>> this week on "newsmakers", james cliburn and we will start with the assistant minority leader for the democrats and 112th congress. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> here to help us is major garrett and jonathan allen of politico. major, you have the first question. >> good to see you, mr. cliburn. what is that job and to be? are you going to have an office or staff? what does that say about what democrats or want to do to approach the leadership in this that as they find themselves in? >> i will have office and staff. i will be checking on a portfolio that is a little bit different than some that we have had in the past.

i cannot be in parts of the country that i had not campaigned before. when we came back here in the minority, it would have been very simple, as everybody said, you have been chair, so go back to being chair. posey will go back tautness policy will go back to being the leader. -- nancy pelosi will go back to being the leader. things that i have learned out there could be put to great use in our leadership discussions if we were to bring another chair to the table because i believe that we are in a different political environment and we have a caucus that is a little bit different from the republican conference. we have 42 african-americans and

about 21 or 22 latinos. we have 10 asian-pacific islanders. .e have blue dogs tha with all of this diversity, i thought i would learn a lot about it. i could really bring discussions to that table and to take them away from the table into our constituency in a way that would limit me if i were chair of the caucus. i am looking to looking at the leadership discussions and be able to translate to the american people what our policy is all about. i grew up and learned about a connecting -- about connecting with constituents.

you can connect emotionally and with people and i think i can bring that to this new job in a way that i would not have any other way. >> a follow-up on that. did you find a suggestion of stepping back from the caucus chair insulting or demeaning? no more than nancy pelosi stepping back to leader for another stepping back to whip. if everybody steps back and he is vice chair, we have to step away because john lawson step back to vice chair. it had nothing to do with me. it had to do with keeping diversity at that table and that is very important to me. i think it is important to our caucus. >> some people say that laws and

could lead. -- that lawson could lead. we had some headwinds out there this time and none of us could do anything about this. i learned that if you have to% unemployment, no matter what else you do, that is the curtain that you cannot break through. that is what we have here. we did the right thing. i think this stops the hemorrhaging that was taking place in the economy. it stops the job losses and we have been creating jobs. in the last 10 months, we have grown $1.2 million -- 1.2 million jobs in the private sector. we are going at 20 miles an hour and people think that we should be going 55 or 60 miles per hour. we have to speed up.

we are on the right track and we are on the right road. we're just not going fast enough for most of the american people. that is what we have to do. >> let me ask you about a topic that has been on a lot of minds lately. the trial of congressman rangel, do you think that this process has been fair to him or has it been unfair as he suggested? >> he never said that the process was unfair in totality. this has gone on for two years. on that particular day that he stood up last week and did not have an attorney, he won again to postpone and thought that it was unfair to proceed in that session without an attorney. that is what he said. i believe that charlie will agree that in the past two years, things have gone along matter fairly, but he wanted

them to suspend until he could bring an attorney and that is what he classified as being unfair. >> the thing that he has been treated fairly by the committee? -- you think that he as been treated fairly by the committee? >> we have discussed this. we have not talked about this since they returned their verdict, but everything that we talked about going up to that point -- i think that people missed the step in this process before we went on break for the elections. charlie rangel agreed that those violations did take place. he did not want anybody to consider them to be willful. the prosecutor said that he found nothing that was self

enriching about, nor did he find it to be anything delivered. he said it was sloppiness and unintended and there were at -- actions taken that violated ethics rules. we have those kind of comments coming from the prosecutor. i think that you have to say that all of this was unintentional on his part. he did not dispute that. what was required did not take place. >> on these mitigating -- are these mitigating factors in your opinion? >> absolutely. if he had done any of this for personal gain, i would say that this is bad news. but the prosecutor said that no personal gain was out of this. i think that people -- i have

seen some of the stuff that has been said. the fact of the matter is, some people do not pay close attention to the day-to-day stuff as other people do. this is my first elected office. from the age of 24, i have been director for executive director of the commission. i know a little bit of day-to- day management. >> two follow-up questions. don't you think that someone that is the chair of the ways and means committee should not operate with more self scrutiny? many americans look at this and say that if you're in charge of the american tax code, you should know what is going on in your own world. question 2, would you make an argument that mitigating factors

