somebody like youtube can have content ided, but also, they have a known universe of copyrighted material that they get from the entertainment industry that they can use to match against this. there's no such thing when it comes to people's private photos. rying to do a general search and match -- webmail sites can do automated screening against child pornography pause there is tual sensual -- consen anything there. that's why they are illegal, and there is a hash database assembled by the national association of missing and exploited children, and they can compare the hash of the image, the mathematical shortcut to it, to what is in that database. doing that for the broader universe -- that's not going to work. >> just one clarification --

with child pornography, it isn't always that easy, because it is not always easy to tell whether the person depicted is in fact a minor, so they do have to engage in some judgment calls and some investigation. not necessarily more onerous than figuring out whether or not a picture was consensual. unfortunately, we have broken a promise to keep it to about 60 minutes, but we were close. wonderful conversation that i'm sure could continue for hours, but we appreciate all of you coming. thanks very much. [applause] [ cable satellite corp. 2014] national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> next, president obama announces his nominee for attorney general. then a discussion on the election's impact on state and ocal government.

>> c-span veterans day coverages begins tuesday at 8:30 a.m. and we're live at 11:00 from arlington national cemetery for the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknowns.

just after noon, a discussion on veterans health issues, and medal of honor ceremonies. >> in a white house ceremony, president obama announced the nomination of loretta lynch to be the next attorney general to replace eric holder. she is an attorney for the eastern district of new york and over sees prosecutions in staten island and long island involving organized crime, terrorism, and political corruption. following the brief announcement, president obama also commented on the release of the few american detainees in north korea.

>> have a seat, everybody. the attorney general is responsible for ensuring our federal laws. working with the remarkable men and women of the justice department, the attorney general overseas the vast portfolio of cases, including counterterrorism and voting rights, public corruption, and white collar crime, judicial recommendations, and policy reviews, all of which impact on the lives of every american and hape the life of our nation.

i a enormously grateful to eric holder. he is one of the longest serving attorney generals in american history, and one of our finest. eric brought to this job a belief that justice is not just an abstract theory, but a living, breathing principle. it is about how laws interact with the daily lives of our people, whether we can make an honest living, whether we feel safe in our own communities and welcome in our own country. whether the words that the founders put to paper 238 years ago apply to every one of us in our time. thanks to eric, our nation is freer, and more americans, regardless of race, or religion or creed or sexual orientation or disability receive fair and equal treatment under the law. i couldn't be prouder. i couldn't be prouder that today i can announce someone who

shares that commitment to equal justice under the law as i nominate my next nominee for attorney general u.s. attorney general lower etia lynch. [applause] >> i also want to thank the chairman of the senate committee to be here on a saturday to show his support. it is pretty hard to be more ualified for this job than lorretta. throughout her career she has distinguished herself as tough, fair, an independent lawyer who

has twice headed one of the most prominent u.s. attorney's offices in the country. she has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cyber-crime all while vigorously defending civil rights. a graduate of harvard college and harvard law school, they rose from assistant attorney to chief of the long island office, chief assistant u.s. attorney, and chief attorney. she successfully prosecuted the trifts that plotted to bomb the federal reserve bank and the new york city subway. she has boldly gone after public corruption, bringing -- she's helped secure billions in settlements from some of the world's biggest banks accused of fraud and jailed some of new york's most violent and notorious gang members.

one of her -- she prosecuted the officers in the brutal assault of abner luima. she is one of the few people people who has battled mobsters and still has the reputation of being a charming people person. she is not about flash, she is about substance. i could not be more confident that lorretta will bring her signature intelligence and -- including reforms in our federal justice ystem.

since 2010 she has been a member of the committee of the u.s. attorneys across the nation who advise the attorney general on matters of policy, and she has served as chair of that committee since 2013. it is no wonder that the senate unanimously confirmed her to be the head of the u.s. attorney's office in two separate situations, once under president clinton and once under my administration. it is my hope that the senate will confirm her a third time without delay. at every stage in her career, loretta has followed the principles of fairness, equality, and justice that she absorbed as a young girl. she was born in greensboro, north carolina, the year before students there sat down at a whites only lunch counter, helping to spark a movement that would change the course of this

country. the daughter of a school librarian and a fourth-generation baptist minister, which meant she knew when to be quiet. latch laugh [laughter] that is a little intimidating, being the daughter of a librarian and a minister. loretta rode on her father's shoulders to his church, where students would meet to organize anti-segregation boycotts. she was inspired by stories about her grandfather, a sharecropper in the 1930's who helped folks in his community who got in trouble with the law and had no recourse under the jim crow system. i know if he were here today, he would be just as proud of her as i'm sure her husband, stephen, is. i want to thank stephen, loretta's stepson, ryan, stepdaughter kia, and her other family members who came here today. we appreciate you guys agreeing to share her with the american people little bit longer. loretta has spent her life fighting for fair and equal justice. i can think of no better public servant to be our next attorney general. let me introduce to you ms. loretta lynch. [applause]

