on his behalf. those are never open to the public. the ballots themselves are then secret balts, too. so, if it is a close race it has

always been suspicions about different people who sort of promise you, sure, i will vote for you for minority leader and then under secret ballot they vote the other way. hearing push back about speaker nancy pelosi become a minority leader for democrats? guest:hat is probably the biest political issue this week we are going to see. there are a lot of rank and file democrats that look at the losses, and they just think somebody -- in a sports metaphor way, they look at it as a and a sports team that performed that badly would fire their manager, probably their general manager, everybody would probably get canned. some of these guys are looking at these results saying we are going to reelect the same exact leadership team. they are kind of a little bit befuddled. but nobody has stepped up. nobody is challenging her right

now. she is a very powerful figure. she always starts with a base of 30-35 votes from the california democratic delegation. it is easily the foundation makes getting to the majority much easier for h than anyone else. as of now, no. there is not a challenge. there is consternation, frustration. host: on the republican side we know john boehner is likely to be the presumptive speaker. the front page of "buff -- "the christian science monitor pair caught a story about him leading the gop to a historic victo. a profile of him in the magazine and all of this week. but there has been discussion whether or not there should be a tea party candidate in th leadership ranks. where are they on that?

guest: there is always a sort of -- there is always a question of whether or not there should be competion for the sake of competition or whether there should be, you know, either end of the caucuses want to be sort of ideologically pure, and both have somebody to vote for who is different. the reality is with boehner, he is in a very strong position right now within the republican conference. if somebody ran as a tea par candidate for leader, they might get 10 or 50 votes. but they are going -- 10 of 15 votes but they will have 240 or so voting. he will be easily reelected. the big tea party issue, i think, is going to be earmarks debate within the senate republican conference. jim demint is pushing that. i think you can have a real internal battle.

the battle lines are drawn between jim demint and mitch mcconnell. i think that is where sort of the conservative activist steve farr -- tea party folks will put the issue -- efforts and. it could be earmarked issue? guest: yes. there will be a motion by jim demint tomrow in the republican organizing meeting. kind of like a nonbinding resolution. the reality of it, what happens when -- you know, it might pass. it might -- might take 24 votes. they will have 46 people voting. if it passes, it is sort of unclear whether or not it is really binding because harry reid and senate democrats plan on continuing doing their marks. we may be in a weird situation in which senate democrats are the only four of the party

caucuses that go with ear marks. you could have everybody in congress who secretly wants an earmarked for their home town go to their senate democrats saying can you do me a favor. just don't put my name on it. host: what do you expect from this meeting between the white house and democrats and republicans on the bush era tax cuts? guest: thursday the president was going to have both chambers leaderships, bipartisan leadersh, down to the white house, their first meeng since the mid terms two weeks ago. it is unclear right now what the white house wants to do, whether they want to draw out a confrontation a bit longer or if they want to settle on a deal. obama heads overseas thursday night. i think we will get a sense by thursday morning whether they are looking to get a quick deal for continued the in in and

fighting. host: we will go to phone calls. ann on the republican line from oklahoma. caller: yes. i didn't think it had to be directly on that subject. you mentioned a few minutes ago about the treaty with russia. i don't know if you are familiar -- this is a brilliant man with an audience of millions. he said it to the senate and the congress, spoke to them about a week or two ago and said be very careful of any treaties you sign. and this is extremely important. we don't have great confidence in the present making -- president making treaties. he gave away the tan russian spies. more popular but being popular in the world than safety -- more popular in the world than safety.

host: that is an issue possibly with the lame-duck congress. they could bring this up. henry clinton, secretary of state -- hillary clinton, secretary of state, saying to act on this. guest: the numbers are different because it is a treaty. so it requires a two-thirds majority in the senate. they need 67 votes. if they are going to get this passed, it is probably easier to do now while you still have a senate with 59 democrats, most of whom would presumably be for this. then you still have some of the older, retiring senators, republican-- voinovich, judd gregg, who might be open to supporting this. they will be pretty close to

having two-thirds. it is a big, massive, international arms treaty. the time it takes to handle that, as well as dealing with tax cuts, dealing with unemployment insurance benefits, and a few of the other things, including defense authorization bill which has the don't ask- don't tell issue, no one is sure if they have enough time to take up of the start treaty and give it its full time it would require. it mayet squeezed out just on the timeline. host: how long are they in session for? guest: they would like this to be in essentially two weeks. in now, break on friday, go home for thanksgiving, come back a week after thanksgiving and stay just one week. it is possible, if they do decide to take up the start treaty or defense authorization

bill in the senate, it is possible we could stretch this out a little bit longer. they do not want to be here christmas eve the way they were last year at 7:00 a.m. casting votes on health care. ask- it includes a don't don't tell issue a well. guest: that is the big hang up right now. for almost 50 years, the defense bill, this is the policy bill that outlined various policy prescriptions for the military. it is and always-pass bill. it usually passes with a huge bipartisan support. but it has the don't ask-don't tell banned in it might not -- lifting the ban right now. and that has created political problems. john mccain has not been supportive of that. it made it a very complicated issue. in addition, because it is such a b bill, it usually takes two weeks of time on the senate support to offer all the various

amendments. again, time constructions are going to make that a dicey bill. host: jenny is aemocrat from louisville, ky. caller: how are you today? host: doing well. caller: i have a couple of questions or comments, okay? first of all, i can understand congress, it takes them so long. they spend time arguing and it takes them so long to try to make a decision on everything. i think until some of these things are worked out through the lame duck, i one more comment. they talk about -- everybody knows how much congress makes, okay? so i think they should do something to them, just like they are doing for the people

who reive social security who worked all their life. i thinkhey should either cut there. host: another caller called in previously and ask about those checks to social security, $250. social security participants are not going to get a cost-of- living adjustment, and some are looking for that. could that come up in a lame duck? guest: anything that could be viewed by republicans, conservatives as a new spending program would be very difficult to get through. even a lot of the democrats who lost who still have to vote on

the hill, i do not think they want their last bill to be a spending -- something that is ridiculed as a spending plan. that is one of the issues. how to stimulate the economy without driving up the deficit. those are usually two things that tend to go hand in hand in regular times. if there is a downturn, congress has primed the pump, but many feel that there has been too much spending and they are driving up the debt. host: wisconsin. matt, independent line. caller: i hope republicans and

democrats can come together and get the economy going, no matter what it takes. host: specifically, are you hoping for tax cuts? caller: probably. a little bit of both. the middle class and the rich will be happy, but i do not know how they can do that. guest: the last two callers have addressed this issue about bipartisanship and comedy. mitch mcconnell and christopher dodd, coming from different perspectives, have both said the same thing. one of the things that drove up partisanship was that the

margins were so big for democrats. the democrats began every piece of legislation thinking, they just need to get 60 votes in the senate. they just need to find that one, two republicans. republicans were not big operators with democrats. democrats will come back and say that is part of the problem. but both mcconnell and dodd say that the mindset will be different. people will begin to work, knowing, democrats will know that they need seven republicans. the reality is, if you can get seven, you can probably get 17, 20.

that might be pie in the sky in this era that we live in, but that is what we a hoping for. host: dennis in arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. my question is, why every time there is a spending cut or something else, it is the little guy who gets iran did? people are on social security. -- guy gets rear ended? these big banks, fannie mae, freddie mac, if they would take the money that is being wasted by the administration and put it ba into social security, which

was supposed to be a trust fund to start with until the government got a hold of i we would not have a problem. this over $2 trillion health care bill needs to be repealed. host: were you flowing the headlines when the debt commission came out with their proposal to reduce the debt, proposed raising the age and ans testing for benefits? what did you think of that? caller: there was blood shooting out of my eyes. why is it always the little guy whis rear ended? host: we will leave it there. e issue of the deficit proposal.

the report that we saw last week started the debate. the report from the full committee comes out december 1. is this congress going to act on that? guest: that is going to be a difficult issue for them. it will be such a broad, sweeping plan when they are talking about 20 in with social security atll. it always creates tension on capitol hill. -- about toying with social security at all. the amount of time they want to devote to this puts a lot of pressure on them. i find it difficult to tace something this sleeping. i think the deficit, tax cuts,

tax hikes, they need to figure out that matrix in order to bring down spending. i do not think they are there yet. host: you will be on capitol hill to cover the charlie rangel ethics hearing. what do you expect? guest: it will be weird and crazy. charlie rangel is always entertaining. he does not have a legal team, unless he got one over the weekend. he has not been in the courtroom as a lawyer since the mid- 1950s's, and he will be defending himself. my understanding is he will give an opening statement. if at any time chiang -- charlie rangel talks, it will be interesting.

i do not know if he will be questioning witnesses, doing the full defense. we are not clear on how that will go, but he will be up there defending himself, really fighting for his legacy. he has been here for 40 years. he wants his chance to get his side of the case out. the deck is pretty strongly stacked against him right now. he wants this viewed in context. these were minor infractions, not something major and criminal. host: could he be impeached? do they not go to that level? guest: congressman gene green told me and a couple of reporters in july and that their recommendation was something called a reprimand.

it is a lower level of punishment that only requires the full house to vote and say yes, he has been reprimanded. he would still be able to vote in congress, he would still be able to collect his pension when he resigns, whenever that is, but he does not want to accept that rebuke. he does not want to accept anything that makes him look corrupt. host: what do yoknow about the prosecution? guest: it will be made up of staff lawyers who have done the real nuts and bolts in the investigation. blake chisholm is the staff director of the house committee. he will basically be the lead prosecutor. host: the hearing begins at 9:00

a.m. this morning. paul kane, will this go hours, days? guest: we think it will go a couple of days. the house ethics committee operates under the ally of secrecy. this is a case that deals with home in the dominican republic, 12 years of financial disclosure forms and how they were not filed properly, assets that were not disclosed. ever issues about fundraising for the city college of new york and a wind that they were going to name for charlie rangel. this discussion could take a

few days. then the committee will go into deliberations and go through each of the 13 counts against him and vote on him. if they found him -- find him guilty of the violations, then it goes to the full ethics committee, which has to figure out the sanction. host: phone call from bill. tidewater, virginia. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to comment on bipartisanship. the president needs to understand -- just look at the coverage from the veterans day where they were accusing him of being awol while he was on business with the country. talking about this health care bill, it is a health care

insurance company bill. a friend of mine went to the hospital. she was having symptoms of a stroke. but she was conscious. they sat her down in the admissions room and a guarded asking her questions about health insurce, who would be paying for her stay. her insurance card was in her car. her friend had to run out to the car to get that stuff. in the meantime, she passes out on the floor. that was the only way that they would help her. host: trying to repeal health care. when do you expect that to come up? guest: republicans have decided they would like to build the case for health care repeal.

they do not want to rush a bill to the floor in early january and have this vote. the phrase that john boehner used was "lay the foundation, build the framework" for this. it could take several months. they want to move these things through committee. you could have several committees considering it. you could be looking at deep in the spring time before they bring this up. host: a tweet -- guest: i think the health care plan that congress gets will stay intact. we have not heard a lot from speaker to be boehner. host: next phone call.

brenda in california. caller: i have been a democrat my whole life. i went to bat for president obama. he went on to make comments on mexican radio that american citizens were their enemy. i talked to a lot of seniors across the country like myself who felt the same way, it was the american citizen that put him in office. feshe beces -- if he stil that strongly out it, he should go to mexico and the the president. host: next phone call. caller: regarding the congressional agend the are a couple of things that must happen.

they must pass the bush tax cuts. one of the things in my background, things that i have heard on c-span, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. this is also happening in england. i am republican. i tend to want tax cuts too good to everybody but there is a feeling ithe back of my mind -- what is going on here? i have heard people comment, particularly on the recommendations of the new budget report committee, that it is very much in favor of the rich. that is one thing in the back of my mind. guest: i spoke to chuck

schumer after the election and asked him about the downfall of the democrats. he said that they lost touch with the middle class. in such tough economic times, they were pushing an agenda that was helping 30 million uninsured people, clean energy issues over here. he felt they did not have a broad enough agenda that was covering everybody, at least not the middle class. his line was, in times like this, people will choose no government over a government that will help somebody else. some of the other callers have

hit on this theme, the government is helping this person, that person, and not themselves. that is what the republicans will be trying to do. finding an agenda that cuts across the entire middle class, base, so they do not feel like they are giving in to a specific interest group. host: patricia from cleveland. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to talk about the economy. the president only had two years to get the economy back up and going. infrastructure would be a great thing. second, everyone in washington, don't they know that some people need insurance? they have taken away insurance. republicans only want to see democrats fail.

