host: this is a breakdown of the states who have voter i.d. laws. green have strict laws, yellow -- blue -- the gray states have no voter i.d.that is broke down- state across the country. independent caller, go ahead. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. i think it is a good idea. for anybody who is interested in voting, look into it. the driver's license is too expensive. besides the driver's license, i believe states also use a state i.d. cards.

there has to be some measure put in place. just to cast our aspersions or so. there has to be some photo id in place. host: here is a tweet. we go to a republican in at san antonio, texas. good morning. we lost her. a democrat in the texas, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i live in plano, texas. in a 2010 it was the first time ever ask for a driver's license which kind of shocked me because

i had a voter registration card. you cannot get one of those without some sort of valid id. that has always been the case here in texas. i still like this is already being used across the country. something to prevent ethnic groups, older people. there are a lot of older people whose driver's license and has expired. then they will go to the polls to vote. their license are expired. host: you disagree with the texas law? caller: yes, i do disagree. host: what about the argument that it is not that hard to go

and get some sort of identification? caller: it is not that hard for the vast majority of people. but for people with lower incomes, older people, elderly who find it hard time getting out of the house, it is a bit difficult for them. they might not even have a valid birth certificate. with a very old population here. host: to you agree with this? -- do you agree with this? from "the new york times." the think it could be that high? host: i do, yes.

especially down in the southern states. i do agree with that. even if you were to say, ok, this can open the door to voter fraud. there are not enough people who have valid ids that could throw an election. voter fraud in our country is not the great big issue. i feel like since the tea party republicans in 2010 and that whole election took over, i feel they are trying to make it sound like it is some huge thing that could throw a presidential election out the window. it is simply not. that is my personal opinion. host: that is brian in taxes on

our democrat line. i want to give you some other news this morning. we got your opinion yesterday about those billions in afghanistan on sunday. it is something we will be talking about in about a half- hour. here is the new york times. the obama administration is discussing whether to reduce american forces in afghanistan by at least an additional 25,000 troops -- 20,000 troops by 2013. the mission has reached the point of diminishing returns. we will talk about that. despite other headlines with president obama, the pull out out of afghanistan. a little bit more about a suspected shooter. new questions emerged about a staff sergeant.

he had a three deployments in iraq. military officials treat thousands of such. by the way, the defense secretary, leon panetta and weighed in on this late monday,

saying the soldier could get the death penalty. the soldier who faces under army investigation for denying psychiatric care traumatized by, that is the most treacherous part of afghanistan. we will talk about it coming out. there has been an investigation into the lack of psychiatric care there. again, we will be talking about that coming out. on politics 2012, primary tuesday is what it is being called. here is the local paper from alabama, mississippi. "the birmingham news."

decision t romney's lead could beat solidify or shaken in the contest to rack up as many delegates as possible for the gop nomination. scott, a republican. for more information go to our website. what you think about your state's voter i.d. laws? caller: it is discriminatory, but it should be. it is going to discriminate against people who are here illegally. people who should not be voting. anybody who believes illegal immigrants should be voting in our elections are just full of

it. that seems to be the opinion of the ad -- of the obama administration. did you been able to vote on a provisional ballot without any idea whatsoever. -- if you have been able to vote on a provision about without any ide whatsoever. we'll see if any of the provisional ballots are good balance. 99% of the time they are not and will not count. the only people it is going to discriminate against other people who are not supposed to be voting. host: what about these tweaks that texas lawmakers wanted to make? the conservatives rejected another suggestion to help voters without an id card apply for one.

an amendment for free access to get a card. they rejected that, too. caller: they should have. it should not be the expense of the state to make sure you get an idea if you want to vote. you can't get on an airplane without an idea. there are a lot of things. you cannot a library card. if you think you ought to be able to vote and cancel my vote without any sort of id at all? that is ridiculous. host: all right. and in depend in bakersfield californian. caller: i missed the backdrop. host: we will be up there shortly. caller: ok. there are no statistics that show -- i have no doggedness.

i am voting for buddy roemer. i am just interested in the whole legal process. no stats show that illegal aliens vote, first off. the killing of the american citizen in a foreign nation raw, but i think he got this one right. these laws are disingenuous. they are about -- they are about voter suppression. i was there would be honest about that. the only really good facts that are out there are from the justice department. if they don't like it, they can go to other places. it is of voter suppression that is a huge problem. this will probably make it to the supreme court. really, it will be about the interpretation of the voting rights act. you cannot have any loss of the state level that would this importantly disenfranchise any group. that is just what the legal

aspect is all about. i think all of these states that passed these laws, they're going to have to completely waiver the system in which people do not have to pay any money for it. otherwise, we are back to jim crow. again, it is a huge problem in this country, a voter suppression. that is where the stats come out. i think it is disingenuous. i wish there would be truthful about it and say they want to stop a whole bunch of people blindly who are all going to vote democrat. both political parties are two sides of the same coin. they're going to spread ads through contested states. we need to look at the whole system.

that is what buddy roemer is all about. you can go ahead and vote for buddy roemer. host: all right. i'm going to leave it there. i will show you the "the wallstreet journal" editorial. that is what the "the wallstreet journal" editorial says.

a democratic caught in las vegas. good morning. caller: i just want to say, i used to live in houston. recently, i have been trying to help my adoptive mother dared get her id card. her purse was stolen. the only thing she has is a copy of an old driver's license. when she went to the dmv to try to get a new id card, she did not want a driver's license, they told her they needed her birth certificate. she was originally born in louisiana in 1929. so they were not given a birth certificate. they're given a certificate of baptism from a church in a small town she was born in. ok. she got that. people at the driver's license plates told her that was unacceptable. so she has nothing.

she has her expired driver's license, but it would not accept that. so there will not honor the certificate of baptism. this is all about suppression. i just want to say one other thing right quick. i went in and of people not know. was just kind onoticing. they did not ask me for identificaon, but i pulled out my driver's license anyway. they said they would call down the main office in housn at the voters place. and just make sure and check. they said it would take a little while. i said, i do not have anything but ti. i will wait. i happen to ok down and i w my name. at the time, she said, we can give you a provisional ballot.

but i did t realize that a provisional ballot there does not ally count. >> the conversation on voter i.d. loss continues on line. next up, lifat the white house for today's briefing. >> as kw, later this teoon, the president and the prime minister of great britain will be traveling to the dayton, ohio. the president looks forward to hosting the prime minister tt day ncaa tournament gam you probab already know if you're a fan. we appreciate thr hospitality. dayton is the home of the wright brothers and guided by voices, the greatest banand the rock- and-roll era. in my opion.

[laughter] i am not a sports guy. at least in this job. >> my question is on afghanisn. the psident talking aut the killing of afghan civians. he said we will make sure that anyone who was involved, i did want to verify. is there some reason to think there was more than one person involved? >> i think y probably know there was a briefing at the defense department's where this was discussed. i would refer you t my colleagues over at the pentagon. there is an investigation ongoing. my understanding is there is no reason to believe there was more than one of shooter, but they e talki to a number of individuals as part of tt investigation. for more details, though, you should go to the pentagon. >> also, i wanted to go back to

the issue of troop withdrawal. the president said twice tay that he wants to bring an end to e war responsibly. he talked yesterday about not hang a rush. last week he said he was a gradual withdrawal. all of thosehings pointo a gradual, methodical withdral. is there any reason in the next couple weeks for something differt than that? >> let'be clear. the president's pocys to withdraw our troops from afghanistan as we transfer security responsibility to afghan forces. that is the strategy he put into place. that is the strategy he has been implementing. we are in the middle of the drawdown of the surge forces. as you know, by the end of this summer those 33,000 troops will be home. he has said that we wi continue to remove u.s. forces

beyond a drawdown of the surge forces. the pace of th withdraw has not been decided. i think it is important to understand tt despite recent advance, the strategy is broadbased strategy. it looks at e achievement of our objectives and the fact that this president is committed to ending the war in afghanistan responsibly, in a way that ensures we have successfully taken e fight to al qaeda, which is the number one primary objective of the strategy. and that we have stabilized afghanistan so that afghan security forces can be responsible for the securitof their nation. we can ensure that afghanistan will not be host to al qaeda in the future. >> the pace has not been

decided. i understand nothing is formalized. but the president's language has consistently suggested gradual, steady withdrawal after september. i am wondering if that is still the position or if there is, in factored? >> i think we have made clear, for some time now, theace of the withawal of the remaining 68,000, after the surge forces are withdrawn,sful implementatie strategy. that remains the case. contrary to reports that appeared today, there are no options being reviewed with specific numbers aached to them. that is simply false. the present is committed to drawing down forces, removing ameran troops from ghanistan.

during that in a way that allows us t achieve our objective. that has not changed. >> does the white house have any more information about the brain trauma he may have had? was he redeployed too qckly? >> i do not have any informatn within regards to any individual. -- to any individual who may or may not be involved in this incident. as you may guess, i will not comment on the specifics of an investigation thatas just now got underway. >> are you concerned at all about e issue of being deployed or redeployed too early? >> again, i cannot comment on that. -- on that in relation to any specific aspect of this being

investigated. i have not read an acknowledgement of the specifics that you stated regarding one individual. the general issue of the duration of the war in afghanistan, of the duration of th wars, iraq just having ded. and one that the eire national security apparatus is sensitive to, a remarkable sacrifice of commitment women in uniform is something that this president comments on all of the time, both publicly and prively. the toll that that takes on the individuals as well as on families is substantial. he ivery aware of that. that is why he has matured the care the veterans receive is as

top-notch as it can be a providing the resources necessary to eure that. and why he is so committed to ensuri that our returning veteranset extra help as they enter the job market ian economy that is still just recovering from a terrible recession. >> , an announcement about the wt -- an announcement about the wto case. why the timing of that? was the context of the election and the republicanace driver for that? >> icame out today because the time was appropriate to announce this new trade case. in this new trade case, that taken up agait china on the

issue of rare earth materials. it is consistent with t approach this presenhas taken since he took office as i think youeard, a number of officials say in the past, ani will repea we have taken cases against china to the wto alst double the previous mistration. but was back to early 2009 when we won. the results have been that 1000 americans have had help in ensuring they keep their jobs because of that action. our president's commitment to ensuring that america's workers and businesses compete on a level playing field with competitors around e globe, in this case china, has been extremely rm since he took office. i think tt is demonstrated by a series of actions we have taken with regard to china specifically, but also other countries when it comes to trade

fairness. this is that commitment, as of that announcement the president made the ste of the union address. to establish of a trade enforcement unit. that is part of this ongoing effort to make sure that the chinese understand -- again, it is not aimed solelat china at all. but the chinese understand that they need to compete on a lev playing field. if they do, we have no problem with that. we certainly feel that, given that opportunity, if you will, ifur businesses will be highly competitive. when you're talking about rare earth, these are imported materials because they are the materials that are essential to technoloes like cellular phones and hybrid vehicles and advanced batteries. the united states of america needs to dominate in the 21st century if we're going to succeed in having an economy built to last. >> -- republican criticism about

it? >> no. yeah i guess you could say we have been doing that for three years. the fact is, we have been at this for three years. we think this is the right tng to do. we made that clear on the president's trip to asia not that long ago, last year. he has made it clear and this administration has made it clear from the very beginning. again, in 2009, citing that very early case at the wto against china. it is an ongoing effort. this is just part of those efforts. our busesses, our workers have a fair shot at cpeting obally. >> he said that in terms of the

strategy, the president has been awol and apologetic. i wonder if he can off any comment about that. >> i did not see those comments. i think everyone who is uncovering afghanistan understands, clearly, that when the president took office, he inherited a war in afghanistan that had been adri. it had a lack of focus. i remember the vice president saying that when he went out during the transition to afghanistan, on behalf of the president-elect, that he came back and was able report. when asked what the mission was, he would get 10 different answers. the present was committed to change that. committed to focusing again our efforts in afghanistan on our primary objective which was,

after all, al qaeda. that was lost. i would be amazed if senator kyl could express a doubt. this president has taken a fight very directly to al qaeda. that is absolutely result of his very focused, very clear in that strategy in afghanistan a in the afghanistan/pakistan region. this is a challenging mission in a very challenging part of the world. even a week -- even as we have executed this very clear-eyed policy. this president made clear when he was running for office what he would do with regards to afghanistan and he has delivered very much on what he said he would do. he is delivering now as he withdraws u.s. forces from afghanistan in keeping with the

strategy he outlined. bill. anybodyyou start, if has not seemed bill's piece on alabama, you should check it out. bill covered the original events in selma. he was there last week and it is worth watching. sorry to embarrass you. go. [laughter] >> the presidency to be going out of his way to pay more attention to the prime minister. is this because he is perceived to sort of shrug off the so- called special relationship? >> no. ihink the fact that we are hosting the prime minister in the manner that we are demonstrates the nature of the relationship between ourcountri. the fact that it is a special relationship. i think that was evidenced by the manner in which president obama was hosted in london last

year. this is a great opportunity for the presidency to reciprocate that hospitality. and setting aside those formalities, this is an extremely important relationship. we were speaking with arledge to put china. our relationship -- our trade relationship with china is extremely important. i not think most people know that. key ally across the globe. in afghanistan, in our efforts in libya, and in syria, around the globe. the middle east.

i think the nature and the trappings of the visit are very appropriate with the kind of relationship we have with great britain. >> not everybody gets to watch basketball with the president. >> i think it is reflective of the type of relationship we have with the united kingdom and the previous relationships between presidents and prime ministers. it is a relationship in the country but i think is reflected by the at tannery that as been developed for this trip. i do not think it is a surprise to anyone that this administration wants to continue to build on that ng standing, very special relationship. >> e poll also had interesting data. it said that 54% of americans

think that gas prices are something the president can do a lot about. since the president has said repeatedly there is no silver bullet, is there disconnect or the public is saying, yes, there is something you can do. >> off putting aside individual polls and what they say, we are focused on the implementation of policies that will enhance our energy security, reduce our reliance on foreign oil imports, diversifyhe sources of energy that we have, that we depend on in this country, and by doing so, growth the industries that create good jobs in this country. there is no question that there is frustration at their in the country because of the high price of gasoline. we have seen that occur over the years, almost on a regular basis, every couple of years every year. it happened last, it happened in the 2008. i am sure in the time you have

been covering washington is has happened more than that. what is a simple am engaged in this discussion with you and with others off-camera, is that, regardless of how we got there, and we got there in part because of the actions of this administration, but regardless of what folks may say that got us there, we are producing -- we have dramatically increase our production of oil and gas in this country in the last three years since president obama took office. that is a fact. it is also a latest push bac the have increased our production on public lands and waters by 13%. this is all to the good. this is all in keeping with the president's strategy -- and all of the above a strategy. as we try to diversify and

become more independen it also points to the fact that simply by increasing oil and gas in this country, you will not then, necessarily, lower prices at the pump. prices at the pump are dependent on a whole series of factors. there directly correlated to the global price of oil. we are producing more. we are importing less. the price of gas goes up. that is because of the growth of china, india, and brazil, and other places. unrest in the middle east. a number of factors. only a handful of which we can control. in that situation, they focus on a strategy that will continue to diversify our imports. continue to diversify our strategy. create a situation in the future we will not be subject to the

wild fluctuations in the oil markets as we are today. he is also very focused on what americans are having to endure right now when they fill up their gas tanks. he has made sure, as i think i talked about yesterday, that the justice department's has reconstituted the group that looks into potential fraud and speculation. he wants to ensure that we are making sure that kind of activity is not taking place and that consumers are not getting gouged. he is looking at a variety of ways that we can reduce the price -- if possible, reduce the price of gas or believe what is driving gas up in this country. that includes bottleneck issues and likthat around the country. it is a fallacy, as i said yesterday, that there is some

three-point plan, or some five- point plan that could, magically if you wave a wand, reduce the price that americans are paying per gallon of gas. i suggested that anybody who said that wod be a liar. i should have said that anybody who said that does not know what he is talking about. >> there are positive polls as well saying that more americans believe the president's policies will lower gas prices than they believe republican policies will. aaa respondents said they changed their habits. some of them, 60% forxample, say they now bought or leased a more energy-efficient example -- 16% for example, say they now bought or leased in energy- efficient vehicles. how does that fit into the all- of-the-above strategy?

