day before with the big oil tycoons and he had a little blurb and he comes out with the so-called energy policy. i don't understand why there are people out of their good don't see this guy as a lying -- just lying, he does nothing but lies. he has bamboozled too many people. he is now have -- not out for you, middle-class. he doesn't know about the middle class. he has no conception of anything but to make himself -- everybody has to battle down to him. >> on to california, tammy is calling in on the independent line. go ahead. >> i would like to say my vote will now be for romney and the reason is that barack obama's

transparency seems to be only when it is not him that he wants to be transparent, like all of this information from when he was younger, everything about him is sealed. i cannot vote for somebody who is so secretive. also i would do i like the policies of romney-ryan, as i will be voting for romney. >> florida on the republican line. >> i became a republican when i was watching -- democracy, you know, it was created. at the time of the republican, the ex-governor from california,

ronald reagan, he just gave the papers to all mexicans who were there years and years without the papers and he gave papers to have real social security and to contribute with the nation. have your social security number -- once you have the real social security number, you have to work and contribute to the nation. that is what he did. and all the people from all the nation's, they have to work and continue. >> onto mark from houston, democrats' line. >> this basically is short and sweet. i think mitt romney has a very

appeal to a demographic that is obvious from the attendance of his rallies -- i challenge myself to look each time at his rallies and i see not one person of color in the whole bunch. i think it is something america needs to pay attention to. mitt romney represents the white supremacy movement in 2012. >> thanks." . -- >> thanks for your call. donna is from arkansas on the independent line. >> and i waited so long to get into c-span. i am so fed up with politics. i am tired of all the democrats that call in, and i am an independent. saying mitt romney is a liar. and that is all president obama has done since he has taken office is like to us. >> we thank you for your call. you can see what our convention schedule is. we begin monday, august 27,

starting at 2:00 in the afternoon until 11:00 p.m. eastern and the rest of the day, -- the rest of the days, 7:30 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. we do appreciate all of your phone calls today. during the why house briefing, spokesman jay carney has something to say about mitt romney's energy plan that was released today. >> governor romney's campaign is promoting steps on energy today. some of the goals they are laying out, creating more than 3 million jobs through increased energy production, energy independence by 2020. does the president think about some of these goals are feasible? >> what the president believes is we need to pursue a policy of that embraces a bold and robust all of the above approach to energy. and what we know is that the

policy the president has pursued has led already to the doubling of production are renewable energy from sources like wind and solar since the president took office. we know that under his leadership and during his presidency, domestic production of oil and gas, natural gas, has increased, and our reliance on imports of foreign oil has decreased, to its lowest level then i think something like 16 years. i think what this thing was it -- distinguishes the president's approach, the all of the above approach to our energy future, from the republican approach, is that the republican approach essentially is one that is written by a court dictated by big oil and it focuses almost entirely on oil and fossil fuels. this president believes we need

to embrace all forms of domestic energy production, including oil and including natural gas and including nuclear energy, which, as you know, this administration has invested in for the first time in 30 years. including renewables like wind and solar. while the republican approach denigrates forms of energy like wind, this president believes that investing in renewable energy is essential to enhancing our energy independence. i would note, -- i think congressman ryan got wind energy a fad and maybe governor romney called imaginary. this is a narrow view and a dangerous you if you think about how -- dangerous view when you think about how important

domestic production is to our national security interests. this president is looking to push and all of the above approach so we aggressively the aggressively pursue oil and gas production, aggressively pursue renewable energy production and make the investments necessary to secure our future. >> some of the components -- increase drilling off the coast of virginia and florida and increase energy production in federal lands. is there a place in the energy policy for some of the ideas governor romney is proposing today? >> i can tell you, as you know, under the president' we have increased production and federal waters and lands. the administration just finalized a plan that will build on the millions of acres made available of sure the last year alone by making 75% of offshore resources available for production. i think again, if you look at

the president's record, he has been very aggressive in pursuing ways to increase domestic production of energy. he has done and also in a way mindful of the need to produce it in a safe and reliable fashion. one other point i would note is that, again, representative of the president's approach, the all of the above approach on energy, is we have now more coal miners employed in this country that we have had in the past 15 years. so, this president believes that america's national security and energy independence depends on complete all of the above approach. it depends not on focusing solely on domestic oil and gas production and big oil and insisting on continuing oil and gas subsidies while ending, for example, the production of tax credit -- the wind energy tax credit which is important to the development of the wind energy industry in the country, which

the president talked about last week which, as in all, his opponents in this election oppose. despite the fact that republicans in key states where wind energy is important support extending that wind energy tax credit. >> here is a look again at mitt romney's and agip proposal, creating 3 million new jobs and energy -- and energy independence, which he said in his appearance in mexico. creating these jobs by the year 2020. we will shortly have a link to his plan on our website. go to c-span.org. as we gear up for our coverage of the republican national convention, here is a look at what we are doing to provide full and complete gavel-to-gavel coverage. >> we are introducing our new web site today. it is being unveiled. jeremy will introduce it to us. what do you have to show was? >> since 1984, c-span has covered every convention minute

to minute, gavel-to-gavel, and this year will be no different. but on the c-span convention hall, viewers can really engage with c-span content and with other viewers during the convention. if you go to the home page -- c- span.org/campaign2012, you will find all sorts of things. at the top you will have live and featured video. this is not a new thing. we shall live video every single day and are all archived in the season video library. if you scroll down you will see new things. the first thing you will see are user-generated clips. every video in the video library for the convention and every video before that, you can click just some segments. instead of sharing an entire five-hour session you could share just 30 seconds or two minutes, however long you see fit, and share it on various social media networks or on your blog or web site. below that, you will see two

twitter streams. they come from two services -- to resources. viewers -- anyone using the pass tags c-spanrnc for the republican convention or c-span dnc for the democratic and mentioned in charlotte, it will end up on that tweet stream on the left. on the right we come out a list of delegates who will be tweeting above conventions. the republican side, which is live now, you will see all the tweets from delegates at the republican convention. next week, when the democrats are -- actually the week after next -- we will have their tweets as well from their delegates. >> jeremy, everything is available at c-span.org. people can watch the conventions live, they can watch speakers who have already spoken online. they will see the tweets from the delegates and from fellow viewers. political tweets. what about facebook? >> facebook, all of this will be sharedable on facebook.

one thing we are featuring toward the bottom are these info graphics, which have all sorts of facts and figures. it is actually something new for us at c-span that people will be able to share. those might include quotes numbers, length of the speech. we will be doing those day-by- day. all of these will be shareable on facebook and easy to share. >> people want to go to this website. where did they go? >> c-span.org/campaign2012, where you can find every speaker from governor romney to president obama, may years, members of congress and anyone else speaking at the conventions. and there will be google best + hang out. >> attorney general eric holder will talk before the national gay and lesbian and transit -- trends gender bar association. you can see it live starting as an entity p.m. eastern.

mitt romney's vice president of nominee paul ryan has. on your appeared on c-span about for the times and we look at remarks from previous years and some of the key issues. he talks about health care, the federal budget, and social security, among other items. we will have it tonight starting at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. now, and look at new media and political campaigns of the past decade. university of north carolina journalism professor discusses his new book "taking our country back -- the crafting of network politics, from howard dean to barack obama." this was before an audience at a bookstore in chapel hill. his speech and the questions and at -- and answers from the audience last about 25 minutes. >> the tell tell signs, yes. we recognize these. ok, for today's lecture we will approach elections with a look at the last two presidential elections and a revolution in

campaign communications, fund- raising and organizations that occurred with the full integration of the internet into the political process. we have a bit of a history lesson as well as a peek at the implications of this history on the 2012 election. to help us negotiate this terrain, we turn to dr. daniel kriess, assistant professor at unc school of journalism and mass communication where he teaches courses in research methods and political communication. he received his b.a. from -- college and master's and ph.d. from stanford university. before becoming to carolina in july of 2011, he was a postdoctoral associate in law and fellow of the information society project at yale law school, an institution of which he is still affiliated. his research explores the impact of technological tech lago -- technological change on the public's fear and practice. his recently published book "taking our country back -- the crafting of network politics

from howard dean to barack obama" presents an untold history of new media and democratic political campaigning over the last decade. and the book, i want -- he traces innovations in online campaigning brought about by young internet staffers from the 2004 howard dean campaign, and consultants of writing campaigns, organization, an advocacy groups. and a course on the 2008 obama campaign. we would like for a moment, so you can order this book -- to take advantage of our local bookstores. in addition to his new work, his research has. -- appeared in "new media and society," "critical studies and media communications," "the journal of the information technology and politics," "and international -- we are -- please join me in welcoming dr. daniel kriess as he discusses network politics,

from howard dean to barack obama, 2004-2012. dr. daniel kriess. >> i want to thank you all for coming today and also thank the humanities community at flyleaf for really extending such a wonderful invitation to be part of such a great series. i just finished my first year at unc, and it is public facing programs like this that has made my time at chapel hill be so wonderful in my first year. what i want to talk about today is my recent book, which max mention. the book presents a history of new media in a mature campaigning overall much of the last decade, through the lens of looking at how the democratic party and its candidates have taken up new media. and i just want to say one quick thing here. i will focus on democratic campaigning in the book to really tell the history deeply and well. it for reasons that we can talk

about and the q&a, i think on the republican side of the aisle, they have a bit of a different history. largely for a number of different reasons, but namely parties bases of support different from the infrastructure that serves the two parties have different, the sorts of firms that provide services and online campaigning sector is different. and all of this sort of makes for a bit of a different history over the last decade. we can talk about that more later on. as we go along, i am going to talk a little bit more about the title in detail, what i mean by kraft, by network politics, and the notion of taking our country back, which is the title of the book. i will explain in more detail -- it refers to a look toward mobilization more generally. i want to do three things today. first, i want to talk a bit about how i came to this work. it is a story that begins in the dead of winter. in 2004, the frigid streets of

this in the city, i would beg, on the eve of the caucasus. and it ends and offices of one of the most powerful on-line political consulting firms in politics, a firm that did not exist when i actually began his research. that is one of the back stories, is how much things have changed over the last decade in terms of who are the major players and how the campaigns and candidates have taken up the web. in the process, i want to talk a little bit about how scholars and journalists have taught -- thought about the of cake -- uptake of the internet in the electoral process. second, i want to talk about the findings of the book and talk about the story of the uptake of new me in politics is really the story of innovation, infrastructure, an organization building. i will do so by focusing on some key moments in the broader history that i will sketch. in terms of folks come together on the dean campaign and creating a series of innovations in new media and then carrying

the innovations across democratic politics, culminating in the obama campaign and 20 -- 2008 and now in 2012. finally, i will talk a bit more expansively on what it means. what should we think about the interaction of new media in democratic political processes? what is new and not so new and what are the implications really for citizenship, the ways in which would carry a -- carry out democratic policy -- processes into policy. ok. let me start by saying how i came to this work. during the 2004 democratic primaries, i was a master's student in journalism, writing about the presidential election. after watching the outpouring of energy around dean's candidacy, i was sort of excited about the potential of online and network media to potentially create new forms of democratic political , andigning, small d engage people in new ways.

i was excited -- on the left you can see, this is the howard dean game which was designed by a company called persuasive games. a the idea was that folks around the country could sort of gathered together in a mass of multi-player video game and carry out roles as if they were candidates and voters -- canvassing voters and i will bank. i was interesting -- interested in how it compared to old school politics and where the intersections were of the two. being a graduate student i started to emailed a bunch of folks i've found on line from the bay area, will volunteering from the dean campaign and in the middle of the night i flew to lincoln, nebraska, and drove two and a half hours to sioux city, iowa bank, and i spent a couple of days following the volunteers, watching them through baptist churches and roadside barber to joins, supermarkets, native american cultural centers, as folks went tking to folks

about the upcoming election, their role in it, and how important it was that they turn out to vote. we all know the outcome from the been campaign in 2004. -- from a howard dean campaign in 2004. i did not know necessarily that night in terms of anything we watched as volunteers and myself as we watched the concession speech. we did not notice anything out of the ordinary but by the time i got back into the car to drive to the hotel, the infamous howard dean screen what -- screen was in a loop on the radio. by the time we came home it was clear this would be a major media story. that is a little of what i know at the time, the experience of seeing the organizing taking place on line, seeing what has taken place on the ground and sometimes the disconnect between the two, it really formed the basis of the questions i would spend the next decade pursuing,

about the interrelationship between technology and democracy. really the questions that ended up framing this book. more fundamentally, i had a couple of basic questions that emerged from the experience. network media bringing about fundamentally new forms of political practice, remaking things like accountability, representation, and changing democratic conversation around the elections. those really became the big framing questions of the study, that took me to some unexpected places. the first thing i did when i entered a ph.d. program was to turn to the scholarly literature on the subject. what i found was really a set of various -- presenting a broad way to frame what i was talking about and the next hour. some of the theories of new media in politics generally make the claim that changes in new media technology and tools themselves lower the cost of organizing political

participation. when i say cost, i mean in a broad, expansive cents. it takes a lot less time to find people who are interested in causes like yours on line. right? you can gather around candidates, you can go on the internet on the computer and find other folks who might be inclined to agree with you in some way. it lowers the cost of organizing action, right? in the old days, you might have had to go door-to-door, for example, to find people who support your cause, through things like petitions. now what you can do is set up an online site and publicize it through e-mail and gathered together a whole bunch of names of all two might be interested in joining and participating with you. at the same time, one of the things scholars have argued is new modes of citizen-driven political engagement might be happening independently of these old formally organized campaigns. the idea is everybody can set up a website, say, for a candidate

like campaign -- howard dean. what you need a campaign organization for? everybody could go out and have the tools of organizing themselves and have access to these particular tools. a lot of scholars at the time were sort of suggesting that maybe we will see is a broad shift away from these formal campaign organizations and more toward this more distributed decentralized sort of political organization. i am going to argue against that in a little bit, but that is basically the grounding of one of the scholarly approaches. finally, there were a lot of suggestions that online politics compels level of corporate to ration -- entails level collaboration that undermines elites, killing people more of a voice in the process. it is open to debate and i want to talk about that a little more later on. with those questions in mind, and with the scholarly literature in mind, i wanted to

set out to figure out if i could answer a couple of questions of my own. really, not only were they those big democratic theory questions that i started out with, but also some empirical questions. namely, why is it the howard dean campaign that was the sight of all of this innovation in 2004, and later on why was it the obama campaign in 2008? why were there any democratic candidates for republican candidates who were perceived as sort of the dancing the uptake of new medium in politics in similar ways? secondly, i was really puzzled by the enormous growth in online campaigning between those four years, between what we saw in to about four versus what we saw in 2008. what would help explain that? maybe the tools got more powerful or there was something else. maybe social practices of gathering on line, etc.. finally, i was still wondering what were the largest democratic implications.

