are not prepared for. we saw the egyptian government was just stunned, called for a strike, a demonstration a week later we were also chasing the information. chasing the developments. what i think the key is going to be and what i hope the military is doing now, everybody has to change the mind-set and say all right. we are not preparing for anything in particular. we are preparing for this constant change. we're preparing to be adaptable. you say how do you do that? the reality is you create teams and ways of communicating very similar to the experience we sort of backed into. so every day you walk out on to

the field and you're playing a different sport. you go wow. today it is soccer. tomorrow it is baseball. it is that stunning of a difference. you no longer are going to be able to protect your ability to one thing and go out there and it is going to be very frustrating to people and that is why the structures and roles of leaders are going to be so dramatically different. to re -- they are going catch themselves looking at headlights and they are going to get run over. >> a question for about relations. some people think it is an institutional issue. some people think it is personal relationships that you have talked about so much. i'm curious, where do you think t falls on both? >> yeah, well, i think they are related. if you go back in history and look at what president lincoln put together and we remember how good it was when he and ulysses

s. grant the last couple of years of the war, it took some painful years to get to that. i think that ultimately it takes really good relationships. it takes people who trust each other, but you can't do this thing until you keep going through people until you find out people who happen to be from the same town or like each other. you can't build a structure and an expectation based upon serendipity of like personalities or mutually agreeable personalities. you have to create processes that force that. if you think back to a sports team you might have been on in the beginning of the season. your coach typically pulled all the people together and you started practice and doing some team-building things. a number of things you did just to get it together. we take people who really don't know each other.

they might. a few of them might but often they don't. they come together in a room wearing suits or dresses so you're sort of in your stilted special personality. i'm not always exactly like this. you want them to suddenly become this team. and yet they are from different backgrounds. military guys grew up in military. they speak military. they have get got a different background. civilians didn't for the most part spend time with each other. they were not at each other's weddings. they didn't read the same books. and it is just as true across the military. if you take the intel services and the department of state, they are speaking different languages. it is all english but it is different. we expect this team to come together seamlessly. i think it is unrealistic, particularly at the speed it has to happen. i think we have to step back and say if you want teams like that to work, you have to create a process to build that team together. i always joke with people. they say what did you do?

i said if we're going to go to war again, i would ask the president to take his top 15 people and go white water rafting. i'm not kidding. take several cases of beer. go white water rafting. don't invite the media. do all of those things you do white water rafting. just get to know each other. just pull each other out of the water. just see each other when they were not in a suit and they are going protect something. not because you're going to solve policy problem, but when you're doing these very difficult interactions you can look and go you know, i disagree with you but i know you. you're not a total jerk so let me at least calibrate my ears to listen. people laugh and say that is the kumbaya thing. i'll tell you what. i don't agree. i think as long as we are going to do this with people, i don't see a change in that in the near term, we need do that. >> i want to get one question from this other side of the room. what is one thing that leaders on the civilian side can learn

from the military? the military just gets it so right. i wish you could export that to the civilian side. >> they are remarkly similar once you get past acronyms. what i see. i think the military talks about leadership a lot and we say that is not important. that is important. the military, your efficiency ratings, the name of your job typically, the way you are admired or not admired always has leadership in the terminology. there is very rarely a bottom line that said that person made x amount of money or that person got this many bills passed. it said that person motivated and took care of soldiers. just the focus on talking about it and making it so overt in your culture actually helps it be true and i think that that would be an advantage for any organization. >> we'll ramp up on this side. do you have a question?

all right. >> so i have a question. how do you see drones getting more involved in modern warfare in the next 20 or so years and how is that going to affect troops on the battlefield? >> what college are you in right now? [laughter] no, that is a great question. first off, i'm a big fan of unmanned aerial vehicles. i think in your lifetime you are going to fly on commercial airliners that are remotely piloted. my generation says it can't ever happen. it will. in war, they are funny because there is two things to them. on the one hand, for our special operating forces, unmanned areial vehicles allowed us to change the way we fought. night vision, the internet allowed us to connect unmanned

aerial vehicles. in the old days if we wanted to raid something, raid your house, we would use about 120 people. we would take about 80 of them and create a cordon from about a half mile of your house from reinforcing it. then we would have a very small force that actually raided the house. but now di days by using unmanned ariel vehicles all of those other things can be done. we could do raids with 20 people. now instead of doing one raid with 120 we were doing six at the same time with 20 each. which sped up the pace of what we could do. so hugely effective. just an forgetly an effectiveness boom. the problem is that they allow

you to tailor threshold of some things. like you can fly over an area with no risk to americans and you can shoot missiles down or drop bombs. it feels almost anti- septic for us. president clinton shot tomahawks after we had intelligence on osama bin laden and whatnot. and if you had asked americans the next morning is america at war? people would go no, no. if you had talked to people near e receiving end of those tomahawks, very different response so the zanges you have different thresholds. you're shooting at someone and they go looks and feels like war to me and another, well, we are just doing surgical operations. americans can be perceived as we're arrogant because we can stand frup the heavens and be

like thor showing thunderbolts. although militarily it may be just the right move, if you building up massive resentment then there is a negative cost to its. it is one of those technologies that has to be very carefully balanced as we pursue it. pretty soon everyone is going to have them. that's a great question. thank you. >> well, with that, i want to thank bank of america for hosting us and i want to thank all of you for participating in the conference. thank you, general. >> thank you. >> [applause] >> on the next "washington journal" matthew mitchell of george mason university looks at the history of a congressional lame duck session and what might get passed before the 114th congress begins in january and then verna jones discusses

veterans' issues including employment and access to healthcare. washington journal live at 7:00 .m. eastern on c-span. >> congress returns to capitol hill this week, both the house and senate back on wednesday at 2:00 eastern time. the house is scheduled to debate 10 bills including the presidential records act which will allow current and former presidents to continue to restrict access to reportses of their time in the white house. orientation this week for new members. and the senate votes expected on judicial nominations and child dedicated grants. watch the house live here on c-span and the senate live on c-span 2. >> the c-span cities tour takes

book tv and american history tv on the road traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. we partner with charter communications for a visit to madison, wisconsin. >> it is a glorious service. this service for the country, the call comes to every citizen. it is an unending struggle to make and keep government representives. >> bob is probably the most important political figure in wisconsin history. and one of the most important in the history of the 20th century of the united states. he was a reforming governor. he defined what progressivism is. he was one of the first to use the term progressive to self-identify. he was a united states senator

who was recognized by his peers in the 1950's as one of the five greatest senators in american history. he was an opponent of world war i. stood his ground advocating for free speech. above all he was about the people. in the era after the civil war, america changed radically from a nation of small farmers and small producers and small manufacturers and by the late 1870's, 1880's, 1890's. we had concentration of wealth. we had growing inequality and we had concern about the influence f money in government. so cement the later part of the 1890's giving speeches all over wisconsin. he went to county fairs. he went to every kind of event that you could imagine.