>> i think the american people are focused on their lives and getting by. putting gas in the gas tank, getting their kids to school. paying the mortgage or the rent. how people in the future approached the decisions about buying cars remains to be seen. what historic fuel efficiency standards that this president put into place through executive action, working with all the major automobile companies, americans who buy cars in the future will be like buying cars at a much more fuel efficient by 2025. thaverage will be something like 54.5 mpg. that means an enormous amount of savings. $1.70 trillion saved in costs for the american consumer.

that iimportant. everybody knows it. in the future, we and other countries, by necessity, will be relying on a a ray of energy sources. solar, fossil fuels, biofuels, wind, advanced batteries. we need to be in the thick of the competition in all of those industries. not just fossil fuel production, but all of them. that is the president's approach. that result in jobs in this country. it will result in more energy independence in this country. >> humans are right what is reporting that syria -- a land

mines in turkey. what is your reaction to that? does your intelligence match those reports? >> i will not discuss intelligence. i was simply say that i am not surprised by, and no one in his administration would be surprised by dangerous, militaristic behavior by the regime. after all, they have been waging war on their own people for many, many months now. the toll of that war continues to increase. the syrian regime is writing its own horrific page in history. the history of their country and the region. ought we continue to work with our international partners and allies -- we continue to work with our international partners and allies to make clear to the assad's actions are

intolerable. we're working to get assistance to the syrian people. and to try to bring about a resolution that results in him no longer being in power and syrians being able to decide the fate of their country. >> is there a tipping point in assyria? more intervention? >> providing arms is one topic that i get asked about and others have discussed is not a move that we are considering right now. we believe it could heighten and prolong the violence in syria. we're also still learning about the composition of the armed opposition in syria.

as we engage with our allies on the matter, it is our position that we do not want to contribute to an organization because likely down a very dangerous road. >> looking for a little bit, the president visiting south korea at the end of the month, can you talk about the decision? what will his message be to south korea, given the recent developments? >> i will say, simply, that we coordinate very closely with our south korean allies with regards to north korea. on a whole host of other issues, i think, speaking of state visits, when the south korean leader was here, it made clear to the world how vital we consider that relationship -- that partnership. that alliance with the south koreans. we are engaged with the south

koreans on a whole host of issues, including -- on economic issues, on defense issues. and all of this. at the summit was obviously about nuclear security. our relationship with south korea is vital and strong and it has ever been. i am not sure what we have announced, but a visit to the dnc would be reflective of the president's commitment to both security on the korean peninsula and the need for north korea to live up to its international obligations and return to the community of nations. in the speaking hypothetically. i'm not confirming that at all. yes, jake. [laughter] >> the president used the term

of murder. as you know, that as a legal meaning. are we to read anything into this as the first time he used to murder to describe what happened? >> i think innocent afghan civilians were killed. how that happened and why that happened is under investigation. i would not go beyond that. i just think he was going beyond that. it is the fact that innocent afghan civilians were killed, as i understand it. it is a tragic event. as the president said, it is not reflective of who we are. it is reflective of the values of the american military. he certainly believes, and i know that everyone in this administration and everyone over at the pentagon believes that we need to make sure this is fully investigated.

anyone involved will be held accountable. >> i don't know anyone asked about this already, but the pentagon seemed certain in a statement there is only one person involved. is the fact that the president is saying anyone involved, a suggestion that there might be others in the chain of command who were held responsible for other reasons? >> i understand a lot of things have been happening today and of the briefings that might have or have happened across the river may not have been caught up to here. but i think the pentagon discuss this. my understanding is that they are simply saying the investigation will include discussions with a number of individuals. it is still our understanding there is one shooter involved. for these details, adding the pentagon is the best place for information. -- the present was try to convey

-- >> i think the president is reflecting what the defense department is saying on this issue. >> not to suggest that anyone else is involved, but not to preclude any conclusion that my command of the investigation? >> i think that is right. he is making clear the investigation is to take its cour. you cannot make pre-judgments about it. anyone who might have information about it will be spoken to as part of the investigation. but beyond that, that is the best place to go. >> i ask because it is on the initial reports. troops are looking for the soldier, are trying to find him. there were initial reports that there had been more than one soldier involved.

the military does not think that is true. but when the president is an open-end a statement like that -- >> the stigma was reflected on the fact that the pentagon is making clear that investigators are working closely with army and afghan authorities. they also continue to interview a range of individuals with potential knowledge of these attacks. i do not know the nature of these interviews. they continue to indicate there was one the shooter. i want to be clear about that. i also want to be clear that the investigation will include interviews of a range of individuals with potential knowledge. >> can i go back to something you said the very beginning? you said it was totally false to discern from a report that there were officials in the administration advocating

specific numbers of troop withdrawals. i want to make travis and correctly. are you saying, by that, there is not a debate internally over the pace of withdrawal or whether withdrawal could be accelerated? because, that would run counter to debates with has always been a very vigorous debate between those who want to be aggressive and those who want to be more cautious. >> i can tell you why -- i cannot account for every conversation that happens around the water cooler or the takeout window, but i can tell you that from the report there are three options being considered is absolutely false. i can tell you a specific individual was pushing a specific individual is false. there is no specific option or specific policy at this point. this'll be the product of ongoing discussions with our nato allies. but i cannot really account for

the nature of reporting on this. i can tell you the specifics that i raised are inaccurate. >> one more question. is that to say that the notion of an accelerant withdraw has not come up? it could apply something very form on the table. >> i think we have made clear that the president, as part of his policy, -- the president's policy will result in bringing home troops by this summer. then, as per the decision made by nato in lisbon, the full transition will take place by the end of 2014. the president has made clear that american troops will continue to be drawn down after those 33,000 are withdrawn, but

the pace will depend on assessments made by commanders, by our nato allies. there is not a discussion about specific numbers for specific options at this time. it is simply not accurate. we are in the midst of bringing those 33,000 home. it is certainly premature to talk of a specific numbers and the timing of drawdowns beyond that. >> the general concept of an accelerated drive down -- is that being discussed? >> i think it just got that question. again, i cannot account for every conversation that might take place. but in an official atmosphere, or in official meetings, we are focused on the implementation. the strategy is all about fighting al qaeda, the

stabilization of afghanistan, and the gradual withdrawal of u.s. forces. that is happening and will continue to happen. >> it is hard to believe that in concept this is not being discussed. >> i can assure you that the nature of our decline in afghanistan, how that deployment will look beyond the end of the withdrawal of the search forces, their obviously be discussion with our nato partners. but there is not now and there will not be at the nato meeting an announcement of a number or a troop withdrawal schedule. that is not the purpose of the discussion. again, i cannot say i am privy

to every conversation that is taken place in every corner of the building, but i can tell you that the overall policy is focus on implementing the strategy that the president put into place. which, by the way, and this is important every bit in the stands -- has, at its component, the withdrawal of 33,000 troops by the middle of september. even as we continue to transfer security to the afghan forces, continue to take the fight to al qaeda, continue to stabilize the region of afghanistan. >> senator schumer and three other democratic senators are urging the ministration to do more than the president announced he was doing today, specifically senator schumer advocates urging the world bank to block financing for chinese mining projects.

why not do those things in addition to or instead of -- >> well, what the president announced is the action we are taking. the action at the wto is part of a consistent effort and a stepped-up effort in comparison to the previous administration in taking cases to the wto that has to do with unfair trade. and reflect the president's commitment to ensuring that american workers get to compete on a level playing field. this is a very strong action and reflect a commitment that the president has held since he took office. without getting into specifics of this case because i do not want to speculate about other actions, you can be sure that this it ministration is focused on leveling the playing field

through a variety of means. including our dialogue with the chinese and other countries where we have issues -- trade issues between us. this is a multi-faceted effort. the announcement today, a series announcement. again, the measure of that is evident by the action the administration has taken with the wto in the past and the result of those actions have had significant benefits for american workers here in the united states. >> the president trying to do something with china to have democratic senators? essentially, criticizing -- >> i think the fact that leaders in washington take this matter very seriously should not be lost on our trading partners

around the globe. we believe that we ought to be able to be on a level playing field. as with the section is about as with regards to the pirates was about. and many other activities in this space that we have engaged in. i cannot speak to the specific reactions by foreign governments, but the comments that you reference i think -- a reference, i think, reflects the desire to see a level playing field. >> with the health-care debate coming up, can you talk about how closely the president is planning on following the argument? has he met with officials? >> the president believes that the affordable care act is constitutional. i think i have made that case

here on several occasions. we believe and hope that the core or recognize that and i pulled it. beyond that, we are focused on the implementation of the affordable care act which is already providing significant benefits to millions of americans. young americans who have insurance that they otherwise would not have had. to seniors who are getting access to preventative services that do not have access to, or free services they would not have had access to. seniors who are enjoying huge savings on prescription drug bills. and the like. we are focused on implementation. a lot of milestones along the way in the implementation. that necessitates a lot of focus on behalf of the health-care team. the case itself will lead to the supreme court. i believe, we will be traveling,

as i understand it, on the day of those arguments. not that i'm aware of. >> thank you. going back to his question about china and wto actions and the politics of it. the announcement comes on a day of the republican primary. it comes when critics have been saying the president has not stood up. one of the analysts who is uncovering issues says that it is transparent he is doing this for electoral purposes. can you respond to that? >> i will respond in the way i have already responded. it is ridiculous, messy thing that all of the actions he took were taken for those reasons even the first few months of his administration, which is, of course, an absurd. the president's commitment on this has been evident since the very beginning. this is simply part of that

effort. the fact that it takes place on the day of the republican primaries, throws some spaghetti at a calendar and find a day when there isn't a republican primary and it is possible that could be the case in the weeks going forward. [laughter] i do not know. we are focused. the president's schedule is a complex organism. this was the appropriate to do it. he has an important ally coming to town. he has a state visit and a state dinner tomorrow night. certainly, many other matters to attend to. the timing is had to do with his schedule. is not politics. >> the rare earth thing has been around for at least two years, maybe three.

>> sure. because there is an issue, there are various steps about how these things develop. it is a pretty consequential decision and serious issues are made before you take a case to the wto. you do not do that on the first to you have a problem. i do not think that is a surprise. i refer you to the agency involved. of course, this is a very bought out process by which to make the decision to make a case and then you make that case in the presentation. i think i have answered this. again, chinese tires, to start. >> and just a slight fall. does this have anything to do with the discussion that the chinese made here recently?

is this sunday that the president or vice president discussed with him? was there a turning point in this discussion that led him to believe there were not the cooperation? >> not that i'm aware of. obviously, those conversations, as is the case would seem members of the chinese government, the overall issue of trade is often a subject. i do not know one way or the other whether this can not been any of the conversations with the vice president that china had. been an issue of contention for some time. there have been discussions, i am sure, at a variety of levels about it with the chinese. but and those discussions, and of course the problem have led us to this point. the president has announced a

new trade case on the issue. yes. no. [laughter] i cannot tell who you are yet with your new beard. >> the energy secretary, steven chu, said before a congressional panel, commenting about a european style of gas prices. did the president asked him to disclose on that? about those comments? >> no, he did not. this is an excellent opportunity to make the point that folks who cover this issue, who tried to suggest that the statement of someone who was not even in government at that time is somehow more significant indicator of the president's policy than the president's policy are engaging in politics, this issue. the president, on his watch over the past three years, has taken significant actions to increase domestic oil and gas production.

