he has done worse than that. he has devalued our currency by pumping money, inflating our commodities, our food prices, our oil prices, which is a horrible burden on working americans, on saving americans. he has devoted our currency and he has a value to our culture, through not standing up for the defense of marriage act of abortion. he values are other currency. all of this is bad enough. i think americans realize it does even more. there was something more that is concerning america. that is why i am here in

somerset county. my grandfather came to this county back in 1927. they promised them all sorts of handouts lived in a beautiful town in the mountains. i visited. it is truly gorgeous. why would anyone want to leave nine brothers and sisters and led a stable job in a beautiful place? one word, freedom.

he was watching what mussolini was doing. he was dealing with his oldest son. he said "i will not stand for this fall " he left. he came here. he started in the coal mine. it is in carpenter's part pennsylvania. [applause] he worked to give his children.

this is the america. that my dad lived on. we can do that again today. [applause] that is what is unique. the president of the united states responded to paul brian's budget. he was talking about medicare and medicaid and unemployment insurance. he said the country is a better country with as programs.

he was here before 1965. make sure there is a emerges the personnel that can get here? the one to make sure this person gets some help. -- make sure there is emergency personnel that can get here? i want to make sure this person can get some help. >> can maybe get a chair?

thank you for coming. >> can somebody please save prayer for that young lady?

america is a great country. not because of our government. it is because our founders founded a great country. i love our tea party years to raise the competition -- the constitution up. in that constitution that they hold up, there is another document that was there. it was the declaration of independence. it is who we are. we hear a lot of talk about american exceptional as them. what does that mean? the declaration tells us. they hold these truths to be

self evident that all men are created equal, endowed by our creator. it is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. our founders did something revolutionary with that statement, prior to that time, right still not come to every individual. that is not what they believed. it is from the keen, to the government. to the government would distribute the rest. they left as countries. they did not want them to tell them what rights they had.

they knew what rights they have from god. if you are going to some of the mission of america, that transformed the world, that made it the greatest country in the history of the world, life expectancy doubled in the 2000 years. the principal purpose of america is to make sure that each and every person was free. that is at stake now. it is more than has ever been. we are facing a time where

people are led by president obama. agree this is in government and not its people. -- a time where america's greatness is government and of its people. obamacare does something nothing has done, makes you buy something. more importantly, it is the government for the first time that will have its clutches to create the dependency on every single american. not those who are old or sick, but every single american now. you what that iv you want that health care.

t have to get him that. he was never able to accomplish this. it is the british national healthcare system. why do think they work so hard? why do think they are willing to break every rule? why are they willing to lose this election? why did they ignore it and jam it down the throats of the american public? why do you think they cared so much about passing this bill? the week after president obama decided to double down, i said why are you doing this? he said let me tell you what they are doing.

americans love entitlements. once we give them hugs, they will never let it go. they want to hook you. they do not want to free you. they do not believe in me. they believe in themselves, the smart people, the planners, the people make decisions better than you can. they are safe to seniors that you need to trust us. we will make decisions. we cannot trust seniors to make decisions. this is exactly what we are proposing for medicare. it gives people the resources to go out and choose what is best for themselves.

our founders knew that establishing free them an incidental thing to do. they knew the harder thing to do was to maintain freedom over the course of time, over the course of leaders to try to sing that song. almost 10 years now, a group of average americans, a traveling salesman, stood with his back against the wall and rallied in

lead and people, average americans to do what needed to be dumb to save -- to be done to save freedom in america. [applause] on this day, june 6 1944,, 60,000 average americans have the courage to go out in charge those beaches in normandy, to drop out of the planes and take on the battle for freedom. average americans, the very americans as our government now and this president does not trust to make a decision on your healthcare plan.

those americans risked everything so they can make that decision on their health care plan. [applause] we are facing enormous challenges today. they will test whether this generation and will keep faith with those patriots. theher it'll keep america greatest country in the history of the world. people are looking for a leader who is optimistic and to believes that we must meet those challenges and that we can meet those challenges, that we can keep faith not a big government. [applause]

in 2008, a wearied and troubled public looked to a president, looked to elect a president who they could believe thein. president obama took that state that the american people gave him an erection of our economy and centralized power in washington, d.c. and robbed them. i believe now that americans are not looking for someone that they can believe them.

fellow americans, it is our watch. it is our time for all of us to step up and do what america requires us to do. i am ready to lead america. i am ready to do what has to be done for the next generation with the courage to fight for freedom, with the courage to fight for america. we are running for president. join the fight. join the fight. [applause]

♪

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>> led me take your picture really quick. >> thank you.

>> we are getting the band back together. >> can we get a picture? >> you are covering things or working?

>> thank your beautiful wife. daudet's shining upon you. -- gaudy is -- god is shining

upon you. he did it right the first time. we are going to turn you around, senator. >> give him my best. i know that he is working. >> so nice to meet you. i am elizabeth.

>> what is the camera. >> i will continue praying. >> monday, the agricultural secretary gives a speech on food security. the secretary will also address the importance of transparent markets for trading food and agriculture did its. that is at 1:30 eastern --

agricultural goods. that is at 1:30 eastern. on this gers hearing. the hearing is hosted by the senate homeland security committee on intergovernmental affairs. it runs about two hours.

