to foreign affairs. he said, you are the world's superpower and you don't know anything about the world. you are not being given anything about the world. now we go back to congress. when i was in academics, i thought about congress as an institution. when i cover it, it is impossible not to think about it as people. 535 people who have to make decisions about how they will use their own time and resources. lately, those decisions have less to do with foreign policy. you can get hurt by being too interested in foreign policy. it is a template for a two- second ad that someone cares more about another country than the problems at home. this occurred to me recently as

i was calling senator lugar's staff, something i do frequently to see where he stands on a position. it had something to do with weapons. maybe it was libya. this excellent staff meeting said the senator is at an ag fair in indiana. i thought he had not heard me. by repeated the question. he told me the senator was out and at an ag fair in indiana. this is a very important race. we do not want to look as if we're more concerned with something there than here. that is a small version of what is a broader trend in congress. i was jotting down some questions that i would love

answers to. i would love to know the amount of time that a member of congress spends in washington as opposed to home. my sense is that congress starts about 6:00 on tuesday and ends about noon on thursday. if you get in the way of someone exiting the building to make an airplane, you are taking your live in your hands. what happens in that small section of time when people are together and can talk and build relationships on issues like this? members of congress carry laminated cards that are broken down into 15-minute intervals. there is time for committees, but not a lot. their fund-raisers in the evening. they do not have a lot of control over the time they spend doing things. that has an impact on what we're talking about.

if you look at the percentage of staff resources, how much is spent hiring and retaining staff that knows something about policy as opposed to staff that can man a warroom? i remember a conversation with a man who was regarded until he was let go as one of the most effective. people in congress. -- p.r. people in congress. i said he semi-is mills -- i said he constantly sending e- mails. etc is sending me your own thoughts about these things? >> said yes, i know him well and how he would think about this. i used to work for a member of congress and had to see everything i sent out under his name. it was ridiculous.

we kept missing the google waves. the google wave is serious. it is the first thing i look out in the morning. what is cresting and how quickly can write something to catch the google wave? everyone is trying to survive in the current media environment. when you talk to members of staff, what is motivating them? i was interested in the oversight function. there are members of staff that are superb at oversight. they have done it for years. they are like treasures. when one member leaves the congress, this treasure is passed on to someone else who continues the excellent work. these people are feeling kind of like dinosaurs these days.

the young staffers kind of want to get out. they are carrying college loans that would stagger anyone. they cannot afford to stay on the hill as you might have 30 years ago, carefully working out an area of expertise. i did prepare some remarks which i would like to run through briefly. the main point i want to leave you with is that when you ask about congress and foreign policy, you need to think about those 535 people. you need to think about the 5000 ants on the log. think about what is motivating the staff. what would give them incentive to develop the kind of expertise

you need to be effective in foreign-policy as opposed to just coming up with a sound bite that will be good in a campaign environment? there were individuals who made a difference in foreign policy. i was talking to the senate historical office the other day. that is another place that has a wonderful institutional memory. for some reason, the house did not do as good a job as the senate. the senate prizes. great alking about the poser, a member of the irreconcilable. he said america is respected and mired by the world. she did it by mining her own business. he opposed the league of nations, as many academics did when they came to congress and found out that things were not quite as they could be. one of the many superb

historians said that he never went home to idaho. she said congress only paid for a trip once a year. it was hard to get to idaho. he never went home. i thought this was an interesting point. members today go home all the time. what difference does it make that they are constantly in their districts as opposed to developing relationships and pursuing arcane interests with fellow colleagues here? i think it is significant. arthur vandenberg was kind of the opposite. he came up with one of the most often repeated phrases in the senate that politics stops at the water's edge. people do not say that quite as much anymore because there is not much that is bipartisan

anymore. he was the one that said it. he cooperated with the truman administration in forging bipartisan support for the truman document, the marshall plan, and nato. senator fulbright was a very interesting figure. i was talking to one of his aides about what it was that prompted him as a democrat to go against the president of his own party. why did he get so interested in vietnam and learn a lot about it? he sponsored a series of hearings that educated the nation about the war. have we had anything comparable with iraq? afghanistan? i think not. he devoted a tremendous effort to it. he said it was simple. i screwed up his plane reservations. he said he was going to australia and headed -- had to spend 28 hours on the airplane.

he said on the way out the door to get him a big book to read. he was given a book on vietnam. he read it. pat holt said that fulbright walked off the airplane and said we cannot win this war. he learned something about the country. we cannot win this war. he started his hearings. anytime i ask a member of congress who is interested in something besides the number one priority back in the district, it is something like that. congressman wolf, i was talking to him the other day. he said he took a trip wants to africa. the plane could not go back. i had to stay overnight. i was there for a week. i never forgot those faces. i talk to colleagues about it

and convinced others to go. it is basis. it is personal. it is knowing something and having the time to do it. that brings me back to senator richard lugar and senator nunn of georgia. they got interested in one of the most arcane issues possible. is russia dismantling the soviet union chemical and nuclear weapons? if not, how can we help them do it? how can we get congress to give money to them to do it? how can we track that is being done? in retrospect, one of the more productive things congress ever did on an issue like that and what senator lugar could be in a difficult fight for reelection is in part because of the good work he has done in foreign policy. he is rapidly rebuilding ties

back home. the idea of people who have excelled in foreign policy somehow getting burned for it is one of the many factors that is the motivating -- demotivating. how do you build expertise in foreign policy without time or trouble? how many members actually travel? i think the press can make credit -- take credit for making travel look like a bad thing. we were the ones to convince people travel was a junket, wasting time. tip o'neill had a famous outing to the philippines with lots of golf. this does look bad. but the time spent actually in a place, seeing it, and knowing it is important. if you come back home and are in a congressional environment where committee work no longer

matters, where you take big issues and resolve them behind closed doors and send them to the floor weaken the with the party or not, it is a demoralized atmosphere. it is something that academics and journalists do not take into enough account. when speaker boehner came in, he said he wanted to restore congress and functioning as an institution and restore the committee process. the house would be out every three weeks or so, but it would be back for the full week. the committees would be fully functioning. it is still dangerous to stand in front of the door at noon on thursday. i do not know if his plan is working yet. the question of how to develop expertise without time is an issue. foreign affairs used to be an a

-listing assignment. senator kerrey had a choice between the appropriations committee meeting people would be coming to you for money. people would kill to be on the appropriations committee. or he could go to foreign affairs. he had been one of the most remarked-on witnesses before the committee. he chose foreign affairs. that is not a choice many people are making lately. there is not a crush to get on it. it is because it plays so badly at home. i want to talk about currency manipulation another time. let me collapsed this and hope it is something we get into. currency manipulation looks like an arcane issue, but it has such an impact on the current job

situation. the u.s.-china commission was formed by congress in october of 2000 to give congress regular updates on the china relationship. is it good for the economy? how are we doing militarily? every year, they produce an astonishing report that is ignored as most reports are. if you look back to the reports before 9/11, they were very accurate and completely ignored. it is the same thing with the china commission. i just saw an advance copy of the new report. i had to pay $38 to get a copy. you can get it free soon. the u.s. trade deficit is now more than half of the u.s. trade deficit with the world.

it is 12% worse now than last year. our trade deficit with china is at a record high, $25 billion in one month alone. the u.s. supports roughly -- imports -- the u.s. imports roughly 640% more advanced technology products from china banned exports to china. -- than it exports to china. allot of that 640% is from american companies manufacturing in china and selling back here. if you blink, you would miss it in the debates that just went on. the debate over china and free trade was collapsed into database. for journalists, it is impossible to cover. google news does not care about it after the vote.

it is banished. it does not care about it until just before the vote. there are two days to write anything that would matter or make a point that would matter. then the attention has moved somewhere else. foreign-invested enterprises were responsible of 55% of china's exports and 58% of the trade surplus in 2010. 2/3 of all the chinese boots are made by foreign companies operating in china in selling back to its market. employment in the united states would increase by up to 2.5 million jobs if china were to adopt an intellectual property system similar to the united states. china is huge. are members of congress going to spend time on it in an

intelligent way? let me leave you with the problem i have last week covering this. on tuesday, the senate voted 63- 35 to impose tariffs on countries for currency manipulation. china is not mentioned, but everyone knows who is meant for. it has been held at an artificially low level to give chinese goods a trade advantage. there were numerous different numbers cited in the debate. in the run-up to the senate vote, they announced they would not bring the bill to the floor. it became a free vote in senate terms. you could vote on it knowing there would be no outcome or it would be a symbolic vote. the club for growth is a conservative group that weighed in on this. they sent out letters saying any conservative that voted for the currency bill could expect to be

scored on it. in other words, watch what happens to your funding in the next election. last year, the house voted overwhelmingly to vote for an almost identical bill on china currency. 99 republicans supported the bill. there is a comparable bill right now in the house. 63 republicans have co- sponsored the bill. we have more accurate information about where members stand on the foreign policy issue than for most issues. and yet this bill will never come to a vote on the floor. iraq it will never come to the floor as a stand-alone vote. -- it will never come to the floor as a stand-alone vote. my editors say no one will read this. their eyes glaze over. i am beginning to see this

looking out there. [laughter] i could be very bad at explaining it. the issue is explaining it and that is not happening. there was a motion to recommit on the floor last week. that means the democrats get to bring up a stand alone thing. they tried to make as punishing as possible to the other side. republicans try to do the same thing. they picked the senate bill on china currency. it has 63 republicans already endorsing it. only four of them voted for it on the floor. that could be because if they voted for it, it would have killed a free-trade pact that was very important to republicans. but it is part of this gridlock/gamesmanship that is crushing the life out of this congress.

if there is any motivation for any member to spend time on the issues we are talking about, i think that is the most discouraging aspect of all. can congress be a force for good? of course it can. foreign policy affects americans. they may not be aware of it, but it does. china trade in a radically affects americans. -- china trade in fact -- emphatically affects americans. the numbers of jobs lost to the china trade in each district and state was compiled. that is the kind of boiling down of data that you need to make a dent in a congress that is so fixed on what it needs to do to maintain its own majority and play politics at a level of

gridlock that historically is going to stand unrivaled. it cannot continue to be this bad. something that cannot continue to be this bad won't. that is how i inspire myself to give up every morning. members of congress are discouraged. they're excellent people considering leaving the institution precisely because the work they do in committee goes nowhere. it is a demoralizing time. it was better to be there when woodrow wilson was meeting the united states into being a dominant and world power. members of congress are at a time when it is becoming less the case. it is not so much fun. >> thank you. [applause]

>> even though some of that is depressing, the fact that you have a sense of humor keeps us all little bit lighter. you have the bluebird of happiness suit on. one thing i would like to do before we engage the audience is to give our 1st two presenters a chance to follow on what the last two said. senator sununu has an engineering degree from mit and also has a business degree from harvard. notwithstanding those degrees, he is probably still trying to figure out how to fix congress. he knows how it was operating then and operates now. i wondered if you have anything to say on the dilemmas that congress faces and on foreign policy. >> the importance of oversight

was brought up. there are a number of staff members that are good at oversight. that is important and valuable. the real question is whether there are members that are willing to put themselves into the process of oversight. reform and oversight are tough. they are far tougher than just writing a new piece of legislation, even in the foreign-policy arena. one of the reasons you need oversight and reform is because over time, we have endured and accretive process. people have good ideas about being thoughtful in the way economic development funds are used. if we build a school, it should meet safety and environmental codes and maybe local labor laws.