it is part of his all of the above approach. and to our energy needs and security. and i know that it is part of findun for folks to these quotes and to suggest they have some deeper meaning, and maybe that would be the case on monday one of the presidency, but we are in the fourth year -- are not the day one of the presidency, but we are in the fourth year of his presidency. he has a record of domestically pursuing domestic oil and gas production and a safe and responsible way on public lands, as well as private, ensuring that it continues on private lands and waters. and in pursuing aggressively alternative energy industries so that we can compete globally in the future in those industries. pursuing, on his watch -- after all, we have now fermented the

first nuclear power plant in 30 years. we are well on our way towards a doubling our renewable energy production. we are less dependent on foreign oil now in a significant measure that we were three years ago. those are the facts. i saw, right before i came out here, the comet that in may. i certainly -- a the comment that you made. you can report on the base on the energy secretary, but let's be clear on the president's policy. i would ask the secretary. partly because of what i am saying, there has been an attempt, a largely partisan attempt, to try to take comments like that and pretend that those are policy when in fact the policy reflects the contrary. >> could you talk about why the president thought it was

important to come out again today very publicly to talk about the afghan-shooting, particularly his commons directed to the afghan people? are they concerned that u.s. troops could face reprisals? >> look, i think it is a fair question. obviously the president was asked this yesterday in some regional tv interviews. but he has not spoken to you in the national press and the white house press corps. he felt and we felt it was important that, given the tragic events and a rather dramatic events of sunday, that he would address the issue with you here. it is also the case that he wanted to clearly express publicly what he did about his condolences to the afghan people, as he did in his phone

conversation with president karzai. i would not read more into it than that. yes, last one. >> on china, [inaudible] trade war with china, while romney says -- [unintelligible] is the white house worried about a trade war with china? >> this administration is focused on our very important relationship with china. the president believes, we believe, that china's rice is a good thing for the chinese is ae and -- china's rise good thing for the chinese people and for the united states. it is also important that china becomes a bigger and bigger economic power, that china play by the same set of rules that other major economic powers play by. and that is the approach the

president has taken. it is not one or the other, it is both. absolute engagement and a very important and complex relationship on a host of issues. it is also when we have differences, as we do in this matter, making them clear and taking action on them. >> the china commerce minister believes that the bill the president signed didn't allot today -- [unintelligible] violates the u.s. domestic trade laws, which american treasures most. >> i have not heard those comments. obviously the president signed the bill because he thought it merited signing. i do not have, with orders to that official statements. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> that last question dealing with the announcement of a new trade case with china, aiming to

attract out -- crackdown on unfair trading practices. the president welcoming british prime minister david cameron to washington for an official visit. the first part of that visit will be a trip to dayton, ohio, the n.c.a.a. tournament to see western kentucky and mississippi state play. tomorrow night at the white house, the obamas will welcome david cameron and his wife for a state dinner. coverage at 6:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. it is primary day in alabama and mississippi. as voters head to the polls, we will have live road to the row house -- wrote to the white house coverage for you this evening. we will also simulcast a portion of politico's election night coverage. if you miss any of it or want a link to our social media sites covering the campaigns, go to c-

span.org/campaign2012. >> we take our book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first week of each month. march featured shreveport, louisiana. >> mr. noel was a local man who was born here and lived here most of his life. he started accumulating boats and was a teenager and continued until he was in his 80's. he has accumulated over 200,000 volumes. if we have a gem in the collection, it is probably this one, one of the books we're most proud of. it is i in the original binding from 1699, and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. he has written his name, i. newton. we're not pulling it out so much anymore because it is starting to flake away. >> a mess -- american history to be looked as civil war era

medical practices. >> in near madison as a long stretch from what it is today. you consider that, the things we take for granted today when we go to the doctor, things like the instruments of being as a germ-free as possible or the doctor has washed his hands before he decides to work on us. we use the term loosely for doctors when we're talking early medicine. a lot of these doctors in our region or self-taught or they had worked under somebody else that was self-taught and they were getting ready to retire. they would just learn as they went. >> our tour continues the week of march 31 and april were from little rock, arkansas on c- span2 and c-span3. >> earlier today, secretary of state hillary clinton hosted the second global chiefs of mission conference at the state department. the foreign brings together hundreds of u.s. diplomats and

around the world to discuss the work of an ambassador. secretary clinton welcomed the u.s. ambassador from south sudan and talked about broadening u.s. relationships and asia-pacific region. introducing the secretary, her chief of staff and counselor cheryl mills. this is half an hour. [applause] >> great. [applause] [cheers and applause]

>> well, thank you all very much, and welcome to the global chief of mission conference. we're pleased and excited to have almost every ambassador and certainly all our leaders from state and usaid here today. i want to give a brief overview before i turn it over to the secretary. hopefully today, you'll find that all of your questions will be answered and all of the things you have wondered about, you know longer wonder about. [laughter] just to remind everybody, we're going to start out by having the secretary open the conference. she will speak about our priorities for the remainder of this year and a going forward. we will also have our deputies bill and tom join us to talk about specific priorities. and i will talk about where we are in the qdtr and next steps. we have been very focused on the practical aspects of advance the economic state crafts and our

own deputy chief of staff and more importantly director of policy and planning jencks jelaboun will be leading a panel discussion on that today. we will -- jake sullivan. we will go to lunch with walter isaacson, who will talk about leadership and drawing on the recent biography "steve jobs." at that lunch, we have the honor of hosting senator john kerry, who will be the keynote, sharing his perspective on congress. i know he will be super keen to answer your questions. we should take advantage to that opportunity, having one of the department's biggest champions here. this afternoon, we have arranged what i hope you will find to be a very useful series of seminars-style break out sessions, as well as other information on discrete areas of foreign policy. we will close to the tunnel session here with the secretary, as well as with the washington

leaders here. i want to take a quick moment to flag that during the break, there actually is in the exhibition hall a number of departments who have set of different points of contact where they can actually answer questions about programming and offer other information that you might find useful in the field. if you could take a moment to go through there, i think that would be useful to you. before we get started, want to thank a couple people in the department who have been uniquely support a finding this conference on. obviously, the incomparable pat kennedy, who always provides tremendous leadership. [applause] but he has been ably held by a team, including management policy chief, bill haw, and his deputy and the other staff members. we also have the facilities manager. of course, our executive team

led so impeccably by steve mull. [applause] last and not least, i want to remind you that the secretary's remarks are open press. so smile for the camera. [laughter] the rest of the conference will be closed press. without further ado, let me please introduce secretary of state hillary will rodham clinton -- hillary rodham clinton. >> thank you, cheryl. [applause] thank you all. welcome, and welcome home. it is a great pleasure for me to start this conference, our second ever global chiefs of mission conference. most of the time i see any of you, causing you more work and maybe more headaches as i am either on the end of a phone or actually in your country.

and this time i get to host. and we have planned a full day of even its. we could have filled a week, but we know how busy each and everyone that you happened to be. so we cannot take that much time away from what you are doing on behalf of our country. i want to especially thank again the team that put this together, and also cheryl mills who has been both chief of staff and a counselor, all around troubleshooter and problem- solver for the last three plus years, for which is a very grateful. it is almost hard to imagine how much has happened in the last year since we last met. the world has changed very quickly under our feet and before our eyes. the proof is in this room. we have one more person than we did last year, our ambassador to the newest country, south sudan.

when we hold this conference in the future, i hope we can count on an ambassador to burma among our ranks. because i know that we have no status quo in the world today. it is a dynamic, challenging environment, and each of you is called on it to play an increasingly complicated role. several of you have had to face not only uncertainty but dangerous and even physical threats over this past year. so i really want to extend my thanks to all of you. you truly are the finest colleagues i have ever had the pleasure of working with. i cannot imagine any secretary of state ever having a better team than all of you, and i am deeply grateful for your service and your support. well, over the last three years, we have ended one war, and we have begun to wind down another.

we are affirming our place as a pacific power, in case anyone ever doubted. we are strengthening our alliance with our european and nato partners. we are elevating the role of economics and development within our diplomacy to help create jobs here at home and to advance our strategic interests around the world. and of course we are reaching beyond government to engage directly with people, and many of you have been so creative and smart about doing that. conferences, seminars, travel, twitter, facebook. i mean, it has really been remarkable to see the accelerated outreach that i monitor back here in washington. and we're doing this amidst great volatility but also a great possibility. as we watched these transformations, first and foremost in the arab world but not exclusively there, we're

watching new powers rise, the redrawing of the strategic map. it brings new opportunities for partnership as well as growing economic competition. and, yes, new threats. al qaeda is weekend -- weakened but still dangerous. we have to be literally on our toes all the time. i believe that in this fast- changing world, american leadership is even more important. only america has the reach, resources, and relationships to anchor a more peaceful and prosperous world. as leaders within our country's foreign policy here at the state department and usaid, our goal must be to bolster america's position. not just for the rest of this year but for decades to come. last year i spoke about our institutional efforts to do so with the first ever quadrennial

diplomacy and a development review that you will hear more about. now we have implemented many of those recommendations to transform diplomacy and development efforts to better position us to deal with the world we face today and tomorrow. this includes adapting to new foreign policy imperatives, such as cybersecurity and the full range of cyber issues, standing up the first-ever bureau dedicated solely to energy issues and all that it entails, creating a new family of civilian security bureaus so we can better address the full range of interrelated issues that fuel conflict and instability, and of course we have a lot of work still ahead of us to try to consolidate the progress we have already made and to build on it. i want to highlight some of the priority policy areas that we are working on it to sustain and deepen our leadership.

i presented these same themes to congress a few weeks ago with our budget request. as you know, i have worked very hard to make the case to congress and of the american public, and given that the difficulties of our budget environment, i am grateful for the support that the president and the administration and the congress have given us. they seem to recognize that our efforts to elevate the policy and development alongside the fence in pursuit of smart power is exactly what we need to be doing in this time. first, as i mentioned to the congress, we are ending a decade of armed conflict. but when all the troops come home, thousands of state department and usaid employees, american and local staff, will still be there on the front lines in iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan.

they will be working under very difficult conditions to enhance our vital interests through civilian power. tom nides, our extraordinary deputy for resources and management, is leading our efforts to help iraq become a stable, sovereign, democratic partner, and he cannot have had a better partner than at jim and jeffrey. i am grateful to all who have been on the team regarding iraq, because it has been a very big challenge for us to get our arms around. a critical element of our path forward in afghanistan will be the success of the afghans in securing and leading the country for themselves. ryan crocker has brought his tremendous lifetime experience to this really difficult job at this moment. they will need help. and i have asked many of you as

a key element of president obama's policy to press the government with which you are accredited to pledge financial substantial support to the security forces for the time beyond 2014. i am also counting on your personal vigorous engagement regarding pakistan. cameron munter and patterson have had a very challenging assignment. there are multiple overlapping worlds in pakistan, and we have to deal with all of them simultaneously. but the country is of vital to our counter-terrorism, economic stability, and regional cooperation goals for the region. and we will continue to engage where we even have legitimate concerns and disagreements. in these front-line states and in all countries facing instability, we put a special focus on protecting universal

human rights, increasing political participation, and enforcing the rule of law. it also puts an extra burden on us to live our values and to, both on the military and civilian side, demonstrate who we are as a people. because when people feel safe and empowered to pursue their legitimate aspirations, they're more likely to reject extremism and to invest in their own societies. some human rights in a global security are deeply and directly linked. we cannot sacrifice one without damaging both. and we have been working to use our position on the u.n. human rights council to continue standing up for universal human rights on the international scene. now i recognize that sustainment -- sustainable progress on human rights and democracy can only happen from within. but we do have an obligation to help amplify those voices of

those advocating for change in their own societies, including non-governmental, human rights, and democracy activists. in recent years, a number of governments have taken actions aimed at disempowering these groups. and today in the middle east and north africa and elsewhere, governments are challenging the propriety of american support civil -- support for civil society organizations. in response to these charges, i need each of you, especially those of the operating in restricted environment, to communicate our commitment to working with and supporting individuals and groups that represent not only what we believe our our values, but universal values, freedoms, and human rights. we need to be clear that this support is a fundamental part of our global human rights policy aimed at supporting the building blocks of sustainable democracy. i do think we have to be smart about how we do it.

perhaps you can talk more about that in the town hall. because a lot of the countries have legitimate questions, particularly a lot of the transitioning of new democracies. i do not think we can assume anything. we need to be very humble in making our case and to do so effectively and consistently. for much of the past decade, we have focused by necessity are places where threats and instability are greatest. in the decade ahead, we must be just as focused on areas of our greatest opportunities. i think that happens to be the rest of the world. but our second priority is our relationship with the asia- pacific region. when we talk about asia-pacific, we're talking about from the indian subcontinent to the americas. we want to expand the aperture of what this means to the united states. so we're helping lead a government-wide effort to build a new network of relationships

and institutions that spans the pacific to complement the success of our durable atlantic partnership. we are strengthening our alliances in asia, launching new strategic dialogues and economic initiatives, creating and joining important multilateral institutions to underscore that america is and will remain a pacific power. in the coming century, no region will be more consequential to america's future. this is not just a concern for eap. it is also for wha and sca, the it is really for all of us because the security and economic interests will affect everything we do everywhere. so we have to engage you in our efforts, and we have reached out to, for example, eur, to helping us with an age a dialogue with the eu. we're working hard with our friends in latin america to expand their reach to asia but

to do so in a way that helps themselves and not just creates a market for natural resources. we should engage everyone as partners to work to establish a rules-based order for coming years, and that is particularly true, but again, not exclusively in the pacific. our relationships with latin america and all the countries of our hemisphere are vital in their own right. i am looking forward in participating in the summit of the americas in a few weeks, discussing how we will continue strengthening ties close to home and talking with counterparts in the middle east and north africa. we often use examples from latin america, transitioning from military dictatorships, autocratic regimes to the most vibrant democratic region in the world right now. with such a dynamic growth happening on both sides of the pacific, there are great

opportunities and natural affinities for our countries to cooperate. an ideal we have proven with free trade agreements that have boosted economic growth from the canadian north to the straits of magellan. of course, as we invest in these new opportunities in asia, me -- we must engage with the most consequential development of the past year, the wave of change sweeping the arab world. throughout the region, our missions have responded in remarkable, unprecedented ways. but then again, we have had to. it cannot be business as usual from morocco all the way to yemen, and everyone serving there has had to really work and think outside the box. so our third priority area is helping those countries complete their transitions to democracy, and this will not be easy, and it certainly will not happen overnight. i often tell leaders in this region that, you know, the united states has been working on our democracy for more than 235 years.

we're still in the process of trying to perfect it. but we have to make steady progress. that is not an excuse for either standing still are going backwards. engaging with islamist parties is going to be a new but necessary effort on the part of the united states which we are undertaking at every level. now, obviously, not all countries in the region are embracing the mantle of reform. we continue to apply pressure on the assad and his regime in syria to stop the brutality, and we work with the opposition and a light-minded countries to try to help them to be in a position to be part of a successful political transition. so as the region transforms, so much of our engagements. we must be ready to respond to unanticipated flood of needs in a way that reflects our leadership. as people and governments make meaningful commitments to reform, we will support them in tangible ways.