>> we are happy to welcome you to our hearing. we thank you for joining us. we have a vote starting at 2:15. the senator is going to step out in a few minutes. we will not waste your time and give the show on their road. there are several challenges and now our government faces in managing the property. we will also discuss the proposal to address some of these challenges through the creation of a civilian property realignment toward to assist agencies in the federal real estate portfolio.

we need to get smarter about the way we manage our lands. we got as much undead as we did in the first 208 years of our nation's history it -- as much in debt as we did in the first 200 years of varney said -- our nation's history. a wide variety has been put forward in whistling down our debt. last fall of majority of the bipartisan commission provided us with a road map to reduce the accumulative deficit by roughly four trillion dollars. a number of steps we would need to take to accomplish this goal will likely be painful.

many of us believe those of us in washington are not capable of taking those steps. they do not think we can do the hard work and we were hired to do. that is effectively manage tax dollars. they look get the poor management and question whether the culture is broken. they question whether we are capable of making the tough decisions the families have to make every day. i do not blame them for being skeptical. we need the right culture when it comes to spending, and we need to establish a culture of thrift. that involves looking at every nook and cranny of spending along with tax expenditures and asking, is it possible to get better results for less money or at least for the same amount of

money. it is clear to me that we can get better results and save money. this has been higher risk since january, 2003, in part due to the vacant facilities held by federal agencies. the most recent data shows the federal agencies as a 45,000 underutilized buildings, totaling more than 340 million square feet in space. that is about the size of delaware. i exaggerate, but that is a lot of space. these buildings cost nearly $1.7 million annually to secure and maintain. the administration listed 14,000 properties that no longer meet federal need and should be disposed of.

we are likely over-leasing. since 2008, they have leased .ore property than it owns fortunately congress and the obama administration are united in addressing this issue. president obama issued a memorandum urging agencies to move quickly on needed property. he also put together a goal of meeting these challenges by 2012. the budget concludes a recommendation for civilian property realignment whose purpose would be to review the portfolio and dispose of those deemed excess in an expedited manner. this is a proposal my colleagues

and i still need to spend time examining, but i employees of the president has put this suggestion -- i am pleased they have put this suggestion on the table. rome was not built in a day. federal government's portfolio cannot be an unbuilt in a day. do we have an opportunity to do this right, to change the way the government manages assets. the president's proposal may be the right approach. it may not be. it does hold some promise, and and that is that an agency should not be waiting for civilians to solve the problem while managing properties. in an era of shrinking budgets, it is critical that agencies come up with innovative tools to

expeditiously dispose of assets they no longer need and to take better care of those they do need. our government has many vacant properties that cost billions of dollars each year to maintain. we pay for maintenance. we pay for security. we pay for utilities for many properties. are really look forward to hearing your thoughts so that we can move forward with more difficult work that lies ahead. >> are thank you for being here. this is something i commend the president for putting forth a plan to deal with the

underutilized properties. we could be using other types of programs or paying back our deficit. i will submit a statement for the record, but i want to point out those things, and i look forward to witness' testimony as well. >> let me thank our staff for preparation for this hearing. i want to begin by welcoming our first panel of witnesses. it is the hon. alan dixon from illinois. while he served in the house -- in the senate, i was serving in the house. we had a fair amount of overlap.

the committee on small business also. he has continued to demonstrate his commitment to public service i serving as a chairman for the realignment commission. he is currently senior counsel for the law firm center. it is great to see you. and the president and technology consultant of the firm the supports large organ -- larger organizations. he has more than doubled the size since 2003. it previously he spent more than half his career as general manager, providing support for every closures since 1988.

welcome. tim ford is chief executive officer of the defense community, which has been credited with helping hundreds of members. mr. ford is a nationally recognized experts on the impact of base closure and community partnership. previously he was executive director of the new york city training coalition, which is the work force development association. very nice to see you, and finally, a person whose name has never been correctly pronounced. i am going to try to ask my staff. when we have a tough name to spell, i asked them to spell it phonetically.

it is the executive director of the law center in. she is the founder of the center which has advocated for helping the homeless since 1985. i served with stewart mckinney for a number of years in the banking committee. that was the first major college insulation past addressing homelessness. she has led litigation to secure legal rights for the homeless. we thank you and each of our panelists for being here today. why don't we begin our testimony. we ask that you try to limit your testimony is to 5 minutes or so. senator brown, you may want to slip out and go vote.

you may want to do that, and then we will be in a shape. feel free to summarize as you wish. >> thank you very much it is delightful to be here with you today. my full statement is in the record. i think you will find it useful. that year my good friend was chairman of the armed services committee and recommended me to be the chairmen and talked me into it. i have come to forgive them both, but i can testify on the basis of that experience that it was an immense success. billions of dollars were saved

by what we did. i am going to close by saying my experience is outlined for you. now i want to say that some of the communities affected were essential both for losing communities to overcome the economic impact and in some cases for gaining communities to prepare a local infrastructure to receive new activities i noticed under the administration's proposal, this realignment board meetings are not open to the public, and the chair and the ranking member of the congressional oversight committee can sit in on all meetings of the board. i respectfully suggest the subcommittee should take a close look deputies aspects -- at

these aspects. the value of transparency, the value of openness, the value of opportunities for people to be heard is terribly important. the experience shows the military base closures can be done in a fair, open, a pattern, and i believe it will be done if you are prepared to protect transparency. >> i spend a couple days in california and, where many of the bases have been closed, and for the most part, very successful, so i think you're absolutely right. >> in my own state of illinois,

they close the air force base. everybody thought that would be the ruination of this community in illinois. as a matter of fact, that has become a tremendous industrial park, and that has contributed a lot of good to that community. they close fort sheridan in northern illinois, and that became one of the beautiful residential areas, so i definitely believe the economic results will be very beneficial to the people of the united states. >> albert einstein once said in adversity lies opportunity to record thank you for being with us today.

-- lies opportunity. thank you for being with us today. >> i certainly want to say on behalf of the employees we sincerely appreciate your invitation to share our views. our views are owned by nearly 25 years of experience through five rounds starting in 1988. this has included development of tools to determine space requirements. we have also determined excess properties for a specific type and location. these proven methodologies continue to result in savings in cost avoidances. we recently helped the army avoid half a million dollars in parking. we have examined other standards and analogous private sector benchmarks to help the army to

develop new criteria. the result was cost avoidance of $220 million for medical facilities, $310 million for parking. the result of this allowed the army to avoid sense of millions of dollars in additional costs of -- avoid tens of millions of dollars in additional costs. these are the types of thinking that should take place as civilian agencies change the way they view their needs. i would caution congress not to view this as a fire sale of assets. rather, it should be viewed as an opportunity to affect permanent changes in real asset management. the most substantial benefit to the taxpayer will come from reduced year over your -- over your sustainment costs.