should be waived? >> charlie has not asked me to make any statement on his behalf. i do not know if anything is to happen in the caucus. if it were to happen in the caucus, that i would be guided by the emotions that i fill up the moment. if i have a feeling that something needs to be said, i will say at -- i will say that. >> on the question of whether the ways and means chairman should monitor this stuff and be held to a higher standard? >> sure. he was held to a higher standard. if he were not chair of the ways and means, i think a lot of this would be different. with all of that taken into account, the prosecutor said that nothing was intentional and there was a whole lot of sloppiness in his personal

stuff. no one ever said that he was sloppy on the people's business. it was his personal stuff. a lot of people say that you can always tell a painter's house, because that is the house that needs a paint job. you need to stay very focused. i have never seen anything that shows that he did not protect the public. he just did not take care of his own personal affairs. >> this has been an emotional week for the democratic caucus and a lot of members are coming back bay and will not be coming back next year. you equated the health care bill

to the civil rights act. you said that there are things that you do that are worth the price you pay. if you get some of this legislation enacted that is hard to take back, and you believe the health care bill is like civil rights, can you talk a little bit about how you -- about what you did over the past few years and the price that was paid by members and the value of that and whether it was worth it? >> i never said that the health care bill was a civil rights bill i had -- a civil-rights bill. i have compared it to the civil rights bill. i believe it is a fundamental right. when you pass a patient's bill of rights, that is a good thing. not discriminating because of pre-existing conditions and not discriminating because people get sick. knapp discriminating because someone turns 21 and not discriminating because they have

reached a limit on their benefits. as a cooking. -- that is a good thing. people do not have to go out and hired lawyers when they feel that they have not been treated fairly by the institution. you build that into the process. these things were good things. i do believe that they will change things. people say that they want it. we do pay for that. i believe that passing the civil rights act of 1964 was a great thing. it was not like 1965. how many people lost their seats? the democrats lost their way and the south because lyndon johnson said that he knew that the democrats with a big price for

passing the voting rights act. nobody, looking back, would say that is a good thing. nobody would see -- would say that medicare was a bad thing. if you get four big bills like that, and people lost seats because of it, you can go back to social security. a lot of people lost their seats because they voted for social security. people look back and say that it is a good thing. i am amazed at the number of members that have come back and said that they have come here for this. yes, i may have lost my seat because i voted for the health bill, but that is what i came here for. i believe that those people should be honored. i have been really pleased.

i was sweating talking to some of these people. and when i saw their attitudes, i was extremely hard andened -- -- hardened. someone lost two hundred 50,000 boats here. it comes to less than two ordered 50,000 -- two hundred 50,000 -- 250,000 votes. we will have the wind at our backs two years from now.

i can tell you that a lot of these people will be back. >> we are looking at rematch city? >> absolutely. >> we will see a lot of these narrowly defeated democrats run again? >> i have talked to them and they will be out there running again for these people knew that they would pay a price. i tell you, we will move forward. when you have people on the other side saying that they are going to make sure that this does not get a second term, you have to make sure that people get back to work. we have passed the kind of laws that will get people back on their jobs and get people back in their homes. that is what we should be about. we should leave politics out of this until election season, 18

months down the road. i think that the american people will see this. they will say that this is not what they elected this person 4. >> as far as recruiting for these people, allen floyd of florida said the other day -- or to ask you about recruiting as somebody who spent $53 million in and did she actually said 75 million was spent against her. how do you go about these numbers and say that we want you to run again and we have the same face of the defeat. >> you do it, in large measure, the way that i have been suggesting. that is that we expand our approach to things. as we -- look, we lost the

senior vote by 20 points. in our health care bill, which extended the life of medicare by 14 years. how you extend the life of medicare by 14 years and lose the vote by 20 points? they never understood that that is what we did. how do you pass the education bill to be passed for students -- pell grant $5,500. $1.6 billion investment. another 55 billion when you bring a institutions. most of these people did not know that we have done that. we passed the stimulus bill and we put an amendment there so that we could have those communities have 10% of that

money. i have talked to people all over this country who did not realize we have done that. what i am saying is that we did not do a good job of telling people what we have done. >>i am taking blame for that. all i am saying is that there is enough for all of us to share in this. you do something big, you do something good, you do -- you go onto the next big in good thing. voters need to know what exactly is in it for them. do you know how many people we would take out of emergency rooms and into health centers with this bill?

we are pulling people out of these very expensive health care delivery systems and putting them into health centers. and we did not do a good job explaining to people that we have done that. >> going forward, thus nancy pelosi need to have a different voice for the message? >> i think that we should play on each other's strengths. >> what is her strength, purses others -- obverses others? >> she is a terrific organizer and fund-raiser. she is a great tactician. i think that what she does for our caucus, nobody else in this caucus can do. i really believe that.