whether that means advising on how to build a vibrant civil society, insuring the full participation of women, providing loan guarantees are provoke -- promoting educational opportunities, we have to be active across the board. we need to provide the right to assistance at the right moment to the right people. this is also true in sub-saharan africa and southeast asia as well. promoting democracy and accountable government that delivers results for people should be at the heart of our agenda in every part of the world. in this effort and in each of the other areas i have discussed, europe remains our partner of first resort. and from the front lines in afghanistan to the table at the u.n. security council, our alliances and friendships with our european friends and with the institutions that they have built have never wavered, and we look to europe as we take on these global challenges in the

21st century, just as much as we did in the 20th. that brings me to our fourth priority, economic statecraft. i sent a cable on this subject to every embassy and consulate last october, but i want to reinforce in person how important our actions at the crossroads of economics and diplomacy are. at every turn, we should be asking ourselves, how can we use diplomacy and development to strengthen our country? how can we leverage our economic strength to promote our diplomatic goals? how do we build a global economic system that is open, free, transparent, and fair? now these are not new questions, but we have to bring them to the forefront of our discussion. i think for too long, treasury did economics, the commerce department, ustr, export/import -- but we have the global

presence. we are everywhere. we have a thousand economic officers. we have to be right there at the point of the sphere, looking for these opportunities, working with and sometimes advising our colleagues in government about the best way to cut through all of the barriers. several weeks ago we hosted a unique, unprecedented event. we partnered with the american chamber of commerce and invited chambers from across the world, along with business leaders. i told them we have made jobs diplomacy a priority mission here at the state department. and what to put that phrase, jobs diplomacy, in front of you as well. so we do need to do more to help american companies expand business overseas and to help foreign investment at home. or we see corruption, red tape, favoritism, distorted currencies, or intellectual property theft that this advantages american companies, we must push back.

because those practices create unfair barriers to competition and slow our economic recovery. it was fascinating and the conference, because a lot of the businesses, from very large to quite small but agile exporting businesses, said, you know, i always used to think there was really no role for the government. i was out there competing with the free-market system. i do not need your embassy or your state department to help me. now i look around and see every other country, from our european friends to our asian ones, who have a full partner with your government, and we need your help. what we're trying to do is to enhance our consulate efforts, speed up the visa process. more people are visiting. the more people who visit, the more people at home actually work. we're using development dollars to improve the quality of life for millions of people in order to create future trading partners and new markets. oftentimes, you know, people who

have a very clear view about what the policy and development are for, you know, find this kind of jobs diplomacy catch a little bit jarring because, you know, it is not exactly what either diplomacy or development has been conceived of, but it has always gone on and always will go on. we just have to be more intentional and effective in delivering. my fifth point has to do with continuing to elevate the development. it is an indispensable pillar of our national security strategy. effective development requires indigenous political will, responsive accountable, and transparent government, economic frameworks that create opportunity. to achieve that, we need to broaden our traditional development assistance tools and focus on mobilizing reform through influence and engagement that draws on at the strength

and resources of all relevant government agencies. diplomacy is central to that. and a part of the work we did through the qdtr to help you as the chief of mission truly become the chief executive of the u.s. government presence in your country was to ask you to really support the development side of the ledger as well. i will soon be sending you detailed guidance that covered modernizing our diplomacy to better support development. and as we pursue our signature initiative, the global help initiative, we're transforming the way we do development. sometimes it is a little frustrating, because we emphasize country ownership. and a lot of people who have done developed over the years, you know, they go into a country and say, well, here is what you need your not countries are saying, no, here is what we want. negotiating that is the

diplomatic cover that requires your participation. our global health initiative will reach 6 million people with a lifesaving hiv/aids treatment by 2013, creating the foundation for an aids-free generation. and our feed the future initiative is driving agricultural growth and improving nutrition. so we are increasing our capacity within countries so they can take on more swap -- more responsibility. we have to move toward sustainability. we have so much rhetoric about that. now we have to translate it into an active agenda. it just does not work anymore. that when we go into a country with our aid, the government in the country basically withdrawals from that area and uses the money that they were using, for example on help, to do something else, so we have to be much more engaged on all levels of the government. not just the ministers of development. it is the finance ministers, the foreign ministers, and everyone

else. so i think where we're looking to move is to partner with governments, local groups, and the private sector, not substitute for them, and then it to deliver measurable results. and dr. shaw has made creating a results-oriented a.i.d. his highest priority. i cannot speak to this group without stressing the global focus that we have on advancing the status of women and girls. you know the arguments. i set them forth in a series of speeches, particularly the apec speech in san francisco last fall, making the case of the full participation of women in every economy, including our own, namely knocking down the barriers to participation, whether they be education or access to credit or the right to inherit, would raise the gdp of every country in the world.

someone only go up a little bit littlefinland, -- a little bit, like finland, but some would go up a very long way, and it would be a tremendous step forward for prosperity. we are also expressing women's unique contributions to making and keeping peace. we have worked hard with the defense department and the white house on the first-ever national action plan as to how we could involve women more effectively, because most peace treaties fail. they do not have buy-ins. they do not have support from the populace. and we're it is just coincidental, perhaps, but there is a correlation where women have been involved, like liberia, the chances of the lasting are at least greater than not. this week, i am issuing the first-ever secretarial policy directive on promoting gender equality. it contains specific steps to

make sure we agreed women and promote gender equality in every aspect of our work, policy development, strategic planning, budgeting and programming, monitoring and evaluation, our management and training practices. women are often the canary in the coal mine. well, when it comes to transitioning to democracy or sustaining democracy, we need to pay to judge whether they're thriving, because that is one of the earliest indicators as to whether any society is going to sustain its democratic progress. i am counting on your leadership as chiefs of mission to implement this guide is around the world. now, i should also note that there will be changes in our ambassadorial core, but this summer and following the november elections that is customary at the end of a presidential term. the foreign policy of the united states, however, does not stop

for elections. it requires consistent direction and management. so it is important that our ambassadors were to remain at their posts until either the senate has confirmed a replacement or specific departure instructions are given. as i have travelled in so many countries over the last five, six months, a number of you tell me that, you know, your time will be up in the spring or in the summer. but we do not know if we will get people confirmed in the current political climate. we do not know who will or will market confirmed in some last- minute deal that might be worked out where the congress basically goes out for elections. so we very much encourage you insofar as possible to stay. we need you. we look to you. and there is no country in the world that can do without you. obviously, there are many other

important issues that i have not touched on. we can look forward to hearing from those -- about those from the speakers today and also at the town hall later this afternoon. the simple truth is, we have a lot to do. but we have a great team, a great team out in the field and a great team here in washington. i look forward to seeing you at lunch and then later this afternoon, along with my colleagues -- >> british prime minister david cameron is in washington for an official visit. first they had today and, ohio this afternoon for an n.c.a.a. basketball game. the president will welcome david cameron -- david cameron and his wife for a state dinner. we will have live coverage of that as 6:15 p.m. eastern tomorrow. today is primary day, what they are calling the super tuesday of the south. primary's in alabama and mississippi. we will have coverage of the

results and a more beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern. also simulcast a portion of politico's election night coverage. that begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. here on c-span. a live look into the senate as they are under way with a number of votes this afternoon, and and and votes on the two-year transportation bill, votes are likely to continue throughout the afternoon as the senators of to wrap up work and the transportation bill this week. you can fall live coverage on c- span2. the justice department monday blocked texas from enforcing its new voter id law. gary sharp febris state politics for the houston chronicle. the doj ruling seemed to focus on a large number of registered voters in texas to do not have drivers licenses. how difficult would it be for them to get those alternative id's? >> it all depends on where they live. there are 81 counties in texas

that have no department of public safety driver's license offices. so if you're living in some of these remote areas and you have no transportation, you know, it is going to be very hard to travel to another county that might be 100 miles or 125 miles round trip. or in the metro areas, houston or san antonio, for example, there might not be a dps driver's license in your neighborhood, and it might require a 10-mile or 15-mile trip to get to the driver's license. a complaint to right now in texas is that the waiting lines to renew a driver's license might be two hours long. so it will be difficult for some people.

>> the texas primary is weeks away, april 3. what does this really mean to voters in texas? no id needed? >> the primary is now scheduled for may 29 because of redistricting fights. we do not know if that is going to change again. but whether it is in may or june or july, it is highly unlikely that is a voter id conflict will be resolved. because now it goes to a three- judge panel in washington, d.c., and this case will start from scratch before those three judges, which means that it probably will take months for the parties to develop the evidence in their case. >> texas governor rick perry called the department of justice ruling a "pervasive federal overreach," but the state must

have been prepared for a court battle on this all along. >> yes, and when the department of justice did not pre-clear a voting id bill in south carolina, that influenced the state attorney general to file suit in washington to kind of get the ball rolling. yes, they anticipated this. >> he is with the houston chronicle and san antonio express news. thank you for the update. >> thank you. >> i hope that as we move forward in this world, there are a number of problems that we have to resolve. problems of genocide in darfur, problems that are growing in the people's republic of china, a growing problem with iran. we have a lot of problems to deal with. i think diplomatic solutions are going to have to be the answer in the future as we start to deal with the problems coming.

>> congressman donald payne who passed away this past week was the first african-american to serve in the u.s. house from new jersey. elected in 1988, former head of the black congressional caucus. serve the house committees and education and foreign affairs. watch his speeches from the house floor and other c-span experiences all archived and searchable online a diseased and video library. >> russia recently vetoed two u.n. security council resolutions that would have condemned the violence in syria, calling the resolutions "of a balanced." michael mcfaul spoke about u.s.- russia relations and of the two countries' policies towards syria and iran. this is hosted by the peterson institute in washington. it is 50 minutes. >> as you might expect, he is under very tight time constraints during his stay here, but he thoughtfully carved out an hour for us. we wanted to bring in friends to

catch up on all the recent and extremely important events that are going on in russia at this time. i have introduced mike several times here. as you know, he's an outstanding academic. he has been professor of political science at stanford, senior fellow at the hoover institution, director of the center on the mark kriski development rule of law, and a number of other things in his distinguished academic career. i think it is fair to say -- he may not agree, he is the key architect of the recent policy. he served for three years as special assistant to the president and senior director for russian and eurasian affairs at the national security council prior to becoming ambassador. he was sworn in as u.s. ambassador to russia on in january 10, just about two months ago. he has attracted considerable attention since he arrived in moscow, and we're delighted that

ambassador mcfaul joins us today. two or three questions we will want to discuss with him. of course, number one is what the election of vladimir putin means for the future of russia and russia-u.s. relations. how will the administration it manage the upcoming issue between the u.s. and russia, pntr? you have a draft study from us on that topic that we will be releasing formally in the near future and discussing widely. and you might also ask ambassador mcfaul how he and the administration viewed the act that is being proposed in the congress and how that relates to all of the above. with no further ado, mike, it is great to see you back. thank you for joining us. we look forward to discussion.

[applause] >> i was not sure if i was going to get introductory remarks or just take those three questions. so i will take those three questions and then q&a. i know we do not have much time. i want to get your questions as fast as we can. quite a tremendous turnout on a lovely day. i almost did not come because i have not seen it so much sun recently. i am going to take that as a sign that they're still interest about u.s.-russian relations. i will be quite blunt. the main reason i am here today to talk about pntr. i was here a while ago and now when there was a very important meeting here to discuss these things. that was before russia had agreed to join the wto and before the agreement was done. i remember very vividly standing

up here and saying we're going to get it done and get it done this year. i heard lots of people saying he is naive. you come and go. but, you know, we have been doing this for 20 years and it is not going to get done. well, we got it done, and we think it is a great deal, by the way, for the american economy. for american businesses, for american farmers, for american workers. we think it is a great deal. maybe we will spend a little time talking about it. i think there is a misperception that somehow russia joining the wto was a gift to russia. there is an incredible misperception that lifting jackson vannick or terminating the application to russia is a gift to russia. it is nothing of the time. wto is good for us. that is why we fought hard to get the deal we did.

lifting that is only a gift to our farmers, our industry, and our workers. there is no gift to russia at this point. in have been before i need every scenario. some argue we should lift jackson-vank first -- jackson- vanik first and then do wto. i skipped the first questions. in terms of what election in russia and the time we are in means, i want to start just a very critically. or, i was going to say, twitter- like, 140 characters as opposed to my usual 50 minutes. and just to remind you of the theory behind the policy. and remind you where we are at

when we started this policy. it was a tough time in u.s.- russia relations for obvious reasons. when the president first met president medvedev in london in april 2009, he used a phrase that there has been a dangerous drip in u.s.-russian relations, and it is time to end that threat -- drift. the reason why he wanted to end the drift was not to have better or happier relations, it was rather -- as he looked out at the problems that we were addressing as we came into office, i think of afghanistan. i think of iran. i think of the start treaty ending. i think of north korea. i think of the wto. we look at those issues and the view was, why is this not in our mutual interests? we gave them a bunch of

explanations for why we had not reached agreement on a set of those issues. his idea was with more engagement of the government. first at the highest level, including him personally. second, across the government. that is why we created the bilateral presidential commission. we would have a better chance of realizing win-win outcomes, as the president used that phrase, then if we were just every now and again communicating with them. that was the first idea, engagement is a means to this end, not the other way around. the second part of the recent, very important, was that as a engaged with the russian government, we were going to try to increase engagement with russian society in parallel to that. we meant both engagement of russian government, american government officials with civil society as we have practice from the very beginning, including when president obama was in moscow, as well as trying to

create more connectivity between our civil society and a russian civil society. we do both these things at the same time. third, we rejected, i would say in large measure, approaches from the russian government, but maybe from our side, too. i would have to think about that. but we rejected the concept of a linkage. we rejected the idea that in order to get a start treaty, we're going to not cooperate with our partners in georgia. we rejected the idea that in order to get the sanctions on iran, 1929, the most comprehensive sanctions that have never been passed through the u.n. security council, we rejected the notion that in order to do that, we're going to leave our values at the door and not talk about human rights abuses or problems that we see in russia. t in fiveis the reser minutes or less.

our view is that it has achieved results that are good for our national security, good for our economy. no, we're proud of those achievements. the number distribution network, which was just a tiny fraction of how we supplied our troops in afghanistan in 2009 is now well over 50% of the way we supply our troops, and then never keeps going up, not down to that is good thing for american national interests. the new start treaty, that is a good thing. reduce the number of nuclear weapons. most importantly, from our point of view, to continue to have the inspections and transparency that goes with that. that helps to keep us in a stable relationship vis-a-vis russia when it comes to nuclear arsenals. iran, we started in a very creative way, in a cooperative way, to make offers to iran about a way out of this impasse. us, together with the russians and of the french, it's a very creative things to try to change that dynamic.