conceptually, these are all good ideas. they may make it just about impossible for the development assistance to make a difference on the ground. the only way to rectify that situation is for some number -- member to set the priority of looking carefully at the different restrictions and limitations we place on development assistance and how we make the system work better. it is not more liberal or conservative, just make it work better so we do not have to read stories about funding being wasted around the world and not being used for its intended purposes. oversight and reform is tough. it is important and valuable. the only way it's done is by members setting the priority from the top down. believe me, the staff will follow. >> when the republicans took over the first time around in

1995, they prided themselves on the fact that the cutback the committee staff by 1/3. the cutback from 1800 to 1200 people. a few years later, they regretted that they had taken away a lot of good oversight committee staffers. there were less able to do the oversight than their predecessors. that was something new to it even by the republican members. -- that was something noted even by the republican members. >> we have talked about what motivates people to be involved in foreign policy. you raised an important question about what motivates staff. i did a book on tommy corcoran, the first great super lobbyist. not that much has changed except that the staffs have gotten a lot bigger.

staffers are therefore very different reasons. the foreign relations committee is not a place where you can easily said his -- segueway into a k street job. one thing i really enjoyed about it was the personal experiences of people that brought them to the committee. that is what kept them there. there were some extraordinary staffers who had been there a long time and really believed in what they're doing. there is another group out there who see this as punching a ticket. you do two years on the hill and then you go downtown. it should not be a huge surprise that there is a lot more money in the defense industry.

foreign assistance is $50 billion compared to $800 billion for defense. you find more money in -- more people willing to cash in. that does not mean you will not find folks on the armed services committee who deeply believe in what they're doing and are willing to work for not much money when they could make more money. i am not sure anything is changed much in that regard. people have different reasons for being there. >> i did a very unscientific study recently. i was reading "roll call." they have a fabulous 50 list of staff members on the hill. they asked to are the most powerful ones. i noticed most of the people on the list are either leadership staff with the republican or

democratic leadership for our campaign staff for the republican or democratic campaign committees. a smaller percentage are actually committee staff. i asked for a comparison of the top 50 list. they came up with 1986 and 1987. it has turned around completely. in 1986 or 1987, it was about 60% committee staff considered the most powerful. now it is the opposite. committee staff are considered less powerful. leadership staff are up there on the list because people are looking at those who command the -- can man the war rooms. that is where the real staff growth has come from. that is where you have the best and brightest now working with the leadership on these

political issues and not so much on the policy issues. >> the only review are the only one who would of thought to ask for those numbers. -- you are the only one would think to ask for those numbers. >> are used to be on there. had thence told i perfect face for radio. [laughter] >> let's go to the audience for questions. please wait for the microphone. identify yourself and your affiliation. we will have questions and comments. with atart right here former wilson staff person and not a renowned legal scientist in his own right. >> i am a professor at american university. one of the historical trends with congress has been its assertiveness in foreign policy has been greater at times when

we have not been any major war or in a moment of crisis -- in a major war or in a major crisis. now we seem to be entering a time of greater inwardness. i wonder if that might suggest the president's dominance of foreign policy may recede compared to past decades. >> have you noticed any trends on this? one of your books is called "resurgence of current -- congress in foreign policy" or something like that. >> it came out in the mid-1990s when congressional interest or activism in foreign affairs

began to surge. the dynamic that jordan pointed to is this. the ebb and flow of power is tied to the country's perception that it is under threat and secondarily to the expectation that the president's policies are working. after world war ii, you had more congressional involvement in foreign affairs. by the early 1950's, there is a growing sense of the soviet threat. you begin to see much less criticism of the white house from capitol hill. this is what arthur schlesinger referred to as giving birth to the imperial presidency. it would stub its toe so to speak over vietnam.

people became convinced that the president's policies had made the country less safe than it had been. i have to put a footnote on gail's remark about senator fulbright. he was critical of the war in 1966. he was also the floor manager of the resolution that included one of my favorite exchanges on the floor when a senator raised the question of whether it gives the president the authority to go to war. fulbright said yes, but i do not think that is what he is going to do. as a legal matter, it does not matter what you think the bill will do. it matters what the bill does. i think that was the significant thing there.

as the country feels more secure, you will get more congressional activism. it is a matter of politics. if you can do it and not worry about getting in trouble and there is a sense you are not in danger in the country -- in danger in -- endangering the country as you might have been. approval bush's ratings were sustained. in october 2002, the administration was pushing for authorization of the iraq war. many democrats wanted to put the issue behind them and move onto other things. they realized this was not going to work to their advantage. the smart political money argued that democrats and those interested in running in 2004

with the best to get on board and move on. >> in the 1970's, i came on the day nixon was inaugurated in 1969. congress was getting more active in foreign and military affairs. as nixon was winding down the war, they became more activists. i was looking at these great amendments. we had these great eminence. these all occurred after johnson left office. nixon was in and winding down the war when we started to have challenges on vietnam and cambodia and also on military weapons systems. congress was very activist during that time. people refer to the resurging congress after the country had grown more wary. it was no longer popular.

therefore, members could assert themselves and not feel as at risk politically. that was my observation. >> by the fall of 1967, the public had begun to sour on vietnam. their expectation was this would not last long. we kept going in further and further. you have the tet offensive in early 1968. from the vantage point of the johnson white house, congress set already begun to be too critical of its policies. that is one of the reasons why lbj chose not to run for reelection. >> gail mentioned the quote about politics stopping at the water's edge. the quote about

congress wanting to be in on the takeoff and landing. >> that was from johnson. johnson wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened to harry truman. he thought harry truman made a mistake by not going to congress and getting congressional authorization. there was a standing resolution already drawn up. he calculated that would protect him against people changing their mind later on. it turned out people can vote for a piece of legislation and still change their minds. [laughter] senator fulbright being first and foremost. lbj complained he had gotten him on the takeoff and would be there for the crash landing but forgot to factor in the parachute. >> i remember reading from 1960

to the transcripts of president kennedy consulting the minority leader about the nuclear treaty. he was providing political advice to his president about how to get this thing passed. can you imagine that happening today? i do not have the answer of why it has deteriorated significantly and how to bring it back. >> i had a slightly different viewpoint. we would all like to think the times we live in a completely unique, different, or not as good as the good old days. in many respects, we are reliving the same challenges and debates and questions they were talking about in the 1970's, 1950's, or at the turn of the .entury, or in the 1960's they probably thought it was so

polarized with so much tension over civil rights or other things, why could this not be more like the turn-of-the- century when we had this wonderful academic woodrow wilson and things were much more genteel? there were two things that affect whether you are in a time of congressional activism or not. one is politics. members think this is an issue that their constituencies care about and are acting on it and voting on it. the second our people. do you have members who are in a position of leadership or have the will and wherewithal to drive an issue to completion? with regards to the politics, those can be a factor with the country is divided -- whether

the country is divided into are a democrat trying to make the president look bad. uc political opportunism to rally reduce the political opportunism to rally -- you see political opportunism to rally opposition. when the country's unified, we feel strong, committed, concerned about the national security to it. members are engaged and active in formulating the legislation that responded to 9/11. it was with everything from new national security powers, the patriot act that was passed in a very unanimous way back in 2001.

i ended up filibustering four years later in 2005 and winning it. that activism is driven by politics, but it is not necessarily the politics of unity or division. second, there is the individual. they decided this was what they wanted to do. this is what they would commit themselves to. in 20th 30 years, we talk about a senator lugar or a senator kerry, or a senator mccain, people misspent a lot of time working on foreign policy issues. you may have agreed with them or not, but there was no question they were the kind of policy makers who have an impact.

>> now we have got questions. let's go with the gentleman on the aisle. >> i am an intern with a congressman in the house of reps. i have been in turn several weeks. i have had a chance to go to foreign affairs and oversight committees. at times i was shocked. sometimes the congressmen were not as interested in the topic being debated. other times, i thought the congressman new what he was talking about. i came here today because it is very interesting to talk about the topic. my question was regarding lobbies in effect they have over congressmen as far as pushing

certain policies they think are morally important to push. sometimes i feel that lobbies hold them back. they have an influence over them. i wondered if you could talk about it. >> that is a very good question. we have talked about political bases and constituents, but we have not talked about the interest groups in washington that represent constituents and members of parties. they have specific interests. how much of an influence do they have on the foreign-policy process? >> i guess i should start having been and lobbyist -- a lobbyist. i would say the things i mentioned in my remarks, the background, the district, the constituencies are all important.

there are not many nationally organized lobbies on foreign policy issues that are effective one way or the other. to the extent that there are lobbies on different issues, their effectiveness varies from member to member. oftentimes, their most valuable as a source of information. there will be someone on both sides of just about every issue. if someone is an effective lobbyist, they will tell you the pros and cons of an issue. lobbying groups tend to look toward or flock to members to share their perspective to start with.

on domestic issues, if you are from an energy-producing state, you are going to be working on issues that energy lobbyists are concerned about. if you are on the foreign relations committee, you will probably end of visiting with lobbyists on foreign policy issues. part of it is a self-selecting process rather than walking into a member's office and thinking you will persuade them to change their mind in a half hour of conversation. >> i met with a lot more lobbyists when i was on the personal staff than on the committee. the kinds of groups that tended to come in when i was on the committee had foreign-policy agendas, but it was a different approach than somebody who wanted a change in the tax law

or wanted an appropriation. it was very different. it was much more policy-based. there are a lot of nonprofits. there were some corporate interests as well. it was one of the most gratifying things about being on the committee that i did not have to meet with lobbyists all the time. [laughter] >> james lindsay? >> i would offer of the observation that lobbyists are more effective the fewer the people that care about the issue. the system is relatively open. it allows many veto points where things can be stopped. if you are lobbying for a big issue that gets people excited like trade relations with china,

afghanistan, you are going to be hard pressed as a lobbying organization to get your agenda through. there are a lot of other organizations opposed to you talking to senators and members of congress making a different set of arguments. if you are going in and arguing for making a change in u.s. aid policy towards name the country in africa and there is no one lobbying against it, you are more likely to be able to have an impact. in lobbying, if you are unopposed, if you are more likely to win than if you are opposed. >> on the house bill, there is a separate title on individual countries. there are about 17 sections east dealing with different countries with my new provisions. it is interesting to go through that list. anything you have observed on lobbyists and foreign affairs?

>> the most influential lobbyists were those who came to the member. i was talking to a member about this once. he said the most powerful lobbyists are the ones that do not have to come to you because you already know what they need. that is how significant they are. there is so much we do not know about the lobby process. campaign finance is now so opaque. i wrote a lot of enthusiastic pieces about campaign finance reform. it seems every step congress has made to make money more transparent in washington has had the opposite effect. we now know a great deal less about a great deal more money in politics. that is a critical element. the other thing that has surprised me is how often lobbies are not of one mind. the national association of manufacturers, if there ever was

a group that should have views on china, it is them. but they are too divided. the board tends to be people who themselves manufacture in china. they think china currency is fine the way it is. all those little manufacturers who are not big or savvy enough to move to china are getting clobbered by it. they want to see the organization go in another direction. they could not make a difference. i suspect that is a lot more likely than you think. one thing house republicans tried to do when they took back the house for the first time in 42 years in 1995 was something called the k street project. the idea was that they would literally go to lobby firms and

say that democrats have been controlling this place for 42 years. it is not surprising that your main lobbyists are ex-democratic staffers. if you do not start getting republican staffers, you will not have access to us. it may not have been as blunt, but that was the sense. you have got to start hiring republicans if you will have access to us. the argument they made is that you have democrats representing you, but republicans are closer to your interests. you ought to have republicans representing you on capitol hill. that was another angle i had not thought about. with the lobbyist -- what if the lobbyist is out of sync with the constituents paying them. that happens a lot more than i thought it does. it is a good question, to which there is not a clear, a good answer.