i did a couple of things to find answers to those questions. first book, interviews. i can talk more and the q&a about how i went about researching the book. but in broad terms, essentially what i did was interviewed everyone who would talk to me, who had worked in new media and politics over the last decade or so, really starting in 2000. and what i ended up with is talking to over 50 staffers who worked on a number of campaigns, including al gore, howard dean, westley clark p. woodley clark, john kerry, both of john edwards's ron, barack obama, hillary clinton. all the major democrats. because i really focused on the howard dean and obama campaigns -- i also interviewed nearly the entire internet department from the howard dean campaign back in 2004 as well as all of the senior management and the managerial positions on the camp -- obama campaign new media does

-- division in 2008. in fact, a lot of those folks are now working for the president's reelection bid in 2012. so history stays quite correct in that way. secondly, i worked to gather up the enormous around the amount of writing that those at the democratic and the media politics have generally produced, and tried to weave them together in a coherent history. that was great. one of the wonderful things about online policy -- on-line publishing is a fault setting up a block to talk about the work they did on a campaign or speculate about what works and what did not. for a reset -- research it is great because access to a firsthand account in a very real and give it away. i did some fieldwork during the 2008 campaign. i engaged and operation -- observations of the barack obama campaign tools, looking at the functionality. what would citizens be able to

see and do through the technologies the campaigns were using on line in california and a bit in nevada. let me start here with the broad empirical argument, with a history. i know this might be a little difficult to see up on the board but i will talk through it. one of the important things to remember it is a new media and politics has a history. often i think we forget that there is a history in terms of people doing things over time, organizations doing things over time and history sort of shaped the way candidates use the internet today. it is not always remade anew every cycle. one of the arguments in the book is it was the remnants of a failed campaign -- howard dean's campaign into thousand four, that was really the significant dissemination point for a whole new way of engaging and using the internet and on-line can take -- and online campaigning. the campaign was the host of a

number of innovations in terms of how they used the internet. i will say more about this and a bit. but things we take for granted today -- the first systematic use of e-mail for a political candidate. now you get about a million emails from a number of different causes. it not exist as systematically in 2002-2003 when the howard dean campaign started to pioneer it. social networking platforms. we tend to remember -- we think about campaigns through the prism of things like facebook. back in 2002-2003, the dominant social network was friendsster of one of the things the howard dean campaign never did is create their own campaign platform that the campaign used, a way an individual -- individuals could connect to one another. things that are less visible to us but immensely important for the history that i will call today, things like content management systems and databases. just how you put information on- line? how do you know we your voters

are on line? paladino boose should you be talking to any -- how do you know who you should be talking to or avoid? a couple of things the howard dean campaign did really well. did well. even more, and i will say about this in a minute, you have to know how to use those tools effectively. to coordinate their work in some way. in order to raise money and disseminate communication messages and get volunteers. when i use politics and the title, this is what i am referring to, ways of coordinating a labor of volunteers who are gathering for the first time. in the old days, used to have field offices. now what do you do when every volunteer in a state like california can be making phone calls? they became a new network of volunteers.

how'd you make sure everyone is on message and doing what you need them to do? briefly, the history and then i will go more into the moment. after the campaign ends, his former staffers, as you can see represented, stand in our re of consultancy's, training organizations, advocacy groups, etc. it is through them that they carry the lessons they learned, the technology they developed and the skills on the dean campaign to many other politics. they become the conduits of these innovations across the field. something they do is carry those tools and techniques, and they make them more powerful. they generate best practices for the first time. that was a new skill in 2004,

one that its refined to read their organizations. the history i want to focus on today is the movement of former staffers to the democratic party after chairman dean was elected. they became the technology directors for the party and implemented a new way that the democratic party would be engaging in politics. then they go to the obama campaign in 2008. the new media director in 2008 was a former staffer on the dean campaign. there is a direct transmission of tools and knowledge there. that is the pie in the sky, the larger argument. i am going to go inside a couple of these moments to illustrate what i have been talking about. i want to talk about innovation. how did this come about? let's look at the state of web

campaigning in 2000. this is a screen shot from al gore's website in 2000. it was sort of the dominant way of organizing a web site at that time. this refers to creating html versions of campaign literature and putting it on line. it tended to be static content, informative, so you could see gore presenting his vision on the front page. there is not a lot you can do. it is not very interactive. it is meant to present information to voters. the model that the staffers who were working in the internet had was for undecided voters. they saw that most of the people visiting web pages were going to be undecided voters looking for

information. it is a deliberative model, where folks are. about the candidates and go on line into their research. and get the information and cast an informed vote on the polls. there is also the first inkling that maybe this was wrong. maybe the people visiting web sites were actually supporters. in that sense, what you actually see was campaigns starts to take advantage of this and say, supporters might be checking out our media, we might be asking them to do stuff for us. so you saw for the first time some early practices are around small dollar fund-raising, driven by the mccain campaign in 1999. also bill bradley was doing a lot of fund-raising work. they began to provide

literature, for example, you saw this a lot in the amendment campaign in north carolina. you could go to the website and print out a signed and put that on your front lawn. you did not have to go to a campaign office. you could do it yourself. the gore campaign created customizable policy pages. you could say, i am going to create my own alcor's site with the top five issues i am interested in an e-mail that to my friends. that was an are the way to take advantage of social networks. one of the challenges was there was no industry of online campaigning in 2000. a lot of this knowledge gets lost in it -- because there is no dedicated firm or technology and there is little in the ways

of best practices for campaigning. that explains why into 2003, most of the presidential candidates' lack to dynamic sites we associate with presidential campaigns. for example, this is a screen shot from the dean campaign in 2003. limited functionality. there is a way to contact the governor and read about the candidates in the press. the link to contribute funds came late in 2002. even then, it was not as prominently featured as you would expect on a campaign website. the campaign website offered very little in the way of organizing opportunities for supporters. dean was not exceptional. all of them had websites that looked like this into 2004. what drove innovation during

this cycle was not a political candidate, it was bloggers. i want to talk about the net routeots. the store was initially a story of disruption. people organizing or disrupting the way candidates would conduct elections online. think back to 2003, 10 democratic candidates vying for the seat of george w. bush. among them was governor dean who was running as an outsider candidate whose campaign really centered on the opposition to the iraq war as well as his claims to represent the democratic wing of the democratic party. this online collection of bloggers who were progressives looking to remake the democratic party, they were bothered by the

complicity in the iraq war, and get behind his candidacy. they set of sites like this. this is the 2004 blogged. -- blog. they create forums to gather around his candidacy independently of the campaign. what you see is a lot of the early organizing tactics that the dean campaign would later take up in response to what they were doing. this is a screen shot of 2004 from the same month as the dean campaign. already you can see differences. it is the blogged format -- blog format. it was a wait for people to make themselves invisible to one another. to say, we are here and we are going to help being get elected to office. they start to driving fund-

raising and they start to driving growth of me? -- meet-ups. it was designed to facilitate gathering. you could get together and meet everyone else in your neighborhood and go off and take action. go knock on doors, etc. the bloggers were the ones who drove this initially and they were the only ones that responded to the request that the campaign did involved and reached out to a different number of campaigns. the blogger started to pitch this and it was later on that the dean campaign started to embrace it as a tool. that became a central backbone of the dean campaign in 2004. what is interesting is that these were social modes of gathering together for a candidate online. they then get adopted by the

dean campaign itself. this is a leader screen shot of the candidate's website in december. it adopts much more of the blog format, the blog john r. -- genre. certainly, it contributes a lot more. you can see folks and driving meet-ups and a set of links where you can help the campaign out by downloading flyers, passing information through your social network, downloading audio and video and sound them out. -- send them out. they also had a set of the events -- of event organizing

tools. dean link, a social network to profile themselves and start organizing their friends and families for dean. the whole point is that the campaign itself realized that it is great they have all of this energy gathering around the teen campaign but how do we get them working toward our priorities? that was the impetus behind this social orientation of the web site. the campaign's manager really wanted and set out to convene all of these efforts and bring them to the campaign to better coordinate their work. because it is about money and it is about message and volunteers. so they build these tools. he hires a bunch of people from the outside of politics. here is when we talk about

innovation. there were a lot of folks who came from the high-tech sector, coming from start-ups in places like silicon valley, and other tech hubs around the country. people were looking for new opportunities, perhaps more meaningful work, whether the stuff they were developing could be applied to a presidential campaign. they were the ones behind the design and the creation of the sorts of web sites. another thing the campaign did well was create a space of innovation. there was a separate department for the internet on the campaign and it was experimental. they had a culture that said experiment with these new tools. even if we do not know what the payoff is going to be, we want you to try building new things. in ball supporters. let's see what you can do.

-- invovle supporters. let's see what you can do. people came from sectors where this was encouraged and welcomed. etc to show you more in depth, dean link, the social net working platform, more than 20,000 supporters went in and profile themselves. much the same way they would have with friendster, which was the social that working platform that was comment. you can see ways of setting up your likes and interests and ways to get the word out about his campaign within your social network. and then a project, the integration of the social networking platform with an advanced tool, which enabled supporters to create their own events. i will talk about my barack

obama.com which was used to great effect in 2008, supporters using tools like this to help plan advance in their neighborhood. you could normally create an event and then people you could search in your zip code to find all of the other events created by your neighbors, friends, family, or people you did not know and then you could join one of them. you could go on a saturday and all of this could be independently organized from the campaign by supporters themselves through these tools. ok. we all know how the dean campaign ends in 2004 but i should say for a minute that it was a very successful for a time. it proved very effective, at least in some of the metrics we think of when we think of politics. he raised $50 million over the course of the primaries, which shattered the record of that

time. just to give you a sense of where we go in four years, obama raised $50 million in february 2008 alone. the enormous jobs in scale in terms of fund-raising. you can see the numbers really etorphine what dean was able to put together in 2003 -- dwarfing what dean was able to put together in 2003. one of the legacies is opening up space to be more critical of the sitting president in 2004. even though he lost, he made a number of important, he changed the dynamics of how the democratic party was running. he finished third in iowa and the next thing that happened is that while there was so little carry over into tools and staff after 2000, many of his former

staffers stayed in the electoral politics and they built new firms, organizations, all with this vision that what they put together on the team campaign was something extraordinary and they wanted to figure out how to make it more powerful and listed in the service of democratic politics. that is upper case d politics. a couple of things of note, this is the website of blue state digital. this carried many of the technologies and tools from the dean campaign and obama four years later. it was former and -- founded by four former staffers, three of whom had a background in high tech sectors. what they did was found this firm and received the intellectual property and ended up rebuilding them for dean's political action committee. which is now a community

organizing political action committee that is still active in local chapters around the country. it took that tool set and rebuilt it and made more powerful. in subsequent years, it eventually made a way to become my barack obama.com. i will talk about that in a minute. i want to talk about two other projects that were important for the dean -- for the obama campaign and the democratic party. a couple of important things, of blue state to digital is a partisan firm. a lot of the firms that service campaigns in 2004 were geared toward nonprofits and they were non-partisan. they would work on both sides of the aisle. in the 2004 campaign, you saw firms that would only work with democratic clients. they were more ideologically driven consultancy's and they

would take some corporate clients and nonprofit clients but there was a strong value of getting democrats elected. they also provided a range of technology and strategy services. technology meaning there were no dedicated tools for political campaigns back in 2000. after 2004, these firms created their first set of dedicated technologies that could be used on line. what is important is that the tools developed for nonprofits lacked the capacity needed for a presidential campaign. they need to have systems that can be implemented quickly and scale quickly. campaigns get millions of hits in a short time where as most nonprofits have much more consistent traffic. political campaigns had a different set of technical needs than nonprofits did.

let me say more about two of these infrastructure projects that are essential to understanding the 2008 and 2012 campaign. first, dean, once he became chair, invested time and effort in rebuilding the democratic party's databases. he brought along one of his former staffer to do this, the co-founder of blue state to digital. he became the technology director. let me say why this is important. the democratic party lacked a national data base. well into 2004, 2005. the story of the database is complicated. i would need an entire chapter to tell the history in the book but and a broad level, -- on a broad level, every one of the

democratic party's had its own voter data base. you would have 50 systems that were implemented around the country. the data was not standardized. every party had a different set of data. they would have different formats they were collecting it in. files for often incompatible. what is meant was that you often had to learn a number of systems. 13, 14, 15 systems in a battleground state. you can imagine the nightmare it was for a primary campaign. presidential campaigns, you could never queried the entire electorate. you could not figure out what were all democrats looking like? you could only see these different database systems. building the national file was a priority for dean because there were a number of failures in

john kerry's databases in 2004. they crashed often and for anyone who has ever canvassed before, you can know the nightmare about knocking on the same doors because you do not know who was contacted. what chairman dean did was work out a system where the national party assumed the cost of improving and maintaining the voter files and building a new data base in exchange for the permission to aggregate that. the system that resulted from that -- you can see from the screen shot. this is what they used in 2008. essentially what it is is the democratic party's database and voter files with an interface

system built around it. what this helped the party do with standardize data and be able to collecting capture data on the electorate. to give you an example, the barack obama campaign generated over 200 million pieces of information on the electorate from people going door-to-door. all of that is housed in this database and becomes the foundation that the campaign can go back and coordinate its field and online and outreach programs for 2012. you start to see this cumulative data work that goes into how campaigns conducted their collections. also, the democratic party makes this available to all candidates. everyone from the state senator and present and can access the same data, which makes a powerful because midterm elections, congressional races

are generating data that can be used later on. the second part of what chairman dean did was bring over an internet director that built and helped define a new online organization platform for the democratic party. this is called party builder. i told you about how they've rebuilt the tools, this is the version 2.0arty's of the tools. they be built it. you can see some of the similar features so people can create events, create groups, set up your own group, african americans for the democratic party, etc. you could circulate petitions. all of it and online platform that supporters of the party could use during the midterm elections. it was this system that became

my barack obama.com during the 2008 presidential election. let me say -- what is so well important about this history, this is a screen shot of the obama 2008 website from july 2007. when obama announced his candidacy, the campaign had in place a platform that could support thousands of supporter groups around the country, immediately going on line and taking action. i showed you earlier the dean campaign. before these tools existed, candidates would wait months with a more static web site. they did not have a way to get hit the ground running. the do obama announced, thousands of kurds could start already -- supporters could start already whether through

online eve and creation, or through local events or even keeping up with what the campaign was doing in a new interactive way. the story of the obama campaign is not simply about the tools, however. they used a blue state digital's services during the 2008 election. but after the folks from the blue state brought their platform from the party to the bombing campaign, one of the innovative things they did well was create an organization around those tools to use them effectively in some way. i want to frame this by a quote from the chief technology officer from 2008 when i interviewed him about some of the work of the campaign. now he is the chief innovation

officer for 2012. the idea was that folks were already mobilized about -- or around obama. they were mobilized around his charisma and charisma -- his charisma and rhetoric. really, the mantra of the campaign was money, message, and votes, the staples of electioneering. guinea to coordinate your campaign, you need to drive your message to make sure that you are communicating with citizens and the press and ultimately you need to make sure your tuner people out -- turn your people out at the polls. that translated that interest and energy are routt obama into those resources that would help

them win an election. to do so, the created a new media division which was sprawling and had over 140 staffers and volunteers by the end of the election. you can see the large areas of work. the important thing was that they were using tools in generating practices that would be translating that energy around a bomb into the resources they needed. i'm going to talk about -- or around obama into the resources they needed. i am going to talk about the internal organizing and i will talk about the analytics team that was working to make sure that people visiting the web site would be taking the actions they needed to take. then i will take you into 2012. first, this is the redesign.