>> that sounds like a more of a behind-the-scenes type will. >> she is our spokesperson. she was there for years ago in front of the camera and she will be there again. i want to be there with her in a much more pro-active role than i have been in the past. i do believe, as i said earlier, i administrated throughout the years and connected with people on an emotional level i have gotten letters from people and phone calls from people that want to see us out more in our communities. i am talking about people that sit at the table. i do not believe that john lawson can do that the way that i can. >> will that be the part of your new portfolio? >> absolutely.

absolutely. it has been 10, 20, 30 priories of mind. i think that many got left out of the recovery when we have the so-called new deal. i want to make sure that these communities do not get left out this time. i have been in some communities in this campaign in the state of california, for instance, and i thought i was in south carolina. there was as much farming and rural stuff over there that i have in mind community. i relate to these people. used to run the south carolina farm workers. i know what that is.

i have been a little too much inside the beltway for the past two years. >> the tax needs to be taken care of by the first of the year. the white house has suggested some flexibility. the northern 3 on the senate, charles schumer, has suggested that the compromise of $1 million. do you agree that that would be a good figure to compromise on? is there a compromise figure that you would agree to? how will democrats come down on this question? >> i will hope the democrats think we should have a middle income tax cut of two to $2,000 or less. that means that every taxpayer gets -- of to under $50,000 --

250 -- $250,000 will see a tax cut. that is where i think we lost some of this discussion. >> in other words, do not budge? >> i am not going to budge. >> the soon-to-be minority leader does not want the caucus to budge either? >> i do not think so. i think that we are together on that. the house is a different animal than the senate. we will look at whether or not we can have some sort of a negotiation.

>> will this be resolved by the landlord? >> i would hope so. >> is it essential? >> i do not know that it is essential or not. some people would say that deficit reduction needs to be taking place. there is a bright side to this matter what we do. i want to see the middle and come people get a tax cut. >> we have time for one more question. >> , to ask you what kind of animal the senate is. they are wrestling with an earmark been over there. there is now a republican been in the house. there are no other democrats in south carolina. are you going to be the force for south carolina now, and ly?ittedly -- unmitigated le

>> i put a $400 thousand earmarke. that is not my pet project. i want to deepen the harbor. it would be a good job creator. that is not a pet project. but you cannot do it if you do not have earmarked 40-year mark -- earmark authority. we keep -- some people may have a pet projects. i was born and raised in the project. my father was president of an

organization in south carolina. a conversation i heard was what they were going to do. they got rid of the pastor. the church is still there. if you have people messing up with earmarks, then get rid of those people. we did not get rid of the congress because congress went into iraq. when you have people that worked in their communities, and they tell us that this is what needs to happen so that we can do what is necessary to bring business and to our states, that is not a pet project. when you set up a water system where they cannot bathe in the water and you do in earmark for drinking water, that is not

a pet project. they are just trying to bring infrastructure to the communities that really need it. these are people that have not had attention from the federal government. every earmark i have ever requested, i put up in neon lights. he put it on the internet and let people look at it and let the communities that requested defend it -- to that request it and defend it. they are telling them what your problems are. we want you to help us get a water system, a community center. that is not a pet project of mine. i do not live in this community. that is how i respond to my constituents.

if you say that i can do it, i will have to depend on the bureaucrats up their cost of their -- up there. i cannot respond to their dreams and aspirations. >> a thank you for being on c- span "newsmakers." >> we are back with our reporters. let's begin with this new job. >> is going to have an office and a staff. it does not sound like much in most parts of america, but it means a lot on capitol hill. that is something that i did not know. it looks like there will be a communications component to it. i think that one of the most important things that we learned is that he expects the democrats that were defeated to run again.

that is an important political marker. >> we talked to a number of them and it sounds like this new role as assistant minority leader will allow him to get out of washington and go back to some of these guys that lost and prepare them to run again. >> he said that he went to 42 different districts and districts he has never been to before. obviously, he has a good communications element to his game that he can bring forward in various communities across the country. he says he likes to talk to rural folks about forming. he used to be a farm commissioner. this is an opportunity, not to just be at the leadership table, but to get very far away from the leadership table. there are a lot of liaison roles. i spoke to some members of the congressional black caucus and that they said he may have a role as liaison to speak with the other caucuses in congress.