movingly told of his long journey and walk to support the voting rights act, congresswoman fudge, who has been a champion in her state, in ohio, congresswoman lee, and then congressman scot, who all bring to the table a personal story about voter protection. but i must make mention of our friending congressman john lewis who is the epitome of the civil rights movement around the idea of voter protection and enhancement, many of us are not aware of congressman filner who was one of the freedom riders and celebrated freedom riders in the last year, their 50 years. my colleague, congressman al green, who led the naacp in houston during times when we were under siege as relates to voting opportunities. . in the south and in the aftermath in the 1970's of

the voting rights act, actually going to many states from north carolina, south carolina, alabama and georgia where african americans did not have the full impact. i remember walking miles to allow students to vote. so this is a cause that we have been on a long journey and saddens me we are here again fighting for voter protection as we look to our presidential election. i offer words of barbara jordan who could not have come to congress, sitting in the judiciary committee, she offered these words. i believe hyperbole would not show the solemnness. it is complete and total and said that during the impeachment hearings of richard nixon and the point was she felt the

constitution breathes light, if you will, in the lives of americans and the constitution spoke to the voting rights of african americans and others of the 4th and 15th amendment. but over the years, we have not been protected. so the congress, through the leadership and sacrifice of dr. king, whose monument is magnificent, they passed the voting rights act. and it was challenged, the constitutionality was challenged in 1966. it barely got pasted and supreme court has said, congress found that there is widespread discrimination in voting. it was constant, it was ongoing because of the inordinate amount of time and energy to overcome the obstructionist tactics. after enduring a century of

resistance to the 15th amendment, congress might shift time from the perpetrators of evil to its -- and that was in 1966. the attorney general of the united states to reaffirm the voting rights act of 1966. here we are now almost 50 years-plus where we are fighting this case again and in not too friendly a climate. i notice my colleague mentioned the unfortunate facts or the circumstances in iowa where one republican presidential candidate was declared a winner and now another and i did not hear voices being raised whether there was fraud. you didn't hear the outrage that we have heard over the seemingly increase or the effort to increase the votes of poor people and minorities, and in

particular, latinos and african americans and the honorable barbara jordan added language minorities in 1978. but the thought that fraud is bad and should be prosecuted but voter i.d. does not work. requiring a photo i.d. is discrimination. 2.1 million do not have government-issued photo i.d. and 2006 nationwide study by the center for justice at the new york university school for law, african americans are three times as likely to lack a government-issued i.d. you talk to seniors and they were born with midwives. my mother, god rest her soul, we

could not find her birth certificatetive indicate but did have a voter registration card. photo i.d. laws are costly and add to the deficit. missouri estimates that the i.d. costs would cost $20 million to implement and goes on to say, north carolina, $14 million this is a shame on us and it is a pop on our house because it cannot be documented. how ironic it is that a student i.d., students at state colleges, historically black colleges, hispanic-leaning colleges can't use a credible i.d. that colleges take great pride or efforts to secure, photo i.d., young people we want to see, cannot use their i.d.,

but a gun i.d. can be used. a few weeks ago in the judiciary committee, somewhat related, we were trying to pass legislation that says if you have a gun i.d. in georgia, you can use your gun permit in another state. we are willing to give all these rights to those carrying gun i.d.'s that may jeopardize law enforcement officers, but yet the simple act of being able to vote by a person of your choosing causes the ire of so many state legislatures who after the 2010 election and misrepresentation that there was fraud in the 2008 election maybe because we elected the first african-american president or some crisis, we have this kind of map that shows practically 40

states, it looks like is -- all but 11 that require photo i.d. 's. congresswoman, i ask, on what basis have we now taken the constitution, the voting rights act and the constitutionality of the voting rights act to do it? let me share these points as i come to a close and ask that we continue the efforts -- i look forward to a voter protection meeting by the congressional black caucus in houston, and the state of texas has the voter i.d. law that is being precleared. all my colleagues are in the middle of redistricting. this isn't promoting texas, but we may be the only case that is going to ascertain the integrity

of the voting rights act. district court of appeals here in the district of columbia and san antonio federal court and we are fighting on three different levels. and without any comments intended, we had an interim plan, one person, one vote. and i think it is important to note that the voting rights act protects all americans. its premise is, one vote, one person. its premise is not fraud, but opportunity. when we have the redistricting in some sections of the voting rights act protects the idea of one person, one vote, we take these cases, not for personal promotion, meaning members of congress and state legislators but to ensure the integrity of the vote. so when the court ruled in san antonio just briefly, that the plan did not work that the state of texas wrote and gave a new

plan, the state of texas, state of texas went to the supreme court, not the individuals trying to protect the right of voters, went to the supreme court to stay that plan. well, the supreme court did render a decision and we are in the midst of our confusion, but i have to put it on the record. the supreme court assessed us, the ones who did not appeal, $18,000 to pay for printing, for those of us who are lawyers, we are simply questioning of how you can charge how individuals who did not take the case up to the supreme court, who were being guided by the federal court, who had a plan and assessed us $18,000. i simply say, here is another way that you can not protect voting, because inevitably, those who are on the side of the voting rights act are not rich. inevitably, we are not the

state. it's the state coming against those who are trying to say one vote, one person. i bring this up as i close. and let me just say in the course of the hearing that we had in re-authorizing the voting rights act, we discovered that there were problems with voting across the country. in 2004, nearly 4,00 people reported problems with ballots that were coming to them. 1,000 people reported intim dation. and as you well know, the status of voting laws now, voting i.d. or voter identification, limits the kind of i.d. you can use and excludes the most common form of identification. and offer no alternative. proof of citizenship as a condition, limitations or elimination of early voting

opportunities and suggesting that there are no same-day recommendation. i would simply argue that this is an important special order that you have tonight. what i feel in my heart is that we have to educate the public. they have to raise their level of not anxiety, but cause, that they have their cause and get their marching shoes on again and be the car years of justice as those civil rights and legends and heroes did. they have to do like the movie "the help," the domestics, those people who walked in the montgomery walk, i thank you for allowing me to share this evening and i want to indicate this very fine letter that was sent by members of congress to the attorney general on july 25,

2011, should be upheld that we want to have the voter i.d. laws that may supress the vote, and want to have voter protection and one of them happens to be the voter requirement in the state of texas. thank you for allowing me to participate in an opportunity to share and an opportunity to tell a message to our colleagues that the justice of voting is the justice for everyone and the protection of voting is the protection of voting for everyone and i yield back. mrs. christensen: i go back to the article in "politico" because everyone has made reference to the charges of fraud. official and academic studies have consistently shown that the chances of being hit by lightning are greater than the likely insid denses of such

fraud. as we prepare for elections this year and we have even an unprecedented since august of 1965, attacks on the right of americans to vote. these attacks have taken many forms, expanding bands that prevent felons from voting, cutting election budgets in states, curtailing early voting, something that was used effectively in previous elections, eliminating same-day registration, intimidating and imposing strict i.d. requirements, creating barriers to getting the required i.d. and creating barriers to students and schools outside of their states. the fraud claims are bogus and as our chairman testified before the senate committee on judiciary late last year and i'm

quoting our chairman, the laws are solutions in search of problems, especially when it comes to voter i.d., because there is basically no evidence of fraud, end of quote and many studies have supported that statement. with an estimated 11% of americans not having i.d.'s that would meet the requirement, it is projected the right of american citizens to vote will prevent millions of people, mostly democrats, mostly minorities and elderly from voting and could affect as many as 171 electoral votes. it is clear to me that whether rashely-based or not, it is a direct attempt to undermine the voting process and derail what should be and ought to be the re-election of barack obama. the c.b.c. is speaking out as

the naacp but i'm waiting for the cries of many people in this country. this is an injustice and threat to democracy and stability to our nation and must not be allowed to continue. the congressional black caucus has written, congresswoman jackson lee referred to the letter, a letter with over 100 other members signing, a letter to the attorney general eric holder, registering our grave concern over these laws and urging the department of justice examine them and ensure that the rights of voters are protected. and in march, we will take up the torch of those who marched across the bridge to continue to fight for equal rights and together with the naacp begin a voter protection tour in cities to call attention to the

ininjustice and help individuals to get the required voter implet d. and to -- i.d. and continue to press the justice department to protect the right that so many sacrificed fought and died for. . this is the map, the map of shame. only 11 states don't have a voter i.d. law or is requesting one or has legislation proposed. how will we ever be able to lead and speak for the rights of the disenfranchised in other part os they have world? that was something raised by congressman rangel as we began this special order? where will we get the moral authority if this is allowed to exist and we undermine the very fundamental right to vote. already the undue influence of big money from undisclosed

donors is influencing leches. already the ugly specter of racism has been raised to misinform and inflame some segments of our country. this is not the country we want to be. the voting rights act was passed in august of 1965 and at that time ended over a century of denial of the right to vote to african-americans in the south and latinos in the southwest as well. in voting rights, as in health care reform, as someone said earlier, we are not going back. i'd like to just use a few minutes of the time that we have left to call attention to a crisis in my district in the u.s. virgin islands. on last wednesday, january 18, we suffered an economic earthquake with the announcement that the oil refinery, either the second or third largest oil refinry in the western hemisphere, is going to close in the middle of february.

we are a small community, 110 ,000 through the the islands, 55,000 on the island of st. croix, so a hit of 2,000 jobs are a big hit to our economy, that's the direct jobs, those who work on the site. they'll continue to keep about 100 employees for oil storage facilities but the impact will reverberate throughout the entire community. businesses who rely on that company for their suppliers, to hotels and restaurants, and even some of our private schools, are wondering how they are going to survive and keep their doors open when they close. we are looking at a number of issues, we still have a lot of questions we need to ask but i wanted to bring this to the attention of my colleagues because this is a severe crisis.

we were already, as all of our states have been, having to do layoffs and cutting salaries and trying -- imposing measures on our population but the closing of this refinery is a major hit and it's left my community reeling. so i ask for your prayers and at the appropriate time i will probably come and ask for your assistance and on behalf of the people of the virgin islands, i want to thank this opportunity to -- take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, congresswoman lee, congressman scot, congressman rangel, congresswoman jackson lee, for joining me for this special order to speak for voter protection for the people of this country, the protection of a fundamental right that must be abridged, did you want to have some more time, congresswoman lee?

ms. jackson lee: if the gentlelady would yield. i want to speak to the gentlelady's last comment and say, you have been a champion for the virgin islands, i've had the privilege of having several meetings there, they are a generous people, they are our neighbors and so i personally want to say, experiencing and understanding the impact of the loss of a major entity is something many of us have gone through and in this instance, i wanted to say, yes, we will stand with you and be of help and i'm introducing legislation that deals with trying to look at the energy industry in a way to help it grow, in a fair way or to be environmentally safe and i know that you are certainly someone who is a champion of the environment but have found that that business is served economically and i want to make sure that we have these kinds of industries and they're not mutually exclusive, i don't have the facts of what has generated this action but we

need to be helpful. my legislation talks about using the energy industry to also support improving the environment and i think that creates jobs as well. i just want to say that i look forward to working with you and thank you for bringing that issue to our attention because as voter protection gives people the opportunity for expressing their views, we know that the opportunity for work and for jobs is crucial as well. i yield back to the gentlelady. mrs. christensen: i thank you for your support, and i know i have the support of the congressional black caucus and it just raises the issue that we have been coming to the floor for the spire year to speak on before this evening, that's jobness and job creation. mine, like other communities across the country, will need to enact legislation like the american jobs act and some of the countless pieces of legislation that the congressional black caucus has introduced in this congress to

create jobs for the people who are -- people in this country. i just wanted to add that in addition to the impact on the u.s. virgin islands an st. voy in particular, this closing will have a major impact, especially on the east coast, as they have been a major supplier of gasoline to the east coast, so again, i ask for your prayers and support and with that, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. smith, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. smith: thank you very much, mr. speaker. the right to life mumplete is the greatest human rights movement on earth. a remarkable, decades-long struggle embraced by millions of selfless women and men of all ages, races, colors an creeds, made up in recent years, i'm

happy to say, disproportionately of young people. we defend and seek to protect all the weak and vulnerable persons from the violence of abortion infanticide and euthanasia. we believe in the politics and policies of inclusion, regardless of race, age, sex, disability, or condition of dependence. yesterday, january 22, marninged the 39th year since the infamous holdings of row vs. wade, the pair of supreme court decisions that nullified pro life decisions throughout the united states. the catastrophic loss of children's lives since these two cases has been absolutely numbing. over 54 million children have been killed by dismemberment, chemical poisoning, lethal pills, suction, and starvation. let's not forget that ru-486 is a chemical compound, it's two

chemicals and one of the effects of one of those chemicals is to literally starve the baby in the womb to death. the second chemical brings on delivery of a dead baby. women have been harmed by abortion as well. over 100 studies show significant psychological harm, major depression and elevated suicide risk in women who abort. "the times" of london wrote that senior psychiatrists say that new evidence has shown a clear link between abortion and mental illness in women with no history of psychological problems. they found that women who had abortions had twice the level of psychological problems and three times the level of depression as women who give birth or who have never been pregnant. younger women are also affected by abortion, a comprehensive study found that almost 80% of 15-year-old to 18-year-olds who had abortion displayed symptoms

of major depression, as opposed to 31% of their peers. it also has a bad effect on subsequent children. studies show a relationship between previous abortions and premature birth. one study showed a 30% increased risk of preterm birth after one abortion and 90% risk after two abortions. preterm birth is the leading cause for infant mortality after congenital abano, ma'amly. preterm infants have a greater risk for cerebral palsy, cognitive impairment and other problems. low birth weight is also associated with neonatal mortality and finally, mr. speaker, at the march for life

today, there were large, large numbers of people, tens of thousands of people, as co-chair of the pro life caucus, i was proud to say, with so many of our leaders here, many of whom are on the floor tonight, and our leaders, speaker boehner, jeb hensarling, eric cantor, who spoke about the sanctity of human life. they produced h.r. 3 which not only would be a government-wide prohibition on government funding for abortion, it also had a robust, very significant conscience clause as part of that legislation. the protect life act and of course the defunding of planned parenthood, a group that aborts in its clinics some 330,000 abortions, 330,000 dead babies in its clinics each and every year. it was a great march. we had women from the silent no

more campaign, post-abortion women who speak eloquently not to have abortions because they have been victimized by it, also as a pathway to healing and reconciliation for those who have suffered it. this movement is all about reconciliation an forgiveness and reaching out to those on the other side. i would like to yield to marsha blackburn, the distinguished gentlelady from tennessee, such time as she may consume. mrs. blackburn: i thank the gentleman from new jersey for yielding the time. mr. speaker, you know, he said something that is so important. this is a special day. it's a somber day. and solemn in many ways. but yet it is a day when you think about hope and encouragement and reconciliation, we all have had constituents who have come in today to express their opinion and to mark this 39 years, to be

here to protect 39 long, painful years of government-sanctioned abortion on demand. my constituents and many tennesseans that came here today and that gathered in churches and at the state capitol in nashville have done it for two reasons. one, to protect abortion, the other is to show respect for life. they have spoken with one voice. life is a beautiful gifflet from god and no government should be able to take that life away. we know in our hearts what is true. life is a natural right and the declaration of independence calls for us to protect the smallest and the weakest among us, after all, there is no independence without our most basic, fundamental right, the right to life.

there are a couple of things that have concerned many of us lately, one is abortion being smuggled into our health care system through obamacare. it is something that i think is morally indefensible. it is fiscally irresponsible. it is an issue that we're going to hear more about each and every day as we go through the year. as a woman, i believe that america and our citizens deserve better than abortion. and i believe, and this is the sec thing that has really caught a lot of attention lately, and an area where we're going to place some additional attention this year. and that is, planned parenthood. america deserves better than planned parenthood. it's important that everyone realize, mr. speaker, that planned parenthood continues to

profit from the destruction of human life with taxpayer money. this year, we are going to delve into that issue a little bit more and find out more about what has happened with these funds in the organization of planned parenthood. today, as our constituents have come into the city, we have been encouraged and we have encouraged others, it's nice to be able to encourage one another, we all have prayed for the millions of women and children who are hurt by abortion and we have also prayed that god will provide the courage and the steadfastness that is needed for taos put an end to this national tragedy. . submit submit i thank her for her leadership.

i would like to yield to ms. schmidt who led in ohio and here in washington. schmidt schmidt your courage on this issue will not go unnoticed and i really wanted to talk to you tonight about a little girl, a little girl with a two-inch foot and the lasting impression that that little two-inch foot has made. i come from southern ohio. and my parish, elizabeth ann seton, my parish priest was born

with a chromosomeal condition, one that was diagnosed long before she was born. the doctors made the suggestion that maybe she should abort the child because the risks were so great. given the statistics if she were born alive, it is likely she wouldn't make her first birthday. so why bother. but ann and andy understand the level of life. they know that life is precious and they knew her life was worthy of respect. the amazing thing is not just the hundreds of people that came to the funeral, but what happened on december 23. the cincinnati choir had a front

page story on the miracle baby and they showed the risks, but they also talked about life and pro-life positions. our "cincinnati inquirer." at the funeral, there were many pictures, but the one that left the imprint on my mind were her two-inch foot prints and her mother had and i wish i could remember the exact words that said something to the point that no matter how small the footprint, every footprint can make a lasting impression. had she not been born "the inquirer" wouldn't have run the story and wouldn't have provoked the discussion of life and who knows what other life would have been saved. the value of each life each person has, no matter their

shortcomings should be loved, cherished and protected. ann has a right. i believe many people have a right and i know the americans have it right. today, while hundreds of thousands marred on the lawn on the capitol in the rain to protest a bad decision that was made 39 years ago, i saw sophia's little footprints in my mind and i saw the footprints on the capitol lawn, they are making a lasting impression, because no matter how great or small, we all have life's value because we are children of god. i yield back. mr. smith: i yield to mr.

walberg such time as he may consume. mr. walberg: i thank the gentleman for his courage in standing on this issue of life. it's an important issue and tonight we will have the privilege of hearing from doctors, from lawyers, from business people who all hold the same position, a position held with the framers and founders of this great country. when they began in writing the greatest document man has ever written, i believe, the declaration of independence, that said many things, but this, tonight, comes in in very important to us when they said we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endo youed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them,

the right to life, pursuit of happiness and as they deliberated together and contemplated doing something in this world, they sought their creator for wisdom and understood truths that were unique, special and truths that were blessed by their creator. and tonight, i don't want to speak to you from a medical perspective or from a legal perspective, but i want to speak from a perspective that really we give credence and look above the speaker, tonight, we see our motto, for this great nation, in god we trust. what does he think about what went on today? what does he think of what went on 39 years ago.