>> the fellow in a white shirt. >> my name is jason. i wanted to ask about the background of people who become congressmen and women. is it that their professional background affects how they deal with foreign policy? i do not think too many people unless they came from the foreign policy related field would ever become a member of congress. the kind of people who become congressman armey businessmen -- are maybe businessmen, lawyers. maybe the only deal with domestic issues in their normal lives before they became part of

congress. how does that affect them when they get into their careers? >> senator? >> i do not know that there would necessarily be an extraordinary value of someone having a ph.d. in foreign relations in congress. it would be of no more or less value than having someone with that degree in economics. it depends on how they can translate that knowledge into practical value, crafting legislation, understanding public policy, understanding the impact that house. as a matter of course, what we need in congress generally are people with more practical experience working in the real economy domestically and internationally.

someone with business experience with a company that did importuned -- importing and exporting, that understood the real ramifications of the issues like intellectual property protection, the impact of stronger and weaker currencies, and whether or not those are manipulated by the government s labor laws. it is really practical experience that is missing. in the case of the foreign policy question we're talking about, do they have practical experience working with and interacting with individuals, companies, and institutions around the world? generally, that is something missing in congress. >> david, you have a law degree and a degree in law and

diplomacy from tufts. how relevant was that to your work on capitol hill? did you find it very useful? >> no. [laughter] it was a demonstrated interest i had for a long time. it is not that it was not useful. it was useful. senator moynihan went to fletcher. he had that demonstrated interest. people become interested in these issues for a variety of reasons. chris dodd was in the peace corps in central america. that is why he embraced the foreign relations committee for a number of years. i think there are people from business backgrounds interested in it from that point of view. there are a lot of different reasons why people come to the table. >> one of the rare exceptions is howard wolpey from michigan.

he came to congress and became a share of the africa subcommittee. he was defeated for reelection after several years. he ended up in the state department on the africa desk. he came here and randy africa program. now he is back to the state department on the africa desk. he was a very good member of congress. he represented his constituents well. eventually, a republican beat him in an election. >> since i have a phd in political science, i feel i should stand up for members of my profession. however, i am reminded of what william buckley once said. he would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the boston phone book than the harvard faculty. i think what senator sununu and

david just said are spot on. it matters more people's practical experience and ability to mobilize others rather than knowing what is that hanz morgenthau wrote or being able to do a calculation that would make the nobel prize committee in economic science is happy. what i do think is notable in the membership of the house and senate is that there are many more lawyers. i do not know if that is to our advantage. there are fewer people who have served in the military. that has often been remarked upon. there are a number of social scientists who explore these issues trying to determine what difference it makes in what congress actually does. there is no clear evidence it does much of anything.

what members do is driven and constrained by other factors that are more important like party, a constituency, the events of the day, and what have you. >> william buckley ran for mayor of new york city. he said the first thing he would was to demand a recount. [laughter] that has nothing to do with foreign policy. let's go to this gentleman. >> brian jacobs. i am an intern. i do want to serve on the committee sunday into effective work. hopefully that happens. my question and years into the lobbying subject -- veers into the logging's of it. there is the argument that there is an influence on u.s. policy

towards israel that is developing and maintaining a relationship. i would like to ask the members of the panel to expand on that. there are divergent interests within the lobbies. my second question is in regards to the house foreign affairs committee. on the armed services committee -- the house foreign affairs committee is not appropriate -- does not appropriate as much. the armed services committee has a defense industry and support base. if there is not one for the foreign affairs committee, how do you develop one? they do important work that needs to be recognized. >> i have visited with people recently that sked the second

question about whether this is any constituency for foreign assistance, foreign policy, how you go about organizing one in the united states. you run up against a wall with the public at large. people put foreign-policy and assistance way down on the list. there are natural hurdles and challenges. the american-israel political action committee lobbies on issues they feel are important to israel and the greater middle east. they've been around longer, are better organized, bigger membership. by definition, that means they're likely to be more effective and better known with members.

that goes from organizing locally, at the state level. they reach out to them regularly all the way to the national efforts involve board meetings in washington and big public affairs conferences and the like. to the extent they are effective, it has to do with their size, history, and scope their success could be replicated by other groups. there are many different constituencies in the country. there are many different groups within those better focused on foreign policy related to the middle east and israel that have divergent viewpoints. there is a lot of opportunity for new perspective. >> we have time for one more question.

to's give the microphone jeff biggs. >> thank you for the wonderful topic and the superb panel. one thing that did not, but i was surprised about is the israeli-palestinian issue. it seems to reflect a lot of what has been said. dramatic changes have been taking place. we could relyturkey to play a se in negotiation between the two parties. now in fact i was thinking about eliminating entirely any assistance to the palestinians, and in the process to give up the u.s. role of being an honest broker. i do not know if it replaces that role, but if this is the result of politics or well-

thought out foreign policy? >> that is above my pay grade. >> there was an interesting piece on this exact issue, much more detailed. there was a spike of interest aaipac after a book by two harvard professors saying this is the most powerful lobby in the united states. i do not know if they set on earth, but they could have. for while aipac really disappeared in terms of other groups, which popped up replacing them for a time. they were still obviously there, but they deliberately took a less strong profile, and in a funny way were replaced by eric cantor, the first jewish republican in the house, not ever, but in the current house, who did some extraordinary things. just before -- just after the

election, meeting with benjamin netanyahu, the first time an opposition member had met with a head of state like that. it is shaping up as a very important issue in the 2012 election. you potentially could drive a wedge three strong democratic constituency by in effect saying i am more pro israel that you are, and i think it has enormous implications. you have already seen the president back off, if you compare what he has said now between what he said in his cairo stake -- each other is a striking difference, and is it running up against strong opposition, both from aipac, but also from a republican -- house

republican group, led by eric cantor, that is taking a role that they have not taken before on this issue, much stronger. it is going to be interesting to see, but i predict this will emerge as an important factor in the 2012 election and is giving the president a lot of the call to, because what he said in cairo is on record, and to link that with what he is now saying risks the problem that senator kerry ran into, by appearing to flip-flop on issues that he initially ran on and statements that he made. >> one observation about some of the issues raised, and that underscores the suggestion i made, which is you want to cultivate members of congress -- and encourage members of congress to understand the issues related to foreign policy during the quiet times because

you never know when they are going to be needed. have seen uprisings and traditions in power in tunisia, egypt, yemen, other places in the arab world, through the arab spring, and it is good that members of congress are paying more attention to these areas, thinking about what are the national security ramifications for the united states, what are our national interests, which are perspectives be in encouraging this process. but at the same time, would want the members of congress who are going to be leading that debate to have been thinking about listening, understanding, the culture, politics, the economics in northern africa, and the middle east, two, three five, and 10 yeras ago. did not want them to come to the issue and need a crash course in the education.

then there were not that many people who would say i think you are going to have a mass protest in egypt in a transition. i was in egypt about a year before the protests and the transition and talk to quite a number of real business people, not necessarily political people, about a -- about how they felt, but they did not really see it coming. there's a lot to be said for if nothing else, you are not necessarily going to make it a huge political winner, you will not develop consistories at home for people getting involved in foreign policies, but you can help create opportunities for member to think to talk about and discuss issues domestically in a way that enriches them, and riches there thinking about the phelps understanding so they can be put to good use during turbulent and critical times. >> thank you very much.

join me in thanking our panel. [applause] please join us for reception across the hall in our board room. thank you for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> "national journal" says the president is taking a more combative tone with congress over the jobs plan. one piece of the president's proposal to lay offs -- to prevent layoffs is being introduced in the senate today. the president spoke in north

carolina, part of a three-day bus tour. you can see the president here on c-span at 8:00 eastern. >> should not shy away from or somehow be afraid of -- it is a part of the advanced development of the computer world. >> the problem we face today, there are no standards to quickly move data from one cloud provided to another, get this capability is required for good contingency planning. >> tonight, the future of cloud competing for the government, with dan lundgren and john curran, at 8:00 eastern on c- span2. >> albert florence was arrested in 2005 because police believed he had an unpaid traffic fine.

he had in fact pay that fine. he later sued the new jersey locality where he was arrested. now the case has made its way to the supreme court, and the justices consider whether the fourth amendment allows police to strip search suspects accused for minor offenses. the argument in the case is about an hour. >> ask this court to hold that that was the role that was applied throughout the entire country in the three decades after another case without difficulty or any apparent increase in smuggling. we are here because both the burlington jail and the essex county jail require ever -- every arrestee to be standing

two feet in front of an officer and naked. we apply it to all arrestees. the respondents drop a line at major versus year offenders because they think people who commit more serious crimes might be inclined to greater criminality . this class definition is on the people who were arrested for minor offenses. >> is the reasonable suspicion test more easily met if the fell one detained -- if the felon is detained for a serious felony? >> yes, and in fact. >> and you are going on a case

by case basis. >> if you were arrested for a more serious offense, categorically there exists a reasonable suspicion. our case by case role is true, applies with respect to minor offenders, and that is the class that -- >> how would this work with respect to individuals who have been arrested for serious offenses? let's say somebody has been arrested for assault, the case of domestic violence. would that be enough to justify a search? >> you will have to ask -- and i know you want me to answer the question. this is there're rule. ir rule.r >> you say you want to apply it to everybody, and i am asking you whether the mere fact that

someone has been arrested for a violent offense would in your judgment be sufficient to provide reasonable suspicion? >> they jail made that judgment, we think a court would not overturn that judgment. if someone was arrested for not paying a fine there was note justification because this is a person who -- thee're trying to protect individual dignity of the detainee, but it seems to me that you risk compromising, that individual dignity, if you say we have reasonable suspicion to you. artest setting this up and setting the detainee up for a classification that may be questioned at the time and will be seen as an affront, as the person's res, based on what she said to officers. it seems to me that your rule

in paris individual dignity in lanket rule does not. >> they do stripped everyone naked, but if they're wrong to look for contraband, look at the person's now, anus, a uplight a reasonable suspicion standard. dear concerned that we are in fighting discrimination or an appearance -- their rule on to produce more of that problem that hours, because there rule is not that they have to strip searched everyone, but they can. they can make a choice. this court says -- >> i'm not sure if it was there fule or our rule. >> let me say i hope not. i hope that your rule is that there has to be a reasonable suspicion standard which was applied everywhere in the wake

of that case -- >> to do what? he said strip naked is different from the strip search. what is permitted? there are various things. when is showering the presence of officers? >> if you are generally in an area in which you are being monitored by officers, that is not a fourth amendment search that violence is a reasonable expectation of privacy. >> can be inspected without their clothes? >> there are two different scenarios. one is in a room where everybody's is standing around, a common room, and for a security purposes. this is different -- you asked what is prohibited in absence of risible season. >> 1 to know what is permitted.