and built a reputation for himself. by 1,900, he was ready to run for governor advocating on behalf to have people. he had two issues. one, the direct primary. no more selecting candidates in convention. two, stop the interests. specifically the railroads. >> watch all of our events from madison, saturday at noon eastern on c-span 2 book tv. and sunday on c-span 3. >> president obama called on the f.c. to ban so-called fast lanes on tv internet and regulate service providers like public utilities. the f.c. scrmbingscrrg a plan to regulate how internet traffic travels. up next, a conversation on

broadband internet access. fordham center on national security hosted this event. > > i'm delighted to introduce a member of penn's board of trustees, jacob weisberg, who has been involved in the internet before we knew what it was. since 1996. he has been a pioneer in the field and what we talked about how to take on the topic and have an audience that includes both experts and people who see net neutrality and their eyes glazed over and we got the perfect person. jacob weisberg so over to you. >> thank you. and thank you, karen. and i want to thank the fordham for sponsoring this event. we are going to do way better than have your eyes glaze over.

we are going to aim for an active elucidation of this interesting and lively and very urgent issue. i want to briefly introduce the panel and then give them a chance to make opening statements and will mix it up and save time for questions. i will start right here with my old friend micah sifry and i know him going back to when he was a writer for "the nation." but more recently he works for he democracy forum author of a new book called the "big disconnect." why the internet has not transformed politics yet. good line, i agree with the premise. to my left is tim wu, you may recognize him from his recent unsuccessful yet wildly successful campaign for lieutenant governor with 39% of the vote. >> 40%. 40.1. >> that is amazing with no background in politics. his background is "slate" writer. they tend to over perform unexpectedly.

he is the author of a book called "the master switch: the rise and fall of information empires." relevant for today, he coined the term net neutrality and no discussion of it is complete without his perspective. and lastly, next to him, jeffrey anney. until recently, a law professor at lewis and clark. and now he runs an organization that he founded, i will have to put my reading glasses. to read the title. international center for law and economics based in portland, oregon. and for the first round here, i would like each of you to be as neutral and descriptive and diagnostic and explanatory as ossible. because i think before we get into the weeds of the issue i think it is very important to try to have the philosophical perspective, a historical perspective. and i want to start with you, tim. explaining where the whole issue of net neutrality is and where the idea

of net neutrality comes from. >> sure. thanks to penn for having us here and for devoting attention to this issue of mportance and concern. i want to discuss why i think that is and give some historic background. i went to the fcc the other day to go to a earing, with the chairman, who was announcing a new rule and there was a crowd of protesters there. there were people beating drums. camping outside the fcc. i have to tell you when i started working on this issue in the 2000's, we would be lucky to have 10 people show up. to a talk or something. it was an obscure academic issue. there's a lot of reason why net neutrality has become an important issue in our time. i want to describe some of the

issues i think it raises or fractures. it raises in our time questions about the power, private power in particular, and in particular the monopoly power and the exercise thereof. there is discussion in this ountry whether private power has gone too far. it puts into question the perennial issue of free speech. the internet has been an incredible engine of speech and some people feel it will be a threat. in the sense that there may be a fast lane or slow lane created by lack of net neutrality, it puts in place some of the issues of equality or inequality which seem so striking in american society right now. the idea that what feels to many people like public infrastructure right work better for some speakers than for other speakers. both raise questions of free speech and basic sense of

equality. we do not have sidewalks for rich people and others for poor people. so i think that is telling. if you go back into the history of this issue, you date it from as far as you want and i would date it back to the nation-state and of the idea of public infrastructure. one of the things that countries have always done is provide some amount of what you can call infrastructure, that is basic essentials like roads and ridges and so forth that everyone relies on. all businesses and all citizens. for a very long part of human history, those were always provided by government, the roman empire builder the roads. the degree to which the government would build

the infrastructure was it, that was the description. now that began to change 500 years ago, particularly in england is spreading to the united states with a model where we would have private actors build what might have otherwise been considered public infrastructure. have private innkeepers or private ferry operators and some perate under regulation or rules that gave them public duties. this is the origins of the idea of a public or common carrier. at some level since the last 500 years, we have been struggling with what exactly the rules should be for these kinds of usinesses, which are private usinesses, but are somehow vested with a public function.

it's not enough to say that infrastructure, everyone thinks "the new york times" or "slate" are businesses, but they seem to be different. when it comes to the internet, what we have is a project originally funded by the government. built in its initial stages by the government, but later largely taken over by private companies. today, dominated by the private. -- private sector. it is the same rule faced forever when you look in ancient times at bridges and ferries. should these private operators of what might be described as quasi- public facilities have special duties of ondiscrimination delivery of good or services or special pricing rules? should they have to give it to everyone and make sure we have it? we are asking, what are the essentials of the 21st-century? in a certain way we are asking , is the broadband internet the same as the electricity was or in the 20th century or water was in the 20th century.

that is the basic introduction. in some ways, it is defining what citizenship is and i will leave it there. >> i know you will want to respond. could you just bring us up to speed on where we are in layman's term on this issue? there have been a few court decisions. the fcc has a ruling pending irrespective of the president who is charge express his opinion and public. what -- where are we on this issue? >> ok, briefly, sort of picking up where tim left off. he started with the beginning of the nation-state as fast-forward to the 2000. ada, yada, yada. we have the internet, broadband. telephones, telecommunications services have been regulated by

the fcc for many years since 1934. along comes in this new thing alled broadband. older broadband as you know of course, will -- we did a lot more than talk to each other. there is no longer a single-purpose network. something capable of doing everything at what came to be characterized as an information service. it is important. i decided i was not going to be annoying details. it is important to note under the clinton administration, the first fcc chairman made this determination that we would be better served if broadband was classified as information services because it is less regulated than telecommunications. after that decision was made came along challenges to it.

the fcc continued on this path and continues to assert broadband was title i less regulation. as the debate on net neutrality started to rage on, some people started to suggest we need more regulation for the internet. when michael powell, now chairman of the federal communication under bush, decided it was accurate and from the arguments that others have - had said, it was a need to treat the internet differently in different ideals that tim mentioned. he mentioned internet freedom, and aspirational set of goals. content should be treated the same on internet and everybody should have access. that worked really well until it didn't. it is not entirely clear. it is not clearly that you never ork. it was only absurd not to be working and we need more rules. there were court decisions. we can elaborate later. the courts continue to throw out

the fcc's efforts to impose tronger rules. in 2010, the rules were promulgated. in january this year, the court threw out those rules as exceeding the fcc authority to regulate the internet. where we are today, those rules have been thrown out of revenue chairman tom weller -- have been thrown out and we have a new hairman tom wheeler. but consistent with the limitations that the court imposed, they try to reimpose the rules.

chairman wheeler proposed something mpr, another set of rules. those rules were meant immediately with a massive outcry, massive opposition, the likes that never been seen before. it is opposition from the left. not the same kind opposition to regulation that we have seen before, it was opposition that you have not gone far enough. you have to do something far more substantial in this case. the argument was you have to impose these title ii common arrier regulators, true to the -- treat the internet like it is a water utility, electric utility. now, we are waiting to see what happens. chairman wheeler proposed the second rules that do not go that far. he suggested he would be open to the possibility of title to egulation.

and we had debate and the fcc's record and hours of events like this and millions of words in publications like jacob, assessing the question of whether we should treat the internet like a common carrier or something less. maybe it can segue for you. the issue underlying regulation of internet and in this fashion whether anything ranging from the internet freedom up to treatment like a common carrier are what we want to talk about rather than debating the merits r demerits of the rules. i think we can do that despite we are right now is really asking the question, whether it will be regulating the internet as title 2 or something less? >> before we go back into that, i want to ask about the olitical stakes.