my written statement offers several suggestions for the subcommittee's considerations. i would like to highlight six of them. first, the senate commission should operate six years. it would likely take two crowns to get the full benefits. good business practices become institutionalized, and congress and tax their expectations are met with regards to proceeds, and other savings. a commission development of standards for evaluating recommendations is one of the keys to this process. the commission should avoid a

one size fits all criteria, but standard benchmarks can lead to integration of methodologies across all agencies. this would help ensure realignment is an ongoing activity. agencies should regularly evaluate as a business processes improve and workplace realities improve. steps should be taken to ensure that they have adapted to account for what they own, how it is being utilized, and how it compares to what is needed for essential programs. without these important new data points, decision makers will have diminished ability to realign or improved management of real property assets. agencies should be given sufficient time to work through thorny issues of the commission.

done right, this will require agencies to rethink space requirements. this undertaking requires sufficient time to promote the best choices. congress should consider requiring departments to prepare and published criteria for the federal register. they should establish consistency in the way recommendations are developed and would be helpful to civilian agencies as well. it finally, congress should consider the establishment of a trust entity to take possession of all designated properties and dispose of the men away and maximizes returns. this would bundle across agencies as part of the process.

it is experience of bundling in creative ways is more limited. they could effectively engage to successfully address such innovations. i applaud your efforts to address this need. congress should take care to design the process so the taxpayer gets the best benefit as possible. >> to go ahead. i would like to get started during your >> we of -- i would like to get started. >> we appreciate the opportunity to be heard today. we represent more than 250 communities that are dealing with the impact.

through our involvement in the process, we bring a vast experience with working with local and state governments and the private sector on the impacts of the transfer. we hope the lessons learned in the process and in particular, the impact on parol immunity and states should be given consideration. one of the major reasons we ended bob wisdom was to mitigate concerns for the states regarding transparency of the process. well decisions have been challenging, the process has remained politically viable because of the commitment to transparency and decisions to involve communities from the

beginning. .

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>> now federal election commission chairman led her agency's oversight of campaign finance laws. also, remarks on the impact of the 2010 supreme court ruling in citizens united versus the f.e.c., which focused on spending in political campaigns. she spoke at ant even hosted by the group, public citizens. this is about an hour.

>> thank you for joining us today. public citizen has been around for 40 years after being founded in 1971, working for strengthening our democracy, protecting health and safety, and we've been -- and advancing justice. we recognize that all the diverse interests we have ultimately can't be realized unless we have a functioning democracy and, above all, a well functioning election system. we're very pleased today to host cynthia bowerley, chair of the federal election commission. she'll make some overview remarks for us and then be open for questions from you all.

cynthia bowerley is the chair of the f.e.c. he she served there since 2008. prior to that, worked as a staff member in the senate for senator schumer and on the judiciary committee and the rules committee, and prior to that, worked as a lawyer in private practice. the f.e.c. is an interesting government agency, has the authority for making sure our federal election system is working properly. many critics, including on the commission, recognize the f.e.c. itself is not functioning so properly right now. i'm sure we'll be hearing about that. of course, the f.e.c. has also received some unusual attention from an unexpected source in the last several weeks, as comedian stephen colbert has decided to file nonfrivolous petitions with the f.e.c. on some strange and perhaps troubling issues. i'm sure we'll have a chance to talk about that as well. so with that, let me hand the

floor over to you and eager to hear what you have to say. >> thank you. i want to congratulate public citizen on 40 years of hard and good work on behalf of the public, and thank you for the invitation to be here, and thank all of you for coming on such an incredibly hot d.c. day to hear about campaign finance law, which i think for many, it's not that interesting of a topic, but lately has certainly become much more interesting, shall we say, and has even garnered the attention of, as robert mentioned, late-night comedy hosts. we all know once it sinks in as that level, then the public really knows about an issue, once you're on late-night comedy. i think we can agree that campaign finance law can't be criticized for developing too slowly. i know even in the time frame when i agreed to come here and speak to you and today, there's been a major decision out of the eastern district of virginia about the constitutionality of corporate contributions.

i'll speak a little bit more about that, but obviously it's a fast-paced area, and the commission has to keep up with that. i'll preface my remarks by saying they are my own today. they should not be attributed to any of my colleagues. that won't surprise you to know there's some disagreements among some of my colleagues about what the law is what the law should be, so they're attributed to me. i note my colleague is here, so you might ask him his opinion as well on any of these issues. we tend to agree more often than not. but some of our other colleagues, we disagree with frequently. my remarks were originally aimed at citizens united. i asked our friends here to broaden them a little bit, because i think while citizens united certainly was a landmark decision and got a lot of attention last year, there are a couple of other cases that have been significant in shifting the landscape and have brought us full circle to really where we are today. and i want to note in

particular the f.e.c.'s role in all of this. the f.e.c. doesn't write the laws, and we don't decide whether they're constitutional. we have an important but fairly limited role in this process. that is to administer the campaign finance act, the public funding provisions of the presidential funding act, and to make sure that the law is being enforced and to develop regulations when the statute provides them room for the agency to do so. so while it is a substantial role, it is not that of the court to decide the constitutionality of it, and it is not that of congress to pass the law in the first place. one of the main functions of the f.e.c. is to enforce the disclosure provisions of the act. disclosure is a very important part, the bedrock of everything that happens in the campaign finance area, and the commission does so through publishing all of the reports that the committees are filing with us. we review every page of those

reports to make sure that they're accurate and where we have questions. we send requests for information to make sure the public record is as accurate as possible. and there's been a lot of discussion about disclosure over the last year, particularly after citizens united, questions about whether we're getting enough, whether people who are supposed to be reporting are actually reporting. in april, the "los angeles times" did a report about some of the nation's leading companies, and while they seem to be reporting some of their own spending, they are not reporting their contributions to other third parties who are engaging in this kind of activity on their behalf. and, of course, public citizen did a major report on the year anniversary of the decision about what kind of spending happened after citizens united and what kind of disclosure was or was not happening as a result of that. so disclosure, whether through reporting or through the disclaimers that we see on advertising, provides the public with important information about who is

funding that speech, and that is an interest that they've repeatedly held as recently as citizens united. we also talk about the band, but there was an 8-1 decision upholding the disclosure provisions in the statute, so there is broad support at the supreme court for the important interest there. with respect to the corporate predictions on independent expenditures, independent spending, citizens united certainly was the turning point, but there had been clues in earlier cases about the court's view of some of these predictions. in wisconsin right to life and massachusetts citizens for life, the court had previously chipped away at that statutory pricks, and, of course, citizens united struck it down entirely. so while it was surprising,