it was said, in the word of god that was left for us to understand and our founders and framers read, med dated upon and came up with something great for this life and this country, they read words such as this, to hold children are a gift of the lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. the prophet jeremiah said, before i formed you in the womb, i knew you, before you were born, i set you apart. unique. not a product of conception, a product of god's planning and gift. and then in a that beautiful psalm said, where you are formed

from inward parts, you in my mother's womb and i thank you, wonderful in my works and my soul knows it very well. my frame was not hidden from you, when i was made in secret and wrought in the depths of the earth, your eyes have seen my unformed substance and when as yet, there was not yet one of them. in god we trust. he designed us. he designed a purpose for all life, mr. speaker. we as humans run amuck of his plan, his wisdom if we decide what is good, what is right, what is acceptable, as opposed to saying thank god for the gift. i'm a father of three gifts.

i'm a grandfather of four, one in heaven that i look forward to seeing some day after he fought and lived for eight days on this earth. a grandfather of two others that are on the ground that i enjoy the fullest and a grandfather of one who is in the womb at this very time, growing into what god intends him to be. and in little over a month, i look forward to meeting and greeting that new creation, gift of god, formed uniquely in the womb. we can think of medical practices and those are good. we can have arguments from law and from our constitution and those are good and decent, but i take the words of god, the creator himself, and find great success tinens in my belief that life is the greatest gift that god has given and the savior he

has gave, said i'm coming that you might have life. we would do well in this great country to say amen to that issue and to support life in all its forms, and i yield back. mr. smith: thank you very much. and i would point out that throughout the capitol and throughout the country, there were religious services on behalf of the unborn seeking reconciliation and healing. one of those was at the national memorial for the preborn. clearing from various denominations gathered together to pray and hear reading and the director and president of the national pro-life religious council pleading before the lord for reconciliation and for

forgiveness for this terrible tragedy of abortion on demand. mr. walberg talked about a lawyer and a nurse and brings a unique perspective. >> and i thank the gentleman from new jersey for his leadership on this issue. mr. speaker, i stand before you this evening as we commemorate the 39th anniversary of the infamous of the supreme court decision of roe versus wade and as we stand here and reflect on the loss of millions and millions.

so many of them were young people, high school students, college students, standing up for life, doing the right thing. so i am hopeful we are changing the hearts and minds of the american people, the youth of today, they are willing to stand up for what's right and they understand the words of the declaration of independence that we are endo youed by our creator with inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the motor vehicle -- and the most basic right is is life and we pray for the change in the hearts and minds of the american people to understand that every life, regardless of how that life was conceived is valuable and we must protect that life. thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield back. mr. smith: i yield to dr. roe.

we have a number of medical doctors, most of whom who are profoundly pro-life and i believe he has delivered at least 5,000 babies. mr. roe: i want to thank my friend and colleague, congressman smith, for being one of the most steadfast leaders in this nation, not tonight, not just for this one hour of special order tonight, but for decades, chris, for standing up for life and what's right. i'm proud to associate with you and today, as we went out on the mall here for those of you who didn't see it on television, it was a cold and rainy day and it was cold last year but clear but didn't dam pen the spirit of thousands of people who came here and the scores of young people who came here to

celebrate life. and life as has been mentioned is a precious gift from god and not only is abortion wrong, but it is a bad idea. i'm an ob-gyn doctor and in the group that i belonged to, we delivered over 25,000 babies. myself, almost 5,000 babies. and iowa i got to see during that time, when roe versus wade was passed, we didn't have ultrasound and as it came along from a gray blush to 30 and 40 ultrasound that you are able to see the movement, see this little person very early on, we can identify a heartbeat and i will defile anyone to tell me that that is not a living,

breathing, human being that is a person. and i remember my practice when i first began in 1977 at 32 weeks, half of the children died. now those children live the same as a term birth and seeing that number being pushed further back and we tend to think of this in our own time. who knows what the technology will provide because it is a precious gift from god that we are protecting. . . the rate is going down, but it's far, far too many. we have just heard a number, 54 million, that boggles my mind about how many people that is. i can tell you, as a -- having

had the opportunity live in the community i have for 35 years and to watch young babies that i have delivered grow up to be teachers and coaches and doctors and friends of mine, many of them are close, personal friends that i have delivered, i've watched them take their children to soccer matches and to school plays and learn to play musical instruments and to add to this nation and to add to the culture of this nation. i can't imagine what this world would be like without them here. and one of the great privileges i have had in my life was a person i know very well at home came to me and he said, dr. row, do you remember that boy -- doctor roe, do you remember that boy you delivered of mine? i said, i do. he said, you nominated him to

the military. i say that with pride. what if his mother had made a different decision. these are the future leaders of our nation. this must be one of the most hay heys now procedures ever performed on a human being is a third trimester abortion. there is no medical reason, i stand here tonight and will challenge anybody in this nation of over 300 million people to debate me on this issue. there is no medical indication other than termination of the child's life there is no reason to do that for any other. i will make that challenge here, i've made it before, make it again tonight, i have never been able to get anybody to take me up on it. i want to thank chris again, congressman smith, for being steadfast in his 30-plus years, you are changing hearts and

changing minds, it is a true privilege to stand here tonight with my colleagues and to be for life. i can't imagine being otherwise. i yield back my time. mr. smith: thank you for your kind remarks. you have been a leader as have the members who have been speaking. this is -- there is no single leader, except maybe henry hyde when he was leader here, but this is a group of men and women who are passionately in favor of life. i mention doctors who are strongly members of the pro life caucus. one of those is dr. fleming of louisiana. i would like to yield to him. i point out that the obama administration has declared war on conscience protections. he has done it in a repeated fashion, most recently in ordering all health insurers to pay for all means of preventing pregnancy, including subsidizing abortifacients.

everyone must comply because obama says so. the united states catholic conference of victims had a grant to help against human trafficking. they did a good job, had high marks but the u.s. c.c.b. was blatantly discriminated against and thrown out of the program simply because they would not refer for abortions. mr. lankford, who will speak shortly as well, did a wonderful job in a hearing in bringing out , as did chairman issa, how discriminatory this is. >> i thank the gentleman, mr. smith, not just for the introduction but for the fine work you have done for so many years, sir, as well as joe pitts, our good friend and colleague, mr. speaker, i speak

to you this evening as a physician of over 30 years, a father and a grandfather. and i have delivered myself many hundred babies and have found that that is one of the most important and intimate times in a person's life is taking part of and in some way delivering a baby. nonetheless, we have today a problem, since roe v. wade, that we are in great grievance about. you know, you heard mr. walberg so eloquently talk about the passages from the bible that describe about knitting me in the womb and knowing me even before being born. but also, mr. speaker, do you realize that the d.n.a. of every conceived life is unique into history. there will never be another like it. in my opinion, that's god's

opinion that that is a separate and distinct human being and a person itself. let me share some facts with you. do you realize, mr. speaker, that the heart begins beating at 23 days after conception. that the fetus begins to feel pain as early as 20 weeks, maybe even earlier, we're still waiting for studies on that. certainly any abortion committed in the middle or third trimester is obviously extreme agony for any type of fetus. some other important facts. while there were approximately 744,000 abortions in 1973, the time of roe v. wade, that actually peaked in 1990 at 1.6 million. it has come down. it's come down today to 1.2 million. not nearly low enough. do you realize also, mr. speaker, that over $487 million of taxpayer money is used each year to go to planned

parenthood, which is the biggest, the number one, provider of abortions in this country, committing over 320,000 innocent life deaths each year. but there are things we are doing that are effective. you heard me say we're down from a peak of 1.6 million down to 1.2 million. what are some of the things we can do and have done? my home state, louisiana, which was chosen by a.u.l. to be number one in abortion law, has done the following. a her-to-be must wait at least 24 hour -- a mother-to-be must wait at least 24 hours after notification to have an abortion. she must be provided with information so she can read about this and have a cooling off period before making that final decision. she must receive information about fetal pain, what i mentioned a moment ago. and that she must be allowed, if she chooses, to view a sonogram

to see what that fetus actually looks like. her potential baby. and louisiana has declared that the unborn child is a human being. and is therefore a person. so mr. speaker, there's a lot that we've done, there's a lot more we can do. although i want to see roe v. wade overturned, there is still many good laws we can produce that i think, and certainly defunding of organizations that provide abortions, that can sharply lower these numbers. there's so much more we can do. we shouldn't just hold out for overturning roe v. wade. we should act today. thank you and i yield back. mr. smith: i would like to yield to congresswoman martha roby, one of the blessings of this congress is that we have so many articulate and brave women who speak out in defense of life and i have been here for 32 years and i think we have now more pro life women than ever.

mrs. roby: thank you so much to the gentleman for yielding. i also rise today to recognize the 39th anniversary of the monumental court decision of roe v. wade and since the legalizing of abortion in 1973, approximately 50 million abortions have been performed in the united states of america alone and just today, 4,000 babies have been aborted and over the course of 2012, as you heard the doctor just say, 1.2 million children in the united states will not be granted life. mr. speaker, i am unapologetically pro life and it is a tremendous honor to be part of this pro life caucus and i believe that the miracle of human life begins at the moment of conception. i also believe that every human life has the inherent right to life and that this must be protected by law.

as a woman, a wife, and a her -- a mother of two precious young children of my own, i will continue to fight for the unborn as a representative of alabama's second congressional district. i applaud my own home state of alabama in its -- and its admirable fight to protect human life. alabama recently became the fifth state to pass a measure banning physicians from performing abortions after 20 weeks, which, according to the research you just heard, is the point where an unborn child can experience pain. i applaud the alabama legislature for taking such a strong stance on abortion and protecting the unborn. i believe that i have an obligation to do everything in my power to fight for the unborn, prevent taxpayer money from funding abortion, and to protect our system from the

encroachment of the all-powerful judiciary. mr. speaker, today is a time to celebrate the gift of life and to mourn those lives that were unjustly ended before birth. let us use the 39th anniversary of roe v. wade to -- as an occasion to reaffirm our beliefs and to vow to fight for the life of every child. thank you and i yield back. mr. smith: thank you so very, very much. it like to yield to my colleague , mr. stutzman. mr. stutzman: i want to thank the gentleman for yielding and i want to thank him for his service and his fight. it's a privilege to stand here today with so many other colleagues on this important, important matter. mr. speaker, i stand before you today, not only as a father of two young boys, boys that i'm very proud of, payton and preston, but in this day of technology, it's amazing what we

can now see in the womb. today i brought with me a picture of my niece, that my brother sent to me. it's on my blackbury but if you could see the picture, it's a picture of a little girl with a pudgey nose, pudgey cheeks a lot of hair, the doctor tells my brother and my sister-in-law that she talks a lot and it doesn't surprise me for a stutzman. but she's -- it's amazing to see a color picture like this of a little baby girl, 27 months old in the womb. and to see this picture and to realize the life that is inside the womb is truly amazing and remarkable. i believe that that is a big part of leading the battle in overturning row vs. wade or reversing this tragic decision that has led to so many lost lives here in america. as i served in the indiana

legislature for eight years, we fought this issue year after year and i applaud the indiana legislature, especially last year, for passing legislation and preventing the subsidization of abortions with state and federal tax dollars. at the same time, i want to bring to the floor the important matter that we have to continue to push back on the federal government because the federal government has threatened to withhold other health care dollars from the state of indiana for this decision. indiana has actually been most recently named the most improved over 2011 by americans united for life and now ranks as the number 10th state in the nation for defense of the unborn. planned parenthood received over $487.4 million in goth funding. that is -- in government funding. that is an astounding $1.34 million per day. by their own count they performed 329,445 abortions in

that same time. that's over 900 abortions a day. mr. speaker, today is the day that we stop this tragedy that is so -- is a tragedy that is going to be a blight on this country and i believe that the young people across america, that marched today here in washington, d.c., are going to be the generation that puts an to end this tragedy. thank you and i'll yield back. mr. smith: mr. stutzman, thank you very much. thanks for reminding us that planned parenthood really is child abuse incorporated. 349,000, 320,000 the year before that, innocent children decimated in their clinic. i want to recognize mr. steve pierce, a stalwart for life and a great friend to the unborn. mr. pearce: thank you, mr. speaker. thanks to the gentleman from new jersey for leading this issue.

the value of a nation is measured in its willingness to speak for the most fragile among us. in the united states, it is punishable by five years in jail and $250,000 fine to destroy an eagle egg, an embree yow, if you de-- embryo. if you destroy a human embryo, it is not only fully legal but it is federally sanctioned. the nation needs to pause and ask itself about these convoluted values. . it does not pass without note that roe versus wade, 39 years ago, was passed in 1973. it was the same year that the endangered species act was

passed protecting the eagle egg. so the point that this nation was fully sanctioning the destruction of human embryos, it was fully protecting embryos of other species. i'm fully confident today that this tragedy is going to be reversed because i hear young men and women across this nation who are looking at the scientific evidence to understand it is more than a blob of tissue, that is human life that we're ending. we see the decline in the value of the human in our culture because of decisions that this nation's policy leaders have made, and i see young people across this land beginning to stand up and let their voices be heard. and when we speak with one voice, washington listens.

and in this case, protecting the human life. it is time for washington to listen. and i yield back. and i thank the gentleman. mr. smith: thank you so much for that very eloquent statement. i yield to vickie hartzler, who has made an impact. so glad to have you here. mrs. hartzler: thank you so much, congressman. it is an honor to be here tonight on the anniversary of the 39th year of the roe versus wade court decision. and today, it was so encouraging to see the hundreds of thousands of people from all across this country come here to march and to commemorate this decision and to celebrate life and to pray for the day when all life is

valid in this country. it was cold and rainy, but people stood for hours out in the rain not minding, because they believe in life. and people may say why are people doing this and why are you pro-life. and i would like to summarize it, mr. speaker, in that basically, because it's a child, not a choice. we see those bumper stickers around and we don't think about them very much, but those words and that reality certainly has meaning for me and because words matter. i was in sixth grade when the roe versus wade decision came down and i remember hearing a little bit about it but not thinking too much about it. i was busy being a 12-year-old kid and i remember one day in the hallway at school and stopped me and said what do you think about abortion? and i said i don't know.

she said do you think a woman should be able to do what she wants and the government shouldn't tell her what to do? i said yeah. she said you are pro-choice. i didn't have much information or much facts. i remember in the future, someone asked me if i was pro-choice and i said yeah. i got some facts and i got some information. it was in high school in a child development class and all of a sudden, i got to see for the first time pictures of a developing baby and let me show one to you now. this is one of the pictures that i saw and this is of a two-month-old baby and i looked at these pits and i heard the

information and i realized that abortion is taking this life and it is a life, a child, it is not a choice. here are some facts that i learned is that the day 22, just over three weeks when most girls don't even know they're pregnant yet, the heart begins to beat. by the end of the third week, the child's backbone, spinal column and nervous system are forming. week six, brain waves are detectable, fingernails are forming and the baby is kicking and swimming. by the end of the second month, which is this is how old this baby is here, organs are in place, fingerprints begin to form and the baby begins to hear. by week nine and 10, the baby can turn its head and frown and hiccup.

by weeks 10 and 11, the baby can breathe and grasp objects in its hand perhaps you have seen that famous picture how the baby came out and grasped the doctor's finger. week 12, the baby has all the parts necessary to experience pain, vocal chords are complete and the baby can suck its thumb. in 2008, there was 2.81 million abortions done and 92% of those abortions were done during the first three months of life. so what that means is that those are abortions and they would average out to 138 an hour i figured up, two for every minute i'm talking here where abortions are taking place on babies that can hear, that have a beating heart, that its brain waves are

going and have vocal chords. it is a child. this is not about a choice. and i commend all the people who came here to washington to speak out on behalf of life. and with them, i celebrate and look forward to the day when all americans are granted the right to life, whether they are born or unborn. thank you, mr. speaker, for having this debate. mr. smith: i yield to mr. fortenberry and has combated abortion both at home and internationally. mr. fortenberry: i thank the gentleman for his time and his courageous leadership. let me say this first, i spent a morning with a group of people from nebraska who traveled all this way to participate in the march for life and they came here to express one truth, that

all life is worthy of protection, all life should be loved and nurtured. these young people are saying we should be big enough, caring enough, loving enough as a nation to see to it that all mothers and young children are provided for and these young people are saying we should make the great decision roe versus weighed a thing of the past. it is important to note in the same year when roe versus wade was decided stripping unborn children of their dignity and right to life, that congress came to together and enacted a very important law called the endangered species act. this was a very significant piece of legislation to ensure that the majesty and wonder of nature's creation were protected. i believe the responsible stewardship of our environment is an essential cause, but there is a certain irony here.

the life of a child should be of no less value than any other creature on earth. and in 2010, with my support, we passed a bill prohibiting the interstate commerce of videos that were depicting the torture of vulnerable animals and yet in the same year we couldn't move a bill that prohibited interstate abortions of vulnerable children and minors without parental protection. there is a grave inconsistency in these laws. mr. speaker, i don't know if you had a chance to look out on the national mall today, but the hundreds of thousands of young people out there braving both the bite of cold and wind who understand the principle for which they marched, we are saying this, these young people know that abortion hurts women. these young people are saying, women deserve better and they

know that aboring is so often the result of a tragic circumstance of abandonment and unsupported family or a coercive boy frnd or a doctor and they are saying we can do better as a country. mr. speaker, i recently received a newsletter in my mailbox at home and zibes some people who were standing in front of an abortion clinic, legally, peacefully, providing witness to alternatives to abortion. a car pulled up in the driveway and the car hesitated, the man driving was very anxious and nervous and these people who were witnessing their walked up and asked if they could be of assistance. the woman who was going in for an abortion had three children. she was unsure she could care for a fourth child and didn't know where her next meal was coming from, they talked a bit and the couple decided to seek

these neice people's help who provided comfort and care for them and now nine months later because of that act of compassion, there is a baby named david who should be big enough and loving enough as a country to help people get through no matter how tough the circumstances. it is that courageous woman who made the decision to keep her child and gives me strength to stand on this floor and defend our shared convictions and fight to see the day when the scales are lifted from our nation's eye and we declare the unborn worthy of protection under the 14th amendment and before i conclude and yield back to my good friend from new jersey, i would like to say a word of thanks to all of the women who are saying they will be silent no more, providing the most powerful example of women who have been wounded by abortion but who are

speaking out against the abortion industry and saying we can do better as a nation. i yield back. mr. smith: thank you for your powerful statement. i yield to my colleague from pennsylvania. mr. thompson: i thank my friend for hosting this special orders about moral truth that the right to life is a fundamental right and a nation that kills its next generation is notal moral nation. it's been 39 years since the infamous roe versus wade decision and for the 39th time people have marched in washington, d.c., to show congress that they remain opposed to this decision. the cold and driving rain couldn't dampen them. their message was simple, stop abortion. it has no place in this country.