open internet versus close internet and the issue of free expression and political expression, the week before last i was in turkey. in turkey, which is a democracy, the president got a law passed saying he could take down anything from the internet at will and immediately began to do so. the political censorship of the nternet is very clear. here we're talking about different bandwidth speeds, isn't a rhetoric -- it rhetoric? >> there's no question we are not in turkey. >> now on? >> the turkey example.

it is worth noting that when the protests broke out about a year ago over a government proposal that will does impart -- bulldozed impart to the wishes of the local community, the state media and private broadcast media in turkey not cover it at all. it was only because people in turkey have access to services like twitter that they were able to get the news out of what was going on with people protesting n the streets. the freedom to connect through relatively open services like twitter is really absolutely vital to any hope of an open society.

we, here in the united states, it is worth going back to maybe 20 plus years ago he for we had the internet at all, before we had social networking, before we ad e-mail, we had mainstream media. it was a much more closed system. if you wanted to be heard by the larger society, you have to get through a gatekeeper. persuade an editor that what you ad to say was valuable and the gatekeepers was not a articularly diverse group. we had a much more constrained national conversation as a result. as we have now is absolutely a much better situation of an open media system thanks to the open nternet. that said, i think this argument

about net neutrality is part of a larger argument of merits of open versus closed systems. i think i can illustrate with a ecent example. there are services on the innernet that are more open and services a more closed and the philosophical issue if everybody has equal access and equal opportunity to reach everybody else with her message is playing out in real-time and many other ways. not just a question of if the owners of the pipes have to not discriminate in the content they carry. you may remember about two months ago when it was in the middle of the summer and mike brown was murdered in ferguson and there were protests in the streets almost from the beginning. if you were on twitter and glancing at what was coming

through your feed, you probably saw fairly quickly there were a lot of angry and upset people and people were sharing pictures of the police in their robocop niforms and so on. if you were on facebook, you do not see this at all in your news feed for the first few days. you saw the als ice bucket challenge. the reason so many people saw the challenge opposed to the ferguson challenge is because facebook has a different algorithm of what they put on your news feed. facebook put what they think you will want. not upsetting their users they want to keep their users happy and in a mood to pay attention to advertisers. twitter and its algorithm is much more direct because what you have chosen to follow. the net neutrality of the services we rely on is absolutely vital to whether or not we have an open and robust conversation or one that is in all kinds of ways shaped and throttle and limited by private interests.

>> i am not sure i totally agree ith you. i do want to go back to this question about the internet as public utility or not. he used the metaphor of sidewalk.

water, electricity, and if bandwidth is like electricity, you pay the more you use. in practice, isn't this mainly from the point of view of the carriers, commercial issue whether they can charge more to the people we use the most of t? >> no. i do not think that is the issue. that is how it is framed to suggest it is an issue that the government should stay away from but it is much more, less than hat. it can be expressed as simply payment. if it were -- that hides the complexity of the issue. my position on the advocacy side, i think in our era, it has become one of the essentials and should be regarded as a public utility. it was a different story 15

years ago when we were trying to do broadband rollout. it has come to the point where you go to a new apartment or this is and you want electricity, water, and broadband. what do one for the broadband carrier is to be reliable, as cheap as possible, and for the service to give you what you want and not impose its own strange little speedups or lowdowns or whatever else. but the carriers have long anted and i can understand the economic reason is the ability to differentiate taxes on the internet. those who have more to pay, they like to charge the more and create a fast lane and slow lane. there is some economic justifications are those type of deals. public interest go against it.

it comes to the idea there are some businesses which are in the nature of public infrastructure. if you imagine the brooklyn bridge, i could say the george washington bridge, but more politically loaded. if they were to -- if they were privately owned a favorite one pizza delivery company over another, you could sort of immediately see how it works competition. uber has a competitor called lyft and uber gets over and it tips competition in favor of uber. in a way that hurts the internet because it derails fair competition. i will also say when we talk about speech, the idea that rich speakers get better access to people is to some great inevitable but we should not try o facilitate -- is to some

degree inevitable but we should not try to facilitate. you still have to be good, but it is possible for a really well-informed thoughtful blogger to compete with the opinion page of "the new york times" for fox news and that is a function. in a world of great inequality, we have enough inequality as it is, we do not need more. in have it be the only people who have money. >> public utility ties in and what is a natural monopoly. electricity and water clearly are. and there are a lot of places where you have one of them or way of accessing broadband internet -- more than one way of accessing broadband internet and it might be a function of a monopoly for consumers in new ork.

>> you can access through uverse r verizon. fios. >> it may not be available for everybody. in five years it might. we are looking forward to that period. speak to the question of whether tim is right and if it is a public utility and if it should be treated. >> to the extent that in issue may be an economic what, a problem of monopoly, if that is the basis for the regulation here, the fear they may be adding conduct and it does not add competition, we have laws the deal with it and they are called ntitrust laws. it begs the question and apart, i am not saying it is an answer, it begs the question why we need to build an enormous new apparatus to try to achieve this think that at the root is a problem perhaps, if it's a problem, of insufficient competition when we have lost the deal with it.

until the issues that tim was talking about, the implications, whether true or not, i take issue with the characterization of what the effects would be allowed prioritization and what the effects would be a forced mandated neutrality. we have nothing approaching neutrality right now. nothing. there's nothing neutral about he internet. what is interesting is far from that constraining -- from accessing, the parties that are advocating for more regulation for common carrier treatment are enormously rich. google, facebook, companies like those are advocating for neutrality and that should give you a bit of pause and you shall

wonder if there is a reason they are advocating for the little guy. or whether there might be something else going on. ne of the things we should consider going on here is prioritization is actually really, really useful and important for the startup, the unknown company that needs some way of trying to distinguish itself from the incumbent. then, and has a massive consumer base and easy access to financing. -- the incumbent has a massive consumer base and easy access to financing. a startup that is looking to make sure the incumbent's customers can find the new guy. in a world where we have so much information out there, it is not enough to be better. you have to find a way to make sure that people who are your

potential customers know you are etter. one way is getting some form of rioritization. you can call advertising or promotion. i can tell you one thing that the likely consequence if we were to close any ability for the startup or anybody to access, it can only mean they would be spending more money on other forms of promotion and prioritization which probably means buying more ads on google. and didn't i mention that google is in favor of net eutrality? there is a possible explanation as for why. i would add 100 additional points but let me add one in particular because i this great quote from tim. it is useful to bring it up. he said, consider that the driver charges you the posted rate and take you where you go and that is common carrier in ction.

