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tv   Washington Journal  CSPAN  November 5, 2013 7:00am-10:01am EST

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shutdown and immigration reform and later, look at the history and role that third parties have in american politics. college officer david gillespie. -- college professor david gillespie. ♪ good morning, the senate voted to add fancy non- employment discrimination act. a final boat reportedly is expected this week. will discuss problems on healthcare voters in new jersey and virginia go to the polls today we will discuss the gubernatorial races but we would like to use them to discuss specifically your governor on this election day.
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how would you richer current governor? we have a multitude of ways you can reach out to us. tell us who your governor is and what you like or don't like about that person. the phone lines are on your screen. you can tweet us and we have over 100 participants on our facebook page and you can always e-mail us. we have pulled the front pages from regional papers to show you two races of note, it's the virginia governor's race and this is from "the richmond times dispatch." go to the new jersey papers, the gubernatorial race in new jersey. mr. christie is expected to win that race.
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we are using these races to talk about larger gubernatorial issues and how to rate your governor. give us a sense of how your governor is doing and you can do so today. here are the numbers again -- host: we will take your calls in just a moment. we will talk a little bit about those races that we highlighted at the top of the show. helping us to break it down is alexander bern. he is the senior political reporter. thank you for joining us. people about tell these two races -- why or why not they are important -- what
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would you say? caller: the new jersey race is very important for one reason and one reason only. that is chris christie's national future. if he wins this election by the margin that the polls show, that is a big feather in his cap. he is a potential candidate that will be able to say he was a conservative and up loose date -- in a blue state. complicated.ore there's not a dominant personality involved. there are two candidates -- both are very flawed. this is an important race is that we have seen over the last few years in the state of virginia that it has gone from a predominantly republican state to a real swing state. is thatcould see today virginia may be leaning to the democrats.
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this is an off year election. virginia has historically elected a governor from the opposite party. like the trend will break tonight. host: talk about the significance in the virginia race -- there is also a third candidate. caller: that is right. robert sarvis is running under the libertarian banner. play off of to divisions on the right. open -- his tagline is open-minded and open for business. he has liberal views on abortion and gay rights. unlike ken cuccinelli. use of how theve state ought to use the business.
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turnoutat is the expected to be and who does that favor? caller: both sides agreed that the turnout will be north of 2 million people. that is more than voted in the 2009 governor's race. it is really an open question. democrats feel good about the turnout. they feel that they have put a lot of time and money into making sure that they have voter show up today. asublicans benefit from -- much as virginia may be changing as a state, the people who tend to be most intent about voting tend to be the more conservative, the older a lecture it. we saw some high-profile people campaigning for both of these gentlemen. specifically, terry mcauliffe and can pitch and ellie. and what does this
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tell you about the importance of this race? caller: the republicans had this parade of would-be presidential candidates. others --o and everyone except for chris christie. on the democratic side, you had barack obama and joe biden in the last 48 hours. in the last few weeks, you had bill and hillary clinton. they have been there for terry mcauliffe for a very long time. be hard forill people to say -- the big impact the overwhelming star power on the democratic side. republicans have a strong bench on the 2016 residential race. they do not have a lot of people
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who can go toe to toe with sitting and former presidents. host: what does poland look like in virginia? caller: it varies. it has been pretty consistent for months. from aves have buried few points. private, other races are probably closer to five percent. the turnout you mentioned is key. republicans show up, even though their candidate is failing at this point -- i think we democrats will show up, even though their candidate seems fine. host: talk about chris christie. if he wins reelection, what does he face? caller: he has a whole bunch of issues related to education. shore, gaythe jersey marriage -- these were raised in
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his first term. these are not completely resolved. we see him as someone who certainly could run for president in 2016. it will be interesting to watch. before he gets sucked into the 2016 whirlpool, what will he prioritize? and his challenger -- anything to add about her? waitr: i think we should and see what she has to say about this race. she is a candidate who has a number of hallmarks of a person who democrats would ordinarily support. she is an experienced legislator. she is a high-profile woman in a state that has not elected a female democratic governor. she has not gotten support from the national party. she is someone who could lay
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down some interesting straight talk. burns, a senior reporter for political -- four politico. thank you. on facebook.com, our c-span page, you can post your thoughts. sean wolf out of california says that jerry brown is terrible. there are 100 plus weighing in there. phones, democratic line in montana. they q4 waiting. -- thank you for waiting. caller: i am so grateful for your program. you guys are wonderful. you're a bright light in the midst of darkness.
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here is what i would like to say. my governor is excellent. mr. bullock is excellent. the only thing i have to say is representative government is not listening to the people. we called them repeatedly. even the democratic national committee says they are not listening to people. arehis farm bill, they trying to take away all of the would -- i personally like to ask c-span to bring a more issues about animal rights and the treatment of livestock animals. please, you can do this for us. shine the light. this is a very dark area in our society. host: thank you for the comment. go, what specifically do you admire? caller: he tries as hard as he can. we have a republican base to senate, though we can't get
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anything through. we're trying to get legislation wegive breeders to stop -- need quality of life for animals, not quantity. anyway, thank you so much. i am so grateful. line.republican chicago, illinois. caller: everybody who complains about republicans -- we live here in illinois and we have a vetoproof senate and a vetoproof house. stand orlicans cannot stop our financial fiasco. we are the worst in the country, if not second-worst. host: who is your governor? caller: quinton. host: what would be your opinion of him? caller: no one can address the problems that we have here in illinois. we have problems with pension reforms. we're going to get caught up and
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nobody ever applies money in the right place. we're coming to the expiration of the tax increase and nothing has been done. evil,it there like see no hear no evil, speak no evil. host: another caller from illinois. independent mind. caller: good morning. i have to agree with the last caller. i would like to add that illinois has been democratic rolled for the last 20 plus years. it was run by chicago, basically. 175 billion dollars of pension debt. 100 plus is non-funded. we have the third highest gas tax in the nation. we have one of the most indebtedness percentages in the
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nation. we have the highest unemployment in the nation. if anyone wants to see -- look at illinois. we kick the can down the road for 20 years. state andcians in the the governor have spent almost four years trying to come up with a solution to the pension debt. can you imagine? they cannot come up with a solution to it? host: a lot of people giving their thoughts on the governor. is this because we talked about the virginia and new jersey governor's races? the coverage on c-span will begin live tonight at 9:00. that will be on our main channel. look for more on our website. janet is from virginia beach, va. democratic line. caller: hello. good morning.
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i am not very happy with our governor. i am very happy to be voting today. i wish we could get someone in like kentucky. that would be great. host: you will be voting for terry mcauliffe then? caller: absolutely. lesser the of two evils. host: why specifically? caller: women's rights. i do want to say something about the lady who was on a minute ago. about animal rights. i agree with her 100%. we do need to do more about that. mcauliffe, it is probably more about what cuccine lli is for. he is so radical. it would be a repeat of mcdonnell. i hope it stays will end in december and we will get on with it. is joining us from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. republican line. you are on.
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businessur governor is friendly. he has lowered taxes on several corporations. he has lowered several taxes on corporations which is helpful to business. he focuses on jobs and trying to increase jobs here. the main thing is he does not lie like the president. i like that about him. host: what is your legislature like in pennsylvania? who controls it? caller: republicans. host: as far as lower taxes, what do you like about him? caller: that is the main thing i would say right now. we need the jobs. businesses, paying lower taxes, they can hire more people.
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he is honest. he is not like the president. host: another opinion of the pennsylvania mayor on facebook -- robin is talking about heaven called him awful. facebook.com is where you can post those. send this e-mail too. when you look at governorships across the country, area of them are in republican hands. 19 are in democratic hands. hands.in independent you can see this map demonstrating. this is the independent line. caller: we have to get some credit -- everybody wants to get a job. know, besides personal reasons, we may not always agree is pretty --exas
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it all depends how many people are allowed to sign onto health care. we should have done this years ago. it would be really rude of duty not to allow everyone onto her health to report -- reform. nobody else wants to have kids in this country. host: when it comes to the jobs question, what has rick perry done to bring jobs to texas? caller? she's gone. the line.nelius on caller: i just want to say one thing. i like my governor. all governors who go along with this barbaric standard ground law are doing the same thing.
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host: why do you rate your governor zero? he hung up to. the tallahassee democrat is looking at the previous governor. he is going to- run in that state for governor as a democrat now. this is the top story. this is one of the most closely watched gubernatorial races in the country. he challenges rick scott. mr. christoffel reverse -- mr. some of theeverse contentious policy decisions that made during his first year in office. he supports tax cuts for the middle class and once further
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cuts to education funding. he says that what we have in florida is not working. next up is lafayette, indiana. this is terry on the republican line. caller: good morning. about wanted to complain our senator -- our governor, i mean. i have a newspaper article in front of me. this is from january 30. he wants to ease my water regulations. this is on the heel of state budget cuts. tois sponsoring a bill decriminalize marijuana. democrat sponsored bill. madeommittee
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recommendations and modifications. the governor found out about this and said to stop it immediately. it is the number one selling illegal drug in the world. you could break up drug gangs if you legalized the stuff. it is ridiculous. it is harmless. napoleon bonaparte went into egypt and discovered it -- there is no chance of overdosing. our government could make money instead of drug gangs. my father told me year after year that you can buy illegal drugs in the prisons. deals fromh better the guards. the guards make more money from that than on their paychecks. host: independent line.
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good morning. you're on. who is your governor? my problem specifically is that this government has come that if he mindset turns back the clock, for instance, there are people here that he believes should not be allowed to vote. what they have done is made a problem out of no problem. they just created one. this was to keep people away from the polls. how can voting be a problem? how can same-day registration be a problem? with do not have a problem people voting illegally, then why are they doing this? this is the pattern all across
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this nation. people need to wake up. we are not going to be a -- another thing i would like to say, with governor christie, everyone is watching the news. everyone is saying how much he is going to win by. to theat means republican party and to the democrats and all of that -- nobody mentions the fact that governor christie spent over $1 million to help cory booker's election. upstaged by his -- by the person running against him. nobody mentions that. if you are going to win so big, why would you move that kind of money so they his image?
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it is almost like the media is in bed with that. i would like someone to call in and become that. that is an interesting concept to me. host: out of maine, the governor's race. the washington times wrote about portland, maine. they have endured more than a dozen elections without anyone 's sexuality.ichaud everyone knows that he is gay. he came out publicly. he was being dogged in his gubernatorial campaign. his mother and siblings did not want to be interviewed. there was a three-way race. he is running close in the polls.
