federal government, an institution like congress, you will not see that level of disruption at the same pace. it manifests itself in my view with things like approval

ratings. the approval ratings that persist through a majority and a republican majority, those are different ideologies. it is a process rejection. i think that is an important issue for our country and programs like this and others. i think the united kingdom has done exciting work while they modernize legislative activity. think it is a challenge for our community. at a certain point, how can you regulate uber if you live in a motorcade? at a certain point we need our legislative institutions and executive leaders to be connected with the reality of our society.

it is, with the rise of television, the rise of radio, i think we will get there. i think that the issue of relation -- regulation, through the existence of technology in the decades, it is unique. it protects the disruption of itself. you see a regulatory response, as a weapon to protect itself. the industry needs to keep the public on its side, because without that it will never be able to defeat those static interest. think about things like self driving cars. i think, they are good for society on a variety of levels. how will that affect the insurance agency, the tax industry, the trucking industry, all these other industries. it will be a massive fight and you can see the companies and is rumored deal with things like that on a daily basis. i do not think that that technology industry will succeed unless they protect the interest of their users so they can leverage that any modern corporate grassroots organizing. >> i think that there is a potential for the industry and the government. there are ways in which a service like lift could share data with the city in which they operate and perhaps the city improve delivery. we have done experiments and boston, i should say products during this session, i got a notice about the broken glass that i reported on the sidewalk by my house using our city at -- app had been cleaned up a few hours after i reported it. that is about recognizing that people expect a standard that is defined by what the technology industry has created.

i would ask somebody and government, two people who work in the technology department look for ways to reach out to us. we have obligations, but a desire to up our game and match expectations that people have. instead of thinking about it as how do we avoid this regulation, how do we avoid this or that there are opportunities for people to come out of this delivering a great product whether they be citizens or paying customers. >> i have a question, or maybe a statement, that here lately there is a libertarian moment and politics. maybe the rise of startups drives that. when you look at what is going

on with uber and lyft, there is a pressure on government on the way to regulate transportation services. i think about this, where maybe the government will have to rethink a lot of things. one that ultimately lead to a general push to increasingly de-regulate sectors of the economy, to make it easier for companies to start up and for people to use the internet. maybe it will deregulate trend -- traditional industries. is it going to be in ad -- an ad-hoc basis? >> i am from trip advisor. i think what you may see is consumer appetite. there is a willingness to have more experimentation. i think what you are seeing with airbnb and others, there is a bumping up against regulation.

we are supportive of those new technologies, being able to aggregate, getting people to sign up. that power has not existed up until now. that is an amazing opportunity for an entrepreneur to be able to find a market and demand that is picked up by the populace. as that proliferate, we have seen in many instances, all of these things over the past 10 years, there has been a little bit of let's see how this plays out. that is something that local government can do. i do think that there is tremendous opportunity in the 35,000 municipalities that airbnb is in, to test and learn what we do is a technology company.

there is an amazing lab around the world to be able to see what works and doesn't work. i think that can be applied to the federal government and what you're talking about. it can be done with congress how boston implements technology and uses it. taking the best from what boston can do, chicago, new york city and seeing what works. i don't know if it will work from a top-down approach. it is something that we could reasonably look forward to. >> juliet, then margaret, then adam. >> i want to come back to what matt raised about technologies thinking about technological unemployment.

maybe talk a little bit about the economic context in which all of this is happening. because the sharing economy companies particularly, but tech companies in general as well they claim a lot of public good effects. and if we think about the massive employment destroying capabilities of these technologies, that is the flip side to efficiency. they are really -- you really have to own that part of disruptive as well. and ask the question, what about technological unemployment. something that came up yesterday, and it really wasn't

addressed well, it is true that new jobs are created. but if you think about the whole picture of economic analysis and you look at the last two centuries and how technological unemployment got absorbed, it worked in two ways. it was growth, rapidly growing economies. and secondly, massive reduction in hours of work. we went from average hours being 3000 hours to under 2000. neither of those, in the united states, neither of those conditions offered at the moment. we are a mature economy, we haven't slow growth. we have a new report about the member economies. we are facing a future of low gdp growth rates over the next decades. we have big barriers to the reduction of hours in the united states. we cannot just assume that we are going to be able to absorb. we really -- it is -- if this

sector wants to be able to not only promote gains in the narrow, but also have the whole thing work out in a way that doesn't yield public good, we have to be thinking about those larger labor markets. >> i will hop in here. some of this is the way we want to look at the market. if you're looking at something, and we have maxed out what we are capable of doing in the market place, i think that this is a bigger problem. but if you look at it as, the pie is so much bigger than we realized. i will give you an example, our chicago team reported back in 2013, that they added 25,000 rides to the economy in chicago.