perhaps particularly procedurally in that case, the court had already limited, narrowed that statutory prohibition. another case that came out shortly after citizens united, called speech now, found that contribution limits are unconstitutional for individuals who wanted to fund an i understand zent expenditure-only organization. so speech now wanted to make independent expenditures, they weren't going to coordinate or provide contributions to any candidates, and the court found that since individuals could spend unlimited amounts of their own money in an independent way by analogy, if you wanted to provide contributions to an organization who is going to make those expenditures independently, that that would also be -- the constitution requires that to be unlimited as well. so both citizens united and speech now have held the disclosure and reporting and organizational requirements that we find in the act, the essential part of what makes an

entity required to report with us, whether someone's a political committee or not, but did for independent speech make some significant departures from the underlying statutes. and whenever major court decisions come down, the f.e.c. has an obligation to respond to them. we fairly immediately noted that we would not be enforcing the provisions the court had found unconstitutional, and we are also usually presented with advisory opinion requests. organizations who want to take certain actions can present the request to the commission for its decision, and based upon that decision conscious take a particular course of action. so we sought a number of these related to citizens united and speech now last year. i'll mention a couple of them, because they sort of help further define the lay of the land in this area. first, club for growth. they've been very active in politics for a long time. club for growth wanted to create within its corporate structure a connected,

independent-only political committee, as if we didn't have enough acronyms in campaign finance law, we have to have one more. so independent expenditure only political committee, and they wanted to create a separate committee that would be connected to their corporate structure, but independent from their contribution side. the commission found that that was a permissible structure and that they could accept unlimited contributions, but note the opinion did also note there's the potential for contribution that is raised whenever an organization who is making contributions might have some connection to an organization that is making independent spending. so, for example, if someone who were working on the contribution side had a immediately to discuss the benefits of an independent expenditure, that might raise coordination issues. so the commission flagged that issue for the public and for

the request in that matter. we had another request from an organization called common sense 10. it wanted to combine the holdings of basically speech now and citizens united. speech now said that an independent expenditure-only organization could accept unlimited contributions from individuals. they want to layer that with citizens united, which said that independent spending by corporations was permissible, and so the commission agreed in that request that they could accept unlimited contributions for independent speech from corporations and labor unions, the two entities that were affected by the citizens united decision. finally we had a request from an organization called the national defense pack. national defense pack wanted to do something similar to club for growth, but in a different organizational way. within their organization, which for a long time made contributions and was

candidates to endorse candidates on issues it deemed important, wanted to set up an independent expenditure account, so not annal separate organization, but simply a separate account. the commission could not give an answer to that requestor as to whether it was permissible or not. the commission deadlocked on, and we split 3-3. the rationale for both separate commissioners on that is available on our website in that advisory opinion file. basically because the organization made contributions, a number of us, including commissioner walter and myself, were concerned that existing supreme court law, including cal med, probably precluded that arrangement until further action by the court. and that may be coming, because we were sued in january to have that advisory opinion reviewed by the court. and as you are all aware, the f.e.c. is sued frequently, and to prove the point that we are sued both for being too

regulatory, as in the case of this, and too lenient, representative christopher von holland has recently sued us over our reporting, so that is in court as well. as you look around the country, you'll see that there are a number of cases, whether challenging the federal statutes or very similar state statutes that are in the works. and so i think it's safe to say there will be more to come in this area. all of this was a major shift in the landscape of what we had previously understood about campaign finance law that corporations were generally prohibited from their general spending, their general funds in any way on election. and so that, i think, raises issues of disclosure and coordination, and even political committee stat to us a new level. all those issues were important in our law before, but now with all of these new speakers, i

think they have an even greater significance. that isn't to say that the status of corporate contributions, such as what happened in daniel tech this week aren't important, but there are issues that the commission can decide that are within the commission's jurisdiction, and that's not one of them. there are lots of issues, like coordination and political committee status and reporting that are within the agency's jurisdiction and that's where we can focus our efforts. from my personal perspective, i think we can be doing more on disclosure, and i think that we should be. i think the commission should consider after citizens united whether our disclosure rules need updating. for example, there was a cross-reference to one of the provisions that the court struck down in our reporting regs. so it seems we have to think about how to do some of that clean-up. and i think that it would not be too much either to ask whether we should reconsider some of the disclosure

requirements given citizens united. if you follow the commission, you know in january we were unable to issue a notice of proposed rule making on citizens united. there weren't votes to ask the public about whether we should even ask these questions and gather public comment on our reporting rules and on rules with respect to foreign nationals. another group that is implicated by the citizens united decision, because obviously now if corporations can spend independently, there are issues about whether a foreign-based corporation, do they have the same rights. some of us on the commission would like to see public comment on that. next week, we're going to take another shot at it. we're going to try to see if they can come up with four votes to try to ask the public some of these important questions. i'll also note that we do have some petitions pending on some of these issues before the

commission, and there's a procedure in general administrative law, but specifically at the commission, that if we see a petition, our general course is to put it out for public comment. so if we're able to put those petitions out, we are eager to seek public comment on those petitions. of course, anyone can file a petition if they think there's an issue that the commission should be addressing. so there are lots of ways to put issues before the commission, an advisory request and petitions, and also, any of our documents that are handled at our open meetings are made available to the public. and the public can comment on any of those. there's a formally process for commenting on advisory opinions, so whether you're the requestoregon not doesn't matter. we are interested in hearing comments from everyone, and i assure you they will be read. we read everything that comes into the door. and, again, anything that goes on in our open meeting social security available ahead of time.