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the election as an 2014. flagstaff, arizona -- democratic line. caller: good morning. i finally got through. i wanted to say that my governor is jan brewer. it goes to the animal rights issue -- you were talking about this last night. as far as the gay and lesbian issue -- i am disabled with a brain injury. came and putada restrictions on service animals. they said that service animals can only be dogs and miniature horses. i guess they put something online to hear from people before they made this decision, but this decision came about
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because it is obvious who has money. restaurant associations and people like that say that people were bringing her stocks into restaurants and letting the meat off of plates. they are putting in laws to prevent that. if they changed the nature of the business and disrupt other customers, they could ask you to leave. -- has your governor weighed in on this? i am trying to get the connection. my point is that they heard from people who have no access to the internet. they cannot afford a computer -- i have a brain injury and i cannot use the internet. i could not be heard. she signed into law in the
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spring -- it became effective in these restrictions on service animals for the state of arizona. i am living on $700 per month. heard -- i do not have money and i cannot change my position. i have no voice. i cannot get another job. from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. republican line. caller: hi. for republican tom corbett -- he was a great attorney general. i believe that he is a great governor. the best governor. there was cronyism before. what makes him great? caller: he has tried to do well
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by the people. he is fair. that is marianne from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. a couple of e-mails for you. this is from b.j. in annapolis. we're talking about martin o'malley. higher taxes, dropping house prices, millionaires leaving the state. also weighing in about the governor of minnesota, mark says that they are fortunate to have mark dayton as governor. he serves the common good and has appointed people to support we're looking at races in virginia and new jersey. we have an opportunity for you to talk about your governor and how you would rate your governor. the numbers are on your screen.
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taking a look at virginia and new jersey, our coverage will start at 9:00 this evening. tune in to get the latest news and your reactions. that coverage starts at 9:00. you can get more information at c-span.org. the information is there for you on the screen. we will hear from michael in myrtle beach, south carolina. independent line. good morning. caller: governor haley has done an excellent job. -- boeing,esses michelin, are expanding into south carolina. is department of revenue reached a year ago by hackers. 3.5 million citizens in our state had their search -- social security numbers and other
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information criticized -- compromise. reaction was slow. there was a four-month gap before they fixed the problem. i would rate my governor out of because of her inability to handle the situation. host: supreme court and abortion law is the top story on the washington times. in abortionng that cases, the supreme court will block the texas law to restrict abortions. case is an oklahoma seeking to revise restrictions on abortions. planned parenthood asked the high court to put an emergency hold on the new state law requires abortionists to have local hospital admitting privileges.
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about the decision that supreme court adjust -- justices made about oklahoma. the oklahoma law required providers follow food and and drug association rules. it was dismissed and they the wall will remain struck down. veronica from indianapolis, indiana. republican line. caller: hello. we will hear next from jeffrey. jeffrey is from gary, indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. i think that i would give my
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governor is zero. he is not the governor of all of indiana. they have a stranglehold. reason, they have built a third airport in this area. he does not care. i think he is partially a tea party person. host: talk about this airport. what he mean by that? caller: we are in the northwest corner of indiana. we have the perfect place for a third airport. , o'hare, anddway then gary. we are vying for that third airport in this area. it would be right by the tollway. the land is not being used
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around here. i do not think he wants to believe. what do you mean by that? -- this is a democratic area. ifry, other areas -- the state would actually beefed- up and give us a chance to get a third airport. host: massachusetts, good morning. he is wrong. he is a good -- he is a big zero.
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all he cares about his taxes. he cares about the welfare people. they do not care about the working person, like i self. he never answers. he does not like white people. called my senators and congressmen. they never answer me back. the los angeles times has a follow-up story that lays after a shooting at the airport last week. they are urging the arming of tsa agents. when theyriting that developed the tsa, the mission was clear. officers would not carry guns or make arrests. they would screen passengers for dangerous materials. officerting death of an is the first fatality in the
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agent history. it could change things. called for a class of armed tsa officers. the training and authority to arrest people -- the sad truth is that they are subject to daily verbal assaults and far too frequent physical attacks. mike from richmond virginia, republican line. caller: i want to talk a little bit about the virginia race for governor. i am a republican, so it is obvious that i intend to vote elli. i want to point a few things out. people who are upset with his religious views on abortion, i have seen a lot of things from my liberal friends on social media about how he is going to
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take away women's rights. is about the most laughable thing i can think of. if you make the case that he wanted to do that, he has to have a bill sent to him by the virginia legislation to do that. the likelihood of that is zero. the legislature is not made up of people that want to do that. cuccinelli in office is no threat to women's rights at all. on the other hand, you do have a wealthte who is amassing through party connections and crony capitalism. this is the entire focus of physical life. that is terry mcauliffe. i do not want that guy anywhere near virginia's tax money. we need a flow of money.
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your entire life has been top -- spent skimming off the top. i do not trust a guy like that with virginia's tax money. host: talk about the influence of robert sarvis in this race. caller: i wish he was not in the race. there are things about him that i like. there are other things i do not like. arvis is ant s unusual candidate. he probably will siphon votes from both candidates. both cuccinelli and terry mcauliffe. i do not think his friend's and the race will be a factor in terms of the proportion of votes they go to the other two. host: lansing, michigan.
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hello. caller: i would like to say that mr. snyder is a republican, but he has turned our economy around. a has turned our deficit into surplus. i will give credit where credit is due in that regard. the polls are open here in lansing, good luck to all of the candidates. host: a lot of people -- a lot of papers are both -- are focusing on the detroit race today. caller: yes, sir. i hope everyone gets out of votes. host: thank you. speeches, thisf is the detroit free press -- are visiting as many polling places as possible.
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predicted voter turnout will not exceed 25% today. kevin from fort lauderdale, florida. independent line. caller: thank you for having me on. we have toorida -- give them the lowest marks out of all governors. aware, that everyone is far sides of the coin -- as as the governor, do not know how anyone acknowledges him as a real republican. my issue with rick scott is a couple fold. before he took office, referendum went out. the people wanted the state redistricted.
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they wanted the whole thing read wrong. .- re-drawn gerrymandering is one of the biggest problems in the state. any referendum like that has to be approved through federal agencies and signed by the governor. the second he took office, he refused and still refuses to sign that order to redistrict. some democratic representatives have taken four counties. that is one big issues. for me, i am an educator. the biggest issue i have with rick scott is that he is dismantling public education in the state of florida. schoolsshing charter that are constantly being investigated for fraud. he is taking the top one percent of students and putting them on
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virtual schools. he says this will work for everyone. host: who have devoted four in the past? caller: i voted for jeb bush. i have no problem voting for jeb bush. with the wayilled he handles himself, but i voted none of the above this time around. there was nobody more funding for on the democratic side. crist'sat about charlie decision to run as democrat? caller: i have a lot of issues with him as well. i want to hear what he has to say and see what he brings to the table. i give everybody a little credit. i always leave room for doubt. i think that chris could do a good job if he is going to be a
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moderate and do it representatives are supposed to do -- represent all of people, not just their party. to me, education is the biggest thing. hopefully you'll let me get this one point in -- host: we have to move on. mark, republican line. go ahead. caller: we have governor tom corbett. i would like to say that i think that he is one of the worst governors we have ever had in the state. between his push to privatize the lottery -- we only had one did, and it was a company from great written. he was pushing for that. and the watershed, he will contaminate all of the water. he is also doing this voter id law. it is so draconian.
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i do not understand this man. host: did you vote for him in office? caller: no, sir. no, no. i am a republican, but you have to understand -- if you're going to be a governor, you have to work with the people and not the corporations. he is pushing these charter and cyber schools in pennsylvania. they are bad. it is bad news. twitter, we have these comments. madison heights, michigan is up next. caller: thank you for taking my call. we have a governor named rick snyder. if i gave him a zero, that would be too high of a mark. jobs andee aided zero
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lost over 60,000 jobs with all of these cuts. he stopped a $2.5 billion industry, which was the movie industry. he has raised taxes. people of michigan voted to get rid of the emergency manager law. we voted to get rid of it and he turned around behind our backs and put the law in any way. bridged down a major that we did not need or want. he went against our backs and tried to make a deal with the canadians. host: one more call. michigan, you have the last call on the independent line. caller: i would rate him a 10. the reason is that we have furloughs and state employees --
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within eight months of him being elected, we had a balanced budget with a surplus. i give him a solid 10. host: do not forget, coverage of the virginia and new jersey races will start at 9:00 this evening. you can see that on our main channel. find more information at our website, c-span.org. we will be joined next by brian from human rights watch. they would ban workplace discrimination on the basis of gender or sexuality. about theso talk impact of recent policy debate on small business owners. we watched as the -- we want to tell you about a special program we have coming up. we will be live. cushing, oklahoma. about the different aspects of the oil industry.
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back in september, c-span visited the area and interviewed a longtime oil producer and oklahoma resident about the history. where are we standing right now and oklahoma? >> this is the site of the wheeler number one. it was the discovery well for oil field. it was drilled in 1912. well was not hadble -- it would've certain problems over the years. this would be a rotary hole here. this is the site, though. there is a plaque over there. after the field was covered, what does the site look like? what was happening here? >> this was a tent city.
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-- it was the only town in existence when the field was discovered. are all kindsre coming up overnight. through, you notice all of the hills. it is very hilly. it would've been a nightmare trying to plan the city. black gold -- the rush. all of these things sprung up overnight. >> how much was the field producing in its heyday? >> it was the largest oil field in the world. outroduced 300,000 barrels of a five by 15 mile area.
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it was 75 square miles. the whole state of oklahoma does about -- between 200 and 300 today. early 1900s, what role did cushing play overall in the country's economy when it came to oil? facts and figures that i get out of these books that i have read all of my life -- the price of oil was somewhere between $1 and $1.50. it drove the price down. they did not know how to store it. the environmentalists went crazy. no one knew how to do that. i understand that there were five commercial scammers. -- skimmers.
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they did not know how to contain it. -- of those tanks over there they shipped a lot of oil over there during world war i to power ships.o help >> how has cushing changed over the years? -- evil. devolved there is still a lot of production. days, you would get one barrel out of every eight. people made a lot of money selling mineral rights. now, cushing is evolving a lot.