i think that is right. title two, treating it like a common carrier is like barring uber. the problem with the overregulated the internet is locking it into a status quo. if you are going to impose regulations in ways that outlaw certain conduct we can conceive of and allow other conduct and most we can conceive of is conduct happening right now. people enshrine those forms of conduct and impede innovation, new business models and ways of structuring not only the nternet but the very content providers, who are the beneficiaries of his net neutrality regime. we have to be really careful before we impose essentially mandate the business models of

the internet of yesterday. we better be sure were not outline the business models of the future. >> there is real common ground. you both think it is working. the internet is working pretty well so far. you, tim, think it's partly because companies have not been able to differentiate. they have not been able to commercially regulate the market and say -- the carrier. and jeffrey, you think that the risk is government. government regulating the nternet. both of you like it pretty well the way it works right now. and the question is what is the definition of an unregulated -- n internet without unhealthy regulation? usually it is government and unhealthy regulation is what it

does without government. >> that is right. unlike acting without regulation, the government has an obligation to defend. the carriers can do what they want, like it or not, until they run afoul of the law. the government has defended its mposition and one of the big issues at least to me, there is really -- as we were just discussing, no evidence anything that has ever happened. a couple of little tiny things that we can debate of the three examples anybody can come all went. the internet works pretty well. even if they are things that may have gone wrong, isn't enough? is it enough evidence for a shift in regulation or is there not enough? while there might be problems own the road, the only valid

course is restraint and humility and we shall wait until the problems materialized because we do not have enough evidence. >> yeah, i wanted to object to this consensus that in the internet works pretty well right now. most of us are being overcharged for service that would, we should be embarrassed by. we are paying first world prices for third world service. a kid in south korea can get to the library of congress website 100 times faster than a kid in the south bronx. if the kid in the south bronx can even afford to buy broadband service for one of the monopolists, who may not be choosing to put fast service into their neighborhood -- they have already paid the rich neighborhood. there are a lot of premises it

got thrown past us. the idea that jacob, we might in five years see more competition or faster services being provided with verizon has already said they are not going to build fios any further than they already have one-stop for most people, unless you want to pay exorbitant prices or moved one of the few cities that either google or a mass -- municipality that is putting this gigabit level of internet service, we are never going to catch up large chunks of the rest of the industrialized world takes for granted at a price a fraction of what we paid. let's not likely to the internet orks well now. from the consumer's point of view, it does not work well at all. >> what i meant, we agreed it works well in terms of fostering innovation and allow them encourage and free expression.

>> he makes a good point. net neutrality is part of a broader conversation. i would side with the view that the antitrust laws have not been in adequate and we have serious problems and we should open the oor. as time goes by, thinking of things -- if you have a continued trend toward more consolidation toward a few companies being in charge and over a pretty important public facility, that naturally invites. a company -- a monopoly that shows no sign of disappearing at all or 2 companies charge monopoly prices, as some point, you have to say, just the price you are going to charge. the case for rate regulation and also saying you need to provide access to more people in exchange for the monopoly is strong and that's what to do ith cable.

i am not saying -- i want to close the door when we have constraints. the government should never say e will allow it monopolist charge excess of the price of the costs because the internet is special. there is no reason to have that kind of will. it needs to keep prices. this is a inequality issue, the sense that while middle-class salaries are flat, the essentials keep getting more and more expensive. internet service being one example and cell phone service. they keep going up. some of these issues are not just tech issues and are becoming issues of what it means to be middle class in this country. we should not taken off the table. >> an important question is whether the carriers are going to become more like monopolies

are less likely monopolies? most people experience them now as companies that behave like onopolies. i certainly do. i am not confident, i do not know which way it will go. hat do we think? >> making net neutrality policy on the basis that people hate comcast is a bad idea. >> if it stays a monopoly -- >> it is not clear that comcast is a monopoly. there is at least one other competitor in about everywhere. we are talking about broadband here. it is true for cable as ell. spoken on broadband, there is at&t or verizon pretty much

everywhere in the country. there are other options, centurylink and other companies that are investing enormously in their networks. why these monopolist have invested trillions of dollars and demonstrated ever improving speeds relative to the costs of content and not especially rapid increases in prices, prices have enerally gone -- >> and that is not true. prices have gone up way past inflation. like 1800. >> you are talking about cable video. the point is that we are not experiencing exactly -- i understand that people hate comcast. their customer service is terrible. we would rather pay less for whenever we want.

all of these things are true but we have to be careful about translating that kind of conflict into and i want to bring it back to that neutrality into the detailed and potentially counterproductive rules we are talking about. maybe, this was a burst of honesty on your point at what you are saying is i wanted a backdoor way to essentially nationalized this infrastructure that i believe should be offered by the government or the very minimum, regulated so heavily by the government it is indistinguishable from if the government was running it. that does not the problem the rules are intended to address. if that's a problem you see, we should talk about it differently. i do not agree with the premises here, i think it is a real problem going from those premises to title 2, carrier for

the benefit of the problem or benefit of solving the supposed problems we have in the net neutrality debate. >> i do not have an idea of the amount of regulation and less to do with competition. i have been involved for 15 or more years now and i the waiting and waiting for the market entry of five or six to make a rigorous and competitive market for delivering cable and internet service. i am happy verizon built in some high expensive neighborhoods in google has wired 2 cities. overall, the state of competition is poor. when you wait and wait, as opposed to sitting there is saying one day competition will come so we should not say anything because competition ill be coming.

we need to act and restrain what are -- you have to act on the facts. comcast is acting like a monopoly. they have raised their price. >> trillions in infrastructure and every year increasing peeds. we can take account of the government subsidies other -- offered in other countries, the services are not necessarily more better and cost more. it is easy to criticize what we have, but it is not at all clear what we have is worse than what others have. more relevant to the neutrality debate is, what are the costs we are bearing of this? if our service is not as good as south korea's and perhaps that is one or two countries where it is true, what are we losing and how much are we willing cost and

burden are willing to there to correct this potentially very small actual costs? > net neutrality, the internet as been an economic golden goose that has laid some valuable eggs for this country. people were asking if the united states was finished as a technological power. there's little question when look at the world's top 10 companies, they are almost all american. being the home of the internet, and open internet, a neutral internet has a lot to do with it. you said startups would do better on a pay to play internet. that is just a mythology. if you ask the startups themselves, they do not want to start their business negotiating ith comcast or verizon for a

-- an extra payment when we have money compared to our director -- competition which would be google or an established company who has a lot more money. it is clear that non-neutral incumbent, not just google in favor. when you look at companies, it is new york companies, spotify. though they would be destroyed. >> destroyed? >> i want to pursue this point. the question of what the absent of net neutrality would likely look like? one example, it is not broadband access to the wireless carriers are verizon, offering certain content with no data charges.

that comes in the form of not directly translatable. that turned out to be very appealing. you will not run of data charges if you are reading certain things. what is the kind of realistic version of what happens if the fcc does not mandate going forward? >> you get more of those things -- >> good or bad -- >> it is a great thing. >> our media will look more like television again. >> how do you mean? >> television is free and only to the extent it is paid by advertisers. if you are someone that attracts lot of advertising -- you are describing jacob, it is already existing in parts of the third world.

it is called facebook zero. what facebook is doing in africa and asia is saying, everybody wants facebook, we will let you bundle with your phone. if people open the phone to get on facebook, there will not be data charges. from the point of the view of the user, they are getting facebook for free but today are not logged onto the internet at all. >> they may actually know that. t is the height of first world hubris to say screw you. i know you want facebook, but you cannot have it because i know something that will be that are for you. >> we have a value difference. an open system is better than a closed system. >> an open system means no internet at a closed system is at least i get facebook, i would take a closed system. that maybe the relevant choice for many people.