it looks a lot of different from the earlier website that i showed you about the obama campaign. the important thing to talk about is that the campaign spent a lot of time working with talented designers to think about, how is it website going to reflect the vision of a candidate? and construct what his candidacy meant to the nation. designers wanted to communicate the excitement that the candidate offered to the united states of america and the electro. so they developed what they referred to as an aesthetic of obama online. you -- the idea was they wanted to help supporters imagine obama as a transformational figure and the campaign as a movement that was really changing the way that collect oral politics worked in america. to show you how they did this --

electoral politics worked in america. to show you how they do this, all of this was standardized and coordinated across the campaign. it was done so deliberately. they wanted that consistency in typeface and color to suggest that the candidate was a very efficient and experienced and competent as a manager and organizer. obama was relatively new to the political scene. he was a junior senator from illinois. they wanted to present a competent executive. so you would not have mixing and matching of different images. they wanted this a static that was integrated. a couple of other things, they went through historical documents and would stylized portraits of the candidate to

recall scenes from the civil rights movement. they wanted to create a visual impression that obama was this historical figure in some way and they tried to do this through design. they did a whole bunch of other stuff. they created a static that was using official looking documents, they were creating a supporter theme that were different groups to see their own identities represented in the campaign's bolos, design went hand in hand with tools. this is the screen shot of the dashboard. the important thing is that this campaign wanted to steer supporters interested in obama's candidacy into doing the work on the ground. they did a bunch of stuff and

you can see this is a later version of the original campaign tool. you have the capacity to a fund- raiser, you can create a network of other supporters who might be in your geographic area or part of your affiliation networks. and you can go take electoral actions with things like online canvassing tools. if i'm a supporter in california, i can make calls to undecided voters in north carolina in ways that is some way further in the field effort. one of the things the campaign did was to develop pelvic practices, which can narrow the optimization that would increase the likelihood you would need for the campaign to get done. the candidate would continually -- the campaign would

continually test different images, different colors, see what would be more likely to generate more people taking the action you want to take. to give you a sense of how this works, whether it's a change -- whether you saw a picture of the obama family or even saw a video whether you saw the red button that says learn more of verses signed up, all of these things were continually tested to make sure it would serve up the optimized page based on who you were based on the web site. there is a set of different categories of visitor so that when you visit a web page, the campaign could collect a bunch of information about you. you would know whether you had visited the site previously, whether yet signed up or made a donation or purchased something from the store or had an account. then they would look at your

geode location. if it's a district with a strongly democratic, are you in a district that leans strongly republican or are you in a battleground state? they would serve up different content based on who you are and where you are dialing into the campaign from. a quick example of how this works -- if you are visiting for the first time, you get a general welcome page. however, if you are in a battleground state and had visited a site previously, you might get a direct link to the application of the vote for change, which is an online voter registration tool. they knew you were a supporter and they want to make sure you are registered to vote. if you already have an account, you are taking action for the campaign. you can immediately start

contacting voters. this is worth real resources to the campaign. just to talk for one minute about this meant, the optimization alone is worth $57 million for the campaign. this is all about and figuring out what buttons and language to use and this is more than the entire state budget of florida. just by making the small tweaks about designing their web pages much better. the analytics team was headed up by folks who came from google and played an instrumental role in developing google's browser. where are we in 2012? i have about 10 more minutes and then we'll take questions. the area i just talked about helps eliminate certain things to look for in the coming

election. i want to talk about two areas in particular. the growing use of on-line volunteers and leveraging field effort, the data that goes into contemporary campaigning and new forms of social and individualized information flows. i want to begin with a caveat. it is exceptionally difficult to talk about an election in progress. i want to throw that out now. want to talk about the general trend and sing from the outside. that means staff they want the press to know. that's one reason i did interviews after the campaign and did that give a good look about where people could be more reflective. i want to speculate a bit based on what i'm seeing in terms of what i've learned from studying this over the last decade.

on one level, we see an extension of these early organizing around the website. this is the-board system which is new. and essentially what it does is it extends the organizing capacities and asks for new ones. anyone can create an account and anyone -- this is new -- you are dropped into a volunteer team based on years it code. i have team members and i can create a profile and there are different folks organizing events in the area and you can see all of the different things i can do as somebody dialing into this campaign. i can register voters, i can make turnout calls, all of this

is tracked, which gives me numbers i can see because i want to motivate myself and volunteer more, but also that the campaign can see so that they have a sense of what is going on in orange county and in north carolina. one of the important things here that is not visible to you but was an important part of the redesign is that the data folks generate making calls and using this application were entering data using this platform from going door-to-door is that this data is sync with the voter files in ways it was not in 2008. the campaign tool in 2008, there was a lag. you can make calls into north carolina but it would take awhile for the data to make it into the voter files.

every time you enter into information, i talked -- this is immediately in the campaign of voter files available not just to me but to the field organizers and headquarters in chicago instantaneously. that integration is very important. the romney campaign has developed a similar tools, although not based on a team model, at least not that i can tell. this is the back end to their support and you can create fund- raisers, you can donate and volunteer. that's a point system reveals this. but the general sense is ways in which you can create platforms and get involved and take

electoral action for the campaign in some way. at the same time, we can see the social flows and i can talk about individualized information flows in a minute. facebook and twitter, twitter specifically played a more marginal role. facebook, the campaign used mostly as an organizing tool. when folks joined those groups, they would have organizers that would reach out to everyone gathering on line. facebook and twitter are two essential communication tools for contemporary campaigns. essentially what campaigns want to do is create social flows of information. what i call a digital to step flow.

it's the idea that you want to reach out to folks who are supporting you but you want to have them pass on the message in your social networks. the idea you would find is more credible as a voter, to see information coming from one of your friends rather than a political campaign or candidate. it's about distributing their social networks that are already online. obama will put out messages on twitter and hopefully the people who follow him will retweet the messages or they will get picked up in other ways online and off. facebook, people can signal their allegiance to candidates. facebook offers new ways to collect information. for example, if you join a facebook application of one of the candidates, the campaign has

access to your name, gender, date of birth and social network data. they can start to run targetted based on that, based on the folks living in particular areas. or they can figure out who our particular influences and try to send them messages and to get that message disseminated in some way to people's social networks and tools on facebook. this goes hand in hand with what i call individualize information flows. what i am talking about here is the idea that campaigns can use online advertising to target voters in new ways. what campaigns want to do is target subsets of the election. this generally falls into three buckets. they use on-line ads to do three different things.

first, to find supporters. they call this list building. if you look at the ad -- it's as happy birthday and sign the card. they want you to give your e- mail address to the campaign. once they have my name and e- mail address, they're going to send you a higher order add. they would call this mobilization. this is about making a donation. when i first gave them my e-mail address, it was a tall dollar contribution to help win a dinner with barack obama. from west building to actually getting us to give money in some way. campaigns also have a wealth of targeting in other areas. this is one of the areas that has seen explosive growth this

campaign cycle. biggio location -- this is -- geo-location. a campaign might send an online ad based on where you are accessing the page. second, demographics, campaigns want to advertise on sites that are read by people they think their supporters are in some way. there is a complex of voter modeling that i don't want to go into. this is a generally new and it is also not 100%. i hear it's anywhere from 50% to 80% effective. but what you could actually do is find target and their voter data bases. they can then go to a firm that

would provide the campaign or more likely an ad agency serving their online ads with an ip address or cookie that and then they can't send ads from whatever computer they think he's locking in on based on who their target is. 100%, but this is matching what used to be separate categories of information. finally, look-alike audiences. this is running target advertising to groups and individuals based on matching numbers. for example, if you want to reach a set of of the grid of voters, people who might not any longer be watching live television, if you know people watching live television might be voters aged 18 to 24 years old who might be living in particularly urban areas, what

you want to do is find voters who look like them on line and have similar browsing habits. that would be a look-alike audience. maybe not a set of individuals york advertising to, but a universe of people with similar browsing habits based upon your campaign priority. i can happily answer any questions, but let me pull back for second and talk about new media and democratic practices. this is a picture of obama speaking at unc and a picture from a recent mitt romney campaign event, sort of boring together that there are certainly continuities in terms of how campaigns use these media tools. what i argue in the book is that a new media has a dramatically

amplified institutional ways of engaging electoral politics. campaign's use of new media has lowered the cost of doing things we have been doing for time immemorial. making donations, volunteering, can vessey,, -- , stone banking and the staples of electoral politics. what new media has not necessarily done is be more supportive online. we do not see transformational democracy. it's not about coming up with new policy predictions -- positions mitt romney should adopt. it's about how to raise money for this candidate to get into office. they work best as coordinating machinery. when we have ideological and partisan amendment, it provides ways to get involved. new media is a way to mobilize individuals and deliver the financial and political

resources they might need. it gives a sense of that inference from my book title which is taking our country back, which is a key bit of rhetoric from the obama campaigns, but it was also first used by the art conservative pat buchanan in 1992. i use it to illustrate this point that we see these continuities even in the face of considerable technological change. what we see is a hybrid form of organizing politics that combines host management to leverage the data in new ways, leverage the data to make sure actions are coordinated with what you need done, but also empowerment. it's in powering to sit in a non swing state where in the past you have to watch the campaign from afar, to be altogether a around a can't its web sites and

make phone calls and to engage in the democratic process is really powerful from a democratic perspective. we have seen and amplification of similar things and institutions but with real citizen empowerment around the electoral politics. with that, i will stop and invite questions. [applause] >> the floor is open. please wait for the microphone to get close to you. >> what are the things the obama did in the 2008 campaign -- with his vice presidential candidate, he did that through phone messaging. is that something they have abandoned or is that something

they are continuing to use? >> that is a great question. in 2008, it was highly lauded that obama would announce his vice presidential pick through text message. because this talk spans some much time, have to be selective in what i talk about, but i can say a couple of broad strokes about that -- campaigns think a lot about mobile technologies. more and more internet content is being consumed on mobile devices so campaigns are thinking about how to optimize a web sites but they also do things like text messaging to mobilize folks in a particular area. another big innovation is using applications on things like i phones to do door to door voter canvassing to enter in a volunteer contact that will sink with the voter data base.

mobile is central to campaign efforts and is being used in a number of different ways. campaigns want as much information as possible and then figure out what to do with it later. most importantly is creating more efficiencies in that canvassing process. campaigns are thinking about how to advertise mobile e -- mobility but i have not seen the romney campaign say they are going to announce via mobile so maybe that was not seen as effective.

>> all of this short-term stuff involving people to get it -- getting people to do something this november, is there any effort to go beyond the immediate persuasion and mobilization to try to create a long-term basis for supporting a party or program through building up an ideology? the survey data shows people's ideas are very uncoordinated. of very lowt correlation between the support of one issue and another. is anyone banking about more long-term education of the supporters of either the liberal or conservative line?