host: we are going to leave it there. >guest: infrastructure issues. weave covered shorts and a year, gov. bloomberg, and others who are retiring but they have a group together that is pushing infrastructure. they believe we can cut infrastructure pretty quickly if the government spent money on bridges, highways, rail. rendell told me he wants a to under $50 a year program -- that that is what he believes obama and the democrats coulshould pu. this is part of what they're trying to get through, between stimulating the economy and getting people back to work, but doing it in a way where it does

not send the deficit soaring. infrastructure is one of those key areas that obama has talked about. he has talked about creating an infrastructure bank. host: lafayette, louisiana. you are next. caller: you have a marvelous program. keep up the good work. there was a woman who called ahead of me and asked the very question that i wanted to. all this cutting that congress wants to do from people w need help, why is john boehner going to get a raise when he gets to office? will all the other members of congress give themselves a raise while they cut the pay of the regular people? guest: i had not thought about that, but he does get a raise

the way the salaries are structured. the speaker of the house is the person in congress. it is close to $230,00 what no one has asked h about this, whether hwill take the raise or not. we do not have any formal details yet, but one thing he could be proposing is slashing the costs for each committee. we will see how big of a cut he proposes. there are some longtime staff who are concerned about this. he feels that is one thing they can do to show that they are

taking this seriously and shrinking their budget. host: omaha, nebraska. linda. caller: this is a problem that is a couple of years in congress where everything is unfounded, it involves the 100% disabled veteran. because of that, the of the day awarded an amount for this. insurance premiums have all been rended over those 30 years and taxed to me at single rate. the court ruled for two different types of entitlements, that they cannot offset each other. the three generals wives who were all over 55, they had

their insurance premium taking care of, so now they have two different eitlements. but now they expect me to remarry because of the over 55 rule to get the insurance premium that the nearly every month. host: do you have a question? caller: what is the difference between being underfunded and legally right to pay? the court ruled something legal but they are using the unfunded theory. guest: i cannot speak directly to her case. theiggest issue, in terms of unfunded that we will see in the weeks ahead is the unfunded mandate that so frequently is

the bane of many governors where ngress passes something and creates a new program but basill forces states to pay a large share. lamar alexander of tennessee is offering a resolution tomorrow in the senate meeting, and as official policy, republicans would not pay for any unfunded mandates. there is a long way to go before we can see it in practice but it is an issue that republicans are bringing up. host: dairy in michigan. you are on the air. caller: i have a question on social security. i understand something like 00,000 a year and abo you do

not need to pay social security taxes, is that correct? host: i think we lost him. sioux city, iowa. caller: i am a little bit perturbed that congress gets a raise. big businesses get a raise. why are you declining our social security increases when we have paid io it for so many years? host: it sounds like this could be a big issue for seniors who came out to vote for a republican. if republicans vote no on this,

it could come back to haunt them. guest: it is a real concern. the callers are definitel showing that. i do not know that democrats have the will right now to push something like that, but it could create a real backlash among low-income elderly, back to a democrac side. it will be something we have to watch. host: paul kane >> a live look inside the hearing room or the trial on charlie rangel began earlier today.

congressman rangel is the former chair of house ways and means committee and appeared this morning without legal counsel and essentially refuse to take part in the proceedings. this committee has set aside 10 hours of time to make the defense, but it's possible the trial will wrap up fairly quickly. committee members spent 80 minutes going to the case, and it could make a final decision very soon. you can see the trial this afternoon. of live coverage on c-span3. -- live coverage on c-span3. congress returns for a lame-duck session today. it will double in about 20 minutes from now. it will consider 10 bills. the senate will start the day with general speeches. both bodies will have to deal with federal spending and a number of other issues during this brief session. you can see house right here on c-span.

>> this week, a look at the future of smart phones, the demand on the wireless spectrum, and several policy with paul jacobs. >> see what people are watching on the c-span video library with the most recent videos, most watched videos, and a share. it is right on our home page. you could click on the 2010 analysis coverage. and while 21, when you want. >> the new congress begins in january. newly elected members will be on capitol hill this week electing leadership for the 112th congress. the senate democrats and republicans will meet separately tomorrow to elect leaders in the house. both parties will vote wednesday. coming from michigan, wahlberg is returning to washington after defeating the first term

democrat. he will represent south eastern michigan. also, eastern detroit is sending hansen clarke to capitol hill. mr. clark talk to washington journal this morning about what she hopes to accomplish or the next two years. >> "washington journal" continues. host: hanson clarke was elected in early november to represent the 13th district, democrat in michigan. welcome to the table. guest: great to be your and great to be here on the backdrop of the u.s. capitol. host: what is your impression so far? guest: i can see why members of congress are caught up in the washington culture. we are giving -- we are given though first-rate treatment.

i have to keep in mind my job here. the public is very angry because they did not feel that congress was looking out for their best interest, that congress and of the assailant-spending money bailey of banks that foreclosed -- that congress ended up spending money bailing out banks that foreclosed many homes. insurance companies like a ig many times but overcharged save drivers or home may have been overcharged on the rates because they may work a blue- collar job. host: "the ways of washington" is the headline in the politico. what specifically do you take

issue with that was inappropriate? guest: nothing that is inappropriate. it is the fact, though, that if you are not grounded in your job, which is to serve the taxpayers and citizens, you may start to think that what the lobbyists tell you is actually the truth, that you are a part of a privileged class. that is the problem. i reviewed the preamble of the declaration of independence to get this job. it talks about those rights, those god-given, inalienable rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. but even more important, it talks about how those rights are preserved and honored. the government works to the people, not politicians. many people run for office so that they can be served by the public.

we had a system there that we were playing politics as opposed to serving the taxpayer and employers would not put up with it, so they located elsewhere. host: later this week you will vote on who represents the leadership in your party in the house. do you agree or disagree? guest: no, not at all. the leadership does not represent the entire country. i believe miss pelosi has done a

solid job leading the caucus, but i'm here to represent metro detroit. the leadership does not affect the agenda. it is really the public that should. we as the representatives must carry that out here. host: how you plan to do that? guest: by being grounded, listening to people, acting on their concerns, and frankly, not getting involved with all of the lobbyists who fear of people away from serving the public. -- who of the year people away from serving the public. i lost my family in detroit and everything ialued in life. that has kept me very grounded. i was able to get a job created by an act of congress 30 years ago through the comprehensive

employment and training act. but most importantly, it gave me the self-confidence i needed to know that i could serve my community because that job assigned me to a local high school working with truant teens. i know that some of our viewers right now, this sounds so basic and elementary, but it is the point. in order for a representative democracy to work, we have to have people that served the taxpayers and citizens, not this culture in washington. host: that sounds like transparency in washington. how can this congress be more transparent? do you plan to be more transparent in your meetings, with your colleagues, etc.? guest: transparency is the minimum foundation. we have to be committed to the taxpayers and citizens.

when i talked to people in metro detroit, they want basic things. they want a safe neighborhood, a decent job. employers want to be able to borrow money so they can hire people and expand businesses. folks want not only a good income, but they want to get out of debt. it was held paying off their mortgage -- they want help paying off their mortgage and student loans. the washington culture complicates everything with all of the wheeling and dealing and payoffs for the financial services institutions. that is what makes it complicated. the important thing is for people like me who are hired by people to save focus by focusing on people. this culture can be very intoxicating, you know, the dinners, the meals, the kinds of accolades that you received.

many members believe they are part of a privileged class. it is a culture in washington that has been magnified in detroit. that is why people hired me, because they wanted to get rid of that old arabic culture. -- arrogant culture. host: do you want to return the money? guest: the area that i represent, we do not have enough of our tax dollars returned back to the people in ways that will effectively help them. the problem is, these pet projects really help just one single institution as opposed to the broader public. the defense -- depends on how

you define the remarks. host: in this article -- guest: no, that is not true. it is bailing out the financial institutions that are the largest contributors to congress. we could have achieved the same result in stabilizing our home values and our national economy if we get people in their homes longer, allowed them not to be evicted, but negotiate better with their lender as opposed to only bailing out the financial institutions. that is not really the point. as we all know, the bulk of our tax dollars go to several key areas, social security, health care, defense. and right after that, the interest payment on our debt.

we have to reduce our debt. that is the only way that, i believe, weekend strengthen our position globally. we need to free up the money instead of just paying the money to pay the interest on the debt. host: the shourd obama compromise the push-era of tax cuts -- should obama compromise the bush era tax cuts? guest: a believe we need to pay down the debt so that we can invest it in what we need here. otherwise, we reward people -- i think it is important to reward people who take risks on investments. i can see why we would keep the cuts on capital gains. it is money that creates jobs, and also a good job training.

host: hanson clarke is a new face to washington, elected to represent the detroit metro area. wisconsin, go ahead. caller: you mentioned the constitution. what about government being for the people, of the people, and by the people? host: and what does that mean to you? caller: i think we have been forgotten. guest: i completely agree with you. this government is set up for one group -- one purpose and that is to serve as, the citizens and taxpayers. not these guys that are handing objects in washington and try to cater to the egos of the members of congress. i totally agree with you. host: next call from michigan,

democratic line, go ahead. caller: i was born and raised in detroit. mr. hanson need to tell the truth. no one -- and no one invest in detroit because it is predominantly black. guest: i disagree. racism, yes, we have had a history of racism in this country. my mother was an african- american. but we have had our own politicians take the people for granted. it really does not have to do with race. i'm here to serve the people that hired me and i will work for the collective good of all the taxpayers in that region. host: independent, dave in north

carolina, go ahead. caller: i have a couple of questions about the situation going on with the health care bill and honesty and transparency. when thing that will begin to come up is the doctors fix, which is the 22% increase in medicare payments to doctors, that was already signed into law. i'm sure that is going to be overlooked and eliminated. that is what any fun -- everybody says, anyway. decrease inut 11% signin salary for doctors. the other one is the prescription drugs that are made here in america and are sold at cheaper in canada. i watched a whole hearing on c-

span about that. guest: he is raising two important points. regarding the position payments, the caller is referring to the sustainable growth formula, which for physicians is not really sustainable. the reform law has a panel involved set up there that could unfairly reduce those reimbursement payments to physicians. here is why that is important. i want physicians to be adequately reimbursed, especially those that practice in our rural areas and inner cities because we want to relocate there. i think we need to look at entitlement programs holistic we and our we need to redesign the structure. and not do it in a piecemeal way, which the current health care reform law could be focusing on. regarding the prescription drug issue, that is a reflection of

the political power of the disk -- the prescription drug lobby. i will not allow that to influence me. host: here is an issue from one of our twitters in here. guest: the caller alludes to a very important issue. if we want to attract jobs to the city of detroit, we need to improve the quality of life. if an employer wants a safe area to relocate, we need to do this. one of the best way is to strengthen our schools. i have are the spoken to the mayor of detroit, about a model to expand school hours through the day and the weekend and get through the school year so that we can keep our used off the streets. much of the crime is committed

by a our youth. if we can have after-school programs and extended days, that will help. we can coordinate the city operations with the public and private sector to keep those >> congress returns today for a lame-duck session. the house and senate will dabble in in a couple of minutes at 2:00 eastern. -- will gavel in in a couple of minutes at 2:00 eastern. both bodies will deal with federal spending and a number of other issues during this brief session. you can see the house here on c-

span. this morning the ethics trial against charlie rangel got under way with opening statements. he has been accused of 13 violations of wrongdoing. among the charges, alleged income tax and financial disclosure violations and the improper use of government mail service. congressman rangel made an appearance this morning, but has stated he will not be at the hearing for the operation. right now the committee is in a break for lunch and will resume shortly. when they do, you can see live coverage on c-span3 where we are also agreed to be taking your calls on the proceedings. >> this week, a look at the future of smart phones, at the demand on the wireless spectrum and federal policy was paul jacobs, ceo of qualcomm. >> to seize the networks provide coverage of politics, public

affairs, non-fiction books and american history. it is all available to your television, radio, on line in search of media networking sites. find our content anytime 3 c- span video library. bringing in resources to your community, it is washington your way, at the c-span networks. now available in more than 1 million homes. amembers of the 112 congress, which starts in january and a year in washington this week to elect leadership for the next couple of years. the senate meets tomorrow in a separate party meeting. house members meet on wednesday. freshman members are also a share for orientation sessions. among them is jeff denim. he takes the seat of george jordana bridge. he is an allman the farmer who

also owns an agricultural packing company. also coming from california, carol bass. she is taking the seat of diane watson who is retiring. -- also coming from california, karen bass. the house returns today from the election. recess for a lame-duck session. new numbers will start orientation process and in other parts of the capital. today members will take up fiscal year 2011 justice department spending as a suspension bill. also on today's agenda, a simple fly international adoption laws and adjustment to time status of a non-armed services abroad. now the house on c-span. .

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] dd the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., november 15, 2010. i hereby appoint the honorable jesse l. jackson jr. to act as speaker pro tempore on this

day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin. chaplain coughlin: lord god, you are the beginning and the end. the same yesterday, today and forever. be with all the members in the final weeks of this 111th congress. knowing your faithful presence to all creation, may they graciously enter into this end time with resignation and helpful resolve. as the colors of autumn fade, lord, we are quite aware the trees themselves are planting seeds for future growth. increased moisture and the blanket of fallen leaves will create an atmosphere that

incubates fragile nature until another season bursts forth with the surprise of new life. may debate with congress lead to lasting truth and compromise unite all the elements necessary for a peaceful transition into the next cycle of history. amidst the clamor of rhetoric, your word stands still in judgment. in the broken and the fallen, your compassion abounds. because you are the source of life and love both now and forever. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from

the virgin islands, mrs. christensen. mrs. christensen: please join me in the pledge. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives , madam, pursuant to the permission granted in 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on september 30, 2010, at 11:14 a.m., that the senate passed with amendments h.r. 1061. that the senate passed with an amendment, h.r. 1722. that the senate passed senate 685, senate 3794. that the senate agreed to

senate concurrent resolution 52, senate concurrent resolution 72, senate concurrent resolution 74. that the senate passed senate 2847. with best wishes i am. signed sincerely, lorraine c. miller, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, pursuant to the permission granted in 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on september 30, 2010 at 11:13 a.m., that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 6200, h.r. 4543, h.r. 5341, h.r. 5390, h.r. 5450. house concurrent resolution 319. with best wishes i am. signed sincerely, lorraine c. miller, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore:

pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1, the following bills were signed by the speaker on september 30, 2010. the clerk: h.r. 946, h.r. 2701, h.r. 3219, h.r. 3940, h.r. 4543, h.r. 5341, h.r. 5390, h.r. 5450, h.r. 6200, senate 3397, senate 3729. and the speaker signed on friday, october 1, 2010 h.r. 3619. senate 1510, senate 3196, senate 3751, senate 3802. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives

that i have received -- that i have been served a subpoena for documents issued by the court of commence leaves, claremont county, ohio, after consultation with counsel, i will make the determination to require by rule 8. signed, jean schmidt, member of congress. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the u.s. rules of the house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena issued by the california superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed sincerely, bill george, press secretary. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant

to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed sincerelyly, rocky deal, district director. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. i have consulting with the office of general could you be i have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed, sincerely, kathryn jean art, district court manager.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i have determined that the compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the house. signed, sincerely, danielle, consistent services director. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determination to require by rule 8.

signed sincerely, bill george, press secretary. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determination required by rule 8. signed sincerely, rocky deal, district director. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determination required by rule 8. signed sincerely, norman gonzalez, community outreach director. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives,

madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives thai have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel, i will make the determinations required by rule 8. signed sincerely, charles roth, branch field representative. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determination required by rule 8. signed sincerely, danielle constantina, services director. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of

representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel, i will make the determinations required by rule 8. signed, kathryn jean art, director manager. the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally to foteify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives that i have received a criminal trial subpoena for witness testimony issued by the state of california, placer county superior court. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determinations required by rule 8. signed sincerely, amera fowler, casework assistant. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the

house of representatives that i have been served with a subpoena for deposition testimony and documents issued by the court of stark county, ohio, now pending before that court. after consultation with the office of general counsel i will make the determinations required by rule 8. signed sincerely, kathy defazio, district caseworker. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the speaker pro tempore: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, this is to formally notify you pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives that i have received a subpoena for documents issued by the united states district court of the southern district of texas. after consulting with the office of general counsel i will make the determinations required by rule 8. signed sincerely, ted poe, member of congress. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise?

>> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent -- h.r. 3808 is laid before the house on this legislative day, then after the made is read, objections is spread at large upon the journal. further veto message shall be postponed until the legislative day of wednesday, november 17, 2010, and that on that legislative day the house shall proceed to the constitutional question of reconsideration and dispose of such question without intervening message. without intervening motion. the speaker pro tempe: is there objection? objection so ordered. mr. scott: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the

speaker, house of representatives, madam, pursuant to the permission granted in cuse 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, i have the honor to transmit h.r. 3808, the interstate recognition of notarization act of 2010 and a memorandum of disapproval thereon received from the white house on october 8, 2010, at 12:55 p.m. with best wishes i am. signed sincerely, lorraine c. miller, clerk of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will read the message. the clerk: it is necessary to have further deliberations about the possible unintended impact with h.r. 3808. the interstate recognition of notarizations act of 2010 on consumer protections, including those for mortgages, before the bill can be finalized. accordingly, i am withholding my approval of this bill, the pocket veto case, 279 u.s. 1929. the authors of this bill no doubt have the best intentions in mind when trying to improve

impedement to interstate commerce. my administration will work with them and other leaders in congress to explore the best ways to achieve this goal going forward. to leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed in addition to withholding my signature, i am returning h.r. 3808 to the clerk of the house of representatives along with this memorandum of disapproval. signed, barack obama, the white house, october 8, 2010. the speaker pro tempore: the the speaker pro tempore: the veto message and the bill will be printed as a house document. pursuant to the order of the house of today further consideration of the veto message and the bill are postponed until the ledge day wednesday, november 17, 2010 and on that day the house shall proceed to the constitutional question of reconsideration and dispose of such question without intervening motion. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlelady from the virgin islands seek recognition? mrs. christensen: to address the

house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. mrs. christensen: thank you, mr. speaker. the national media ignored it so i wanted the nation to know the devastating floods that occur in the u.s. virgin islands in the last few weeks. first there were the dangerous mudslides caused by earl and otto that trapped residents and undermined the foundation of homes in st. john, but even worse were last week's rain, remnants of tomas, which caused flooding that overcame bridges and drinnage systems and in a matter of hours stranding residents, flooding offices and schools, and designating the west end of st. croix. police risked their own lives to save individuals. the floods claimed the life of one st. croix woman. our heartfelt condolences are sent to her family and friends. thanks to all who assisted in the search for rita, rescue of our residents, and emergency cleanup.

today damage assessments begin but we need a disaster declaration because of the cost which will be in millions. i ask my colleagues to support to prepare the damage and meet the needs of my community in the wake of this disaster. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. poe: request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. poe: mr. speaker, my district's in hurricane alley, since i have been elected to congress we have had five hurricanes, katrina, rita, um berto, gus to have, and ike. hurricane season is over in southeast texas, but hurricane season came late this year to d.c. as i predicted in september, the fall forecast in washington was for gale force winds. sure enough a hurricane hit d.c. on november 2. we warned them, we told them all about the hurricane warning signs, we even gave them an evacuation plan, stop spending trillions of taxpayer dollars. say no to nationalized health

care, stop the government takeover of everything that moves, stop the taxes and quit borrowing money from the chinese, and most importantly listen to the american people. but they didn't listen. and the hurricane named after the american people blew through now and it was a category five with 63 electoral casualties. the elites and the big n the -- sown the wind. ng the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? the gentleman will suspend. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. conyers: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. conyers: thank you. i wanted to welcome judge poe back after the hurricane that he predicted. and there's nothing more gracious than starting off a session with an i told you so

lecture. so i'm going to be remembering everything that the gentleman said and try to take it to heart as much as i can. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. burgess: i ask permission to rise and address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. burgess: i thank the speaker for the recognition. mr. speaker, as we have heard a new congress was elected two weeks ago. but now the american people are anxious because the old congress is back in town to finish the unfinished business and to be sure there are some things that need to be taken care of, but what remains of this congress must be careful not to overstep its bounds. we staw what happened with the passage of a deeply, deeply unpopular health care law. that repeal vote needs to come quickly in the next congress and quite honestly it can't come quickly enough. as long as we are here, as long

as we are here doing the people's business, how about if we exercise some of that famous congressional oversight and ask some of the heads of the federal agencies to come into the relevant committees and talk about what their plans for implementation of these rules in the health care law. what about these new federal agencies being created even as we speak with new office space being rented and personnel being hired? what about these waivers that over the last 2 1/2 weeks have snowballed out of the white house? and what about the health exchanges that even now our state legislatures are being asked to create. oversight was eliminated by the last congress. it will not be overlooked by the next. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i ask permission to address the house for one minute, revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, after a year of having their request for job creation policies fall on deaf ears, the american people have not only spoken they have

been finally heard. when it came to job creation, the american people made it perfectly clear they are no longer willing to play the waiting game. for 15 straight months over 14 million citizens have been without jobs. despite these dismal numbers, liberal leaders in congress continue to push for more strangling regulations and more government spending. i believe this is a new day. with a new way forward. including extending tax cuts and passing tax relief for all americans while providing the incentives to business to create jobs. it is now time to get the economy rolling, get people back to work, and get rid of washington's run away spending. in conclusion, god bless our troops, we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. best wishes to a speedy recovery to specialist joseph deloach and specialist jeremiah ashley, wounded warriors and american heroes whom i visited today receiving world class care at the walter reed army medical center. >> for what purpose does the

gentleman from minnesota seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, americans donate their time and resources to charitable organizations not only because of their again rossity but because they know that these actions will help enchance our communities, improve opportunities for our children, and create higher standards of living for our neighbors. as our economy continues to stagnate, we need to do all that we can to help these charities to provide services for communities all over this country. that's why today i want to remind my colleagues that january is fast approaching and that meeps the largest tax increases in american history are around the corner. with the traditional season of giving well under way, tax uncertainty is causing individual and corporate charitable donors to think twice before opening their wallets. and that's in turn hurting many charities across this country in their greatest time of need. it's time this congress take action and address this issue on behalf of all americans. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: are there further one-minute requests? pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further today on motions to suspend the rules or on which the vote is objected to under clause 6 of rule 20. record votes on postponed questions taken after 6:00 p.m. today. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. conyers: thank you, mr. speaker. i move to suspend the rules and pass house resolution 1712. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 1712, resolution providing for consideration of the bill, h.r. 5566, and the senate amendments thereto. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you.

mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as muchime as he may consume. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, and members, start off this part of our session with this resolution that provides that the house concur in the senate amendments to h.r. 5566 with an amendment. with this resolution we are adopting nearly all of the senate's amendments to our house-passed bill, addressing the very important subject of animal crush videos. i emphasize that the reason this resolution doesn't adopt the senate passed bill in its entirety is due to concerns that criminalizing attempts and conspiracies in this area

creates a serious constitutional concern about prior restraint of speech. as chair of the judiciary committee, i owe myself open to the discussion or inquiries of any member of the house about the constitutional aspect of the remark i just made. we need to remember that the history of this bill is thus, the prior law that we passed was struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court. and that's why we are here doing it again. we think we've got it right this time. as a strong supporter of this bill, and of the law, i have tried to make sure that we pass a constitutional bill to stop

crush videos, we need a law that stays on the books, and that's what this resolution will do. the underlying subject is one that we discussed previously and in summary there is a market for videotapes and still photographs depicting typically small animals being slowly crushed to death. don't ask me about the psychiatric makeup of people in our society that go in for this sort of thing, but it's, unfortunately, a reality. now, we adopted a bill in 1999 which became a law intended to ban the creation, sale, and possession of the depiction of

such acts. it became known as crush videos. but in april the supreme court in the united states versus stevens invalidated the statute. the court held that the law was overbroad and violated the constitution's first amendment. the chairman of the subcommittee on crime, chairman bobby scott of virginia, held a hearing in may and heard from some good witnesses who all agreed that a narrower legislative approach would be constitutional and survive court challenges. the bill then we passed was narrower than the original law.

the most important difference is that the bill would only prohibit the sale of crush videos that are obscene. this would likely address the key flaw in the original statute because obscenity is outside the protections of the first amendment to the constitution. in september the senate took up h.r. 5566 and amended it. the senate version also used the same approach than we did to such obscene depictions. the only difference is that the senate bill prohibits the creation of crush videos which i believe is acceptable because it includes an interstate commerce retirement.

-- requirement. however that provision and the prohibitions on distributing crush videos domestically or outside the united states include prohibitions on attempts and conspiracies which would in effect impose punishment equal to that from a completed offense. this is particularly problematic with respect to the creation of expressive materials no matter how little redeeming value that they may have. we should not enact a prohibition on activity or discussions about creating materials which as yet not completed may or may not turn out to be obscene. justice potter stewart explained the problem with describing when

something is obscene in jacob ellis vs. ohio by saying, i know it when i see it. . until an image is completed there is no way it is obscene. once completed then it can be prosecuted as such. therefore, the version of the bill before the house today adopts every change that the senate proposed except the part concerning attempts and conspiracies. the bill we passed was a strong and constitutional measure addressing the problem of crush videos and the bill now before us is no less effective with these changes. and so i urge the support of the bill and i particularly

commend a member of the judiciary committee, elton gallegly, and my colleague from michigan, gary peters, who both have worked in an effort to enact legislation addressing the problem. and so i will reserve the balance of my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. poe: mr. speaker, this legislation provides for consideration of legislation to prohibit the creation and sale of so-called animal crush videos. these videos depict small animals being slowly crushed to death by using their bear feet or wearing high heels. the f.b.i., the u.s. department of education and the u.s. department of justice consider animal cruelty to be one of the early warning signs of potential violence by use. all 50 states and the district

of columbia have laws banning acts of animal cruelty such as these portrayed in those videos. however, animal crush videos often do not reveal the identity of those involved making it difficult for states to prosecute the purpose traitors for the underlying animal cruelty. federal legislation is necessary to address the interstate sale and distribution of these videos which is often beyond the reach of many states. federal penalties will serve as an additional deterrent to those who engage in this behavior. h.r. 5566, the animal crush video prohibition act of 2010, responds to the supreme court's recent decision in u.s. vs. stevens which invalidated the federal animal cruelty staff tude 18 u.s.c. section 48. originally enacted in 1999 with broad bipartisan support, the statute attempted to address animal cruelty, including crush

videos. the law was successful in virtually eliminating the market for those videos. in light of the supreme court's decision, however, the animal crush video industry has re-emerged. h.r. 5566, sponsored by mr. gallegly and mr. peters, responds to the stevens' decision by criminalizing only animal crush video. the bill limits this criminal offense to obscene video. the supreme court says this is a category of unprotected speech under the first amendment. the legislation also specifically owe mitts customary and normal veterinary videos and any desixth of slaughtering and hunting for food. with this added safeguard for hunters i support this legislation. this congress passed this vote by 416-3 on july 31 of this year. in september, the senate approved a revised bill to expand the prohibition to

include the creation and noncommercial distribution of animal crush videos, including those videos created overseas but distributed in the united states. today, we have the opportunity to send the bill to the president's desk and put an end to the revised animal crush industry. unfortunately, this resolution does not do that. instead, it removes any culpability for those who attempt to make those videos. so sending the bill back to the senate today we guarantee the animal crush legislation probably will not be completed by this congress, and that animal crush market will continue to grow with little fear of prosecution. it's my hope this outstanding issue can be resolved quickly, however, so that our efforts to curb the proliferation of animal crush videos in this congress will be successful. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and

include extraneous material on house resolution 1712. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. conyers: and now i would like to yield to our distinguished colleague from oregon, earl blumenauer, for as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. blumenauer: thank you. thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this, and i appreciate the expeditious work of the committee bringing this legislation forward. mr. conyers: will the gentleman yield to me for one moment? mr. blumenauer: yes. mr. conyers: i just want to congratulate judge poe on his comments about the bill, agree with him. but let's keep hope alive that the other body will be more -- that they will not fail us at this moment with so few days

left. thank you for yielding to me. mr. blumenauer: reclaiming my time. i appreciate the opportunity to speak. i appreciate the quick turnaround. it's a little frustrating. i admire the persistence of our friend, mr. gallegly. it's been my pleasure to have worked with him over a decade on this legislation. we thought we had it taken care of when it was woven into the farm bill of 2002. unfortunately, as has been referenced, the supreme court decision earlier this year created a problem, brought the problem right back. it was a pleasure to join, again, with mr. gallegly, mr. peters, moran, a broad bipartisan group, introduce the legislation the same week in order to narrow the scope of the ban and ensure it met the first amendment standards. i think we've got to the point where we've done that. i am a little frustrated, as i

know people who care deeply about this legislation, that it seems to go back and forth on something where it has broad bipartisan awareness, agreement and certainly with the general public that people ought not to profit out of tore during animals. -- torturing animals. this is virtually illegal everywhere. it is disturbing in terms of what happens, and it isn't just issues of animal cruelty. researchers have shown that the people who are involved with this despicable trade, both in terms of the desimilar nation and use of it, are likely to engage in other criminal acts. i am hopeful that at this point we might be able to bring this to a conclusion, to be able to pass this legislation, to provide these protections, to get this out of the stream of commerce and be able to provide the protections that the public expects us to provide.