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there is an incredible pipeline industry. they have 10 cranes working south of town. they are busy. we are building these pipelines through here. it is a major hub of storage. there are a lot of tank farms. they are moving oil all of the time. that aspect has changed. it still has a lot of fidelity to it. -- viability to it. host: our special will be tomorrow on "washington journal. " we will talk about its role in the oil industry. that will be tomorrow, starting at 7:00. now, brian from the human rights campaign. thank you for joining us. talk a little bit about what the what is it and why is
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that important? guest: the employment nondiscrimination act -- it is the first procedural hurdle in the senate. it is a very simple piece of legislation. it would add pieces to eliminate discrimination, along with race, gender, etc.. of advances a lot over the country in terms of marriage and other areas, but employment discrimination is still very much a reality. it is still perfectly legal in many states. in fact, it is legal in 21 states to deny employment because someone is gay. ands still very significant there needs to be a national solution to address the problem. host: how many times has this kind of bill come up in the past? guest: it has been considered once before.
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it failed in 1996 by one bolt. past in 2007.on it did not move any further. in fronteen this issue of congress for some time now. we are very excited to see that they are ready in the senate this year. host: why the need for expansion of current law? guest: there is no law that prohibits just commission on the federal level based on sexual orientation or gender identity. there are many places in this country where people are still facing employment discrimination. on who they are and not what their merits are. it is something that is unrelated to anything like that. it has to change and we have a great model for how to address that. under federal law, for a number of categories -- this is the natural extension. host: how many specific cases have you heard of that dealt
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with discrimination? guest: we hear from people and our members are equally about experiencing dissemination. we have seen many cases come up where people have tried to argue under existing sex discrimination laws. protected because of their sexual orientation. those cases have not been successful. is not what was intended when the law was enacted. we know that this is happening in the people are seeking recourse. we also know that, in many cases, the court simply do not have the legal ability to help. host: a vote was taken yesterday -- the billet francis. advances.l can talk to our guest about it. here are the numbers.
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we have set aside a special number four lgbt users. bill -- to it bans the to advance the bill. talk about that. to have ais important strong bipartisan vote. importantssue that is across party lines. there is a large support among the public. vote the want to see a reflects the reality of what the american people think about these important protections. they broadly support them. it is important in advancing this issue in the senate. as we look onto the house and the future of this legislation, it will be supported across party lines. it is a non-exemption.
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it is a basic fundamental value. that is what we reflected last night with that strong vote. boehner says not to expect a similar vote in the house. he hasit is unfortunate, decided already to speak out against considering the legislation. it is so strongly supported and it is not reflecting where his constituents or the american people are broadly. frankly, the bill deserves consideration in both chambers. given the opportunity, we see a lot of republican support this bill. the floor of the house, 35 members of the party voted to support passage. he should be given the opportunity again. host: this is our topic this morning. here is billy from miami, florida. independent line. caller: good morning.
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brian, you do a fabulous job and we are proud of you. miami, i go back -- how did lgbt? youm glbt to say this is a natural thing and no one should discriminate -- you do a great job and i will listen off-line. have a great morning. guest: is the movement has progressed to the way we try to include everyone we represent, it has changed a little bit. at the core, we are talking about people who are facing unfair treatment in a host of different areas. those core issues are at the center of the protections. there are many other pieces of legislation that we advocate for. regardless of the acronym, that
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is what we are still working to a dance. baltimore,, from maryland. caller: i am listening a mummy say this. all of my life, i have been against anyone treating anyone differently because they are different. i do not care. i have worked with people who are gay or lesbian -- but it is ridiculous have far you have taken it. in baltimore, there's a grocery store. for a papern up they can fine you for anything. -- theyitical views could file for anything. this has gotten ridiculous. i think that no one should discriminate against anybody. they are not.
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-- nuts. guest: we want to make sure the categories like gender orientation has nothing to do with their job. employers cannot consider this when deciding whether to hire or fire or promote someone. baltimore,lace like your example where employment at --l is the general rule there is a statewide law but just roommates -- that prohibits his cremation. discrimination. iny have a lot of freedom terms of who they employ. identity -- is this the first time it has been added to the bill? guest: this is the first time that we have seen a chamber
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advance legislation on the floor. host: does this complicate? guest: it is a new addition to the bill. we have had it for a number of years. for some senators, this is the first time they were voting on that issue. we have had a lot of very positive conversations educating people about the discrimination that people face in the workplace. when we do that, people get ahead in come along. there is new language and a new concept that requires us to do more lobbying. i think you see from the vote last night that this was not successful. host: how do you define this? guest: the bill certainly defines conditioning and terms of employment on sexual employment -- sexual orientation. those conditions were prohibited based on other characteristics.
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obviously, the classic example of things like refusing someone a job or firing them or refusing to promote them were treating them differently. certainly, just like under title vii, if someone feels that this is what they are experiencing, then the burden is on them to prove that. first through the administration process, and then essentially import. it is not an easy path. perceivedcourse for discrimination. we want to make sure that these people have this option. host: how do you prove that? guest: you have to present evidence that you have experienced -- that your experience has been different because of sure characteristics. in many cases, we still have employers who are willing to put into writing or clear language
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that the reason an individual is not being hired or is being transferred is because of their sexuality. host: is there any protection under the eeoc? guest: they have helped advance the idea that title vii sex discrimination prohibition does cover transgender people. that is a great step. we have seen federal courts take that position. comprehensive a protection for transient or people in all cases under title vii. that is another reason we need clarity in the law. host: we set up a line for lgbt viewers.
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(202) 585-3883. keith, palm bay, florida. hello. good morning, guys. i do not understand these laws. they seem more of a feel good thing. when it comes to business, i do not understand why businesses would discriminate against anybody because it hurts their business. -- since they are a private own business, i do not see what is wrong with it. what i do not understand about gay people or anybody else that works for somebody, if the people you're working for do not like you, why do you want to be there anyway? if you're working in a place iat sets you up for failure, do not understand. when you are getting into a
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career, you want to love what you do and where you work. why would you want to work with someone who is going to discriminate against you? guest: it is a very good question. laws,ason we have existing laws like title vii that has been there since 1964 is because we have decided that there are characteristics of individuals that have historically subjected them to discrimination in a range of different areas, those should not be permissible reasons to make employment decisions. at its core, this bill and those laws before it, are about the golden rule. it is about treating people as you would want to be treated and including them in employment. why would a gay or transgender person want to work in an environment where there is
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hostility -- i cannot imagine they would want to do that. you have to consider people who work in a smaller town or a particular industry where their opportunities for employment are limited. they should have the equal opportunity to advance just like any of their other coworkers without regard to something that has nothing to do with their ability to do that job. our democrats line, charlie, from new jersey. is charlie and i am a transgendered person. it is a very difficult position to be in. you need to work. there is a question as why would you work there? you need to heat. we need to eat, too. we are human. i have to go to work. i go to work and my fingernails
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change color, i start painting or moanstart replacement hormone replacement therapy -- or moan replacement therapy. -- it throws me into a position where i am vulnerable. some of the largest companies have antidiscrimination policies. they look after us and make sure that if you go to your head person and you talk to them. my first employer was gay. i did not know he was gay. it took six months for me to know that he was gay. gay does not show. trans shows. it shows in a way no one seems to understand. there is a huge discrimination against us. do i have to go into the men's room? we will let our guest
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response. fort: thank you for let -- calling in and sharing your experience. it highlights the transgender people do experience some of the most severe discrimination in the workplace in our community. be who they are an true to themselves as they present in the workplace -- i am sure charlie's qualifications for her job did not suddenly change when she began to transition. that is why this legislation is so important. i want to touch on another point that she raised -- this has become increasingly be standard practice in corporate america. thingiew it as the right to do and the way to retain the best employees. we have almost 90% of fortune five hundred companies that include sexual orientation in their eeo policy.
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are also about 60% include gender identity. the survey practice and a lot of major corporations. they have been very successful in implementing those. we want to ensure that people who are not so lucky to work at those companies, but in many other places in the country, have the same sorts of protections. host: speaker boehner said he would not bring it to the house because he believes the legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost american jobs, especially small business jobs. heritage action firm put out a statement that the bill would impose liability on employers for discrimination based on subjective, self disclosed identities and would not protect equality under the law. the accusation of frivolous litigation is not borne out by the experience that
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localities in corporate america have with these sorts of protections. we have 21 states with sexual orientation detection and 17 with gender identity. requestple times, the of members of congress is to look at these states. there is a flood of opposition against the bill. it has not created that issue for businesses in many states that sometimes gets mentioned, including by the speaker's spokesperson. in response to the heritage piece, you as you heard charlie ,escribed, these are not hidden self disclosed, self identified aspects of lgbt people.