and so if there's an area of interest and a need for comment, we're happy to hear that as well. i personally find it disappointing that as of yet we have not been able to seek public comment on some of these important issues. i think it is part of our job to try to provide as much guidance as possible to those who are trying to comply with the law. those political committees that are filed with us and need to file their reports with us, those who are making independent expenditures or communications and need to file appropriate reports with us. we have an obligation to provide them with as much assistance in that process as possible, because if we can get those reports filed correctly the first time, the public has the information it needs in a timely way to understand what's going on. and just for a moment on the amount of disclosure, i know that there's a lot of discussion about the need for additional disclosure, and the role at the f.e.c., we are

limited to the statute so. if someone is a political committee, if their major purpose is the election or dweast a candidate and they've raised $1,000 in that endeavor, then they need a definition. if they tonight meet our definition, they're outside of our jurisdiction. now, they may be in the jurisdiction of someone else, a 527. they have a reporting obligation to the i.r.s. the s.e.c. has recently provided an opportunity for shareholders to have some comments on corporations spending, but frankly, we have a fairly limited ability to reach all of this spending. and i know their efforts in congress, and i know public citizens has supported them to try to expand that. but as of yet, at the f.e.c., this is what we have to work with, and that's what we're trying to work with. i think disclosure is incredibly important. it's becoming more important as there are more speakers. and there have been efforts recently to argue that anonymous speech is required by the first amendment.

courts have repeatedly held that the interest of disclosure is importants and necessary, in fact, to our democracy. in citizens united, as i mentioned, we've spent a lot of time thinking and focusing on the part of that decision that struck down the band, but it also had some important things to say about disclosure, i think. citizens united said the first amendment protects political speech, and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. this transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to such speakers and messages. not long after citizens united in another matter, another case in front of the supreme court, which was about disclosure and the referendums in california, i note that justice scalia issued a con curens, because he did not think that the disclosure petition should be

treated in the way that the majority did, but his concur ens was notable. there are laws against threats and intimidation and harsh criticism. short of unlawful action is a price our people have traditionally been willing to way for self-governance. people standing up fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. and i find it notable, it you probably won't find me quoting justice scalia all that often, but i think he's right. i think civic courage is something of a tradition in this country. whether it was the soapbox on the street corner, you knew who was speaking. and transparency and disclosure having an integral part of our self-governance and civic courage. i really think that phrase is important. i expect that we will hear continued concern about disclosure and the ramifications for it as pressure for disclosure mounts, including shareholders' right to have a say on spending and

that sort of thing. i think one thing that's notable is consumers, like voters, have had access to information for a long time, and voters can engage in behavior in response to that information. i grew up in a household where i couldn't have nestleq quik, because they were promoting baby formula in africa, and my mother thought that was inappropriate, so they took action with their pocketbook. and that has been, i think, a tried and true form of consumer response to corporate behavior. i think the montgomery boy cut, bus boycotts were probably bad for business. that's exactly the point. boycott. and i think that, you know, consumers have that right to engage in behavior in response to information it learns about a corporation, and i think voters have that right too, to

be able to respond to, as i think the supreme court put it, make informed decisions and give proper weight to speakers and messages. the commission does have some role to play in this, and the commission is not doing as much as i might like or some of my colleagues might like, but it does promote transparency and accountability. it provides the public with a clear and accurate public record in the form of the report that the committees file with us. the commission and its dedicated staff will be making sure that data is available quickly and clearly on our record, and we also provide that data to organizations who are just in the data, organizations that source that information and try to gather some broader lessons from what's happening in the spending. we also will continue to engage in our advise are you opinion process, to provide as many answers as we can to clarify what the law is happening. we have some very interesting requests pending, including mr.

colbert's, and unfortunately i'm not going to be able to talk about those today because they are pending. but you can look forward to commission action on those throughout the summer. it is a very important role to provide as much guidance as we can to specific questions. i read recently of the calls from some in the reform community that you should just shutter the agency and say use our money to started paying down the deficit. you know, i disagree with that. i think the agency provides a very important public service. while it's true we deadlock on more things and on the hard things, if the f.e.c. were to just disappear, the data za disappear, and the public would have no information. i think it's safe to say i would disagree with those. those who are concerned about the state of campaign finance law and disclosure, i have to believe that it wouldn't be a desired result for them as

well. with that, i'll be happy to take any questions. i'll be even happier if i could answer them for you. i'll let you go. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> let me start with a few, if i may. it the issue of disclosure, as you know, citizens united opened the floodgates for a lot of corporate money to come in. a lot of that money is coming through channels that are not disclosing it. and that actually -- that nondisclosure is a result not of the supreme court, but of an f.e.c. holding in the past. i wonder if you could comment on that and what steps could be taken by the commission to get the disclosure in this big area, growing area of secret funding. >> i think to respond to that, i'm not sure what you mean by an f.e.c. holding in the past,

if you're talking about freedom clutch or the regulations. >> regulations that the f.e.c. has. you know, it took a long time for congress to finally amend the federal election campaign act to give full disclosh you're, but they succeeded with the mccain-feingold law. so we essentially had 100% disclosure of all the money going to outside groups that was being spent on independent expenditures, but the f.e.c. narrowed that in 2007 to apply only to donations that were earmarked for a specific political expenditure, which no one does, you know? and as a result, we've seen disclosure fall from 100% down to 50% in 2010, and it will drop much lower as we go into

2012. this is the f.e.c. regulation. are you going to revisit that? >> well, we have been trying to revisit that. and as you're aware, there's a lawsuit over one of the election piece of that regulation. you're right, the statute and the regulation have different scopes. and we have made an attempt to try to seek public comment on whether the commission should revisit that regulation. thus far, we have not been able to put that notice of proposed rule making out the door. >> i know you're on the commission, it's awkward to talk about it, but what's the way out of deadlock? obviously the call is to shut down the agency and people are frustrated things aren't happening. >> right. well, i think it's partly a challenge of structure. the agency requires four votes to accomplish, to take any

action. frankly, the agency is what i would describe as sort of non -- not from an administrative level, but fairly a reactive agency. so complaints are filed with us. we do have the ability to go back and revisit any of our regulations, but the reality is it's probably not going to happen very frequently. but when we get petitions in front of us to open a rule making, we have to consider those. we have to consider the petition. we have to consider an advisory opinion request. we consider comments that come in on those advisory opinions or other policies that the agency is adopting. so i think it is a challenge of structure, but i also think that there are mechanisms to force us to take what action we can, and those do exist for the public or organizations to take. again, it is a group of six individuals. i think all of us are trying to