judicial system has taken debate lengths to try and ensure justice and sureness in the court of law. where is the justice here. where is the justice for the unborn? the answer is simple. there is none. but still, roe versus wade and the subsequent left-wing pro-choice groups have pushed the envelope so that it is prevalent across the country and partially financed by your tax dollars. look -- let us look no further than last year in my home state of pennsylvania in a neighborhood outside of west philadelphia, an abortion mill that was in operation for 40 years was illegally delivering and killing newborns in a so-called abortion procedure. the procedures he performed on women was responsible for several deaths and severely injurying scores more. and for political reasons, the

pennsylvania department of health refused to inspect the abortion facilities. these mills ran rampant and unchecked. for those of you that this legalized murder is for the women's health, i ask you, where is the justice? where is the justice for unborn at that facility? there is no justice in abortion for anyone. and yet, you look to the white house and we have a president who states, and i quote, as we remember this historic anniversary, we must continue our efforts to ensure our daughters have the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their deems. mr. speaker, surely, the president recognizes he's wrong. abortion is not the way to allow our daughters to fulfill their dreams and regardless of color and gender has the same rights, freedoms and opportunities to fulfill their deems, everyone, except the unborn. mr. speaker, truly, the

president knows we will never know the dreams of the countless unborn daughters that are not with us today because of the pro-abortion policies of this administration. mr. speaker, i stand with my colleagues tonight to say enough is enough. how many more roe versus wade anniversaries must we endure until justice is done and this decision is overturned. i thank my friend from new jersey and i yield back. mr. smith: i yield to the gentleman from mississippi. . mr. nunnelee: thank you, mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding. our nation's founders expressed in the deck la rare of independence that all individuals are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are the right to life. yet since january 22, 1973, over

50 million americans have been denied that very base ig -- basic right to life. their unborn voices cry from silent graves, asking americans to change their ways. there's another group who suffers in silence, our mothers, our wives, our daughters. and our sisters. those who have been exploited as victims of a multibillion dollar industry that profits on their grief. on this, the 39th anniversary of that decision, we rededicate our efforts to stand for life. the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable of its citizens. for far too many unborn children, our nation has abandoned that protection. now there are those who say that since the supreme court has declared it, it must be right.

this is the same supreme court that looked at mr. dred scott and said, mr. scott, in the eyes of the law, you're not a man. but cattle. the legal equivalent of a cow. the supreme court was wrong in 1857 and it was wrong in 1973. we will answer to a higher law, a law higher than we debate in this hallowed chamber, a law higher than is discussed across the street in the supreme court. that law says, you formed me in my inward part, you wove me in my mother's womb. i will give thanks to you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made. my frame was not hiden from you when i was made in secret. your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were written all the days that were ordained for me when as yet

there was not one of them. mr. speaker, i echo the profits of old, this day, i call on heaven and earth a witness against you, i have set before you a choice of life and death, blessings and curses. i choose life so that you and your children might live. this night, we choose life. i yield back. mr. smith: thank you. i yield to the gentleman from kansas, mr. pompeo. mr. pompeo: thank you. thank you, mr. speaker. we often come to the podium to talk about a bill or piece of legislation. today i have the great privilege of supporting every human life. kansas is a place that has marked a great piece of history in the pro life movement. in the early 1990's, the summer of mercy was held in kansas a huge step forward in people speaking out about the tragedy that is abortion.

i personally, a couple of years later, i did some research for a woman who became the ambassador to the vatican, who taught me about how this movement can work and how we can begin to eradicate this plague that sits on top of america after still 39 years. for me, too, it's personal, i have a nephew and a niece that butt for a crisis center wouldn't be any nephew and niece. today, i got to stand at the mall and look out at hundreds of thousand oftsdz -- thousands of folks including young people who came from clearwater and nor itch and from our high schools and colleges in kansas who came to stand for life and say that this movement will continue, we are winning, that after 39 years we can now say that america understands that this is not about choice but about protecting those lives. to see those young faces and those young smiles was a

glorious thing. i want to thank them for coming to washington, d.c. to be part of this today and with them, with our continued effort, we can do the right thing and protect every human life. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: i -- mr. smith: i yield to the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i recently read about a couple, that there was a problem in their pregnancy, all four parts of the heart had not been developed, so at 23 weeks, they did surgery, at 23 weeks, the family could gather around and see the video and celebrate this scientific act of medical bravery and as a family would celebrate something wonnerful that had happened. they protected the life of a child, reached into a beating heart still in the womb at 23 weeks and saved that child.

the frightening part is, across town, a different mother, at 23 weeks of pregnancy, which is before viability in many states, could go into a different doctor, that could reach into that womb and pull that child apart limb by limb. the family wouldn't stand and celebrate, nor would we look at the video and say that's beautiful, like we did with the other surgery. but in the cognitive dissonance of our nation, we celebrate one mother and protect the other one simultaneously. it is unmistakable to look in that womb and see a life for both of them and understand this is a child in both instances and they must stand to be protected. it is a difficult thing for the president to say today that we must reduce the need for abortion. there's only one need, to reduce the need for abortion if the president understands the same thing we do, it's a life. he would not stand and say we

need to reduce the need for some skin tissue or some mole on your arm, if it was only tissue, there's no reason to try to reduce the need. but he understands we do need to reduce the need. as the president stated today, this is not protected the dreams of our daughter, this is protecting the daughters that will never be and the nightmare guilt that is on so many women who have gone through an abortion. we must stand for life. i look forward to the day, i look forward to the day that generations ahead of us will look back at this time and say, i am so glad that the nation finally chose life. i yield back. mr. smith: thank you, mr. lankford. i yield to the gentleman from illinois. >> henry hyde was a friend of mine, he help red strict

abortions. now planned parenthood receives over $362 million a career, we're giving $1 million taxpayer dollars a day to this organization. if mr. hyde were here today, he would be appalled. we must win this fight for life. mr. hultgren: it's the only way we can literally win our future. i yield back. mr. smith: i yield to mr. hood. -- >> this is something that has affected my family, my life, i think we've all known somebody who has had an abortion, whether they force -- felt forced into it or made that choice, every single one of them, i know, has regretted that. this issue of life became very personal for my wife and i as we had to move forward through

troubled pregnancies and losing a number, quite a few pregnancies and struggling with that whole notion of what is life? what does that mean, to have that life growing in you? we firmly came down on the side of this being a gift from god, that create that happens and that's something that we want to protect. i can tell you that therd-working taxpayers don't expect their -- the hardworking taxpayers don't expect their dollars to go for procedures like this, an that's something the house has continued to fight for. my wife serves on the board of an pregnancy counseling center holds this dear. we'll continue to hold that dear as long as i'm here in congress. mr. smith: and to conclude in one sentence, tomorrow the president will call for a return to american values in his state of the union message.

mr. president, the violent destruction of the child in the womb, the killing of babies and assault on their mom is not american values. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced poll soy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. reed, for 30 minutes. mr. reed: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i rise today with a few of my colleagues to talk about an issue that i think could be a game-changer for the united states of america. and that is, the natural gas development potential that we find in the shale formations throughout the united states. i have been privileged to co-found the marcellus shale caucus here in the u.s. house of representatives with my colleague from pennsylvania, mr.

critz, who will be joining us shortly, and the purpose of the caucus is to come at this issue from an objective, scientific, data-based point of view. to talk about the pros and cons of natural gas development in america, and in particular the marcellus shale formation, which is located in my district in western new york, throughout pennsylvania and the other air cras of the northeast. -- areas of the northeast. one of the things we wanted to touch on today is highlighting the indirect benefits that natural gas development will have on our country and probably most importantly from an economic point of view. at this time, when we face in our nation's history some of the most enduring, highest levels of unemployment we have ever seen. so what we're fundamentally talking about are jobs. what we are talking about, not only are the jobs related to

extracting the natural gas, itself, and laying the pipeline to transport that natural gas to its markets, but we're talking about the jobs that come as a result of the indirect benefits of that natural gas production. what we're hopefully going to talk about tonight with my colleagues are things like the benefit on the public local municipalities, on its tax base. on the issues with road construction and the improvements of the road structures that are located within the areas on which natural gas development is occurring as a result of the shale formations. i think that through these conversations, we will be able to establish that the benefits of extracting natural gas in america will be that game-changing event when it comes to domestic supplies of energy coming from american

sources that we have never seen before in our lifetime or potentially in the lifetimes of our children. and what i would like to preface this entire conversation on are just to lay some preliminary remarks based upon some concerns that have been raised on natural gas development in america. you know, i travel my district, go to many town hall meetings, get out in front of the people and at times, this issue can become sensitive in the sense, mr. speaker, of the environmental concerns that are raised and i have always taken the position that this issue should only be dealt with when we can establish that natural gas exploration in america can be done in a safe, clean, responsible manner. that's why, you know, i'm going to read some quotes here tonight to you, mr. speaker, and to those who may be tuning in and watching this conversation tonight.

you know, there's been a lot of discussion about the potential threat to our aquifers and water supplies as a result of hydrofracking and natural gas development out of the shale and sand formations. i would like to quote some of our leading environmental government officials in america tonight, for the record. you know, a quote i came across is, when it comes to natural gas development, the key is to make sure we say, engineers, make sure we do it safely without harming water supplies, and i think we're well on our way. on chemicals, we don't have data that shows those chemicals showing up in someone's well. over time, that may not be a true statement, unless there's a problem with well construction, hydrofracking chemicals should not end up in aquifers. lisa jackson, head of our e.p.a. for the united states of america, october 14, 2011.

i'm not aware of my proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water, although there are investigations ongoing. lisa jackson, director of the environmental protection agency for the united states of america, may 24, 2011. these are comments coming from our e.p.a. director, but then there's comments like, with respect to hydraulic fracturing, because it occurs so far underground, we don't know any examples of contamination on public lands but it demonstrates the importance of having well bore integrity up and down the well. that's our interior secretary testifying to the house natural resources committee on november 16, 2011. . i read these quotes to tell the american people and to tell you, mr. speaker, that the

concern about the environmental impacts to our ack question fers are fully vetted and have had an approach to determining that risk is not what many people in america are making it out to be. and i reiterate my position on the matter, that we need to look at this resource through the economic opportunity that it represents to us in our distributes and our homes and to us as a nation. and we have to look at this economic opportunity and resource, potential, being sure it is done in a safe and reliable way and have to look at it from a third point of view and that is the national security implications of tapping this domestic supply of energy. natural gas and oils are being found throughout north america

and also being found right here in the united states of america in the shale formation such as the marcellus shale and the tight sands formation that exist here in our nation. i don't think i have to speak long or hard to the american people or to you, mr. speaker, to explain what i am path that would have on our national security. if we can establish an energy supply such as it estimated to be under our own ground in natural gas and oil, we will not be sending millions, billions, if not trillions of dollars to people in the middle east who have publicly declared that we are enemy number one. i think this is good public policy to promote. and on the indirect benefits, i just want to highlight three examples of people that are benefiting from this from my

district. in my district, we have not had any development in the marcellus shale on a recent basis because of the moratorium in the department of environmental conservation on the state level to ensure that this is done safely and responsibly. but i have the privilege of representing a district that is in the northern tier of pennsylvania, where we have had a spillover effect of economic opportunity to the district. and i can talk to you about don ripple holding, a long family-held company right outside of corning, new york. now they have expanded beyond. the business has seen a tangible

impact from the development across the border. mr. ripple has reported to me that he is undertaking contracts of 65 miles of rural roads, a value over $22 million of road construction being fully funded by private investment. let me stress that again, mr. speaker. $22 million of private dollars going into road construction upon which mr. don ripple and his company have benefited. now it's not just mr. don ripple. i know this man. he is a good man. and in that $22 million and in the projects, he has been able to create and hire over 60 new men and women averaging $40 per

hour to his business to fulfill those contracts. those are 60 families that now benefit directly as a result of this development occurring in the northern tier of pennsylvania. mr. speaker, mr. don ripple and i share a common background in the sense i that he is a small business owner and i was a small business owner before i came to congress. and there is nothing, nothing like looking at a man or a woman when you hire them and bring them into your business and you put them to work. when you have sat in that position, you know when you look at that person, you aren't just benefiting that person, that person becomes part of your family as a small business owner and you are taking care of him or her, but you are also taking care of his family, his children

by putting food on their table, by providing extra dollars for their children and their education. that is the american ideal, a dream. to go to work and take care of your families. i will bring to the record tonight a story of a local dry cleaning company. i could not believe it, mr. speaker. i went over to pick up the family dry cleaning and talked to rick and he said, tom, come back here. i want to show you something. and we went into his back room and showed me piles of uniforms that were used by industrial workers by the workers on the field in the northern tier of pennsylvania and he relayed to me he was adding an additional

5,000-plus revenue to his business coffers every month and talked about how he was able to give bonuses to his employees because of that opportunity. he was another small business owner that knew what it was to take care of his employees and their families and share in the rewards of the hard work that they put together in that dry cleaning operation. now, mr. speaker, i would be remiss if we don't talk about the public benefits that have been brought to my attention. i look to our county executive adjacent to my home county, and i see that his county, a small, geographical county is leading new york in sales tax growth and leading new york state in tax revenues, a small empire leading

the state of new york by what is going on in the northern tier of pennsylvania. and i would be remiss if i didn't tell you the story when i spent the day and met with the commissioners of bradford county and told me the history of their tax sales. these are the sales of people who cannot pay their real property tax bill, lose their property at auctions. i have looked at families that lost their property because they couldn't pay the tax bills. in bradford county, they used to have sales of 100 and 150. and guess how many parcels wept up for tax sale in the last year ? essentially zero, maybe one or two. that is a fundamental shift in what is going on in our part of

the country and hopefully it can be shared across america. and as that one commissioner told me as we talked about some of the concerns and issues that have to be dealt with and traffic is always a concern that is raised, he said i would much rather see traffic in my county than unemployment lines. when i heard that line, i said, doug, that is exactly what we're talking about. as a commissioner of bradford county, you nailed it right on the head. and we are talking about creating traffic lines of economic opportunity and development for generations of americans rather than compounding and growing unemployment lines. and so we'll come at this issue from making sure it's a clean and safe resource that is developed, but let us focus and join hands and bring this opportunity for america forward.

amb and i see that my colleague from pennsylvania has joined us, mr. thompson. i will yield as much time as i -- you may consume. mr. thompson: thank you for leading this special order on natural gas and thank you for your leadership. with natural gas, everybody wins. and i'm very proud to be a member of the marcellus natural caucus and i appreciate, mr. reed, my good friend from just north of me in new york acknowledging that good stewardship and good science is important and we have both when it comes to natural gas. this is not 50, 60 yeels ago when we were -- years ago when we were extracting coal and we benefit from great science and

we are good stewards of the environment. i represent pennsylvania's fifth congressional district. 17 counties. and mr. speaker, 15 of my 17 counties have marcellus shale and i give thanks for many blessings that god has provided me in my life but i thank god for natural gas at this time in our country and i have the penn state university in my district and the ag extension of that land grant university that has experts that are out in the field helping every day citizens with decisions about leases, leasing their land and helping them with issues related to making sure that it's done in a way that represents good shuredship by the companies. and here's the part i'm most excited about and helping them

the right kind of council with wealth management, a need for wealth management. because there are a lot of farmers that were going out of business but today they have a new tractor sitting there and largely thank you to the marcellus shale. it will be good for agriculture, which is good for america. when we talk about the benefits, i want to talk about energy security. here's what i see about marcellus shale. it's taking that large valve that controls all that oil that we buy from the middle east and be able to shut that thing off because of the energy security and moving towards energy independence that natural gas is going to allow this country to have. whether you are living in an area that is blessed with natural gas or not, every citizen should hope, pray and give thanks that we will move in a direction that we will be

energy secure and natural gas will be secure. and that every american is benefiting from natural gas. it's jobs. i know it's localized to where the jobs occur. i happen to live in an area and i represent a rural part of pennsylvania and we have had our difficult times here. we have lost industries, but where we have natural gas, we are growing jobs of the let me give a couple of examples, in one of my counties, there is a manufacturer that is an international company and it is looking to expand a plant and guess where they are looking to? to pennsylvania and to one of my counties. and manufacturing, a key feedstock ingredient, heating, processing or as an ingredient

is natural gas and the price of natural gas, so plenty -- so cheap and they want to build the plant in my county. as i go around my county, i see help wanted signs and it's not just intraadditional businesses, but all businesses, because the economy is good. the income is up. the unemployment is way below state and national averages in the counties where this natural gas production has really taken off and moving to other counties. in terms of jobs, there is an entrepreneur in elk county and this is a gentleman who is a smart businessman. he saw something that these natural gas companies need and he went out and created a small manufacturing business to provide it and he is creating jobs, really good jobs, skilled

jobs, in order to produce these supplies that the companies need and that is good for everybody. he is growing jobs. my home county, there is a road contractor and we have problems with the roads, states' budgets, but this road contractor is doing great things. there are a lot of small ex casting companies in terms of paving those roads. the gas companies are investing moneys to rebuild roads that have never been built before. we have pinto roads that didn't have much of a base. when farmers are out there and trying to get back and forth, there isn't a firm base. today, those roads are being built for the first time. and all that is driven. that's a secondary benefit of

the natural gas opportunity. . if you go to warren county, we've got a small, independently owned oil company, they've been in the natural gas business for decades, they're helping to bring outside dollars into the fifth district of pennsylvania and create manager jobs. coleman county is like a lot of county the growth of hotels, the hotel industry is booming, those hospitality jobs are great jobs. in clinton county, closer to my hometown, we have international companies that are relocating to rural pennsylvania. international companies relow cailting and creating a -- relocating and creating a significant amount of jobs. just a great opportunity we are blessed with today. go ahead.

mr. reed: that's ok. mr. thompson: i want to talk about heating costs. today, natural gas prices are $2.50 for 150 cubic feet. 2003 and a half or four years ago, when we didn't produce natural gas, we imported it all, it was $12 to $13 per 1,000 cubic feet or more. today it's $2.60 for 1,000 cubic feet. two or three winters ago, the utility in philadelphia, about as far as you can get from where we drill natural gas, reported the communities in philadelphia, the home heating costs were at an all-time low. i would argue this winter, we look in new york, pennsylvania, all the areas where because of natural gas prices today being domestically produced, those citizens who are able, who benefit from heating their homes and cooking on, using natural gas, their costs in a difficult economy are at an all-time low.