>> how do i think things would look? i do not think the walls would fall down. i think it would be a considerably different world for people starting to think of new things. think about "slate" magazine started in the 1990's. you have an idea and you put it out there and you see whether it works or not. so many startups, that's how they start. they take off or they do not. >> you start the position you need to negotiate a deal and if you do not have a deal with verizon or comcast, it starts becoming a permission driven system. the internet become something where it is all about what the better deal as opposed to meritocratic.

it looks more like cable television. the internet follows the path of cable. they were born at the same time. they have been different and the omes much more commercial. the final thing is it will probably untrench this generation. google is relatively quiet except -- and they know that in a non-neutral world, they have the money to pay to get access over their competitors as they could destroy any serious competitors. t locks in the incumbents. > google and amazon are quite, the real debate is over title 2, whether we have common carrier rules. those companies are all in favor of net neutrality and in private conversation, probably opposed to paid privatization. there is no evidence, no reason

to think those roles were not apply to them as well. is another danger of the imposition of this massive regulatory apparatus that be careful what you wish for because you may end up hamstringing the very heart of the ecosystem. tim, i think your vision of what the world is going to look like it's too pessimistic. also because if you work through the economics of it, you realize that is not clearly beneficial to the internet service providers either. we may disagree on exactly where they would fall and what amount of unfettered content is in their best interest, but will

give you an example of netflix and comcast are not simply at odds with each other. comcast precisely because they can get net flex from it or it -- netflix from it. content toent attract people to the internet has to make sure they are offering content. they could just offer great service, which they do not. >> but they still need the content. i don't know exactly where it would fall out, i can see margins where the internet service provider might deter or impede some content providers. in general, they have a very strong interest in people getting access because that's what people are willing to pay for broadband. again, this vision of the small

garage start up not being able to get access. comcast does not care about him. they could care less if the small startup has -- is clogging its pipes. about netflix, it really imposes difficult engineering problems on comcast networks. it is not made up. they really do. the small startup until they get to the size of netflix, comcast is not know they exist. you could create a scenario, a world in which some evil person comes to comcast and say i hate these people and is run by jews as let's stop them. you can constructed that is not likely how it will work out. netflix is going to have to pay comcast and its next competitor will go through because --

>> these are for-profit companies. i do not think they are evil, but today favor with has more money. -- they favor who has more money. it is quite a long way there. there are a few spaces in american society where smaller speaker to have a decent chance. i do not think comcast cares, but cares about the paste it. it is clear to me that speakers with money will get priority and you will see the speakers with less money like wikipedia, which is always struggling for money and does not run ads. the consumer space will get worse. in order to pay comcast, wikipedia will have to say we have to start writing ads. the consumer will pay in the end.

>> wikipedia has zero which is -- >> it is the kind of content that is not neutral. they have no good a model but people rely on it is the kind of content -- why would comcast let that -- >> i'm going to open it up for questions in a minute. >> wikipedia, you said. >> question for any of you. you see amazon dispute relevant here. you have a company with market power discriminating against specific content at down to the level of individual authors. they gave paul ryan a pass. it is a commercial dispute but that they now have the power to do significant harm to the type of people you are talking about. there is no net neutrality that applies to amazon. is that the kind of thing you

are worried about here? >> we need to be worrying about the new concentrations of power and if they are using their platforms in a neutral way or not. we can extend the logic that tim gave us talk about the net is a mutual platform. you talk about amazon's role here and that is worrisome. not saying we have to dissent the old publishing model and hold everything, but playing favorites in the way amazon seems to be doing is very troubling. >> jeffrey, are you cool with what amazon is doing? >> yeah, but i will take the devil after its role -- devil advocate role and point out that as you said, net neutrality

applies only to the internet service provider and not to any of the other alleged gatekeepers that tim has written about. it is really worth thinking through what happens when you mandate neutrality on one part of one level of this ecosystem, but can't or don't on others. a recent dispute between youtube and independent artists who do not get played unless they pay. there are any number. if comcast is a gatekeeper for an author. thousands of examples -- you can think of thousands of examples like that.

on the one hand, it means that, again, i mention bob's blog, if they wanted to stop it, it would be easy. it is wordpress and -- what is his name? "arrested development" -- whatever. that is not the point. if it is standing on its own and it is wordpress. it is not adele versus comcast. it is important to bear in mind, a lot of the independent as small artists as craters, their access come through aggregation services that may have problems we can discuss. they help to counteract the perceived problem of having an isp as a gatekeeper. google versus comcast which is a much fair fight.

>> many of them are not-for-profit. >> very few of them really matter and are successful. wikipedia is one of a very few examples. i am not saying it is across the board in happens everywhere. thing about the fact that dynamic exists and helps to moderate some of the perceived problems because there are very powerful entities who are potential he threatened by this room preciousness -- repatriciousness. if you tell the comcast, amazon, google, whoever has paid intermediary to you are increasing their power.

you have shifted the locus of any problem from comcast to google or youtube. in net neutrality debate about i am doing devil advocate a you are right about everything in respect to amazon are we better off if amazon has unfettered ability, no potential impediment to doing whatever it wants digital from isp direction? >> i do not understand how comcast is serving a check on amazon. ? comcast is acting -- and grabbing all types of rent money out of the company -- random money out of the company and that is bad. amazon is doing something else that is bad and some -- bad. >> the problem with youtube. >> over here, don't you need to solve both of the problems?

>> i want to take a few questions. you can keep talking but let me see if there are any hints. if you have a question, tell us your name and one quick question. >> my name is melissa and i am with a fellowship program called sense makers and we try to make sense of information on the internet. i used to do investigative reporting for all of the shows. i am finding you cannot have the same effect where you get somebody out of prison or a new vaccine on the internet. it does not happen. the internet's most out in his own fashion very slowly compared to have everybody look at a topic. where do you see the internet having the same effect?

>> if i understand your question correctly, what you are saying is basically back in the good old days, a program that "60 minutes" for a network news show could focus our attention on a problem and that would often lead to some fix. and today, we have a new kind of problem which is we have an oversupply of information, if anything the internet has made it too easy for us to speak. that's a topic i take up in my new book. what do we do about this? how do we refocus? yes? i would say -- the reasons why -- there are many reasons why in the united states why it seems as though our political and governmental system is dysfunctional, they get the blame, it gets pointed back and forth.

i would just suggest that part of the problem is our attention wanders to quickly now. we go from crisis to crisis and the system they used to then respond it immediately on to something else. the internet is causing a societal attention deficit disorder and we often would personally and our need to check for the latest e-mail, latest tweet instead of sticking on things. i think this may be something we can grow ourselves out of as we learn to better filter the media we are being surrounded with now. that is an open question. i am hopeful we can do that. i think you're absolutely right. it is a problem today. >> other questions? if not, we can continue the argument we are having. yes?