we were given an opportunity from the supreme court to be able to narrowly craft a response. i think legislatively we have done that. i am hopeful that we can act expeditiously in passing this today, working with the senate to make sure it is enacted into law and we meet this objective. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, we have no more requests for time. i'm prepared to relinquish all of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: so do i. the speaker pro tempore: all time having been expired, the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to the legislation. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. -- the rules is spended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. conyers: i move to suspend the rules and pass house resolution 716. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 716. resolution recognizing gail abarbanel and the rape treatment center and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, will each control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. conyers: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. conyers: and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, gail abarbanel is the director of the smonsmon-ucla medical center rape treatment center. -- santa monica-ucla medical center rape treatment center director. they established a protocol for treating victims of sexual assault. today under the leadership of miss abarbanel, the rape treatment center serves as a national model for its exemplary treatment, education programs. she's responsible for innovative programs such as the stewart house for sexually

abused children, the clinic to provide state-of-the-art medical care and forensic exams to rape victims. she was the driving force behind efforts to change the way rape and other sexual crimes viewed in society and how victims are treated by law enforcement officials. and medical personnel. and most importantly the judicial system itself. i recommend -- i commend representative patrick kennedy for introducing this resolution to recognize miss arbarbanel and her work with sexual assault victims. i urge members to support the resolution and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his

time. the gentleman from texas, mr. smith, is recognized. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to support h.r. 716 which commends gail abarbanel for her education of reducing the d.n.a. evidence backlog. ms. arbarbanel is the corrector of the rape treatment center where she established the fast track forensic program. i want to thank patrick kennedy for his sponsorship of this bill as well as for his longstanding dedication for people in need. his compassion for others will be remembered and missed after he leaves congress later this year. one of the most significant issues facing the criminal justice system today is the substantial backlog of unanalyzed d.n.a. samples and biological evidence from crime scenes. this issue is particularly urgent in the sexual assault and murder cases. the fast track forensic program was developed by gail abarbanel

to help crime laboratories speed up the processing of d.n.a. evidence. this in turn gives local law enforcement agencies a head start on bringing criminals to justice. d.n.a. evidence is important in cases where a suspect has been identified and proof is needed to link the suspect to a crime scene or victim. it is equally important in cases where there is no suspect. in the case without a suspect, d.n.a. from the crime scene or the victim can be compared to offender profiles and d.n.a. databases in an effort to identify and apprehend the perpetrator. d.n.a. technology that improves the analysis process is increasingly vital to ensure accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system. in 2008, congress re-authorized the debbie smith d.n.a. backlog grant program which provides federal grants to states to help fund initiatives such as the fast track forensic program. programs designed to help alleviate d.n.a. backlogs are

imperative and ensuring that this forensic evidence is preserved, tested and used in the criminal cases to bring violent offenders to justice. congress must continue its commitment to assisting backlog initiatives. this is especially true for rape and sexual assault cases. in the united states, a person is sexual assaulted every 2 1/2 minutes. according to the rape abuse and insess national network, the u.s. largest sexual assault organization, one in every six american women will be victim of an attempted or actual rape in her lifetime. but the use of d.n.a. or state and local law enforcement agencies and officials can bring these attackers to justice. the development of programs such as the fast track forensic program is important to our criminal justice system. i urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and i will yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i

yield myself as much time as i may consume. i want to congratulate the author of this resolution, mr. patrick kennedy, and also his original co-sponsors, mrs. mcmorris rodgers, mr. waxman, mr. schiff, mr. sherman, ms. matsui, mr. berman, mr. wexler and ms. rosa delauro. i think this is an excellent resolution. i thank the ranking member for his remarks, and i'm prepared, since there are no other members seeking recognition, to return my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 716. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded

in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to -- the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i ask for the yeas and nays on this vote. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass senate bill s. 1376. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 1376. an act to restore immunization and sibling age exemptions for children adopted by united states citizens under the hague convenon on intercountry adoption to allow their admission to the united states. the speaker pro tempore:

pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and add extraneous material. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. conyers: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, members, this measure, the international adoption simplification act, corrects two problems and inconsistencies with respect to adoptions of foreign children by united states citizen parents. the bill would have children subject to intercountry adoptions irrespective of whether the child's home country is a signatureor to the hague

convention under intercountry adoptions. currently the law contains two age retirements -- requirements related to the adoption of foreign children. the general rule that adoption must be finalized before the child turns 16 in order for the child to qualify for legal status in the united states. the law also provides an exception to this age requirement for the sibling of such an adopted child. this exception meant to keep siblings together where possible provides that the sibling of an adopted child may also get legal status in the united states as long as the sibling's adoption takes place before his or her 18th birth day. -- birthday. strangely enough, this exception is available only if the sibling

comes from a country that has not signed the hague convention. the exception is not available to siblings from signatureor -- significant torrey countries, please do not ask me why this is so. but senate 1376 remedies this problem by expanding the sibling age exception to signature torrey countries, that will allow adoptive siblings to remain together irrespective of whether the country is a signatureor -- signaturory to the hague convention. it also armonizing immunization requirements with respect to international adoptions. currently the law requires adopted children to have certain vaccinations prior to arrival,

but such exemption for children under 10 years of age that the adoptive parents certify that necessary vaccinations will be obtained within 30 days of entry. this exemption enacted in 1997 by congress to prevent parents from having to subject the children to numerous and sometimes unsafe immunizations in foreign nations allowing them to safely immunize their children in the united states instead. as with the age cutoff requirement, this exemption applies only to children adopted from countries that are non signatories to the hague convention. it does not apply to children from signatory countries. once again the senate bill fixes

what could be called a nonsensical discrepancy by expanding the exemption to all children regardless of whether their home country is a signatory to the hague convention or not. i want to thank la more smith, our ranking member -- lamar smith, our ranking member on judiciary, and our subcommittee chair, zoe lofgren of california, for eir bipartisan support of this measure. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. poe: i support this bill which makes corrections to the implementation legislation for the hague convention on intercountry adoptions. under current law u.s. citizens can generally adopt foreign children and have those children considered immediate relatives for immigration purposes if the children are adopted while under

the age of 16. however adoptions are also allowed up to the age of 18 and instances in which the u.s. citizens are seeking to adopt an alien child after having already adopted a sibling of the child. unfortunately, the legislation to the hague convention on intercountry adoptions did not include the latter provision. therefore the immigration and nationality acts provision allowing adoptions of siblings under the age of 18 does not apply to children adopted from countries that are signatoris to the hague convention. the bill also contains one other provision to the hague convention. under current law respective immigrants have to be vaccinated against certain diseases. there is an exemption for adopted children if the children are 10 years of age or younger and the adoptive parents certify the children will receive the necessary vaccinations within 30

days of coming to the united states. this exemption was enacted in 1997 to ensure that parents don't have to subject their children to off unsafe immunizations in foreign countries. however the exemption does not apply to children adopted from countries that are signatureors to the hague convention. the bill expands the convention to children adopted from hague countries as well. i urge my colleagues to support this legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan -- the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, we have no further requests for time. i'm prepared to yield back all of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: so dough i. the speaker pro tempore: all time having been yielded back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill 1376. those in favor will vote aye.

those opposed will vote no. the rule is suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan -- mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 6397. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: a bill -- the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman seek to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 6396. mr. conyers: now that i think of it, yes. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 6396, a bill to amend the immigration and nationality act to toll during the active duty service abroad in the armed forces the periods of time to file a petition and appear for an interview to remove the conditional basis for permanent resident status, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from michigan, mr.

conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, include extraneous material, and -- of the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend.

for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? mr. conyers: i seek recognition to -- the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman seek to withdraw -- mr. conyers: i ask unanimous consent to withdraw the measure that i called up and i'm prepared to support the next item on the agenda. the speaker pro tempore: the motion with respect to h.r. 6396 is withdrawn. mr. conyers: i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 6397.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. mr. conyers: thank you, thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the requisite copies are not at the desk. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 6 p 97, a bill to amend section 101-a-35 of the immigration and nationality act to provide for a marriage for which the parties are not

physically in the presence of each other due to the service abroad and the armed forces of the united states. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you very much, mr. speaker. for your accommodation. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill before the house. and i yield myself such time as i may consume the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. conyers: thank you. mr. speaker and members. the marine sergeant mikeal h. ferschke jr. memorial act

introduced by representative duncan is simple but i think important measure that will help active duty members of our armed forces serving overseas as well as their spouses. you see under current immigration law when a marriage takes place between two persons who cannot both be physically present during the ceremony, the marriage is deemed nonvalid under it's consummated. there are no known exceptions to this provision even in the case when sometimes results in clear injustice. so we learned about this legal requirement through the case of sergeant ferschke, a united states marine stationed in okinawa, japan and who in march

of 2007 while on the base met a japanese woman at a birthday party for a mutual friend. they dated for over a year before he was deployed to iraq. shortly before their departure, they learned that they were going to have a baby and they spoke about getting married, moving back to the united states, and raising a family together. two months after sergeant arrived in iraq, the couple was married through a ceremony conducted over the telephone. . one month later, sergeant ferschke tragically in combat gave the ultimate sacrifice.

the united states military recognizes this marriage and mrs. fres key has been raising her son by the payment of death gratuity. but the marriage itself can't be recognized under our immigration laws because it was never consummated after the marriage ceremony. now, this legislation doesn't entirely eliminate the consummation requirement, but simply eliminates the requirement for active duty members of our armed forces who are serving abroad. by creating a narrow exemption in cases where failure to consummate the marriage was caused by physical separation due to active duty military service by one of the parties to the marriage. this is a reasonable provision that will provide some measures

of support and comfort to members of our armed forces serving abroad. so i commend our colleague, john duncan, for introducing this measure. it was championed by our immigration subcommittee chairwoman zoe lofgren and our ranking member, lamar smith and jim mcgovern for their strong bipartisan support of the measure. i urge support of this measure and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i support h.r. 6397 and i want to commend mr. duncan from tennessee for introducing this legislation. under the immigration and nationality act if a u.s. citizen dies while serving

honorably in an active duty status in the united states armed forces, as a result of injury or disease incur in or aggravated by combat, the citizen's alien spouse can still seek permanent residence as an immediate relative of a u.s. citizen. however, the i.n.a. also provides the term spouse does not -- does not include a spouse by reason of any marriage ceremony where the contracting parties, there, to, are not physically present in the presence of each other unless the marriage have been consummated. this recently came attention to mrs. ferschke. atari was born in okinawa, japan, and met sergeant ferschke there. the couple dated for more than a year before he deployed to iraq on april 15, 2008.

the couple learned that she was pregnant in march of 2008. they had plan to marry before she became pregnant. they were married by proxy via telephone on july 10, 2008, while surge ferschke was in iraq. they were never able to see each other again after their marriage because sergeant ferschke was killed in the line of duty in combat on august 10, 2008. the ferschke's marriage is not recognized for immigration purposes because it was never, quote, consummated. however, the state department and the marine corps said that the relationship was bona fide. the today's legislation is to help her and other widows in this terrible situation. it provides an exception to the consummation requirement when the failure to consummate the marriage is attributable to physical separation due to deployment overseas of one of the spouses in an active duty status in the united states

armed forces. i urge my colleagues to support this bill, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to recognize our colleague from massachusetts, jim mcgovern, for as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. mcgovern: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the chairman of the judiciary committee for yielding me time and for his leadership on this issue, and i also want to thank congresswoman zoe lofgren for her leadership, and i also ask unanimous consent to insert my statement in the record. mr. speaker, i'm rising basically to praise my colleague from tennessee, representative duncan. a few months ago he came to the rules committee with this case and tried to amend a bill to be able to find a way to help turn this terrible tragedy into something that was reasonable, that someone could stay in the united states.

and unfortunately the measure was not germane to the bill that was pending before the rules committee. but he stuck with this issue, and i want to thank him for his perseverance because this terrible tragedy where sergeant ferschke was killed in iraq in august of 2008. his intention was that his wife and his child would be raised in the united states. and without this legislation that would not be able to be the case. without legislative action, mrs. ferschke would have been forced to return to japan at the end of her b-2 tourist visa and would not be able to raise her son here in the united states despite his united states citizenship. i think any reasonable person looking at this case believes that mrs. ferschke and her son should be able to stay here in the united states. and congressman duncan has

helped fix this terrible loophole. it closes a terrible loophole, i should say. and i just want to rise to say that without his perseverance, without his taking this case to heart, this terrible tragedy would be even worse for this family. and so i want to rise and thank my colleague for his work on this issue and i -- without his -- without his intervention, quite frankly, this case would be even more tragic. so i thank the gentleman from mhigan for yielding to me, but, you know, we always get up here and we always fight with each other on different issues but here is a case where i think we can all come together and we can all come together and praise representative duncan from tennessee for his work on this. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts yields back the balance of his time.