>> any stink that -- anything that looking than a close inspection of a person at an arm's lenght. what concerned this course and a previous case is if you're standing so close to the person inspecting their genitals, looking directly at the most private parts of their body, that is a direct intrusion on individual privacy. >> argus suggesting -- three different levels, stripped naked, is ok to stand 5 feet away, but not two? >> do not think the courts have had to confront that. what they have confronted is they acknowledge jails are places that require security, so if you are observing a shower or in, that is not -- -- >> are you taking the position that it is the purpose of the

search -- at issue? >> no, it is the closeness of it. the officer stands directly in front of you, the testimony here is two feet away. >> i am still unsure. if it is ok to shower and have an officer watch you shower make it, will what the greater intrusion is -- that they stand two instead of 5 feet away? that is a line that does not make much sense to me. let's go to the next line, which is one kind of search. the second is, i think what some have called a visual cavity search. whether you are going to have the individual open or expose private parts. can you make an argument that that is different from a visual search?

>> you can. let me try to close at my answer of the five versus 10 feet. the court will recall this is a reprise of the argument in this deford case where the schools their argued there is an observation of these students in gym class, the shower naked, they untruss needed, and the court said it is different when you're standing right there looking over the student. that is what implicates the fourth amendment right of privacy. ask your question, yes, there is editor of events we think, although we think both should be covered by our rule, a visual body cavity inspection as occurred in the sx facility where you require somebody to bend over and cough, which is what the testimony is in this case. the second jail at a slightly different search protocol in which the testimony is that he was required to bend over and

cough and expose his anus for inspection, and they apply a reasonable suspicion standard to that. >> what you propose --some states could adopt that kind of a protocol instead of what they have. what you are asserting is that the fourth amendment prohibits them from adopting it, the obstacle i see is that at that time the fourth amendment was adopted this was standard practice, the strip search people who were admitted into prisons. how could it be deemed an unreasonable invasion of privacy when it was not all the time and nobody thought it was unconstitutional? >> if you read the history differently than become i will not be able to persuade you. our understanding of the history is that the closest they can come to you is that people were strip searched upon arrest, and

that is not be rule, and that in certain jails at the time of the founding, other inmates in a process of -- a ritual cleansing with strips search new inmates that had nothing to do with the jail officials themselves. >> is less of an intrusion? if i was seen to be naked in front of a bunch of inmates, one jail official inspecting? >> was not as nearly uniform practice as was inspected. we do not believe that that lesson up gains today, that the prisoners can strip search new arrestees as they come in.

this is much more than is necessary to accomplish their goal. >> [unintelligible] which involved pretrial detainees? >> we think there is no difference between the degree of intrusion here and in bell, but there is another reason that this is not just in the nature of the search, but a big difference between this case and bell the inmates in that case made a voluntary choice. they decided that the contact -- >> do we know if the pretrial detainees in bell or also inspected on entry into the facility? >> we do not. i tried everything i could to check the record, and there's no record and admission strip search at the time. >> is the distinction between this single schip shirt and a visual body cavity search.

you say they apply reasonable suspicion standard to the visual body cavity search. if the visual body cavity search is off the table? >> no, it is not. we contend the fourth amendment prohibited the visual body cavity search at the essex facility. >> you said they had to have a suspicion before they could do that? >> we say under their written policy they should have, but they did not. the only evidence about a conclusion of the jail about reasonable suspicion is that the burlington county in take officer fell out a form saying there's no reasonable suspicion here, and essex not contend there was reasonable suspicion to do a reasonable body cavity search. >> the distinction between what they did and the actual course -- written policy? >> what happens here is essex

after this search occurred, and this was described, essex is its policy. we were denied an injunction going forward, so it is a question of damages for the search that occurred at the time under their oil policy. >> concerned about your position. suppose your jurisdiction has a policy of requiring every inmate who is arrested and is going to be held in custody to disrobe and take a shower and apply medication for the prevention of the spread of lice and is observed while this is taking place from some distance by a corrections officer, let's say, 10 feet away. is that -- those that require reasonable suspicion? >> it does not. >> your only concern is searches that the further than that?

>> that is exactly right. the close inspection of an individual's generals, which can there someong as t minimal suspicion. >> is there a dispute as to whether anything beyond that occurred in burlington county? >> there is a dispute about so- called gentle lift, whether mr. florence was required to lift his genitals or not. there's no dispute that he was required to strip naked despite the officer had been made a finding, page 390, that there was no reasonable suspicion to conduct the strip search. that is the only factual dispute. >> could you clarify, was he admitted into the general population at burlington? >> the record is not clear. the record says for the first few days -- remember he was kept for six days -- for the for

several days he was kept in a cell with only one other inmate or possibly two, one time he had lunch with other people. in essex he was admitted with the general population. but the prior charge was the use of a deadly weapon. assuming the prison news this, would that not provide a reasonable suspicion that your command was missing? >> no, because of the breadth of the phrase, possession of a deadly weapon, the record shows the possession of the deadly weapon, and this is why this charge was not pursued, is that he was pulled over at a traffic stop and he drove away. >> rough feeding into your adversary's argument about what you're asking for the police to do on intake is to investigate in that fine detail? that cannot even look at the rap sheet and say this guy could be dangerous? >> no, the rap sheet does not

contain that. what the rap sheet says and we're fine with them looking at that, rap sheet says they have a single charge, he pleaded guilty, he got a term for patient. there's nothing about what the jail would have any information that he had some charge involving a deadly weapon, and that is what they themselves certified there is no reasonable -- de is the rap sheet always ma available immediately? i understood that it would take maybe 24 hours, 48 hours, for the wiretap -- for the wire services and the internet to report that he was wanted for questioning for some very serious crime in some other state of in my practice, county jails were much more dangerous than penitentiary's because he did not know who they are.

he did not know. >> that is not the view of the jails. they apply a reasonable suspicion standard. they did not find any concern in their own policies, neither does the marshal service, ice. as to what the rule is and how common it is and whether this works in practice, the jail here it did look him up in the new jersey criminal justice information system. they are required by law to do that. every single one of these jails has computer access. just type in his identifying information. they were able to pull him up without a vocal the and they have not complained that they did not have enough information about him. they fill out a form saying there's no reasonable suspicion here. remember, our rule only operates in a system in which the jail does have enough information. when our point is this -- if the jail has the facts as it did here, to affirmatively

determined there is no reasonable suspicion, which is what they decided about mr. florence, then it is an extraordinary intrusion on dignity to strip him naked when they have no reason to do so. >> understanding of the statistics is that they get about 70 new people going through this process a day. is there anything in the record about how much additional time and required to look at each one about to look at the record, to determine which category they should fall into, to strip church or not as opposed to having a blanket rule? >> there is, because they do this credit as they do this all read it. when he arrived at the burlington county jail, they did an assessment of him and determined there was no reasonable suspicion. the jail did pull up his prior criminal history and they had no problem doing that. they applied our standard today, which is not a difficult one.

>> acknowledged that we have held that when you had visitors, you may be strip searched after the visit and the same kind of close examination that you get -- that you object to him. their explanation for that is okay, is that that is voluntary. you do not have to have visitors. can you really condition you're having visitors on your waiver of -- of your fourth amendment rights? >> of course, you can say i relinquish my fourth amendment right. >> aren't you sure about that? you can condition certain privileges upon a waiver of a constitutional privilege? >> yes, i think that is a fair

statement of the ball. the principal reason underlying a case, those searches for reasonable, that there was a potential to deter smuggling, and that rational as much more of an attenuated relationship to this case. the inmate in that case was having a planned meeting with someone and the representation of the government is if you plant have somebody come visit you and you're going to have a contact visit, you can plan for them to sneak something to you. >> there of course were guards there who were watching the visit, and as i understand that case, there's no empirical evidence that smuggling came about as a result of these visits. >> could i read to you what the courts about that? the court had a slightly different take. there has been only one instance where an inmate was discovered at tending to smuggle contraband on his person, more a

testament to the effectiveness of the search techniques as a deterrent. our point is that when you have an unexpected arrest here, mr. ford's should he or she was not wanted for arrest, and that is going to be true in all kinds of traffic stops and the like. >> i thought you were saying-- i imagine a case where a person is there is a arrested, warrant out against second degree murder, and the police officer arrested because he knows he is wanted in another place. the jail says you are coming in here for second-degree murder. the strip search him. can they do that? you're not saying that always has to be reasonable suspicion

>. >> we think that is reasonable suspicion. >> when i look at the aba, they talk about minor arrests. there's a long list of violence and so forth, where you don't have to, where you can just use the general fact that he was arrested for the thing. but there are other ones, minor things, where you do. so what's your rule on that? >> our rule that we would accept is that with respect to minor offenders, that's when you -- >> ok. then the next question which we'll get, who is a minor defender and how do you administer that rule? >> i think that is a great question for them, because that's their rule. they have a rule that says for minor offenders, that you have to have reasonable -- >> but you are trying to state

the constitutional rule, and you keep talking about what is their rule. and we're trying to find out, what are the limits of the rule? i think you've already qualified what you said opening. opening you said reasonable suspicion is the rule for everyone, the felon as well as the minor offenders. now you seem to be saying well, this case only involves minor offenders. so let's limit it to that. that's what i thought you were saying now. >> yes, that's right. because this case only involves minor offenders, we have articulated a rule with respect to minor offenders. >> unfortunately, i'm asking you and not them, and it's the same question. how do you want us to write this so that jail personnel all over the country have to be able to follow it and know exactly what they're supposed to do. >> for three decades the rule that was articulated by the federal courts and applied without difficulty is one that says for minor offenses. when that was applied in practice, it was basically done

at a felony versus misdemeanor line. the court is accepted that if you are suspected of a more serious offense then for administrative reasons and we think you might be engaged in more criminality, you don't have to have individual query whatsoever. >> i can understand that for cavity searches, but why should the search proceed if the person has any fleas or cooties or any other communeicablle disease? are felons more likely to have that than non-felons? >> no, they are not. >> so we want to make sure we have a clean prison. >> that is not correct. what the testimony in this case establishes is the jail guards allow any sort of medical rationale for the search to be conducted by medical personnel, not by the guards themselves. all these inmates are examined by a medical person, a nurse or

the like, and they are responsible for -- >> that's where the fourth amendment invasion of privacy line is to be drawn, if you're examined close up by someone who has a medical degree it's ok? and on the other hand, if it's someone who does not have a medical degree it's not ok? >> that is true. >> that can't be the line as to whether your privacy is being invaded. >> it can be the line and it is the line that's been accepted for decades. >> you would have to keep the person in custody, say, for 24 or 48 hours until the medical personnel -- 24-hour medical personnel for intakes that are due in the morning? >> yes. the intake process, the testimony is -- >> you're telling us that every county jail in the united states has medical personnel on duty 24 hours a day ready to do a search. >> no, i apologize, justice kennedy. i'm telling you what's in the record in this case. >> what you said before was two feet was too close, but five