>> thank you, everyone. thank you, mr. president, for that kind introduction. most importantly, thank you also for your faith in me and asking me to succeed and attorney general whom i admire and to lead the department that i love. no one gets to displace -- this place, this room, this podium, this moment by themselves. i also must thank attorney general eric holder for your support and your friendship over the years, as well as by leading by example and always pushing this department to live up to ts name. i went to thank chairman leahy, senior officials of the department of justice, and members of the cabinet for being here today. to my colleagues in the u.s. attorneys committee and throughout the department, on whose strength and wisdom eileen every day, thank all of you as

well -- wisdom i lean on every day, thank all of you as well. to my beloved office, you have twice now given me the privilege of being able to serve you and to focus on nothing but the protection of the american people. it has been a joy. it has been an honor. i will carry you with me wherever i go. of course, to my wonderful family. several of whom are here with me today, all of whom are always with me in love and support. most especially my parents, who could not be here today but are watching, whose every thought and sacrifice is always been for their children. they have supported me in all of my endeavors as i strive to live up to their example of service. the department of justice is the only cabinet department named for an ideal. this is actually appropriate, because our work is both aspirational and grounded in

gritty reality. it is both ennobling and both profoundly challenging. today i stand before you, so thrilled and frankly so humbled to have the opportunity to lead this group of wonderful people who work all day and well into the night to make that ideal a manifest reality, all as part of their steadfast protection of the citizens of this country. mr. president, thank you again for the faith you have placed in me. i pledge to show to you and the american people that if i have the honor of being confirmed by the senate, i will wake up every morning with the protection of the american people my first thought. and i will work every day to safeguard our citizens, our liberties, our right, and this great nation which has given so much to me and my family. i thank you again, mr. president and mr. attorney general and all of you for being here.

[applause] [indiscernible] >> i think it is a wonderful day for them and their families. they are doing a great job on what was obviously a challenging mission. [applause] >> president obama is starting a week hf long visit to asia.

monday he stops first in beijing, china. over three days he will take part in the asia economic leaders meeting. hursday president b heads to myanmar, also known as burma. he will take part in a town hall meeting in rangoon. on saturday and subpoenaed he will be at the brisbane meeting. continuing coverage of the president's trip here on the -span network.

>> this sent about an hour and 10 minutes. >> we can go ahead and get started this morning. good morning, and welcome, everyone, to "governing magazine's" briefing on the state and local elections. i'm executive editor of "governing." there has been plenty to discuss this week with republicans taking control of the senate and gaining their largest majority in the house since world war ii. this morning we want to focus as we always do here at governing at what's going on at the state and local level. the governor's races, blot initiatives, as well as local elections and measures that will have an impact across the

country next year and in years to come. to help us make sense of all that, we have a great panel this staffers governing and contributing writers. jacobson, a frequent contribute tore to .governing" and governing.com lou, how did tuesday's results compare with what you were expecting to see? >> well, there was always a chance there would be a g.o.p. wave, but it could have been an

anti-incumbent wave. in fact, if i had to choose one before the election, it would have been an incumbent wave. there were 12 contests which were toss-ups prior to the election. you know, if i had to be pressed down, i think i would have said that, you know, a couple democrats, a couple g.o.p. governors would lose. it was not at all like that. f those 12 contests, 10 went g.o.p., and one is up in the air , but it is probably going to be . independent in alaska there clearly was a g.o.p. wave. it is interesting because part of the reason i would have predicted before the election is that it would be more of an

incumbent wave sl that that's typically what it's been when this has been a wave. there were 36 races in this mid-term election and on election night 20 of those 36 flipped parties. there were largely open seats. i think a few incumbents lost. to get to 0 you have -- to get to 20, you have to have a significant number losing. races , it was 18-36 split parties on election night. again, folks in poth parties lost. use thag model, i kind of felt that we would see some of those arties lose.

we did see one g.o.p. governor lose in the state of pennsylvania, but the striking thing to me, at least, is how many of the g.o.p. incumbents who were not all that controversial, not very popular in their states and had democratic popets that were scoring well in the polls, how many of them survived. people like scott walker, people like discover -- people like -- these are covers who are considered very vulnerable to very credible indicates on the democratic side almost exclusively. the only one who didn't was in ennsylvania. so clearly it was a particular partisan wave. at least with my experience in

the past of seeing it cycle. >> so picking up on some of those specific races that you mentioned, what were some of the specific governor's races that stood out to you this year? >> it is unissue usual to work on a competitive governor's race to begin with us, but i'm going to go ahead and wisely correct my thoughts. it is really since 1928. of their housey% members but they lost 29% of the land mass they represented. flip the map. it is all red with these urban blue pinpricks. so there was this joke on the internet "the g.o.p. now offers

more coverage than verizon." it's true. they have the most legislative seats since 1920. and certainly with the governors, it was president a huge wave. it was surprising. it looked like -- they were elected in the last wave 2010, they were in democratic voting states for the presidency like maine, florida. and terry mcauliff won in virginia. i was thinking, it looked like it might be anti-incumbent year, but i think it was an anti-washington year and therefore an anti-obama year. we certainly heard this in the ast couple days. i was thinking about who won, who lost, and why. some of the democrats in trouble lost -- wovepb as well. i think some of the incumbents

went on offense. rick scott had this joke the other day about a democratic, a republican, and an independent walk into a bar and the bartender says hi charlie crist. he never let up on that. and sam brownback, he kept hitting paul davis, the democratic on obama. just never let up. certainly scott walker was very .ggressive and worked very hard he looked like he was in trouble on labor day, and he looked like he was napping, and he went into hibernation for the summer, and he finally got back into the game. it was one of those ones where everyone thought he would win. he then thought he would lose. he came back in the game. the republican governor in alaska looks like he's going to lose sean parnell. he's a republican in alaska. he thought he would win. he really didn't get his

campaign going, and then suddenly on labor day, the whole playing field changed because the independent and the democrat formed this unit ticket. parnell thought it would be a three-wave race and he'd win easily. he didn't have a quick enough defense in. by that time, the senate race in alaska was a $53 million race. people are saturated with ads. mike bisheau in maine didn't . ally have a strong message lapage kind of softened his image. martha coakley, right? she was a successful attorney general but these she's lost

these two high-profile races. lost to ted kennedy in the senate race. her answers to so many questions whether illegal immigrants should get licenses, she kept saying, "i'm open to it. i'm open to it." she didn't really say anything. and then her opponent talked about his brother being a gay man living in massachusetts. he didn't seem threatening. some of the democratic messages, these republicans are so awful they cut education, they pr extreme on social issues. of course the big stunning race is maryland. again, anthony brown was not incumbent. he ran a kind of taking it for granted incumbent campaign. he didn't have any kind of positive message. he didn't get his voters out. if you look at baltimore city,