>> hi. last week, my internet stopped working and i have time warner. it turned out, we will not talk about the merger. time warner stop my service so that we could upgrade. if other people also have time warner, maybe this happened to them. they were offering me a better modem at 50 megabits per second and i had 20. the way they got my attention was to shut off my service. i don't think that's an isolated example because from over the phone, that was a policy.

but not only is that an isolated example, precisely the same thing happened to me. you talk about monopolistic behavior -- if we're going to talk about time warner or stories, we will be here forever. >> i will go first. i believe the merger should be blocked will stop i think we already have a problem with unresponsive, overly concentrated power in the cable sector and the merger would make it worse. not only net neutrality things and i've tried to stick with them, but i think prices are the thing that bothers me. time warner, the average bill in 1992 was between $12 and $20. a lot of it is a ramming but has grown outlandishly.

the average comcast bill is $155 per customer per month. if comcast succeeds in getting the same money they've got out of new yorkers, that means in this state alone, one point $6 billion year extra for consumers. cable companies are making enough money as it is and i think the merger should be stopped. comcast has not said anything as to what would be in the public interest. they say these vapid, empty things like we will be delivering in the public interest. i think there's nothing about the merger i have read that makes it the public interest will stop the word and back in the progressive era when people looked at this problem of over concentration, they are like we need to not allow mergers for these industries when they are not in the public interest. comcast has yet to meet their

burden of proof and the merger should be stopped. >> not as a matter of antitrust. we have a -- we have had an enormous amount of trust and we have learned concentration does not translate into monopolistic power. this merger in particular what happened to replace in new york, it would replace time warner with comcast. you have to make out a case why replacing one monopolist with another, why you are likely to have any competitive outcomes that are relevant to the merger and the fact of the matter is there are not any. lex i mentioned some price differentials about a minute

ago. >> you mentioned they exist in different markets with different roddick's. i don't know this for sure but i'm pretty sure comcast would say our service is better, we give you something more and you would have to adjust to the data you are throwing around. >> they will replace the exact same internet that was costing you $105 with something that would cost $155. >> we have a question here and hopefully it will give you a chance for a brief last word. ask i'm a layperson and i don't see where there is an antitrust system working in this country or globally where we have the concept of too big to fail with hyper banks in other institutions, so i wish you wouldn't like me where this is actually working because we have this huge concentration of wealth and whole countries being wrung out.

>> whatever the standards are undergirding too big to fail apply to comcast and there may be interest in the financial markets and if you want to look for blame there, i would not look at antitrust economics or even the enforcement agencies. i would look higher up the chain to the white house and the federal reserve. there are a lot of people with a lot of interests in treating those banks differently. i don't know that there is an actual economic basis for breaking up the banks but there are a lot of lyrical reasons they did not. >> i think a lot of the debates going around is a divide as to the more fundamental level as to whether business as usual, where we have a faith and competition to displace regulation and we are not really -- we have a narrow definition of what monopolies are and we have weak enforcement since the reagan and restriction.

everything has been great and we should continue that, but we have people like me you think it is time for a change. have a serious problem of inequality which is exacerbated by the government failing to take any serious action to restrain cable monopolies and stop mergers like time warner-comcast and start thinking about what are the day-to-day costs americans are facing? how is this economy working for normal, middle-class people? our existing system has done some good exempt creative some wealth but it has failed middle-class and i think we need to re-examine from the bottom up things like how we regulate the largest carriers and how we enforce the antitrust laws.

i feel like that is a difference of opinion on this panel. >> i would say the internet has gone from being a lucky accident to the network that connects all the networks. it's the functional equivalent of the dialtone of the 21st-century. right now, there's a kid sitting on the stoop of a public library branch somewhere in upper manhattan who cannot afford internet access at home and is sitting there because they are getting free wi-fi that leaks out of the library even after the library is closed. people can't even apply for jobs

today if they don't have a way of getting online. when people go to public libraries, the first use when someone goes to the library is to figure out how to put on their resume and apply for a job will stop this is essential to our economic life love and the idea that we should take a hands-off, let the big boys figure out approach is not one we can afford. >> this was not billed as a debate, but it is a very good one. thank you all for participating. [applause] >> c-span veterans day coverage begins tuesday morning during "washington journal" with an

interview with verna jones. then at 10:00 the annual uso gala featuring martin dempsey. and we are live at 11:00 from arlington national ceremony at the tomb of the unknowns. discussion on the veterans mental health issues. >> congress is on break and both bodies returned wednesday at 2:00 p.m. eastern. government is operating on tertiary spending through december. leader mitch mcconnell is expected to be elected majority letter by his -- majority leader by his republican colleagues. earlier this year he talked

about what he would like to see happen if republicans gained control. this is 40 minutes. >> mr. president over the past several years, those who are fortunate enough to serve here engaged in many fierce debates. use have been forced upon including a searing financial crisis, while others were thought about by an unapologetically liberal resident who promised dramatic trains and who worked -- change and to worked hard to follow through. caseme cases, even in the of legal obstacles and widespread public opposition. so change has indeed come. despite the daily from beat of headlines about gridlock and

thatnction, the truth is an activist president and democratic controlled senate have managed to check off a lot of items on their wish list, one way or another. just as important as what they did, my colleagues is how they did it. heart of son at the many of the fights we have had around here. these conflicts have not stemmed from personal grievances or contempt as a somewhat have it, they are instead the inevitable consequence of an administration in such a hurry to impose its

agenda that it neglected to persuade the public of the wisdom and then cast aside one forhe greatest tools guaranteeing a durable and stable legislative consensus. that too is united states senate. remember -- i think we all know partnership is not some recent innovation here, invention. american politics has always been more or less divided between two ideological camps. today, that's reflected in the two major parties but it's actually always been there. on one side are those who proudly place their trust in government and its agents to guide our institutions and

direct our lives. on the other are those of us who put our trust in the wisdom and the creativity -- creativity of private citizens working voluntarily with each other and through more local mediating institutions guided by their own sense of what is right, what is fair, and what is good. now, recent polling suggests, by the way, that most americans fall squarely into the latter camp. people are generally confident in their local governments but lack confidence in washington. and yet despite -- despite the political and ideological divides which have always existed in our country, we'ves almost always managed to work out our differences not by humiliating the other side into

submission but through simple give and take. it is the secret of our success. the same virtues that make any friendship or marriage or family or business work are the ones that have always made this country work. and the place where it happens, the place where all the national conflicts and controversies that arise in big -- in this big, diverse, wonderful country of ours have always been resolved, always been resolved right here in this chamber. right here. now, i realize it may not be immediately obvious why that's

the case. but the fact is every serious student of this institution from de tocqueville to our late colleague robert byrd has seen the senate as uniquely important to america's stability and to its flourishing. in their view, it's made all the difference. and here's why: because whether it was the fierce early battles over the shape and scope of the federal government, or those that surrounded industrialization or those that preceded and followed the nation-rending civil war, or those surrounding the great wars of the 20th century or the expansion of the franchise or decades long, or the war on terror, we have always, always found a way forward. sometimes haltingly, but always

steadily. and the senate is the tool that has enabled us to find our footing almost every time. i mention this because as we begin a new year, i think it's appropriate to step back from all the policy debates that have occupied us over the past few years and focus on another debate we've been having around here and the debate we've been having around here is over the state of this institution. what have we become? it's not a debate that ever caught fire with the public or with the press. but it's a debate that should be of grave importance to all of us. because on some level, on some level, every single one of us

has to be at least a little bit uneasy about what happened here last november. but even if you're completely at peace about what happened in november, even if you think it was perfectly fine, to violate the all-important rules that says changing the rules requires the assent of two-thirds of senators elected and sworn, none of us should be happy with the trajectory the senate was on before that day, even before november. or the condition that we find the senate in 225 years after it was created. i don't think anybody is comfortable with where we are. i know i'm not. and i'll bet even though there is nobody here at the moment, i'll bet almost none of them are, either.