feet is ok. are you sticking with that? >> justice breyer, i'm saying that a close inspection, which is intended to examine the person's individual genitals and whether it's at two feet or four feet i don't think is the relevant line. if i could make one point and then reserve the remainder of my time -- >> may i just add, your medical personnel, children are inspected for body lies. you don't need a doctor to do that. >> but what happens is that medical professionals are the people who are assigned that responsibility. that's the testimony in this case. the only last point that i wanted to make -- >> but that's not constitutionally required. >> i agree. >> so that's another thing that you don't need. they can inspect for body lice, and that's ok? >> if that's what they're doing, i think that that is ok. the courts have said that that is not itself a -- because of

the prospect of handling that problem with shampoo, which is what these jails do, that that's not a sufficient justification to require the person to strip naked. the only other point that i did want to make is that this is the rule not just at burlington and essex, but also at the u.s. marshals service who has the intake of 220,000 inmates every year and also of the bureau of immigration, customs enforcement, which intakes 384,000 a year. >> but that's true only if they don't put the arrestee in the general population. >> that's not correct. that is only the policy of the u.s. bureau of prisons, which has an intake of minor offenders of only a few thousand people a year. for the marshal service and i.c.e., which have a combined 600,000 people a year, they do not have that separate housing rule. if i could reserve. >> we'll give you rebuttal time, but just to be clear, you don't -- do you or do you not have an objection to the

superseding eccf policy? >> we -- we do, because they still have to stand naked directly in front of the correctional officer under the superseding policy. what the superseding policy is, which is burlington's policy throughout this, is that they will not search the person for contraband, which is their supposed interests here, for contraband in the absence of reasonable suspicion. both jails at the time of this search and also now will still require the person to strip naked, supposedly for contraband, even though their own policy says we won't search -- we won't engage in the depth of search that's required. we won't look at the anus, we won't look in the person's mouth in the absence of reasonable suspicion. >> that's the current policy. >> that is the current policy. >> and you have no problem with that. >> we do. >> i mean, you have no problem with the reasonable articulable suspicion aspect of the body cavity search. >> that's correct. >> ok. and with respect to the simple strip search -- >> yes. >> -- your only objection that

is the guard is too close to the inmate. >> that's right. >> ok. thank you. mr. phillips? >> thank you, mr. chief justice. may it please the court, i actually appreciate the clarification that your questions apply to this case. there's a bit of confusion i'd like to clear up, although my colleague's movement in terms of answering some of the questions left me perplexed as to exactly what the nature of their claims are. but the first question that it seems to me the court should focus on is what policy is at issue here. and obviously, since the class certification deals with one set of issues and the plaintiffs' claims deal with another set of issues, you have to be careful. you have to focus on the policies that existed in 2005 of the that was the basis -- 2005. that was the basis in which he was in fact searched under the circumstances. the policy in burlington was primarily aimed, frankly, at health and tattoos, and the

policy at essex was aimed primarily at contraband and then secondarily at tattoos and health. and the policy at burlington was largely a -- you come into prison, you give up your clothes, they look through your clothes. you take a shower, they examine you fairly occurs southerly but closely, and give you prison garb. >> are the shower and look at you cursorily during or after the shower? >> it places a lot of significance on how close the examination is. so under that policy, how close was the examination? >> it would have been about an arm's length, because the problem is if you're exchanging clothes with somebody, you're handing them clothes to change into, it's sort of hard to be longer than arm's length and actually get the clothes into his hands. >> i mean, he could be -- >> ok, two arms' length. >> well, that's not right. [laughter] that's not right.

you could take the clothes off, put them in a bin and the person examines the bin. that's actually what they do in essex. >> the difference between essex is that essex in fact does have -- it's burlington is basically a body visual observation. and the district court said that's unconstitutional. just observing at all is unconstitutional. to some extent it seems to me my friend here has given up that part of the district court's decision, which clearly the court of appeals, to the extent it reversed that part, ought to be affirmed on that ground alone. >> for more than two feet or less than two feet. >> right. although that was not the district court's theory. the district court didn't say that. >> what happened? do we know? was it within two feet or not within two feet? >> well, it depends on whose version of it. you have to remember, the district court granted summary judgment to the plaintiff in this case. so you would have to interpret it -- you'd have to give us the

benefit of the interpretation, which was that it was more than two feet. the court of appeals reversed without regard to that. the court of appeals said if you apply bell versus wolfish it doesn't matter, because you can engage in a much more intrusive true body cavity search, which is more intrusive than what he was section county does in this case. because he wasn't asked to bend over and to have a body cavity anal search. what he was asked to do was to squat and cough in the event -- because ordinarily that will cause the contraband to then fall out and you can catch it under those circumstances. so that's sort of the context in which this issue comes up. >> mr. phillips, if i could understand your position, you think there's no reasonable suspicion even for that intrusive body cavity search, is that correct? >> that's correct. that's the rule of law now. >> does it matter to you whether the person is being introduced into the general prison population? but would you also say that if the person is not being

introduced into the general prison population? do you still think that there's no reasonable suspicion requirement? >> i would say from my perspective, i think even if they weren't going to be admitted into the general prison population, because the risks remain too substantial, but the truth is, i don't have to defend that argument, because both of these jails admit their inmates into the general pop plagues 99.9% of the time. -- population 99.9% of the time. >> would you say regardless of the offense for which the person has been arrested? there have been stories in the news re sently about cities that have taken to arresting people for traffic citations. suppose someone is just arrested because they have a lot of tickets for being caught a speed cameras, let's say. that person can be subjected to the searches that you're describing? >> yes, justice alito. i think the basic principle we're asking for is that the

deference to the jails and to the administrators much the jails -- of the jails require that this court respect their judgment that you can't make a distinction based on that specific individual, that whether somebody is a minor or major offender, one, is never all that clear. and -- in the first place. and, two, is it a basis on which to distinguish the risks that irrelevant poses to -- >> the a.b.a. is minor offenses, not drugs, not violence. and there you have to have reasonable suspicion. now, i've read through the briefs and i can't find a lot of contrabanders that were caught in that category. in fact, my law clerk thinks it's one out of 64,000 or less. so what is the justification for a rule to avoid reasonable suspicion in that category? >> if you look at the expert

testimony that was before the court in the district court in this case, both the expert testimony of the plaintiff and the expert testimony of the defendant, this is 348-a of the joints appendix. a greater presence of contraband amongst those individuals that have minor offenses. that's their expert's characterization. that minor offenders bring in more contraband than major offenders. our expert said misdemeanors can be more dangerous and more likely to bring in contraband. >> in conclusion, we have a lot of practical experience, because different states have different rules and san francisco came in with, i think, the toughest on your side, for your side. i just say looking through that, it's very hard to find somebody who really was in this minor offender category, who really was found to have contraband. so what should i look at to show that my initial reaction, from the quick reading, is wrong? >> well, i mean -- look at bell

v-wolfish, where this court said that fact that there is not a lot of contraband being found may be a testament to the effectiveness of the deterrent. >> so why don't we change the policy? in bell we found that policy was successful, even though there were searches, contraband still got in. virtually every circuit in practice, the federal system, have been following this reasonable suspicion for minor crimes, and they've been fairly successful. so why do we change the constitutional rule to let them do more? >> well, i think -- >> invade more? >> well, i think, first of all, anybody who thinks that the problems of contraband are less serious today than they were in 1978 is ignoring reality. >> i understand contraband is serious. but most of the studies point to it not being on intake, but coming in through guards, coming in through contact

visits. but the great cause today is that from correction officials. >> well, we can debate that. but, justice sotomayor, it seems to me that the fundamental principle for the entire analysis here comes out of turner and that line of cases. >> can i ask you something just in terms of your rule? i think your rule is you're not entitled constitutionally to any right of privacy in prison. if that's the case, are you saying that if the prisons decide on a manual search, every prisoner who comes in, correction officers can manually check their cavities? >> no, justice sotomayor. >> so there's some privacy rule. >> i can be clear about this. hudson v-palmer and the history of the fourth amendment says there is no reasonable expectation of privacy of being viewed naked in a prison.

therefore, the ordinary burlington approach of having somebody take a shower and looking at him or her naked for showers and tattoos and incidental contraband, clearly constitutional. clearly doesn't even raise a fourth amendment issue. when you get beyond that point and start to begin the -- what he was section does, which is not a true anal cavity search, but simply an anal focused and general tal focused search, -- genital focused search, that is towards turner and bell v. wolfish. >> isn't one of the factors that we've looked at under the fourth amendment reasonableness? and should we be thinking about the fact that many of these people who are now being arrested are being put into general populations or into jails sometimes not just overnight, but for longer periods of time, like this

gentleman, for six days, before he sees a magistrate? should we be considering a rule that basically says your right to search someone depends on whether that individual has in fact been arrested for a crime that's going to lead to jail time or not, whether that person's been presented to a magistrate, to see whether there is in fact probable cause for the arrest and detention of this individual? i mean, there is something unsettling about permitting the police to arrest people for things like kids for staying out after curfew, with no other -- >> i think what is disturbing about this case is in fact the -- that he was arrested under circumstances in which he candidly shouldn't have been arrested as a matter of state law. i understand that.

but i think to change the constitutional rule and to change the turner versus saffley and bell v. wohlford standards and ignore the question here, which should be these policies which apply across the board impinge constitutional protections, but nevertheless represent the good judgment of our jailers. >> what are we doing with the presumption of innocence? that's also a constitutional right. and so shouldn't the degree to which a search is permitted be conditioned in some way on whether or not this person has been presented to a magistrate? >> if you ask me, the way i would analyze it -- if you want to adopt a different set of standards about who ought to be arrested and who ought to be taken to jail, that's fine. i understand that. but i think once you're talking about actually bringing someone into the jail to be admitted into the general population in what is without question one of the most dangerous, most risky

environments, in that context i would hope that this court, rather than asking individual jailers to make decisions on the basis where they clearly will not have the kind of information you are asking them to make, and where, if they make the judgment wrong in either direction, all it means is litigation. >> i thought your friend said that is exactly what you do with respect to the visual body cavity search, reasonable, articulable suspicion, under the new policy. >> that's what we do with a true anal body cavity search. but -- i mean, we changed the policy, to be sure. we changed the policy because of litigation concerns. >> well, as i understand it, with respect to visual body cavity searches, you require a particular individual reason, right? >> yes. >> ok. and you don't require that with respect to simple strip-search. >> right. >> so you agree with your

friend that the only thing at issue here is how close the guard is going to be to the individual who you have no reasonable suspicion to think is different than anybody else during a simple strip-search. he says two feet is too close, five feet or whatever is ok. you want to go to two feet. you don't want to have to stand back to six feet. that's all the case comes down to? >> well, i mean, you can characterize it that way. i mean, i think the better way to think about it is what he was section wants -- you know, what he was section policy permitted it to do was to examine -- >> i'm looking at the new policy, right? under the new policy you have reasonable, articulable suspicion for everything except simple strip-search and observation. >> well, see, that's the problem is that the language there is different, because the

truth is the line that the new policy draws is between a true -- what i think bell v. wolfish was describing, where you ask the inmate to bend over and expose his or her anus for a cavity search. on that score, that's -- we don't do that. but we do in fact -- >> i'm sorry, could i finish and find out what you do? you said we don't do that, we do -- >> what we do is ask the individual to lift his genitals and to squat and cough. >> ok. so you do more than a simple strip-search. >> right. >> slightly more than a simple strip-search. >> i don't think that's the line to define it with. >> there is still an issue in the case beyond the ordinary visual inspection, and that is this -- even though you have changed your policy now, the question remains whether that change in policy was constitutionally required. so that when you treated the