altimore county, ann arundel, prince george's county, montgomery, he got 190,000 fewer votes from those five counties than o'malley got five years ago. some of the democrats were good on offense. malloy kept on his opponent. he said he was a rich guy with a 115-foot yacht, he doesn't care about you. that ended up winning in illinois. pat quinn tried the same thing against bruce rowner. he kept in the game with that. he was tenacious. in the end, rowner was smart, and there weren't enough votes in chicago to save quinn. >> so a bid for candidates assertive and aggressive and maybe not so great for those hat wanted to play nice? >> rowner was in trouble for a long time, and that was partly

because he refused to go negative. >> you have looked at attorney generals, some local school board electrics along the way. is it the same story when we look at some of those down-ballot races? this wave of anti-democratic, pro-republican -- >> pretty much, yeah. the g.o.p. gained, i think, two seats in a.g. races. in the state legislature, a gain -- i think currently a nine, coo turn into 10 tchamebers for the g.o.p. and even, as you were saying, state school superintendents, they were about a half dozen contested races. some very interesting ones in wyoming, idaho. and there were freak weptly kind

of tea party g.o.p. candidates these races against establishment accepted democrats. the tea party candidates actually took, i think, every single one of those races. the same in terms of the lieutenant governor's race. the secretary of state races. all of those were heavily depo g.o. p. not entirely. in a few states the democrats could salvage some. it was a strong night. the only one that is interesting, issue by issue democrats. the other one this was a little more balanced was the state supreme court races. theirmocrats kind of held own. in a couple other states, it was

even in terms of the number of states won, d's and r's. i think on balance the g.o.p. did gain in the state i was >> looking down the road a little bit what does it mean when you have a full ticket switch as you said to the superintendents in the state to the republican party what does that mean looking in the future? >> there's a short-term impact and longer-term impact. the short-term impact is pretty gridlocked between the two parties and not a lot is getting done in congress. you have the least active congress in the decade if not ever so a lot of the decisions are being left up to the states.

if the democrats have fewer levels of power they can't really shape the agenda and it becomes a little bit of a self reinforcing situation when you have redistricting. it was the best thing to do so well because they could draw district lines and state legislators in congress as they saw fit and that box in for ten years favorable wins for the gdp so you have a lot of states where the democrats don't have any leverage at all because they don't control the governorship or the senate. there are some states in which they do control everything and those are fine with the democrats but in the short term in the policy impact you can't have much of an impact. the longer-term impact and i haven't gotten all the figures

on this i should do a story on this soon looking at the statewide offices in general for the secretary of state these are offices where they've done pretty well but you've are increasingly seeing them making gains and the more you occupy the more team you have for the politicians in the state. if the democrats don't have the state auditors and the secretary of state and ag and they are not in charge of the statehouse or the senate, they don't have high-profile politicians getting the experience, getting the name recognition around the state to run for the higher office where you don't have a lot of chances to win if you can't put up a good candidate. it certainly helps to have some sort of policy and political experience in your background as

he ran you run for the higher office. >> do you have any thoughts on this leadership? >> lou is right, look who runs for governor, often the state ag's or whoever. if you don't have that, who runs. there's nevada and so forth where they don't have anybody. but i think that we are going to have a big short-term impact because the last couple of years we had a phenomenon washington had the gridlock and of the states have had a tremendous policy movement in different ways, so we have a red state blue state phenomenon was very divided states and so the republicans have had abortion restrictions and the democrats have had a minimum wage increases and a couple of gun

control measures. and now it's all republicans and they control 23 states. the governorship in both chambers, plus nebraska and even in alaska at the independent was republican until it became independent. democrats are in the seven states now that control 27 states after the 2008. now it's just 16% of the population and 12% of that is california. so it is tiny states. connecticut, delaware, rhode island, hawaii, oregon, vermont. so what's been happening is people that that want to do policy wanted to policy innovation and things that are stuck in washington have gone to the states but now democrats are going to have a lot fewer places to go.

so i think that we are going to have an age of austerity in certain policy issues it is all pretty predictable you won't see obama care expanded. there is a tremendous fiscal incentive to agree to the medicaid expansion but obviously a lot of opposition to the law and the democrats hoped to pick up maine and get medicaid and that's not happening. you will see a lot of fights over education policy, vouchers, opposition to common core, immigration and tax cuts. we were thinking about how even among the democrats coming down here in washington in the republican congress they will try to end the cuts on the military and have more cuts on the domestic side of that will affect the state budget and the revenue growth had been about 6% for decades until 2008 and it looks like half the states are not where they were and that growth isn't going to be that

great. and you will have the republicans interested in cutting the taxes further but even on the democratic side in "the new york times," jerry brown the story was for democrats he said he was living within the means as a continuing battle. brown fought the legislator to keep spending limited and pat quinn lost in illinois cut the tensions that the unions support him because they thought he would be worse. the republicans of course are more excited on the general, so i think that's going to be the impact on the less democratic venues and more republican governance. >> i would also add that it would be interesting to watch for some of these gop governors and especially the new gop governors how much the leadership gives them because i would think they would be under

a lot of pressure from both leaders in terms of obama care and other policies. there is going to be a conflict between how much they can do that and fix the party line while also remaining popular in the states that tend to lean blue. >> you made the point that this was a slight rarity of resolve a state-level elections being in sync with national congress elections and that just reinforces this. >> my sense historically is the voters have been able to kind of compartmentalize and not

necessarily vote in the same way. state issues tend to be different. they tend to be about education funding and roadbuilding and not about the things that congress is talking about so there's a long history in the recent years of republican governors in democratic states into democratic governors and the gop states and they've been kind of pragmatic in the matters to distinguish themselves on the national party because they are campaigning on the certain issues of special interest to the state and having been tied to the national party. there was a way to distinguish themselves. that is less true now. in 2014, the election ended up being a national wave and i think it raises interesting questions about whether the states well kind of be able to stay their own different from the policy issues on the federal level whether it's going to be increasingly interest in partisan and a sort of polarized