that's something that everybody can benefit from. one of the projects i'm trying to work on, i'd like to see how we get the distribution lines from natural gas into more of our communities. my hometown doesn't have natural gas. i'd love to heat my home with natural gas. that's something we should look and see, at least see what federal regulations are standing in the way of making that hasm i'm sure there's something out there that's a roadblock that we could work on. the opportunities we have today in terms of the benefits from natural gas are significant. they span a lot of different areas. i'm sure there's things i haven't covered. i want to take this opportunity to thank you for hosting this forum where we're talking about the benefits, these are really benefits that every american can experience as a result of accessing a resource that god has blessed us with. mr. reed: i appreciate my colleague for joining us this evening down here from pennsylvania and i, if i could,

continue this conversation with you, i'm sure you've done what i've done on numerous times, when i've traveled home, right through the heart of your district home to corning, just over the pennsylvania border, oftentimes i would take a few moments, get off the road and kind of go into the local community there, as we filled up the car or we got a couple of coffee and i would tell my, most of the time i drive with a staff member who lives in the district, i'd say let's go offroad a couple of miles and see what's going on. i could tell you, every time i pulled in a gas station there, i have been reminded of the benefits of what this can be on a community in that the parking lots are full, i have to wait in line to fill up the car because there's a lot of trucks, there's a lot of workers, there's a lot of folks coming and going out of

the convenient marts and some of the most compelling stories i had, i can remember two, vividly, coming down the road, pulling off at one of these gas stations, convenience marts, talking to the lady behind the counter, we did it twice, i can remember viveedly, saying what does this mean to you? what's going on here? what's causing all this? kind of playing dumb. obviously i had an idea of what was causing it, but in both circumstances, the response was amazing. it's not the same community, what they would say it's not the same community as when i grew up here, but boy, everyone seems to be doing well. everybody seems to be happy. and you know, one lady, she expressed the conversation, because she was working a side job, her husband was a contractor, and she's like, you know, my husband used to get up at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning until this came along and they were receiving a small check,

not a retirement sized check as a result of this, but a nice, stable source of additional income coming into their household and she looked at me and said, it kind of takes the edge off. it kind of took the edge off at the end of the month having to pick an choose what bill to pay that month and which one they'd have to put off for another 30 days. we've all been there. i know. gring up in that type of family, and when we first started in our private sector life, my wife and i, putting our family business together, struggling. there's a lot of stress at the end of the month. that's why i lost my hair, maybe why you lost your hair. it was amazing the look the one lady, she said, i appreciate the fact that he doesn't have to get up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning anymore and they've got a side income to take care of their kids. that conversation you're not having in america right now in

many places but we're having it in your district. not so much in our district in the sense because we don't have the natural gas going right now, but we've seen the positive impacts like that. i don't know if my colleague has any similar stories to those two young ladies i refer to. mr. thompson: i do, let me talk about, out of fairness and equity, two young men. this was published in the local paper, they were doing coverage of the marcellus shale, i was very impressed with this article thaws it was two young men who had -- because it was two young men who had graduated from a high school not far over the line from where i live. they decided they were going to go for a little technical training. they were going to go to like a community college setting, a certificate program, for basically driving a truck. and they did that and then they secured jobs with someone who

was, i assume, was hauling sand or hauling water for the marcellus operations around the area. these young men, i have no doubt, are today fairly fresh out of high school, are earning somewhere in the neighborhood of over $60,000 a year. probably with overtime a little more. that's a pretty incredible start for a young person. because you want to -- i have to believe that my district, the 22% of the land mass of pennsylvania that i serve, is probably a lot like your district, that our number one export for many years has been our young people. we educate them, and i like to think we do a good job of that and they go to where there's opportunity. and there has not been opportunity in our economies, our areas, that have been somewhat depressed economically for some time.

today, opportunity has returned. that is what this has menlt. there are jobs sitting open -- has meant. there are jobs sitting open now of all types. that's the exciting part, i hear about people that were unemployed, we had folks protesting about not having jobs, come to the fifth district of pennsylvania. you don't have to work in the natural gas industry, because the natural gas industry, they've kind of taken -- they've been able to recruit some really good folks our of other positions, some of those are retail positions, service positions, manufacturing positions but now those jobs are sitting open. that's the effect that this kind of opportunity has. mr. reed: i so appreciate my colleague's sentiment. i know our time is winding up but one thing that also touched me, i did a few tours in your district, gone back on my own to go and verify information that's been presented to me and i came back at the last, over recess,

over the holiday, came back and one thing struck me as i was driving home, when they were talking about having the ability to educate their grandchildren and the children from these family farms, i know you had those conversations, i had those conversations, we down here in washington have spent billions, if not trillions, of dollars of public taxpayer money to try to lift people up out of despair. to try to get through the welfare society, the entitlement society, we have invested billions, trillions of dollars here, look what happened based on private economic opportunity and development in the northern tier of pennsylvania. you have generations of families that are lifting themselves out of poverty and out of conditions that we are spending billions down here, they're doing it on their own, i think it makes them a stronger individual in our society and it unites families for generations and it empowers

families for generations to control their own destiny. that's what the american dream is all about. i appreciate my colleague joining me this evening and having this conversation and i so appreciate the invite and the -- coming to your district, you coming to my district and us continuing the effort to educate the american people on the benefits of natural gas development in america, the benefits of the marcellus shale and through the marcellus shale caucus, getting the best science and information out to the american people. with that, i thank my colleague and yield back the remaining balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair will now entertain motions for adjournment. mr. reed: i move to adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until

started. education, language, family, but let us not forget, a strong national defense. today, as we go through want to look at those principles and look at the situation in the black community today where we have unemployment close to 17% for black adult males, black teenagers 40.7% unemployment. something has to be done. with that being said, i want to take the time to introduce a woman that is on the forefront

out there burning conservative principles into the african- american community. she walks the walk, and talks the talk, she does it all. i present to you our moderator for today, miss star parker. [applause] >> thank you. it is wonderful to be here with you this morning. i believe this is historic. unusually, panels that convene here in washington are talking about grievances, injustices', government programs, but we are convening here today, as congressman west has already alluded to, to talk about freedom and opportunity. we convened to talk about black responsibility as well as black rights. this is, indeed, historic. let me first thank congressman west for his vision and leadership. congressman west is a hero.

some of you when you were here earlier, you came up to him and i know you wanted pictures, so i know you agree with me. he is a hero not just for wearing the nation's uniform and fighting on behalf of us on the battlefield, but now he is here in washington. we just really appreciate it. perhaps, the next time we see be our firste beforto black republican president. [applause] euan city liberal democrats in a district in the last three election voted for bakubah -- 4 barack obama and john kerry and al gore. [applause] before i get started, i want to see if the chief of staff, center rob portman, is here. i know he came in for a minute.

>> with current staffers and former staffers, there were some that just graduated law school. what we are really striving to do is to --

>> thank you for your kind words. since your announcement just went out on c-span, i'm sure you get a lot of applications. [laughter] this is a time when our country needs fixing and there is no other group of americans more qualified to understand what is wrong with america and what needs fixing that our country's black citizens. the state of black america is the reflection of the moral and monetary state of our great country. we are in crises. we are a critical crossroads, similar to the 1850's, where we cannot go on half slave and half free. half takers. there is no other ethnic group in america that has suffered more from the misuse of government, the misuse of

politics and political power and has more to gain by restoring traditional values and individual responsibility, free market, limited government, and a strong national allegiance than blacks. i think it's very appropriate and timely that congressman west would hold this important forum at the beginning of 2012. i am humbled for this opportunity to moderate this morning. i want to thank the it staff and assistant, original barbie, and i appreciate the fact that -- reginald darby, and i appreciate the fact that he let me weigh in. and i want to thank all of you in our audience this morning for attending. now i will get to some ground rules. a black conservative forum is for two hours. how'd you address the state of our country, our committee and our future into about hours.

after rocks, paper, scissors, we have five topics on the table, to questions each, and 15 as her topic. the topics are perception vs. reality, urban issues in a 21st century, the black church and state, the true history of civil rights, and conservative principles in the black community. we have 14 billion panelists, of whom i was -- i will specifically ask -- 14 brilliant panelists, of whom i will ask two questions each. if you disagree with something that was said by a panelist, you can chime in for only a minute. then we will have opportunity later for you address the -- for you to address the question again. we will have five topics, 10 questions total, and then we will ask the final question on gop outreach. we have a special guest in the audience that will also be asked of that question and will

address it. one is, arlan hunt, the president of prison fellowship, and troy town, the montgomery t party. they will address that question as well. if there is a panelist did not -- that did not get a question earlier, but has a burning answer within them, that would be the time to address that. we should stay on time. we will have 50 minutes for audience q&a, and then their main time well before closing the event. on questions that come from the audience, he will ask the questions from your seat and i will repeat the question. now, introduction of our fine panel. our house, congressman alan west. before you say hello for the third time, congressman wes, when i call your name as i am introducing the panel, you have a one breath the sentence to say a little bit about who you are. congressman west, we know you. you do not get your minnick. >> happy to be here.

>> thank you. congressman tim scott, south carolina. >> good morning. >> we want a little more than that in your one breath the sentence. south carolina, did you ever pick a pony in that race? >> i will need a deep breath for that conversation. >> [laughter] >> it is good to be here as we look for ways to encourage african-americans to become a part of the conservative constructs. we may need more on the issues that drive us together than the forms that give us an opportunity to have a black- specific conversation. at some point will have to have a conversation that is specific to the numbers -- to the issues that drive our numbers in the community. >> we will also be joined by congressman jim jordan. i do not believe he is here yet. he was running late due to flight complications and the weather. but he will be here. he was chairman of the rnc republican study committee as

well as from elected officials of the great state of ohio. we also have emanuel cleaver, also not with us yet. he also had flight complications. and the -- and former congressman j.c. what is also with us this morning. we want to thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i want to add my thanks to congress and west and all of those that put this together and organized it. i know this takes a lot of work and effort on behalf of a lot of people. thanks to all of those that were involved in this. i look forward to the dialogue and the discussion this morning. >> i believe staff has asked the questions, but they do not know which ones they are going to get. that is why they are all trying to be nice to me now. [laughter]

octavia johnson from roanoke, va., welcome and thank you for joining us this morning. >> good morning. i, too, want to thank congressman west for inviting me to be here this morning. i believe it is important for us to be a leader within our communities and keep the people informed as to what our thoughts and our commitments are to the public. thank you. >> thank you. city council member bill cleveland, alexandria, virginia. >> former city council member. >> former city council member bill cleveland, on his way to washington d.c., perhaps. >> i am just glad to be here. i am a substitute teacher in the alexandria school system. i am a former vice mayor. i ran for the mayor of

alexandria and did not win. but i still work for the community. by -- i just came to be a part of the audience and i saw my name here, so i saw that i was supposed to be here. i really excited to be a part of this. >> thank you. i'm glad that you joined us. >> mayor gauck c. fields, c.eland, -- mayor cal fields, lakeland, florida. >> thank you. i look forward to being a part of the conversation and also make sure we are committed to the long view on this very important subject. >> the one-breath role is to tell us some the about yourself, so now i'm going to have to tell about everybody. and some, i could not find their bios on the web, but i have -- i know the mayor and i know what an inspiration he is for his committee. alabama activist, fred solomon,

welcome. >> thank you. and you talk about wondering why you are here, that is certainly what i am doing. i'm wondering why i am on this panel, but obviously, i come to this from a little different perspective than most of you. growing up in a rural town in south alabama in the 1940's, and as the only jewish count -- a jewish family in the entire county, much less the town, was an experience. i am an old guy. i have seen the good, bad, and the ugly, believe me. and i have felt your pain. i would like to say that i think americans who happen to have black skin are the same as americans who happen to have white skin in that they want to have meaningful employment, they

want to spend time with their children, have some private time with their mates, and mostly, they would like to see their children graduate from high school and go to college, not drop out of high school and go to prison. so, thanks for having me here. >> we appreciate that. i might have to ask you about educational options. next, we have louisiana pastor, c. l. bryant. thank you for joining us. and it should i say, a tea party activist, as well. it is not in my notes, but in case you decide not to say that as well. >> thank you for having us all here today. i am the creator of the runaway slave movie. also, when nation back to god -- one nation back to god ministries. i certainly hope that this

particular conversation that is started today will help us to engage in dialogue that will be meaningful to all americans here in this very important election year of 2012. we must not fail in our efforts to do what is necessary to bring about this discussion. again, i want to thank you, star, and of course, current -- colonel alan west, who is aa shining example of what an american candy, red, yellow, black or white in this country. -- what an american can be, red, yellow, black, white in this country. kristin brooks have -- >> khristine brooks has been delayed. is she not going to make it all? she is coming. again, thank you.

kcarl smith. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity to find some fixes to the sales of our committee. -- to what ails our community. i appreciate being here. >> doctor? >> thank you for the opportunity to share and i'm happy to be with you in this special moment. thank you. >> i'm very happy to be with you. and finally, mr. clark from milwaukee, wisconsin. >> thank you. i'm happy to be here today. i come from milwaukee, wisconsin, a city with a lot of issues.

55% black male unemployment -- unemployment, and truancy at 60%. they only graduate 50% of the students. and when they come out of there, the diploma is not worth the paper is written on. they probably cannot even read it. we have the worst fourth and eighth grade reading. we have a high infant mortality rate. i am in law enforcement. you know what that connection is. what is interesting is that it is a city that has forever been in the throes, if your will -- if you will, of liberal orthodoxy. and i have been a man alone trumpeting conservative values. and it is a struggle when you are a man alone and you do not have the support. i am pleased to be in an audience with like-minded

people. thank you very much. >> and i appreciate you saying those words, because actually, it is one of the reasons we are here. most cities are reflective of what is happening in your city. but what is interesting and unique about milwaukee and wisconsin is that it seems to be on the cutting edge of some of the ideas that we are going to talk about today. this is the state that gave us the model for welfare reform. this is the state that gave us the model for school choice vouchers. as if the scripture says, where sen abounds, grace much more. the -- as the scripture says, "where sin abounds, grace much more." we have to talk about where we go from here as an african- american people. we're going to move on in the form, and the topics of the forum. the first being the perception versus reality. forgive me, panelists, at a time, i am going to shoot up

your last names as i asked the question. and i will reiterate that how you get a question -- i will ask three people the same question and then we will move on to the next. if you have a burning thought or idea on a question that you were not asked, then go ahead and try in, but keep your words brief so that we can get to everybody and to every question. question no. one is going to west, cleveland, and solomon, and it is about perception. and what they said way from what sheriff clark just said about the social -- a segue from what the sheriff carta said about the social suicide when you say you believe a little differently than you. perception, all blacks are liberal. in reality, one-third of blacks selma identify as a conservative. it is obvious that republicans have a branding and marketing problem if most self identify as

liberal. how do we fix it? congressman west? >> you are spot on and this is why this type of forum is so important. i will give you a good example. just about a week ago i was speaking at an installation ceremony for a rabbi. after i spoke, and of course i used some references from the old testament to talk about transition in leadership. the rabbi's alico started speaking to me and his first assumption -- he said, you are a member of congress and he started talking about the democratic party. i told him i was a republican and he had this look on his face. it was a kodak moment. and i told him, you know, that guy. >> [laughter] >> i think is very important that we take it upon ourselves. i do not need to sit back and wait for a party -- a part that

i note needs to be done. everybody is on a blackberry or is on at a computer. everyone of us is a media source. each of us sitting here today has an e-mail list. the people in the listening audience, you have an e-mail list. how many people will look at this thing on c-span -- and i know it will be played several more times. how many will put it out with a youtube clip? we cannot have this fear of standing up and say in who we are. so many times people will come a to you and say, you know, i agree with you, too. and you say, you know, why are you whispering? we shout at football games. we shot in church. we need to start charging about the principles -- we shout in church. we need to start shouting about the principles that make us who we are. >> thank you. >> with me, it begins with being

in the community and being seen. and when they see you, they cannot believe it. and then they say -- they ask me, bill, really, what is your philosophy? and i tell them, the same as yours, but i will give you the creed that i stand by and it is one that a man wrote a good while ago. i believe that the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice. i believe that all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice, and opportunities they should assume the responsibilities of citizens and in a free society. i believe that fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraint must be exercised at all levels of the government. i believe the government must preserve individual liberty by upholding constitutional limitations. i believe that peace is best preserved terrain strong

national defense. and finally, -- through a strong national defense. and finally i tell them, i believe that recognizing god as by our founding fathers is a central. and they say, this is what i believe in. and i say, welcome to the republican party. that is what we believe in. [applause] and they say, well, you are different from them. and i say, no, i am not. what you have to do is you have to be here. if you believe in it, then we can move and achieve it. and they say, we are with you, but not with them. i will vote for you. just vote i say, do not for me. it is about the philosophy. do not vote what ec. the vote what you know. that is what changes. >> -- do not vote what you see. the vote what you know. that is what change is. >> fred, you have to follow

that. >> the question is, what is the problem and how do we fix it? i think the problem is a combination of intellectual dishonesty and foolishness. i think our education system is largely responsible for this. we have allowed our primary and secondary education to be done down to the lowest common denominator. of our higher education system is heavily influenced by liberal, and sometimes extreme progressive agenda as, and tends to attempt to teach our young what to think instead of how to think. we have stopped teaching critical thinking, if we ever did. i think we did at one point. historical facts, especially facts pertaining to american history, are intentionally

ignored and distorted at the college level. in fact, at many colleges today, you do not even have to take a course in american history to graduate. throw in a national media that, with all due respect, is mostly morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest in my opinion -- the intellectual dishonesty part is then complete. it leads to ignorance. we are all ignorant of something. ignorance of true history of america and the founding of our country, and the true history of the republican party as it relates to black america. regrettably, this ignorance of the truth and the facts makes people susceptible to a

professional race hustler's that sell racial division, outright lies, and hatred. you sprinkle in a heavy dose of far left pop culture and, presto, you have foolishness at warp speed. that is the problem as i see it. the fix, quickly, is to send grassroots foot soldiers like cape coral smith and my friend, troy towns -- kcarl smith and my friend, troy towns, a regular folks in with the minority with the facts and the truth in a non-condescending way, using the frederick douglass republican model. starting with the swing states, these foot soldiers must spread the truth, recruit, and train more as they go. they can use the truth as they're stored -- as their sword and frederick douglass's

words as their shield. it has got to start now and it is almost too late. >> thank you for your very thoughtful answer. one of the reasons that we are here is that inside all of us, there is a great hopes that it is not too late. congressman watt, you wanted to weigh in on this. >> yes. i concluded along time ago that most people do not think alike. most just a vote alike. the question along time ago is, why are there so many black people like us, but do not agree with us? the perception in that arena is reality. in my church on sunday morning, if you come to our church and we give the impression that we do not care about you visiting our church, you probably are not going to come back.