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if i come to work and put a picture of my partner on my desk or someone asks me what i did this weekend and i am honest with them, i am being open about my sexual orientation and not in a way that is inappropriate in the workplace, but is the same as any other employee would do when talking about their family. when charlie goes to work and presents changes in the course of her job or if she came work as aed to woman and someone found out about her past life, those are things she has inside of her that nobody knows about that she could keep her head down and do her job. those are aspects of who she is that are evident to her coworkers. it is unfair to suggest these are characteristics an employer is being burdened with because they cannot make employment decisions based on them. the american people believe they are not related to your ability
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to do a job or do it well. host: brian molson joining us. moulton joining us. independent line, go ahead. caller: it is like they have a family room for people with kids and they can create a restroom for trans under -- transgender people because not everyone wants to be in the same restaurant. some people still are being discriminated against and no one is trying to change the laws for them. the law we are talking about is about sexual orientation and gender identity. many other characteristics are protected under federal law, race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age. there are a lot of remedies
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available under federal and state and local laws for people who experienced discrimination on the other bases. if you know people experiencing that, i encourage you to look at those remedies that are available. there is a lot of information out there from the eeoc and state and local agencies as well. host: matthew, winchester, virginia. an independent calling on our line that we set aside for lgbt people. caller: i would like to mention about the caller who talked about why you would work in a place that discriminates. i work for a place that was the height of discrimination. i was a navy officer. i was a navy officer for 10 years. what hurt my relationship with my partner was the tobility to take my partner navy functions, navy balls. i would get dressed up, put on my medals and i would have to
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leave him at home. it soured our relationship. it has now passed. i am out of the service. i am a business owner myself. are lgbt.workforce transgenderist is and a beautiful woman who educates me on the other letters b, t,re associated, l, g, q -- i cannot get them all straight. to mr. love to speak boehner about how productive we are as a workforce. client,bring in a new they do not ask if we hire gay people. our gay people going to be hailing my -- handling my
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accounts? they understand they're going to get the most productive, profitable work out of people who can be themselves, have pictures of their partners on their desks, be able to talk --ut current lyrical issues current political issues. you know where i'm going with this. i have seen it in the military, talking with a friend of mine, who was still in, gay, and is now able to take his partner to the navy functions. they look beautiful together. guest: thank you, matthew. thank you for your service and for sharing your experience. reason members should support enda is because we have seen tremendous express it -- success in the repeal of the don't ask don't tell law that barred people from serving openly as lesbian, gay, or
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bisexual. that law has been off the books for several years and by all accounts, the military is still functioning quite well. now we have individuals like yourself and your friends who notable to serve openly and be burdened with having to hide who they are and their family in the course of serving our country. i think it is a tremendous example of how not taking something like sexual orientation into account, but judging people on how well they can do their job can be incredibly says -- successful. host: the president wrote about this yesterday saying several republican senators were voiced senators voiced support here we can put an end to discrimination once and for all. how much leadership has he shown on this issue? guest: he and his administration have been very supportive. we had our first administration official testify in congress
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right after the president took office. a member of the eeoc speaking in favor of the legislation and we have seen consistent support from the president since then. the op-ed that was published from the president, the white house put out a statement of white house administration policy and they have communicated their support over the years in all of the ways that we have had this bill attempted to advance. they have been a valuable partner. lines from this posting saves much to the commerce -- consternation of the advocate, obama has withheld issuing a heavily sought executive order that would bar federal contractors from engaging in lgbt workplaces cremation. discriminate -- workplace discrimination. it does not include
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sexual and -- it does not include sexual orientation. host: should the president go that route? guest: absolutely. regardless of what happens with enda, we hope we can be successful in congress. it is an important additional protection for individuals who work for companies that are taking taxpayer dollars to provide goods and services to the federal government and should not be treating lgbt differently. host: what has been the response? guest: they have not done it. as for why -- speak to theve to white house as to why the president has not taken a step. it is something we hope you will do. host: brian moulton. our guest, james -- our caller, james is up next. james, go ahead. -- ir: i wanted to let
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found the idea of us asking why somebody would want to work somewhere where there is discrimination going on to be a odd question considering the need tot people simply eat. it does not matter. you work where you need to work in order to survive. is people should not be discriminated against because of sexual orientation or any kind of transgender issues. when will the human race ever learn that all people are people, not just the ones that we most understand? guest: thank you, james. that these are basic
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-- these are basic, core protections. the poll has borne out that americans by and loss support, we have to have congress turn that broad public opinion into reality so that people like charlie that we spoke with can go tod others work without fear of losing their jobs simply because of who they are. host: republican line, he here is liz. caller: good morning. i believe no one should be discriminated for any reason whatsoever. on ald like to comment comment that was made about the military. the military will not tell you when they have problems with the female and male and whatever gender is whatever. they will not tell you anything. the government will never reveal anything that is going on.
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, if you are hired as a man to do a man's job, meaning physical labor and so on, and you turn out to be a female, if the person that hired deceitful?t that you are hired under the circumstances that you're going to be doing work that you know you cannot do. -- last thing i want to say you have to understand about people growing up. you have different age groups. against discrimination your sexuality and whatnot, people grew up not involved in that. they never had access to it. --was not -- no one ever won no one ever talked about it in the family, no one ever said anything.
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you might come across people that are different, religions, sexes, they are different. you are not talk -- talked that. -- you are not taught that. do noter people in life like things pushed on them. you have to let them get out there and say ok, these are the changing times, and you have to adjust to it. host: we will leave it there. thanks. guest: to your last point, we have done a great deal of public opinion polling. equalityomes to lgbt support on a range of issues, it is strongest among younger americans. we see majority support across a whole range of demographics, including age. i appreciate that some americans might not have had as much exposure and maybe they do not
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understand these issues, i think they understand the basic concept that you should treat people as you would want to be treated, including in the workplace. that is why you see among that demographic, majority support for legislation like enda. piece, it is a dagger aimed at the heart of religious freedom for millions of americans. -- religious exemption is vacant and aquatic -- inadequate peer based on previous court rulings, faith- based charities may be subject to arrest man junk lawsuits. -- subject to harassment and junk lawsuits. guest: the same types of employers that have been exempt under title vii for 40 years -- host: is it just churches then?
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it is not just churches. we have seen over the last 40 that assertzations the exemption and they have gone to court and prevailed that they are religious entities that get theircriminate based on religion. it is a difficult line that has to be drawn with regard to both religious liberty and protecting lgbt people. it takes a broad approach at exempting those religious organizations. i don't think the kind of scares has to ask -- the scare tactics that we are hearing are fair. host: society does not need tutoring by washington policies. than 80% of fortune 500
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companies have adopted similar policies. it seems to be taking care of it on the state and business level. guest: we have seen significant advances over the last 3 decades. states, localities, and businesses have moved along on this issue. those protections do not exist for all people. that is not acceptable. we should have robust protection against employment discrimination for lgbt everywhere they've -- everywhere they live. what we know is that these characteristics have nothing to do with your ability to do a job. discrimination against these individuals is wrong. the american people agree with that statement. congress needs to address it. host: then is from jacksonville, florida, on our independent line. caller: thanks for having me. host: you are on.
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caller: what i would like to ask you -- why are we having this discussion? has zerohis bill chance of passing as long as john boehner is the speaker. important we take every opportunity to advance these protections through congress as far as we can. it is fair to say that we have a difficult road in front of us in the house of representatives. the speaker has taken the opportunity to make that clear. we need to find opportunities to advance this, even in the house of representatives, where there is still so much resistance. it is the approach we have taken
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on hate violence, and it is now law. look at accomplishing this goal in the same way. host: new york, democrats line. caller: i am a gay man. i work in one of the lgbt organizations here, in new york. week i havey every transgender people who are just -- who are complaining about discrimination when they are seeking jobs. is beingy this addressed and have high hopes it will be passed. guest: thank you. seeing members of our community experience were placed determination come even
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somewhere like new york where one might assume things are progressive on this issue. it highlights how important these protections are. talk a little bit about your perspective on this op-ed. that he isre happy able to be open about who he is. will help him concentrate on running for governor of maine than this particular asset back -- this aspect of his life. we are happy that he has been able to express that and if he prevails in the gubernatorial race in maine, that would be a historical moment. an lgbt member become an elected official of the state. as he worksthe best
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towards the governorship. you offer him support? guest: we will look where we are asked to endorse, but we will consider it. jeremy, hot springs village, independent line. hello. caller: hello. my question was concerning religious beliefs in the workplace. i am a small-business owner and i have religious convictions. many small businesses are family owned and operated. if not, they have their children come in and out of the business. beliefs, 70%gious of america, roundabout, claims
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to be of the christian faith. homosexual, gay, and everything 1% of thee under population. my question is, if i teach my child my religious convictions and morals and that i do not agree with that lifestyle or have bad feelings towards those people, but i do not agree with it. i teach them that and they are at the workplace, will that be considered hate towards those people and lead towards lawsuits and so on? guest: thanks for your question. there are many small businesses that are supportive of these protections and we have a business coalition that we formed that includes large and small businesses. a are actively supporting the
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bill. i would also stress that the not apply to businesses like other federal nondiscrimination laws. these very small, family-owned businesses will not be covered by the law. , i would that are challenge that if you are -- if your position is that while you have a religious objection to people, why would you want to make an employment decision based on who those individuals are? if they are qualified and doing their job, why take the fact that they are lgbt into account? if that is how you feel about them -- that is all that the bill is asking people to do is to treat those aspects of individuals in the workplace neutrally. anything aboute individuals, privately held beliefs, about lgbt people or
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issues about marriage for same- sex couples. it asks and demands that you evaluate people on their merits and not on the fact that they are gay or transgender. of thehat percentage population is transgendered? guest: we do not have a hard number because we do not have surveys or data like the census that asks those questions. we estimate that it is about 1% of the population. bisexual people of theut five percent population. they are not insignificant groups. their sexual orientation and gender identity should not be relevant to their ability to have a job. richard, from
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tennessee, independent line. .aller: thanks, pedro thanks, c-span, for taking my call. about howte any polls parents feel about having transgendered teachers and he classroom -- in the classroom? the second is thornier. this raises a lot of hackles. what of the human rights campaign position on supporting sexualrientations or activities that are currently prohibited by law? i am going to bring up polygamy and among consensual activities among adults paid -- among adults. scientificde the
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objections based on birth defects, which have shown to be not anymore prevalent in women and the legal issues with polygamy, what is the human rights campaign's position on those activities? i'll try to be concise and i am interested in your answer. know of any't public opinion polls that were asking about parents and their concerns about transgender teachers. there have been scientific studies about children with transgender parents or transgender role models that have shown there is no ill fact thatthem on the they have a transgender person in their life. we have had experience with teachers who are transgender in a number of states. those experiences have been fine. kids are quite capable of
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dealing with different -- and understanding the sorts of issues in their classrooms. ,n your second question polygamy and are not sexual orientations. the bill very clearly talk about what you are protecting -- homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality. individual attractions to people of the same or opposite sex. that is what we are protecting. it is not the other issues that get raised or suggested as part of that. that is really the issue in front of us. it has nothing to do with recognizing particular relationships. it really is about ensuring basic workplace protections. ? host: the house and senate
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taking it up, how will it go? guest: i think a strong bipartisan vote on final passage will help us as we continue to push the house leadership not to be so dismissive of a very popular and basic protection for lg cp people. that really needs to happen. we're going to look for opportunities to advance this. we will keep pushing the president on the executive order to enact protections for federal contractors. if we are not successful, we are not going away. this issue is going to be a top priority. >> and discharge position with enough support to force a house vote. >> that is one of the strategic possibilities. we're going to look at what opportunities are there once we have the successful vote this weekend. >> thank you. coming up we are going to be joined id administrator of the small business administration. he is going to talk about the impact of recent policy debates
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on small business owners as well as hispanic businesses and consumers. later we are going to take a look at the history and role of third-party politics in american politics. this segment was brought to you by a c-span viewer to my who suggests you can do the same. more information about that coming up. we get a news update from c-span radio. is 8:30 a.m. eastern time. president obama meets with business leaders at the white house. they will talk about immigration reform. the senate has passed legislation backed by the president that was secure borders and provide a road to citizenship for 11 million them -- 11 million immigrants paid the president wants the house to act on a copper heads of approach before the end of the year. theylican leaders say prefer a piecemeal approach. you can watch live gavel-to- gavel house coverage on c-span. nsaing to recent reports of spying in europe, secretary of state john kerry speaking earlier today in warsaw, saying
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that a review into nsa surveillance activities will result in the right balance between security and privacy. disrupt key trade talks between europe and the united states but talks begin next week. kerry is most senior obama administration official to visit europe since revelations of nsa spying across the continent. just in, a report on housing prices. corelogic says a measure of u.s. home prices rose slightly only from september into august. home prices are increasing just 0.2% in september. prices rose in 10% compared to a year ago. >> i am concerned about pakistan. i want pakistan to overcome its dysfunction.