>> people do differentiate less and you see more cooperative bipartisan basis so that happens less. but it was a tremendous victory for republicans. i don't think we should overstate. i think we are still more likely than not to get a democratic president in 2016. the electorate keeps going back and forth. we've had all of these in 2006 and 2008, 2010. but the country remains pretty evenly divided, so i don't know if there will be perfect hegemony, but it is striking to throw out to some of the members the republicans gained seats in all but a dozen chambers and they sort of took the chambers

and we'll have more divided government at the state level to have governors in pennsylvania, bruce browner in illinois would have a strongly democratic legislature but they have 21 super majorities and in wisconsin and the assemblies the republicans have a 50 year high in the seats in the chamber into the tennessee senate is 28 to five. it's really striking and a lot of democrats ran. some of them were close but the republicans won and so they won't feel any fear of a backlash from the type of austerity but i was talking about earlier. >> if we are coming into the air -- era in the off year elections

and presidential in the midterms you have a much smaller electorate and it tends to be more conservative and in the presidential years it's more diverse, it tends to be more democratic leaning most of the gubernatorial races are in the midterm. does that mean going forward if democrats would have a harder time doing a successful job in the gubernatorial race? because i think it's only about ten seats up for the presidential. if it's a permanent smaller and more conservative electorate what does this mean? >> it's striking what we we expected in the off year that it

would be whiter than the presidential year and we heard so much about the democrats having a strong coalition with african-americans and hispanics and single women and young people. the electorate people voted much more republican and there were exit polls in the 21 states on the senate races. there were huge margins in all but four of them and kay hagan in north carolina got 33% of the vote. it's hard to win statewide even in the state with a strong minority population and the democratic share of the white vote was down 10% from 2008 so that is a problem how the changing country favors the democratic party but there's still a lot of white voters here. >> back to your point about the candidates that sort of took the success for granted and you can't take anything for granted. >> we want to talk about the

state level ballot initiatives. i want to have time for a couple questions right now if you have any questions about what we've been talking about. yes? >> [inaudible] >> the question is about the geographic distribution of the urban democrat votes and the gop votes. how does that affect the races? >> one reason we were led into thinking it's because the pollsters don't give a good of a job in the overall areas into places like kansas. so in terms of the actual vote we talk about red states and blue states.

i live in missouri where st. louis and kansas city, these little blue coastlines on the state borders and 115 or so red counties in between. so, almost i think it is all but two of the eight statewide officials are democrats. that's where the people live in the population centers. but that's just a lot of republican territory. so they already have a super majority in both places and this is partly why we have such different maps. depend ons can only

texas. they are voted for and not just in to votes have been that the urban centers including the dance suburban counties and fairfax counties of the world are voting so strongly democratic. but you have a small area so it is a hard drawn map that gives you a lot of legislative seats and sometimes you can outvote the rest of the states but you have to turn out to do that. i don't know if that gets to your question but it's a huge challenge in very limited places. >> i like that red states and blue counties. [indiscernible]

>> how do you see the politicians managing, how are they going to interface and the new majority you always hear they want more transportation funding and tax reform. >> how do the state issues sync up with the national priorities? lou. >> you have now i think it is going to be 31 governors on the gop side, so that will have a line of communication to the folks in congress. on the other hand is the idea that in general, republicans don't like to spend money. this goes back to my point before of how much leeway the

general republican party is going to give governors and state legislators who need to spend money on certain things in their state which runs contrary to the general gop philosophy that you don't want to spend too much. it will be an interesting area of tension. they may have different interest because of where they stand. >> we will take more questions at the end of the panel but right now i would like to bring up caroline cournoyer. she is the senior editor for governing.com. she coordinated all the coverage this year of the state ballots. on these state ballot measures, the story is a little bit different. we have this dichotomy of voters pulling the lever for conservative candidates but more progressive issues, right? >> it was really interesting

because despite this republican wave, voters in red and blue states passed a number of ballot measures. one of the more popular is marijuana legalization. both alaska and oregon went the colorado way and legalize not just possession but also the sale of marijuana. washington, d.c. legalized possession and allowing home growth of marijuana. what will be interesting in d.c. is whether or not congress in the next couple of months decides to intervene. whether or not congress does intervene, this is an issue that will not be going away in the next few years, especially off all the successful measures on tuesday. activists will be pushing measures for the next go around in at least five states. massachusetts, nevada,

california, arizona and maine. >> specifically on marijuana? >> specifically on marijuana legalization. marijuana activist will also be pushing for legalization in the legislatures. that is something that has never happened before. they are targeting states in the northeast for this because that is where they think that is where they will have the best chance. >> another of these categories -- more progressive issues within more conservative states is on this labor issue and income inequality. can you tell us about that? >> if there was a win for anyone, it was a win for lower wage workers. four republican states, they are nebraska, alaska, arkansas and south dakota, they all voted to raise the minimum wage. this suggest that despite it

being such a polarizing issue in congress, it might be a little more bipartisan among the voters. i would not be surprised if in the next couple of years you see a lot more republican states, especially since there are more now putting minimum wage on the ballot and passing it that way. there is also paid sick leave. massachusetts became the third state to pass the statewide paid sick leave law. connecticut was the first in 2011 and california followed them a couple of months ago. massachusetts will be particularly interesting because connecticut's law has so many carveouts for manufacturers. only about 15% of the state's workers ended up being covered by this law.