the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield as much time as he may consume to the author of this bill, mr. duncan from tennessee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. duncan: thank you very much, mr. speaker, and first of all, i want to say thank you to my colleague from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern, for those very kind words and for his help on this because he has been very interested in this since my first appearance before the rules committee and i also want to thank chairman conyers and thank mr. poe and especially our colleague, zoe lofgren from california, who has helped on this as well and senator alexander in the other body and senator webb, former marine, who has taken a great interest in this legislation. all of this in this work see things -- we see things that we

think would be impossible, that somehow work out and we see the opposite of that we see some things that appear to be easy or simple that turns into nightmares or serious problems. this is something that i think almost everyone on both sides of the aisle when they've heard about it they've been supportive and helpful. it has been a difficult thing to reverse the technicality here and get worked out. this legislation has been adequately described by the three prior speakers. i will say that i also rise in support of h.r. 6397 and certainly this is a tragic situation where a young marine was killed in action in iraq one month after his marriage to this young woman from japan and

then, of course, a little bit later the young woman gave birth to sergeant ferschke's child has been described. he was then killed in iraq, as mr. mcgovern mentioned, during combat on august 10, 2008. because sergeant ferschke's death did not let the marriage get consummated, they are not legally married. and then mrs. ferschke gave birth to michael ferschke iii in okinawa in 2009. she immediately registered with her son to the state department. after sergeant ferschke's death, hotaru ferschke issued a petition to go to the united states.

sergeant ferschke and hotaru intended michael to grow up in the united states for him to grow up with his family. this legislation would amend current immigration law so they can -- and this legislation will straighten out a tragic and sad situation for a woman and her child and i think everyone sees the marriage in this, or at least i hope they do, and i urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. i yield back to mr. poe. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i just want to commend not only john duncan and jim mcgovern,

but i think that this legislation and the energies that went into its passage exemplify the fact that members of this body work on small matters as well as global and international concerns, that sometimes it goes unnoticed that in many of our offices we're working on matters that are not of historic moment in terms of the history of this country but their enormous importance to the constituents for whom we serve. and this example of the cooperation of the whole house in bringing this matter to its -- our attention and remedy is i think solitary and

commendable. i he thank all of those who worked with john duncan on this and i return the baffle my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman returns the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back the balance of his time. mr. conyers: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 6397. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 6397. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass house concurrent resolution 328. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 328, concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the congress regarding the successful and substantial contributions of the amendments to the patent and trademark laws that were initially enacted in 1980 by public law 96-517, commonly referred to as the bayh-dole act on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its enactment. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers, and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you, mr.

speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. conyers: and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. conyers: mr. speaker and members, this resolution recognizes the 30th anniversary of the bayh-dole act, a landmark piece of legislation that reshaped the landscape of technological innovation in the united states by clarifying intellectual property rights in government-funded inventions. what that means is that prior to this act, our country was in

a form of economic malaise and innovation was frankly stifled. the competition we face at the time wasn't just the matter of europe and japan getting back on their feet, it was also a matter of them, frankly out pacing us in technological development. we knew we'd better harness all our innovative capacity, particularly the work being done at our research university and at the time, policies mandated federal government ownership of patent rights for any research done with federal funding. now since most university research has some sort of federal funding, the university

had no stake in the patent rights of their own research. and then there were the rules and licensing, what patents existed were considered cumbersome and discouraged use by the private sector. the situation literally led to technologies being left on the shelf to gather dust and we were falling behind in this area. this bill of 30 years ago also revolutionized the way patent rights in university inventions were to be dealt with. the bayh-dole act allowed universities to own patents, license them to the private

sector and split royalties earned with professors and students who worked on the inventions. with the barriers to obtaining patent licenses removed, private investors could partner with federally funded are research institutions and begin to develop ground breaking innovations for commercial use this law aligned the interests of universities and faculty and the private sector and thereby issued an unprecedented level of collaboration between these groups. it further channels the imagination of our best and brightest to help make a better future for all of us. so in the last 30 years since bayh-dole it has led to the creation of over 150 new pharmaceuticals and medical treatments including hepatitis b vaccine, cancer treatments,

in vote roe devices and the balloon expandable stint and many'res. -- and many others. scientists tell us the bayh-dole act added there's 450 million to the gross domestic output and between 1999 and 2007, it created probably more than 280,000 new high tech jobs. the bayh-dole act has been recognized around the world as a best practice and serves as models for other nations hope to replicate the success of our own couldn't arery in building partnerships between federally funded researchers and private investors.

the economist -- "the economist" magazine called the bayh-dole act programs the -- perhaps the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in america over the past century. for those reasons, i urge that we celebrate the 30th anniversary passage of this very important piece of legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. >> the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for such time as he may consume. mr. poe: the prurp of h.con.res. 328 is to honor the establishment of the bayh-dole act. it establishes rules of the road when the federal government and private entities engage in joint reserge that

results in inventions. article 1 section 8 of the constitution provide congress with the authority to promote science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors exclusive rights to their discovery ares. the drafters couldn't have predicted the federal government would have become the catalyst for the advancement of -- for advanced tech knowledge -- technologies. prior to bayh-dole, it permitted the commercial sector to have less than 5% of the invention portfolio. the government's track record of promoting university-born technologies in the 1960's and 1970's was dismal. the failure to capitalize on this important research delayed innovation that could have improved the quality of le for millions of americans. what was the government doing wrong before 1980?

simply put, the government was focused on something else. at the time, at least 26 distinct federal agency policies controlled how the federally funded research and development could be used. bayh-dole changed the patent policy by replacing helter-skelter licensing practices with a single, uniform policy. this allowed private industry, including small businesses and private universities can develop patent inventions. bayh-dole created a culture of collaboration between government, university and private sector researchers. the act contributed to the cooperate of new industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. in 2003, president's counsel of advisors anirmed importance of behave dole by reporting it dramatically improved the nation's ability to move ideas from research and development

to the marketplace and into commerce. this same organization determined that the system for transferring technology from nonprofit institutions, which includes universities and hospitals and government laboratories to the private sector has worked very well. h.con.res. 328 reaffirms the commit to the policies of bayh-dole. it sparks 30 years of enhanced research and development been wn the united states leading to dramatic improvements in public health and safety, a strengthened higher education system in the united states and the development of new domestic industries that created tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs for american citizens. mr. speaker, bayh-dole illustrate house the government and private industry can work together for the good of the american people. i salute the authors of bayh dole and reaffirm hi -- of bayh-dole and reaffirm my commitment to this act. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan.

mr. conyers: mr. speaker, we have no further requests for time. i'm willing to yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: so do i. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to house concurrent resolution 328. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the the affirmative -- the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. the yeas and nays are ordered. further proceedings on this question will be postponed. mr. conyers: i ask that the rules be suspended and that we

pass senate bill 3689 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 3689, to clarify the copyright act. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan, mr. conyers and the gentleman from texas, mr. poe, each will control 20 minutes. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i ask that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material to the measure under discussion. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. conyers: i yield to myself as much time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. conyers: this measure, entitled copyright cleanup, clarification and corrections act of 2010, is a common sense, proactive response to

unintended errors and confusion in copyright law. this bill updates and improves the copyright -- the way the copyright office conducts business by making some changes. namely streamlining the copyright register process by authorizing the copyright office to accept electronic signatures when used as file documents. it also eliminates the requirement that the copyright office keep a hard copy of a directory they already make available to the public online. this hard copy has taken over several shelves in their office but seldom consulted by the public. the measure before us also clarifies some became guties in

the copyright -- some ambiguities in the copyright code. for instance, we clarified that copyright owners do not forfeit their rights in a work if they distributed it prior to 1978 without a copyright notice. however, while congress made this fix for musical works distributed by phonograph, it neglected to identify specifically dramatic and literary works that were also distributed by phonographs. we make that correction in this bill before us. finally, it corrects in this measure a number of technical errors and just dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

so i support the legislation, i commend the committee that worked on it and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. poe: the copyright bill before us today is a housekeeping measure that includes clarifying amendments to title 17 of the united states code with a few changes more substantive in nature, they are noncontroversial and recognized as simplifying a code all too often perceived as complex. the copyright cleanup and clarification of 2010 was introduced and passed by the other body on the second day of august. since that time, the hughes committee on the judiciary has worked in a bipartisan manner to incorporate modest improvements to the bill.

we detail most of the bill's provisions. i want to note some significant provisions, including important change that passed the other body in august. that's in the deletion of language maintained or contained in section 4a that would amend copyright act to permit the owner of an exclusive right to sublicense that right or further transfer it if the original copyright owner had not expressly prohibited these actions in a prior written agreement. it raises a number of concerns aamong copyright owners who fear that those who relied on a prior judicial decision in the case of gardner versus nike might be affected by the change. both the chairman and ranking member agreed this issue ought not to be addressed in this measure. another substantial improvement that is worth noting is contained in section 5b of the bill as amended that provision makes clear that regulations issued by the copyright royalty

judges are to be approved by the librarian of congress and subject to review of federal courts. this bill also contains one amendment contained in section 6h amends a study requirement included in public law 111-146, the trade mork technical amendments act, earlier this year. in closing the purpose of s 3689, the copyright cleanup and clarifications act of 2010 is to make modest but needed changes to the copyright act. i urge my colleagues to suspend the rules and pass the bill with the amendments contained herein and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: think gentleman from texas reserves the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i'm prepared to yield back. mr. poe: i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: all time having been yielded back, the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass senate 3869 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, twishedtwished -- 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i request the yeas and nays on this measure. the speaker pro tempore: all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, yeas and nays are ordered -- the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 , proceedings on this motion will be postponed. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i ask that the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 1713. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.res. 1713, a resolution recognizing and honoring the 50th anniversary of ruby bridges desegregating a previously all-white public elementary school. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution now under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. conyers: and i yield mifes. -- and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. the speaker pro tempore: this resolution is to recognize and honor the 50th anniversary of ruby bridges who helped desegregate a previously all-white public elementary school. this is the 50th anniversary yesterday, actually, of the integration of the william france public school located in new orleans, louisiana. and i had the pleasure of meeting ruby bridges once, and she's a very impressive lady.

on november 14, 1960, she became the first african-american student to attend the school and one of the first african-american students to integrate an elementary school in the south. my commendation goes to our colleague, the great civil rights leader, john lewis of georgia, for authoring this legislation that commemorates this significant occasion. in recognizing this civil rights and education milestone, i want to point out that the success of the civil rights movement itself was due in large part to the resolve of young people, men and women of all races and backgrounds who

were courageous enough to take a stand against racial injustice in america. the famous artist, norman rockwell, caught this in a famous painting of this little 6-year-old girl escorted into the school by united states marshalls, a girl only seeking a decent and equitable education. little did she probably know she would be making history, but she wanted to go to school. she wanted to learn. and she had no idea that there were people and forces that would stand in her way and do everything in their power to make sure that her simple

personal objective would not be accomplished. and so the credible thing is the reaction against the first grader that was so complete that she was the only member in her class that semester. and by the time she got to the sixth grade this elementary school was finally integrated. now, this realized the promise of the 1954 case that we're all familiar with, brown vs. board of education, and separate but equal realm of education, and it's worth -- it's worth observing and to have our

history brought back to us by this great colleague of dr. martin luther king, john lewis, whose heroic courage as a young man himself is yet another chapter in this remarkable history of america turning around a long history of segregated practices in america. the success of the montgomery bus boycott, led by my dear friend, rosa parks, and the late dr. martin luther king jr., was the foundation upon which they could begin school at william france elementary. and her actions on november 14,