do -- trying to serve the agency in the way that we might be fit. some of us disagree about what the role of the agency is. >> any questions from the room? will you identify yourself, please? >> on citizens united, you might have an opinion on whether reformers might have gone too far with the $5,000 limit on contributions to p.a.c.'s for individuals, not corporations, but a human being. and that if there would have been no sympathy from the court for irinability to make their movie and promote it without violating those statutes. >> i think what's true about this area of the law, it's always -- as you know, it takes a long time to get any of these laws through congress, and i think it's hard to describe any of them as anything but a

compromise to actually get it through congress. and again, there has been more unanimous, more support in congress for things like disclosure in the past, and that showed up. so it's hard for me to say that , you know, 5,000 or 10,000, that wasn't really the issue in citizens united. it was really about whether this corporation could run its ads about its products, and the court took it a step further and struck down the ban itself, but i think it's hard to -- it's pretty ease any hindsight to go back and say, well, we should have written the law this way or it should have been this way or the f.e.c. should have done something different. i think we are where we are. the court did something that probably surprised almost everyone involved in the case, and so our job is to implement that decision.

>> you talk about the challenges the f.e.c. is faced with its current jurisdiction. republicans in the u.s. house of representatives have talked about eliminating the election assistance commission, hanging that over to the f.e.c. commission, which existed prior to the founding. in your opinion, your personal opinion, does the f.e.c. have the capacity to do that? would it be a good thing? and how would you be able to juggle it with your current jurisdiction? as you noted, it's challenging enough as it is. >> well, i will tell you exactly what i told the members of congress in a letter we wrote on them on this issue, that it's congress' determination and prerogative to decide where certain responsibilities land. some of these exist at the s.e.c. in terms of the clearinghouse for information. obviously additional requirements were established that created the entire pool of money of funding that would go to states to modernize voting equipment, so obviously that

didn't exist before. if we do get additional responsibilities, we would need the appropriate level of funding to continue those, because obviously the e.a.c. has its own budget and its own contract and its own personnel to do a lot of this work, and so we would need an appropriate level of resources to do that as well. but that's congress' call as to whether that's an appropriate way to address the issues that were behind setting up the agency in the first place, the concerns that were addressed. >> i have two questions. are there any members of the f.e.c. at the commission that are actually against the f e.c., that you feel they're actual there will just because they're against the f.e.c. and that's why they were appointed, number one. the second one is, in the light of the -- in the light of the

situation we find ourselves with the strategic compute of voting scams on the rise, i sometimes feel that the election, that citizens united and all these things talking about disclosure and election spending, it's almost as if they distracted us with all of that and is quite complex, and they just stolen the eggs out of the hen house. i lived in a county that, in 2004, we were 18 points off the exit poll on the presidential election, and it threw my state , and that was nevada, and that was marshall county. would you ever recommend that we follow what germany has done, the german high court, which is one of the better courses with the least money in

the europian union certainly that we have outlawed computer voting, because they say it violates the german constitution, has the effect of counting the votes in private, and your votes are counted by somebody you don't know. >> this is one of those areas that i can't answer either of your questions, i'm afraid. i can't speak to the views of my colleagues on the role of the agency or why they were disappointed, because obviously i was one of those who was appointed. i wasn't the one appointing. and with respect to election administration issues, like computers, our role is campaign finance. so the spending of money in our system -- and i might -- i have an opportunity in this jab, which is fascinating to me, with he representatives from around the world, and in many countries, they have a unified body where they handle, at a

federal level, both the campaign finance side and the election administration side. that doesn't happen in this country. we have standards, of course, that by the e.a.c. and by federal law, but the administration about choosing, you know, which particular machines to use, so long as they meet certain standards, are handled by states. a state has the chief election administration official, and those decisions are made at the state level. we are fairly unique in the world in that sense, but that has been the determination that the federal law exists to create standards, ensure disability access, voting rights to ensure access for all, but we don't -- at the commission, we certainly don't deal with those, and frankly, at the federal level, we don't actually deal a lot with particular technologies other than to set some standards. >> you said this week you'll be taking another look at trying to ask the public some of these

questions related to clarifying disclosure after citizens united. first, what are the odds you'll get a different outcome? and two, could you be more specific about what questions about disclosure you'd like to be asked of the public? >> sure. our agenda for next week is up on our website, if you want to see the specifics on that. and there should be a full document with that shortly. it will be a fairly long document. similar to what we had hoped to do in january to ask them questions about the reg that was adopted in 2007 for election communications, a few questions about independent ex-pend tours, and some questions about whether we should reconsider some aspects of foreign nationals in light of the decision. it's a much narrower set of questions than we had proposed in january, but we think there's a critical mass of questions that should get

asked. it's certainly not everything that i think some of us might like, but it is an attempt to try to get some consensus from some of our colleagues. i'm not sure about the success rate. we're going to try again, because it's an important issue. and as you'll notice also on our agenda, our petitions that have been filed by both the james madison center and representative von holland, because if we can't get out an nprm, we need to address those individually. that's where we are. >> there's an increasing number of 3-3 votes on the commission. why do you think there's such an increasing number of splits? >> i think -- again, it's very difficult for me to speak for my colleagues, and in many of

these 3-3 splits, as you know, we write statements of reasons to explain our reasoning. so i wouldn't presume to speak for any of my colleagues on any particular case with respect to that. i think there are a couple of things that they have said publicly and we have said publicly in terms of what's going on, and some of it is about how cases. as we mentioned, this area, you know, if you go -- once mccain-feingold was passed and it was largely upheld in mcconnell, some of us at least thought there might be some calming of the waters, but obviously the courts have taken a very -- have been very interested in this area of the law and have made big changes to the law. so there have been some changes. but again, i point you back to the statements of reasons in those cases, because i don't think it would be fair for me to even try to speak for my colleagues on that. i can only explain to you why i