california is covering a way higher percentage of the state's workers. both of those states will be a truer test of the impact of paid sick leave on businesses and employers and whether or not it has negative impacts on businesses and their budget. we see layoffs or whether or not as positive impact on employee retention. >> massachusetts is actually the first aid that did this the of the ballot measure, right? >> connecticut passed into the ballot measure. >> what are the measures we are seeing in terms of more progressive wins for ballot measures? >> there is also abortion which is not surprising because there were two initiatives in north dakota and califonia.

colorado, sorry. they were initiatives that would of criminalized abortion. in both states, voters rejected it. it is surprising because of the republican wave in this election but it also is not really surprising because an initiative like that has never passed in any ballot on any state. there is also gun control. only one state voted on a gun-control. that was washington state and they voted to pass universal background checks for gun sales. this is something that congress tried and failed to do in the wake of the newtown shootings. it is the lesser extreme of gun-control measures. washington state did have, unfortunately, a shooting a couple of weeks ago before the elections. voters may have had that in

their minds when they went to the polls. also, former mayor bloomberg's group invested millions of dollars in the washington initiative and they will be investing heavily for background checks in several states going forward. >> i know you have been paying attention to one other set of valid initiatives. >> it is a pretty good night for the environment. there were states that passed funding mechanisms to keep open space open. the state of florida has an existing program but a basically shortened up. i think about a two or three to one margin. it was a close gubernatorial race.

a 50-50 electorate but they went in favor of this ballot measure and went against some of the key gop leaders were pushing for. new jersey also passed a separate ballot measure on that issue to protect open space. the state of alaska. there was a ballot initiative by opponents to a major mine or a mine proposal in a very plentiful fishery area. that also passed. it puts a more severe roadblocks in the way of the mine. the only one which did not succeed was in north dakota where there was a measure to spend some of the states oil and gas tax revenues for a few

environmental purposes and that did go down. three out of those four passed. >> it was at least one progressive measure on the ballot that failed which was gmo labeling. caroline, i know that is something you looked at. >> gmo's has been heavily debated in the past few years. a lot of the research that say they pose a health risks have been discredited. but critics say the research has been tainted by big research groups. regardless of the health risks, gmo labeling has never passed in any state. with the growth of the movement, you're getting movement and people really wanting to know what it is in their food, people thought this year would be the year for labeling. that unfortunately was not the case in both colorado and oregon.

both measures to label failed. however, activists are undeterred. they will continue their fight in the legislature and possibly on more ballots. it was an issue that came up in 30 state legislatures last year. it will definitely be a big issue here. only one state has an active labeling law which is vermont. it is an issue that is not going away. >> what were some of the other big issue areas from tuesday maybe not in this vein of progressive issues? kind of more on the budget and management side. what were you tracking? >> one that got a little less national tension was proposition two in california. california has always been a big trendsetter in policy whether it is health care, or regulations.

whatever california's doing, everyone is watching. california passed proposition two which means the state is now required to put a set amount of money, revenue into the rainy day fund and they cannot touch it unless the governor declares a fiscal state of emergency. this is unlike the past because before the governor could just waive the requirement to save a part of the revenue. not only is the state will be required to save a part of the revenue every year, they are required to put a part of that savings every year towards their paying off their long-term debt. this is a really big deal for california. a lot other states are going to be watching to see if it is successful. already the day after the election, it raised california's

credit rating just slightly. it was directly because they passed proposition two. with the great recession, a lot of states dipped it into the rainy day fund and they are now looking into put the money back in there. they are thinking about the smartest way to do it and pay down their debts. california might be the way they take. >> to sort of insulate from the next great recession or little recession, hopefully. i know that transportation funding was a big issue in a lot of places on tuesday. what were some of those highlights? >> transportation ballot measures were a mixed bag. the federal gas tax has not been raised in 20 years. most states have not raised theirs in about 20 years. states are constantly worried about finding money for

infrastructure to pay for road repairs, bridge repairs. it is an issue that voters care about. there was some good news on tuesday in texas, wisconsin and maryland. voters approved measures either to increase or protect transportation funding. in texas, they are now going to put a part of the revenues from oil and gas taxes towards paying for transportation. texas particularly has big traffic problems there. it was brought on by the oil boom and all the workers that came there. it is a big issue that voters care about. in both wisconsin and maryland,

they voted to basically lock up their transportation fund so that they can no longer be used for general purposes which is something that often happened in the past and depleted their funding. there was some bad news for transportation funding on tuesday and that was in massachusetts. massachusetts a few years ago tied their gas tax increases to inflation. every year essentially the gas taxes would automatically increase without the legislature having to vote on it. a bout a dozen states have found ways to automatically increase their gas tax. some are tying it to inflation and some are using other policies, but voters repealed the automatic increase in massachusetts on tuesday which means the gas tax will still raise but it won't keep up with inflation.

with states struggling to find money for transportation, it could send a message to lawmakers and other states and could make them a little more hesitant to consider policies, to consider time the gas tax hike to inflation. it is going to be a struggle for massachusetts and other states this year as it is every year to find money for transportation, especially with the uncertainty come may. >> i want to move on to what has happened at the local level. there are two other state ballot initiatives that i want to touch on because i think they set up interesting fights and potentially court decisions in the future. both of those are out of arizona which may be unsurprisingly want to test the waters a little. what are we talking about in arizona? >> this was kind of an anti-obama, anti-federal government election. that is highlighted more than anywhere in arizona with these

two ballot measures. the one that underscores it the most is arizona passed a law this year -- this week that allows the state to opt out of federal laws of its choice. this means that if voters in arizona next year decide that they don't like obamacare, they can pass a referendum or the legislature can pass a bill against obamacare and then all the agencies, all the cities and counties will be banned in arizona from spending any money for enforcing obamacare or the federal clean water act or whatever. this will be an interesting one because obviously it is sure to bring some lawsuits. [laughter] the constitutionality of it is sure to be challenged. i don't believe it has yet.