>> i think that is the $50 million question. it is a great question and it is one i can speak a little bit about. certainly, in 2008, folks i interviewed on the obama team thought very hard about how are we going to keep this energy and enthusiasm and the 13 million- member e-mail list in engage with the campaign and engage with president obama and the democratic party. what's makes this difficult -- here is how i will sum this up -- governance and of policy- making looks a lot different than campaigning does. what you can say as candid obama often looks very different from what you can say as president obama. all of the sudden, you are having to steer a national

democratic party and all of its elected officials through a policy-making process where democrats might be representing more conservative states or conservative districts. there is a need to compromise with the opposing party and it is less the stark black and white than what often comes through in a campaign. a lot of the challenge that folks to coordinate be on line side of the campaign in 2008 experience was how do they translate this energy to something like the health-care debate and how do they say here is the set of things we need from a health-care? it essentially, what i think happened was they tried to do a host of town halls and get people talking about the issues but ultimately, any policy- making had to be coordinated

through the democratic party and there were burying issues in terms of what people were willing to accept, the compromise they were willing to accept and at the same time, organizing for america that grew out of the obama campaign used its list four things i conservative democratic candidates which was less of the energy fuelling the obama campaign to begin with. you had a general dissipation of energy in some ways and no clear outcome. it was tough to know what the endgame of the health-care debate would be. you could call your senator, but it was tough for groups to organize around things like the public option which might be different from what the democratic party line was. you had a lot of complicated forces emerging at that time that made it difficult for organizing for america to

translate that energy around obama and do something longer lasting. it certainly seems to me, and the number of scholars have made this argument, that the republican conservative infrastructure has invested a lot in the ideology building you are referencing. gail's a wonderful book by professor that looks at the rise of the conservative legal establishment through a network of foundations and at think tanks, training for conservative legal scholars that basically did the ideological work that resulted in the current court. those efforts look different than this very narrow short-term goal, but i don't think this conflicts with it. you need good candidates in office if you are a democrat,

but you need those larger institutions. they can feed off of one another, but i don't know of a democratic corollary to what the republicans have built up in that area. >> how much use of the new media is being done on the congressional level? >> that is a great question. my sense is, and i don't have any raw numbers. i just have a sense of whether emerging research i have seen in this area is that it is pretty uneven at the state level. some candidates are very quick to adopt new media tools. there has been a set of new media tools that are best -- that are a bit lower priced and

the idea is to be more widespread adoption of these sorts of tools around and things like canvassing. i continue to think the big challenge is not necessarily the tool but the energy around the candidate. you still need volunteers who will be using the tools. you can have the best website in the world but that doesn't mean there will be energy around the candidacy. my sense is that -- my sense is it has been very uneven. a number of candidates have embraced it but there are other folks to have them less in the new media area. i just did some work with a campaign to defeat the amendment one around here and they invested a lot in social media technology and tools and drove a lot of conversations online and that was one of the first big state efforts i saw a around a ballot initiative. saying its the way of

will be a more routine part of campaigning and having some sort of well developed new media practice, but the question is how much will that be incorporated with the other campaign activities a candidate is pursuing? i think they make complicated calculations. is it investing in new media or television? is it worth investing in online ads now that it seems like television advertising is so saturated? they are constantly making these cost-benefit analysis. every candidate is going to have a facebook page within five years unless -- we might already be at that point. but generally the adoption is in that direction that this will become part of the team practice. >> i am curious of what

percentage they think are people who are not really following the campaign on tv because they don't watch broadcast tv or very little broadcast tv. it seems like most campaigns focus on tv advertisements. >> any idea how many people they can reach because they're not focusing on a? >> the romney campaign and their digital director comes out of a firm called targeted victory that does online advertising. they say 30% are off the grid or time shifting television. that could mean everything from a dvr or only watching clips online. if that number is true, it is enormous. i think one of the things that

will be driving dynamics is this new reality that so much more media is being planned -- being consumed using networked media. the electorate is moving that direction. i think this is one of the reasons we have seen in the past decade, and there's this wonderful book called "ground war's, which charts the rising field campaign. part of this story is that campaigns realize television broadcasting is no longer as effective as it was back in 2008 enormous investment in old school, door-to-door knock on door, shoe leather campaigning of the past. what had been on the wane since television ads from the 1960's on. new media is part of that story, this idea that more and more

personalized voter contact needs to be made in some way whether through using an on-line platform or going door-to-door or figuring out how to use on- line advertising to get your message out in new ways because broadcast television is in decline. campaigns are still spending the vast majority of their resources on advertising, traditional television advertising, but the proportions are creeping up. goingnow, it's about 25% online. that is significant in terms of resources. i think it is moving in that direction one way or another. >> in 2008, my recollection is the obama campaign was running

the show in orange county. the orange county democratic party was not well organized and it had a terrible database. i haven't seen much evidence of either the obama campaign making much headway thus far. is this just because some of us are not aware or are things really beginning to develop? >> in terms of the on the ground organizing right now? know the campaign strategy or the field organizing strategies. this falls into the realm of speculation about what we're seeing now. got to have an energized volunteer base if you're going to use this data. i have not seen a lot of evidence of that. >> that certainly seems to be

one of the concerns. this election is unfolding in a radically different context than the 2008. the question i have as a researcher is to say is that energy and enthusiasm and desire there, does that translate into those resources this time around like it was in 2008? that's going to be the story of the effectiveness of new media. new media is effective when it works as a coordinating machinery to translate that energy and enthusiasm. you say you have not seen much of the ground and i don't know the numbers here as a compared to 2008, but will the obama campaign match its volunteer operation four years ago? i don't know. my sense is they will try very hard to recreate that moment and that enthusiasm. >> the obama office is on

franklin street. i have had a moderate amount of contact with them, especially women for obama is revving up right now. the question is, we are in june-july and it's kind of in slow-motion. if it does not turn up by august or september, we could be in big trouble. i think there is movement, it's just you are not hearing and seeing it at this point >> it hot. >> you got it.

we can't let ourselves be fooled by this. we ought to all out and do what we can and try to join various groups so we can do that on the ground stuff because it's going to be vitally important. >> we have time for one more question. >> you have spent a lot of time doing a lot of research and i'm going to call what you have shown us the light side. but wherever there is a light side, there is a dark side. people try to use and new approaches to provide at misinformation, fraud, can you talk about that for a second? >> sure. let me say a little bit more about that. i try to be balanced in the light and dark but i'm glad my

sunny disposition comes through. there is certainly the capacity for all those sorts of things. there are a lot of scholars who have worked around this idea that online, people can gather with like-minded individuals and circulate falsehoods or rumors and networked media, only associating with like-minded media can keep those things alive for longer than they might be able to keep alive in the past. what i think is important here and here i will end with my own pitch as a scholar -- this is where the professional press plays such a huge role and i'm scared to see the challenging economic times professional journalists have gone through. one of the things journalists can do is open up the individualized flows and we

need new methods of doing that, convening this a general interest conversation and interrogating the claims of certain actors, pointing out falsehoods' when they do occur. i think network media provide enormous opportunity for those sorts of things and some of my other work has been around how campaigns cultivate like-minded groups and disseminate information anonymously through these groups. it could be campaign websites, it could be an honest videos, campaigns can use other channels to promote it and it seems like a grass-roots phenomenon and not coming from the campaign. all of these things are why we need strong intermediary institutions like a professional press to be out there engaging both on social me and in traditional broadcast, to be

looking to hold actor's accountable for the things they say. i think there is a very real potential for the dark side. i think it is there and there is always going to be an interplay. a lot of this stuff is old. seven books written about the tobacco industry over time and we just have new challenges in new media. >> thank you. >> attorney general eric holder is speaking before the national lesbian, gay, and transgendered civil association. expected to address so rights and gay issues. you can see live coverage at 7:30 eastern. and we will look back at paul ryan's comments on some of the major issues of the campaign, including the 2008 financial crisis. here's a quick look. >> one of the worst experiences

i have ever had in congress was the 2008 financial crash. that caught us by surprise. i and others were in the middle of the negotiations where we have an economic crash that came and out of that resulted ugly legislation and then we witnessed trillions in wealth being lost and we may the best millions of seniors lose their savings, and then we witnessed millions of people lose their jobs. we are still trying to recover. let me ask anyone who is listening to this, what if your congressman, your president saw it coming? what if they knew it was going to happen? what they knew what was going to happen, what was going to happen, and what if they knew what could be done to prevent it from happening and if they had time to prevent it, but they decided not to? because it was in good politics? what would you think of your president or member of congress?

that is where we are right now. this is the most predictable economic crisis in our history and what are we doing playing politics? we don't need politicians. we need leadership and so we believe we have a moral imperative -- we got together in the budget committee in the republican caucus and decided it's time to stand up and do what is necessary to fix this country. we to be honest with the american people about the problems we face. we fact-based budget, the more accounting tricks or budget gimmicks. that is what we are offering the american people with this path to prosperity. >> paul ryan has appeared on c- span more than 400 times. tonight, a look back on the congressman in his own words. guests include the managing director of the hill newspaper and in managing editor from a

newspaper. >> i am not in the habit of breaking my promises to my country and neither is a governor pailin. when we tell you we're going to change washington and stop leaving our problems for a sum like your generation to fix, you can count on it. [applause] we have a record of doing just that, and the strength, experience, a judgment and backbone to keep our word to you. >> you have stood up one by one and said enough to the politics of the past. you understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. you have shown what history teaches us, that in defining moments like this one, the

change we need does not come from washington, change comes to washington. [applause] >> c-span has aired every minute of every party convention since 1984 and the countdown to the conventions continues with less than one week to go before our live gavel to gavel coverage of the republican and democratic conventions on c-span. it all starts next monday with the gop convention with new jersey gov. chris christie and the keynote address and it 2008 presidential nominee and john mccain and jeb bush. democratic speakers include first lady michelle obama and former president bill clinton. >> one attorney thinks the senate filibuster is unconstitutional. along with a group, common cause, he is suing the supreme court have abolished.

the american constitution society posted this discussion on the issue of the filibuster and its increasing use in recent history. this is about one hour 20 minutes. >> hello, everyone. and the vice-president of the georgia lawyers chapter of the american constitution society for law and policy. the society was founded in 2001 and is one of the nation's leading progressive organizations consisting of more than 200 lawyers and law student chapters in 40 states and the district of columbia. this is a rapidly growing network of students, all

lawmakers and policy makers to work for positive change by shaping the public debate on important legal and constitutional issues. by bringing together powerful, relevant ideas and passionate, talented people, we make the difference in the constitutional, legal and public policy debates that shape our democracy. for more information about our organization, please visit our web site. feel free to see either me or the president of a georgia lawyer is a chapter or one of the co-presidents of the student chapters. turning to this afternoon's program, our eighth speaker will be giving a presentation outlining his promised that the use of the filibuster in the united states senate is unconstitutional. he's a nationally recognized trial lawyer with more than 50 years experience representing plaintiffs and defendants.

he is widely known as one of the top attorneys in the united states on antitrust laws and was named one of the top 10 filers in the united states. he attended the -- from law school, he also graduated magna cum laude. he received a degree from harvard law school and clerked for the hon. clement haynes worth jr.. he currently serves as one of the founding members of the law firm. his career included a strong commitment to community service and pro bono litigation, including the death penalty, habeas corpus, reapportionment and other civil rights and constitutional cases. he has served as president and director of the atlanta legal aid society, chairman and member

of the national board of common cause and chairman of the georgia public defendants' counsel from 2003 until 2007. he's the author of various articles on constitutional law and local governmental issues and has spoken at the state bar of georgia, the atlanta bar association and on topics including antitrust law, appellate practice, banking law, evidence, criminal antitrust problems and ethics and federal practice and procedure. he is no stranger to constitutional litigation. in 1963, he argued in front of the supreme court and prevailed. the supreme court held congressional districts must be apportioned to the state based

on population. this overruled the previous case, where the supreme court held that the apportioning of congressional districts was a political question beyond the jurisdiction of federal courts. on the topic of the constitutionality of the senate filibuster, he published an article in the summer of 2011 of the "harvard journal on legislation," titled "the senate filibuster, the politics of obstruction." copies of the article are available outside for reference after the program. further, as he discussed today, on may 14, 2012, he filed a complaint in the lawsuit common clause versus biden. in that case, he challenged the constitutionality of the filibuster in the united states senate. after he discusses this important constitutional topic,

he will shift to a dialogue discussion brought up in his presentation. this will be between him and professor eric siegel. prof. siegel graduated from emory university and received a jd from vanderbilt law school, where he was research editor of the law review. he then clerked for the chief judge for the united states district court in the northern district of georgia and the honorable albert henderson of the 11th circuit court of appeals. following -- prof. siegel works for a law firm and the department of justice, he worked there before joining the faculty of the georgia state university college of law. he teaches a federal court and constitutional law, and his articles on constitutional law have appeared numerous law reviews.

he has been a frequent contributor to constitutional commentary. prof. siegel has served on at an executive committee on federal courts, and has given numerous speeches on constitutional law questions and the supreme court. he is also the author of a new book, "supreme myths, why the supreme court is not important and it's justices are not judges." following this dialogue, we will take questions in the audience. also during the conversation as well. i want to thank both of them for appearing with us this afternoon for what is sure to be a substantial investigation of constitutional law. i would like to remind everyone to turn off your cell phones. when you are asking a panelist, let us come to you with the

microphone. i now turn over the floor. thank to bring much. -- thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. let me start with the proposition that when moses came down from the mountain, one of the 10 commandments was not that there shall be a right of unlimited debate in the senate. when the bush burned in the desert, a voice did not speak to that there shall be a filibuster rule and the senate. it is not a part of the constitution. it did not exist at the time the constitution was adopted. it was prohibited in english parliamentary practice since 16 04. it was prohibited by rolls of the second continental congress. guess what -- it was prohibited under the first roles of the

united states senate, adopted in april of 79, a senate which had many framers -- 1789, a senate which had many framers of the constitution as members. the house did the same thing. they both adopted the previous motion from english parliamentary practice as a role, which allowed the majority at any time to call the question and end debate in this senate and house. where we are today is a historical anomaly the i will trace for you. let's talk about the problem. the first filibusters' did not occur until 1841, 15 years after the constitution was adopted -- 50 years after the constitution was adopted. the average was one every three years in the 19th century. in the early 20th century, the

average was one per year. that continued until about 1970, when the average 1970 and was one a year. in that period, they were largely directed at civil rights bills, anti-lynching bills, and clement bills, voting rights bills, and were primarily led by southern centers. you will see the change beginning in 1970. you see particular spikes 1992- 1993-1994, when clinton was elected and democrats controlled the house and senate. you see a drop off in 1995 with the republican revolution so that the filibuster's -- the senate was no longer controlled by democrats, nor was the

house, therefore there was less filibuster as far as the republicans were concerned. ucb spike again increase -- you see the spike increase in 2006. that was when democrats took control of the senate and house. all of a sudden, the number of filibuster's spikes. you see the drop in the spike with the 2010 elections in which republicans take control of the house and there are fewer bills coming from the house to the senate. -- to be filibustered. nevertheless, the filibuster is the predominant role of procedure in the senate that dominates everything the senate does. therefore, it dominates everything congress does. in many respects, it paralyzes many of the functions of government. this is a chart that shows you the number of filibuster's increasing. when i say filibuster, it is a misnomer.

the filibuster rule is not a rule of debate. it is a rule of silence. it is a rule of censorship. it is a role which allows it, under senate rules, the objection of a single center to a bill or in nomination or, in your terms, a whole, to force the senate to go through the process that will require a motion to proceed. the senate cannot begin debate on anything without unanimous consent. if a single senator objects. once a single senator objects, if the majority leader decides the matter is important enough that he wants to take it on, he will file a motion to proceed, which is asking the permission of the senate to begin debate on a bill or a nomination. the motion to proceed is a debatable motion. guess what -- it can be filibustered.