because of the perception that we gave. that in oure discussion as we move forward that we would think about the perception. do we have anyone here from rnc this morning? do we have anybody here from the senatorial committee? >> [inaudible] >> and they were invited? uh-oh. >> you know, this is the discussion that the institutions of the republican party, that they need to be involved with. how many people do we have at the strategic table at any of the presidential campaigns? i am at the strategic table for one of them, but i think we need a tim scott or alan -- you do not have to be at the same camp that i am in, but somebody that looks like us needs to be

at the strategic table to say, i know what you are trying to say, but i would not say that like that. >> right. [applause] >> again, perception is reality. i do not care if it is with christians, off jews, with the church -- with jews, with the church or your organization or my business. we cannot ignore this issue surrounding perception. tim scott and alan west, i've had to defend them saying, look, you do not know these guys. give them 15 minutes with you and give the other side 15 minutes and i will await the results in peace that we are going to get them sold. >> that is right. >> of france, we do have to be concerned about the perception

-- friends, we do have to be concerned about perception. and it should not be that the people on this panel are the only people in this room. >> correct. >> could i get 30 seconds on this issue? >> yes. >> i agree with everything that has been said. the word conservative has a negative connotation with in the black community. democrats did everything to blocked civil rights legislation. they wrote the jim crow laws. as republicans, we pick up the same inning. we want to hold dear to the founding fathers. i am a conservative. i may frederick douglass republican, meaning that i believe in respect for the constitution, respect for life. i believe and limited government and personal responsibility. that is what he advocated and talked about. i am not suggesting that you do not use the word conservative,

but make sure you define the word first based on the audience you are talking to. frederick douglass is the answer as to how we can take the black message to the community. his life has to be elevated. that is how we will save our community and our country and get this country back to constitutional conservatism. >> i will go out to the next question. since congressman jordan is not here yet, i will allow sheriff clark to take his turn and segue from the comment that you just wanted to make. and actually, i want to make a mention about jim jordan, because when you talk about the republican party, j.c. watts is exactly right. there is a branding and marketing problem, and at this point, there's no excuse. but congressman jordan heads up the republican study committee and they are doing everything they can to try to make a difference with us as african

americans to try to right what had broken down with the republican versus black community situation. i will move on to the next question because and it is also a perception versus reality. there is a wide misconception that more government is better for low-income populations. but the reality is, less government, whether in retirement, health care, education, greener, labor laws, such as minimum-wage with disproportionately benefit low- income americans. a wide such a mistrust of individual responsibility? >> government handouts,

entitlement programs, they are used like an intoxicating drugs. when you wonder to yourself or you wonder aloud why is it in the cities, black people -- is easy when you talk logically, when you try to reason with folks, you are working on the wrong side of the brain. we are an emotional people. we have overcome a lot. we deserve to be emotional. but that is a different side of the brain where logic and reason -- which i'm hearing a lot of today. being an independent thinker, it works with me. but it will not work with people who is thinking dominates on the right side, which is all emotion. when you start talking about government handouts and entitlement, that is a pleasing message. it is very hard to overcome.

congressman west talked about the fear from a lot of people in our community and why they whisper and tend to take an underground approach to being conservative. fear is tough to overcome. it is easy to say, hey, develops and courage and go out and stand up for what you believe in. benaissa what happened to clarence thomas. when they see what happened to herman cain. when they see what happened to michael steele, who at one time was the head of the rnc, they look and say, i don't want that to happen to me. most folks just want to go through life, raise their families, and make a good way for themselves. they do not want to be in the belly of the beast like we are. the people on this panel. they do not want to be honest. so that i have to us, where is

the face? when something from the left comes up in the city of milwaukee, they are quick to get jesse jackson and al sharpton to speak on behalf of all blacks. and we know that they do not, but they are still a face. where is the face on the conservative side? and i'm not talking about someone who can speak for all blacks. but as someone mentioned earlier, someone who looks like us. where is the face of the conservative movement that you can send it down into the gallos of the urban centers with the resources, being able to connect emotionally. if you take reason and logic into the hood, if you will, it will not get you very far. you have to have a message that deals from the emotional perspective. the left has to have a counter strategy -- the left has a counter strategy for what we try to do this. do not let the balloon get off

the ground. when i am in milwaukee, like i said, i am a man alone. they give license to people to come after me, gatekeepers, if you will. they have a strategy to counter and the plan -- to counter any plan that we might have. we need a face on this movement. >> i think we have quite a few here. i appreciate those comments. you reminded me of two things. one, when dr. king said that men fear nothing more terribly than to stand out against a prevailing movement. and number two, when you talk about milwaukee and the left having strategy against us to get something -- against us getting something done. we need to get that reality on the ground for people who might not even realize they are against us. >> i have had the opportunity to

experience it from both sides. the one thing i had to be taught was that i was not a lost child needing help from some very liberal, while meeting -- well- meaning the government. growing up in my household and successfully flunking out of high school in the ninth grade helped meet reached the conclusion that the more government came to help me, the less response by would be for myself. time and time again my mother would tell me this lesson, boy, i brought you into this world, i may have to take you out. >> [laughter] >> at the end of the day, the people that you think are here to help you are going to be the ones criminalizing you because of your activities on your own behalf. the only one you can blame is the one in the mirror. unfortunately, when you listen to become -- big government, big government says someone else cause your situation. that you are not responsible for where you are.

because your dad was not around we have to treat you for your psychological deficiencies that you have. unfortunate, when you arrive in were i was, they may give you some psychological assistance, but it is from the guy in the bed next year. -- the bed next to you. how do we overcome that? the most successful businesses in the world today never asked the question who is going to be in the white house and how can i succeed? they know the rules of the field and it will play consistently with them. the great challenge we have is the challenge of selling and marketing the truth to people desperately seeking the truth. but in the absence of truth and in the absence of good salespeople, they will drink anything, sand, dirk, not water. -- dirt, not water.

and how we overcome the misconception that somehow government comes to rescue is to tell our own stories of struggle and triumph and then tragedy and then more triumph. the only way you get something from nothing is from the government. and the only way that works out for you is when you realize that the something you are getting for nothing is an absolute chain around your wrist that leaves you in the direction they want you to go. it is really not something for nothing. it is something for the incredibly high price of your freedom. that great challenge that we have to overcome is the challenge that has been expressed in this steuben for so long that it is now inseparable. it is inseparable from the idea that i can now be successful separate from the government. at the end of the day, i will succeed because i have been given the inalienable right and the opportunity for success.

i was given the birthright of being an american. if we do not start having a conversation about the underlying issues, it does not matter what the political reality is that we are in. >> i appreciate that. it is very true, and in listening to you, congressman scott, we are not only please that you are in the congress and in a position that has the bully pulpit, but you remind me that at a point, people really do get it for their own lives. after all of these promises and their communities are still living in ruins, and so it polling just came out to show that about 13% of the african- american community are saying they do not want this the diet anymore. it is not a lot. you could look at that as half empty, 87% are still with the current administration and the promises they are making. but to see that kind of movement is such a short time frame, maybe they are starting

to look at their own reality. gregg's after four decades -- >> after four decades of the war on poverty and the same people are poor, maybe you need to look at yourself. >> we will have to keep the answers shorter because we have a lot topics to get her and the clock is running. -- to get through and the clock is running. >> just for the quick, as we say in alabama, cut to the chase. these gentlemen are saying that we are losing the propaganda war. we got the right stuff and the right message, but we are losing the propaganda wars. it is that simple. >> you know, perhaps. but again, if i can thank congressman west -- because we are in a new year. as was mentioned at today's 4 rahm, the internet and technology that are now on our

side, not sure read -- yesterday's reality is tomorrow's reality. >> i did not get my chance to respond to that question. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> it's ok. >> [inaudible] >> yes, please. i would like to introduce emanuel cleaver, who has joined us. he is from the great state of missouri and the chairman of the congressional black caucus. you are perfectly on time. in the next round of questions i have one for you. >> congressman scott said something very interesting that i agree with. it is a sales and marketing strategy that we have to overcome. it is a question of propaganda. thank god we have a literary legacy of douglas's writings. the things that we are talking about, he experienced of this and he wrote about it. he gave us solutions. that is why his life had to be steady. he was born below poverty.

he did not even on his own body. but in his writings, he talked about his slave masters who told him, do not make plans for the future. i will take care of you. he is talking about the role of the federal government as not to provide for us. the role of the national government is true protect us. -- is to protect us. with that providing for us and not protecting us, that is where it comes to personal responsibility. you cannot play the race card with a douglas republican. >> i do have to move on and we will have another round where we way -- allow others to weigh in. you are absolutely right about frederick douglass. he said, you should do nothing with the negro the next question goes to watts, cleaver, clark jr.

why wouldn't we as a society want money to follow students of poor parents to the school of their choice, whether that is public, private, nonsectarian, religious, charter, or home schooled? >> you know, i think any of these things in the political of arena, it is no different in politics than a pastor getting up on sunday morning and delivering a sermon and being in an arena where you are competing for the hearts and minds of the people sitting in the audience. and politics gets a little bit nastier than it does on sunday mornings, but be that as it may , it is important, the delivery. who is delivering it?

you know, people being engaged, etc. when you look at a lot of the battles that have been fought, for so long, people have been made -- and not just people in the black community, but people in many communities, for so long they have been told that two plus two is seven. and suddenly someone comes along and says to plus 2 is for. and they say, oh, he has forgotten where he comes from. i think we all should want the facts. keiko james said to me once -- and i think we have talked about conservative this morning. i think he gave the best of nest -- she gave the best definition of conservative i have ever heard. she said, conservative is living the way your grandmother taught you to live. you treat other people the way you want to be treated. you do not spend more money than

you take in. you do not waste. you do not get yourself deeply in debt, etc., and the list goes on. i do not have to tell you that. i see some gray hairs in here, so you all know what i'm talking about. but i think we are in a competition for the hearts and minds of the american people on taxes, on economic development, -- you know, jack kemp, i am a jack kemp disciple. he knew the value of going into those underserved communities and doing the things to say, we've got to eliminate taxes and regulatory policies in this community in order to attract capital here simply because capital is a coward. you invest your money just like every other republican or

democrat or liberal or conservative in this country, when you invest your money, you want a return and if the money you invest is not going to flow, you will not invest where it is over litigated and overtaxed. >> but then why is it so hard to get school choice? we know the supreme court has not -- has ruled that it is not unconstitutional for money to follow the children to the school. every community that has attempted to pass a voucher movement has dishes opposition from the left, from unions and traditional groups. including the naacp. >> i was going to segue into that in terms of school choice. margaret thatcher said, when the argument, you will win the vote. we have not won the argument.

any major issue, i do not care if it is a balanced budget -- in-line >> on school choice. >> obviously, we have not won the argument -- i have seen numbers of anywhere from 60% to 80% of people in the black community support school choice. >> yes, they do. there is a problem with the community saying they want something is critical to their future connected specifically to their economic well-being, and yet they have to fight the naacp and all of the unions and left-wing groups to get money to follow their children. >> the very first comments we made in this room today was,

people who look like us, but they do not vote like us. >> right. >> is more than just the issue we are dealing with. parental choice in education, enterprise zones. >> let's let congressman clyburn. and you come from a state where we know the hard part of that stake, st. louis and kansas city, both have tried to get school voucher initiatives and both have been hit hard by the left. what is the problem? why can't the money follow the children to the schools that the parents want their children to go to? >> i apologize for being late. i was on a conservative airplane. [laughter] >> you were not on a conservative plane because they would have gotten you here on time. it would have been a private jet.

you're on a commercial, a union controlled airplane. [laughter] go ahead. >> thank you very much. kansas city and st. louis, the largest cities in the state of missouri have at least five school districts. when i came to kansas city out of college, we had 74,000 students in the public school system there. today, there are 16,000. there are only two sentences in the state where you can have charter schools. kansas city and st. louis. i think the argument i you are making, i would agree with, except there's one problem. there are still those schools

that would deny access to african-americans. i think they are fewer than when i was in school, but they are there. it is not the naacp. it is the naacp legal firm, which they are completely separate. it is not the same as what been jealous runs. >> he is actually focused on dismantling merit. -- marriage. >> when i was elected mayor, phil kirkpatrick was reporting for the kansas star and he came to me and said, you are getting criticized because people are saying your children are going to a private school. and i said to him, let me tell you something. write whatever you want about me. you leave my children alone. when i ran for mayor i did not run my children for anything and i will send them to the best

school that i can get them into. i believe that we ought to send our children to schools that can produce. i agree with that, but you will find resistance because there are schools that still -- and we just had it in missouri. >> oh, i know. >> they just fought off allowing blacks to come to some schools. >> congressman scott, should we keep african-american children or low-income children in failing schools until there is some kind of racial equality in the other schools in that particular state? >> of course not. as a state legislator, for two years i've fought for the school choice legislation to free kids from schools that are impoverished and having low results. because the bottom line is, you can i get a good education if you cannot get a good education. and the unions in the education world armorican -- more committed to the structure of

education and the child. -- are more committed to the structure of education than they are the child. if you are not voting for our children, we are not voting for you. i do not care if you are black, white, republican or democrat. if you say the child is the future and vote consistent with the child's future, it does not matter. the problem is, we are not doing that. 40 percent of the education dollar goes to fund the system. 50 cents -- 56 cents on the dollar goes to fund the kid. we have democratic members of the house and we lost by one or two votes. and unfortunately, the caucus in my state voted for the continuation of a poor educational toys and a poor educational outcome in future spending because they refuse to

give the average child in a poor neighborhood a quality education. >> this is happening all over the place, and sometimes the unions have the republicans in their pockets, too, because we just lost in pennsylvania. but what congressman watt was saying is that it separates -- it connects to other issues. dr. smith, you had to weigh in on this one. >> i know this is not my question, but i've been trying to wait for my question. >> you will get one. [laughter] >> when we take the frederick douglass republican message to the black churches, to the hood, douglas in 1848 went through the problem -- the same problem of school choice. he was trying to send his daughter, nine years old at the time, to a seminary. the board of education in rochester tried to force him to

send his daughter to an inferior school outside of his district. and he said no, no, no. my money should follow my child. douglas said, the inability for a parent to not have the power to choose the school of their choice is worse than slavery. this is for douglas. [applause] this is 1848 -- this is frederick douglass. [applause] this is 1848. and he said, no, i'm going to send her there because she is my child and she deserves the best education possible. you will not determine for me what i will do for my child. 1848. eight years later, that school system was integrated because he put pressure on the school system one of his mottoes was "face it, fight it, fix it. -- fix it."

and by friday, he meant political pressure, media, news. -- by "fight it," he meant political pressure, media, news. then you can create change and the most vulnerable are valued. >> i believe you mentioned that in your book. this very day, the school choice movement is convening. we are still trying -- fighting and trying to fix it. the alliance for school towards is still fighting in our hardest hit communities. -- for school choice is still fighting in our hardest hit communities. it is very important, very alive. and i like that, "face it," if you do not have quality education for your child. "fight it," and then we can get a better education for our

children. the second topic in this area will go to feels, johnson, and bryant. the question -- economic revitalization of poor communities 3d the regulation and lower taxes is not a new idea -- through the regulation and lower taxes is not a new idea. it has been taught for decades. today, well known and respected nyc economist have the program in places like honduras. it seems like the dream is even coming true in places like rwanda. what is going on in america? why don't we have our economic enterprise zones alive by now? can pour america be revitalized are reducing corporate taxes and reducing regulations in targeted the codes?