-- the decisions that i make and the basis for them. >> the case is closed, something i was hoping you can speak about. in that case, the s.e.c. went against recommendations of the general counsel to look further into this payment and technically whether it was a gift from his parents or whether it was a severance package. is that something that you think the f.e.c. essentially took him at his word? obviously it would have been difficult to get at some of these documents, but do you think that's something that is in retrospect makes people lose faith in the f.e.c.? >> i can't speak for what people think of the f.e.c. or why, but i can tell you a little bit about our enforcement process, because we have a very specific process we follow with any matter that comes into the agency. for example, when a complaint is filed, that complaint is provided to the individual, the complaints were identified as

respondents in our procedure. we get a response from those respondents, and we have to make a determination on those two sets of documents, and that's all we have. before we can do an investigation, we have to make an initial determination based on what we're presented with. and so we have to rely on that. and again, i'll take you back to the commission's reasoning for what we relied on in that particular matter to reach the determination that we did. we had before us, you know, in any enforcement case, we have a fairly limited set of information, and until we find reason to believe we cannot go and do -- we don't have the power just to go do an investigation prior to making these decisions, so we have to rely on what's in front of us. and as we said in that statement, we relied on what we'd been told.

>> you have the power to regulate or oversight the matter other than the 10e10 report. election is not whether the committee can file the report, but also any other set which will obstruct our democracy or fair elections. can you televise anything that can be obstructed? be sure that the media can broadcast or have advertised the campaign. you have equal change rather than certain candidate or

prefer candidates or republican candidates. it was for elections, and they were on the candidate. the campaign report, so they heard of some candidates, so i just want to get at the federal level, do you have an approach to promote this kind of fairness and equality? i wonder if you can also explain this regulation or complaint.

>> the jurisdiction of the f.e.c. is limited to those areas specified in the federal election campaign act, and those don't directly deal with things like access to the media. the f.e.c. does have some jurisdiction over that. the only one provision that is required is that basically television candidates -- television stations can't gouge candidates. they can't charge them more than they would charge other folks for the same amount of time. but our system in the united states is many layered. it's everything from the local election administration offices to federal law that allowed for presidential funding. so it doesn't happen at a centralized place in our country. the federal election campaign act deals with the campaign funding side and the disclosure of that funding and the ad, for example, that campaigns may put up on the air or print. they're required to have

disclaimers about who paid for them and that sort of thing. so we don't really have the capacity to address all the issues you raised, but we do address some of them in terms of making sure that all candidate committees, all political committees, anyone who is participating in this process follows the same set of rules, and it doesn't matter whether you're running as a member of a major party or a minor party or as an independent. all of the same rules apply. it doesn't matter what level of party that you're participating in. some of the things you were addressing are really set at the state level. that's how it works in our system. >> i have two quick questions. one, would having an odd number of people have on the

commission help so you could make decisions? and then also, do you foresee the limits thated 5,000 per individuals and nows to go away before 2012, and are any of these things good or bad for the system in your personal opinion? >> first, the structure. i think that you can certainly look around to other independent agencies who do have an odd number, usually five, and they also have an appointed chair, which actually also allows that person to set the agenda and move things more quickly. we had a rotating chair, so i serve as the chair for this year. it will rotate to my colleague next year. it also affects the ability of the person to have a lot of impact on the agenda or the outcomes of the agency. perhaps a different number would make some difference, but i think i'm a -- there have been a lot of discussions in

congress about how to create a better agency. there have been specific proposals about how to create a different agency that has been argued to be better. i guess i live in the practical. this is the agency that we have, this is the agency i'm appointed to. my job is to do the best i can while i'm here in this position and try to make it work as best that i can. you know, it's up to someone else to decide whether i'm succeeding or failing at that. but i'll tell you, i come to work every day trying to make it work as best i can and trying to make sure that the agency is running from top to bottom, and yes, we have had a lot of 3-3 splits, but those have been in the harden force am cases and they are important, but there's a lot of work that happens at the agency that has little to do with who's sitting in the commissioner's office. all that have disclosure i told you about, our website, a great resource for people, we have an 800 line where you can actually call and talk to a live person about what campaign finance law requires. part of our job is to make sure

the public record is accurate, and that needs to make sure people are filing accurate reports. and i'll just note that when i tried to call the i.r.s. to file any taxes a couple of months ago, they didn't actually have a person who would help me with that. i think while i hear the argument that we aren't doing enough and we are -- we deadlock on the hard stuff, i do think we do a lot of public good in terms of providing a public record for voters, for those who are contributing to campaigns to know what's going on. and if people see problems with that, then they can either take action in their own way like in voting, or if they see something that's a concern, they can file a complaint so. we do provide an important -- that aspect of disclosure is really fundamental to the law. >> just hoping you would talk about how the internet has changed sort of the interpretations of a lot of these rules. you're reading previous rules

that were in prior to a lot of the more technological innovations campaigns are using today and the difficulty in interpreting those rules or how they apply online. >> it's a difficulty not only for the regulations or for the statutes, of course, the statute -- the original statute was written 30 years ago. we did engage in an internet rule making a couple of years ago, which basically said that the commission was not going to be applying its regulations to the internet. the internet is obviously a cheap and easy way for people to engage in a lot of communication. the one exception is for ads placed by political committees on a website f. you're paying for an ad, then do you have to follow the disclosure requirements that exist in the regulations. so it is a challenge, and i think the challenge is knowing exactly how to respond to it, because we could update our rules, for example, to figure out what to do with twitter. and i'm guessing in five years

people will think of twitter as we now think of napster. it's something old and something from, you know, a long time ago. so i think it's always dangerous to try to keep up with technology, because technology is always changing, and i think those innovations are very good for campaigns. it's a way for the public to be very solved. in a grass roots way. you don't have to have a lot of money to push out information on your own of your twitter feed or your blog or anything like that. the commission took the approach that would stay out of the internet's way other than, like i said, for ads placed on someone's sight by a campaign. and, of course, campaigns, when their own website is required to have disclaimers, any of the requirements that fall on to campaigns and what they do on the internet, they have to continue to comply with those. so if they're raising funds on the internet, for example, they have to follow all of the other requirements that go along with