1960, served as a foundation for even further achievements yet to come. and so following her first day of the first grade, the 1960 sit-in movement and the civil rights activity that followed called attention to segregated lunch counters and public facilities, not only in the south but throughout the country. and so later that year during the freedom rise, segregated restaurants and waiting areas and interstate bus terminals were successfully challenged. and so this all culminated into what? the civil rights act of 1964

and the voting rights act of 1965 and the fair housing act of 1968. and so ruby bridges continues her struggles today. she's working to ensure that the school she integrated is an institution that affords children of all races a quality education. and the struggles of john lewis continues today. now at the federal level, he helps create and implement the laws that started not so many years ago when this 16-year-old began her quest -- 6-year-old began her quest for a fair and just and equal society. not only in the realm of education but in all america to

make it a real democracy. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for as much time as he may consume. mr. poe: i want to thank representative john lewis, the gentleman from georgia, for authoring this legislation and for his long, long work many years in the civil rights movement along with the chairman, for bringing this legislation to the house floor and his work in the civil rights movement. this resolution recognizes and honors the 50th anniversary of ruby bridges. now, unlike the chairman, i think 50 years was a long time ago, but maybe it wasn't, but it was 50 years any way you look at it. and her role, ruby bridges' role in desegregating a previously all-white elementary school in the south. i was in elementary school the

same time she was but not the same school, having been in texas and going to school there. but in 1954 this all started when the united states supreme court made possible desegregation of american schools in the brown vs. board of education. six years later, ruby bridges, an african-american child, a first grader, would help further the goal of a course decision in brown vs. board of education. sometimes we have to leave it up to the kids to get things done. in this case it was a first grader, a 6-year-old in an elementary school who just wanted to go to school. and she was determined to get an education. so in 1960 she had started to attend william france elementary school. it was an all-white school in new orleans, louisiana, and in the new orleans school system. she endured hateful crowds and threats to her physical safety. white parents initially pulled their kids out of the school

and only one teacher taught bridges for more than a year. robert cole is a child psychiatrist and he provided counseling to this young girl. later, he wrote a book, a children's book called "the story of ruby bridges," to educate other children about this child's role in desegregating not just one school but all the schools in the united states. the courage demonstrated by bridges and her parents continue to serve as an inspiration for children and adults. after 50 years, her example encourages us to uphold -- uphold the principles of equality and respect in our own lives and our own culture. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution. i reserve the balance of my eyes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i'd like to just remind judge poe

that if he'd been around during the episode 50 years wouldn't seem so long to him either. i now turn to john lute himself and i yield him as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for such time as he may consume. mr. lewis: i want to thank my friend, the chairman, mr. conyers, for bringing this resolution to the floor and i want to thank mr. powe for his support of this -- mr. poe for his support of this resolution. the two gentlemen are right. 50 years ago today, a brave african-american, 6-year-old girl, young ruby bridges, walked bravely to the doors of a, of the privileged all-white elementary school in alabama. she walked to her new school with her mother and armed

federal agents. she was not met with the smile of schoolyard friends. she was met with screaming, angry mobs of people who did not want her to be there. in protest, parents withdrew every other student from her class. the only remaining teacher, ms. bar rah hend arery, attended school each and every day to teach young ruby. rue buy bridges was born the -- ruby bridges was born the year the supreme court handed down the historic brown vs. education decision. they struck down the doctrine of separate but equal schools. yet six years after that decision, louisiana and much of the south had wret to -- had yet to make equality a reality. it took courage, nothing but raw courage of a little girl to integrate the schools in

louisiana. in the face of verbal abuse and threats and hatred, ruby bridges learned to are drown tout he shouts with her prayers. little did she know on that first day of school 50 years ago that her image and -- immortalized in the painting by norman rockwell, would symbolize the end of segregation in school. her story is the story of our nation. she paved the way for integrated public schools all across the united states. today, mr. speaker, i ask all my colleagues to pause and recognize the 50th anniversary of ruby bridge's courageous walk to school. i expect all my colleagues and all americans to reflect on the historic event and the importance of degree segregating schools.

i ask my colleagues to support this resolution and recommit ourselves to equality in education for all americans. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia yields back. the gentleman from michigan reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from louisiana, mr. cao who is not frontal louisiana, he's from new orleans, louisiana. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. cao: thank you very much. today i rise in support of this important resolution. i also congratulate my friend and colleague, mr. lewis, for his leadership in bringing this to the floor today. i have -- i had the great pleasure of standing by mr. lewis and i value his friendship greatly. in 1956, at a time when race relations were stressed in the south, the orleans parish

school board wased orered to develop a plan to desegregate the schools. after a four-year delay a plan designed by the united states eastern district court of louisiana was ordered to be carry ared out. it was at that moment that a young girl by the name of ruby bridges became one of the first black children to attend an integrated school. upon her arrival, every white parent came to remove their child from the elementary school ms. bridges was attended. all but one white teacher refused to teach. it was that teach whore instructed ruby in a room by herself for a full year. this experience did not deter ruby, who not only completed her education, but went on to found the ruby bridges foundation, which has a leer and profound message -- to promote the values of

tolerance, respect and appreciation of all differences. i was honored to meet ms. bridges in my new orleans office last kt october. she is an oaks trared -- extraordinary woman who dedicated her life to service. at a time when we are fighting to provide a safe and stable environment for our children, i am thankful to have her as an inspiration for all in rebuilding our communities today, tomorrow, and beyond. i am proud to note that as we reflect on a turning point in our nation's history, it was the bravery of one new orleanian that made it happen. i urge my colleagues to support this resolution honoring the 50th anniversary of ruby bridges and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from texas reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan.

mr. conyers: i'm prepared to release my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. poe: i'm prepared to close. i want to thank the chairman for bringing not just this legislation but all the legislation that's been brought up today to the house floor and to emphasize the point that he made, good legislation, most important legislation, is bipartisan legislation. and what most americans don't realize, most legislation is bipartisan. that is passed through this house. it will continue to be, i suspect. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back. the gentleman from michigan. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, i'm so glad that we were able to reveal this important part of american history not just to our colleagues but to our couldn't arerymen and i share the spirit of the remarks of my friend on the judiciary

committee, judge poe. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 1713? those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the pb of the chair, -- the gentleman from michigan? mr. conyers: i ask for the yeas and nays a record vote on this matter. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. further proceedings on this question will be postponed. pursuant to clause 12a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 6:00 p.m. today.

the senate meets tomorrow on separate meetings. republicans won control of the house. members are here for orientation. mr. dunham is an allman former and knows that -- owns an agricultural packaging company.

one is taking this seat of a five-term congresswoman. >> this week, look at the future of phones with qualcomm ceo paul jacobs. "the communicators" tonight on c-span2. >> this year's studentcam documentary competition is in full swing. your documentary should include more than one point of view along with c-span programming. upload your programming before the deadline of january 20 for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there's $50,000 in total prices. the competition is open for middle and high school students. for all the rules go online to studentcam.org.

>> and now highlights from the australian parliament question time in october. they ask questions about the imf and world bank meetings here in washington and on the australian military operation in afghanistan. austria currently has 1500 troops in that country. this is about half an hour. >> nine years since the war began, australian held a debate on the its world and whether it should or should not be involved in the war. there were no binding resolutions, but one bipartisan support for australians staying involved. the labor government and the

coalition supported this. only the minority party disagreed, saying that we should get out. the government depended its plan to set up a regional processing center for asylum seekers, which continue to come to australia in increasing numbers. and that spelled out its plan to put a tax on carbon to tackle climate change. here is the australian parliament. ♪ >> a question as to the minister of defense. given the one of the stated rationale for being in afghanistan is propping up the karzai government, is the government concerned about the corruption of the karzai government, and does it agree

with petreaus'comments that it is nothing more than a criminal syndicate? >> the very clear rationale for australian involvement in afghanistan is that it is in our national interest to be so involved. is that our national interest to support a united nations mandated international security assistance force, a coalition of 47 countries mandated by the united nations, including our alliance partners the united states, to stare down that international terrorism? it will be debated broadly by the parliament in the days ahead. in respect to the question to the karzai government, as members of the house might recall, both before and after

the recent presidential election, we saw president karzai reelected and i saw very rigid as said very clearly on the number of occasions that australia, the international security force, and the international community expected to see considerable and substantial improvements from whatever afghan government emerged from the presidential practice, whether it was reelected or some other government. we expected to see substantial improvements on corruption, on governance, on human rights issues -- in particular the treatment of women and girls especially when it came to matters like education. i so that behalf -- i so that on behalf of the australian government. the position of australia and

particularly upsetting government has not changed one iota and respect. >> will the treasurer update the house on the state of the economy and what it means for the government's foreign agenda? >> i think the member for is very important qstion about the global economy and the plans the government has got to broaden and to strengthen our economy. last weekend i attended the imf- world bank meeting in washington. i went to take the temperature of the global economy and talk to our finance ministers about the economic outlook and to share the australian economic story. it's incredible to think where we were in the global economy just 30 years ago, and there was a cheat-20 finance ministers'

meeting, an emergency meeting attended by their president george bush. what the global economy was contemplating at that time was the collapse of the stock market and a drop in global demand. it looked pretty incredible to see how far the global economy had, in those two years. we move decisively to put into place are bank guarantees to help the small creditors of the australian economy and we announced our stimulus package. in two is, the australian economy has come a long way. there are still risks in the global economy. the global economy is fragile

and uncertain. the risk has intensified, particularly when you will look to what is going on in the european economy and in the united states economy. in those economies you are looking at double-digit unemployment, and in some countries even more. this is how the chief economist of the imf summed up the situation. the results of the recovery is not a stronger balance. it runs the risk of not being sustained. in most advanced economies, we can see little improvement in exports leading to low growth. unemployment is high and barely decreasing. mr. speaker, there could not be a sharper contrast with the australian situation. strong employment growth, strong economic growth, compared to all other countries. what they talk about in washington is what australians

doing is clearly something special. true is something special. and part of the success here is that while we put in place the stimulus, we also put in place our plan for recovery. the fastest fiscal consolidation since the 1960's, bringing the budget that the surplus, making the investment in infrastructure, putting in place the tax system which is competitive, to broaden and to strengthen our economy. this is the way forward for australia in contrast with all of those other countries of the imf. >> what does recent economic research indicate? why is that carbon pricing a certainty? >> the minister for climate change and efficiency.

>> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, today a report has been released by the climate institute, a report prepared by an organization known as they did economics. it is a well respected organization from the united kingdom which does research into climate change economic issues. the report has been released today, an analysis of the implicit or shadow carbon prices that operate in a number of key economies with which australia is rated. it is one of the first efforts being made to quantify the costs of policies to reduce emissions or to establish what shadow carbon prices there are, in particular economies, including economies important to australia like japan, the united kingdom, the u.s.a., china, and south korea. the vivid economic report has

found that they are taking steps to reduce their carbon pollution, and thereby moving to clean energy sources and having a carbon price in their economies. importantly it indicates that countries with which this country trades like china and like the united states already had in pleasant carbon prices within their electricity sectors. -- implicit carbon prices within their electricity sectors. the government has established at committee to examine this in a matter that the government has responded to in response to a quest by other members to do an independent analysis of what carbon cost would be operating with some of our major trading partners. mr. speaker, in our economy, a carbon price will not only

create an incentive to reduce pollution, will also provide certainty for investment for the business community. it will also increase this country's long-term competitiveness, because it will drive investment in clean energy and it will make australia and interactive investments -- an attractive investment place for companies to do business. one of our major companies operating in the energy industry estimates that uncertainty caused by the delay in implementing a carbon price in our economy could cause consumers up to $2 billion a year in higher electricity prices, or around $60 per household in the year 2020. the shadowed treasurer said and i will explain, that is the cost -- because the investment -- >> we will leave this discussion

at this point. it will air in its entirety tonight at 7:00 eastern on our companion network, c-span3. former congressman will talk about the role of minority parties in congress at the woodrow wilson center here in washington. the four house leaders will discuss options for the democrats to move their agenda forward after losing the house this past election. they will talk about ways of obstructing the majority party. >> a scholar who writes about congress and a journalist who has covered government and politics on the hill. if we mix it up on a particular policy is your subject matter and how that is working out behind-the-scenes, trying to enlighten the public more on how the process works on capitol hill. that is what the congress project is about. we are indebted or are grateful to the chevron project for a grant that has helped with this series and we are now in the midst of a two-year series on

the theme of public policy, the media, and public opinion. so we are grateful to them for that. before we proceed, let me as that if you do have many electronic devices, if please turn them off as we are broadcasting live on c-span as well as a live web cast. those tend to interfere with our audio transmission. we would appreciate if you would turn those all. a couple of introductory notes from folks in our audience, first of all, i want to introduce the head of the american political science association fellowship program, if you could raise your hand in the back there? he has brought with him 39 or soaked fellows from this year. please raise your hand if you are part of that class. you are helping to fill the room. thank you. these are not just political scientist that study congress. these are people from all over the world involved as practitioners in an health

projects, teaching medicine, we have about five american political scientist to teach medicine, but people from a variety of sectors part of that program including people from the executive branch, as i understand it. all of them after this orientation period, the third week of their orientation after the midterms, that will be placed in congressional offices and be working with members of congress. if you want to add anything on that? [inaudible] >> it is always a pleasure coming here, and we are always leaving better informed than when we arrived, and this is an important part of the orientation process. >> we are always glad to have you here. as you know, today's topic is on the role of minority parties in congress. at the time that this was originally planned several months ago, we did not know what the outcome of the 2010 midterm

elections would be, although we did hear rumors that the control of one or both houses could flip. so we thought this might be a very timely topic. as that happens, the house has just changed control again after the democrats were back in control for four years. we have a new minority which was an old minority, the democrats back in the minority. and in the senate, republicans picked up states but they continue to be the minority in that body. we have a new dynamic working with the democratic president and we will see how that will unfold. as you may recall, during the last half of the 20th-century, the house was controlled by the democrats for 40 consecutive years, 1945-1995. they could control in 1995 and ruled for the next 12 years and the democrats, as i mentioned, return to power in 2006. political scientist and ponds tend to focus on the majority party is in their studies and

their ridings and their research for the same reason that willie sutton said that he robbed banks -- that is where the money is. for students of congress, it is where the power is. the majority is the power. that is why the minority is given short shrift in a lot of the studies. and yet we overlook the minority party at our peril for they are often a weather vane for the shifting winds of public opinion. sometimes they are even a bellwether for a new majority. they provide fiscal scrutiny of majority rule and that is an important check on government contemplated in an art constitution's checks and balances. and they are also the incubators are new ideas for better government. -- for new ideas for better government. when i was in graduate school, when a teacher approached me after i'd been on the help retain years, and said he wanted

to do some studying of the minority party because we have overlooked that. at the time of war for the republican conference chairman john anderson. i sat down for some interviews and steered him on to other people that would be worth talking to. if we're beginning to get the idea that there was something there they were which it was worth exploring, and matthew green is another example of that. the legislative political parties began to appear even before the constitution was ratified. you think about but federalist and the anti-federalist, but was to political parties in incubation period even though george washington ran without any opposition, the party soon emerge. jefferson was the vice-president to john adams from 1797-1800. while he was in the senate, he realized that would be problems are rising and there had not been, when adams was vice- president, there had not been a

sufficient keeping of precedents and sufficient rolling said he thought it was important to do that. he compiled of manual of legislative practice of parliamentary practices for the use of the senate. he expressed the hope that the house with some use it, too. it was later incorporated but in the house rules and part of the senate rules and precedents. he did have a lot of precedents on that and it emerge later on -- i will spare you the poem for now. [laughter] but as part of this manual, jefferson observed that the power had majority by the numbers to stop any proper -- improper measures, but the only way that the minority could defend themselves against similar attempts of the forms and rules of proceeding which are adopted and become law of the house. he continued only by strict adherence to those rules can the weaker party protected from the

irregularities and abuses which they want in this of power is apt to suggest to large and successful majorities. we understand ripen the beginning of their role of the rules is not only to allow majorities to work their will on legislation but to protect minorities in the process. perhaps as i mentioned earlier jefferson found himself the nominee of the minority party in 1800, which had asserted its rights in the congress' leading up to that over such things as the neutrality proclamation, the jay treaty, and the alien and sedition acts. we saw the party's very much at odds with one another over important issues early on. if you fast ball or a century from when the first congress met in 70 -- 1789, and the 21890, we saw a new type of party governance and emerging, which is important to know. the speakership of thomas a

bracket -- began with an election contest that he had to resolve. it decided to use that as a way to set new rules and precedents for the house. the overruled some of the motions offered by the democrats to obstruct the way things were being done. as chairman of the rules committee, he went and asked the committee to put these in the standing rules and then have the house about those. these rules were what allow the house to come into the modern time as we know it, the modern speakership, the modern party system as we understand it, the role of the rules committee as a way to expedite the majority's legislative agenda. but all through this, there remained in the rules open to this day some important safeguards for the minority. we will hear a little bit about that as we hear from our expert panelists as we proceed. i think that has been ingrained from the very beginning as part of the american way of majority rule with minority rights.