not only in "mr. smith goes to washington." also in the sense that, in order to proceed, there must be 60 senators present and voting to vote closure on that motion. the person who put the hold on the bill can slink away like a thief in the night and never be identified, never speak, never debate, never explain him -- himself or herself. the senate cannot proceed unless you can get 60 votes. then you begin debate -- you cannot and debate without another vote for cloture, which can require another 60 votes. you go to the closure process. even after closure is voted, the senate cannot actually close debate and take the vote without the expiration of 30 more hours of senate floor time during which the pending bill is the matter before the senate

and nothing else can be discussed. the senate essentially plays tiddlywinks, whatever, until that 30 hours expires. the report service has said this whole process can require 12 to 14 days of senate floor time. the senate and the needs 170 days a year. as you can see, it is the equivalent of trying to run out the clock, even if you do not oppose things. the problem begins with rule 22. april 22 was adopted in 1917. not for the purpose of enabling senators to hold the floor in debate, as strom thurmond did in 1957, for 27 hours to oppose a civil rights bill, or mr. jimmy stewart did in "mr. smith goes to washington." it requires, as a result of an

amendment in 1975, an affirmative vote of 3/5 of the senate to close debate. what that means is that the voting of falls entirely on the proponents to get 60 senators present and voting. the opponents do not have to do anything. absences the same thing as a no vote. abstention is the same thing as a no vote. the burden falls entirely on the proponents, and the opponents do not have to speak, do not have to debate, do not have to explain themselves. it gets even more complicated. the senate cannot heal itself. unlike the house, and and its rules by majority vote, the senate has a role, part of this rule 22, that says that it takes 60 votes to close debate on everything but one thing --

a proposal to amend the sacred senate rules. that requires 67 votes. as a practical matter, it is impossible, particularly in the polarized days of the senate, he essentially impossible, since the first filibuster occurred in 1841, for the senate to allow the majority to close debate when it has heard enough and would like to vote. henry clay, in 1841, immediately moved to restore the previous question motion as part of the senate rules. what happened? his motion was filibustered. it is only one of 100 or more attempts that have been made since then to reform the senate rules, most recently at the beginning of the last congress in january of 2011.

the problem is caused by a rule 5. that is the result of a deal made, an amendment negotiated by in johnson when he was still leader of the senate in 1959 to overrule an advisory opinion for richard nixon in 1957 to the fact that the senate could amend its rules at the beginning of each congress by a majority vote. >> at that time, it did not continue for one congress to the next. in 1959, as part of a compromise in which the reformers lost and the recalcitrant part of the senate one, they added the rule that says senate rules continue from one congress to the next and can only be amended as provided by these rules, and that takes you to rule 22 which saysthe rule if

debate. it is not a role of deliberation. the defenders of rules say this protect the rights of the minority to be heard. this gives us the opportunity to deliberate fully and fairly and hit off hasty action. yet let's one senator denied the majority to debate, to deliberate, to explain their positions. it gives the minority a total power to prevent the majority from debating bills. if you do not get 60 votes, the senate is powerless to act. if there is not -- it does not protect the right of the minority to debate. it gives the minority the power to prevent the majority from debating.

it does not foster the liberation. it gives the minority the ability to prevent deliberation. but does not promote compromise. it promotes gridlock and gives the minority and incentive not to compromise. if you are, if you want to make obama a one-term president as mitch mcconnell has announced at the beginning of the administration, how do you do that? you filibuster every major administration proposal. then you argue, as is currently being argued, the president is not a leader. he is not affected. he cannot solve all our problems or get anything done. it does not promote accountability. it prevents accountability. a senator can put a secret hold on the nomination or when unanimous consent is saw to

begin debate -- is sought to begin debate, all the senator has to do is attacked. he did not have to explain himself or state a reason. he can go fishing in alaska, he can go hunting with the former vice president. his absence is all the opposition he needs. the filibuster does promote obstruction. as we have seen since 2006. during the first half of the congress elected in 2006, there were an average of 2 filibusters's a week. in the 19th century, there was one every three years in the first three-quarters of the 20th century, there was an average of one per year.

it promotes hypocrisy. it gives the minority party in the senate the ability to run against the majority party by saying they cannot get anything done, let us. why can't they get anything done? because the minority party filibustered the proposal. it prevents the president from filling judicial -- from filling judicial and executive vacancies. they cannot be filled and they will not be filled this year. there are numerous vacancies in the executive branch. they have been slowed down for months. president obama connected is correct -- commerce secretary confirmed. during the financial crisis, tim geithner had no assistance because assistance was being held up in the senate

confirmation process. this is the most recent development in the whole filibuster saga. it gives the minority the power to nullify existing laws. it gives the minority the power to nullify existing laws. his nomination was filibustered and held up for nine months for the stated purpose of preventing the agency from implementing a statute already passed. not because his qualifications were opposed but because they wanted to prevent the implementation of the statute and force it amendment or repealed. he took the position with a recess appointment.

3 nominations to the nlrb had been held up. the national labor relations board does not have a quorum. it cannot function without a quorum. you can get it by preventing the nomination. the nomination of peter, nobel prize-winning laureate at mit to the federal reserve board was filibustered. because those in the senate want to abolish the federal reserve board. if you do not want it to function confidently, the best way is to try to get it abolished and prevent the appointment of competent people to the board and prevent the board from functioning. it encourages hostage-taking. i will give you a bunch of examples. richard shelby in january of 2011 put holds on every pending presidential nomination because he would try to blackmail the senate into fast tracking a government contract to a government contractor in mobile, alabama, who was a major political contributor. larry craig held up the commotions but every general in the department of defense -- for every general in the

department of defense because he wanted the air force to station 4 c1's to a station in idaho. there are many other examples where one senator tried to extract something he could not get by majority vote. i was interviewed recently by someone he said it is the rule because he held up a defense

appropriation bill to get money for energy-saving wind turbines. my answer to that is that is not the way democracy is supposed to work. it is not supposed to work by a black male and hostage taking. -- blackmail and hostage taking. consideration of nominations requires an aunt -- unanimous consent. the senate prides itself on being this meeting of gentleman philosophers. that operates by unanimous consent.

but rules that were made for a kinder senate do not work in a senate governed by trench warfare principles of partisan politics. if there is an objection to a request to deny a motion to proceed for unanimous consent, there has to be a motion. it can be filibustered. that gives the minority the power to do precisely that which the framers constitution did not intend they be able to do. the federalist hamilton talks in two places about supermajority voting. he says be rejected it. because it would give the minority the power to embarrass the administration and destroy the energy of government. since mitch mcconnell says his most important objective is for president obama to be a one- term president, traditional -- judicial nominations, 91

vacancies, 32 of which are judicial emergencies cannot be filled. many have not been filled for several years. none of them will be filled between now and the election and inauguration of the new president. 18 district court nominees currently pending. 15 have unanimous republican support. they cannot get confirmed. nominees have had seven times -- obama nominees have had seven times as many boats as bush nominees have in eight full years. hundreds of nominations have been filibustered. peter diamond, i mentioned. richard cordray. and the nullification, holding up an office -- holding up nominations to prevent the implementation of existing

legislation or force its appeal. --'s look at the instances republicans block debate on the buffett rule. gop blocked debate on a financial oversight bill. republicans blocked u.s. health paid for 9/11 workers. republicans in senate blocked a bill on the debt loan rates. -- on student loan rates. none were voted on the floor of the senate. while the senate claims to be the greatest deliberative body in the world, and has a rule that denies the majority the ability to deliberate. here are examples. the fairness act had majority vote. never got debated. sovereign security act.

majority voted 52. never debated. 59 votes, 57 votes, 53 votes at three different times. never reached the floor for debate. the dream act -- 55 votes. public safety employees cooperation act -- 55 votes. bring jobs home act -- 56 votes. buffett rule -- 51 votes. nomination to the ninth circuit. 52 votes. nomination of judge to the tennis circuit who lack the support of both republican senators -- to the supreme court who had the support of both republican senators. the opposite party may win an election and get the bill -- to fill those vacancies. the same people who return blue slips abstain which is the same as a no vote on closure.

his nomination never is debated. he has never confirmed, never reaches the floor. there is an article reporting that as of october 2010, there were over 400 bills that passed the house pending in the senate and were -- and would die before the end of that congress. as edmonton before, changes in filibuster are subject to being filibustered -- as i mentioned before, changes in filibuster are subject to being filibustered. the result is the senate cannot heal itself. the filibuster rule which is not a filibuster rule at all in terms of speaking with the entire burden on the majority and allows the obstructionist to evade accountability. the filibuster is a historical accident. moses did not put it on the tablets.

there was no right up until the -- unlimited debate at the time the constitution was adopted. filibusters were not allowed and in the second continental congress because both parliament and the congress question motions to part of its rules. they are also inconsistent with the principle of majority rule. one of the things that led to the adoption of the constitution was the fact that the articles of confederation required supermajorities of nine of 13 states to pass anything. five states could do with a call secede which means just do not

go, boycott the session and you could not meet or if they met, at 5 states opposed the building of a warship, i did not happen. if five states oppose the levying of a tax, it cannot happen. that is why it led to the convening of the constitutional convention. the framers of the constitution debated supermajority voting for decorum and the passage of legislation. they rejected it. decorum in the constitution -- a quorum in the constitution. in the senate, it is not a majority. if a single senator objects, the senate cannot do any business. it cannot debate, i cannot vote. it can do nothing.

article -- the article is clear in saying the passage of bills as by majority vote. why do i say that? ordinary rules of contacting structure. the constitution says when a bill was first passed the senate and house -- it goes to the president. does not say majority vote. it's as pastorate -- it says pass. but the president vetoes a bill and it comes back, it must past -- passed house and senate by a two-thirds vote. the addition of two-thirds vote the second time around tells you pass mean something other than a two-thirds vote the first time around. since day one, the house and

senate have interpreted pass to me by majority vote. but the rule shortcuts that process. shirts -- in short circuits it, allowing a single senator or the absence of 60 affirmative votes to prevent a matter from ever being submitted to a final vote for passage. there is also the provision which you know from contact law as well as constitutional interpretation. providing a list of things the one done are not done excludes other things being added to the list. we have none other than chief justice roberts in the recent affordable health care opinion recognizing that role in which he cites the enumeration of powers is also a limitation of powers.

the constitution's express control of some powers make it clear that it does not express public powers. i mentioned the federalist papers. madison and hamilton defended the decisions of the framers in the papers against various attacks, including those coming from george mason who was one of the participants in the federal convention proposed supermajority voting as a condition of the enactment of navigation laws. hamilton says supermajority voting would give the minority in-on the majority. the greater number would be subjected to the lesser number. in its real operation, its effect is to embarrass the administration and the majority must conform to the minority

and a smaller number will overrule the greater. that could have been written in 206-210. you would think he was talking about contemporary things. been had bandages requiring secret majority voting. it would that provided additional protection for the majority. he said these considerations are outweighed. this is particularly appropriate in light of the hostage taking. the minority would take advantage of the supermajority vote requirement. i cannot think richard shelby

has ever read the federalist papers. but if you recall in the health care debate, there was the cornhuskers compromise to get the 60th vote on closure. they exempted nebraska of the additional help your taxes that would have to be paid. there was the louisiana purchase in which to get mayor landrea, but provided $300 million of extra funds to extort and reasonable indulgences or to exempt themselves from unreasonable sacrifices. hamilton returns to it again in the 75th edition of the federalist papers. again says all provisions that require more than a majority have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the

government, and to subject a sense of the majority to that of the minority. then he says, if two-thirds were required, it would amount in practice to a necessity of unanimity. in the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. would you say today's senate is impotent? would you say is perplexed? and what you say it is a body of disorder? -- and would you say it is a body of disorder? here is an article from february of 2010. the first rules of the senate adopted immediately after the constitution provided no right to filibuster. this is the action of history.

as the great aaron burr left his office, he gave a farewell address. he said the senate rules have become complex. they need to be shortened. one of the rules they might eliminate is the previous question motion. because during my four years as vice president, it has only been in a vote once. what does that prove? it does not prove the rule is unnecessary. it proves during the time he was vice-president, senators conducted themselves as junta and philosophers who are were willing to hear each other out to debate. when they heard the debate, they were willing to vote.

and only on one occasion to the senate feel necessary to invoke the rule to end the debate before somebody thought he had his say. that did not result in a filibuster. the first filibuster does not cur until 1841. to that tradition of in and philosophers who are willing to hear each other out and then decide things by majority vote continue for the first 50 years. between 1806 and 1917, there was no rule. filibuster occurred once every three years. in 1917, the senate adopted rule 22. not for the purpose of guaranteeing senators like the light -- like the late jesse helms the right to hold the floor of the senate and prevent the senate from debating a

mechanism when none existed previously to allow the senate some out and debate and bring matters to a vote. the united states senate is the only legislative body in the world that cannot act when its majority is ready for action. he said that a little group zero willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the united states helpless and contemptible. i have given you the history, one per year in the first 30 years after the closure. the current senate will allow the silent filibuster. as a result of the 1977

amendment which shifted from two-thirds of the senate present and voting. if you ever scented yourself -- if you absented yourself, 26 senators could change the rule. when you went to 60 votes, you have to have a quorum and 60 affirmative votes. that is what led to the silent filibuster. it's complex -- if conflicts with the principle majority rule and to the text of the constitution which is that bills are supposed to be made by an orderly procedure in which they are passed by the house, the senate, go to the president. if he vetoes them, they must pass a second time by a two- thirds vote. it upsets the checks and balances. it allows the minority to prevent the majority from exercising its powers to give advice and consent to nominations to the federal courts.

it prevents the senate, amending its own rules by a majority vote. the constitution says each house can make its own will. it is the minority a veto power over all senate provisions in gives the region gives them the power to nullify by members of the house. members of the house to abide by the constitutional process. it has 59 votes. it does because it never reaches the floor for debate. it conflicts with the core

klaus. it says -- the quorum clause. it takes 60 votes of one senator objects. that process has been short circuit by the will in the senate. it is an attempt to add to the exclusive list of situations in which the framers did carve out exceptions to the majority rule and required a two-thirds vote. because some actions were deemed by them to be too important to be decided by the majority. it takes away from the vice- president one of his only two powers -- to vote in case of a tie. he can preside over the senate but if you have 60 votes, -- it the part -- it deprives the senate.

it upsets the structure of the great compromise. before i get to the structure, hear the media here are the examples where a majority rule are required. impeachments, overriding a presidential veto, ratification treaties, a menace to the constitution. let's talk about the great compromise. the great compromise was one of the most hotly debated issues at the constitutional convention. the house seats based on population. the senate seats assigned to for state. -- two for state.

that is in the constitution. even under the great compromise, the majority of senators elected from a majority of states have the power to pass any bill or confirm any nominee over the objections of the majority -- of the minority. the 60 vote requirement essentially reverses that. it gives a minority of senators representing 21 of the 50 states which may have as little as 11% of the u.s. population the power to veto

bills and nominees, even though they have the support of 59 senators representing 89% of the country. that is not what the framers intended. it also violates article one section 5 which gives the senate the power to amend -- to adopt rules. that power is by majority vote as are other things in the constitution. it also violates the rule that you know from blackstone which is that one legislative body cannot bind the hands of another. the gives a decision made by senators the power to prevent the current senate from amending its rules in any respect. these rules were not immune from judicial review.