-- targeted zip code to? mayor, i should say. i think this is your first question. >> it is. in response, it reverts back to the things that have already been said. no disrespect to anyone else, but i believe congressman watts said it very well. people have been listening to the 2 plus 2 is 7 for so long that they believe it and when you show up with the truth, it is not received. one of the things that we are dealing with is, not only have we lost in the branding battle, but we tend to not understand what it is we are against. democrats have been very successful as labelling black republicans as traders, and that

is how we are portrayed indeed traitors and that is how we are labeled and portrayed in the community. i have a -- an insurance business. i cannot just shot and sam want to sell you some insurance. i have to -- i cannot show up and say i want to sell you some insurance. i have to come up with a solution to their pain. we have not done a good enough that.atof doing we also need people to know that we do, in fact, understand the issues and concerns. when we pulled that people believe in charter schools toward school choice, but then they do not accept it, we cannot forget how much resistance there will be from other blacks on the other side that do not want to give up power and influence.

that will make sure that we are portrayed as the enemy and as the traitor that has turned our back on the people and they are the ones that should be trusted. not all of them are that way, but we need to understand that>n with the national and state support network, not having us a table and not having us, when you hear the short words or the rhetorical, and, that turns people off because they don't notice that they are being listened to or the the issue is understood. and whether it is this issue, school choice or some other issue, it reverts back to the same fang, we have a multifaceted challenged and we need to make sure that we understand it first and deal with it in a much smarter way to have up until now. >> i would like you to weigh in on this as well, the community leaders. some ideas i believe don't need

to be initiated out of washington, d.c.. you talk about the power of local government aware of the break down? what is stopping local activity, local people from fighting for and removing some of the governmental barriers and taxes that have taken over the hard- hit communities of business will come in? >> i believe that we need to go into the communities and the people need to be educated, we need to speak with them and see what their concerns are, and that we take it all to the table. a lot of people have not been taught. once we teach the people within that community, let them know what is available to them, we need to get them out of their minds set and into other mindset of the economy to move

them forward out of where they are and to provide them with the education of those services. and if we tell them what it is that we can do for them and get their input, a lot of people do not listen to the people that are living in these areas, and i think that once we get the committees together for the people that live there, listen to them, sit down and talk with each one of them, i think that they will have a better understanding and we will have an understanding of the people that live in the community. >> i think a lot of the folks have a deeper appreciation for the community. what might be confronted is a

to-front battle. we know the public policy shapes public behavior. policies that have basically paid for the responsibility. and there is an message to the individual themselves, getting them to understand some of the things we have heard already today. the question on the table is, can that be done on the local level when we look at initiatives? >> it certainly can be done. we succeed as individuals, and we want to talk about -- it is very easy for us to get into overstating the obvious.

what i want to talk about here today is solutions. just about 20 years ago, and joined with people in the top 20, we would meet every three months and 20 of us would bring $3,000. these were black men, men of color, a latino extraction. we would bring $3,000 to this meeting. we would have to trust each other how to consolidate the money together. consolidating that is $60,000. and we're talking about $240,000. what do we do of that money? we find businesses to buy the other ethnic groups in that community that we are already buying. and return them in the business is were we can put our people to work.

we didn't just talk about the problem, we did something about it by investing in it ourselves. by having scanned in the game. your school question, and the chance to weigh in. >> will have to make these answers a little shorter if we're going to get to these topics, but i want you to weigh in on that. >> of the president of the naacp late '70s, we brought my to the communities where they were closing our schools. what do we do? the president before it was hijacked by the progress of left, president of the national. we brought them into our community by creating magnet schools, the same magnet's schools that are in garland tx today, that was a lawsuit that my organization was bringing.

we are overstating the obvious. we came here today to talk about solutions. >> perhaps you should weigh in on this particular question, we're going to have to move on. >> i am from georgia so i am not long winded much. it was creative, he brought some of the top executives to the congressional black caucus. how do we incentivize the investment capital. the chairman, the former chairman of black entertainment television said, how can we look at something as simple as capital gains tax? and get this thing happening in the urban cities so that they get a good return, a lower

capital gains tax because they did invest. what we're talking about is that we need to incentivize economic growth. it is not just the black community, it is all communities. i grew up in the same neighborhood as dr. king. i remember walking down auburn avenue as the younger kids. thriving businesses. professionals. everything. where do we go back to the blocking is tackling of understanding what the private sector needs? to incentivize growth and incentivize small businesses to get back into the urban areas. america can only be as great as the sum of its parts.

if we continue with the exorbitant unemployment and the failure of small businesses, it is not going to happen. we're going to come up with some tax policy that incentivizes small business growth in the black community. >> it is so are appropriate and necessary. >> to his point, somehow or another, many conservatives think that when you talk about minority business, you abandon your conservative values. that is a silly to me that if you are anti-civil rights. >> that is just the reality. indiana who employs black people? a black people. do you know who employs black people in chicago? black people. they hire people in the

community, so we are not anti and republican or anti conservative to say that we ought to incentivize people to attract investment capital. >> i did not get at this to my answer since it was my question, i invite you to come and see what we have done with community redevelopment areas, creating an environment for redevelopment in the communities that have been hardest hit. >> for another panel discussion, we will have to talk about that type of scenario where the government does the work and where conservatives do have a problem. or removing barriers from government so that others will invest in that work. as well as what the rwandan president is talking about.

he has created an environment so that they can do free trade. i was fascinated when i sought a product from macy's here locally. >> real quick, i wasn't going to do this, but i have to because i experienced this firsthand in the carter administration. a lot of these ideas work, it doesn't matter if they are liberal ideas or conservative ideas. the 300 pound elephant in the room or the 3,000 pound elephant in the room is the corruption. when you have taken 40% + right off the top with corruption, and none of these things are going to work. dodge that is another discussion to say if government should do this work or private and i would like to stay with privately incentivizing, to remove the barriers over our city area that

private investment will freely flow as opposed to what is being done to set up these structures to say if you come through me, i will give you a head of. it reminded me of the next question, because it was a good segue. our third topic is the black church and state, question no. one is going to go to brooks, dr. smith, and bryant. we will have a little bit of time to open the floor on this particular for one. the top crises, hiv/aids, abortion, it is considered to be rooted in sexual conduct. the definitions of marriage and the idea of a two-parent households.

i think this is an appropriate transitional question because we can talk about economics all day as a result of the expansion of government role that the black family has collapsed. we will go to dr. smith and ask you this question. should be black pastors speak up on this against the hard left? >> of the black pastor has to. it is to be a profit as well as a priest. the content within the church, but also the social struggles and intention that affect the congregation. it makes it alive and relevant in the social context. at about being afraid to take

that particular stand. that is why the pastor has to make sure that he or she does not allow the government to silence his or her voice. we have to be very careful and accepting government grants. because the pastor has that responsibility to be that person of the particular community and not be afraid to share that. and be honest about the sharing and the shaping of the community, not giving in to the surrounding pressure. that is the road to make that happen. >> are they in bed with the political structures of the community?

>> star has been a pastor for 33 years, and i have seen how political money has corrupted good men in the pulpit. the pulpit, in many cases, you have hustlers who have infiltratedt he pup -- th infiltrated the pulpit and fleecing the flock of got to push a liberal agenda. that is the truth of it. let's face the facts, and if we came here to talk, let's talk. when they talk about what is wrong on sunday morning from the bible, the social sermon is something totally different because they are afraid of being called bad apples. they are afraid of living the truth that they preach on sunday mornings.

and so the results of that is that even though we preach against abortion, we preach against same-sex marriage, and all of that, the way the lifestyle is that is live throughout the week encourages the congregation to go ahead on tuesdays or saturdays and vote on voting day for something totally different. this has to be confronted and faced an honest discussion. the one thing that most americans even today in a comfortable lifestyles are afraid of, this is what the runaway slave movie addresses. there is a slave revolt that must take place in this country. and that's still sparks fear in the hearts of most americans when they think of people who they feel they have had subdued for such a long time.

he when they see these battles with the exception of maybe a few, they think that there is something to be afraid of. herman cain called the battle by a person the pull himself up by his own boot strings. why was he called that? if you put 90% of this panel in the same creek and the same barrow with progressive liberals that are poisoning our schools and communities, they will ruin it for the progressive liberal agenda. i encourage everybody who sees this type of corruption going on from to the state house to the white house to become bad apples and led to ruin it. they will indies' oil and next generation, and they have

spoiled almost two generations of people that have become enslaved to a system that must be addressed by people sitting in this room today. [applause] >> it is interesting, i made a bid as a republican in a hard democrat district for congress a year or so ago and i lost overwhelmingly even though i knew i had the right message had a thought often about slavery and asked the question that why, after slavery in this country and, there were 4 million slaves, why did only 1 million leave the south? there is a complacency as well as the need for leadership. >> 30 seconds, i have a conference call at noon the i have to be a part of. you all heard the passion, and

the analogy that he shared with you, let me peel the onion for you a little bit more. i know men that i talked to that are pastors that had not sold out and the pulpit on sunday. i have talked to them, i have studied with them, i have worshipped with them, i have not talked to all of these men, but i will name a few. tony evans, fred price, bill winston. i'm sure you can name some that have been just as consistent. the peach to mega congregations every sunday morning. 90% don't vote like us. but theyhink like us, don't vote like us. we have got the solutions, but

the question is, what is the republican party doing to establish in the institution a mechanism that says we hear you, we are in the trenches with you. you know who they call to defend it? star, alan, michael steele, jc watts. bill cleveland. it just takes a little bit of massaging to say, you want us to some of the males but you don't want us to buy any of the groceries. i have been saying this for 20 years, her i have the scars on my back to prove it. i run the risk of being the whiny black guy, but so be it. convinced it is not

the truth, i will talk to these pastors. they are for life and marriage and they are preaching in the open. >> they don't, but we did talk about a 33% that to pull with us and there needs to be out reached there. i have talked to many african americans themselves that are convinced they should stay independent. the republican-democrat political world is business. if you are not engaged to work your way out, i am not waiting for a structure. [talking over each other] >> this isn't about winning on the party. the party does this is going on today. congressman west invited them.

then you have got a life issues, and in the trenches, the african american folks that stand for life -- [talking over each other [ ] again, i'm going to be ok. >> it's two fold, you are absolutely right. and there is a responsibility within the community and i will let congressman have a word here. >> it is not the pastors, it is what the individual does. and when you get into the black media, what those congregation members are listening to, they are listening to music and

shaping their minds. it undermines the pastor that is in the pull ahead and until we get a message to those individuals that are listening in the black media, because the turn them off, and they will not shake my mind. and once other people can learn that and we get the message out, will get the people doing what they need to do. >> i have a master's in divinity, i have been pastor for 37 years, i can tell you without fear of contradiction that the black church is the most conservative institution in the black community. you can't get black pastors talking about marriages and between two men. of care how liberal they might be on some stuff. you can't pay them to do that. one of the things i want to say,

let's not create a visual we don't need to. a lot to get to that a little bit later. >> if they are in disagreement with these activities that are being taken over their communities and specifically, we look at a law just passed in california where it will be taught in their schools, perhaps the silence should not be. the question no. two will go to you, congressman. this is about planned parenthood. and why the traditional civil rights organizations, that includes the congressional black caucus, because we find that most of the members of the congressional black caucus who join with supporting organizations like planned parenthood to fight the black church on abortion with almost one in two potential black births been legally terminated.

where is the disconnection between the black community that as you are saying, most pastors get up and see the crises, and they are weeping with of the woman and working the man that is struggling with his identity, and when it comes to the political representation of these communities, those champions of the community come to washington and undermine every single thing that the pastor has said on sunday morning. >> of the congressional black caucus has never taken a position on planned parenthood. >> perhaps the haven't taken an active position on planned parenthood, but when we look at the votes in support, the funding was a big deal have this last go around. the funding to take $330 million from a billion dollar corporation when everyone is

trying to get corporate welfare out of the city, an organization that is bent on destroying black children is written in their materials. i am wondering even if they haven't taken a formal position, why they would continue to vote for it? >> i made a statement that was the fact and all the sudden, anything i say, you can check. they have never taken a position on that at all. on the issue of planned parenthood, it is a lot more complex. planned parenthood does more than abortion. abortion and of being a small part of what they do. he also do a lot of other things for poor women have become for a number of other personal and private reasons that have nothing to do with abortion. it is not a simple issue. time, andfind any

check, were ever, they have never voted for planned parenthood. a number of people will vote against it even though they might feel that there are some parts that are directed to poor people. >> this states specifically abortion, and getting the congressional black caucus members to vote on the side of pro-life has been extremely challenging. >> it is important to us, i am not interested in trying to fight people and all of this stuff, even the language that we use, we are mad --

>> some people are little upset about this that they are not hearing from their representatives. i apologize on behalf of those that were believed reading when you said that considering today is also the march for life. the thirty ninth anniversary of roe vs. wade and the devastation it has done to our community. >> it is already for the -- illegal for the house of representatives to put any kind of money into abortion. how many times what happens is that it is put into legislation. it is against law. the hyde amendment has been in place since 1985. people put it in legislation because we have this argument. it is not allowable in the united states congress to put money into abortion.

>> the fact that the united states congress and the congressional black caucus members vote for the continuance of the funding of $330 million, even though they say they are not using that money specifically for abortion, they are a billion-dollar corporation. should we challenge the congressional black caucus? does it matter if children are being killed in our community? >> is a crucial issue and we should challenge it. we can take second corinthians, examine yourself. start voting your values. that is the problem. any particular party based on family tradition, stop being a political chump and being a christian chaplain.

to adhere to the values that we want, we run them, they don't run us. we have to make it known. >> if i could quickly -- >> congressman west talked about the silence of the conservatives and some of them not standing for certain issues, i am one of those that believes that silence in the argument is carried out by other means. i believe that not taking a position is taking a position.

if i may follow up on that, we are called as pastors, to identify the caesars of this world. hughes's told us to render the things that earnings -- jesus told us to render the things that are caesar's. pay taxes. some things do not belong to the caesar of this world. we stand in the gate in see it happening, and if we do not do it, we are not the ministers that we should be. that is what is wrong in this scenario as far as why we look into the communities. we see how they have been run down, we see how they have been affected by political voting. it is because years ago, my

pastor and former president of the national baptist convention of america, i grew up in the '50s. i remember negro day and all those things. i remember how active and important of the church was. i remember what a leader he was in our community. that type of pastor that will tell it like it is, we did not kill babies back in the 50s and 60s like we do now. because we have somebody standing up to the caesars of this world. >> into the next question on conservative principles and black america, because we are running out of time and we want to allow the opportunity for the audience to weigh in, i will

open these next two questions, keep your answers brief and we will move on to q&a from the audience. 50 years ago, 70% of black children were raised by married parents. today, 70 per cent are raised by a single parent. many point to the extent of the welfare state for the cause of a breakdown in the marriage of the black community. are they right or wrong? connect that to the next question, if there is a state of the black family today, why did they hope to elect a liberal political leaders in project conservative leaders have a message of traditional values?

congressman, thank you for joining us. we are almost finished and i will allow you to say a few words before we conclude. that is why i keep going back to frederick douglass. and that is the solution. frederick douglass was raised and did not have both parents and his home. from ages 6 to 21, that help them survive. reading books, the avid reader took responsibility for his own education. he was courageous.

he lived to tell about it and read about it. >> i will transition the question to open up to you to say, should we get rid of all governmental programs that are assisting the poor so that people will look toward a more responsible behavior is or activities considering when frederick douglass was here we did not have a welfare state? want to take away all government programs because one of the mandates of the constitution is to promote general welfare. every child born in the united states of america gets a letter. it is a letter of equality of opportunity. sometimes you will slip off a ladder. the point of a safety net is for you to bounce back up and get back on the latter. but we have in this country, it comes back to the very simple

argument of equality of opportunity verses the quality of achievement. some say that the safety that becomes a hammock. that is not what america is about. we have listened to senator patrick moynihan, he said if you take the man out of the home, he will destroy the community. equality of opportunity leads to economic freedom. a quality of achievement leads to economic dependency. though we have to do is limited government, constitutionally mandated fifth, fiscally responsible, that is what we have to get back to. you will see not just in the black community, but in all communities, a better day. it comes down to opportunity verses achievement. >> i would like for you to introduce yourself formally at some of the specifics that the

republican study committee has looked at in terms of outreach. republican structure was beat up a little bit. i think you are the only one that has responded to the invite and you have, in my opinion, and one of the best committees in washington, d.c. because you are all conservative looking for conservative for christian principles. >> let me thank colonel west for putting this together and the tremendous leadership. i had a delayed flight, so i apologize. let me say it this way. the colonel was just talking about the family, and if you think about it, the institution that determines the strength of our entire culture is the family. the first institution that the good lord put together was not the church or state, it was

family. when you have a welfare type structure, they say don't get a job, have more kids, get more money. you have to adjust that to focus on the right kind of thing. we try to have a pro-family bias to everything we do. that is the reason i got into politics, to do things that benefit that institution. >> you missed your questions i will have to ask you later. >> let me thank you for being involved in taking the risk always associated when you tried to make a difference. it is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize, but you folks are getting involved in trying to make a difference. there is persecution that comes with it, there certainly is. i appreciate your willingness to take the risk in accomplishing

anything meaningful or significant. he was talking about the way that the elite national press sees things differently and normal americans. the positions that we take, i read my bible. there is certainly some truth to that, so thank you for taking the risk that sometimes comes fighting for not just conservative positions but pro- family positions. >> i am going to go to the audience, and first, i will call on garland because he represents the fellowship as well.

i would like some comments, because when we talk about the family, i almost segued into what you're dealing with going into these prisons and we see the young boys that have mismanaged their life and much as the result of some of the things we discussed today. >> [inaudible] we are talking about the idea of how the nation as well as the gop response to the concerns of the african-american community. one of the areas we have to deal with, we did mention today some of the incredible disparities for the justice system. america is actually the number one country and the world in

incarceration. it is over 2 million, that is exactly right. as a result of that, you have mostly half of those. not only are they going into the system, but coming right back out. aha in those released every year are more than the state of wyoming. of these situations are amplified and the black community. they are either in prison, jail, hot or on parole.

that is why we have committed and focused. we can change responses, we can change the hearts. what happens is that they began a different person. and the prison population that are being recruited by islam and other faiths. we have to recognize that those coming out and champion our community. >> i appreciate those comments because i have been asked twice about in the solution. the program they have is on the solution side. we have other solution makers in the audience as well. many of the crisis pregnancy centers, 1200 or 1300 now. they are helping people as a result of decisions that they have made. perhaps even their families are

in broken homes and broken communities. we have about five minutes, so i can start. i think i am going to leave it there for now and we will see where we are. >> d.c. congressman, -- the city congressman, you've talked about prohibiting money going to abortion but title 10 specifically says that that money cannot go to an agency that performs abortion as a method of family planning. how is it that 365 million taxpayer dollars goes to planned parenthood every year and we are not shutting that down? i will show leadership --

released again for the a eleventh year in a row, if we don't see this leading an urgent issue for the community, we won't be here 50 years from now. will you show leadership on this issue? thank you. >> i have something that is far more important in terms of solutions. the way politics works, it makes me so mad.

what happens is there are amendments put on that will have something to do with abortion. we call it v i got you amendment. meaning if you vote against it, somebody can campaign against you as being pro-abortion. democrats played some games on the other side as well. more importantly to me, it is absolutely crazy for us to get it here. if i can pull together a hispanic and african americans across city council lines so we

can have a quality and black democrats and jack -- the black republicans can sit down together m. they can't give me enough money, i'm not going to do it. because i have differences with him, i would rather work with him to make sure that we cover all the bases. we ought to have republicans that are black and for us to decide that we are going to play that game of fighting each other is absolutely crazy. >> [inaudible] they cannot get title time money. it will you show leadership that

planned parenthood is being investigated to get taxpayer money out of that organization? >> i will not try to get taxpayer money out of the organization. i will vote to prohibit abortion because that is the law. but taking taxpayer money out that restricts services to poor people, i am not going to do it. >> let me comment on a couple of things that have been said already. this has been a good morning, a positive experience. it should be an embarrassment that we should have a conversation that we haven't had. the answer is yes, we ought not give $365 to planned parenthood. period.

[applause] i think there is a wonderful opportunity for black churches in this country to create a coalition -- but we are so focused on the issue of life, and to the first person that spoke, one of the things that is the foundation of what we're talking about is the erosion of the actual social fabric of this nation, it is the first sign of tearing apart in the african- american community because of the challenges that we face, if you think about who is in prison or incarcerated, i left a $100 million new facility to house 1344 people.