we're going to hear more about the importance of minority rights, a role of the minority as they try to struggle for majority power. we also have with us today -- i wanted to mention because i was. " robert menzies -- was going to quote robert menzies. in my introductory essay, i had mentioned him who for many years, 15 years or so in the minority in australia, who said that it is not wandering in the wilderness if you use it constructively. he thought of it as looking at it what you had done wrong as a majority and hardaway for coming back into power as well as to serve as opposition to the governing party. he saw it is very much an opportunity and not just an impediment. we're very fortunate have with us today as our lead of speakers, two members to

distinguish themselves in the house of representatives with their respective party, both in the majority and the minority. we're glad have that perspective. they will probably agree with the phrase that anyone has been in the majority of the minority, being in the minority is ok but the majority is a lot more fun. the executive director spent 20 years in the house of representatives. as a republican representative of the 16th congressional district of pennsylvania. 18 of those 20 years were in the minority. he is credited along with new gingrich for forging the republican majority emerging in 1995 by the leadership of the conservative leadership society, backbenchers to began to challenge the house majority and a variety of ways. c-span came along and that have a lot to do with their strategy. he will probably talk about

that. when he was in the minority, he was deputy whip under gingrich, and then he chaired the leadership committee under speaker gingrich. he also managed to the same time to chair the house science committee in the midst of all of his party activities. after congressman walker, we will hear from dick fazio, the senior adviser, having served from 1979-1999. as a democratic representative of the third congressional district of california. while a majority, he served as the chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee for too terms. he was and the minorities serving the caucus for two terms and he chaired the appropriations subcommittee on legislative branch appropriations. third, we will hear from mark s. dollar, matthew green, assistant professor politics of the catholic university and an

associate professor at the institute of politics -- political research? policy research. i have a typo. he is the author of a book on leadership publics by yale university press this year. he is currently working on a master project which i was aware of. one minority tactics. he is very well suited for today's topic. last but not least, our guest journalists the national correspondent for the "new york times." she has worked there since 2008. prior to that, she worked for 18 years with the "wall street journal," is covering tax matters as well as congressional and presidential campaigns. she was nice enough to swap with someone on white house duty today to be here. we're very grateful to you for doing that. she started out in texas and worked her way up to the dallas morning news bureau in the

austin, and then came to d.c. for her first job with the "congressional quarterly." we're very pleased to have jackie here. with that, i will turn things over to bob walker and then we will hear from dick fazio, and maggie green, and the journalists. and then we will open the floor to questions from you. you were all invited to a reception immediately following this program. congressman walker, and if you could speak from the podium, it will be easier for our web cast and c-span audience. >> thank you, don, very much and good afternoon. when i was asked to speak on the role of the minority party, i came up with a title for that speech, and that is, more than potted plants but not by much. [laughter] in all honesty, the chief job of the minority party in the

congress is to become the majority. if you are now working toward that end, you're probably not doing that which is necessary to release to fill your role in the minority. having said that, the main role then of the minority party in the whole business of governance is to critique the majority. that involves a strategy the in committees and on the floor and it often involves finding the weaknesses in the legislation or in the process of the majority, and then using those weaknesses as a part of your way of differentiating yourself from what the majority is doing. as don mentioned a minute ago, some of us back in the mid-1980s began the process of trying to move the republican party toward

the majority status after a long time in the minority, and one of the places that we found some help was in deep c-span programs. that came about because i had spent some time on the house floor and in some of the early meetings of all we been called the conservative opportunity society, a small group of backbenchers, i made the point that every time i go on c-span, a hear from people. my telephones ring in the office or i get letters from folks. if maybe there were people out there watching this stuff. we decided to use that as a way not only to be finding an agenda that we thought would be the right agenda for the future, but also to use it as a way of critiquing what the majority was doing at that point. if you are a smaller majority, you actually give -- a smart majority, if you actually get ample opportunity for the

minority to do exactly that. that is a hard thing to do, because they felt balls a transparent committee process and the use of open rules -- involves a transparent committee process and use of open rules. if you want to find out what is wrong with your bills or what is rose -- what is wrong with your process, allow the minority to come out and make their points, because they will define it in a much better way in nearly anybody else. the reason for that is because we tend to do when we were in the minority was start to go down through legislation -- we were not going to take on a whole bill. it was put out there in global terms. if you could find one little flaw in the bill and press the point home and hammer away and particularly in committee, if you get often bring the whole process to a halt just by taking on a particular aspect of the

bill that did not appear at first to be a serious issue but could be made into one. that seems to me is one of the things that the majorities in both the republican democratic caucuses have found will have lost in the last few years. by shutting down the process, they of not allow the congress to work its will. they have therefore ended up with situations where they did not know what was in bills and what could become big political points until after the bill had actually cleared the congress. yes, there were points being made out in the public where was being covered on fox news or msnbc or various media outlets, but it is not the same as a focus debate. it seems to me that open rules are relayed the necessary part of allowing the minority to actually help in the governance

process. i will tell you that being in the minority is actually exhilarating at times. first of all, it is a time when you can -- you do not have the responsibility of coming up with the agenda and doing the scheduling. you get time to think about policies. as a process of your critique, you come up with alternatives along the way. but it is also kind of fun. every day you can fight brayed its theological battles. you can charge up the hill with their flat line and get all bloodied in come down off the hill at the end of the day. you lose, but you feel really good about it. [laughter] in the majority, you win every day but you do not feel good about it. by the time you cut all the compromises to be in the majority, if you have not done what you would like to do. as a result you get the

aftermath of the campaigns where now the democrats are saying to themselves, if we only stuck to our real guns and done this the right way s, we would not have lost. having gone to the job of actually governance, where comprose becomes part of the end results. it is also interesting to note that there is probably a huge difference between the time when we were out of power, when i was in the congress for 40 years, and a quarter-year period at out of power. -- four-year period out of power. we have a lot of republicans, particularly in the leadership, who become accommodationists. what they have figured out is that they simply went along with the majority for about 10% of the bill, then they could be a part of the overall process. the problem with that was they

had to roll over for the whole bill in order to get their 10%. a lot of the older members, me among them, thought that we were losing the opportunity by having the republicans coming to the floor all the time on major bills, basically being in lockstep with the democrats, if simply because they had pieces of the bill. the problems developed that we were simply not making our case enough to be in the majority. the majority became used to the fact is that -- that that was the formula for legislation. on the science and technology committee where i served, we have one chairman who used it to the chairman's mark of a couple of nights before the bill would come to the floor, and his idea of bipartisanship on that was to invite a couple of members of the mardi staff into the room -- no minority members, but the minority staff was invited into the room. what he would say is, we are

going to do the bill this way. they were not allowed to speak. to minority staff listened what the chairman plan to do. and then he would come in and talk about his bipartisan bill. that did not strike some of us as being the kind of bipartisanship that would get us very far. what it meant was that you lost a component of focused criticism because you did not have the people in the room that ultimately would make the decisions about where the debate was going to go. so the criticismeace is in my mind fairly large in all of this. it is a case where, now, after four years outcome of the criticism is likely to least take on the character of knowing what it is like to govern. most of the people who will

become committee chairmen under the republicans in the house will be people who served as part of the majority before. it is likely to produce people who, yes, will go along with the philosophy that they think brought them there, but on the other hand will be a little bit subject to knowing that at the end of the day, if you're going to get some of this done, you have to figure out a way to govern. the other point i would make is that bipartisanship does not have to let debate. reading -- lack debate. the whole process of finding critique -- if congress is allowed to debate the bill, it will have good aspects to it. it forces committee chairman to come to the floor and defend their bills.

one of the things i would criticize the republicans when they charge, and this -- i would say that you do not have enough open rules, and i was told the committee chairman have gotten these perfect bills out of their committee. their net to perfection and they do not want to have the chance of coming to the floor and having these perfect bills ripped apart. my response always was, if the bill is so perfect, why would be ripped apart on the floor? it also meant that the chairman did not have to spend time on the floor defending the bill and that is a bad thing. they are ultimately the authors of many of these bills and it is a good thing for them to come out and defend not only to their college but to the country at large what is that they have done. it seems to me that governing becomes harder if the minorities role of presenting alternatives is degraded or diminished.

again i say, the main role of the monarchy is to become the majority. its chief governance is to criticize. in many offices is all over town here, we have potted plants that serve a function. so can the minority party in congress if the majority respects its role. [applause] >> while the is approaching the podium, i forgot to mention that i had the honor of serving with him on the bipartisan ethics task force. i was a staff member and it was one of the best bipartisan experience i had in 28 years on the hill. >> i enjoyed that as well. that was a positive thing for the institution. little noted nor long remembered. [laughter] it is a pleasure to be here

with done, and particularly bob walker. bob really did minority well. [laughter] he was good at it. it was a joy to see him approaching the parliamentarians with a question which was going to determine how the day went on before the house. bob was somebody who was really respected on the majority side, because he was innovative. he was created. he was effective as he drove a snots. -- he drove us not so. you have to respect the people in drive you nuts on a daily basis. bob did that well. majority is another thing.

i have to relate to what is going on down the street. in the democratic offices in the capital. that is something that trial large referred to as pain and suffering. there is no question that this is a very difficult time. we democrats are particularly good at the circular firing squads. we always do it after elections that do not go well. look forward says we should have been more left, the right or no longer members of the body say, no, we should of been more moderate. maybe we should have done this. and there is no real agreement except that we have to pick up and move on. and they are still going to the process right now. people in the blue dog category who remain, frankly, need to have a way to express their opposition to the former speaker and apparently they will have someone, maybe the

gentleman from north carolina, he schuler, be the sacrificial lamb, knowing that there is no way that he will win, if but for his own purposes let alone his colleagues say that he was a difference and did not just want to ratify the leadership. you will find others who are simply all the school that if you lose, like george steinbrenner would have it, if the yankees did not win the world series, maybe we need a new manager. there is no question that there is always that. and yet politically these days, democrats were well aware of the fact that nancy pelosi had brought something to the table for them. and that is the ability raise money outside of washington, outside special interests.

i think that he decided this a good deal and his work. if the campaign committees and the leadership that it tends to them, which has made an incredible difference in the last five or 10 years, i served as chairman from 1990-1994. by the time we entered into the more recent decade, just about to leave, the entities had sharpened themselves tremendously. better staff, better control, more informed in terms of having influence on who ran and how they ran and whether they were adequately funded. recruitment became incredibly powerful. i do not think anyone has done a better job than kevin mccarthy, who was just about to be made whip with a membership on the committee that he may take a leave of absence from. a reward for doing an incredible

job of recruiting candidates who ran as republicans and in many cases one this time. many of them actually were defeated in primaries and whoever beat them one. but there was still a real effort to get serious people with public service background and experience in the public sector generally to be candidates. that makes a big difference, particularly when you are running against incumbents. it is great to have the wind at your back. recruiting goes really well when the mood for your party is in the ascendancy. it can be very tough when you're losing support in the general public. people see that there are opportunities five years down the road, not immediately. they did not want to run and lose. but recruiting has been incredibly important. they have raised more money and democrats at a wonderful job hoping to stem the tide this year, by going in and finding

out about the tax liens and divorce agreements, etc., of the republican candidates. frankly it did not do any good in general. a cause some republican campaigns to hit some faulty spots. but when the wind is at your back, you can overcome just about anything. you can collect governor of florida, with a large senior citizen population, someone who is a perpetrator of medicare fraud to the tunof hundreds of millions of dollars. it did not really matter what was wrong with your candidacy. you are going to win. i think it is pretty impressive that in many states they did that. they have to let it reapportionment at this point. these republican winds were extremely timely. a lot of homework is how they can cement another 10 sts with

that even going to the election by simply taking the redistricting and the reapportionment and locking in votes in texas, for example, where they will pick up three or four seats. perhaps protecting republicans in states like pennsylvania, new york, if they get the state senate, and ohio where they are losing seats to the south and west. that was an important part of this transition and it is very important at the democrats go forward to strengthening their political arm as they moved into the next political environment. none of us know exactly what that would be. all we know is that in this sort of economic environment, and will probably just as volatile. the question becomes for me what should the legislative role of the minority? republicans have been educating the democrats for about 20 years.