it may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights. more recently, justice brandeis -- the construction given to his roles by the senate when it affects persons other than members of the senate -- the question is necessarily a justiciable one. it is long been settled bubbles of congress are traditionally -- that the rules of congress are traditionally cognizable. the one house veto and in many other cases. people who are challenging our common cause, four members of

the house and 2 of our representatives and 3 dream act beneficiaries, these are students of the united states brought to the country when they are minors. all three have graduated from high school with honors in college with honors. one of the three has cried dewitt from law school with honors. all are subject to deportation from the united states and have been denied a path to citizenship even though the dream that had 59 votes in the senate. and was held up solely because of the 60 vote rule. we are confident the courts

should hold the rule unconstitutional. will the result be? exactly of the result that roberts did in the affordable health care act case. sever the supermajority vote provisions for rule 22. leaving the rest in attacked which would mean the senate would have the power for the first time since 18 06 to call to question whether to begin debate or and debate by majority vote. if the senate did not like that rule, and guess what the senate could do? it could buy a simple majority vote amend its rules and, with a new rule of parliamentary procedure. as things currently stand, the senate cannot heal itself and no one outside the senate, not the house of representatives is 400

bills died without being voted on, not the person his proposals are being beaten in the senate, not the federal of judiciary that cannot fill the vacancies, the only agency in government and second steps in is the federal courts. thank you very much. professor eric segall will now take over. [applause] >> thank you very much. we will now move into the discussion portion. >> thank you for coming out today. that was great, emmet. i want to take three minutes for brief comments, ask one

question and then turn it over to you for questions. i think presentation raises three questions. is the filibuster a good idea? -- is the filibuster a good idea? to me, the answer is it is a talent -- a terrible idea. someone can defend it if they want to. second, is unconstitutional in the sense of citizens as senators, do we think this particular procedure violates the constitution? i think the answer to that probably is yes. though i am less dogmatic about it. there is a third question. the very hard question.

raised by the loss it wishes should a federal court declared the senate filibuster rules unconstitutional? that is much more difficult. i want to say yes. in my scholarship pat, i am not quite sure. i will ask a couple of questions that i think he will get from judges on that issue. i will leave a size for a moment issues of standing in the political question doctrine for a minute to review might get back to that. i think the hardest question will get from your judge is the following -- article 1, section 5, gives the senate the right to conduct its own internal procedures. a bill -- even if you are right, pass means majority vote. it does not tell us when the senate has to vote on the bill. article one, section 7, does

not say anything about that. section 5 gives the senate the right to conduct its own procedures. where do we draw the line? between those procedures that get in the way of majority rule such as the various committee rules we have the in the senate that are really silly but probably not unconstitutional. but they get in the way of majority rule. the filibuster rule which may be the most silly and the most anti majority, there has to be a line somewhere. the senate is allowed to govern itself. how do you draw that line? >> the issue has been settled by the supreme court. in 1892, the supreme court held while each house of congress have the power to prescribe its own rules, they cannot adopt

rules the conflict with other divisions of the constitution or violate fundamental rights. the united states case which i put on the screen and the decision by justice brandeis, the senate confirmed an appointee to the commission. the senate rules provided they could be considered a confirmation in three days. the confirmation occurred before christmas. they came back after christmas and interpreting its own rules said that meant 3 legislative days and we do not like mr. smith after all and be resend his appointment. justice brandeis had no difficulty saying when the rules of the senate affect persons outside of the senate. the question is solely a question of law, he held. while we the court give great deference to the senate's

interprets -- interpretation, they rejected it. it held that smith could not -- his appointment could not be rescinded. could the senate adopted a rule that said during the impeachment of andrew johnson were bill clinton, it is too hard to get a two thirds vote to convict so let's require only 60 votes. would that be constitutional? obviously not. what if they said it is too hard to get 67 votes to confirm a treaty. let's have 60 votes. would that be constitutional? no. there are other examples. take congressional districts. the argument in the

congressional district case was the constitution convinced in the first instance to the states the power to draw congressional districts. and then reserves to congress the power to make those regulations. that was argued by the defendants to indicate a textural commitment to exclusively to the political branches, not to be judicial branch to interfere. the supreme court rejected that argument. the argument that -- if the senate -- an article one, section 5 when you give the power to each house to make rules make them sacrosanct, have you believe that it will adopted by one house probably over the objection of the other has greater immunity from judicial review than a bill that has been passed by both the

elected branches of congress, signed by the elected president. if it conflicts with the constitution, what is the result? it is a judicial question, i question of law for the courts. bills and statute adopted by popular elected officials and signed by a president can be declared unconstitutional by the courts, then obviously a rule adopted by only one house without the consent of the other can still be held. >> i think he might at following response from a judge -- i can see for the moment that this case is justiciable. that is not the question. this senate has adopted a lot of rules pursuant to article 1, section five. that in the way of majority rule.

the judge would have jurisdiction to decide whether they are unconstitutional. because a lot of what the senate does gets in the wake of majority rule, why is the filibuster the one example you are pointing out to me that i should declare unconstitutional when in fact the power is given to the committee chairman in the senate to get in the way of majority rule. >> the simple and correct answer to that is unlike the house of representatives, and also has rules of that type. the house rules can be amended or suspended. at any time by simple majority vote in the house. there is no comparable activity

in the senate. while it is correct that there are bad procedures and so forth in the senate, if the senate has the ability to say they are in the way, the majority wants to change them, they can change them. rule 5 and 22 deprive the senate of that ability. the self correcting mechanism for majority vote simply does not exist in the senate. it is fatally wounded by a decision to follow the advice of aaron burr. it wasn't enough that he shot alexander hamilton and try to organize louisiana into an independent jurisdiction and avoided a conviction. his most lasting and negative contribution to the united

states of america is the device which he gave to the senate in 18 05 to drop the previous question motion from its will. >> here's my last question. it seems difficult to argue the majority rule is a bedrock constitutional principle in a country with the following undisputed facts -- the words majority will not appear in the constitution. the senate as may be the least majoritarian body in the world, given that the people of wyoming have the same amount of influence at the people of california. we did not vote for the president of the majority rule. we have this silly and electoral college. and there is no mechanism in the united states constitution for a national referendum.

unlike colorado and georgia where 51% of the people can get together and do something. it turns out that the version of history you presented, playing devil's advocate, is one side of the story. the second side is the founding fathers were very afraid of majority rule which is why they did not put in any kind of referendum procedure. and they were very concerned about the government being able to act effectively and quickly. i do not know if james madison were here today, i think his response might be -- i am glad the senate cannot do anything. the only time the government to act as when there is a partly unanimous -- virtually unanimous approval that the pro- government to do something.

that is what we gave the senate the power in article one, section 5 to have its own will to decide from time to time how important it was that a majority carried the day. >> let me say first the devil is well represented. [laughter] the answer to the historical examples you gave are just like the two-thirds vote requirement in six places in the constitution and in two other amendments of the constitution. they are exceptions to majority rule. the great compromise which gave -- resulted in unequal representation in the senate was not a matter principle but political sacrifice. without it, it would not have been a united states of america. the electoral college is the legitimate step out of that deal. the president is elected by electors from the state. the distortion in the senate is the distortion in the electoral college.

those were exceptions that were it grudgingly made. there are no kabul -- comparable exceptions to article 1, section 7, which talk about passing legislation by a majority vote. there are no exceptions that sets every federal judge has to be confirmed by 60 votes. there are no exceptions of which say the appointment of peter diamond in the united states to the federal reserve board can be vetoed by one senator from louisiana who ben liked federal reserve. that is not the way the system is supposed to work. nor should it work where someone can say at what money for wind turbines off the oregon coast and i will hold out a bill until the senate gives in to blackmail and i can get it. that is not the way democracy is supposed to work or the way the constitution was set up.

we do have the authority with two guys named hamilton and madison who wrote directly to this issue, defended the decision not to require a supermajority for passage of legislation for reasons they stated which are as true today as they were then. >> i like to read too quick responses. i lied. 2 quick responses. there are some things that were so important that would require two-thirds votes. that does not absolve the universe of things that might require two-thirds votes or more the majority vote. i think he made a better historical argument on that. >> mccormick edges that question. that was the debate when the house of representatives refused adam clayton powell for reasons not stated in the qualifications clause for running for the

house. that was debated at the constitution. james dixon from pennsylvania who was a better lawyer than many recited blackstone postal rules. if you put an exclusive list of qualifications in the constitution, you are tying the hands of the house or senate and excluding other qualifications. that is precisely what the supreme court held. this is based on that principle. >> i would caution when this is argued in court that his opponent may suggest to him that history is not often the method of constitutional interpretation that people have used in the past. one final -- i am sure you did

not argue history in many of the cases you won but i think federal judges will be a little concerned about entering as a matter of the merits. if you start second-guessing senate procedural rules, you have to have a stopping point. i think the filibuster probably is unconstitutional. i think that will be your hardest argument. if there is a rule that says a senate cher does not have to get to committee, they can kill it by themselves. that is very anti majority will. why is that not declared unconstitutional? i think judges will be shy about getting into that. any questions from the audience? >> can you explain during the

last administration, the republicans talk about something called the constitutional option to change the filibuster rule. can you explain that to us and why it is that the current senate can i utilize that procedure to change the rules? >> it is a theory without a foundation. let me tell you why. the theory was that the senate was not a continuing body and therefore its rules adopted in a prior congress did not carry over. that is the will of the house. richard nixon issued an advisory opinion to that effect in 1957. when the senate rules to not have a division that cleared -- that declared in a self-serving

declarations that we are a continuing body and our rules continue from 1 senate to the next, that was the effect of the 1959 amendment that put in rule 5 that said the senate is a continuing body. and it will continue from 1 senate to the next. no house of congress and no committee can violate its own rules. that is a procedural process problem. so they are. as long as a rule 5 or 22 says you cannot amend it by two- thirds vote, they cannot amend the rule. it is based on the theory that somebody will ask for the ruling of the chair.

the presiding officer of the senate will say the senate is not a continuing body but our rules say it is because that rule is unconstitutional. that can then be appealed to the floor of the senate on a point of order and decided by majority vote. what does the case to you about anything if nothing else? you do not decide federal constitutional questions by a show of hands, by majority vote within the elected branches of government. that is a legal question for the court. i believe the senate rule is unconstitutional but the senate cannot clear its own rule unconstitutional. it is not institutionally capable to do it. the whole nuclear option theory

is a dog that will not hump. tom harkin, tom udall, proposed amendments to the senate filibuster rule on the first day of congress. on the theory that congress could do it. the senate could do it. lamar alexander got up and said i object because under rule 4, the senate cannot vote on something on the same day as introduced without unanimous consent and i therefore withhold unanimous consent. the first day lasted over two weeks because they adjourned and recessed. when they came back, the day ended and the next day, the chair ruled you have to do it by a two-thirds vote. the senate that i have the power

to declare its own rules unconstitutional and that whole theory is a dog that won't hunt. it won't work. -- won't work. >> let me suggest that he is overstating a little bit. there are actions by the government that courts will never review under any circumstances. whether the president should recognize it for a country -- a foreign country, the president has unlimited and total discretion to decide whether to recognize a foreign country and the supreme court will never hear a case where somebody challenges that discretion. there are cases of discretion where the courts will not interfere. i think it would be stronger for his argument to say if the

senate thinks a prayer rule that its past is gone -- is unconstitutional and that the majority of senators want to change that rule, i would be in favor. i cannot think that case stands in the way of changing the rule. citizens, the house of representatives, police officers, i am an officer of the state, we all have an obligation to obey the constitution. it is not simply for the courts to do. if 51 senators think something they are doing is unconstitutional, i would advise them -- change it. >> in descending senator will challenge the action then as being -- on the basis that the senate had no power to declare its own rule unconstitutional. they have to amend it in the ordinary process. >> and you win that case? >> i had enough confidence in the senate to think there were enough senators with courage to

declare one of their own rules unconstitutional. i would also sell you a bridge. but there is no possibility the senate will declare one of its own rules which apply it as being part of what differentiates us from the house of representatives unconstitutional. it is not going to happen. we're not going to merge with russia. >> when this case hit the newspapers and you start hearing about it, we are not going to talk about the merits until the court finds it has jurisdiction. i agree with emmet bondurant 100%.

this is a lawsuit that should be heard. by the federal courts. it is an issue that should be resolved by the federal courts. how it should be resolved, i am a little less dogmatic. any other questions? >> i wanted to raise the issue of standing. in this case, we have the dream act non-citizens litigants. what arguments are being made to the effect that they have standing? >> i think they do have standing. my prediction is the supreme court may find they do not. that would be a wrong decision. the best analogy i can give you is affirmative action. this is a real case. a contractor in jacksonville

denied a city contract. a white contractor. he sued under the 14th amendment. the city of jacksonville said you do not have standing because you cannot prove he would have gotten the contract anyway. we may have given it to a different white person. are you might not have been qualified. the supreme court said that white firm had standing even though they could not prove they would have gotten the contract because they have a constitutional right to a fair procedure. the court said that was an issue in the case. hear, the dream at -- act claimants have a right to have the dream at consider pursuant to a constitutional procedure. the injury is not the dream act passing or not. the injury is was this law given a constitutional procedure under -- procedure.