plaintiff in a different fashion under the old policy, that was a violation of the constitution. doesn't that question remain in the case? >> that question clearly remains in the case. >> so you have to consider both, the pure visual and also the inspection for contraband. >> right. and the only point i've been trying to make here is that if you look at the way the district court analyzed the case, the district court split it up, the class distinction versus -- >> the record or common experience, does it justify an argument that if you have a person who is stopped just for a traffic ticket, but that person is going to be in custody for five or six days, that person might well prefer an institution where everyone has been searched before he or she is put into the population. >> justice kennedy, there actually is testimony in the record from the warden saying that in order to ensure

everybody's safety, we are better off with a blanket policy that says we're going to engage in some form of a search, essex is more intrusive. but it's designed to accomplish the same thing. not just designed to ensure against contraband. it's designed to ensure that there isn't somebody like mr. florence who's going to end up being poked or otherwise -- >> i count seven or eight states, anyway, that have some variation of the reasonable suspicion rule, like what they want, roughly. is there any evidence at all that in those seven or eight states there is more contraband being smuggled in? >> well, there is the testimony in the record from their expert, who said that in kentucky there is today -- the single biggest problem in kentucky prisons and the biggest cause of death is drug overdose, which suggests there's a serious contraband issue in kentucky. kentucky is inside one of the circuits that's had a reasonable suspicion requirement as a constitutional

matter forever. so i would say that, yes, there is some evidence from which you could infer that it's worse now than it was. but i would ask the court to rely on its common sense and what essentially it took judicial notice of in bell v. wolfish, that this is a serious problem and it is no less a serious problem today than it was more than 30 years ago. >> are there any constitutional limits in your view? you say the kinds of search that was done in bell v. wolfish, is there any constitutional impediment to you are doing so? >> my position would be no, there isn't a constitutional i am pedestrianment, that the balance would -- impediment, that the balance would tip in favor of the constitution under those circumstances. but there is a limit between a manual physical body cavity search and that, it seems to me -- yes, that would be a different balance of the equation.

and i would suspect i would be hard-pressed to convince five members of this court that -- >> do you want us to write an opinion that applies only to squatting and coughing? is that it? >> you may want to write it slightly differently. >> yeah. [laughter] but what i would like really is an opinion that recognizes that deference to the prison and to their judgment is what's appropriate under these circumstances, and that extends all the way to the bell versus wolfish line. the only difference is i would like the court to analyze it under turnner, which the analysis is there a logical nexus between the rule that the prisons have in preventing the problem and the answer is yes. and are there reasonable alternatives? and there the answer is no. >> you are saying that they can dot full -- as long as the constitution is concerned,

these searches are permissible. >> yes. that's exactly the holding in bell v. wolfish. bell v. wolfish was not tied in its opinion itself to the fact that -- >> but they didn't express that there was a visitor who could give the inmate contraband. bell v. wolfish doesn't -- and i asked mr. goldstein whether we know whether the pretrial detainees in new york were searched that way on entry, and he says there's nothing that shows one way or the other. >> right, i think that's correct, we don't know. and, of course, part of the empirical problem in that is that that facility only had been open for four months anyway. so it's going to be difficult if you're going to adopt the policy that they adopted in bell to insist on some sort of empirical proof. >> the one significant difference between bell and this case is that in bell there was a real opportunity for people to plan to conspire

together to bring in contraband. here you're talking about somebody who's arrested on the spot. there's no opportunity for planning, conspiracy, with respect to contraband, is there? >> no. but the policy is aimed at all people, not just at mr. florence. if you aim it at all people, there are people who self-report, who have an opportunity to bring in contraband, and a lot people just get arrested and ha to have drugs on them. rather than show those, they'll likely stick it in their pocket or put it somewhere else. thank you, your honor. >> thank you, council. -- counsel. >> miss saharsky? >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, the searches in bell are similar to the searches in issue at this case. i want to start with justice kagan's question.

it is true that contact visits in bell are different from a person coming into the jail for the first time in that there might be a greater opportunities for planning. but as one of the justices pointed out, there was less opportunity to actually get contraband. the person coming in was going to be searched. the inmate was wearing a one-piece zip-up jumper and he's being watched the entire time. the contraband situation in this case at intake, the person does have an opportunity, even if they are not self-reporting, knowing that they're going to be arrested, protesters, for example, who decide deliberately to get arrested, they might be stopped by the police. they see the squad car behind them. they might have a gun or contraband in their car and think i'm going to put that on my person. i just need to get it somewhere that's not going to be found during a pat-down search, then potentially they have the contraband with them. also the process of going from the arrest -- points of arrest to the general jail population is not a quick one. the person typically goes, for example, to a metropolitan police department. that's what happens here. and the person would mix

potentially there in a holding cell with other offenders. if this court, for example, adopted a rule saying that minor offenders would not be searched in a way that other offenders would, i have no doubt that there are some offenders in those circumstances all on the bus together to go to the general jail population who would give the stuff to the minor offender and have them bring it in. >> that's not the federal rule. and by the way, the brief was really confusing. when i read page one, page one tells me that the policy requires all incoming pretrial detainees to be subject to visual body cavity inspections. and then it isn't until page 30 that i learned there is an exception from the very category of arrestee that we're talking about here, that they are not subject to body cavity inspections unless there's reasonable suspicion that they

conceal this contraband. that the misdemeanor or civil contempt offender is not subject. >> i'm sorry if that was confusing. the bureau of prisons policy is that a person will not be put in the general population, being allowed to mix with other offenders, unless he or she had undergone the strip search. . . >> but i want to know how they're treated in the federal system. you reversed it. those people are not subject to this visual body cavity search. >> those people, when they go into the jail, would be asked whether they're willing to consent to this type of search. in most cases, they do consent. if they don't consent and there is not reasonable suspicion, then they are not placed in the general jail population. they are kept separate from the other offenders. the rule the third circuit identified, anyone who will go

into the general population has to be strip searched. that's the general prison policy. >> i'm sure i missed something. you say when they go in, you're asked will you consent to a more intrusive body cavity search and be put into the general population or if you don't, you don't have to be searched and we put you in someplace else. who consents to that? >> the general jail population has certain facilities, you know, computer facilities and others you don't get when you're in a cell by yourself. as a practical matter, this arises very, very infrequently in the federal system. we're talking about fewer than 1% of offenders. the question before the court at this point really is you have before you a blanket policy saying we need to strip search everyone or is that someone who's unreasonable or ration in the way of court considered its normal deference to prison officials. >> i understand most of the general preparation your side is advancing. but i have to say i was somewhat surprised with the evidence, amount of contraband and amount

of weapons discovered in the literature, in the citations were somewhat skimpy. i thought there would be a stronger showing than i found in the brief. >> well, there are not empirical studies of this type of information. typically it arises when there are incidents at the facility and incident reports or written up. they're not published regularly. there's no some kind of laboratory study you can do. sometimes it makes the news. those are some of the things that we reported. i would hate for the court to think that there is not evidence of people who committed minor offenders in the record, bringing in very serious things into prisons and jails. i point you to footnote 15 in the government's brief which talked about people being arrested for traffic offenses and smuggling crack pipes in body cavities. i point to the court both experts in this case cited by mr. phillips, the san francisco case. >> the issue has to be certainly some misdemeanor -- some people

charged with misdemeanor crimes will try to smuggle things in. the issue is how many of them would not have been found on reasonable suspicion standards. i think justice breyer said, in the san francisco study it appears only one. >> i think that's a very hazardous things for courts to do with 2020 hind sight. the court could look back on original offenders -- >> we don't have 2020. we have how many years, 15 years where prisons have been applying the reasonable suspicion standard and the most you can muster under that standard is one example of a case where someone has entered. at some point empirical evidence has to mean something in terms of judging the question of reasonableness. >> i agree with you. but the reasons for doing the searches have very limited issues about people. this is when you have people coming into the stick for the first time.

most contact with the outside world. you have the least amount of information about them. >> i have no position about that today. i know you base your judgments on your own personal experiences. when i was a prosecutor, it took sometimes days to get a rap sheet. i understand that that's no longer the case today. that they're virtually almost always accessible by computers today. >> that may be true but it's not the information that people doing intake and doing searches have. they do not have intakes in the federal system. they have name, date of birth and the offense the person is charged with. they don't know anything else. the question before the court f. i may, is whether there are reasons for a blanket rule this court should defer to and i would say there are several. first of all, you cannot say there are some minor offenders who pose a contraband risk. secondly, you have individuals making quick determinations. they have large number of people to get through the -- into the

general prison population. they have very little time. and if they guess wrong, those mistakes can be deadly. >> supposedly accept the possession area's concession that it is permissible to require everybody who arrested to disrobe and shower under the observations of the corrections officer from a certain distance. now the question would become how many people who do that would still be able to smug until contraband? >> there would be contraband found in body cavities and we documented in this record and other records in our brief there are folks who do that and this contraband is not found until -- >> my problem, i overstated the strength of your evidence. i was just trying to draw it out. i understated it. san francisco's point is 30% to 60% or something very high percentage of people who come into minor crimes are high on drugs or have been -- and there's just that footnote

really which is a few examples, definitely they're there in this category. would it be helpful if you included in the excluded part people who are high on drugs so we give you the hig on drugs people. it's the drug offense. those who are high on drugs and -- is there a way of drawing this rule that we can even catch most of the people -- >> i think fundamental question for the court is who is supposed to be doing this line drawing? you said in case after case after case they're going to defer to the prison and jail officials who are seeing this stuff. >> it's the simplest thing for any prison official to say do it for everybody. so the fact they do it for everybody and don't try to make some exclusion for traffic violators or something might be consistent with little or no evidence, and might be consistent with some. that's why i keep looking. >> there are many good reasons to have a policy to do for everyone. it's easy to administer when when you have a lot of people. done for the protection of people -- >> don't want to -- if there's

so much sense to that policy, why isn't the federal policy? before you said because there aren't that many offenders. if there were more, then would -- would the federal policy change so that even people who are in on a contempt charge or minor crime? >> yes, the federal government thinks that blanket policy is a good one. it made one modification to its policy in 2003 when the weight of the circuits was against it. but again, this is the policy done for everyone's protection. a point that justice kennedy made earlier. >> i'm sorry, i don't understand. you said the fed sked it's a good policy to inspect everyone? >> yes, to inspect everyone who would be put in the general jail population. that is the sird circuit holding and that's what we're defending in this case. when you have a rule that treats everyone the same, you don't have folks who are singled out. you don't have any security gaps. we are adjudicated from the judgment of the court below. >> thank you, counsel.