the gingrich-walker success of the 1990's perpetuated by this renewed emphasis on retaining power that you saw with delay and hastert finally came across the the democrats. they have always been somewhat divided into legislating in governing, and not particularly good at the politics. they got better at it. nancy pelosi organize the democratic caucus in a way very similar to the way republicans have organized it. she won back the majority. i have to say in relatively short order, republicans have up their game. they did it by party unity, by just saying no to everything, and i think regrettably they did it without really offering a lot of alternatives. it was simply come and do not get into the debate about issues, simply stand there and resist whatever the obama

administration or the policy congress wants to pass. and do it in a way that makes clear to your base and to an increasingly conservative independent voter that this was the way the republicans would govern, it differently than the democrats. it turned out to be a great success, but we have a problem in this country. unlike the men seized region men -- menzies-churchill the bag, zero we are divided house. a lot of bull we vote republican coalition is really control before the house. we have to go up -- divided government now and probably will continue to. as a result of that we have to govern somehow. at some point, just saying no

does not get it done. adding constructive alternatives are required. sorting out those issues where we can reach agreement, where we must for the good of the economy in the country, finding common ground -- it is all leased difficult in the minority. they always want to vote no. bob and i were talking earlier about the difficulty of passing the debt limit extension, the fact that so many of these young republicans coming into town had no government experience, have taken positions in the election against any debt limit extension, which we all know the country has to do in order to pay the bills they have already been incurred. the democrats -- will the democrats contribute votes or welcome john maynard -- or will john boehner had his first difficult crisis on this issue? we need to find in some areas something rigid that can be

worked through to a conclusion that is a compromise. it used to be in the past the way that the means a committee of the appropriations committee would sort out these bitter partisan issues and bring them up to the floor. that is the longer the case. leadership has taken over through term limits and other ways of influencing who leads these committees to the steering committee. they have taken all that compromising the ability of the process. now those committees that there to tell the line. people who hate the idea of line items being taken off the table, people who love having the ability to send something back to their district, are now swearing off. no way can they prevail as committee chair they take that kind of position. i look forward to some discussion about what is going to be going on in the next

congress and how this minority, particularly, might work in this careful to limit they have of having their president occasionally asking them for votes that they think and not in their interest in terms of compromising with the majority. we've begun to see some of that formulation with the bowles- since then commission. the left in the ryder taking off for the hill. can there be a center? that will be a question for both the minority and the majority. >> there are plenty of seats if anyone wants along the wall here are along the table. please join us. maquis green. -- matthew green. >> what i'm going to do is talk about the minority party from a

theoretical and empirical perspective, and my purpose here is twofold. first, to help us -- the theoretical thinking about the minority party, why they do what they do, and second, talk about certain categories of activity that the minority party in the house of representatives undertakes to try to achieve its basic goals. and to elicit just -- not just why they do with our whether it actually works, political influence. my focus -- here we go. first off, why am i looking at the house and not the senate? i'm looking at the house of representatives specifically. they look at the minority party of all, as don manchin, not many

do, they look at the senate for straightforward reason. the senate minority has a lot more power both for individual members have minority party members if they were together. procedural tools such as the filibuster, a loose lid, and other procedural rules make it easier for the minority to slow things down. this is why others have focused on this as part of the minority party tool kit, the ability to filibuster legislation on the senate floor. but if you watch c-span and see what the minority party is doing, they're not just sitting around doing nothing. they are conducting activity both on and off the floor. why are they doing these things if they are so powerless? they do not act in a helpless fashion. one of the things that motta made -- of motivated me was to understand what the minority party was trying to achieve and whether they were doing so. my focus will be the house.

if many of the things i will talk about are applicable to the senate, but the examples i give will -- are from the house in particular. there are three questions that i will propose that motivate my interest in the subject. first, what does the minority party in the house actually do? why did they do it? in the third is whether a makes a difference, the political outcome. i will not answer all three questions thoroughly because it will take longer than i am allotted. it is part of a larger research project that don mention that is still under way. i do not have firm answers to all these questions. i will suggest answers to some of them in my call. first of what to talk about the second question -- why does the minority party do what they do? the way that i suggest conceding or thinking of the minority party is a term of collective goals. i'm not the only person to suggest that.

others talk about partisan terms of their collective goals. if a party has a collective goal, the presumably the activities they will undertake are designed primarily to achieve that goal, and if they have several calls, then they may undertake activities to undertake one more of those goals. what i propose is that those goals in which the minority can be thought of be having four major collective goals. all talk about each briefly. the first is as congressman walker thought about, it's important to not be in the minority anymore. to be in the majority, winning election. it is certainly important house of representatives. the second goal is to influence policy. the idea here is that even if you are in the minority party, your member of congress. you got elected to congress to

influence national policy. you will try to exercise some influence on policy. to be sure, there can be trade- offs between the first and second: we can talk about a letter. but third goal -- and these goals have been proposed by other scholars such as stephen smith and charles jones and others. this is not a new idea. i suggest two different goals that can motivate the minority in congress. the third is the protection of procedural rights and powers. the idea here is that members of a minority care about their rights under the rules. to be sure, the rules of the house can allow them if they are liberal enough to influence policy or to try to win elections. there also poured in their own right. you are representing over 600,000 people and you care about your right is a member of congress. the fourth goal as a justice internal party unity. this one is a low less

persuasive case, because when could argue that unity is a means to achieve an end such as winning on the floor or winning elections. but in many cases the minority party seeks to be unified in ways they cannot always say exactly, they are not sure how they will achieve future goals, but it is something that is important, if for the cheese other things that matter to the minority party leaders. for instance, they do not have to worry about dealing with insurrections on the floor or press coverage of the the bottom minority. if they are a unified, they can focus on other things as well. as a show you on the chart, there are four different strategies that a minority party candidate to achieve one or more of these goals. campaign related activities, position taking, activity in the public sphere, legislating, and obstruction. i thought i would talk about examples of these four

categories and then some up. the first activity is campaign related. a lot of things that i'm member of congress does is focused on campaigns or elections. i mean activity that is primarily or principally focused on it elects 70 and winning elections. two examples -- the first is candidate recruitment which is very important for the minority party. for either party, frankly. if to get people to run for congress and challenge members of the other party or run for open seats. in the paper that i wrote for this panel, i talk about one way of measuring the success of recruitment, the equality of candidates. -- the quality of candidates. this is data that was compiled by of blogger affiliated with the "new york times." it's still the number of seats that were uncontested. notice the top bar, the number

of democrats who did not face a challenger, the difference between 2008 and 2010. republicans successfully got almost every house incumbent this year to face a challenger. not all may be of high quality but that put pressure on the majority party to fund those candidates, to put up some degree of defense against those incumbents, and contrasting the bottom of the number of republicans who did not face challenges. the democrats do worse compared to 2008 in finding people to run against incumbent republicans. candidates for krugman is very important. it is difficult to know for sure the relative goal of party leaders and folks doing campaigns for the minorities vs. other factors. when the wind is at your back, recruitment as a whole lot easier. there's been stories about

congressman mccarthy telling the press that there were some difficulty recruiting members until republicans -- until things happen. until scott brown won in massachusetts and the enactment of the healthcare bill. all the sudden, these republicans came out of the woodwork, wanting to run for congress. either because they could win or i am unhappy with obama and i do not want see the republic -- the democrats in charge in congress anymore. it is important in a memo for the minority party to be putting an effort into candidate recruitment. the second is fund-raising. i talk about overall fund- raising as well as the republicans. i also look at how well the democrats raised money for special candidates they targeted in 2006, when they were in the minority, in the so-called red to blue program. it shows how well red to blue members raised a number -- raise

money in the quarter before they were put on the list and the quarter after they were put on the list, compared with the red, members from roughly similar diricts running, and the blue is a random assortment of numbers. sure enough, red to blue member candidates were already raising a lot of money but they continue to do so after they were put an end the red to blue list. other lawmakers may have raised more, but nowhere near the exact amount of the same dollar amount as those in the red to blue list. the same thing happen for the second round of those democrats added to the red to blue program in july 2006. the green bar shows that they significantly more in the second quarter after they were put on the list as opposed to members from similar districts where the democrats were also running. very quickly, legislating. this is a large complicated sphere. a lot of the ways the minority party can of that legislation.

i looked at amending on the floor and surprise, surprise, minority parties do not have much success influencing legislation on the floor unless two things happened. they offer an amendment that is relatively minor. or they can command a pivotal majority of member. they can get enough of the majority party to vote with them, particularly the case of campaign finance legislation in recent decades. that caveat here, a lot of other ways to influence legislation. it might reflect minority party interest before it was introduced or in committee, and if the minority party controls the senate or the white house, then they have more leverage. it is possible for the minority policy to influence policy, but the strict amending process is relatively difficult. the last two spheres of activity, public positions taking, and the example is the

election-year agenda, this could be more election activity, but it is more removed from raising money for recruiting candidates. we're looking at things such as the contract with america and the new direction for america, the pledge to american. minority party is suggesting what they would do if they can control the house of representatives. the contract of america was very important and in many ways influence what minority parties would do after that, but we should not forget that this was not the first time the minority party tried to offer an alternative agenda. congressman john rhodes, the leader of the minority party in the 1970's, after the devastating 1974 election when republicans lost a massive number of seats, he got his colleagues together in a drafted their own alternative agenda and the publicized it in a book that he wrote published in 1976, "that utile system."

is up the first time that we have seen minority party to this. there is not a lot of evidence that this is held majority at achieve their electoral goals for a number of reasons. polls have shown that most voters do not really know about these things. it is not clear that they vote based on what these agendas say. voters tend to be retrospective and judge the party in power rather than prospective. at least in terms of influence in elections, it does not have a lot of influence. but they can play important roles in the number of ways. the fourth and final category is obstruction norah tactics. obstruction tactics. the rules of the house allow the minority to is pastor the majority, slowing things down here and there. the motions to rise or to

adjourn, if they pass, they ever. legislative process. even if they do not, they require a recorded vote, another 15 or 20 minutes of legislative time consumed with these motions to stop what we're doing right now. the most famous example of this is probably in 2008 when one congressman passed away. there was a morrill session for him. they were considering some resolutions that the minority republicans did not like. there was a motion to adjourn. there was hullabaloo, had there you have this while there is a memorial session. that is not the only time that the more rigid the minority party has done this. the number of votes cast -- the number of votes on motions to rise or adjourned, less than 6%

and oftentimes much less. there is a lot of fluctuation. what is most interesting about this chart is how well it was very rare until the 1990's. now you see a potential for the minority party to offer a lot of motions to rise and adjourn. their most effective when they are used more than once. this is the percentage of abortions to rise or adjourned that occur within one day of the jet -- of motions to rise or adjourn that occur within one day of each other. the caveat here -- sometimes this is just one member of congress with some personal grudge. they can offer them six or 12 times. gene taylor of mississippi did this. it is not a sign of the minority party concerns or their objections. this shows the average percentage of the minority. that bodes for these motions to

rise or adjourned. you can see a great deal of fluctuation. the difference between the last congress and this congress, in 2007 and eight for republicans or offering a lot of motions. most of the party was supporting them. this congress, there was not only your but less members were supporting them. one reason for my discussion was that this did not work. they were not helping the minority achieve their goals. they abandoned the number and the frequency with which members would support them. how quickly wrap up. the only thing to understand why these are done is to look at what their justification is. why are you offering a motion to rise or adjourn? most of them can be connected to one of these four goals that i mentioned. the most interesting to me was

the percentage of these offered by members who are upset at the agenda and they want some other bill to be considered on the floor. this is not the power that the minority party has to change the agenda. i did that thought they could change the agenda at and wanted to, or a was would for a was a way of highlighting their agenda to the broader public. to conclude, the minority party is not irrational. the things that they do have a purpose. it is often to become the majority but not always. i would say that some of these tactics can work to some extent in helping the party achieve some of their goals. a few general things that matter for the minority party. resources, if they have money, if they have talent, at that individuals who are entrepreneurial, that can help them achieve -- execute the strategy as well. they can win over members of the majority party and they can command attention and get the press to pay attention to what

they're doing. and finally the goodwill of the majority, which congressman walker mentioned, a smart majority gives the minority an opportunity. one could argue -- >> please turn off your electronic devices. >> and that might be a cue for me to stop. [laughter] sometimes the majority gives them that. we do not see it in the aggregate, and that concludes my tall. [applause] >> the one thing that i notice. i am one of the few people ... special rules, but a majority began writing into the special rules for bills that led down the procedures prohibitions on anyone offering a motion to rise. now only the chairman of the committee can do that. that is why you see a lot fewer of those motions. with that, i turned things over

to jackie, who has had the benefit not only of covering congress for congressional quarterly when she first came, covering budgetary appropriations matters, but also one number of campaigns, both congressional and presidential. i think she can give us a perspective on how some of this stuff is perceived outside the beltway in on the campaign trail. >> i am here at the time of another turnover. when i first guarded covering congress in 1984, i actually thought at the year when on that i would never cover a congress that had a republican house majority. seriously. i never thought my career i would see that. and in 1992 -- oh, there was a group around a late-1980s call the 92 groups of house

republicans and their name suggests their goals. the seeds were planted for midterm elections, where the party in power -- the party that held the white house wins typically, but they will often lose seats in the midterm. you knew that you would gain seats in 1994. in fact, the statute of limitations was passed on this. i can say that 1988 -- i am going so far back i have to think -- gingrich did not want george h. w. bush to get the presidency. no, this was in 1991. he did not want to win again in 1992 because he saw that 1994 could be big gains in the mi