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i want good relations. this is not to out of love. pakistan has to understand and realize that as a nation no other nation can stretch and make you bigger than your neighbor. pakistanis to get over wanting everything and be happy with --urity as long as it pakistan has nuclear weapons and security has been achieved. now pakistanis to trade with everybody in the neighborhood. it continues to ride that arise at a faith that at a pace much faster than expected growth.
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it cannot be addressed just by building relations between american military personal. >> the former pakistani thessador to the u.s. on painful history of pakistani american relations. sunday night at nine on afterwards. just part of book tv this weekend on c-span two. >> "washington journal" continues. >> he serves as the chairman of the latino coalition. welcome. >> great to be here. >> what is the latino coalition. is 65 organizations or part of it. we focus on businesses in the hispanic community. we are also interested in health care and education. given your current and
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past experience, what are small businesses looking for? guest: some clarity and certitude. not so much barriers. small businesses need the same thing they have always needed, more capital, grow their capacity, and more contracts. it has been difficult to see where that is coming from from washington dc. i think the government shutdown doesn't help anybody. those loans aren't going to happen. people are not going to get trained and get access to contract. one of the things they're looking for is an environment where they can start those businesses and grow those over the long term. lately the environment has been rocky for small businesses. >> specifically, how? nott: obviously they are level -- not happy with the level of taxes. there is more regulation than ever before. this is difficult headwinds for small businesses.
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remember, small businesses are the engine that fueled the economy of the united states. a lot of the productivity of our economy has always come from there. most of our importers are small businesses. when times are tough it is very difficult for those businesses to hire employees and at their inventory and make the investments necessary to fuel our economy. them a you say you want a clarity he -- you want clarity and certitude. how do you balance those things while at the same time not have relation enter the business? guest: small businesses do not expect a handout. at the same time they're looking for some of these tools they do not want to feel like they are that attack by the people are supposed to represent them
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in washington dc. that is how a lot of small businesses feel. tohow helpful have they been small businesses? for a lot of businesses it is hard to relate to a lot of the arguments that are going on here in d.c.. they had to figure out how to make it payroll, keep customers from coming in the do -- keep customers coming in the door. when they see both sides fighting the way they have been fighting they say they are supposed to be representing us. politicians always say nice things about small business. where does the rubber meets the road? small businesses are not seeing it easier to get access to capital. that smallxygen businesses and gauges to breathe. we're are not seeing a lot of that capital. they are not seeing much business opportunities. they are seeing a lot of problems, not a lot of solutions. our guest chair -- guest
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joins us as chairman of the latino coalition. we are asking him questions about small business and related topics. you can do so on the screen -- -- and do so with the numbers on the screen -- send us an e-mail at journal@c- span.org. is the government biased towards big business? we believe that business of all kinds is critically important. businesses depend on big businesses fork you're meant and contract. small businesses often times become big business. i don't think it is us against them. they just really feel like there is not a lot of positive things coming out of washington dc. some of that could be perception.
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the reality is too many small businesses are struggling. we move 50% of small businesses within the first four years. often times they don't know what they don't know. government they need and business working together to create that environment that we all need to fuel this economy. >> what kind of businesses could get loans from the government? >> any small business could potentially get a loan for the government. businesses are considered small businesses. if you produce something and has less than 500 employees you can qualify. if you don't produce something and you are selling a service. it is the five or $6 million per year's. it comes to health care, a lot of people say it will affect small business. when i started in 2001, i
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thought they were going to ask me for loans. small businesses are asking for health care solutions. they are saying that they are the only group that does not have access to affordable health care. if you are a member of the union or work for a large corporation, that is taking care of for you. if you are a small business, good luck. they were not looking necessarily for government wide solutions. they don't want health care taking away from them. they just want the premiums to slow down because that goes down to the bottom line. they cannot pass that down to their customer. they were getting killed the year after year with double- digit increases. last year we were promised a lot of stuff. we were promised we were going to have more choices, more access, communes were going to go down, it was going to be easier than ever. this rollout has been obviously problematic. be next rollout is going to the small business mandate, which is going to affect next year. small businesses are very
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worried. if it is going this bad right now, what is it going to be like for us? what are they looking for that year? will cut of clarification? >> i think they're waiting to see if this thing is going to work. what are the solutions that are going to be fostered by either site to fix it? small businesses really feel that they are at the front of this storm. they are getting killed with health care costs and the inability to provide these benefits to their employees. >> we have a tweet saying, what is the major issue is hispanic physicists need to overcome -- hispanic businesses must overcome to be successful? they need those tools were talking about. they need capital. they need to have their capacity grown. what i mean by that is technical assistance.
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he may be good at doing one thing that they are not good at other things. they need more business. -- kind of small business those tools are critically important. they have to be able to control their costs. costingng seems to be more. energy, health care, the taxes they are paying. being able to comply with all the regulations they are facing. being able to control those costs are really important. >> shayna also mentions the topics of capital on twitter -- guest: this has always been a perennial challenge. it is more difficult to get loans from a bank. there's still a lot of lending institutions with small businesses. my former agency has a big role to play in that. guarantorthe largest
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of small business loans in the country. loans that may not be made without that guaranteed are being made. that is about $1 billion per month that they are approving. when government is not working there is $1 billion that is not being invested back into the economy. they are to start businesses or help business expand? anything. they could be small loans under $50,000. they could be loans to buy equipment, to buy buildings, to expand. you need capital all throughout your business. you still need access to capital. this is a perennial issue. it has just been very for small business to get access to capital. >> good morning.
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caller: the problem we are having is that most of the people in washington and a lot of the people in big business are still treating this problem as if it were a supply problem and dealing with it in that fashion, whereas what we have now is something we have not seen since the great depression, which is a demand economy. we are not going to be able to manufacture any more stuff if nobody has any jobs so that they have money to buy this stuff. if you go around this corner in three different ways, is big business is not hiring people and manufacturing stuff and putting it in a warehouse of now havemonths later enough money to buy the stuff that was put in the warehouse -- what we need to do is do what the wpa did after the great
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depression and have government higher a lot of people, put money in their hands so they can go out and buy stuff for the private sector builds so that the private sector can hire more people because they need to build more stuff. it'll have money to buy the stuff they just finished building. salutei'm not that the -- i'm not sure that the solution is for the government to hire more people. i don't know if they could hire more people. stimulus has the been tried early indian ministration and over time. it hasn't worked out that well. it is not big business or government that hires most of the people. two thirds of new jobs come from small businesses. you are right. if small businesses and hiring were not -- if small businesses aren't hiring we are never going to get this economy going again. we are seeing signs manufacturing is taking up in
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the united states. see some ofing to that manufacturing come back to the united states. we would like to see more of it. at the end of the day it is small business that is going to drive this economy. we need to make sure they are being successful over the long term. host: from rhode island, this is bill. go ahead. who decides on government, whether or not there -- the house of representatives and the senate can work as many as they want. the senate only works six months out of the year. they get paid out of the full- year.
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i want to address saving money. basically if they only work two terms, like our president, and we let them work a full year and get paid a weeks paid vacation like everybody else. how muchm not sure money that would save. we do not have term limits for our federally elected officials. some people would say that the lease they work the less damage they are going to do. i think it goes both ways. andve out in california there has been a lot of discussion about term limits, is it good or not? sometimes we have term limits you're seeing people so fast that there is not a lot of institutional memory. you get a lot more of his gridlock were people become so partisan on one side or the other. you cannot get anything done. an interesting comment and i think we will have to wait and
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see how that plays out over time. there is a lot of frustration. this is not a partisan thing. i don't know if you saw the survey done not too long ago where they gave people the place --f you could replace everybody in congress would you do it? the overwhelming majority of people said yes. people are saying get rid of all of them. i think congress is going to have to pay attention to that and make sure that they are really concentrating on doing the peoples business and not just their own internal business. host: what are states doing to help the businesses? guest: they work with government and have their own economic programs. the work on train programs. state government also has their own internal procurement goals level,the federal government has to buy 23% from everything of small businesses.
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that is over $100 billion per year. in this.e very engaged a lot of time to give it even more. they are closer to those small businesses and sometimes elected officials are in d.c.. they know that the states cannot grow, they cannot get the tax revenue they need if you do not have a flourishing small business market. often times they're competing to bring in more small businesses into their state. of the three percent, that is an annual goal. sometimes government does not achieve that goal could it is very important that they do. this is hundreds of billions of dollars that go back to small business. government has to continuously look for small businesses because if you look and get a contract from the government that is a multi-do that a multimillion dollar contract, you are not considered a small business anymore. host: here is glenn from brookfield, missouri.