give it a few weeks. [laughter] this is not that surprising. arizona has a long recent history of defying the federal government and asserting their state sovereignty. the other less extreme issue there is arizona passed overwhelmingly a right to try law. a couple of other state legislators passed this law last year but arizona was the first to do it at the ballot box. >> tell us -- >> if you have seen the movie "dallas buyers club," this will make much more sense. the right to trial means terminally ill patients in arizona now will have with doctor approval access to drugs that have passed some clinical trials but have not been approved by the fda yet.

so, in a way, this does undermine the federal government authority. some in the medical community also say in the long-term, it might undermine clinical trials. people participating in them because they might be a little less willing and me a little less effective if they don't get the right people in those clinical trials. that is an issue that is also going to be pretty big in the coming years and activists are pushing it in state legislatures. it is an issue that is not facing that much opposition. i would not be surprised if you saw it passed in many states. >> what state would not want that if it is upheld? we want to spend some time talking about local elections and measures that passed this week. alan, you have been tracking that for us.

this republican wave we saw at the congressional and gubernatorial, legislative level, is that something -- did that sentiment continue at the local level? >> it is similar to what caroline was saying that the ballot measures were more liberally leaning. it is not a huge year for local elections. everybody -- "the governing's" current story about pittsburgh which really profiles the mayor who is progressive and was elected last year. you go down the line and they ran on similar pre-k, income inequality, transit type platforms. the big cities -- they are talking about how they're more democratic. almost every big city is getting even more progressive mayors

elected. there were not a ton of important mayoral elections. bowser won here in d.c. greg fisher won in louisville. joe aberson was just picked by the white house to run the office of governmental affairs. providence got a lot of attention with their mayoral race. he had to twice leave office because of felony convictions. [laughter] he was unable to achieve his latest comeback. he ran as independent. the democrats endorsed him.

he wins in oakland. gene had never been a popular mayor. you pick the first, second, third choices in mayor. she came in second choice. an aide to jerry brown -- barbara boxer sort of came in. chuck reed has been a big pension reform proponent. the guy he liked won with 51.5% of the vote. the police union backed dave who lost. they will not roll back those pension reforms. phoenix voters, there was a local measure to put municipal employees into 401k's file plans. that was voted down. a couple of county races of note. another former "governing" cover subject -- craig watkins, the dallas county district attorney. he lost.

he was famous for having a wrongful conviction unit that exonerated about 35 people. he had some personal problems. he had a car crash where he was driving while on a cell phone. his opponents say she'll continue the exoneration work. we will see watkins claim that was the real issue, not his personal problems. i mentioned i am from st. louis. michael brown was killed on a aug. 9, a saturday and we had the primaries the tuesday before. he won the primary for county executive. the county prosecutor had an opponent in the primary but note opponent in the general election.

he is a controversial figure for putting the case into that front of the grand jury rather than deciding whether to indict in his own. it became a very contested race. $3 million race. the republican nominee was a statehouse member. he ran a very -- he was extreme. he kept saying he is too extreme. some of the african-american officials endorsed stanger out of anger for the party not supporting charlie but also he is very close with the prosecutor. general frustration over ferguson. stanger got a key endorser from an african-american activist in st. louis.

one of these dense, heavily populated counties. we also had paid sick leave passed in trenton, new jersey and over in oakland. it is a mixed bag on transportation with money for infrastructure. it was voted down in kansas city. austin, texas. seattle voted for more transit. there were bans on gmo's passed at the local level in california. there were a couple of places in california and texas that voted to ban fracking. finally, there was a soda tax measure for the bay area.

in san francisco, berkeley and more than $10 million spent on those races. san francisco, a majority voted for it. 75%. berkeley voted 75%. most of this was from the beverage industry but there was some money -- michael bloomberg put in $400,000. berkeley approved it. i love this quote in the chronicle afterwards. roger salazar, the spokesman for anti-tax campaigns in both places, says san francisco

would've mattered, but berkeley is berkeley. i don't think people will look at berkeley's results and see and think that is what the rest of the country would do. it is not exactly mainstream. this was the spokesman for the campaign. it is hard to believe a charmer like that was not successful. [laughter] >> other than free pot for poor people -- [laughter] -- any takeaway we should think about as far as these local elections? >> how do you manage -- if you're -- where you stand depends on where you sit. if you are a mayor in a big city in a state with a heavily republican state government, what do you do? big cities are always hated by the rest of the state anyway. i think that will be a tricky area for people to navigate. in general, the cities will be the blue labs of democracy while the states will be the red labs. >> we will take more questions from you all at this point.

who has questions about the elections either at the state, local level? any of the initiative that caroline ran through? yes? >> you mentioned the mix bag as far as transportation, representing a national transportation association, we are very excited concerning the federal gridlock lately of the state races and the ballot initiatives. do you see given the mixed bag them taking different issues such as tolling, sales taxes in some of the northern states like michigan? >> i am not really knowledgeable. >> i am not super knowledgeable either. obviously, states keep wanting to build roads. it is a key priority. we have had a lot of public-private partnerships.

i think that will be an area. governors do want money for transportation. what will be the innovative funding sources of the future? >> i am trying to think. >> you made the point that voters seem to be willing to set aside money that already exists for transportation or protect transportation funding from being used for other sources that may be less excited about increasing revenue for transportation. >> one interesting thing to note is tax increases at the state level generally are hard for voters to pass and they are unwilling to pass them at the

state level. at the local level, voters are much more willing to pass a tax increase because they can see exactly where that money is going to. they can see if their taxes increase, the bridge i drive over every day to go to work or that is going to expand over the road where i sit in traffic every day. i think that is one factor that is really important. if you are trying to get the voters to pay for it which is always hard to do, it is much easier at the local level. >> i think we will continue to see contested battlefields over what kind of spending in transportation. is it just roads or roads and transit and so forth? i am pretty sure in the wisconsin measure that passed, it is all sorts of transportation funding.