so i'd like to share a few thoughts on what i think we've lost over the last sench years -- seven years and what i think can be done about it together. now, together obviously requires the involvement, you would think, of some people on the other side of the aisle. and even though they're not hear to listen, they have been invited. so let me state at the outset, it's not my intention to point the finger of blame at anybody. though some of that is inevitable, i don't presume to have all the answers, either, and i'm certainly not here to claim that we are without fault. but i'm certain of one thing. i'm absolutely certain of one thing. the senate can be better than it

is. many of us around here have seen a better senate than we have now. no matter who was in the majority. this institution can be better than it is. and i just can't believe that on some level everyone in this chamber, including the folks on the other side, doesn't agree. it just can't be the case that we're content with the theatrics and the messaging wars that go on here day after day. it just can't be the case that senators who grew up reading about the great statesman who made their name and their mark here over the years are now suddenly content to just stand in front of a giant poster board making some poll-tested point of the month day after day after

day. and then run back to our respective corners and congratulate each other on how right we are. i just can't believe we're all happy with that. on either side. don't misunderstand me. there's a time for making a political point, even scoring a few points. i know that as well as anybody. but it can't be the only thing we do here. i mean surely we do something other than scoring political points against each other. it cheapens the service we've sworn to provide to our constituents. it cheapens the senate. which is a lot bigger than any of us. so hopefully we can all agree that we got a problem here. now, i realize both sides have their own favored account of what caused it. we've got our talking points, they've got their talking

points. we all repeat them with great repetition and we all congratulate each other for being on the right side of the debate. look, i get that. the guys over there think republicans abuse the rules, and we think they do. but as i said, my goal here isn't to make converts on that front. my purpose is to suggest that the senate can do better than it has been and that we must be if we're to remain as a great nation. and i think the crucial first step of any vision that gets us there is to recognize vigorous debate about our differences isn't some sickness to be lamented. vigorous debate is not a

problem. when did that become a problem? it's actually a sign of strength to have vigorous debates. you know, it's a common refrain among pundits that the fights we have around here are pointless. they're not at all pointless. every single debate we have around here is about something important. what's unhealthy is when we neglect the means that we've always used to resolve our differences. that's the real threat to this country o, not more debate. when did that become a problem? and the best mechanism we have for working through our differences and arriving at a durable consensus is the united states senate. an executive order can't do it. the fiat of a nine-person court

can't do it. a raucous and pregarious partisan majority in the house can't do it. the only institution that can make stable and enduring laws is the one we have in which all 50 states are represented equally and where every single senator has a say in the laws that we pass. this is what the senate was designed for. it is what the senate is supposed to be about. and almost -- almost -- always has been. just take a look at some of the most far-reaching legislation of the past century. look at the vote tallies. medicare and medicaid were both approved with the support of about half the members of the minority. the voting rights act of 1965 passed with the votes of 30 out of the 32 members of the

republican minority. all but two republican senators. there weren't many of them. that was the year after the goldwater debacle. only two senators voted against the social security act and only eight voted against the americans with disabilities act. now, none of this happened, by the way, none of it happened by throwing these bills together in a back room and dropping them on the floor with a stopwatch running. it happened through a laborious process of legislating, persuasion, coalition building. it took time and it took patience and hard work and it guaranteed that every one of these laws had stability. stability. now, compare that -- compare that, if you will, to the

attitude behind obamacare. when democrats couldn't convince any of us that the bill was worth supporting as written, they decided to do it on their own and pass it on a party-line vote and now we're seeing the result. the chaos this law has visited on our country isn't just deeply tragic, it was, my friends, entirely predictable. entirely predictable. and that will always be the case if you approach legislation without regard for the views of the other side, without some meaningful buy-in, you guarantee a food fight. you guarantee instability and you guarantee strife. it may very well have been the case that on obamacare, the will of the country was not to pass the bill at all. that's what i would have concluded if republicans couldn't get a single democratic

vote for legislation of that magnitude. i'd have thought, well, maybe this isn't such a great idea. but democrats plowed forward anyway. they didn't want to hear it. and the results are clear -- it's a mess. an absolute mess. the senate exists to prevent that kind of thing, because without a moderating institution like the senate, today's majority passes something and tomorrow's majority repeals it. today's majority proposes something. tomorrow's majority opposes it. we see that in the house all the time. but when the senate is allowed to work the way it was designed to, it arrives at a result that's acceptable to people all along the political spectrum. that, my friends, is the whole

point. we've lost our sense for the value of that, and none of us should be at peace with that. because if america is to face up to the challenges we face in the decades ahead, she'll need the senate, th the founders in their wisdom intended, not the hollow shell of the senate we have today. not the hollow shell of the senate we have today. first, one of the traditional hallmarks of the senate is a vigorous committee process. it is also one of the main things we've lost. there was a time not that long ago when chairmen and ranking members had major influence and used their positions to develop national policy on everything from farm policy to nuclear ar

arms. these men and women enriched the entire senate through their focus and their expertise. just as importantly, they provided an important counterweight to the executive branch. they provided one more check on the white house. if a president thought something was a good idea, he'd better make sure he ran it by the committee chairman who'd been studying it for the past two decades. and if the chairman disagreed, well, then they'd have a serious debate and probably reach a better product as a result. the senate should be setting national priorities not simply waiting on the white house to do it for us. and the place to start that process is in the committees. with few exceptions, that's gone. with very few exceptions, that's gone. it's a big loss to the institution. but most importantly, it's a big

loss for the american people who expect us to lead. and here's something else we've gained from a robust committee process over the years. committees have actually served as a school of bipartisanship. and if you think about it, it just makes sense. by the time a bill gets through committee, you would expect it to come out in a form that was a a -- generally, broadly acceptable to both sides. nobody got everything but more often than not, everybody got something. and the product was stable because there was buy-in and a sense of ownership on both sides, and on the rare occasions when that's happened recently, we've seen that work.

the committee process today in the united states senate is a shadow of what it used to be. thereby marginalizing, reducing the influence of every single member of the senate on both sides of the aisle. major legislation is now routinelroutinely drafted not in committee but in the majority leader's conference room and then dropped on the floor with little or no opportunity for members to participate in the amendment process, virtually guaranteeing a fight. now, there's a lot of empty talk around here about the corrosive influence of partisanship. well, if you really want to do something about it, you should support a more robust committee process. that's the best way to end the permanent sort of "shirts against skins" contest the

senate has become. bills should go through committee. and if republicans are fortunate enough -- republicans are fortunate enough -- to gain the majority next year, that will be done. second, bills should come to the floor and be thoroughly debated. we've got an example of that going on right now. and that includes a robust amendment process. in my view, there's far too much paranoia about the other side around here. what are we afraid of? both sides have taken liberties and abused privileges, i'll admit that, but the answer isn't to provoke even more. the answer is to let folks debate. this is the senate.

