i have a comment and question. it is based on the fact i began my legal career as a state court prosecutor in miami, florida and i think it goes to what andrew said earlier my experience was i don't really feel it makes a huge difference whether the judge directly asks or there is a campaign committee. the process in miami which is the largest jurisdiction it florida it is fairly small and campaigns committees organize fund-raisers often at bars and all of us prosecutors who made $30,000 or $40,000 would come for the free beer and defense attorneys with come to contribute. i think it the criminal side of things where i was prosecuting this is my question for tracy you mentioned that you see particularly closer to elections judges become more law and order focused yet the prosecutors are not the ones donating the money.

so i have a question as to how that actually works. we don't have any money to contribute. it is the defense bar that has a fair amount of moan. being see on the civil side where certainly money may play a larger rule but on the criminal side i have a hard time seeing how those studies would validate the suggestion that the campaign contributions do have an impact. as a more general matter it with seem to me that there is very little actual distinction especially at sort of county levels where everyone knows everyone and the judge can look at the list of who contributed and it does not really matter whether or not it is the campaign committee that asks or the uphill, the uphill will know who his friends are and who are not his trends. i'm curious why there's not more of a move to -- florida passed the laws to solve the problem but it does not really seem this particular law solves the

problem and i think when you think of the massey case i think there was a trip to the south of france involved in that one so the issue seems to be not so much the direct solicitation but the campaign contributions. >> the criminal case findings are not as direct an effect as the effect in cases involving law firms and, say tort suits, mass litigation, businesses and business disputes between individuals or businesses as defendants in tort case. in those kisses the hypothesis and what they are testing is the direct effect. a business gives orloff gives and does better in court subsequently or similar firms, similar businesses do better in court subsequently. the theory behind the effect on a criminal's rights is that if a business wants to oppose you or a law firm wants to oppose your

re-election typically the best argument it the public is not you are against the position that favors my business, favors if you are a plaintiff lawyer favors plaintiff last. the best argument is you are not law and order and there is what we see. the fund inging behind campaigns to unseat judges is funding from entities typically indifferent to criminal cases but they recognize the best ad is about a criminal case. so, that is the theory behind it because you are certainly right. prosecutors are not substantial donors to judges and many states they are not allowed to donate to judicial campaigns. >> i want to add something. one of my colleagues at the marshall project did a long piece last month on this very issue, judicial elections and campaign ads that rise up against them, and you are dealing with one of the post

cynical components of campaigns and specially judicial campaigns and the idea that these business interests who care about tort reform or who care about jurisdiction or who care about liability and other issues aren't going to come to consumers with news and television an papers and say let's band together and they are going to say this judge is soft on child sex offenders and we -- those ads are more and more pervasive even as there is this countermovement in this country, i think, to be a little more sensible about crime and dramatization of crime. i think that is going in one direction and these ads are going in the other direction and they are effective because they are pervasive in all of these states. and if they were not working they would not be happening. >> as to why states are barring

only solicitation by the candidate rather than by the committees committees, i think the a.b.a. code proposal reflects an understanding of the first amendment concerns with these far more severe. >> we are making an increasingly difficult situation for mr. microphone man. >> thank you. i'm drawing this question from memory rather than recent reviews but if i recall about two or 2 1/2 years ago judge litman in new york put in a threshold of $2,500 for recuse sal. has that gonna effect and have any of you looked at it and how is that working? >> it is slightly different. it is not actually recusal. it sis -- it tames through the assignment system. so if a judge has received more than $2,500 contribution and the

amount difficults slightly based on the level of judges. we elect our trial judges and our intermediate appellate judges, lie court judges are appointed. so a judge has received that much the administrative office of the court automatically assigns the case to another judge and the judge never knows alternative potentially getting that case. we are in the process of doing some research on various recusal regimes to figure out how to assess their effectiveness. it is a very interesting system and removes the discretionary element from the challenged judge and takes away any sort of appearance that the judge is a judge in their own case and we think it is a very interesting system. >> i find it an incentive to contribute heavily to judges you don't want on your cases. >> one issue with any recuse alal