>> chada was an indian citizen born in england, moved around the world who was subject to being deported and was held to outstanding -- helped to have standing. the supreme court sustained his position and held unconstitutional the one house legislative veto. take the voting cases. a citizen who is denied the opportunity to vote does not have to prove who he would have voted for. he does not have to prove the candidate he would have voted for would have won. he does not have to prove the outcome of the election would have been affected.

it is a denial of the opportunity to participate in the process that is the constitutional violation. he is injured when he denied that opportunity to vote to, and he does not have to show that his vote would have mattered to which the outcome of the election. there are other similar examples. the yellen case is this case in which the house at a role that said witnesses could ask he made that a request and they subpoenaed him to testify and he refused to testify and was held in contempt and it went to the supreme court and the supreme court held that while it is undoubtedly true he had no right to testify in secret -- while it

is undoubtedly true that committee probably would have said held no. he had it right under the senate rules to have a decision fairly considered and made by the committee. when they did not, he preserved that right and the only way he could is by refusing to testify and reversed his conviction for contempt. the analogy here is that dream act plaintiffs before the dream act was passed by the house, they had nothing. the house passed it and i identified that group of people is deserving of benefits of that legislation. it went to the senate and there is a motion for closure. it got 59 votes. it never got debate on the floor of the senate. the process set forth by the constitution was simply not provided.

that injured bossi dream that plaintiffs and of the members of the house who voted for the bill. they have a right under the constitution to procedural due process, the framers of the constitution said it should be followed in the senate in deciding -- if the senate had voted it down, that's the way the democratic process works. if it had been defeated to any of the legitimate processes, that's what democracy is all about. sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you get rained out. but you do have a right to have congress work the way the framers intended. those people are injured in a way that differentiates them from all of you in this room who i presume are not the children of illegal immigrants to have been brought to the united states and were denied a pass to citizenship. >> if the senate passed an

internal rule it said any bid laws lackey -- dealing with black people, we know there have a right to challenge it even though they proved a lot the past anyway. i think we have to call it a day. [applause] >> pictures inside the tampa bay times forum. work continues for the republican national convention next week. the convention gets underway on monday. the rnc says vietnam -- the amount of electricity, cable and fiber would be the most used for any event in this state. 50,000 people are expected to attend. organizers say the convention will begin on monday despite threats of a hurricane or tropical storm in the week. tropical storm is it could force a shakeup in the security plan for the convention because half the expected officers come from other parts of the state and some could be forced to stay at home. the police chief talk to

reporters about emergency preparedness for the republican convention. i want everyone to know the first element of any special event deployment is that we'd cover the neighborhoods. we want to make sure there is no reduction in service to any of our neighborhoods and the rnc is no different in that every neighborhood will have the same number of officers you have any other day of the year and we use all of the officers in addition to that to function within the rnc. this takes about 3500 to 4000 police officers to secure an event of this magnitude. obviously, we don't have that number in the tampa bay area. we have partnered with other law

agencies throughout state . . political in secure down and that is controlled by matt miller and the secret service. that process is to elect a candidate for presidency. then you have the event on the outside of state -- outside of the secure zone we are responsible for and that's where people would be able to come and express their viewpoints and exercise their rights. both of those processes are equally important and it is our job to make sure everyone has a safe platform on which to express their views. community-oriented policing is not a philosophy or division of bureau with in the tampa police department. it's our philosophy and our way of life. that defines the tampa police department and that's the way we

have been able to reduce crime and have reduced crime and tampa by 63.4%. we have reduced auto theft by 90% and we have done it through community policing. we're going to use that same approach with the rnc. yeah volsci a map of the event is down. within that event zone, it will be broken down into smaller geographic areas. each of those will be overseen by a commander in from the police department or the sheriff's department. within those areas, there will be smaller geographic areas in the downtown of several blocks officers will be assigned to. they will be assigned throughout the rnc and everyone will get to know them. they will get to know the officers in that area and the officers will get to know their

area as well and we believe that will be very successful. we have the ability to expand and contract upon that. we have the ability to send officers in. i'm going to show you the photographs on the next slide of the uniforms you will see. i know everyone loves this 100% of polyester beautiful uniform we use but we will be using a khaki colored uniform that is cotton. we chose that for two reasons -- it's cooler for the officers. it's more approachable. it has a friendlier look come as a people will not hesitate to come forward to the police officers and approach them. the crowd management year refers to it as a turtle gear. you will see a photograph of that as well. that will be donned whenever there's an issue of public safety or a large crowd we will

have to deal with. it is our hope no one will see it but that is probably unrealistic. our job is to identify individuals bent on destruction or destruction and remove them from the crowd as quickly as possible so we can restore the peaceful environment in which individuals can demonstrate. the vast majority of individuals coming to tampa to express their point of view will do so peacefully. it will be a very small group bent on destruction and destruction and we will be dealing with those individuals. we have done a great deal to communicate with all levels of individuals involved with the rnc. for example, the town hall meetings. we have had meetings with business managers and building

managers in the downtown area. we have met with a lot of individuals to try to communicate exactly what to expect and what they will be seen during this event. we have communicated with that individuals coming to tampa to demonstrate. we have participated in two panels with the aclu and i participated in an hour-and-a- half national webinar hosted by the aclu and frankly, the aclu was singing our song, telling everyone they do not support any criminal activities and their expectation is everyone will follow or abide by the lawful orders of any police officer and they said there will be individuals in the crowd whose job is to in sight everyone to taking actions they normally would not take a and a caution individuals to not get involved

or fall prey to that. it is our job to ensure everyone has a safe time and everyone gets to express their viewpoints. we have a parade route, but we know there will be spontaneous events. we are communicating with those individuals so that we can develop a route that will be advantageous to everyone. we certainly expect that as well. here are the -- this is what you will see on a day-to-day basis. on the bottom is what we refer to as our internal gear. we have done a great deal of training for the rnc. officers get 10 days of training. we have intensive crowd management training put on by the department of homeland's security that involves three

days of training every officer involved in product management has gone through. -- crowd management has gone through. we have gone to the philosophy of enforcement and trading. what i call the golden rule is everyone is treated with dignity and respect. everyone. no exception to that rule. that the same thing with the rnc. that's a cornerstone of law enforcement. everyone is expected to be treated with dignity and respect and we are enforcing this with the officers coming to assist us with this event. we have done five sessions of 2- daylong supervisor and commander training. this is not your everyday training where an officer deals one-on-one with a witness, a victim or suspect. the sphere is a groove policing.

officers are expected to -- this is a group of policing. we have trained all of the supervisors and commanders and let them know we have set the bar very high of their leadership in these incidents that they are to ensure be officers are showing restraint and bring in an extra supply of patients with demand that they only act on the commanders orders. the sheriff and myself take the message that reinforces the town and philosophy of our enforcement and every officer coming here saw that. we have a test that all the officers have been obligated to

take and pass. we've done a great deal of training and we believe everyone will be prepared. frankly, everyone is prepared for this event and make sure it's a -- make sure it positively reflects on the city of tampa. >> the republican national convention gavels in this monday and goes into the night. the rest of the week, the convention starts at 7:30 and we will have live coverage on c- span. attorney general eric holder is speaking before the national lesbian, gay, and transgendered bar association and is expected to discuss civil-rights between lesbian and gay issues. tonight, we will look back at paul ryan's comments on some of the major issues of the campaign. he has appeared on c-span more than 400 times. the guests include the managing director of "the hill" newspaper.

that's tonight at 8:00 eastern. a former u.s. house parliamentarian's spoke about procedural changes in congress and how that impacts the way the changes works. he says the changes suggest a retreat from a collegial openness and compromise another congress. following the remarks, he will take questions from the audience. [applause] >> thank you, don. i did a brown bag. i did a brown bag presentation 10 or 15 years ago. brown was the head of the historical society. i think both people really enjoyed it. [laughter] so this is good.

i am honored to be able to do this. as don said, my co-author and i have just submitted an updated version in paperback, which will be only a quarter of the cost, which seems to have inhibited some of my so-called friends from purchasing it. [laughter] although i know cero has gotten more than it needs. in it, we have a revised liberties in talking to changes since the 2009 version, which had been considerable. what i want to do is start off by reading the last paragraph of my portion of the new preface to give you a sense of the trends and the process is put in

place in both houses over the last three years. but it is definitely a follow on on what we read about through our co-extensive 40 years. and for the same 40 years, we served in those respective offices and has a lot of exchanges. brian lamb, three c-span, was kind enough, after i did the title three years ago, to host us on q&a and it got some coverage, some surprise viewers. my most amusing moment during that was when brian in the middle of the interview held up the book, which i had given him. he said, charlie, tell the viewers how much of this book costs. it does not seem to say anything on the cover. i said, brian, why are you asking me that? i gave you that book. but i had to it meant that it

was a little pricey. but that was the publishers choice. but me redo this paragraph and we will go from there. then i would be -- let me read you this paragraph and we will go from there. then i would be happy to respond to questions. this is what i say -- the institutional trends in congress thinks those described in pages 547 of the year earlier book -- suggest a retreat further away from the collegiality, navy, openness, and compromise that characterized earlier congresses. little institutional memory remains -- remained among members to unable recall of those practices and norms. increased partisanship and stalemate motivated by a win- every-vote mentality of house majority's and implemented by

reapportionments, liberalized campaign financing and messaging, negative personal attacks, to which i would add the demise of second residences at the seat of government, and the consequence is a lack of social interaction across the center aisle as the house meets very few weeks. constant editorialized press coverage and instant publication of political polling results demanding the immediate members responses. polls taken from televised press accounts, which suggests to some members that they respond immediately before they can think of what they will say. and manipulation of standing rules to restrict minority options have all contributed to the condition in the house. in the senate, some of those factors combined with constant use of the threat of

filibusters to even begin consideration of measures requiring 3/5 votes to limit has enhance minority leverage beyond any imagined in the not-so- distant past. that is kind of the way i wrap up my portion of this new preface, which my colleague describes as "melancholy." he does not necessarily say cynical nor would i admit that. but let's just take a few of the comments. clearly, what i will say is not any new information. writers and others have commented in books about these trends. i have not seen yet a good suggestion about remedies. but maybe we can talk about that toward the end.

since i finished up that reading talking about the senate, let me import their briefly because i don't like to dwell on the senate could when i was work -- on the senate. when i was working in the house and i felt frustrated and confused, i would say to myself that you are better off being in the house than in the senate. [laughter] and for a lot of reasons, that is true. in 1957, this is an interesting anecdote, but it speaks to the problem in the senate. richard nixon was in the chair on january 4 and some of the main notice. it does not get publicized by the senate parliamentarian. and hubert humphrey and others were beginning to prepare for filibusters in the 57 -- in the 1957 civil rights act. hubert humphrey had a parliamentary inquiry of the president of the senate, who happen to be richard m. nixon

presiding in the senate, deliberately because he wanted to respond to this inquiry, knowing it was coming. it was not a point of order and the senate parliamentarians would say that, for that reason, it is not president. but it certainly speaks -- and nixon, the parliamentarian order cannot preside in the new senate. that is an ongoing debate. last year, tom udall and others tried an unsuccessful right. -- and unsuccessful fight. the got a few concessions at the end. but nixon gives this long explanation for why he feels strongly that the senate, call it a continuing body with one- third turnover, can, by majority vote, ignoring its two- thirds requirement for setting off a debate, which is on rule

changes, which is still true, can, by majority vote, adopt new rules. and that was kind of hitting. i don't know on whose be has, but some much else has happened since then in the senate that the senate would never admit, certainly robert byrd would never have been admitted that that is a precedent in the senate. and then talking to marty gold later on about that, he said, oh, yes, nixon was trying to become funny with the pro-civil rights movement in 1957, which he felt was a poet -- a politically motivated nixon would make that comment. january 4, 1957, you can find that. in our book and elsewhere, there

is a young lady here who has spoken recently at a conference on what is called with their conferences between the house and the senate. in doing the book, i had to try to familiarize myself with senate process because it was always 95% of the time and the house wanted to know what the senate might do or might not do. it was impossible to get information because, unlike the house, the senate does not have a rules committee that can give the leadership advanced heads up that something is not to their liking which way -- which they can get a waiver for support. everything in the senate now virtually requires a 3/5 vote on anything. the demise of conference, i cannot blame it on either party. i say blame because i'd feel

that, as most of the people in that conference think it should be resurrected, it is regular order in the traditional sense. it brings more clarity. it brings minority involvement, at least potentially to the issues. it brings a legislative record in the form of a joint statement of managers, all those aspects of conference procedures are gone when a house and senate play pingpong or use the amendment tree to go back and forth. combined with what i think my former colleague alan forman would agree and has said so -- he may have said so at this gathering -- is somewhat of an abuse of the elementary process for the senate majority leader, being entitled to prior recognition, fills the tree with however many amendments or degrees of amendments required in order to shut off all other amendments from any other

senator. and then he still needs a culture vote. he needs a 3/5 vote. he needs one. he does not need four or more to go to conference as the senate would if they proceeded to disagree with the house, agreeing to go to conference, naming conferees and then with motions to instruct conferees. those are all potential filibusterable motions. that has been avoided. more often than not, since speaker pelosi and speaker boehner to some extent, the most recent examples where the highway conference which never made it to a conference report, but was turned into as amendments between the houses. that is the reality. the house has gone along with

it because the house can avoid minority goshens -- minority motions to recommit. those can be problematic, especially after 20 days after not having agreed. any member of the house can offer a problematic motion to instruct conferees as long as it is instructed with and the real scope of differences. that was the reason for the house leadership to avoid conference. and also motions to recommit a conference report afterwards. but more important was the ability of the rules committee to come along and say we will not give the minority even a motion to recommit on any of these. we don't have to under the rules of the house. the only guarantee of a motion to recommit for the minority in the house is initial passage.