$100 million new facility to house 1344 penew inmates. these of the things that 92% had in common. they were functionally illiterate, single-parent households, and they lived in poverty. if we are looking for a solution, let's start with those three. >> congressman, i don't know if you have ever done any research on planned parenthood. you have to go back to the origins of planned parenthood. it came out of the thought process of eugenics, the basis of nazi germany that said that we could produce a master race of people if we get rid of those that are intellectually inferior. that is what planned parenthood came out of and it is a deliberate thing. if we look at africa right now,

we would have many problems right now. what we have going on with abortion is genocide on the black race. as a man of god, i challenge you to go back and do your research on planned parenthood. if you go through your research in you are a man of god, you will do everything in your power from this point on the fight that organization. it is a devilish in its origin. >> what i am hearing from some of the passion and response of the community, as you grace us with your present, perhaps there is a conference that needs to occur with there is no media in the room and there are pastors and legislators that are going their role of their sleeves and seriously address these very complicated matters. >> to make sure, nobody starts

complaining about the separation of church and state. >> congressman, it is an honor to be here with you, but i think everyone on this panel love our people. we must love them enough to tell from the truth about what is going on. and we are asking you as the head of the congressional black caucus to love them enough to a least save the lives of future generations. that is all they are asking us to do. there is no reason for us to be divided over anything, but we must come awake. >> star? i just wanted to say, about prison fellowship, working with young people, i introduced myself as a substitute teacher.

my specialty is working with the northern virginia juvenile detention facility. working on governor mcdonald's reentry program, it is one of the best reentry programs going on. it is something that i learned a long time ago when i was with the frederick douglass republicans, it is about helping the incarcerated. i intend to act like abraham to see with firm iness, the light to achieve the following goals. i am concerned about the disproportionate rates of black and latino americans that are confined in correctional facilities. and the rate of recidivism that goes with those that are released from these facilities

and their lack of preparation and transition back into the communities, a lack of readiness for communities to receive them, the laws that hinder their ability to become productive members of society upon their release. i am greatly concerned about the families of these incarcerated persons, especially the children at high risk of becoming incarcerated themselves. therefore i support national and community-based programs that address the prevention of incarceration to work with the incarcerated, and to assist families and communities in away the brakes the incarceration. tily, i support national and community-based programs in understanding their rights.

>> we will be able to talk about what congressman scott pointed out, those incarcerated or re-entering society because they served their terms. illiteracy, we discussed very quickly school choice. out of wedlock births, poverty when it comes to if you are the connection between illiteracy and a single head of households. >> i got here at 8:30, thank you very much. i just want to say thank you to congressman west for having this absolute awesome and degrading form.

it has been absolutely stimulating and i feel like a james brown. i had some and questions, but i will stick to the one about incarcerations for black men in this country. to our party and conservatives, what do we say to the black man that has served his time? the question came up in the debates mitt romney and rick santorum. convictedve been felons and they would like to vote. should we give them that privilege back? >> speaking as a former commander in the united states military, i have busted many soldiers down in rank. you have to earn your rank back.

that is the most important of thing. earn it back. and is what i will say to them. >> if i can go back to the issue of crime and incarceration rates, i think we would be remiss if we keep this discussion 1-dimensional on what do we do with incarcerated men, many of whom that are black. what do we do to restore their rights and lives as they move forward without asking the question and the other end of the antisocial behavior. first and foremost for me, the

colleagues on the board the talking about prisons and so on and so forth, what do we do to restore the lives of victims, many that are on the receiving end of crime never get over. we talk about the cost of incarceration. do we calculate the true cost of crime as it relates to medical needs of the victim? lost wages, insurance rates? it isn't just about what it costs to house a prisoner, we have to have a dual conversation that the black on black crime is just as important of an issue as black incarceration. >> we're out of time, so you'll have to very quickly answer questions while congressman west makes his way back to the podium. >> i am a return to citizen.

we changed the name from exit offender to return the system. a think everybody that comes home should be given an opportunity to be a citizen. my question is, i don't think we need to beg anybody to help us. everybody that i heard up here and has the power. when are we going to teach our children? i was with people that were with king. what they did not was that they thought the children i am running for office in d.c. and i will take the small things to teach people their history. it is more than any time in the last 30 years, we don't even teach our people the basics. >> we will not be able to sermon. they can't even answer. i am glad you're able to get in the points that you did because

they are extremely important. you have reenters society, you're attempting to make a difference by going into the political realm and teaching our children. we have had some discussion on prisons. i have a feeling that this is not in the first of the last four and you're going to do because we're totally out of time, i will thank of the panelists for their participation in this first 2012 like a conservative forum. i want to thank c-span. and other media for covering this historic event. thank you for attending, and we can go on all day. he will have to do it again. i will turn the podium back to our congressmen. >> the success of this form came

in because of the great moderator. >> and i want to thank each and everyone of you and i want to thank the panel for being here. when i sat down with my staff, i said this is something that we need to do. the thing in the back of your mind, if you're going to throw a party, will people come? when i look at the media outlets, i am florida because this is something that we have to talk about. one of my favorite shows "was "i dream of jeannie." the genie is out of the bottle. you have to go out and talk to others, you have to post videos, you have to come up with her own individual action plan. what we will do appear, we will develop an action plan and get people engaged.

i think that one of the things that we do know we need to do, we need to bring black pastors together with the black legislators. because we need to get the consistency of the message going out to the community. we cannot continue to allow to plus two equals seven. many of us stand here today. our parents that the interest in who we are. i will not go down in my life, knowing the opportunities i had are not going to be passed on to my two daughters or to your children and grandchildren garrett kern that is the greatness of the black community, the struggle we have gone through, as we talked about today. each and everyone of us needs to

become the new frederick douglass and take this on forward. may god bless you all. god keep you in your travels, and we will see when we have the next one. thank you so much for being here. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

[crowd murmuring]

>> coming up, the sunlight foundation hosted this session on the role of superpacs in the 2012 election. then anti-abortion activists marched the anniversary of the roe versus wade decision that legalized abortion in the united states. that is followed by remarks from the president of the national organization for women on abortion rights. later, the nbc presidential debate in tampa, florida. tomorrow on "washington journal," a look ahead at the president's state of the union address and the fiscal 2013 budget with democratic congressman brad miller of north carolina. then republican steve southerland talks about the republican primary in his state next tuesday. later, a discussion on the case in washington monthly titled

"the myth of american productivity." we will hear from the chief economic strategist for the progressive policy institute. washington journal" every morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> mr. speaker, president of the united states. [applause] tuesday night, president obama delivers the state of the union address. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern, including the president's speech, republican response by indiana governor mitch daniels, and your phone calls, live on c-span and c-span radio. and c-span2, after the address, more reaction from house members and senators. throughout the night, go online for live video and to add your comments using facebook and twitter, act c-span.org. >> leading up to president obama's state of the union

address, the bipartisan policy center hosts a former presidential speech writers tomorrow, discussing the writing of the speech. you will hear from a former speechwriter for president bill clinton and vice president al gore. that is live starting at 8:30 a.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span2. the supreme court ruling on citizens united versus the fec prohibits the government from limiting corp. and union spending for political purposes. the importance of super pacs on elections was the topic of a forum on capitol hill where the panel argued that superpacs cannot determine who will become president, but they can play a role in senate and house races. this discussion is an hour and

35 minutes. >> this year they spent $33.2 million and raised a larger amount of money. some from original donors we will never be able to currently identified. the focuses on what the public knows and should know about stupak activities. we are going to look into the legal and policy implications of dark money flowing in unlimited amounts into presidential and congressional elections, with particular attention to where more transparency is needed. today's event is hosted by the advisory committee of transparency, a project of the sunlight foundation. i would also like to thank the co-chairs for giving us this room. and i would like to thank c- span for coming and broadcasting this live. if you would like to join in if you are watching on tv, you go

to twitter #superpacact. i should disclose the sunlight foundation has disclosed a draft bill called the super pac act, not related to the twitter, which would tighten disclosure requirements. you are invited to comment on publicmarkup.org. and you can see reporting on super pacs at somelightfoundation.com/super pacs for moving on to our experts -- mimi marziani, new york university school of law. we have eliza newlin carney, staff writer for "roll call" and she covers lobbying and influence. and i have it on good authority that he coined the term super pac. >> that is correct. >> to my immediate left. pretty cool, by the way.

paul ryan, fec program director and associate legal counsel at campaign legal center. all the way to my left is allen dickerson, interim director and -- center for competitive politics. more information is located -- and i am daniel schuman, policy council of the sunlight foundation and director of advisory committee on transparency. i have asked each panelist to talk about different aspects of super pacs and i will turn first to eliza newlin carney to talk about what is available at the public record, what is absent and how the information available affects the stories. >> thank you for the sunlight foundation are having this event. in the movie "all the president's men" the character known as deep throat tells carl woodward and bernstein to follow the money. even though it was not a line from the book, something a screen writer wrote, it became a rallying cry of generations

of people care about transparency and accountability. but i think it is fair to say it is more difficult now to follow the money as it once might have been. a number of reasons. the truth is, transparency has been eroding for some time now. not just because of the citizens united ruling. my own view is that the greatest threat to transparency, if you can call it, is the increased activism and political engagement of nonprofit groups. as i am sure you guys know, the internal revenue service does not require nonprofits to disclose the source of their spending. there are minimal disclosure and reporting requirements. that is probably for very good reasons. it dates all the way back to the civil-rights era when the irs wanted to protect groups active in issues like civil rights and protect the anonymity of their donors.

but nonetheless, beginning with the 527 organizations in 2004, we have seen millions and millions of dollars flow through non-profit groups of different types. to be spent in arguably campaign-oriented fashion. 527 in groups did disclose everything to the irs, so eventually use all the money and where it came from. would the advent of super pacs, i would argue there are a number of new transparency challenges that have been presented. it prevents special transparency problems for three reasons. one is the ftc disclosure regulations are arguably incomplete -- fec disclosure regulations. to some degree fec basically said unless a donor earmarks a contribution for a particular campaign expenditure, the organization, super pac, this not have the obligation to record that. so, you could theoretically have a donor give money to a

group for overhead and say this was not really for a specific ad. and so, we, the members of the public, would not necessarily know who founded the group even if a lot of the money went to a particular campaign ad. the latest crop of super pacs have found ways to at least delay reporting their receipts at key junctures. a great number of them -- excuse me, i want to say hi to mimi. >> hello. >> welcome. >> the super pacs, many of them have decided that instead of reporting on a quarterly basis, they will go to monthly reporting. having formed themselves -- which counterintuitive late meant less disclosure right on the eve of these very important early gop primaries. because when you disclose

quarterly, you have to do a pre- primary report. if you disclose monthly, you do not have to do that. going monthly they will now disclosed january 31, and lo and behold, a great many primaries will be done by then. that is a challenge. at the third is the use of nonprofits. a number of super pacs have established affiliated nonprofits. the leading example right now is the crossroads operation. there is a super pac known as american crossroads which has an affiliated non-profit of 501c 4 social where -- social welfare group, and these groups together, it is predicted they will raise and spend on the order of $240 million in the collection, actually twice as much as they would be spending originally. my guess is a pretty good chunk, maybe half or more, is going to go through the nonprofits. which means -- i should never say never because journalists

have been pretty good finding out the source of many of these donors and donations, but nevertheless, it is a lot more challenging and not immediately evident. there is another trend, which is that some super pacs have been accepting donations from nonprofits. so, even if the super pac discloses and says here are our donors, and one of the donors of x million dollars is this non-profit group, you still cannot know who founded the nonprofit. that is really the third transparency challenge. so, it is not as though following the money is impossible but it is a lot more challenging than it used to be. i do want to slightly but some of the election lawyers i talk to on the eve of citizens united -- because i would raise questions around transparency and that was frequently told super pacs disclose everything -- and i am just here to say, conventional political action committee, every dollar in and

every dollar out, you are a journalist, you can go and look at. that is not the case of super pacs, at least not now. with that, i will pass it on to mimi. >> again, apologies. obviously, most of our conversation today is forward- looking. the very important questions super pacs have raised about whether they should be regulated, how they should be regulated, and, in fact, whether basic assumptions underlying our campaign finance system makes any sense. but before we can fully grapple with these questions, i am here to push us back a little bit and look behind us and make sure we all understand where these super pacs came from, the legal theories and assumptions underlying them.

and so, i am going to give you a little bit of a tale, it will not be too long. if things actually started in 1976 with the supreme court said that -- decision. buckley v. vallejo. even though the decision is someone dated the main pillar remains the law today and there are three points particularly important for the instant discussion. first, the buckley court found that because money is needed for most forms of mass communication, restrictions on political spending should be heavily scrutinized just like restrictions on pure speech. it is important to note, this is not actually the same thing as saying money is speech -- although that is the shorthand that has come from the decision. but it has the same practical effect, meaning that the government must have a very, very good reason to regulate

political spending. the court in buckley then went on to decide that preventing corruption is basically the only very, very good reason the government can put forward to limit political spending. finally, the court decided, without citing to any evidence are really talking much about the realities of political campaigns, the buckley court decided that direct contributions to candidates pose a much greater risk of political corruption then independent spending that is meant to benefit the candidate. and the court specifically said -- and i will quote the butler decision for a second that "the absence of arrangement and coordination of expenditure with the candidate not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given

as a quid pro quo for commitments from the candidate." with that reasoning, the book record of how the contribution limits, limits on direct contributions to candidates, but struck down limits on how much an individual could spend to benefit a candidates. fast forward to 2010 and the citizens united decision. so, this decision, as everyone in this room surely knows, is best known for its holding. namely that it is unconstitutional to prohibit corporations from using general treasury funds for electioneering. the court, however, also discussed independent spending. an aspect of the decision that is more frequently overlooked. in the citizens united court, in fact, it expanded the logic of buckley significantly. and it proclaims, again, without looking at any factual

evidence, that truly non- coordinated expenditures "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." and so, in other words, to give a concrete example, this is the same as saying that multimillion-dollar campaign ad blitz funded by, say, bp oil to benefit members of the energy and commerce committee does not include any sort of threat of political corruption. so long as bp it decides to spend the money it without consulting with the candidates. with this, however, the court assumes that there was a robust transparency that would also act as a mechanism to prevent corruption. three months after citizens united was decided -- excuse me, two months after citizens united was decided, the d.c. court of appeals decided in a

case called -- a promise, i am getting to the point. the big question was presented. the plaintiffs in that case said, i am a political action committee. i only want to spend money on independent expenditures. i am not going to coordinate under the campaign finance rules with any particular candidate. therefore, it is unconstitutional for the government to still restrict the money coming into my organization. there is actually -- there is no benefit to restrict the money coming in if the money coming out is per se, non- correcting. the courts agreed and brought the limits to contributions to these types pacs aside. the fec created a new category of entities.

he might have heard this term already. the independent expenditure only multi candidate non- connected pac, which obviously is a mouthful and i believe was recoined my friend super pac. >> now you know why i came out with the term. >> i will let us move on to the other panelists. from that creation story, as it is, i just want to underscore 3 particularly troubling assumptions that super pacs are based upon. what is this idea that independent expenditures are not correcting. i mean, this notion is quite frankly, ludicrous, to anybody who has ever dealt with the realities of our political system. i mean, it delays all logic that an individual could give

$5 million to buy closely affiliated super pac -- i know all about it -- that an infusion of money is given to me at a critical moment in my campaign and necessary for me to achieve a key win. it is crazy to think i will not feel indebted to that individual in some way. the second policy is this notion that coronation rules are sufficient to prevent true coordination the way you and i understand it. they are not sufficient. and finally, as eliza highlighted, the third fallacy is the idea that the current disclosure regime is sufficient to capture this new influx of political money. i am going to end at the last

trading that -- stephen colbert, have you guys talked about him yet? ? colbert of -- stephen colbert has been illustrating ridiculous aspects by creating a super pac, an affiliated 501c named colbert super pac shhh -- to accept a mission that do not have been disclosed and can be shifted. with that rather sad tale, i will turn it to somebody else. >> hopefully you can -- i did not know if offer a ray of hope but hopefully explains some of the concerns. we should mention colbert does not have a super pac.

>> definitely not a warning. >> paul? >> i will talk a little bit about the broader legal concerns at play talking about transparency. as mimi and eliza explain, one of the major things coming out of citizens united was a declaration by the supreme court, five justices, that independent expenditure is do not correct. but one of the promises made by the court -- promise might be too strong a word -- but one of the suggestions is that disclosure and transparency would be a anecdote to any -- antidote to any corruption by corporate, and by extension, union money coming into the election system. eight of the nine justices signed on to a section of the opinion that stated, for example, a campaign finance system that spares expenditures with effective disclosure has not existed before today. later in the same aircraft --

with the advent of the internet, from disclosure of expenditures, provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their position and supporters. skipping ahead to the end of the same paragraph -- the first amendment protect political speech and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. this transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and to different speeches -- speakers and messages. eight of the nine strongly stood behind disclosure. not the first time. in fact, eight of the nine justices have been strongly behind disclosure and all of the court's recent disclosure does related decisions. eight out of the nine justices in 2003, mcconnell commission, that upheld the campaign reform act and also stood firmly behind us with a pretty the only justice who has not supported disclosure is justice thomas.

and also very recently in a case out of the state of washington, which was not pertaining to disclosure money in elections but pertaining to disclosure of the identities of those who signed petitions to get measures on ballots, in that case, it out of the nine justices again stood behind disclosure and upheld the law. i want to read you a short passage from justice scalia's concurring opinion in the decision because it is perhaps the most strongly worded endorsement of disclosure that i have heard, from a supreme court justice. he wrote "laws against threats and intimidation and harsh criticism short of unlawful action, the price people have been willing to pay for self governance, requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts, called the specific coverage without which our democracy is doomed. for my part i do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the supreme court, campaigns anonymously and even exercise direct democracy hidden from public scrutiny and

protected from accountability of criticism. this does not resemble the home of the brave." that is a the legal backdrop. it's very consistent eight- justice majority on the supreme court, behind transparency and disclosure. as eliza explain, very accurately, we have a major deficit of disclosure in this year's election. why is that the case? she touched on the main points. one is that while it indeed is true that super pacs have to disclose all the money coming in, the entire universe of possible and legal donors to these pacs change with citizens united, and speech now, more specifically, coming a few months later, so for the first time it that in -- indicated it became illegal for entities, groups, corporations, to make unlimited contributions to these super pacs.