in texas, do you guys recall? >> it was just road transportation. >> there is a lot of demand for roads yet the desire to cut taxes. was it georgia a year ago that had the regional transportation taxes that failed? they tried to be strategic and had this long list of specific projects where people would know with the money is going. it kind of backfired because people said that is not my county. it is really tough. >> it is never local enough, right? in georgia, it was a nine county region. >> this what the state into that multicounty region. >> if it is not my road or my commute -- exactly.

other questions? yes? >> all of you have mentioned health care. i am wondering what you think are the biggest, most significant takeaways on health care whether it be federal, state, local. aside from the obvious obamacare potential -- what are the biggest takeaways you see in this area? >> on health care -- >> there were a couple of ballot initiatives that were mostly in california. they failed. there was one to give the insurance commissioner the power to reject excessive premium hikes. this is something that insurance commissioners in other states do have. in california, they rejected that. interestingly enough, the health exchange in california actually opposed this ballot measure.

that is because it gets really complicated, but they believe in the end, the insurance commissioner has the power to reject premiums in california then it would put too much restrictions on the system which could raise prices and premiums. that was a really interesting one. >> i think it is going to be really interesting to watch. so much of the argument against obamacare is the changes to the health care system take away health care from people. if the republican governors who are either newly in office or who are newly emboldened, if they decide to cut back or end the medicare expansion or

whatever they are going to be dealing with -- even in a conservative state, it'll be interesting to see if that approach flies or not. particularly arkansas over they have the private sector approach to the medicare expansion. it was passed as a compromise between the gop led legislature and the democratic governor. it nearly got overturned part way through even after he got put into place. now with the gop governor and a strengthened gop control of the legislature, if they will pull that back, it will take away a lot of health insurance from people. it might be seen as a critical and might not fly.

>> i think they want to. a lot of the state legislators ran on that. they took the money from the feds to apply. i see that as a possible workaround. arkansas -- with the governor and the legislature -- they flipped two years ago and now they have a bigger majority. it is the first on the state is totally republican controlled since 1984. there will be this continuing tension that people could get it through obamacare. say they have a cash flow incentive for states to go with it. we will see some governors -- mike pence -- another republican governor in utah that they are negotiating with the feds about expansion.

one thing to watch in health care is chip. the children's health insurance program which is supposed to go away under obamacare. that is not happening in a lot of states. funding expired and will that be a priority of this congress? i don't think it will go away. whether it'll get the funding that it had been, it is been very expanded in the obama years. i don't know what will happen with it. >> another interesting take away regarding medicare expansion -- because of the republican wave, it is unlikely we will see a lot of new states expanding medicaid. what is at risk is the states

that have already expanded medicaid. in a lot of those cases, it is not necessarily because the governor has come out against medicaid expansion. it is oftentimes the legislature. it will be really interesting to watch what seems like is going to be some battles between republican legislatures and republican governors. many have said i am not necessarily against it, i am going to watch it and look at the numbers. even a lot of republican governors have adopted medicaid expansion. it will be interesting to see how that pans out. >> i think we have time for one more question. yes? if you could just wait for the microphone. >> i will take a different path with this question. what about trickle-down? one of the areas that have potential agreement between the

white house and republican majority is tax reform. how do you see that lining up with a lot of the local initiatives, priorities? i will take transportation again as an example. the last time the transportation, federal tax was raised was in 1992 and it was a tax reform initiative. in previous congress, the same thing. how does that line up with not just transportation, but also some of the health care issues? how is this going to impact the new legislatures? are they going to have priorities? >> lou, that goes back to your point about we will see how the nationalized these elections get. do you have any other thoughts on any other specific issues? what do you see in terms of trickling down from d.c.?

>> it depends on whether the president and congress decided to pursue policy as opposed to skirmishing for a better position in 2016. >> do you want to take bets on that? [laughter] >> exactly. there is certainly an opening for some serious policy advancement and compromise, but we do have a presidential election coming up. there will be a lot of pressure on congress from presidential candidates and so forth to try to fight the next battle instead of trying to actually consolidate gains and make policy. >> i think we are going to have to end things there. i would like to thank alan greenblatt, louis jacobson, caroline cournoyer. i would like to thank all of you for the governing election

briefing this morning. thank you so much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> a forum on voting patterns and resident grown-up -- obama announces his nominee for attorney general. your call to comments on "washington journal." on monday, the international foundation for electoral systems held a fro -- froum. it focus on the u.s. voting

rights act. two lawyers discussed how the u.s. plays a role. this is just over an hour. >> all right. great. thank you all very much for being here today. i'd like to get started so we can stay on schedule. i will -- and to our panel from some of to montgomery and beyond the 1965 voting rights act and the future role of the federal government in elections. my name is chad, director of the center for applied research at ifes and i'm joined by daniel. he is a history professor of law

at ohio state university. he's an expert on election law and voting rights specializing in electoral reform issues. he is also the author of election law in a nutshell, and co-author of election law cases and materials. i'm also joined by brendan, of counsel, he has a litigation focused practice assisting clients of trial and appellate matters before courts and federal agencies. he was counsel to shelby county, alabama, in his jumpsuit section four and five of the voting rights act. just a couple of very quick reminders. for translation english is on channel seven, arabic is on channel eight, and spanish is on channel 11. we're going to try to keep each panelist comments short, about 10 minutes each but they will have questions such as