mr. goal steen, take four minutes. >> thank you, sir. i have three points to make first is my friend from the united states says defer to the experts but the point the united states consistently omits is there are 600,000 offenders that go into the federal system every year. i don't understand the claim this only involves 1% of federal offenders. the marshal service and i.c.e. admits 600,000 offenders every year under our standard. they are not kept in separate housing. these are cited in our brief. 600,000 people, expert judgment are susceptible to a reasonable suspicion standard when they are admitted to jail. second point about numbers, justice breyer, there is a significant empirical study and that is county of orange case, district judge there, did an unbelievably detailed job going through the record of 26,000 admissions into the system and able to identify only a single instance where contraband would have gotten in under a reasonable suspicion standard. there is also evidence in this case, and the evidence to my

surprise that my friends keep pointing to. there's a memorandum from the essex jail system, at page 70-a to 71-a of the joint appendix and it tells you two really relevant thing t says every year they miss 25,175 -- admit 25,175 people into this jail and they only found 14 instances of contraband. they don't even make the claim of those 14 instances out of 25,000 would not have been found under a reasonable suspicion standard. so you have evidence in this record about this particular case. third, a couple points have been made, justice breyer, you asked whether someone high on drugs. the uniform rule -- and this is not just a.b.a. but standard of the american correctional association, what they say is almost anything will due. what will not amount to reasonable suspicion is when you have a minor offender, and we have -- there are 700,000 people in jail in the united states every year for misdemeanor

offenses. this is a lot of people having a very significant intrusion issue on privacy. the rule applied under bell versus wolfish, when you have people come w.h.o. come in on a minor offense, they don't have any drug history. they're not high on drugs. there is no opportunity to hide a weapon. i'm not sure where they think the gun will be hidden if it's not going to show up in the very close manual patdown they do. >> i don't think you're really arguing for an individualized, reasonable suspicion standard. i think you're arguing for a rule that draws distinctions based on categories that correspond only perhaps roughly to reasonable suspicion. >> first, there are real categories that are over-inclusive in favor of the jails. like if it is a series of events or if they have a drug history. on top of that, if there's any individualized basis jails can articulate, that will do as well. we are not saying categorical people will be excluded but saying their entire categories that will automatically be

searchable. we're saying don't throw the baby out with the bath water. some somebody is pulled over by mr. florence and it's laugh out loud funny someone is smuggling something into the jail and it's two feet away, i'm going to look in your genitals, as opposed to the ordinary intrusion we are going to oversee showers, there is no evidence to that group of people. there are a lot of them if they represent anything like a material threat of smuggling and this is a very significant intrusion on individual privacy and individual dignity. thank you. >> thank you, counsel. case is submitted. >> coming up here on c-span 8:00 eastern, president obama in north carolina talking about his job proposals. over on c-span2, the communicators on cloud computing and cyber security.

at 7:00 eastern on c-span 3, discussions on the hudson institute on the postal services finances. tomorrow morning treasury secretary tim geithner testifies before the small business committee about job creation and the small business jobs act. president obama signed into law last year. you can watch the treasury secretary's testimony live on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and then in the afternoon tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. eastern, chairman ben bernanke speaking to the federal reserve bank in boston. with live coverage here on c-span. >> because i am a businessman, of which incidentally i'm very proud and was formally connected with a large company, the top position in opposition have attempted to depict me as total liberalism but i was liberal before many of those men heard

the word and i fought for the reforms of the elder and thee thee doe roosevelt and woodson before another roosevelt adopted and distorted the word liberal. >> he was a member of the democratic party for over 20 years, switching in 1940, wendell wilkie sought and won the republican nomination for president. although he lost the l., he left his mark in political history. speaking out for civil rights and becoming a foreign ambassador for his former opponent, franklin roosevelt. wendell wilkie is one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series "the contenders," live from rushville, indiana, fridays at 8:00 p.m. eastern. middle and high school students, it's time to get those cameras rolling for this year's c-span student cam video competition. make a five to eight-minute video on this year's theme, the constitution and you and get it to c-span by january 20th and

you can wind the prize of $5,000. for complete details go to student cam.org. >> we shouldn't shy away from or somehow be afraid of cloud puting. -- computing. it is a part of the advanced development of the computer world. >> the problem we face today is there are no standards to quickly move data from one cloud provider to another. yet this capability is required for good, responsible contingency planning. >> tonight on "the communicators," the future of cloud computing for the u.s. government with the chairman of the homeland security sub commit why on cyber security, dan lundgren and american registry for internet numbers head john curran. at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> federal reserve chairman ben bernanke has called long-term un employment a national crisis. on this morning's "washington journal" we talked about the

issue with a columnist from "the fiscal times." >> james cooper is columnist and contributor to "the fiscal times" and joins us this morning from new york city to talk about the cost of long-term unemployment. welcome to the program, sir. about the cost of long-term unemployment. welcome to the show. guest: thank you. nice to be here. host: i want to start with some numbers provided to us from the labor department to help us get started. among the numbers we have, the average time out of work, as of september, was 40.5 weeks. 45% have been jobless for six months or more. 70% of those have not worked in a year or more. of those unemployed 12 months or more, only one in 10 will ever return to work.

those are some pretty grim numbers, james cooper. what seems to be causing all of that? guest: this is just an unprecedented performance in the economy and the labor markets. as far as the monthly data ago, at least back to 1948, it's easy to see why a couple weeks ago fed chairman ben bernanke called this a national crisis. we have never seen anything like this. obviously, there's the human cost. there's a tremendous economic cost of long-term unemployment, both in the short run and the long run. the short run costs, i think, are pretty obvious. the longer people are out of work, the more pressure there is on consumer spending, the more credit quality gets eroded and the banks are less willing to lend in that situation.

also, government finance comes under pressure, both at the federal level and especially at the state and local level from both sides of the ledger in terms of lost tax revenues and in terms of extra money for unemployment programs and so forth. i think what is basically not fully understood is the potential long run costs of long-term unemployment. the longer people are out of work, the more they lose their skills. this has a tendency to weigh on productivity growth in the long run. basic erosion of human capital is, shall we say. also, people are just not participating in the labour market. they are becoming unattached from the labour market. basically, dropping out. i mention these two things for the long run reason.

the long run reason -- the long run rate is determined by the productivity and the labor force. if the economy is not growing up to its potential, we run the standardsower living cos in the future. we are facing a serious problem that needs to be addressed, i believe. host: you have an article. if folks want to read it, they can go to fiscaltimes.com. define the difference in those two terms 4for us. guest: the difference between unemployed and unemployable. official unemployment, those people out of work who are actively seeking work. unemployable is basically people

who have lost their skills, who have become unattached from the labour market -- from the labor market and have basically dropped out. this goes back to one of the numbers you mention that the beginning. a labor department study shows that people employed for more than a year, only one out of 10 return to being employed. the other 90% either remain unemployed or they basically have dropped out of the labor force. this is one of the basic problems of long-term unemployment. we are developing a group of disenfranchised workers -- mainly youth, the less educated, and workers in the industries that were hit very hard by the recession,

especially construction workers, where the unemployment rate is more than 13% right now. if you look at youth unemployment, the teenage unemployment, age 16 to 19, is 25%. 20 to 24, it is 15% in september. when you get above age 25, you begin to see a sharp divide with regard to education. those without a college degree face an unemployment rate of almost 10%. with a college degree, the unemployment rate is about 4.2%. this is growing evidence that there's very likely a skills- mismatch that has arisen because of the recession.

it means that businesses are not really able to find the workers that they need. one illustration of that is that there is a very tight historical relationship between job openings and the unemployment rate. what we see right now is that the job openings are about 35% higher at a 9% unemployment rate then what the 9% unemployment rate might have implied in the past. that shows us that something structurally has changed in the labor force that will require something other than just a strong economy, efforts to stimulate the economy.

host: james cooper is joining us from new york's. we are talking about the cost of long-term unemployment. we have divided the numbers a little bit differently. pay attention and see where you fit in. give us a call and become part of the conversation. for those who have been unemployed over a year, 202-737- 0001. for those who have been unemployed between six months and 12 months, 202-737-0002. if you have been unemployed for under six months, the number is 202-628-0205. --you are still employed,

202-628-0184. james cooper, wanted to talk to you a little bit about congress and what they're doing. we have a story from "the hill." "deadline looms for congress to cut a deal on unemployment benefits."vivki needham writes --

is this providing the help that the long-term unemployed need to keep treading water while they're trying to find jobs? guest: i think it is part of the answer. there is no one answered to long-term unemployment. any economist will tell you it will be neither quick nor easy. i think extending unemployment benefits again is an interesting point. i think one of obama's -- of the provisions in obama's jobs bill was to increase the flexibility of the unemployment program, which would allow long-term unemployed to continue to receive unemployment benefits as

a part of a re-training or apprenticeships program with an employer. this has seen some success in a couple of states. i think georgia has a program called georgia works. i think there is a similar program in new hampshire. this is one of the suggestions within the obama program. i think, in terms of fed policy stimulating the economy, they have done basically about all they can. however, fed chairman ben bernanke has said that any short run policy that congress could come up with that would minimize the duration of unemployment would help to reduce these long run costs associated with the

loss of skills and loss of attachment to the labor force. host: our first call for james cooper, a columnist and caltributor to "this wille fis times." joe, you have been unemployed for six months to a year. go ahead. caller: about unemployment, obama put out a plan. obamrepublicans pride themselves on listening to the people. 85% of the people spoke to them about passing obama's jobs bill. they would not. they lied. why would they do that? it would have created possibly 1.9 million, maybe 2 million

jobs, to help our country. they pride themselves in listening to the people. 82% of the people spoke to them a week or so ago and they did not pass it. would you answer that? host: james cooper, go ahead. guest: i think this is fundamental to the issue at hand in attacking the problem of long-term unemployment. i think there is plenty of room for debate over the appropriate size and authority of the government in determining our budget process. the problem, i think the biggest challenge with policies geared toward long-term employment, is trying to get congress to decide how best to address the problem. i think that is the biggest

challenge. philosophical issues interfere with basic economic common- sense. that's making it very difficult to do what is right at a certain time. i would add, also, much more broadly, and i think much more important, that what the congress is thinking about right now in terms of long term fiscal stability has to be viewed also in the context of what the all lot of people in congress get this, a lot do not. short-term economic stimulus and long-term at the school stability -- fiscal stability in the same long-term budget package are not mutually exclusive.

i think one of the things we're facing right now, especially as we begin 2012, the current wall continues right now and into 2012, we will see expiration of a number of programs, the extension of unemployment, the payroll tax, other programs that were part of the 2009 stimulus, those will expire at the end of this year, and as a result are dragging on gdp growth of 1% to two percentage points beginning on june reversed. a lot of the provisions that are in -- that are being discussed right now are part of the provisions that will expire at the end of the year. i think there is a question about long-term unemployment and what to do about it, but also

the broader question of how to shape long-term fiscal stability without harming the economy in the near-term while the economy is very fragile over the next year or two. host: our next call comes from florida on the line for those folks that are employed. i have a company. this conversation is very remiss in the sense that no one has ever spoke to the under class and economy. -- under class economy. they remained working for reduce cash or salary or they take small contracts on their own for cash or barter.

degrees warmed up with everyone in the country on sun's type of government subsidy. you have less revenue and more pay out socially with the social programs. and that is happening in this country, and we do not even know to what extent. i have been listening to this conversation for years, and no one has ever mentioned it. decode james cooper -- host: james cooper, your response. guest: there is a couple of things going on. the effect -- all economists agree there is a disincentive effect that comes from unemployment insurance benefits. thestudy shows that's

extension of unemployment insurance in this recovery has added as many as six weeks to the average duration of unemployment. that is basically a disincentive affect from unemployment insurance that people would rather receive their benefits than seek employment. however, if you look -- go back to the same point at which the benefit program was extended, the average duration of unemployment has increased by 18 weeks. and that is evidence that there is much more going on here than the distance and affect to seek employment from the extension of the unemployment insurance program.