but if it comes to this position of amendments between the houses, there need not be a motion to recommit offered to many minority member. so that is just an example of how minority procedural rights, which are in the standing rules, have diminished through recent custom and tradition. the term "regular order" is thrown about. what is it these days? no one can say that regular order is what happens today and tomorrow in the house. but it almost equates to gridlock. regular order is gridlock that has been for a least -- at least since the senate has divided minorities and since the senate minority has an inordinate amount of ability to stop procedures. i want to talk about some of

the regular orders that we have had. despite thomas jefferson's admonition from 1800, when he wrote, " the jeffersons manuel." the most important thing for the house -- he was writing a manual as vice president of the senate. but the senate has never adopted jefferson's manual pen he said that it is not so important that -- jefferson's manual. he said that it is not so important what the rule is, but that there be a rule. members come and say why don't you ever hear to what jefferson suggested, namely the standing rules, which guaranteed minority participation on virtually every bill initially in the house through the five- minute rule and company as a whole and a number of other guarantees that are short circuit it, not to speak of

waivers were charged -- which are constant through the rules committee. by the way, that is another reason that, at conference, the procedure on commons as has changed because the rules committee also gives a blanket waiver. the house rules committee will give the necessary waiver, which can be adopted overnight by a majority vote. that majority vote, emanating from a committee that has a 9-4 ratio, although someone told me the other day that is only 8-4. right now, republicans to democrats. but that two-one ratio or 2-1 + one is a tradition in the house. it is one they have here regardless of the composition of the whole house. but it means that those nine are hand selected by the speaker. the majority conference and

caucus rules and do not require those names to be ratified by the conference or caucus. those rules committee members are in the speaker's leadership people, fully expected to do the business of the leadership, to propose its agenda. it even gets down into the weeds when, a fuel stayed up until 3:00 a.m., david -- if you all stayed up until 3:00 a.m., david dreier made the meetings more regular. but very often, you watch the development process in the rules committee. when i started, every bill had an open rule. and had second-degree amendment, substitutes -- not at all anymore. it is one amendment, only a first degree amendment in a prescribed order as determined by the rules committee, usually on separate party-line vote. and i saw this happen at 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. in the

morning on a number of occasions. if, sight unseen, and majority whip -- the myth -- the members are not even there -- got wind of the fact that an amendment was in the works to be offered by a minority member and they weren't sure what it was, but it would cause problems with members voting records and it would be embarrassing and uncertain, no one knows that it is in order are not, let's just make it an order. when i was there, they deliver it and motivated -- in fact, you could describe it as leadership from the top down. but in those days, it was the whip telling the majority leader's staff, telling the speaker's staff, telling the rules committee that they are concerned that an amendment was expected or not. and that is wrong. it is the win-at-all-costs

attitude that drives so much. of course, you can adjust that to the polarization of the whole country. during my first 30 years, there was never a real fear. democrats always had substantial majorities. but the speaker did not fear losing from time to time on the floor of the house. they figured they could resurrect whatever position they wanted to with the senate or in conference or whatever. but now, losing one vote and both parties in the majority have characterized this -- they do not want anything to happen that would appear not lead to jeopardize final passage, but that will convince their members that they can put together a coalition, a bipartisan coalition that may win. that attitude, i don't think -- and i am speaking from a distance now, although, as don said, miami consultant and i have an office in the can -- and i am a consultant and i have

an office in the capital, i get the sense that that is what drives the rules committee, through their nine members. i mentioned in the paragraph that i read, "no constitutional memory," a greater overturn in the house, the newer members do not understand the traditions that so long ago were the norm and they do not want to hear about them. they campaigned against them in a number of campaigns in 2010. members would say we will not vote for regular order. we will not vote for openness. we will vote for an ideological agenda. and the leadership, both leaderships, have not been

particularly willing to allow the new members to be oriented on process in a bipartisan way. our office used to do orientations for the members. now, it sometimes happens, but some leaders especially don't want their members to know what it used to be like. for example, the motion to recommit, this is a bona pick with c-span. the motion to recommit, i feel i can do this. brian lamb is retired, so he will not come after me. [laughter] maybe he will. in a caption, the motion to recommit is pending in the house, there will be a caption saying "procedural vote on the motion recommit." the motion recommit is often anything but procedural. and to describe it as procedural, it does enhance new members' willingness to follow the so-called tradition that party loyalty demands a straight party-line vote on anything procedural. it is no better demonstrated than a motion on a previous

question on a rule, for those of you who follow debates on rules will often see the minority go off for half an hour on its own agenda or on fairness on the rules committee. and that is all described as procedural. i have seen it to three times, in 1985, major crime bill voted on a motion to recommit worthy question germain is had disappeared. it was an omnibus appropriation bill. there was no terminus -- no germainbwaa = = = = -- no germainness. it was so immediate and so much by surprise. that is not what both minority -- majority leadership's want to tolerate any more.

i say gridlock is regular order. when you look at some of the recent packaging of measures, the omnibus appropriation bills are the most consistent recent examples where either or both houses don't finish the regular appropriation bills on time. they are left to use a continuing and perhaps and on a bill, an omnibus appropriations bill consisting of all the bills, maybe with one or two exceptions. it may have passed the house, but have not become law separately. packaged in one bill toward the end of the congress and always near the end of the term of -- beginning of a recess or the end of an adjournment. in the original version of the book, i have what i described as the inverse ratio axiom, which

always proves to be true. as it did again this year. although this new so-called agreement on a continuum which will be put in legislative form in september may be a departure from that. but my theory is, the more complex, the more costly, the more urgent a bill is, and the closer you are coming to an adjournment. to get people's -- an adjournment time to get people to go home to talk about it, though less you understand what is in the bill. i did not hear or say this, but pelosi's comment after -- actually, i think it was during the final debate on the health care bill, you know, we need your vote, we have to have your vote, you can read this tomorrow. then the republicans ostensibly try to recapture some openness on appropriation bills.

they had the marathon on an appropriations -- the omnibus appropriations bill in early 2011 with two hundred or 300 amendments, for five days and nights, if only to show members that openness was unworkable. they had a few others. but then, last year and again this year, the appropriations process had stalled when the more problematic bills would have trouble in the house and my probably would not even get called up in the senate. the senate is totally in viewed with this notion that all we have to do is an omnibus -- is embued with the notion that all we have to do is an omnibus. the worst, other than the appropriations process, is the budget control act. it may come up again.

i can i get a clear read on whether the debt limit needs to be extended again in the lame- duck session. part of the agreement in the budget control act was that there will be a couple of extensions through election day of this year so that the president won't have to abdicate another debt limit increase in return for obviously major cuts in spending. and, as it emerges sequestration, know when the so-called select committee, which was doomed from the outset it seems, did not report that the secret -- that the sequestration was in place. the sequestration takes place next january. but the leveraging of full faith and credit and the impact

throughout the world with spending cuts and other savings, however reached, made an impact beyond the threat of the shutdown of the government. i was here when they shut down the government in 95-1996. it was problematic. but, he eventually, some of -- but, eventually, some of the departments that were affected were reopened. but the impact on full faith and credit, to my way of thinking, should never be the leverage for spending. it got harder and harder over time for congress to pass a separate debt limit extension. it got very hard. this time, it appears, impossible to the leadership and probably was, that there was never a clear vote taken in the house on a debt limit extension that was not linked to spending cuts. so that packaging, whether that

is regular order because it happened once in a very dramatic way, whether that will or something in that line or that area will continue again in the lame duck session -- the lame duck session has a variety of issues, tax cuts, sequestration being the two most prominent and the notion of a lame-duck session and not knowing who the members will be next congress, there have been some lame duck sessions that are relied upon these days, to me, is most unfortunate. let me just mention three other areas of change. ethics, personalization of

ethical charges against members has become a real pattern for minority leadership's to take. when newt gingrich ascended to prominence, it was in part because of what he had said am provoked about to jim rice's relatively insignificant royalty discrepancies. and jim wright resigned before he even got a full report from the ethics committee. but that set the pattern. certainly, in new gingrich's mind and others, the demonization of members was really the way of the future. and that has been proven clearly since then with members who are successful in-messaging in defeating their incumbent opponent and then being seated in the house and having to deal with friends of these former members. it is not an invitation to collegiality, clearly.

then when nancy pelosi very strongly lobbied the house, that the republican leadership, after 12 years, had become as corrupt as the republicans said that the democrats had become in 40 years, i will say that is a quote, but that was for a team in 2006 before the election. -- that was her theme in 2006 before the election. and then she wove it and not only is the house being mismanaged, but the leadership is unethical. so she was taking a page out of newt gingrich's book in that respect. so far this year, i don't see

that becoming an issue with the democrats. at least i don't think any particular republican's ethics -- i mean several resigned due to leadership before they became campaign issues. pelosi said we will be more open on the amendment process. we will be much more fair to the minority. and then they ratcheted up the use of the rules committee even further than republicans had to shut off the minority in many amendment situations, which certainly did not endear her to the republican leadership. not balmy did she appear to of made some political headway on it, but she was not particularly being truthful to her earlier campaign pledge of openness. i mentioned in my count the press coverage of congress. there are so many competing

networks there are -- there are so many competing networks and cable stations editorializing. members have to immediately respond and they get a hold on their responses. the media is definitely impacting on the way members deliberate among themselves. may be a watershed moment was back in 1984. eight is one of the most difficult days we had when newt gingrich was starting to emerge as a backbencher and with tip o'neill. the cameras focused on the member. and newt would use rhetorical gestures to defend his iran- contra prohibition.

he would say that the gentleman does not want to engage in this debate, clearly. inappropriate. tip was so upset, he ordered the cameras to pan the chamber. then his top assistant, his friend from massachusetts, not yet chairman of the rules committee, but soon to be, to be in the chair. i remember hearing it. joe, and maybe out of order, but i want you to protect me. he stepped down into the well to give this speech, pointing at and gingrich and sank another reason why i ordered the cameras to pan the chamber is because you have been the lowest thing i have seen in 35 years. the lowest thing. it was a personality against another member. you cannot set a precedent where members can go a choosing

-- go accusing each other. plus you can not set a double standard for the speaker. i will not rule that way because it is true. so he wanted to establish truth as a defense against anything said on the floor. if the person sitting in the chair says it was true, the point of order was overruled. that launched gingrich. it really got him started through his group of members who, even though the cameras were panning the chamber, they still use that. obviously, reapportionment plays an important role on how primaries are held, how moderate to do or do not show up -- how moderates do or do not show up.

so reapportionment and the polarization of it is clearly part of the polarization in congress. i will start talking about money for a minute. to me, that is the key. the citizens united case, high fuel, was unfortunate. but what i want and i cannot really predicted get is for people to understand the impact of super pak messaging on congressional races. i have res and talk to some people -- i have read and talk to some people that members call already catering to messaging emerging from super packs in order to enter themselves to that kind of last minute injection of spending and on limited amounts.

i am sure someone will trace that sooner or later. that to me -- there's so much money in the system. i thought that after the vermont scandal, there would be some real reform -- i thought that after the abram loft scandal, there would be some real reform. what has really concerned me over the years is the member- to-member contributions, which don't get as much criticism. you combine those with term limits -- term limits on chairman and then a chairman can start to develop and expertise. this has happened on both sides. in six years, the democrats put in term limits. they are lame ducks and people are buying for those slots. the steering committee will decide that.

a major test in a number cases has been who ups the ante on the amount of money from the members backing the leadership pac. that to me is corrupting. it used to be just cash under the table, in the old days, which is obviously prohibited. but that kind of member-to- member of leadership pac influence on members is distressing. there is kind of an overview. i mentioned that i was doing a consultation. the house presidents, which some of you are aware of, the final volume on the budget process, volume 18 will be out hopefully by the end of this year. it will be long and difficult. at the end of it will be a narrative, a so-called appendix, which i am doing. i have almost finished it. it will basically be a 50-year overview of procedural changes

in the house primarily during that time, since the last publication of the-collar--for- brown president. -- deschler-deschler-brown precedent. it is being reviewed by a number of people. that should be out there at the end of this year. of course, i invite your attention to that. let me just open up to as many questions as to have. >> [inaudible] i think it is called "even worse than it looks." their theme is that the problem solvers are no longer here. the o'neal's and those guys and that is -- they speak broadly -- let's speak about newt

gingrich and the jim wright business. >> how can a leader be an elected leader if he is perceived as being conciliatory? john boehner does that every day. i am not saying he is not. i am sure he tries in a number of respects. he was and is committed to bringing back more openness. but other deals can be done in conference, whether members have the time, the inclination to even talk to each other, maybe at the committee levels. but even the committee where there is an open process, the committees to follow the five- minute rule. they cannot impose a gag order on amendments unless there is a drastic motion for the previous question.

i would the police say that it is harder for members to have that stature and get elected. that is not to say that those who were elected cannot do it. they are obviously responsible to their caucuses. but clearly, the folks have different traditions. boehner does remember when he started that there was still a sense of openness. the modified closed rules did not really begin until the late-1980's and only selectively. and the republicans certainly perfected the art form. then the democrats did one up on them. they took the majority. it is in leadership issue. that is the key. can a person be elected who has the sense, if not the history? if so, can he exercise it on a regular basis and still be

leader? that, to me, from a non- partisan point of view -- >> [inaudible] >> i assume you're talking about the third simpson-bowles arrangement. >> [inaudible] >> oh, which kind of flowed from the failure of the simpson-bowles procedure. under one to just repeat his punch line at the end, which was devastating and poignant, but he offered the simpson-a bold budget -- the simpson- bowles budget went down in flames. the american people have to be aware -- and i don't know how

that happens, but it has to happen over time. yes. >> so what are specific recommendations for procedural form be and are there other signs that you have seen where they are actually interested in the house side on moving toward that? >> on the house side, it depends on the composition of the next house, i think. again, i am not privy to a lot of day-to-day conversations. i know the chairman dryer has that institutional sense. if he had his druthers, he perhaps would have been able to advocate for more openness. as i said, there has been a return to some openness. but as long as the rules committee can bring, overnight,

a rules change that completely changes the standing rules -- except they cannot deny the motion to recommit -- in every respect, the rules committee on a daily basis, parliamentarians around the world are incredulous when i tell them that. the senate is driven by the filibuster. i am hearing the possibility of restricting the votes on motion to proceed so the majority leader's agenda can at least get started before a filibustering can kick in. i do not know the chances of that. i don't know if it is being negotiated. but the house has a history of superimposing new budget constraints on itself. right, bill?

and then, waving them. i will never forget there is the alternative minimum tax few years ago when, for the first time, the pay-for restriction in the rules, the democrats were in control, that the blue dogs championed. they had an offset on the minimum tax, which would be to tax hedge fund managers on the ordinary rates of income. it made perfect sense. some in the senate, republicans and democrats, struck back and came back to the house on christmas eve. it was an up or down vote because the tax forms had to be finalized on what were the alternative minimum tax would be and the house would capitulate by waving the pay- ago requirement -- pay-go

requirement, to offset the cost of the alternative minimum tax. i good friend john tanner, at that time, was heading up the blue dog,) he had given 20 or 30 speeches on that debt deficit. and he said, for the first time -- the democrats had been true to not waiving the offset requirement, but it had become so difficult to find offsets that would pass both houses because tax increases were off the table as offsets now. so they go into non-and jermaine, told the unrelated areas to find an offset. but here they were waiting for the first time. and tanner went up and it is usual speech. and then he said, "in the name that all that is holy, i insist that the house have the pay-go." this was christmas eve and it

did not pass. i do not have any panacea for it. it is a matter of will and how of congress reacts to public opinion about its performance and whether the public has a sense that there has to be more fairness in congress. >> to fix the problem, would it in until new rules being passed in congress or what it entailed leadership returning to the overall -- >> both. tomorrow, the leadership could return to the rules committee on an ad hoc basis. they could adopt standing rules before the session is over, which seems kind of doubtful. it is technically there for the asking. asking. it is a majority vote situation