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caller: thank you for taking my call. i have one comment to make. the american people give term limits. when are they going to wake up? person has a term limit, that all they have to do is vote them out. i will take my answer off the air. guest: i am from missouri, it is a great state. i think a lot of people are saying show me that you are really worth reelecting. i agree with you 100%. i think we have an option to replace elected officials that are not doing their jobs for us. for congress it is every two years. unfortunately too many of our people to not vote. i kind of subscribed to the adage that you are part of the system -- art of the solution or
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part of the problem. then want new leadership, we have to get involved and do something about it. both are critically important. that is very important to send those 28 million small businesses. of twitter -- a lot of times when folks are getting started, they may have to take a low-wage job and my father was an immigrant to the united states and he had a lot of low-wage jobs. he always told us he was going to be an occupant or someday, he was going to save his money. that is what he did. he had a long business career. i don't think it is necessarily a bad thing. obviously you want to gradually to that next job and earn more money. the more skills that you have, the more education you have, the more ability you have to get a higher paying job. there is a piece saying --
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that is chairman from the council of economic advisers. if you for small businesses to have to pay a certain wage, often times they will hire people. be careful what you wish for, you might get it. you may get a higher federal men among wage you make it less employment. that is something that would be very troublesome for our economy. we need to feed millions of new jobs we are not creating right now. higher than is reported because somebody people out there have refused to even look anymore. >> what is the current middleweight? guest: --host: what is the current minimum wage? guest: a lot of those minimum-
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wage jobs are for entry level jobs, maybe at a fast food restaurant or at some entry level job. it is not intended to support a family or to be a long-term wage. host: what you think about the concept of a living wage? guest: it depends where you at --where you are at, what you you forced me to paint a wage that i cannot pay. host: this is scott in san diego. i think c-span for your service. obviously your guest was attacked on the affordable care act. this course has been used over the past 30 years, you can see it in the bush administration. know what heto
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means when he says that 99% of the businesses are small businesses. guest: that is what the federal definition is. 99% of all businesses in the united states can qualify for small businesses and get access to loans, access to training, access to contracts. agrees thatybody our health care system is broken. we read disagreed is the solution. there are a lot of solutions that were talked about during the bush administration. about allowing small businesses to buy health care across data lines. about lowering the cost of health insurance in the country, i think there is
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not a lot of common sense solutions that could be brought to bear. it doesn't matter what your political affiliation is. small businesses are saying our costs are going up. we are not able to keep our health plan. more doctors are leaving the health care field. i think there is a lot of analects that a lot of frustration out there. host: the president talking in washington dc about the formal care act. movie your comments on it. [video clip] other news people have been focusing on is that some americans have gotten a notice for their insurance companies, suggesting that because of the affordable care act they may be losing the planned they bought. virtually every insurer is offering new and better plans and competing for these
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businesses, i realized that can be scary for people. we have to make sure we are giving them the right information. one of the reasons we took of health care reform was to help not just the uninsured but the badly insured. people forget how unfair and how uninformed the status quo has been for millions of americans. millions of hard-working families who live in constant fear that just one illness or accident could cost them their home or life savings. sometimes they do not know how former oval they are because when you look at the fine print it turns out that a whole bunch of things people think are covered are not covered. we know because we have heard the stories of people saying they have been paying premiums all these years and suddenly they have all of these out-of- pocket expenses they cannot afford. that is part of what health care reform is all about.
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the individual market almost has no standards. of americans would be dropped from their coverage. it is very different than what we heard when this law was being debated. what a lot of small businesses get frustrated at is, that is not what we were sold. we are a lot smarter than you think we are. if you buy a plan and you like don't want the government to tell us that we do not know any better. that plan has changed. i think that frustration is going to continue into the future. small businesses have not felt the brunt of what they could possibly be feeling in a year when that employer mandate take
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-- employer mandate kicks in. they are saying they are very concerned. it is not looking too good. a lot of small businesses will say if we have to keep employees under 30 hours we are going to do that. if we have to hire less people we are going to do that. we are going to tell our employees that we are canceling health insurance and they are on their own. that is not what we were promised. hopefully we are going to get this thing together. we all agree that we need reform. this isn't the reform that a lot of small businesses thought favored going to get. [indiscernible] our guest was an administrator from 2001 to 2006. someone on twitter asks you to define small business. theunited states -- guest:
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united states has 20 million small businesses. if you manufacture a product and make something with less than 500 employees you can qualify as a small business. the reason for that is because if you are in manufacturer, most of that money goes back into producing the product. they can qualify as a small business. if you do not make something, it depends on what industry classification you have. are you a professional service, are you a retailer, importer, exporter? that is usually -- a revenue state standard averages $500 million per year's. -- $5 million per year. 90% of small businesses can be classified as small business from these government programs. guest: how many employees? guest: much much smaller.
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we saw a million small businesses every year. often times they do not have very many employees. it is only after they get past of those first five years they really start hiring people and those businesses start growing. theyve to make sure that exist past those five years where they really start making the contributions to the economy. host: how many defaulted on loans? think.not as many as you these are brand-new businesses that do not have a lot of capacity. when a small business gets a loan, often times they have had some technical assistance, they have put a business plan together. the last thing they want to do is the fault of that loan because the objective is to get the next alone. get going you want to go back in there. for folks getting these loans, what is the dollar
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figure? guest: it ranges. a these are working capital loans. he can be in the neighborhood of $200,000 to 1500 thousand dollars. to $500,000. a lot of small businesses would say they do not need a huge lump. a need a small loan for inventory and to satisfy the contract or to buy a piece of equipment. you have seen that go down. they have all kinds of loans. they have fixed asset loans, which could be millions of dollars. that is to buy large equipment or to build a building you need for build -- for your business host:. host:republican line --host: republican line. caller: i appreciate your comments about the affordable care act. you are 100% right on the points you brought up.
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ask,hing i wanted to certainly the demographics of the united states are changing i have always felt that latinos are natural conservatives. and i dovery profamily not care how many of them it takes to make a family work. theytend to learn money, -- two earned money, they do not care what job they do. but latinos are a big source of youth, and we need used to support our programs for seniors. if you could make a few comments on anything i said, i would appreciate it. think you for everything you brought to the table this morning. obviously i am involved
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with the spanish community in my organization deals with a lot of these issues. it is the largest minority in the united states, probably around 18% of the population am over $50 million strong. it is the fastest growing part in the unitedess states. there are three million hispanic companies. they generate $5 million in revenue every year. we could have 12 million hispanic buddies and they are low -- and they are across the board. cosan ties it is misunderstood. i think they are very independent. they may be registered in a particular party. they do not always vote for that party. he got close to 40% of the hispanic vote. that is an all-time watermark.
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we are not going to get that back unless we're doing a job of outreaching and communicating with the hispanic community. committee was definitely part of the solution and it will continue to grow. the general community on dealing with a lot of the issues, challenges, problems, and opportunities that this country will have in the next few years. the president wanted to see a push on immigration reform. what do you think about the efforts? guest: there is a lot of debate on this. i wish we were getting more progress on this. say, it isof people time for stuff to kick -- for us to stop taking this can down the road. we need a logical commonsense immigration solution that thinks good ideas are prospering on both sides. obviously is not taken very much of the house. this has to be dealt with at some point in time.
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of the fortune 500 companies were created, started, built by immigrants. createdmigrants have trillions of dollars worth of revenue and millions of jobs. someed to concentrate on of the great things that immigrants bring. we are going to need them in the future, especially in science and technology, to enable our technology to continue to grow. issue we are going to have to deal with for a long time. what is the best approach? some kindre has to be of connsus. i would like to see a copperheads of solution. mae with the environment we are not going to be able to do anything big. we are going to have to take this in stages. some people say this may be like the civil rights efforts were you did not get a big civil rights build, you did that over a. of time that she did that over a
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period of time -- over a period of time. we need an immigration system that works in this country. what we have right now does not work for anybody. >>. 40 immigrants that are not supposed to be here, what are we going to do with them? if you approach an elected official and say what are we going to do with those 12 million people? nobody is going to say we are going to get them out of the country. reality andeal with find some way to normalize the relationship. it should not be 12 million people living in the shadows not make it a contribution they could be making to this country. it is not fair to them and not fair to our country. saying heo rubio is backing up a comprehensive
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reform. guest: he always felt there was a way to do some progress and did it in pieces. he did it and gave everything he can. he took a lot of risks and a lot of hits. at the end of the day you are not enough just to promote your own career because you really believe -- host: what you think house is going to produce when it comes to immigration? guest: speaker peter has said he would like to see something done. -- speakerd of boehner has said he would like to see something done. i have heard speaker cantor say the same thing. hopefully we can get something out this year, they be so they on the train back. maybe something on agricultural worker. maybe something that continues to strengthen our border. every country has to make sure they have a secure border. we can do better than what we
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have done before. host: border dream act? guest: absolutely. there are a lot of different versions out there. a lot of these folks came here with their parents, through no fault of their own. this is the only country they have known. they are studying and working and have contributions to make to this country. charles from ohio, thank you for waiting. why didn't they give the stimulus to the people, the normal people instead of the rich? why do we have to bail out wall street? on another note, the affordable health care act, i agree, everybody needs health care. the prices that i am hearing are outrageous.
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not everybody makes 250 thousand dollars per year. they are talking around these large figures in the millions and billions and trillions like it is nothing. guest: there are two different points. with regards to the stimulus, i agree. i think when they first did this trillion dollar stimulus program the -- there was going to be a lot of shovel ready jobs and the money was going to go into infrastructure and all the stuff. we found out is that was just not true. jobs.n't create that is what a lot of us were disappointed in. i totally agree with you on health care. the irony of this affordable care act is it is not affordable. even if it was implement it successfully there were 30 million people that would not have health insurance. will we know is that this is going to cost us more and
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hopefully we do not have more people that are left without insurance. when you have the trillions of dollars going into this product, it would have been cheaper to give everybody a kind of coupon to go out and buy insurance and trying change the system for everybody else. this is still a work in progress. hopefully it is a work in progress and it is going to get better. i think we are going to be hearing more of these stories, of millions of people getting kicked off of their insurance, nguyen's of people have their premiums go up. the other thing is we are going to have to have young healthy people going into the system. we are not sure that is going to happen. young healthy person is probably not going to spend hundreds of dollars to buy health insurance. probably pay the penalty ago go on some kind of exchange. the fullhink we know extent of what the implications are. we are going to have to monitor this closely. if it is not working, i think
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both sides have to come together and start coming up with some common sense solution that will work and provide people that affordable care we all want. last call comes from tallahassee, florida. this is will on the democrats line. have a comment and a question. my question is if a small business is owned by a and it goes to the bank and borrows like to be up to make the payroll, what is the difference between that and the a bigment bailing out corporation? what is the difference? guest: first of all, if a business is struggling, what you find out is it is very difficult for them to get a loan.