this speaks to the structural change in the economy. the man on the line in florida for those that have been unemployed for more than two years. caller: i have been unemployed for about five years. i got caught off in january. host: we cannot really hear you. could you pick up the handle and got into the headset? caller: can you hear me better now? host: we are going to move on to canton, ohio on our line for

those that have been unemployed from six to 12 months. isller: my name christina. i have been unemployed since october of 2007. i am working on my second degree now. i looked for a job putting in applications at the employer and online daily. monday-friday as if it were my job. in there is supposed to be at 10 to one role. -- 10 to 1 rule. i have had 10 interviews all year. it is already october again. the problem is companies are not wanting to collier people who

are educated. i know people personally he were uneducated and willing to work for minimum wage, and they will get a job much quicker. we recently had a company who got all this praise for moving into ohio and opening a company here, and unfortunately the only people willing to hire our people better low-educated. peopleyou said only the thurlow educated have been hired, yet you went back to school. is that because it is more economically feasible for you to be in school or are you trying to retrain yourself into something you think you can get hired doing? caller: my original decree was in business, and i decided to become a manager because of my skills. i wanted to do something where i

could be more assertive, and i thought getting a degree in business that i would be able to use my personal skills on the job. however, that has not panned out. guest: i think this highlights the question of just how much the long-term unemployment, how much the high level of unemployment is due to cyclical factors and how much is due to cruck rigid structural factors. in -- is due to structural factures. 4% to 5% economic growth will generate a lot of jobs. host: what will it take to spur the economic growth? guest: that is the real key right now in terms of the type

of recession that we have had, in terms of coming off a financial crisis. studies have shown it takes a long time to recover from that reticular type of event. we still have banks that are very picky about loans. we have a housing problem, still have a housing problem. although we have almost below 4 percent signed mortgage rates, people cannot refinance because their homes are under water. i think one of the most important things to recognize is that this economy, it is going to continue to grow at about 2% or so, that that is just not nasty enough to generate jobs at a pace that will significantly

reduce the unemployment rate. to the extent that this is really a cyclical problem that can be addressed by additional policy stimulus, then i think we need to look at additional stimulus. like i said, the fed has done basically all it can do at this point, and that leaves the stimulus to come from congress at a time when there is deep division over spending to stimulate the economy, which is coming at a time when there is now stimulus beginning to come out of the economy while it is still fragile. i think this part of the problem that the calller is facing. we have a sour economy, and it will take a while to get it moving again. host: we're talking with james

cooper of "the fiscal times." ron is of the line for those that have been unemployed for over a year. caller: i am a 99er. i have been out of work for 20 months. i want to ask why barack obama ? isneglected the 99er's there any way they might include a package in the unemployment extension if it ever gets brought up in the congress, and i want to ask you what ever happened to properly? i will get off the phone. i appreciate your time very much. guest: the extended -- the extended unemployment benefits program is part of the overall

obama plan. that bill -- it is pretty evident that bill will not go anywhere as a whole, but the extension of unemployment benefits is one of the pieces that is up for discussion right now. the question i think someone mentioned a while ago is how congress wants to pay for it. it is coming at a time when the expiration of benefits, i think it is by february, it will be 2 million people coming off of the unemployment benefit rolls, and that will be less money coming into the economy, less money to be spent, and part of the fiscal drag that i was talking about. i think the question is just

how congress or will congress decide how to pay for it? >> one of the numbers we have from the labor department said that of those that had been unemployed for a year or more, only one in 10 will return to work, and the calller we just talked to falls into that category. what happens to the other nine? if they cannot find work, where do they go? guest: basically there is only two things that happened. they either remained officially end -- unemployed or become marginally attached to the labor force in terms of wanting a job, but not really actively seeking, or they basically dropped out of the labor force. we had seen some staggering numbers on the labor force participation rate over the past

three years. that rate is calculated as the number employed, plus the number officially seeking work, divided by the population. this labor force participation rate has fallen over the past three or four years at the fastest pace that we have seen going back to the 1948 starting point of the data, and the labor force participation rate in september is around the levels that we have not seen since early 1980's. to some extent people are just becoming so detached from the labor force, because of erosion of skills because they become unemployable, because they do not have the skills that employers want and dropping out of the labor force. host: back to the phones.

austin, texas. caller: i would like to say a couple of things. host: how long have you been unemployed? caller: between six to 12 months. really eight months. this is probably part of the discussion about jobs bills that just passed. a lot of the the things people wore declining was you raised taxes on people that raised -- that made certain dollar amount. -- a lot of the things people were talking about was to raise taxes on people that made a certain dollar amount. i worked for one of those small businesses. itheir life style was very lavish. . there were daily deliveries that

the wife would make from different places. they just finished building a new house. it would treat -- take lavish trips to europe and what not. i do not begrudge people of that, but would you say we're struggling, small businesses are struggling, that is not very true. when times got hard, they did not change their lifestyle of all. do you have a question? caller: this follows into the memorial of martin luther king, and with barack obama being in the black community. i would like for someone to start talking or doing investigation into the department of labor, because i have a bachelor's degrees in business administration, and i have not got hired, have not

even got an interview. i wonder if this has anything to do with my race. host: is this something to do with race, or in some of these cases it sounds like people might be over qualified for the positions they are applying fo? guest: that is a difficult conclusion to reach. and i think it is really more a function of the problems of the general economy and the problems with long-term unemployment. one of the things that i worry about with long-term unemployment is there is not only the social cost we have been talking about, but there is also a social cost involved.

if you look at the average age of the occupier wall st. group, i think one of the things, one of the many things that they appear to be protesting is basically their own employment future i believe. these are people that are freshly out of school. they are in those high unemployment groups that i was mentioning a while ago. i agree that there is a potential social cost in addition to the economic costs of long-term unemployment. takeov host: veterans returning to jobless. difficult to translate to civilian employment. the soldiers, as failures -- sailors, marines, air force people that are coming back from iraq and afghanistan -- how much

are they added to the problem of being able to find jobs for long-term short-term unemployed? guest: i have no data to back up anything i would say on that, but i do know that this is a high-tech modern army. a lot of the guys and women that are coming back understand the use of technology, software and development and also health care is a growing area here. there are some skills of the soldiers coming back that are in demand right now. i think you will probably seek a mix of skills coming back, but they are not all just adding to the problem. i think some of the folks will be helping the problem, helping companies.

to the phones, cleveland, ohio. what kind of work to you do? caller: i am a machine repairman. it has recently been announced that my job is going to canada and holland and tennessee. that is the problem with our economy today, our jobs are leaving the country. buddy roemer, a republican running for president, he gave a speech, and the speech basically boils down to our tariffs is the only answer to bring jobs back. guest: i think i would be careful in that direction.

if you go back to the 1930's, there was this infamous program called the holly tariff act, which a lot of people say basically made the great depression great. i do not think we want to get into those policies at a time when the u.s. needs to export more, it needs to develop more manufacturing geared towards exports. this is a growth area for the economy. people look at how much we are importing from china, but we are exporting rapidly to china, to other emerging markets. emerging-market make up half of our total exports right now, so i do not think i would want to go in that direction. i know the senate recently is

taking up the schumer bill about essentially tariffs on chinese imports, but i do not believe that is going to go anywhere, although it is maybe a symbolic victory for people that are concerned in this area. but i do not think we want to restrict trade right now. in fact, i think we want to do more of the things that we just accomplished with the trade and others with corrkorea nations that will boost exports. that said, there is no question that the u.s. is losing jobs abroad. there is no question about it. manufacturing in the u.s. over the past 10 years -- output has increased dramatically. the u.s. payrolls of

manufacturing had shrunk dramatically, but what that means is u.s. manufacturers are becoming much more productive, but they are using foreign of labor. this is one of the key structural changes we're looking at in the economy right now. a lot of people that have been working in manufacturing jobs are looking at the economy we differently right now. it is those kinds of areas that will lead education, and need training in order to contribute to today's economy. host: forms for just a sense as sends us this -- let's move on to the phones. we are raleigh, north carolina. caller: good morning, gentlemen.

i have been out of work since january 2009. host: what are your prospects for getting a new job? caller: i have applied in about have only hadcs, and two interviews. perhaps i am a little bit of an unusual can get it. i am a foreign physician with no license to practice in the united states, so i think people ume forg my reservati esonat having issues with some of these things here that on top of that

i work in the health-care industry most of my life. i am not sure, but what i see of jobs. a's are out host: james cooper, your thoughts about the prospect for him. how much does his age heard him, the fact that he is 52? guest: i think there is an interesting statistic from the labor department. i mentioned labor force participation rate has fallen dramatically, but the only area hit it has not fallen and has actually remained high is in the 55 and above age bracket. arele in that age couhort

staying in the market longer. i do not think it is a coincidence that these are the most highly skilled and experienced, and also people who have maybe seen their 401k's diminish over the past years, and there for putting those skills to work and remaining in the labor force. and in terms of the calller situation, i believe a strong economy lifts all boats, and one of the situations we need is a stronger economy. i think people like the calller and raleigh would easily find work in a stronger economy. host: rochelle in brooklyn, new

york. you are on james cooper. caller: good morning. i have call c-span several times in the past few years. i have called to offer ideas i heard a couple of callers earlier referred to how this program would be paid for, the jobs program that includes the extension of unemployment benefits. there is lots of work to be done in this country. bridges, roads, teachers, firefighters need to stay on the job, and there is a lot of expertise out there that can come into communities and start apprenticeship programs, make it easier to teach the so meeting degrees, because people have expertise and skills where they

can come into communities and start to train young people. i am over 50 age and have been unemployed for more than 99 weeks. we're sitting out here how tryio figure out how to put food on the table. i think it be included in president obama's bill to incentivize people without degrees and make it easier for them to teach with in the community especially in the cities where we are hurting the most. guest: i believe -- i agree with the calller. there are many things that congress could do in terms of providing stimulus for the economy. boosting demand for goods and services. she mentioned infrastructure

spending. that was part of the of 447 billion obama a jobs bill. there were other stimulus provisions in that bill. i think the only potential problem with infrastructure spending is that it takes all long time to get those types of programs going, so the impact on income growth and spending is not immediate. i agree. there are many things that congress can do. the question is simply coming down to economics triumphing over philosophy. host: our last call for james cooper comes from colorado city, colorado. caller: my concern is the center

that was on earlier in the statement -- and the statement [inaudible] he went right back on and talking about the stimulus plan that was last year. the president had told him that this is paid for, so why are they fighting this. it is paid for. he keeps telling them this. i am a concern grandmother for the future kids. guest: there is a proposed method to pay for the programs. it really is not paid for get, and that is what the ballot -- battle is about. let me just conclude by making the point here that we can argue of -- and argue in a healthy

debate about the size and influence of government, but in terms of what is needed in the economy right now, and what is needed for fiscal stability in the future, i think we have to look at both situations. we need stimulus now to boost the economy and boost demand, and we need fiscal stability in the future. like i said, these are not mutually exclusive in the same budget package. host: we have been talking with james cooper, a columnist and contributor to "the fiscal times." think you for >> tomorrow, jonah goldberg