the rest of the time for questions and answers. a level playing field at the heart of genuine democratic elections. ifes works to support the right of every person to free and fair elections. our work and, therefore, includes promoting equal rights, justice and inclusion are marginalized or underrepresented groups so that they can participate fully in political life. litigation to protect equal rights and equal voting rights continues to be a subject of both litigation and debate. the landmark case of shelby county v. holder result in the supreme court striking down section 4b of the voting rights act of 1965 and effectively removing the

coverage formula determining which jurisdictions require federal preclearance before enacting changes to their voting laws. to share insights on the american electoral system, here at the u.s. election program this panel will discuss the implications of shelby into broader context of voting rights and political conclusion. today, brendan will speak about the lead up to the filing of the action, including prior litigation and the 2006 reauthorization of the voting rights act. he will also discuss the recent changes in several states including texas, north carolina, ohio and wisconsin, and how and after he speaks dan will provide more context to the voting rights act tand preclearance process. the context preceding the case including what the voting rights act was and wasn't doing he will also discuss what has happened including new state laws and practices and litigation challenges that under the constitution in

section 2 of the voting rights act. >> thanks for inviting me to participate in this panel today. i want to start out by saying that i'm here as -- to give my perspective as someone who participated in the actual litigation of the case. and to provide that unique perspective here for you all to hear. basically, the backdrop of all this is that here in the united states we have kind of dual regulation of elections. we have the states with primary responsibility. then we have the u.s. federal constitution which provides certain fundamental guarantees covering amongst other things voting rights. and so with that situation you have basically states with primary power except that they can't do anything that would violate the united states constitution. then congress also has the ability to enforce the fundamental rights in the

united states constitution. that's where the voting rights act comes in. so in 1965 congress made the determination that certain additional measures need to be taken to enforce those fundamental rights. so there were a bunch of provisions of the vra. so what section 5 did was kind of unique in comparison to some of the other things that were going on in the voting rights act. it set up, for lack of a better term, a prior restraint. basically said states can't do anything, change their election laws in any way until they get approval from the united states attorney general to make that change, which was -- it's hard to overstate how much of a shift that was from kind of the baseline system that we have here. kind of flips it on its head. but that was only in certain areas of the country and as chad mentioned those were designated in section 4 bmp. so that out the formula who has

to go through that process. everybody else was just kind of under the baseline system. so that's where section 5 comes in. that was -- it was controversial from the outset. and what's actually interesting is that asking put a provision right in the act that allowed jurisdictions to bring constitutional challenges to this. so that's something that you see sometimes in election laws where there's some question about the constitutionality of it and this was not an exception to that. in fact, the state of south carolina and other states took congress up on that offer and challenged it immediately. the supreme court uphe would section 5 and other -- upheld section 5 and other provisions finding that given the circumstances that existed in the early 19 of 0s leading up to -- 1960s leading up to this that was a justified use of the enforcement power. it was challenged again on a couple of other occasions, section 5, and again upheld

both times. the thing about section 5 also is that it was limited in time period. so you had a situation where initially it was only supposed to be in place for five years wutted. reeval in fact it was and reauthorized. in 1982 and then set to expire in 2007. by the time 2005 came around they were thinking about this again. it was still in place basically unchanged in terms of the coverage formula. and so congress took up the task again at that point. the relevant committees of both house of congress held hearings on whether this continued to be justified. they took in a lot of evidence. some of it in my view better than other evidence but they held a lot of hearings. they compiled what's been described throughout the litigation as a 15,000 page record that they thought

justified this particular action which nobody can say that they didn't work hard at this. so that was basically the reauthorization process. what was kind of important at the time though was there were serious concerns about going forward kind of on the same basis as had formed the justification for the original act. so going forward on the same coverage formula is history enough to justify this type of thing? or do we need to look at more modern circumstances, what's really going on, on the ground today? ultimately -- not to ipune the academy, but i think they got some bad advice about updating the coverage formula. some folks came in and testified and said that basically -- history is enough, plus current circumstances in those jurisdictions. you don't need to look at everybody and say where should this be going forward? what we should look at is is it still justified in areas of

this country? so, but the resulted testimony about things happening in other areas of the country, things happening in areas of the country that were covered by the voting rights act that did not justify copting coverage. so the testimony was kind of a mixed bag on that. but from the perspective of a lit gator and someone who brought a case that we're here to talk about today, in our view at least and in the view of many cord jurisdictions there wasn't a lot of evidence of constitutional violations. the violations of the united states constitution, to justify continued use of this particular provision. so at the time that was something that was debated and a couple of senators in fact thought there was a constitutional problem with it. they voted for it in any event and kind of kicked the debate

to the court. that's where the first challenge after 2006, a case called northwest austin. they thought sought two things. they asked for a bailout. for the court to declare that they were basically on good behavior for ten years. and that would put them on kind of a parole system for lack of a better term. they would be out but they would be subject to continued monitoring. and then they also asked for section 5 of the voting rights act to be declared unconstitutional. that went up to the supreme court in 2008-2009 time period and then 2009 the supreme court ruled on the bailout question allowed them to bail out and just kind of ducked the constitutional question which raised it again for someone to bring a challenge. so that's primarily -- you know, that's background, but to tell you how basically we got where i came in. we had been doing some work for the project on fair

representation, which is a group of folks interested in fairness in elections, and things of that nature, for some time. some of it had led to litigation, other's had not. but we'd been doing a bunch of memos. by the time the decision came out we thought we had a good shot of actually getting the actual litigation. so we thought about discussing with people the possibility of bringing on a jurisdiction actually challenge the act. so we did that. we had written a couple of ameekcuss briefs. nobody paid any attention to those in the supreme court. but up to that point that was basically where it was. so we ended up speaking with some folks in shelby county alabama which was a jurisdiction covered under the act by virtue -- the state of alabama was covered and shelby county was a county in the