some of those funds under the act. >> you have a petition filed, jim bach, the lawyer for citizens united, announced plans to have a new super p.a.c., in which case they would have candidates running for office, unlimited sums of money for the super p.a.c., and then super p.a.c. would use the money on those campaigns. they even filed a petition for an advisory opinion, but you did get one from a couple of democratic super p.a.c.'s. i know you can't talk about the petitions, but is this something that you plan to tackle soon or is there a time table for trying to tackle that issue? >> right. you know us well enough to know i can't comment on one that's pending before us, but the statute requires that we respond to advisory opinions within 60 days, so that's the time frame. i think you see a lot over the next two months to try to address all of those within the

time frame. we can, under the statute, get -- we can get an extension from folks, but we really do try to answer them within the 60 days. >> my question is asking to you revisit something you brought up at the beginning of your remarks, which is a surprising decision in the eastern district of virginia, both last week and again early this week, and just any observations that you might have about how that would play out both as you move forward with the citizens united rule making questions and also through the 2012 cycle. >> that matter is being handled by another federal agency, so i'm really not going to talk about the case in particular. i would just note that as i think the opinion did that last month in the eighth circuit, they found sort of the opposite, they found a dvent way, and there's a decision last year out of the second circuit that also concluded in a different way. so, again, because another --

the department of justice will handle that, and i'm not going to get in their way of that. but i think that given that there had been two other supreme court -- two other circuit court decisions on that, i would note that that seems to be -- it seems to be not in keeping with those decisions. >> seems every attempt at public campaign financing involves giving money directly to candidates. do you think it would be doable for congressional elections to make it so that voters have an allowance or de facto ballot that we can give $20 of public money to their favorite candidate? would that be something that the f.e.c. might expand a little bit, but the f.e.c. could oversee, and is that doable? >> well, i'm not familiar with the program exactly like the one you just described, but if you look around to the different states, there's a number of different models for how voters can provide some

ability to specific candidates. in minnesota, for example, they basically use up to $50. i believe you can get your money back in sort of a tax refund. so that in effect looks a lot like what we think of as public financing in terms of turning money over to candidates. there's models all over the country for this. there are a number of bills that have been introduced in congress about how to bring a public financing system to the congressional level. and obviously there have been a lot of discussions and legislation proposed on how to refine the presidential system as well. again, if the bill would go to congress, we would implement them in the appropriate way. >> are you comfortable at all stepping back from the particular cases before you, the request for administrative

opinion and so on, and just sort of looking at the landscape, which, as you know, to many of us, seems horribly flawed right now, not just with completely inadequate disclosure system, but the system is financed mentally corrupt, and offer any perspective on that, which doesn't involve anything before the commission now. i think for a lot of us, recognizing the dynamics on the commission right now, it seems like an opportunity to be more forthright and help to drive the process forward to get us out of where we are. even if we were able to move incrementally, it's not really addressing the underlying, deep flaws in the system. >> the challenge is we administer a statute, and the statute does have -- again, the statute and reg don't exactly meet up. that statute is -- our reg is before court right now, so i'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that because

the agency is defending this reg in court. but i think from my perspective, what's important to note is that, in all of our discussion of what free speech requires, obviously a fundamental right critically important, but that has always been balanced against other governmental interests. and in terms of prohibitions, that's been the appearance thereof. with disclosure, the court has repeatedly said because it is not a ban, it does not meet the same level of interest. it has identified a very important governmental interest, the ability of voters to know who's speaking. so i think that while there is obviously concern about some of the decisions, i understand the concern that has been raised about some of the decisions, i think it's important to also focus on what the court is telling us about disclosure and how important it is and how valid it is, how

constitutionally valid it is. and that's the area to focus. and again, in terms behalf we can do, the statute covers political committees, and that may not cover the entire landscape of those who are speaking in some way that a voter might consider to be participating in an election. we have these sort of colloquial, not technically defined issues of sham issue ads. we all individually have an idea of what we mean when we think about that, but, again, the commission's jurisdiction extends to political committees or those who are engaging in electioneering communications or independent expenditures. those are defined terms. they've been defined by the act, and they've been a little bit narrowed by the court. so i appreciate the frustration . i really do. with the idea we're not getting

as much disclosure as we think we should get. but some of that is out of our hands, frankly. some of it's not. i hear that criticism, and that's why we're trying to do more in the area of disclosure. but some of it is biopsied on the very technical definitions that have come from the statute and from court decisions. >> let me take one more try. so, understood. stepping back from the jurisdiction of the agency, you know, as the head of an agency that has an important view on those, the spending landscape, leaving aside the issues before you, forgetting about your own limited jurisdiction and going beyond disclosure, do you see -- are you able to say anything about how the system looks and what kind of reform -- are you seeing this apart from disclosure? >> in terms of things like public financing, there's --

>> the corporation to spend money or the idea that unlimited spending -- >> it's a dissertation. >> you don't have to give a dissertation, just a comment. >> i think i've expressed my views about the importance of disclosure and, frankly, i don't agree with the approach of some that an anonymous speech is the only way that the first amendment can be satisfied. but i think you'll have to -- you'll have to forgive me, but my role is, as an administrator of this agency, we have a specific role. and whether i agree or disagree with buckley or citizens united is frankly irrelevant to the scrob that i have to do on a daily basis. and if there's a day in the near future where i'm no longer serving on the commission, i'll be happy to tell you all of my deepest, darkest thoughts on our entire election system,

because i have lots of them. i've been doing this area -- i've been in this area for quite some time, both on the campaign side and on the hill. but, frankly, in this current role, it's irrelevant. my job is to follow the supreme court decisions, and i think, frankly, other people's job is to explain why they think they're wrong or right and to ask us for action, to take action on that, provide us with comment and input where you can. but i have to stick to my role, and i hope you'll even begrudgingly respect that. >> i will. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. [captioning made possible by nba digital] >> thank you all very much.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> on today's "washington journal," a look at the 30-year history of the h.i.v./aids epidemic and current advances in treatment with dr. anthony fauci, director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. then peter pantuso, president and c.e.o. of the american bus association, discusses tour bus safety standards in the wake of several recent crashes. after that, presidential historian robert dallek talks about the significance of the so-called pentagon papers on the 40eth anniversary of their being leaked to the "new york times," as well as the more recent wikileaks document releases. and as always, your phone calls and questions, starting live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on today's "w