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often times, unfortunately the only time your business is going to get a loan is if you can really prove the business is growing, if successful, and is going to be of service that debt. i don't think any banker or any government agency has asked you what your political affiliation is before they look at you for that loan. with regards to the bailouts, there has been a lot of debate on that. some of these industries needed to be bailed out so that everybody can have an economy. especially when we had the financial downturn. you can look at the specific industries and say -- this has become a controversial issue. i think it will be harder for industries, and companies, and states and cities to come to the government to come to the government and that to come to the government and say i need a bailout. -- to come to the government and
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say i need a bailout. there is no money to bail anybody out. we are trying to make sure that our national economy, our national government stays afloat. we have some serious fiscal issues that we have to tackle on the years to come. hector barrette oh, our guest. we're going to take a look at the history and third -- history of third parties in the united states. david gillespie is our guest. >> it is 9:16. that projecteds defense budget cuts of nearly $1 trillion over 10 years is too much too fast. a will cost -- cause dangerous erosion of u.s. military power. one consequence is that a larger part of the military will lose its combat edge. it may be inevitable that some forces will be less repaired to
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act. in in aprepared to act crisis, the president would have fewer options for protecting the nation's security interests. the head of the u.s. border patrol says his agents will not be following a recommendation to stop using deadly force against rock throwers and a sale and in vehicles. border patrol chief mike fisher says the government commission curbs that arees very restrictive and could put agents lives in jeopardy. hill, one of the obama administration's top health care officials testified on the new health care website and the wave of health plan cancellations. the administrator of the center for medicare and medicaid services plans to tell the senate health education and pensions committee that healthcare.gov is slowly improving. committee chairman, senator tom harkin's, says he wants straight answers to questions on when
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healthcare.gov will be working, why testing wasn't done, and why the severity of the problems were not foreseen. watch live coverage of the hearing on c-span or listen to it on c-span radio. it all begins at 10 a.m. eastern time. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> amy was from a well-to-do family of all daughters. fromve her report card denver, colorado. english, shen actually got a c minus in european history. who knew that in later years, as a military wife and future first 80, she would be so well traveled and have some much to do with european history. she loved charms. early on ike bought her this armyall charm, showing the
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and navy game scores of 1913 to 1914 when i was coach for the army football team. tookmilitary wife, she great pride in creating a home for ike in each of the 36 different places they lived throughout their marriage. on may meur program eisenhower. -- on mommy eisenhower. eisenhower. >> washington journal continues. host: it was adjusted by a viewer, saying --
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hopefully we will answer some of those considerations. thank you mr. smith. joining us to answer those questions, david gillespie. he is a professor at the cost -- at charleston. he is joining us from south carolina. thank you. good to be with you. know our viewers want to what a third-party is. a third-party is any challenger to the republicans and democrats. is, ak about what a party party is an organization that differs from an interest group and it has an electoral function .
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not all third parties actually run candidates. the republicans and the democrats in some way or another. is very true influential third-party in the united states? the three leading third parties are libertarian party, green party, and the constitution party. party that ross perot tried to set up, the reform party. it did not go anywhere. pastso many parties in the , the reform party bit the dust. host: when it comes to influence, have third parties been able to influence other elections? yes, absolutely. one of the things the major parties have by way of
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indictment is the so-called spoiling affect. i would like to say something about that. when the spoiling effect is looked at from a third-party perspective, it looks very different. there is no doubt that third parties have influence on election outcomes in our history. book --u say in your describe three. one is short-lived national parties, this second is continuing doctrinal and issue parties come and the third is state and local parties. can you give an example of those three? guest: i would be glad to. the first that you mentioned, the transients national parties are probably the most important. are are probably -- they parties that rise like a zenith. they participate in one election
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around, maybe more than one but not very often. they often times die in part because they don't have the tods to establish themselves run against democrats and republicans. in part, because they have rust ideas that the republicans and democrats can steel. or appropriate or often times these parties die a successful death. the goal and eight for those types of parties is probably the 19th century -- golden age for those types of parties probably the 19th century. there were two anti-slavery parties before the republicans gave -- republicans came to the floor. later there was the populist party. the first of these parties was -- there have been a
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series of progressive parties from 1912. that was the bull moose progressive. that was the only third-party that came in second in a presidential vote. in 1924 in 1948, the american independent party, and the reform party fell within that as well. them, if they were powerful enough to influence the or threaten toe influence the election outcome, also left a legacy of policy. the continuing doctrinal parties find their that reality in an area outside of the mainstream. they are not so much interested in winning elections as using
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whatever publicist he they get to make a position known to the american people. a very long time. i think in part because the up.s are not taken the oldest continuing third- party today is the prohibition party, which is a prime example of an issue party dated from 1869. the socialist and communist party are also within that domain. just a pause to let our folks know that if you have a question about third parties and their influence, our guest is going to be with us until 10:00 to half best to talk about these issues. -- to talk about these issues. 585, 38824 independents. 3882 four independents.
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our first call is from bobby on our republican line. what i would like to see is a party with some compassion but completely different from the democratic party. , which is just going to make us a non-country. we need some common sense about it. what are you specifically talking about when you say compassion? caller: i really do not know. anybody fit that bill? guest: i'm trying to figure out
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bobby's ideological orientation. there is a party to the left that is a very compassionate party, the green party. bobby may be more interested in the possibility of a party at the center, that is what ross perot brought in to the mainstream. i think in a very real sense there is a lot of potential on issues that deal with the right to live, one's personal life, pretty left of center. on economic issues, pretty right of center. in 2012 it looked like there may be a party like that, called americans elect. unfortunately did not get off the ground. host: deana is on our republican line. my question is, you do
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not mention the tea party at all, which is sort of what is going on the tea party to the fact that the democrats seem -- they cannot say enough bad things about tea party. in other words i have never heard of such a group being so badmouthed and all they want to do is create something that is center for a little right of center. such -- and ieard am 77 years old. it is why i have never heard such horrible things being said about a group of people. host: --guest: the tea party is on the ballot in a few states. i think that the originators of the tea party tended to emphasize more the connection of
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that term with the 18th century, "don't tread on me" kind of tea party. for reasons pedro mentioned earlier, there has not been a lot of emphasis on party building of that. working within the republican party -- as basically a third-party or probably even as a potential third-party. it is an outsider party. overlappingy that's with a comparable party to the left or a comparable move in -- comparable movement. parties arer corporate controlled and the two major parties leave a lot to be desired. who asks howviewer
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difficult it is for third parties to get on the ballot. the hour. there are a lot of institutional barriers that we are not devised to capture and contain third parties. there is a lot to the centers ar the idea that we have not naturally falling two-party system but a duopoly, and engineered two-party system. for in that category would be ballot access laws. unbelievablel he compared to what it takes for a third party in most countries to get going. a new third-party wanting to get on the ballot of all 51 vote forncies that president and vice president would have to collect state-by- state, something like 750,000
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ballot signatures. they would have to be filed by august or september at the latest, depending upon the various states. that are all kinds of laws tend to differ from one state to may collectt who positions -- petitions. some states require that you live in the state as a condition for becoming a petitioner. it is well-known that any successful petition involves a lot more than the basic required number. of course, when a new third- party is trying to get on the ballot, the major parties are using their money to reach out, and reache vote constituencies out there. i would say foremost, ballot access. there is a person that i think
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should win the congressional honor of freedom, that is richard winger, he has devoted to crackingife ballots and doing other things that would open our political process. there are other things, a sore loser law, saying in various states that if you have run as a republican or a democrat for an office, you cannot later in the year run as an independent or a third-party candidate, they are anti-fusion laws. there are discriminatory perversions about access to public money at the federal and state level. one of the most notorious things is access to the debate stage. as you probably know, nobody since ross perot has joined a republican or a democrat on the
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1992. stage since host: before we move on, who is richard winger? guest: he is devoted to his -- he is devoted his life to opening our political process, area of ballothe access. he publishes a newsletter called ballot access news, on blog forum at night and is available once a month in letter form. often, he is testifying in federal cases involving ballot access and that sort of thing, trying to tear down sore loser laws and this sort of thing. his entire life has been devoted to the purpose of democratizing our election system. host: here is don from new jersey, independent line. have always felt that
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the democrats and the republicans were like major league baseball. the american league and national league. works withte money the two parties to make it inevitable that one of those two has to win. to get a third- party competitive is to take the corporate money out of the political process. i think the best way to do that is to get citizens together to say we are not going to vote for candidates and lest they run their campaigns only with contributions from individuals in the amount of $200 or less. people do not want to do that, they do not know other people are doing that. i propose a website, vouchervend etta.org, where people can sign up. it will not matter how much
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money corporations contribute when that money cannot buy enough votes to win an election. you are ontok something. there is no doubt that corporate money underlays the two major parties. it used to be that the indictment of the two major parties was that it was tweedledee, tweedledum, there is not different between the two. of many policies, the major parties have moved further apart. we see a phenomenon in of complete gridlock, especially in congress. the two major parties continue to join together to pull up the ladder against third-party challengers. underlying that is a whole lot of corporate money. i welcome what you are doing to try to inspire a movement there. host: jacob, illinois, democrat
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line. caller: hello. my comment on the two-party system is that the game of the red and blues is the game of the ancients. it is the game of water and fire. it is a mixing of the revolutionary. leftis why our forefathers the british monarchy, to create this system where we had a two- party system. afters exactly what i say eight years of george bush and eight years of barack obama. the solution is in an american revolution. it is bound to happen, it is part of nature. these libertarians and these two-party activists do not have any common sense in what it takes to raise up this great democracy. interestingly enough, the framers of the constitution were
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the creators of a two-party system, the first two party system. they had a real dislike of the spirit of party. you know that john adams and james madison, george washington, thomas jefferson, had considerable fear and his taste for third fories -- excuse me, political parties in general. for some reason, they decided that the system required that there be this kind of division by parties. i see third parties in general, as in some ways, those items may bring about real reform and change. you are talking about revolutionary movements. even ross perot, a person who set up a movement at the center, he was very fond of quoting thomas jefferson. god forbid that we go 20 years without a revolution.
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that,e a reference to clean out the barn. do not give up on third parties, it may be that the vehicle is not there yet. i think that is where you are likely to see some real change. david gillespie, ron paul gave an interview to the washington post. he talked about the challenges for third parties and was asked why he did not run for president as an independent. [video clip] >> what is the future as the republican party. >> the same as the democrats. the parties will linger because they are locked in by law. us laws are biased against from competing. if you go third party, you cannot get into the debate, you cannot get on ballot. >> you talked about the grip of the two-party system, did you consider running as an independent? >> no. >> because it is not practical?