to iran rejected us. we did not reject the overture. we put together a creative overture, the tehran at research idea. they reject it russia as well as the united states. therefore, we then cooperated with russia. do, again, to pass u.n. security council resolution 1929. after that, russia canceled the s300 contracts and literally send tens of millions of dollars back to iran, which was paid as a down payment for that military agreement. the 1-2-3 agreement, north korea, wto. controversial, but if you look at where we were at the beginning of the administration and where we are now, i think there is less attention across the board. to what extent we had anything to do with that is more complicated, but we have been involved in that, whether it is about georgia or the baltic

states or other countries in europe. we have been engaged with the russians on that. and if i had more time, but i will point to our website, every day we're doing things that we think are good for our national interests with russia. whether it is the new vis that agreement, the nuclear security summit coming up in seoul, terrorism, the business deals that have been done. trade is at the highest levels that it has ever been at. it should be a lot more. we will get to that. the deal we were just talking about, fantastic cooperation between private sector -- russian private sector and the california government to restore an important port at fort ross in california. -- an important park at fort ross in california. the challenges are real. syria, we have a big tournament

of this agreement. we have been working this for a long time. we're still not closer. missile defense is another one. disagreements about the pace of political change in russia. those are three big issues to date under front and center in terms of challenges in u.s.- russia and relations. but what we would argue is the way to deal with all three of those is not disengagement or a return to containment or somehow a pivotal way from our gentle strategy. we would say that even on tough issues like syria, better to engage, try to find common space even at the means we have to adjust. that is exactly what secretary clinton was doing today in new york. and, i should remind you, not let our policy vis-a-vis syria or other places to be defined solely in terms of we -- in

terms of what we're doing with russia. that is a big misconception that i hear. if we do not the security council resolution on syria, then we're not doing anything else. that is just not true. we had a very comprehensive policy vis-a-vis syria, of which one of the areas we're working with is to have cooperation of the international community at the u.n. security council and elsewhere. second, on pntr, i have already made it clear i do not want to go into that. but to me, at this stage, to close senator baucus, this is a no-brainer. the economic interests are obvious. you should read the draft report, soon to be released again. senator baucus has read it, so i hope the rest of you have. i will not going to the arguments here in the interest of time. my colleagues brought a bunch of fact sheets that are outside letting their the show you the arguments for why this is good for the american economy --

brought a bunch of fact sheets outside the show you the arguments. the argument is overwhelming on the economic side. and do not forget the negative consequences of holding onto jackson-vanik. if we do that, we will be non- application. we will be the ones on the outside with everybody else within the wto and hearing to the wto rules, and the russian government has made it clear that they will not give us special privileges just because we have not worked out our jackson-vanik legislation. many hope that we will still get the trq's. we do not. we will still get the lower tariffs. we pulled them in to do a lot of those things. that was a very difficult set of negotiations. so there are some of forces in russia -- not all, but there are

some that would be delighted to see those markets go to other countries. on economics, this is a no- brainer. others would argue that we need this for democracy and human rights. this is over on capitol hill earlier this morning. our answer is the following. we are not going to have an argument on the diagnostics with anybody on the hill. we will not claim that russia is more democratic than you think. we are not born to get into that kind of argument. russia has problems with these issues. we disagree with the prescription. we do not believe that holding onto jack said the advances the cause of democracy and human rights in russia. what is the causal relationships? there is no causal relationship. we believe we should work with congress to do other things.

in parallel, to do things that can help the rule of law and accountable government and to strengthen civil society in russia. we posed to the u.s. congress to propose a new civil society fund in russia. this is in terms of new money. that is what i hear in moscow. you talk to human rights organizations and that that does not exist from russian sources. it does not exist in congress right now. if you want to do something constructive, that is the area where we should be focusing our attention. this is not going to make russia a more democratic or helpless with syria.

there is no link. if you do not believe me, ask him. he put out a piece with his colleagues that made the argument as emphatic as you could want. i think you'll be seeing more and more organizations in russia tried to explain to us that you are not helping them by holding on to jackson. even a more sophisticated issue. those who work on rule of law, the great people in moscow who work at that place. they argued very forcefully that wto constrains bad behavior from their government. if you are interesting in fighting corruption, that is a good thing, not a bad thing. it is not a silver bullet. our argument is that we need to use everything that we can to fight corruption and help open up society and constrained bad,

non-market behavior. we believe that constraining the wto, they have a most favored nation status. it gives us more leverage than on the outside. let me just remind everybody, we took very seriously what happened. i peronally met with his mother. i met many times with bill. i met with senator cardin. two or three times. we agree that the gross human rights offenders should not have the opportunity to travel to the united states. we have agreed so much that we have taken actions.

we first, it was not exactly a sequence. the president signed a new executive order to give the executive branch more authority to make these kinds of decisions about gross human rights violators. we believe this should not be a russia-specific thing. this should be a universal principle. we have taken that action. we agree with the diagnostics and we have taken action. in other words, we can have a serious conversation about democracy and human rights in russia. we should.

we should continue that. i suspect that we will. i dare somebody to stand up and tell me how not repealing, lifting, terminating jackson, how that helps the cause of promoting rule of law, democracy, and human rights. we do not see it that way. we want to use other mechanisms, and venues, instruments. we want to listen to those on the ground in russia. i will stop there. i bet you that is not the last we heard of that question. [applause]

the closest i am aware of it is when the u.s. had the famous helms-burton legislation. that was against cuba. the congress sent a study team to havana to assess the impact on u.s. interest of the legislation, which tried to it tighten the embargo and limit the economic exchanges with cuba. we came to one main conclusions. the cubans that are on our side want to get rid of castro and see democracy. they tell us that that legislation in cuba is largely called the helms-burton-catro legislation. it strengthens the hand of castro. even his opponents have to oppose that. it rallied more support to castro. in our interest, it should be abolished.

do you find that same kind of phenomenon in russia? that the continuation of jackson hurts our interest in the country? >> absolutely. let me talk more about what the russians say. they are saying house opposed to an intermediate -- intermediaries like me saying it. remember what it was for in the press plays. it linked higher levels of jewish emigration to most favored nation status. it was a tremendous successful piece of legislation. the problem with jewish emigration since 1994, every year there is a process that we go through to authorize that.

what happens to the debate inside of russia, these americans okayed russia at this issue that went away 20 years ago is still there. they are out to get us. they are out to destroy us. it is a burden on human rights activists. it is a burden on the jewish community. i went around to talk to many leaders of the jewish community. not a single person and that supports jackson being on the books. it is not a useful argument for them. they would assume get rid of it. have a useful, modern, contemporary conversation about the real issues as opposed to having their opponents just roll out these americans are so irrational. they are withholding this for something that is no longer the problem.

let me remind everybody that it used to be a different debate. before russia had agreed to join the wto, that is going to happen, before that happened, there was an argument we disagreed west, the obama administration. you could defend the rationality. let's hold jack said that as a way to put pressure on us to get the right deal. russia did care about wto. it is a hotly debated issue. the pro-market folks wanted it. it did create leverage. we heard those arguments on poultry and pork. those are the ones i remember in particular. we think we got the right kind of deal.

there was a lot it back then. with russia joining the wto, they have no leverage on us. that train has left the station. it is hard to understand who is holding this on. >> it is clear what you just said. jackson makes no sense. our study is there for you to pick up on the way out. if you are right and that is a no-brainer in economic terms, then it comes down to linkage. people want to link the abolition with something else. you are obviously close to what is going on on the hill. what is your prediction? what is the likely strategy to avoiding linkage of that type? do you think you can succeed? what strategy? >> i like the courses on

democratization and revolution that at stanford. that is true. the one thing i have learned about the future is to never predict the future about democratization. i am not qualified to do that. i am not an expert on the u.s. congress. i do not know how to predict that. it is the highest priority for the obama administration. it is our top trade issue for this year. the president last week meeting with the business roundtable made that crystal clear. we have a very active engagement strategy with both sides of the house.

we are delighted to host the senator out in moscow. it has jurisdiction on the senate side. i think he had a very successful trip. we had him meet with people on the political side. we had him beat with human- rights activists and people to fight corruption. they are way more persuasive than we can be. we are doing that. on the timetable, we would like to get this done before russia joins the wto. we do not want our company to be adversely affected. it is not just a one-time thing. people say that it is a busy year. it is an election year. that may be fined in the abstract.

if you lose that market, especially for our exporters that have tough competitors, you lose it one year, you are fighting for the next tend to get back to where you lost it. it is a at specific blow against companies if we do not get this done. >> let me talk about senator baucus' trip to moscow. >> i am from montana. >> in particular, it seems like the u.s. senate -- so many top- level ministerial meetings. at the same time we are seeing in the media, a massive anti- american campaign which engages the prime minister. how do you make sense of these two contradictory things? >> i would say you are right about senator baucus' visit.

he met with the president of russia. across the board, -- a very productive meetings by the way. it was not just the fact of the meetings. serious meetings. the anti-americanism, which had included me from time to time was something that we did not expect. it was somewhat shocking to us, especially because the kind of relationship that we thought we had been developing with the russian government over the last three years. what i was told many, many times at the highest level of the

russian government, they seek continuity in relations. that was the message i got from every person i met with. i met with the opposition the first day i was there. the first day i met with about a dozen russian government officials. everybody's at the same thing. that has been a message that they communicated to us. it does not mean that they will not have differences. that is not a trend thing. we have some principles that were clashing. in the context of wanting that continuity, they treated senator baucus the way that they did. the spike in anti-americanism is linked to the presidential

campaign. somebody decided that there are votes to be had by increasing this stuff. social scientists and used to do survey work in russia. we are going to try to collect some data on that. i want to have a discussion on that. somebody had the hypothesis on that. the election is over. we will see if there is something more fundamental. >> the floor is open for questions. please identify yourself. please go to the standing mic in the back. we only have about 20 minutes. be succinct. >> right here in the front row. >> it is great to see you in washington. i am at the center for strategic national studies. we had one of our meetings with the executive branch and congressional staffers last week. two things emerged out of that. the efforts to educate the hill need to be ramped up significantly and quickly.

a lot more has to be donw. -- done by the administratino on there. one point in support was applied to the broader u.s.- russia relationship. if the united states cannot do something that is so obviously in favor of this , how of thisputin trust us to do things on the issues that we disagree on? -- how can putin trust us to do things? there could be linkage. my question has to do with the larger u.s.-russian relationship. we have accomplished a tremendous amount. as you look out on the hub by issues, they seem to be ones that we have fundamental

disagreements on. iran i would add to that. could you talk about what you expect to get from the russians? >> at first on your comment, i take the point. we have an agency team that engages with the hill on a pretty rapid pace. we have been doing that for a year. others in the business community have been doing the sameg. o to the ustr website. they also represent the american people. there are jobs that are going to be lost. there are farmers i cannot sell their stuff. this is not as big businesses. there are a lot of different

companies involved. they are going to lose a big market. i take the point. i also want to be clear that all of the argumentation is out there. we have been engaged in what i think is pretty proactive. i see my colleagues in the back. they can jump in. i am in a different set of negotiations with the russians. i think we can do more. i encourage anybody that thinks about this to take the time to educate. with respect to iran, i do not see it yet as a fundamental issue of disagreement. i see our cooperation on iran as being one of the successes both being in the first period when seeking a diplomatic

solution, it is a creative idea to work with the russians. in terms of sanctions, to work with russia. russia has real economic interests that were lost. politically, the damage to their bilateral relationship was much greater than the damage that we faced. that was a big, important achievement that we did. we drifted a bit over the last several months because of the unilateral sanctions. and because of the sanctions that the u.s. congress put in place. particularly with the national defense authorization act. that created some tension.

dealing with those set of issues. i am more impressed with the unity than the disunity. missile defense, we have cut some disagreements. i am an optimist on missile defense. we do not have a missile defense cooperation with russia in the year 2012. we have only been trying to do that for several months. this was an issue of confrontation, fierce confrontation, for three decades. why should anybody be surprised that we have not been able to get this done in a cooperative way in a year? we have public statements about this, that, and the other. when you talk about that and physics as opposed to politics, i think that this is a place that with time and effort, we are going to be able to cooperate with russia. even today, there were signs that there were some things that we can agree upon. we are still in the middle of that negotiation. incremental progress.

it is hard. welcome to the real world. people say that it is such a hard time to be ambassador. i am interested in the hard jobs. what should anybody have expected otherwise? we are partially a victim of our successes. probably half a dozen others here. and go back and read what you said that we were supposed to do and check off those boxes. what is left on the table are the harder issues. we are going to continue to work on them. without accepting linkage or throwing our values out the door and excepting trade-offs with our relationship with russia and our relationships with other countries with which we have vital interests. >> and i am west "foreign-

policy magazine." have been watching what seems to be an increasing trend of civil unrest inside of russia. do you see that movement as growing and continuing? were the presidential elections of last week's free and fair? how is the overall trend of human rights in russia? what about russia's continued arming of the syrian regime? what about statements by president elect prudent electputin -- putin saying that you are undermining the russian government by supporting the opposition? >> you know better. sign up on twitter.

every single one of those questions have been answered on my twitter handle. i have forgotten all the questions. civil unrest. i wouldn't call it civil unrest. i would call it civil society renewal. this is not seeking the overthrow of a regime. they seek to engage through peaceful actions to reform the existing system. they want you to understand that they are different and that is what they are trying to do. i just said, i used to teach

courses on these topics. predicting where these things will go, i am very bad at it. i think that contingency an agency matters. there's real politics in russia. >> society is taking their constitutional rights more seriously, and the state is responding to that. not always in the ways, you know, we would like. i tweeted out last week that as they arrested 400 to 500 people, that didn't seem like a good way to respond to peaceful protests. and the m.s.a., represented here, i see, they responded right away. reminded me of, you know, the

wall street demonstrators, by the way, occupy wall street demonstrators. i think that's healthy. i think that's good we're having that kind of conversation. a, between the state and society, and b, between our governments. i don't see anything wrong about that. where i do think it's wrong is when it's not a conversation based on facts, right? so when we heard and i heard time and time again that, you know, mcfaul is paying for the political opposition in russia, that is not true. that is not true. everybody, that is not true. you have to say it five times because people don't want, you know, others have a political reason not to allow that truth to get through. you know, we support civil society. we support the electoral observers. we're proud of that work. they did good work.