what we might see at the end of the month when most of the super pacs that have been created have to file a first comprehensive report is filing of reports that state that a particular super pac received $1 million from americans for apple pie. and that is made possible by citizens united combined with speech now. prior to these decisions, corporate entities like americans for apple pie, hypothetical 501. c4 it would be illegal to contribute. now they can contribute and that is all that has been disclosed because 501.c4 themselves and not have to disclose where they get their money. unless the donor is foolish enough to specifically designate their contribution to that c4 for the purpose of electioneering ads or independent expenditures. this particular deficit and disclosure, the fact that c41 in a collection hearing -- only when the donor specifically dedicate their money, that the

very dysfunctional and completely gridlock election system. there are players that have gone up to this point. the fec has played a big role, and the supreme court, despite promises we will have disclosure and it will prevent corruption and allow voters to make informed decisions and allow voters to hold corporations accountable, i don't think we are going to have that much information about the true source of the money going to these super pacs, even though they nominally it disclosed the money they raise and spend. i just want to mention a couple of possible ways to get at this problem. and before doing so, i will also mention that there is a countervailing interest here, public interest, that i am confident that allen will talk more about. it is indeed true that the supreme court has said over the decades in the concept of disclosure cases that if a particular donor to a political

cause would suffer threats, harassment, or reprisals, as a result of them being disclosed, they should be exempt from having their names disclosed. but this is an exemption from disclosure evolved in the context of the socialist workers party, naacp -- we are talking about extreme violence being -- people being victims of extreme violence and also -- also discrimination and threats of reprisals at the hands of the government itself. we will probably hear more about that. but a brief mention of some of the ways that the new super pac disclosure act, that the sunlight foundation has just announced last week, very similar to provisions that were in the disclose act that passed the house but failed the cloture vote in the senate in 2010. one of the ways they would get at what might referred to as the russian dog problem saying, yes,

the super pac of the closing but they're getting money from another broke and we did not know where the money came from that went into that group. in this new model, super pac disclosure act, and in the discos active that nearly failed to pass, enactment, there were new concepts that would have been or could be in the near future -- and headed into the law. that is to say build in some presumptions that if someone gives money to the spender and either that spender solicited the money, specifically telling the donor they would use it to make independent expenditures, electioneering communications, that boehner should be disclosed. if there is substantial discussion between the spender and donor, the true source of the funds, about the fact that money would be used for election at, that money should be disclosed. if the donor had knowledge money was going to be used by the standard for political ads, that the owner should be disclosed. finally, if the recipient of the money that is making these

expenditures, if they have made substantial expenditures in past election cycle that would put the donor on notice the money will likely be used again for expenditures, political expendatures, then that the owner should be disclosed. those are some concepts that are not an hour laws but should be considered to be put into our disclosure laws. >> thank you so much. allen with a slightly different perspective. >> this is why i went to law school. i would use this one bid i will be playing the role of the loyal opposition today. it bears mentioning that those of us on the broadly defined right don't one of corrupt government anymore than anyone else. there is already a problem with this closure.

eight out of nine judges agree that --already some much of it. i have a half page of notes of why it is the case but frankel -- thankfully my co-panelists demonstrated super pacs have the exact same reporting requirements as normal ones. fairly substantial. i was not one to discuss these off the bat but since that is the direction this conversation is going, i will briefly pushed back. we have not yet seen at the russian doll problem. you are right, it might be at the end of this month we find out there are hundreds of millions of dollars just swirling out there. i find that extremely unlikely for a few reasons. mostly just economic. the fact of the matter is a c4 can spend money on political advocacy -- but at a minimum they cannot spend more than 50% of what they are actually taking in on ads and the nation's and things of that nature. so, anyone who wants anonymity badly enough to take a 50% cut right off the top of the contribution, i just don't see that happening. second of all, and the of the

money that is not spend actually is taxed. generally the money that is handled by c4 as non-taxable income, contribution might be under a gift tax. but if you are spending 49%, as a worst-case scenario, of your c4 the nation as political at the same money, all of that is taxable. again, another hair cut coming off on top of the contribution. an extraordinarily inefficient way of influencing politics if that is what you are trying to do. i should also point out that a lot of the c4's -- i think people see them as shadow organizations like americans for apple pie, who are terrible people, let me tell you. but it is nra, sierra club, most of the people you would think as major advocacy organizations as c4's. but i think you have to keep in mind a couple of things -- one, a lot of the people who are c4's jeter of the not make

fortunes from billionaire contributions. they take donations from a large number of people and they reflect a reasonable grassroots approach. so i think painting c4's as an enemy in this year's election is a mistake. i may be proved wrong, as i said, because there is so much disclosure. in england today i think it is very unlikely we will see all of us funneling of money through c4's. that is my shield. they're four separate people to rebut me. let me give you my overall view of how disclosure should work. i think this is a lot of what the supreme court had in mind. i tend to take issue with the idea that the supreme court said, here is our ruling on a major first amendment case but we really do not know what we are talking about with disclosure. citizens ninth and had an excess of briefs from everybody and their mother -- citizens united had amicus briefs from everyone and their mother. i did not think the supreme

court was uninformed talking about disclosure. they did not suggest particular changes, that future cases would turn on those enactments, and i am not sure it impacts the constitutionality of any sort of legislation. i would tend to think, and i am sure you all would agree, that most of the disclose suggestions brought to congress would possibly -- probably pass constitutional muster but it does not make it a good idea. we should not read the supreme court's opinion as saying, what you guys need to do is pass a new law and disclosure. the case is basically saying there is a lot of the school is out there and that is out of r.c. deals with the problems. an alternative view. in my view, it is a question of who should be disclosing a contributions. in my view, that should be the person controlling the content. this idea that will ever at any point in your entire chain of funding might have given a dollar, i think, is dangerous.

a lot of people say, look, the chamber of commerce spends $30 million in 2010 election. we want to know precisely the membership is if you give them the money. if you are going to go that direction yet to be consistent and say the nra also spends money and we should get their membership list. i think that sort of approach would pose great constitutional problems. and i think that -- i look forward -- to anyone in this table. as far as what is disclosed, this is a related issue. a colleague of mine i think that a very good idea, which is to take the dalbert standard and use it as a starting point. what it says broadly -- and trust me, you do not want to get into the details -- is information being brought in as expert testimony if it is enlightening to the jury in some way. i think it is a reasonable standard. i think there is a real danger we are giving all sorts of information clogging the tubes

which no one will look up and not relevant to anyone's vote and just a burden on the people who have to do the disclosing. for instance, right now, the pac/slink super pac disclosure limit is 200 -- $200. i cannot see how that can be considered a corrupting amount of money given the scale of politics in this country and i am not sure who has benefited being able to look up the name and address an employer of somebody who gave $200. i think that is frankly junk that is out there in the world, and people can look it up, but it does not really move anything, change any votes. it is not relevant to any of the standards the supreme court has put out there. as for when, this is the toughest one from my view, my side. i do see the point -- we had the election in iowa, and we are not going to know who is funding these ads after the straw poll and primary, whatever.

that is a fair point. i wonder how many people who say we need to have -- disclosure act to remove the word for a political committee or campaign. i am in a room of politician types. who has worked in the campaign? who did the filing work? none of you. that is not helpful for me. it really is an extremely difficult and burdensome process. i think the reasonableness of a 24-48-hour window, we do with expenditures, is manifest. i am not entirely clear on how you would go about getting around the problem -- spending money or taking in money the day before the election and then turn around in five minutes and posted on line. it does not strike me as a way you run a business or organization. similarly -- and i think this is almost as important -- you cannot only disclosing your donors but also your spending. you disclose your spending a moment it becomes an obligation. if you buy an ad and it will air a day before the election,

you disclose it did the day you bought it, not the day before the election. the likelihood it will end up on a report. , and gives money the day before the election, the money did not go to the ad that was being aired that day. the money it was going to go into another election. continuing forward. i think in practice it is less of a concern than people think it is. adding more of that spending is picked up that sort of the rhetoric would lead you to believe. but i am sure we will discuss that in some detail. finally, the question of where you disclosed. i am all for online disclosure. i think not having searchable databases, and having these terrible pdf's is horrid and there is no excuse for that given the amount we spend on all sorts of other ridiculous things. so, i definitely think it is common ground. we are probably not going to agree -- and this came up in the disclose act, and in the bill -- the advertisement

itself. you know the stand by your add language, where i am allen dickerson and money for dogcatcher and i approve of this message. maybe that has a certain role. i think in the area of independent expenditures it is less hopeful. just for a few reasons. one is saying, i am a candidate and approve this, it has content. i am crossroads gps i approve this, the not tell anyone anything, which the next step -- you include that. and this is an actual example from massachusetts. here is the organization who approved it. i am the general counsel for chief executive officer or prison. and this is my name. and i approved it. and here are our top 5 donors. i do not know how you are supposed to fit it into a 15-

second radio ad or 30-second tv spot. unless you get the micro-machine guy to show up and say it fast or none of the information is conveyed. you are taking half of your air time that you paid for that is protected first amendment activity and taking it right off the top, because you will put in all the information that will probably not change a single person's vote in the commonwealth of massachusetts. i didn't look forward to the constitutional challenge to that both there and other localities -- i definitely look forward to the constitutional challenge. it would immediately make it into a case before the d.c. circuit's -- d.c. circuit, and it would also tie up a lot of people's hard-earned money. actually an entire page of commons and all of your stuff -- but i will wait. >> thank you so much. so, all four of you have raised important issues. of course, we will get questions from the audience in a bid as well. i want to pick up on one thing that allen was saying, which is, with the information not being disclosed, does anybody look at it as a valuable?

or is it just a burden? i think i will start from eli -- with eliza, a reporter's perspective -- trolling through information, looking for stories -- please, talk. >> i probably spend a lot more time than i should looking through a campaign finance documents. i do want to acknowledge allen's point about nonprofits, and it would be wrong to send that -- at least i think nonprofits are the enemy. i think it is just a statement of fact that there is no disclosure are around nonprofits. talking about disclosure, we have to of knowledge that. and the also touched on an important point is when you go into requiring disclosure from nonprofits you are in a difficult and controversial area. there may be an argument, what we really need to do is get the irs being more aggressive saying to nonprofits, if you spend all of your money on campaigns, you are really not a tax-exempt group anymore.

this to go to the question of disclosure and why it is useful to people like me, i really don't think it is junk disclosure. you would be amazed how useful it is. how useful it is to be able to look at the reports to see who the treasurer is, to call the treasure, you cannot call the donors. even though disclosure that is there is not that comprehensive. a lot of times the place of unemployment is not listed. an amazing number of campaign finance reports that has 0000 -- like they found the report and there is no money. and a letter from the public record from the fec saying we request and the nation. an amazing amount of junk disclosure in the sense that it is not actual disclosure. but i think in the internet age, i really am a little hard pressed to see why it is so hard. and i would say from a legislative point of view -- and i want to say quite clearly that it is not "roll call's" call to endorse legislation but to report on it.

but to the extent that i have any kind of argument on the legislative front, if it is not broken, don't try to fix it. don't try to fix what is not broken. and what i think is not broken is the current disclosure regime actually for political action committees. we are sitting here talking about all of these people knocking themselves out to avoid disclosure. there will always be people out there like that. but there are an amazing number of players who really want to just play by the rules. their whole thing is, just tell me what the rules are and let me follow them. so, if you are going to write legislation, i think there is a strong argument for keeping it pretty simple. i think one of the reasons last year's disclosure act ran into trouble is it was a pretty complicated bill. keep it simple -- a symbol vehicle for people who've been not feel like using non-profit or super pacs and just want to spend campaign money the old- fashioned way, through political action committees.

that is one thing i would not get rid of and i don't think it is junk disclosure. >> an additional point, one question that was raised was what was going on at the state level. maybe mimi you can talk about that a little bit. >> sure. that is an incredibly hard question to answer because the states are all over the map. to tell you the truth, it can be wildly difficult. and i am sitting as an attorney who fields calls from state advocates around the country, from state lawmakers, asking questions about policy. and for me, it is extremely complicated actually to get through the various web of laws and all the different states. and i think it -- i understand it is extremely complicated for groups on the ground trying to comply. i guess i will say three main trends we are seeing and one recommendation.

trends -- many, many states, i think, found themselves flatfooted after citizens united. not everywhere, but a perception at least among many state lawmakers that the rules of the game were changed. there is a lot more money coming in in new ways, and their disclosure regime is not equipped for it at all. some of that is a correct perception, citizens united did change rules. some of it is just evolution in political campaigning, the natural course. but regardless, there has been -- i think there is a sense of urgency certainly in many states to enact new disclosure regimes and strengthening the existing laws. there has also been a push and a lot of places to bring things online, which i can agree with everybody on the table that it is a -- i mean, in a situation of campaign finance and voting

and many other areas of the laws -- automating, processes, getting things online, at actually attends -- tends to be more efficient and there are all sorts of benefits. a recommendation, but -- and this gets to eliza's point, a struggle a lot with lawmakers and the state level that has the campaign finance disclosure bill that are frankly extremely complicated and usually they are cobble together from existing state law, federal law, the law from neighboring states. it is difficult to know what to do about that, because i understand many of these people are working with very different staff and they are not experts in the field, and there are a lot of barriers. but i completely agree with what many people have said. one of the best things you can do as a policy maker is think about ways to achieve your policy goals that are straightforward, with clear-cut rules that are easy for

everybody to understand. and then also have some sort of enforcement mechanism, which is something people tend to overlook. >> i would like to ask the two gentleman, one of the issues that was raised a couple of times, in the opening remarks, has to do with coordinations and the appearance or actuality of corruption. there was a " that the dangerous and the danger of supertax is to favor the impact of large super pac contributors. large contribution to create your the actuality or the appearance of corruption, they may feel indebted to the people who are making the donations. at the same time, we see from the super pac side that many of them are being run by close associates of current

candidates. two examples, just to be evenhanded, there is a major super pac for mitt romney run by three of his aides from the 2008 campaign. looking at mr. gingrich, his former spokesman is helping to run it. he said "we are newt's super pac. we take our marching orders -- i do what newt tells me through the media, and it is always within the confines of law." it seems like it certainly accretes indeed creates the appearance of a quid pro quo. whether the court nation rules are real, whether the corruption or appearance of corruption is real, and if the answer is yes, what is the proper response?

>> if you go back in read citizens united, which is good to do be have about 12 extra hours on your hand, one of the concerns is the fact that you need a bright line rule. if you don't say these people get to speak in these people don't, or these people get to use this type of vehicle. two things happen. one is that everyone goes around being scared to death of a federal investigation, or they have to hire one of us. >> you can speak for yourself on that. >> don't worry, i am pro bono. what one lawyer at an unreasonable amount money, you have to worry about these varying in greece. this is not a question of a nice, byner thing. right now the rule is, you contribute to a super pac, and does it take on infinite expenditure?

it is relatively straight forward under the current law. you are done, you pack up and go home. if the standard is, how close is too close for the candidate? is jonathan's father to close? is newt gingrich's former campaign manager to close? it is something that the citizens united majority was concerned about. part of what i am saying is that i don't know, because there's a nice, bright line in the current law that says as long as it is not coordinated, meaning that in tibet some of the actual spending of money you did not discuss x and y, then your fine. >> there's a recent decision

which upheld the government's power to bar contributions up from nonresident aliens. you can distinguish between people who are domestic and foreign, but then you have corporations that own parts of domestic corporations, and as bright line rule is being really helpful, it get smeared all over the table. as you discussed it, is it really a question that congress should be dealing with, and make that kind of determination, as opposed to saying this is too much, to close or not close enough. that is why you have a regulatory process to make those decisions in the first place the people know what they are supposed to do. >> that is one of the reasons i think the fcc's rulemaking is so broken. when you are talking about corporations, the preliminary

debate is an interesting one, but i do see a difference. i agree with brad, not merely because i work for him. there is this idea, and citizens united, everyone says one of the big interests is that american citizens have a right to be informed by the broad range of views, including the corporations that are a big part of the economy. a lot of people say fine, what is the difference. if the right is held by the american people as voters, why should they not be interested in the opinions of the chinese government. it is because they take the quote out of context. what the cu says is you have the right to hear from everyone who reside within the community. this is a very old idea, where we ought to sit there and talk

amongst ourselves and people come together in opinion as a community. i don't find the concept weird that we are excluding the reduced of the chinese are the russian government. we do this all the time, whether you have to fall with the sec. we do it for tax purposes, for customs purposes, whether or not you are i.p. address falls under that. these are questions for people who make more than election lawyers. they have been fighting over it for decades. if you went to any reputable law firm, you'll get a pretty solid answer. i take your point on needing a bright line rule, but what about this?

you are asking a question of corporate law. i think there is an answer in corporate law. >> one of the things i have found to be infinitely frustrating since the birth of the super pacs is consistent misreporting in the press of some notion, creating the impression that super pacs have to be independent from candidates. the law does not require that. allen alluded to that. they cannot create discreet, specific expenditures with candidates, and that rule is, in my view, will with some resizable holes. another federal law says super pacs cannot solicit a limited contributions, and for reasons i will get into in a second,

also very weak and modest provision. they are the only two provisions i know that constrain the relationships super pac betweens and candidates. the cannot cornet on certain expenditures in the cannot solicit unlimited contributions under rule that is pretty weak. it is week because the federal election commission ruled last year that a candidate attending in speaking in being a featured guest at a fund-raising event does not constitute a solicitation. it is perfectly legal we have seen mitt romney showing up at a fund-raising event for restore our future. we have this notion built-in, don't worry america, this money is being spent independently of candidates, so it cannot corrupt the candidate. then you have mitt romney appearing at an event that is creating contributions and making comments to the press that he perceives those

contributions as being made to him, which is another anecdote that gets to the notion that we don't have a russian doll problem yet, but before i tell rules for a second. you that brief anecdotes, i want to talk about coordination while there is a blackout period of 120 days for a former employee of a candidate to go to work for a super pac, that provision does not apply if or unless that individual conveys to the super pac information that is material to the creation of a specific ad, and that information is not obtained from a publicly available source like the candidate's website. to some degree there is a revolving door provision, but it is very modest in its application. allen made a remark that we don't have a russian doll problem yet. this ties into some comments

mitt romney has made to the press about a million dollar the owner, from one of his friends. there were few super pacs in the cycle when the last comprehensive reports were due to be filed on july the 21, 2011. what a journalist fine when they began combing through the reports? three separate $1 million contributions from corporations no one had ever heard of. one had been created last spring and made a million dollar contribution to restore our future in the spring, and that it was dissolved in july. the reporter could not find any information other than a manhattan address that was shared with the same building that the bain capitol office was then. we filed a complaint saying we don't know what is going on, but it looks shady and it looks

like it may violate another federal law that prohibits making a contribution in the name of another. what we speculated was that there was a human out there behind his corporate shell and then made a million-dollar corp. to this corporate shell. the classic russian dog problem, may or may not be prosecuted as a violation of the law. the fcc has a weak track record of enforcing federal law. i wake up on saturday morning and sometime in the friday night or saturday morning, a human being important said sorry, that was me. i believe it was the next day that mitt romney was on the campaign trail and he was asked about it. he said no harm, no foul, he is an old friend of mine, he gave me a million dollars, no problem, moving on. he had not given a million he had not given a million dollars to mitt romney, he had