let folks debate. let the senate work its will. and that means bringing bills to the floor, it means having a free and open amendment process. that's legislating. that's what we used to do here. that's exactly the way this place operated just a few years ago. the senior senator from illinois, the democratic assistant majority leader, likes to say, or at least used to say, that if you don't want to fight fires, don't become a fireman. and if you don't want to cast tough votes, don't come to the senate. i guess he hasn't said that lately. when we used to be in the majority, i remember telling people, look, the good news, we're in the majority. the bad news is, in order to get the bill across the floor, you've got to cast a lot of votes you don't want to take. and you know, we did it and

people groaned about it, complained about it. the sun still came up the next day. and everybody felt like they were a part of the process. well, senator durbin was right about that when he said it and i think it's time to allow senators on both sides to more fully participate in the legislative process, and that means having a more open amendment process around here. as i said, obviously, it requires you from time to time to cast votes you'd rather not cast. but we're all grownups. i mean, we can take that. there's rarely ever a vote you cast around here that's fatal. and the irony of it all is that kind of process makes the place a lot less contentious. in fact, it's a lot less

contentious when you vote on tough issues than when you don don't. because when you're not allowed to do that, everybody is angry about being denied the opportunity to do what you were sent here to do, which is to represent the people that elected you and to offer ideas that you think are worth considering. we had a meeting we just came out of. senator cornyn was pointing out there were 13 amendments that people on this side of the aisle would like to offer on this bi bill. all of them related to the subject and important to each senator who seriously felt there was a better way to improve the bill that's on the floor right now. but, alas, i expect that opportunity will not be allowed because one person who's allowed to get priority recognition can prevent us from getting any

amendments or, even worse still, pick our amendments for us. to decide which of our amendments are okay and which aren't. i remember the late ted stevens telling the story about when he first got here. senator mansfield was still the majority leader and he tried to offer an amendment, senator stevens did, and the -- a member of the majority who was managing the bill prevented it, in effe effect. and senator mansfield came over to senator stevens, took his amendment, went back to his desk and sent it to the floor for h him. sent it to the floor for him. that was the senate not too long ago. if someone isn't allowed to get

a vote on something they believe in, of course they're going to retaliate. of course they're going to retaliate. but if they get a vote every once in awhile, they don't feel the need to. voting on amendments is good for the senate and it's good for the country. our constituents should have a greater voice in the process. since july of last year, there have been four republican roll call votes. in the whole second half of 20 2013, members on this side of the aisle have gotten four roll call votes. stunning. that's today's senate.

so let me say this. if republicans are fortunate enough to be in the majority next year, amendments will be allowed. senators will be respected. we will not make an attempt to rain controversy out of -- wring controversy out of an institution that expects, demands, approves of great debates about the problems confronting the country. now, a common refrain from democrats is republicans have been too quick to block bills from ever coming to the floor. what they failed to mention, of course, is that often we have done this either because we have been shut out of the drafting process -- in other words, had nothing to do with writing the bill in the first place -- or it's been made pretty clear that

there won't be any amendments, which is in all likelihood the situation we're in this very day. in other words, we already knew the legislation was shaping up to be a purely partisan exercise in which people we represent wouldn't have any meaningful input at all, and why would we want to participate in that? is it good for our constituents? does it lead to a better product? of course not. all it leads to is a lot more acrimony. so look, i get it. if republicans had just won the white house and the house and had a 60-vote majority in the senate, we would be tempted to empty our outbox, too. but you can't spend two years emptying your outbox and then complain about the backlash. if you want fewer fights, give

the other side a say. and that brings me to one of the biggest things we have lost around here as i see it. the big problem, my colleagues, has never been the rules, never been the rules. senators from both parties have in the past revered and defended the rules during our nation's darkest hours. the real problem, the real problem is an attitude that views the senate as an assembly line for one party's partisan legislative agenda, rather than as a place to build consensus to solve national problems. we have become far too focused on making a point instead of making a difference. making a point instead of making good, stable law. we have gotten too comfortable with viewing everything we do here through the prism of the

next election instead of the prism of duty, and everyone suffers as a result. as i see it, a major turning point came during the final years of the bush administration when the democratic majority held vote after vote on bills they knew wouldn't pass. now, look, i'm not saying republicans have never staged a showboat when we were in the majority. i'm not saying i don't even enjoy a good messaging vote from time to time. but you've got to wonder if that's all you're doing why you're here. it's become entirely too routine , and it diminishes the senate. i don't care which party you're in. you came here to legislate, to make a difference for your constituents, yet over the past several years the senate seems more like a campaign studio than

a serious legislative body. both sides have said and done things over the past few years we probably wish we hadn't. but we can, we can improve the way we do business. we can be more constructive, we can work through our differences. we can do things that need to be done, but there will have to be major changes if we're going to get there. the committee process must be restored. we need to have an open amendment process. and finally, let me suggest we need to learn how to put in a decent week's work around here. a decent week's work. you know, most americans don't work three days a week. they would be astonished to find out that that's about it around here. how about the power of the clock to force consensus?

the only way 100 senators will be truly able to have their say, the only way we would be able to work through our tensions and disputes is if we're here more. not too long ago -- and a number of you will remember this -- when thursday night was the main event around here. remember that? thursday night was the main event. and there is a huge incentive to finish on thursday night if you want to leave on friday. it was amazing how it worked. even the most eager beaver among us with a long list of amendments that were good for the country, maybe ten or 12, around noon on thursday, you would be down to two or one by midnight on thursday. it was amazing how consent would be reached when fatigue set in.

all it took was for the leader, the majority leader, who is in charge of the agenda, to say look, this is important, there is bipartisan support for this, it came out of committee, we want to have an open amendment process, but we want to finish this week. and we can finish on thursday afternoon or thursday night or friday morning. i mean, we almost never get worn out around here. whatever happened to the fatigue factor to bring things to a close? amendments voluntarily go away. but important ones still got offered. and everybody feels like they have got a chance to be involved in the process, no matter which side of the aisle they are on. this is thick effective on bills that have come out of committee with bipartisan support so there is an interest actually in passing it. we almost never do that anymore.

almost never. on those occasions, we work late, sometimes well into the morning. i know that sounds kind of quaint to people who haven't been around here very long, but it actually worked. and there is nothing wrong with staying up a little later and getting to a conclusion i can remember the majority leader himself when he was whip walking around late at night on thursdays with his whip card, making sure he had enough votes to do whatever he wanted to do. when you finish one of those debates, whether you ended up voting against the bill or for the bill, you didn't have the feeling that unless you chose to go away with your amendment, you would have been denied the opportunity to participate and to be a part of the process and

actually make a difference for your constituents. that's how you reach consensus, by working and talking and cooperating through give and take. that's the way everyone's patience is worn down. not just the majority leader's patience. everyone can agree on a result, even if they don't vote for it in the end. using the clk to force consensus is the greatest proof of that, and if republicans are in the majority next year, we'll use the clock. everybody gets an opportunity, but we use the clock, we will work harder and get results. restoring the committee process, allowing the senators to speak through an open amendment process, extending the workweek are just a few things the senate could and should do differently. none of it would guarantee an

end to partisan rancor. there is nothing wrong with partisan debates. it's good for the country. none of it would cause us to change our principles or our views about what's right and what's wrong with our country. partisanship itself is not the problem. the real problem have been a growing lack of confidence in the senate's ability to mediate the tensions and disputes we have always had around here. there are many reasons some have lost that confidence, and ultimately both parties have to assume some of the blame. but we can't be content to leave it at that. for the good of the country, we need to work together to restore this institution. america's strength and resilience has always depended on our ability to adapt to the various challenges of our day. sometimes that's meant changing the rules when both parties think it's warranted.

and when the majority leader decided a few weeks back to defy bipartisan position -- there was bipartisan opposition to what happened in november by changing the rules that govern this place with a simple majority, he broke something. he broke something. but our response can't be to sit back and accept the demise of the senate. this body has survived mistakes and excesses before, and even after some of its worst period, it's found a way to spring back and to be the place where even the starkest differences and the fiercest ideological disputes are hashed out by consensus and mutual respect. indeed, it's during periods of its greatest polarization that the value of the senate is most clearly seen. so let me wrap it up this way.