but we're not getting involved in those kinds of things. with respect to the attacks on secretary clinton and me, all i would say is our strategy for dealing with that is to engage directly and as smartly and comprehensively as possible. now, it's difficult in the environment that we work in, and that's why things like twitter and facebook are tremendously interesting tools for me. i only got on twitter six weeks ago. i never had a twitter account, not allowed to when i worked at the white house. and i was given very explicit instructions to use whatever means available to do what we call public diplomacy, right? i used the media, i've been on russian television on state channels, "russia today" as well as opposition. i think engagement is the right policy because we don't feel

like we have anything to hide in terms of what we're trying to do. and i found twitter to be a really interesting way to engage with russian society. if you're not on twitter, and i'm not going to ask for a show of hand because i don't want to embarrass people that are closer to my age than josh's. but i got to tell you, i felt like i knew something about russia before i moved to russia. you know, i worked on it for a bit, written some books, working at the white house for three years. the amount that i have learned in the last eight weeks by just being on twitter is just shocking to me. i never, ever expected it. i encourage you, if you want to know what's going on in russia, you have to be engaged with that part of society, not just the other parts. and by the way, you know, it's very useful to do the work you guys do. i frequently am using work that you guys do to push that into

the russian debate. it would be great if you had a russian edition, by the way. so work on that. but that's important, too, because you got to push that kind of information to open up the debate. that's all -- when i retweet other journalists, i'm doing it to open up the debate, not necessarily taking a position. that's how we deal with those kind of attacks. >> were the elections fair? >> we put out a statement, i'm sure you saw, and that is -- that reflects exactly what we thought, including the endorsement of the o.s.c. report which we thought was very professionally done. ok. young lady in the back. >> hi, claudia rosett. i have a question that i don't expect that you can answer in full, this is about russia's relationship with iran and did the sanctions regime that has been expanding and tightening.

and the last big sanctions pushed that the international community put together, russia was the leading violator even though it said on the security council. they found corruption reaching all the way up to the kremlin. there was never a single investigation. here we are again. we have just seen and i take this as an emblematic sign, the ship that delivered weapons to syria and made the news has just called on iran carrying ukrainian generators. my question is, in this context, if there is any prayer of russia not repeating with its remarkable talent and skill, the sanctions of asians and violations that have gone on

before, who exactly in russia is minding the store? is there any authority at all that uc trying to track this down and willing to prosecute violators doing anything? >> i don't know the story of iraq. i don't know any details on that so i cannot comment. russia's relationship is very different -- the u.n. security council resolution 1929 is very different. >> they have experienced -- >> we don't see that happening right now. president medvedev took very seriously the negotiations over that resolution. they deliberately had some things that they did not want to come out of those sanctions.

i am interested in that. we don't see that as a serious problem right now. even more striking, the sanctions that we did and that we adhere to by law with the national defense authorization act, russia did not sign up for and did not support and has argued with us and it went beyond 1929 and it was not done in good faith. those companies that are affected by the sanctions, they are adhering to the sanctions not because they love america or love iran or hate iran, the reason is called the american dollar and the american system. those that are affected don't want to be subject to losing access to that system. they are doing it not out of policy but out of self-interest.

i would say that this is not yet a problem. i don't see this as a problem right now. >> bill jones from the executive intelligence review, given what i would call the in-your-face interjection to moscow as ambassador to the united states, do you think that we can consider this an enemy of the state. do you think that this has significantly your ability to create the bonds of trust? president putin has been elected by a large majority and what were generally fair elections.

do you think that you are damaged in the initial stages of your ambassadorship? >> i do not. i worked for three years for the president of the united states on a policy card called the reset and in that job i worked with all of the high level officials every day all the time on some very very hard issues. this was a nine months set of negotiations. the new treaty, another giant negotiation that i was a part of. we worked to get that deal done along with our counterparts, it was not just me, it was part of the administration.

i have had no problems with this. it is one thing for campaign organizers to say orange revolution but at the highest levels i have had personal conversations. for me personally, no one has canceled any meetings. i say that engagement is our policy. there was a program that about me you would know that it is pretty tough at.

we will not be the ones that allow this to go back to some sort of cold war tit-for-tat, black and white world. if they want to do that, maybe they will, but they cannot change that. i am there to engage and to execute our policy. i am not there to be anyone's friend. i know that sounds kind of weird and shocking. represente to wra president obama and the obama administration.

you don't really understand our traditions. i am trying and i am learning again. at the end of the day, i'm not there to be a student of russian culture and history. i am there to advance our interest and policy. given the background before, i think i am a good representative. there are some heated exchanges. hough >> we are conscious of your time and we have reached the witching hour. most of us concur with what you just said. we thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with

us. we look forward to working with you and your colleagues of trying to get the ntr through quickly. we will work with you a lot and we will thank you for what you are doing and for joining us today. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> a earlier this month, prime minister vladimir putin claimed victory and russia's election. term limits forced him to step down in 2008. while voting is underway in the u.s. the primaries in

mississippi, alabama, caucuses in hawaii, american samoa. we will have coverage tonight and real-time election results and speeches by the candidates. of course your phone calls and tweets as well. next week, a preview, on the upcoming arguments on the health care presentation to the supreme court. >> good morning, welcome to the washington legal foundation seminar. we are at public interest law and policy center and have been around for 34 years.

we have eliminated the original actions in court at all levels and we have a very vigorous successful publishing program parent of those a few that are joining us, i encourage you to take a look at some of our publications. also, we have a communications side that does briefings, web seminars. we are pleased to be coming to you from our center fourth free enterprise in dupont circle. our moderator is what the law firm of goldstein and russell.

he has done a brief on the cases will be discussing today. >> thank you very much. let me start by thanking the washington legal foundation for hosting this of that. this is among the nation's leading advocates for free enterprise. the other thing that this does that is relevant here is that it provides a form. abdeh really do believe in the power of ideas and would like to be a part of the debate and to host the debate and that is the point of the event. we have a tremendous good fortune to have two lawyers who know the most about the legal

debate over health-care reform and statute and what is going to happen in the supreme court, what the principal issues will be, how it is that they may play out. that is incredibly important to free enterprise. we are joined by one of the leading law and economics scholars in the u.s. he is a frequent contributor to an extraordinary blog for all manner of content including extraordinarily detailed analysis. he is the co editor of the supreme court economic review.

we're also joined by the co- founder and the co-director of the supreme court litigation clinic. he has argued 23 cases before the supreme court and he knows a lot about the relationship between this and free enterprise. he was in the government as an assistant to the solicitor general and is now one of the nation's leading supreme court advocates. his mother's birthday is today. [laughter] she is watching just with everyone. we are grateful for the public service that c-span provides all the time in making information

like this. you can view this from around the country and on its web site. this is a great opportunity for those that coming through the of that. >> we will do this and relatively long form but we will make sure that you have the opportunity in the room, on the internet, to ask questions. they will take five minutes to respond. we will use the remaining time for questions >> i would like to

start out by thanking the washington legal foundation for organizing this of that and for giving me the privilege of representing them through this medication. we have written on behalf of the plaintiffs are urging the supreme court to strike down the individual mandate. i would like to thank tom posting for moderating. i have my work cut out for me. there is no way for the supreme

court to uphold the health- insurance mandate without giving congress the power to enact virtually any mandate of any kind. such a result is contrary to the constitution and a very dangerous power for congress to have parent o. they say this is allowed under the commerce clause, the tax clause, and an unnecessary cost. they all have the same weakness that expected by the court, they would lead to a virtually unlimited congressional power. i would like to start off with the commerce clause argument which is the one that has been mentioned so far. this gives congress the power to regulate commerce among the several states. right away, when you look at that clause, it seems clear that

in order to be authorized by that clause, the measure has to meet two requirements. first, it has to regulate commerce spent the second, the commerce must be interstate. on these criteria, the individual mandate is over. this is not regulating commerce, not having health insurance is not commerce. it is not regulated anything that is interstate be there. this interpretation of the clause is actually of roughly the way that the clause is interpreted by the supreme court during the first 150 years of our history. some people argue that it gives congress the power to impose any measures that have some effect on interstate commerce but if that were true, then that would render much of the rest of congress's powers under article one of the constitution completely redundant. in the very same phrase, went

constitution gives congress the power to regulate interstate power, also commerce with foreign powers and indian tribes. obviously, these would have important effects on interstate commerce. they were given the congress the power to regulate these and the other would become unnecessary and superfluous. over the last 60-70 years, the supreme court has expanded its interpretation of the commerce power well beyond its text and original meaning. some of these precedents or badly misguided but even the most extreme do not go enough to justify the individual mandate. the broadest clause so far is the 2005 case of goods dollars

vs -- the court stated that the commerce clause allowed for the government to be able to forbid the growth of marijuana even if it had never been crossing state lines or sold in any markets. this is not justified demanded. the marijuana could be forbidden because the possession and growth was economic activity. they defined economic activity very broadly as the production, consumption, or distribution of a commodity. if you look at this case, obviously not having health insurance, it is in consumption of a commodity, it is not the distribution of a commodity. even this case does not go far enough to get the government where it is to go in this particular case. it turns out that the only possible way to uphold the

mandate under the commerce clause is that if congress held out the power to oppose virtually any kind of mandate to do anything that has some sort of economic effect, which of course is true at pretty much true of anything that congress can compel us to do. the government has argued actually help insurance is a special case in various ways. the most common argument that they use is claiming that health insurance is special because we all use health care at some point in our lives and that makes it different from most other products. however, notice the sleight of hand. they are shifting the focus from health insurance to health care. if you allow this, then this can justify any other mandate of any kind. consider the famous broccoli mandate.

not everybody eats broccoli, not everyone likes it as much as i do, however, everyone does participate in the market for food and broccoli is just one part. avoid it if you don't believe me. you can use the same argument for a mandate to buy cars. not everybody uses cars but everyone participates in a market for transportation. this could be justified and pretty much every other mandate the same way. this market is a special case because in some instances, health-care providers are required to provide free service to those that cannot pay for health care. the question arises, why is this different and constitutionally significant?

if you don't have a health insurance mandate, then the free health care requirement creates an adverse impact on producers. this is true but it is true of pretty much every other market conditions or government regulation that might reduce the purchase of a product beyond the level that it otherwise would be paid to every time i decide not to buy broccoli or a car or anything else, that also has an adverse economic effect on producers and therefore this fails to differentiate this case ultimately from any other market. the federal government argues on the basis of the tax clause. they say that it is a tax and authorized by congress's power to impose various types of taxes. mandate,n't obey the if you have to pay a monetary

fine collected by the irs. if this argument is accepted, it is obvious that pretty much any mandate would be permissible as long as the penalty for failing to obey the mandate was a fine. you have a monetary fine for not buying broccoli or cars or pretty much anything else that congress could possibly imagine. this area is a rare case of near consensus in the lower courts so far. 15 out of the 16 federal judges that have considered this argument have rejected it including several who have up out the mandate on other grounds. it is not hard to see why. they have held that this is not a tax but rather a penalty and the situation where the federal government tells you to do something and if you don't you pay a fine. if this is a tax and not a fine,

it is the same for jaywalking. moreover, the supreme court in its president has actually repeal the distinguished between fines and penalties as recently as 1996. they said that a penalty is "an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act or in this case of an unlawful mission." this is a fine imposed as punishment for on unlawful act. i'm not the first to suggest that this is not a tax but rather a penalty, a much more famous law professor discussed back in 2009. i referred to barack obama who said that for us to say that you get to take responsibility for health insurance is absolutely

not a penalty. the federal government defense's position on this case on the basis of the necessary and proper clause which is in fact the purpose of the brief that i wrote for the legal foundation. this is not an independent grant to congress, what it does is it gives congress the authority to implement measures that are necessary and proper to execution and other powers that congress has been given. it is important to recognize that the meaning of the clause and supreme court precedent is there on the port that necessity and propriety are two separate requirements.

the supreme court has in fact to find it necessary very broadly anything that might in some way be useful or continued to implementing and other congressional power. a measure is improper if the only argument that can justify it is one that would give congress virtually unlimited power or make lots of the other powers under the constitution completely redundant. whatever meeting this clause may have, none can be admitted that would give unlimited discretion to congress. they say that if this is proper, then virtually any mandate that has some effect of some kind of

congress could be considered proper as well. the claim here that is made is that this is proper because the mandate will affect the health insurance and health-care market and therefore the power to regulate interstate commerce but virtually any mandate to do anything can have some significant effect on interstate commerce. certainly, if you mandate that people have to buy privately, that would have the effect on the food market. if it you all-out any other mandates on the basis of this reasoning, the end result is the unlimited power to impose mandates of any kind. there is only limited time.

i would note one more thing, on all of the founders, was alexander hamilton. he said the federal law is interfering with state property taxes. it would be in proper under the clause. it is pretty obvious that this would have an effect on interstate commerce. it is still an improper. this is a strong sign of how there would be a broader conception of federal power and that this imposes important limits here turned out. lawyers are the taurus for making arguments that may be

clever but have no place in the real world because the things would not actually happened. hear, the slippery slope is not of that kind, rather it is a very real danger because congress has a long history of imposing special interest legislation and there are lots of power industry lobbies that would be more than happy to lobby congress to have demanded that forces people to buy their progresproducts. in the 2008 campaign when the individual mandate was proposed by hillary clinton, in candidate barack obama was very strongly opposed to it. he said at the time that trying to solve the health insurance problem by requiring people to buy health insurance this kind of like trying to solve the housing problem " homelessness problem by requiring the

homeless to buy a house. i am not saying the president changed his mind between then and now simply because of lobbying by the insurance industry, but obviously a special interest power was one of many forces that did lead to the legislation we are considering now. ultimately, the power claimed in this case is inconsistent with the constitution and if allowed by the supreme court could be a very dangerous power for congress to have going forward. thank you very much. >> thanks, and i echo the thanks to the foundation. truly does a terrific job of putting on these programs and bringing opposing views, and also to c-span. as a big c-span watcher, i have to say how great it is in the middle of the night, if you happen to be away, there is always something great to watch. let me start by addressing this question on if this is upheld,

does that mean congress could impose any other mandate? i think there are some distinctions here. it is also important to step back and look at the question of mandates. i think virtually all of the opponents of the legislation agree that the states have power to impose this kind of mandate. it is not that this is something totally foreign to our political system. states can do it. they have not done a very much, but it indicates that it is not something that is totally outside the realm of permissible legislative activity. i would like to start in analyzing whether the federal government also can do what the states can do, maybe by turning first to that tax power, because it has been a neglected part of the argument and also because i wrote a brief about it. i hope it is less neglected in the supreme court that has been in the lower courts. the court has said repeatedly that the taxing power is

incredibly broad. virtually without limitation. that is a consequence of history. if the go back to the articles of confederation, one of the principal flaws was a congress did not have the power to direct raise revenue itself. it had to send a request to the states. the states had to levy revenues and then send them to the federal government. did not work too well. the federal government did not get any money. one of the critical reasons for the constitutional convention and replacement of the articles of confederation with the constitution was the need to provide clear power for the federal government to raise its own revenues. and the court has many times since then addressed the question of the taxing power. the taxing power is not limited by the other enumerated powers. congress can tax things that it cannot regulate. second, the fact that has a regulatory purpose or effect in

addition to our revenue raising effect does not mean that it cannot be upheld as a tax. to the contrary, every time the issue has been raised, the court has rejected the argument that a measure that both as a revenue- raising purpose or effect and regulatory purpose and effect cannot be upheld as a tax. every single time, and has been upheld as a tax. the court identified three limits on the taxing power. has to serve the general welfare, raise revenues, and it cannot violate the other protections of individual rights that are in the constitution. here i think it's awfully hard to say that the mandate and the accompanying fee that has to be paid does not promote the general welfare. there are police the is a free rider problem in health care in this is designed to predict there obviously is a free rob roblin this is designed to deal with that.