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not.solutely this would have been a good year to have an alternative. you cannot get a shine on the libertarian or green side. host: his comment that it was not practical at the time. guest: at some point in the future, it may become practical. i understand what ron paul was saying there. interestingly enough, in the round of elections in 2008, ron paul, having run for the republican nomination, then declined to endorse john mccain that year. he endorsed for people's consideration the for third party candidates, ralph nader, the green candidate, the libertarian candidate, and the constitution party candidate. ron paul is certainly right that there are major barriers.
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i don't think he has really given up on the possibility of building a third-party movement. he actually ran in 1988 as the libertarian candidate for president, for example. host: here's robert from texas, republican. caller: good morning. i listen to people who call, like the lady who said she was 77 years old. is 78-years-that old. he is on dialysis. these people are talking about big government, how many people out there have children or parents or grandparents on dialysis? pay $9,000k they can a week out of their pockets for dialysis? these republicans in the two- party -- ist: our discussion centering around third parties, what is your question on that? caller: i don't think the third
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parties get a good -- most of them are too radical. host: mr. gillespie? that we havek historically regarded third parties as finding places for them selves on that radical left or right. that as the two major parties have moved senator -- have moved further apart on various policy issues, maybe the place to look for building a third party would be at the center. her you look at what holds what is being said about what people are feeling about parties, a recent poll showed that 20 six percent of americans say that americans are dashed by the two-party
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system. there was a generic matchup. in terms of running for congress, the nbc-wall street generic matchup. an unnamed republican running against an unnamed democrat running against an unnamed third party candidate. the american people, 35%, said that they would vote for the democrat. 28% for the republican. 30% for the indie or third-party candidate. there are a lot of reasons to think that this might be a time for third parties. it may be that it is the center that is feeling this inherited and disenfranchised -- disinherited and disenfranchised. host: how would a third-party
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work in the electoral college system that we use? here we get into some real institutional problems. there is no doubt about the fact that the electoral college system discriminates. there is a danger that third- party presence may prevent any major party from getting 270 electoral votes and that sort of thing. we know the problems that 2000, the green ran ralph nader and ralph nader got many more thousands of votes in florida and then the difference between al gore and george w. bush. the greens and ralph nader ever since. that is unfair, by the way. we can't take that in a few minutes. college does
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discriminate against third parties. ross perot got 20% of the popular vote, not a single electoral vote. one way around that would require a constitutional amendment to bring in something like instant runoff voting. instant runoff voting would be that you would have the ability to vote more than once. you could vote with your head for a candidate and for a candidate of your heart. if we have had instant runoff voting in 2000, for example, a headf people who buy their went for al gore, could buy their heart have gone for ralph nader in the same election. the way it works, if nobody gets the majority of popular vote, what happens is they distribute the second choice votes to the remaining candidates until you
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have one candidate that has a majority of the popular vote. instant runoff voting would be an excellent replacement to the electoral college system. it would've assure that we would have a candidate that has a majority. the electoral college is a very serious barrier to third-party anticipation. -- participation. the other is a single member to strict plurality system -- single-member district plurality system. professor at the college of charleston, david gillespie joining us from mount pleasant, south carolina. the author of a book "challenges " and "politics at the periphery." this was a viewer recommended segment. suggestion, we are taking him up on it.
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mark from hawaii joins us next, independent. caller: good morning. as far asgillespie, inlot access, it is easy hawaii. only about 7000 signatures required. to state, county, elections, honolulu not national elections. you could get on the ballot for national elections -- it is much more in other states, as far as i know. the question is, my feeling is that it is impossible for third parties to make significant the phenomenon of the half-century or more theory of convergence. capitalism and communism become more and more alike one another, ultimately becoming
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indistinguishable from each other. said yesterday, citing census figures, more people are on welfare than working. obamacare is going to push that over-the-top. we need to realize that we are no longer capitalists. communism might have failed, chinese communism is succeeding better than our capitalism. host: we will leave it there. mr. leslie -- mr. gillespie? we are a mixed economy. i do not buy that we -- the convergence kind of theory. we are a mixed economy. people are, beneficiaries of government programs that they are unaware of being government programs. the democrats were very fond of pointing to tea party signs that said "government, hands off my
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medicare." this is an illustration of that. we are a nation that does have a mixed economy. as far as what the caller was talking about in terms of quality, hawaii has relatively good ballot access laws. one of also, colorado, the worst states is the state of oklahoma. it is impossible for anybody to appear on that ballot without a d or a republican by his or her name. host: because of the amount of signatures or other hurdles? the signatures and when they have to be filed, various kinds of things. for about 20 years, the only choices that oklahomans have had an presidential elections have had d or r by the name.
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unless it has changed recently, there has also been a long -- a law preventing right answer for president in oklahoma. host: george, florida, democrats line. caller: mr. gillespie, how are you? c-span, you have a great show. i wanted to share my question. i never believed in a third- myself -- i also ask republicans and democrats have a lot in common. i have many friends of mine that are republicans, they believe in medicaid, social security. they have many things in common. but when it gets to becoming religiously inclined and we get some of these bureaucrats, i am speaking about religious factors, the parties go haywire. they start criticizing each other.
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there are a lot of overlapping things. that democrats and republicans, and americans in general, share more in common then first blush would suggest. ourend to emphasize differences. one of the problems in the republican party right now is that there is the conflict over the libertarian strain of the party versus the social conservative strain of the party. it sometimes plays out the establishment republicans versus tea party republicans. it really is 2 contrary philosophies that are both competing within the party itself. i suspect that there are comparable things, maybe not as serious at the present, within the democratic party.
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you are exactly right. there are many overlapping things that link us more than separate us. byt: there was a poll done gallup in october. to the republican and democratic parties do an adequate job representing the american people or do they do such a poor job that a third party is needed? 60% of americans said that they do such a poor job of for presenting the people that a third party is needed, 26% said that they adequately represented americans. how does this go in with other public polling or public sentiment about the need for a third-party? guest: i have been following the polling since 1990. there have been questions about third-party and independent challengers. usually, the percentage saying we want a third party or an independent challenger hovers somewhere around the 50% mark.
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60% is maybe an all-time high. reflection ofa dissatisfaction with the kind of gridlock we have seen in congress and various other things. our government is not working right now. there used to be the mom's apple the two majoro parties. it was considered to be un- to think of going outside the domain of the two- party system. much dissolved these days. people are fed up. there used to be a thought that the two major parties provided for both democratic and efficient government. now it appears that what it provides is a kind of zero-sum gridlock were nothing gets done. host: here is richard from missouri, independent. caller: good morning. i am a 76-year-old white man.
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i have never heard of the tea party until he got a black president. the republican party actually is -- the dixiecrat party. you look at the leaders in congress, they are all from the south. they are the dixiecrat party. that is all i can say about it. host: we will let our guest answer. guest: it is very true that there was a realignment. i think it again with goldwater in 1964. a choice not an echo. it continued through nixon's southern strategy and culminated in the victory of ronald reagan in 1980. many of the positions that used to be southern democratic divisions became republican nottions, not segregation, that point. southern strategy, conservative
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point of view on social welfare thingsand abortion and of this sort. ontonk the caller is something, maybe stated it more strongly than i would. i do not see that the reporting party has become the new dixiecrat party, it is certainly the new conservative party. host: here is randy from iowa, democrats. caller: hi. onould like to comment having a third party. i think it is, you know, a good idea. parties, youe two know, as far as money goes. in the republican party, the cook brothers -- the koch brothers, they donate tons of money. a though, can sway
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whether it is true or not. by the time they figure it out, the damage is already done, you know. so, -- host: we will leave it there. guest: in response to what randy says, i think citizens united versus the federal election commission was especially crippling to third parties. it tended to underscore the importance of corporate money in the election process. interestingly enough, when you think about the last third-party that gotial candidate significant figures, some people would say that was ralph nader. i would say that that was ross perot. ross perot is the only third- party candidate in the 20th century that may have spent more money on his presidential campaign than either the
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republican or democratic candidates. it was because he was so well to do. the restrictions on what he could spend because he did not get any federal money for his campaign. host: about five minutes left. i wanted to take a minute -- how did you get so interested in third parties? guest: i am a graduate of several universities, wake forest is one of them. way back in the 1960's, there was a challenge symposium. it was about alternative politics. there were two third-party people that came. one was an ultra-far right person, george lincoln rockwell, representing the american not the party. nazi party.
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there was another person, norman thompson, the long-term candidate of the socialist party. it seemed to me -- one of them totally left me completely floored in terms of the viciousness of what was said. talk about hown his party is so influenced major party platforms and all of that. our two-ed to me that party system is too narrow for a country this diverse. as the u.s. is. i have been interested in third parties ever since that time. host: let's take a call from cincinnati, bob, republicans. caller: i would like mr. gillespie to comment on the idea that there are people who vote republican and independent that are pro-life, that is the reason they are voting that way, because the democratic party is so radical on abortion.
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what does he think about the possibility of a third party which was more mainstream antiabortion and economic issues -- on the abortion and economic issues to attract independents? guest: the response i would make that ross perot in his platform, the centrist platform, did take a largely pro-choice position with regard to abortion. it may very well be that there is not common ground. i think you can think up some pragmatic solutions about where, within the terms of pregnancy, it might be permitted for an abortion to take place. it does seem to me that the pro- lifers haved the pro- dug in. there may not be anything that any political party could do to look for a middle way solution to that particular issue.
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host: david gillespie, in virginia, there are three men running for governor. one of them is a third-party libertarian, robert service. -- robert sarvis. what lessons might he prove as a result of the election? guest: i have heard a lot of people say that he may determine the outcome. he has about 10% of the vote, i -- 10% of support. i doubt that that transfers, many people feel that when they actually get to the polls that their votee throwing away. in a sense, there is some legitimacy to that. it looks like the republican is likely to lose, will probably blame the libertarian for that defeat. that is an unjust response that people have. aree is no doubt that there
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more votes taken away from third-party candidates by virtue of the idea that the third-party cannot win, then are taken away from a major party candidate. ralph nader has said it is a travesty to think that -- host: we may have problems with our signal, we want to thank david gillespie, author of "challenges to duopoly" for being our guest. this was a few are recommended segment. thomas smith, we thank you. we go now to the senate committee where marilyn tavenner , cms administrator, will talk about the status of the health insurance marketplaces. we go to that now. [laughter] -- [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]