practice in is a potential for gamesmanship and that is why it is an effective regime. >> there are systems that will give the opposing the counsel the option of keeping them out by hitting the maximum. >> an easy one for you. >> thanks for bringing this event together. i'm a reporter at the center for public integrity in washington, d.c. in terms of the notion of candidates doing the direct solicitation versus their campaigns judicial races are not something i'm as familiar as federal candidates running for office. i was curious how professional are -- we have these 39 states that have different things. in all of these cases are we assuming that there is a judge, there is a campaign manager, a treasurer or are in some cases

some of these races just one person operations and what is the practical intrerpbs versus the -- inference versus the campaign making the solicitation versus the judge making this ask? >> while you are thinking of a response go on line and look at some of the websites. for example, some of the justices in texas, some of the websites they have are as professional as -- they are not one-person shows. i haven't done any empirical studies but from what i have seen not just in texas but elsewhere, they are often very sophisticated operations because there is more money available. it is an investment if you are a judge and want to stay a judge or judicial candidate and want to become a judge it is part of the price of doing business which is ironically exactly what

the donors are saying. they want to get something for what they pay for and expect to get something for what they pay for. so my sense is from writing about it a couple of years ago and last year, it is a very sophisticated operation at this point in most cases. >> and there is a big difference between states and races. we have documented many state supreme court races are just multi- multimillion dollar affairs and huge sophisticated well funded expensive operations. going down to, say, the case we are discussing today you might have a much smaller affair where not much money is raised and spent and perhaps you could have a very small campaign committee of only a couple of people. one thing i would say is it doesn't seem especially onerous to require a aspiring judge to read the rules and follow them.

if they are unable to do that, i think we should question their fitness to sit on the bench. >> no more questions? great. we appreciate your being here and listening to us an hopefully you have taken something out of this and we will be around after to answer any questions. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> next q&a with author dick lehr and live at 7:00 a.m. calls an comments on "washington journal." live at noon the u.s. house gavels for general speeches with legislative business beginning at 2:00 p.m. today maryland representative chris van hollen will talk about wage stagnation at the center for american progress action fund. he is currently the ranking democrat on the committee. our live coverage begins at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. >>

>> this week on "q&a," our guest is dick lehr, author of "the birth of a nation: how a legendary filmmaker and a crusading editor reignited america's civil war." >> dick lehr, in a recent washington post review, the gentleman who wrote it, it starts off this way -- no red-blooded american would favor censoring works of art. while reading dick lehr's book you may find yourself rooting for that with a clampdown of the 1915 film of the same name. >> isn't that a great start? >> why "the birth of a nation" and what is it? >> it's considered the first blockbuster film. the story i want to tell is not only the making and release of the film in 1915 but the controversy that it provoked.

bout a civil rights leader from a boston by the name of william monroe trotter, a radical newspaper editor as well who was at the forefront of extensive protest action against this bill -- film about civil war and reconstruction which is entirely racist in its portrayal of black america. >> if it were to come out today, what would happen? >> i hope it would not get censored but i hope there will be lots of protest drawing attention to the racism at the heart of the story and in griffith's hands. >> we are going to do a minute want to show the opening of this if people have not seen it in -- they will understand what it looks like. it is three hours. let's watch. [video clip]

>> the first minute, what did we just see? >> we showed griffith, the first thing of this union in america of africans enslaved to the united states.

it sets the note, the tone that freeing slaves was a huge mistake. >> when did you first watch and what was your reaction? >> my first viewing was in a film history course in college. it is the starting point. this movie in terms of filmmaking techniques was a breakthrough moment in american film. usually in survey courses, this where you begin. a lot of attention is paid to griffith's techniques, use of the close-up and crosscutting to enhance the drama. also the epic scale, it goes on for three hours. that was that. that is where i first got into it. there's a huge disconnect between the technique and the story it tells of the civil war and reconstruction.