a case decided by the court a couple of decades ago, the revenue estimate was $4,500 and the court said that was well within satisfying the revenue raising requirements. this is not a punitive or criminal measure. the court has said the test for that is where the monetary fine is well in excess of the underlying value of the activity being taxed. the tax is key to the person's income and relates to what it would cost to ensure that person or that person's family. >> there is another limitation on the taxing power in the constitution. the constitution says no capitation are direct tax maybe let it unless it is apportioned by population. but the court has interpreted that clause quite narrowly. only per person taxes and taxes on land have been found to fall

into that category. here are the levy is specifically tied to income, it clearly does not. -- where the levy is specifically tied to income. the court's jurisprudence is quite clear that congress does not have to use the magic word tax in order for measure to be upheld under the taxing power. the court rejected that argument both in the context of the taxing power and in the context of other powers. there is a good reason why. remember, the court's role here is striking down a decision made by the people's elected representatives. that is a pretty significant power and there is a presumption of constitutionality. the presumption that the people's representatives action is constitutional, that should only be struck down a lesson is clearly beyond all congress's power. in many cases, it has upheld the

statute on grounds that congress did not address -- the grounds that congress did invoke. by the decisions of the early republic apply this principle and upheld the statute there, creating the bank of the united states, by surveying a variety of constitutional powers, none of which were invoked. maybe of congress clearly does about a power, that might be a basis for the court saying congress specifically did not want to do this, but that is not the case here. this measure is in the internal revenue code. it is on your 1040 income tax form. it is enforced by the irs and is tied to your income. it would be quite odd to say congress specifically disavowed that power. for those judges to look at

legislative history, it is most in need was. there are sometimes when a penalty is used and sometimes the word tax issues. what do the opponents say in response to what i think is a pretty persuasive argument on the taxing power? the principal argument is this. you cannot i hold this measure as a tax because of the way it is written. there is one section that says you must obtain health care insurance, and then another section says if you don't, you must pay this financial levy. so clearly there is a freestanding mandate that has to be upheld as the commerce clause enactment, and this other measure is not related or cannot be used as a tax because it is not a condition to their pre it does not say you must either purchase health insurance or pay the tax. the court addressed a similar question in the context of the

10th amendment in a case called new york against the united states, which was a case involving a federal statute, dealing with another very complicated national problem, the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. that statute said each state shall be responsible for providing for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste, in one section. then there were three other sections at specified some things that provide incentives, maybe some carrots and sticks is the way the court put it, to press the states to do what was in that section. the people who were challenging the act did you don't even have to address the constitutionality of those three carrots and sticks up close. there is a requirement that directly imposed on the states, that is clearly unconstitutional so the whole statute falls. the court said we are not going to do that. set and could understand this as a mandate standing alone, or you could look at the provisions together as a series of

incentives. the court said we are going to do the latter, because we don't presume that congress legislates unconstitutionally and we will interpret a statute so it is constitutional. we interpret this provision as conditional on the carrots and sticks in order to a core that presumption of constitutionality. it seems to meet under the exact same argument that the court adopted in the new york case that is the way to pursue the provisions written here. even though they are written several, nothing happens to you other than the payment of the feet if you do not buy the insurance. so that are in practical effect, conditional. some opponents say this is punishment, but it is not. it is not a disproportionate financial levy. tied to income, not criminally in forced, none of the typical

in this see it that we look for. >> political branches cannot say we are enacting attacks, and when the constitutional challenge is enacted, say we are invoking the taxing power to hold this measure. that will allow them to escape accountability. i don't think that is true. if the supreme court were to issue a decision this june saying we are only upholding this mandate because it is a tax, you would see lots of political accountability in the next election attempting to be imposed on people who voted for it. it seems to me the argument that there will not be political accountability does not hold water in the real world that we live in. i am not sure it is the core stock to worry about political accountability and supervise the political process in that way. even if it were, i think there will be a lot of political

accountability if the court were to go down that road and the people who have to explain why they voted for something that turned out to be a tax and by imposing the tax was justified or not. let me turn to the commerce clause, because that is the principal field of battle, hopefully not insist the supreme court but has been in the lower courts. it is important to recognize that a lot of the arguments advanced by the other side is that the last 80 years of constitutional law and interpreting the commerce cause or wrongheaded, the principal argument is, regulate interstate commerce and if not interstate, we should throw this out, and a lot of the decisions that have ruled to the contrary or wrong. i think the court certainly could go back to the pre new

deal era, but i do think the reality is that if those cases are accepted, as i think have to be, by the opponents of the statute, they have a very tough time. is there economic activity that is being regulated? there is. the decision to self insured, and judge sutton could very well in his separate opinion in the sixth circuit case upholding the mandate, where he said the decision to sell the insurer is an economic decision. he said self insurance and private insurance are two forms of action for addressing the same risk. one is no less active at -- and the other and both affect commerce. even if one believes that there is some activity in activity distinction that is embodied in the commerce clause, it is are

to say that in this particular context where we are dealing with insurance as opposed to an actual purchasing decision, there is anything like inactivity. i do think the whole premise that there is some activity- inactivity distinction really does not hold water, as judge sutton intimated. it is inconsistent with the court cases and with the constitution. the constitution does not say by the way, inactivity is not commerce that is regulated. let's look at some examples. the bank of the united states is one. when congress created a whole range of economic activity when it created the bank, in more modern times it created fannie mae and freddie mac. we worry about the policy implications of that, but it created all kinds of commerce that did not exist before, and no one would say that is wrong. if we go back -- mr. children's

we was going to be kept on the farm. it was not going to enter commerce, yet the court said it could be regulated. i think the activity-inactivity distinction, although verbally interesting, when you drill down into the meaning, it does not really have a lot. i would also step back and say, what were the framers really trying to do? it seems to me that are trying to delineate interstate commerce as an area and then say within that sphere, the federal government has the same plenary power that the states do. as i said before, i think everyone agrees that the state's could in fact enforce a mandate using the police power. once we are in the realm of interstate commerce, and nobody says that the health-insurance

market industry, the health-care industry is not interstate commerce. obviously it is one of the biggest components of interstate commerce. it seems difficult to say that congress does not have that same kind of plenary power. >> i would like to start our return to the point with which i began the discussion, which is that all the arguments you have just heard and all the other arguments made by other people defending the mandate, how the implication of congress has virtually unlimited power to impose mandates. under the commerce clause, andrew just said if you are making a decision that has an economic effect that now falls in the commerce clause, the decision to do or not do anything has that sort of effect. i choose not to buy broccoli, that has an effect on commerce. if i choose not to buy a car, same thing.

if and i choose not to wake up at a different time in the morning, later rather than earlier, if enough other people make a similar decision, that has an impact on economic productivity. it cannot be the case that the commerce clause extends to all economic activity, and economic activity is defined as any decision of any kind and has some sort of economic effect. that does lead us to the unlimited power that the commerce clause is not supposed to give congress and which the court has said repeatedly, even in modern times, has significant limits. it is important to recognize that although it is true, i disagree with a good number of the most recent commerce clause precedents, this case goes well beyond that. those cases described congress's power and under a broad definition of economic activity, the individual mandate still falls outside of it.

enter brought the case of -- andrew brought up the famous 1942 case. i am not sure he characterized it entirely correctly. it was not a case where anyone caught was forced to purchase or use week or do anything else. -- purchase or use wheat pit said that if you are that kind of commercial former, you cannot grow more than a certain amount of wheat. i think it is a problematic decision in various ways but it is not analogous to the individual mandate case. was limited to actual commercial enterprises which are engaged in economic activity. a more analogous case would be to say if you are not a farmer, you are required to grow wheat or perhaps for car to go out and purchased wheat from people who are course. i would like to talk about the

tax argument to which andrew devoted the bulk of his remarks. i would like to start off by saying it is not the case that his has been neglected in the lower courts, as he suggested. rather, every single court should have considered this issue and has done so in great detail. the government -- 15 out of 16 judges who have considered it have rejected it because they have all ruled it is a penalty and not a tax. there is a good reason for that. if you accept andrews argument that anything that raises revenue and promotes the general welfare, an extremely broad definition of the general welfare, than any fine of any kind is going to be a tax, a fine for jaywalking, for not buying broccoli, are pretty much anything else. the court has consistently distinguished between taxes and penalties, and this measure clearly falls on the penalty side of the line.

he says the court said it does not matter congress specifically says it is a tax or not, that may be true in cases where congress simply has not been clear on whether it it is a tax or not. in this instance, however, but congress and the president, who is also part of the legislative process here, he has the veto power, they repeatedly went out of their way to say this is not a tax, and the cannot have their cake and eat it. if you on top of it say it is not at tax, you cannot then turn around and say it is a tax. the defenders of the mandate say if there is political accountability, that undermines -- they are allowed to pretend is not a tax. often it is not the way the legislative process works. there is a tremendous inertia to it. it is very hard to repeal or alter a major statute after the

fact. if we are going to have political accountability, a lot of it has come before hand, not afterwards. i think it is also important to recognize that by this logic under the tax clause and under the commerce clause and necessary and proper clause, you would get virtually unlimited congressional power, and that currently does make hash out of the constitution. it makes most of congress's other authorities completely redundant, and none of this is actually required by even the broadest reference that the court has adopted so far. i want to say a point about the activity versus inactivity distinction. that distinction was not invented by us, the people who want the statute struck down. rather it that distinction is found in numerous supreme court decisions for the have defined

congress's power in terms of activities. andrew has said well, congress has debated activity with fannie mae and other regulatory agencies, but that is not congress using the commerce power to compare -- repel or -- compel people in the private sector. to the extent it is authorized by the constitution, it would be a whole different set of arguments and some cases a different set of clauses, once we are talking about here. the tax -- in the original meaning of the constitution, the court should not extend its president and congress virtually unlimited power to impose mandates of any kind. thank you. >> i will try to be short so we can have as many questions as

possible. clearly the mandate is the boogeyman here. i did not hear in response to the idea that the states do have the power to do this. it is lot that we are so afraid of something -- it is a little odd that we are so afraid of something that every state can do, and when we are within the federal government's spiro power, and this is interstate commerce health care, why cannot be done. i think that argument is a little bit of a red herring, especially in the tax context. the parameters i went through about the taxing power are not my argument. they are the supreme court standard. the taxing power is incredibly broad, and with all deference to the lower court judges, when the benefits of being a supreme court advocate is to get to see many cases where the supreme court looks at an issue and says even if 11 of the 12th circuit's are on one side of it, we think they are all wrong, and we will

go with the one court we think got it right. i think it is especially important to point out, it is not a question of power. none of those decisions turn on the idea that congress could not do this under the taxing power. as judge cavanagh wrote in his opinion based on the injunction act, that the statute was not written quite right. it was a distinction, the fact that the mandate was not conditioned -- the people were not given an option of either buying health insurance or paying the tax. if the provision had been written exclusively that way, he would have had no trouble of holding as a tax. in terms of power, putting aside what this particular statute does, there is no really serious argument that this cannot be done as a taxing power. the only argument is that maybe because of some details in this

case, it was not done quite right. i think that is wrong for the reasons i explained about the new york decision. it is wrong to characterize this as a penalty could what makes something a penalty? the court has said something is a penalty when it has the indicia of a criminal act. none of those things are present here. i think it is quite clear that if this had been written conditionally, it almost surly would have been upheld as a tax. we are dealing with the technical drafting question and not a question of power on the taxing side. on the commerce clause side, i don't think this case is that different from wickard. judge silberman -- the question was whether the farmer could grow some extra week just for his own use.

it was not going to leave the form -- the former could grow some extra wheat just for his own use. that was wheat that was not going to enter commerce. one of the arguments from the other side is that congress cannot regulate 3com per se activity. the case was the total answer to that. could congress had prohibited -- require him to grow some wheat in the first place, or could he disputed the statute on the grounds that it did that? that is just a week characterization of the same argument. justice jackson said even if we assume that the wheat was never marketed, it would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. the stimulation of commerce --

that ties perfectly into what the issue is here, which is insurance is different from other kinds of requirements, whether it be broccoli, cards, etc., because insurance and how one is going to pay for an activity in which one is certainly going to engage, if the conduct that is being regulated here, and as the judge said in a passage read earlier, that participation in and out i am going to pay for it market is happening right now. some people are making self insurance choices. question is can congress regulate the time in which people make that choice one way or the other, or at least provide a financial incentive to get insurance earlier. that is exactly what has happened here. i do think the inactivity- activity distinction really does not hold up in the court cases

at all, but the court really does not have to go that far. the unique characteristic of insurance and health care in terms of the fact that everyone is going to pay for it, and because of the laws requiring that health care be provided to those who cannot afford it, they are definitely going to be a burden on other taxpayers. that is something that congress can deal with now. >> tremendous, thank you so much. now we are going to take the opportunity to take questions, either from folks here horror from those who have submitted questions -- it from folks here or from those who have submitted questions on the internet. if anybody has a question, please raise your hand and you will be provided a microphone. tell us who you are and who your question is directed to, and we will also to questions from the internet.

>> i have two questions. do you think that in deciding this case, the justices will have to get into question the government about why congress felt it necessary to do certain things? for example, frequently the figure of $30 million or the costs of care from the individual mandate, people not paying their bills -- do you think in the [unintelligible] are going to have to get into

[unintelligible] is this necessary as we create this mandate? there is a legal question here, but inevitably there is policy beneath that -- does it matter? how does it matter -- how much does it matter? there was a pre-existing regulatory scheme that congress was trying with force. in this case, even though there was some federal regulation of health care before, this new law creates a huge expansive regulatory scheme for the first time. >> i am happy to take a shot.

i think turning to your first question, the questions of the underlying policy and a justification for it may well come up. the have been extensively laid out in the briefs. how much as the core going to look at that? in the spending course context, does this enactment promote the general welfare? we are not going to inquire too terribly much into that. that is an issue that is really almost entirely committed to congress. we will not drill down into the specifics of that in the way that the court does when there are statutes that burden individual rights like free speech. i would anticipate you will see that kind of interest, but in the end deference to whether or not there is a real problem in terms of free riders. i think it is unlikely the court was a decision will turn on some extensive examination of the

evidence that concludes that is not an issue. i do think the fact this is part of a large regulatory scheme is relevant. one of the problems in some of the cases where the court has struck down enactments often because of the infringement of state authority or on states -- thinking about the violence against women act -- a lot of those were one off of regulations that did not really have much of a relationship to commerce. you could make the link their was a lot of steps in the link. here congress is really taking hold of a huge national problem and regulating in a comprehensive way, it is helpful to say this particular regulatory item as part of that very large scheme which relates to interstate commerce.

>> regarding the policy issue, it is possible the court will get into some of that. i think they could rule our way without saying anything whether it is a good policy, whether it is necessary or not. our argument is this is unconstitutional, even if it is necessary in the offensive before convenient that the court is used to define necessity. even if it is necessary in that sense, it is not proper. there are lots of things that might be good or necessary policy measures that are still outside of the constitution. that is our argument. it is not that there are flaws and this is a policy matter. some have said, this is the only way to have the effect of health reform or cover pre-existing conditions. that is not true. i think there are other ways of doing it.

i am not sure it actually matters. the court construct this down and it can do so without making any policy judgments at all. regarding gonzales -- yes it is true, it is all for the most part of a new one. because it is part of this broader scheme, that makes it different than a stand-alone statute of some kind. i think that argument does not hold water. given the existing scope of federal regulation, any man they can be defended on the ground that is related to some current legislation that was enacted. even something like the broccoli mandate, you can say there are lots of pre-existing regulations of the agriculture market or free market. there are all sorts of

agricultural subsidies. you could fit a broccoli mandate or say a health care -- a health food purchase mandate within the same framework. a lot of the evidence suggests your diet has a bigger impact on your health and how much health care you consume even then whether or not you have health insurance. the health food man they can sometimes be justified on many of the same types of grounds as the government mandates on. >> terrific. >> thank you. i am curious, we talked a lot today about the fact -- [unintelligible] what kind of arguments we're going to hear. what do you think of both sides on that? >> first of all, i think it is

possible for the court to say that if not a tax such that the injunction act eliminates its jurisdiction but can go on to uphold the measure under the power, i think it is clear from the case that the statutory test is a much more technical one where the use of the word tax may be much more determinative. also, there are some other questions about the statute which is the extent of the states have that standing, they are subject to the act. there is an older case called south carolina versus reagan. in order to reach a constitutional challenge by the states, that case involved a municipal bonds, tax exemption of municipal bonds. the court found a way to say that the tax injunction act was not applicable.

my own intuition is that the court is not going to conclude that it can address the merits here. i will give credit to walter for this thought. i think it is correct that if it were to do so, i think the next day there would be unanimously passed in both houses a statute exempting this statue from the injunction act and the case would be back in the court before he could finish reading the many lines of opinions that have been issued by the court the day before. i think in terms of reality, that is not going to be much of a barrier, even if the court to decide. >> largely agree with that, but i would know it is unusual to claim that the definition of a tax under the anti injunction act is actually narrower than a tax and to the constitution, the traditional view adopted by the lower courts including the only

one that has said the anti injunction act is at least as broad as the constitutional definition and possibly broader. the whole point of the anti injunction act to -- the whole purpose was to make it hard for tax payers to challenge taxes that congress imposed under the constitution. it would be strange if there were with the category of taxes that congress's authorized and the faa does not cover. with that said -- aia doesn't cover. you have 26 states like this here as well, with them it is a different issue to whether they have standing or not. one lower court has ruled the state does not have standing. i think their view is not likely to prevail. i generally agree the most likely the court will reach their merits in this case, partly because that is actually

the better legal argument. partly because the court recognizes both sides. that will probably way undermines as well. >> thank you. -- that will probably weigh under minds as well. >> if the mandate is up held, would that be an applied challenge. and somebody that pays for his health insurance does not have to worry about -- if they benefit from a social system like in great britain, will the ruling on its face preclude as it is applied to?

>> i guess it depends. first of all, it depends on how the court reasons the decision striking down the facial challenge or rejecting it. you could bring in as applied challenge. i think all the arguments that have been offered on behalf of the constitutionality of the man they would apply to as applied challenge as well as challenges. i think it is unlikely such a challenge could succeed if the mandate is upheld, even f. technically speaking the court said it only applies to these challenges. >> think that is an area where putting aside the over all dispute about the necessary and proper clause, if congress could reach the vast majority -- the overwhelming majority of people in this clause, i think you could make a strong argument that covering everybody

is necessary and proper just in terms of providing a clear rule in the very important area of interstate commerce. >> have you expect there will be an opinion for each of these three cases? the u.s.-backed there will be two opinions, one that deals with the medicare issue and one that dealt with the other two cases? >> my guess is there will be one opinion in all of the cases. one opinion for all of the cases that will be written that could well -- i think even -- i cannot remember how the case was written. i would think there will probably be one opinion that

will deal with everything -- one set of opinions. i do not think there will be one opinion for nine justices. a it could well be one big opinion divided into three or more sections. or it could be separate opinions to. it is possible there will be different majorities in different cases. i think the opinion will be lying in details and it will not be written like the kind of opinion that says this is an easy question we can easily dispensed with based on precedent even the when we started down this road one year and a half ago, has many defenders said this is an easy case and only weird extremists or people ignorant of constitutional law could think this is unconstitutional. i think the other reason we are likely to get a long opinion is that the justices -- many of them will recognize this is actually a very important power. it goes beyond the existing

precedents. i do not think there will be swayed into believing it is an important because the states can do the same thing because the court has said repeatedly that when you have states doing things, there is competition between them. if the state enacts an onerous mandates like massachusetts has, people and businesses have the option of >> sitting. if you have a mandate or any policy that affects the entire country, the danger is greater because it is true. you can expatriate yourself. exiting the country is a much tougher proposition for many reasons than leaving a state. i could go into the history of onerous state mandates such as many decades of state mandates where states actually force people to engage in forced labor and the like, i think despite my desire to go into the history of federalism, i will leave it there. i could go on for a long time if

i did not resist temptation here. >> thank you so much. on the question of whether it is a serious challenge, we know the answer to that. the court has given six hours of oral argument over the course of three days. that is essentially in the modern era, unprecedented. those who were dismissive of this question in the early days were wrong. what will happen, we will have to see. the justices are giving an unbelievably detailed attention. if they did not think there was a serious question to be resolved here, they would have had an hour of oral argument can be done with it. tea was so much to the people who are here. thank you to the washington legal foundation for hosting this event. thank you to c-span for covering it. we all look forward to further reporting on the oral arguments in the decision. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] what's the justice department blocked texas from enforcing its new voter i.d. lot. -- i.d. law. the ruling seemed to focus on the large number of residents -- registered voters in texas to do not have a driver's license. how difficult would it be for them to get alternative ideas? what's it all depends on where they live. there are 81 counties in texas that have no department of public safety driver's license offices. if you are living in some of these remote areas and you have no transportation, it is going to be very hard to travel to another county. that might be 100 miles or 125

miles round trip. in the metro areas, houston or san antonio for example, there might not be a dps driver's license in your neighborhood. it might require 10 or 15 mile trip to get to a driver license. the complaint right now in texas is that the waiting lines to renew a driver's license might be two hours long. it will be difficult for some people. >> the texas primaries just weeks away, april 3, what does this mean for voters in texas? no idea needed? >> the primary was changed -- is now scheduled for may 29. that is because of redistricting fights. that day is scheduled. we do not know if it will change again.

whether it is in may or june or july, it is highly unlikely that this voter id conflict will be resolved. now goes to a three judge panel in washington, d.c. this case will start from scratch before those three judges. that means it will probably take months for the parties to develop the evidence in their case. >> texas gov. rick perry called the department justice ruling a pervasive federal overreach. the state must have been prepared for a court battle on this all along. >> yes, when the department of justice did not pre clear a voting id bill in south carolina, that influence the state attorney general to file suit. yes, they anticipated this.

>>gary scharrer with the houston chronicle and san antonio express news. thank you for the update. >> we have been asking you about voter i.d. lost throughout the day starting with washington journal this morning. are you for or against? he writes a against, because we already have state issued voter ids. they are called voter registration cards. lots of the voting going on today throughout the south. caucuses also in hawaii and american samoa. we will have coverage tonight at 7:00 eastern on c-span. all of that tonight starting at 7:00. >> c-span's 2012 cities tour

takes-"book tv" and "american history tv" programming on the road. march feature treats poor, louisiana. >> he was -- march featured shreveport, louisiana. >> over his lifetime, he accumulated over 200,000 volumes. if we have a gem in the collection, it is probably going to be this one. it is one of the books we are most proud of. it is it the original binding from 1699. a it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see he has written his name i. newton. we are not pulling it out so much anymore because it is starting to flake away on the title page. >> pioneer medicine is a long

stretch from what it is today. we consider the things that we take for granted today when we go to the doctor, things like the instruments being as germfree as possible or the doctor has washed his hands before he decides to work on us. we use the term doctors loosely when talking about early doctors. a lot of them are self-taught or had been working under somebody else who was set taught. they would just learn as they went. >> our cities tour continues the weekend of march 31 and april 1 from little rock, arkansas. >> commanders in the western hemisphere testified today before the senate armed services committee about the 2013 budget.

they describe the rising rock -- and rising violence related to drug trafficking and iran's influence in central america. this is two hours. >> good morning, everybody. the committee meets to meet with two distinguished leaders to discuss security in our

hemisphere. douglas fraser, charles jacoby. this is general jacoby's first appearance. we look forward to working with you in your new position. general frazier, this is likely to be your last hearing. we greatly appreciated your testimony and advice over the past three years. our nation appreciate your 37 plus years of service in the united states air force. i understand you and your wife are planning to enjoy some much- needed and it deserved down time. we truly wish to all the best.

we offer our thanks to your families and the families of all your personnel since they share in the sacrifices of their service. and because their support is so important to the success of your missions, and thus to our nation's security. u.s. northern command, which was established after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, is responsible for the defense of the homeland and for providing support to civil authorities in response to domestic or man-made disasters here at home. its area of responsibility includes all of north america, including canada and mexico. general jacoby also serves as commander of norad, has the

mission of providing aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning for north america. we're most interested to learn about how are northcom and norad might contribute to cyber security in the home land. it was part of the mission, nor the command must work with other federal agencies, particularly the homeland -- department the homeland security. this requires close coordination with the state governors, the national guard forces to improve their combined federal and state response capabilities to a wide variety of emergencies. we made significant progress on this from last year with several of initiatives including the new dual status command

capability, which is intended to allow state and federal military forces to work together to support a gov.'s needs for disaster assistance. as part of this effort, congress authorized legislation to permit the call up of federal military reserve forces to support gov.'s responding to a natural disaster. we would be interested in hearing the general's views on how these new initiatives are working and how they will work. as part of its homeland defense mission, northern command is also a combatant commanders possible for the operational ground-based midcourse defense system. to defend the united states against the threat of a potential future ballistic missile attack from nations such as iran in north korea. the last two flight tests of the system using the latest model of the xo atmospheric kill vehicle

resulted in failures. they are taking steps to make sure that the new kill vehicles work reliably and effectively before we produce more, including adequate testing and system enhancements as this committee recommended and last year's bill. the defense department also is pursuing improvements to the reliability of the system that will allow the use of your interceptors to defeat future intercontinental ballistic missiles. increasing our inventory of interceptors overtime. as part of phase four of the adaptive approach to missile defense, the department is developing the standard missile three blocked 2b. that is to defend potential long-range iranian missiles that could reach our homeland.

this would augment our system and we look forward to hearing on thesejacoby's views and related programs. in july of 2011, the president released a strategy to combat transnational organized crime. this strategy is the first of its kind, but the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations is not new. today we hope our witnesses will provide their assessment of the threat posed by these transnational criminal organizations and help the committee understand their respective command's role. northcom and southcom are the primary entities in which the department defense engages in the western hemisphere. the ability of transnational criminal organizations to outgun law enforcement has

military's being asked to take on additional responsibilities throughout the region. this expanded role provides opportunities for our military to improve its advise and assist activities and to enhance our military to military relations. the committee looks forward to learning of your continued engagement in the hemisphere and the opportunities it presents for your commands including on matters such as respect for civilian control the military and respect for human rights. given the terrific level of violence in mexico, especially related to drug trafficking and the flow of money and guns from our country into mexico, we want to hear general jacoby's assessment of the current security assessment above and below the border and the cooperation between the two militaries to help defeat the transnational criminal organizations. responsibility

includes the caribbean and south and central america. as we discussed last week, there is no traditional military threat emanating from the region, southcom is contending with an increasingly powerful threat in the form of transnational organized crime. these criminal organizations abroad to the point where they are a real threat to national and international security. we are deeply concerned about this matter, and we are prepared to consider was to enable the defense department to provide its unique capabilities to american law enforcement as well as foreign law enforcement and military is where appropriate to ensure these organizations are brought to justice. efforts to combat transnational criminal organizations and other armed groups in the region have seen some success. over the past two decades, the united states has invested hey