they did not take 25,000 from taxicabs, it was 25,000 more rides for the city. there is a potential for those services. the demand has only been out there. now we have the technology to actually meet the demand. it changes the entire economic makeup. we are on the cusp of an economic seachange. the way that the economy works there was a time when a horse and buggy was on the road next to a car. the world is changing and that way and technology is allowing the change to happen. i think that there are valid concerns, but as it grows, there is potential for solutions to be there. if you stifle the growth at a fear because we do not know the answer of what it is, we are stuck and we will never move forward. >> we are trying to encourage the idea among economists and employers that increased wages are a good sign for economic growth. i also -- also think about using

your customers, mobilizing them to affect policy change. that can work both ways too. it can lead to people who use platforms for income and employment to effectively unionize, and a nontraditional sense. -- in a nontraditional sense. >> i was going to make a point maybe three points back. >> i will briefly say, there was a story a couple of years ago about minimum wage and people stuck in these jobs, and the growing protests and they find -- and we find ourselves subsidizing. but the technology that we are talking about is going to make it virtually impossible for these protest to pay off in the long run.

you already have things, maybe fast food restaurants that are moving to tablets and things and what you will see is, i think, the wages will remain stagnant for a large part of the population. the technology that we are talking about is part of the problem and nobody has figured out how to work around that. i do not think that there is an easy answer. >> but they are the answer. the technology is the answer. that is the point i was trying to make. i was in san francisco, i took a ride to where i was going and the lady who picked me up, her husband came home from work, she would go out, she wasn't working full-time, and she turned to the lyft cap -- app off when i got in, but it is giving people an opportunity to supplement your lifestyle and income in a way that is convenient for you. this is the opportunity. this is an something as holding people back, it is expanding opportunity.

>> the ability to work three jobs instead of two. >> but it is offering flexibility and it may mean that the workforce will have to change. and maybe the expectations of the workforce will change. you have a small business that you are running on ebay while you are also producing articles that run on the yahoo! developer network and you are doing multiple things that allows you to be interested and allows you to be a stay-at-home mom and work out of your house. i think that there are certainly problems with the transition.

from -- transition period where everyone goes to work from 9-5 to this sort of economy. but i agree with brian, there are as many concerns as opportunities. i do not think we know yet where those opportunities are going to arrive. i think that generally the technology and platform that we all use creates opportunities. that is the case and are lobbying. one of the things that has been fun about working for yahoo! is there is an opportunity to educate lawmakers about policies that they never thought of technologies that they have never used. you are fighting in an entrenched industry, but you are also not providing just one policy answer. you may have three policy answers. yet this is down and have a conversation with lawmakers. you talk about concerns, how do you make it work, there isn't one right answer. there is a huge opportunity to do a lot and i think that part of that is bringing the consumers along.

you are making sure that they are part of the dialogue and you are starting to see that in terms of advocacy in the industry. >> we have juliet, david, and then matthew. >> we cannot argue this on the basis of anecdotes. there is little doubt that the technologies have labor displacing impacts. that is the power of them. that is the efficiency. it is not to say that uber won't create more rides, but there are questions. what is the rate of growth? that is essential. and, we cannot forget that every additional percentage point of gdp growth puts a certain amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. it is a very close relationship and we are coming close to the point where we will have those caps.

that is a whole other new constraint on this, thinking about what is going on at the level of the nation as a whole the globe as a whole, and secondly, what is happening to hours of work? if you do not have reduction in hours, you cannot absorb technological unemployment. it has been proven throughout history. it is not to say that we should not have the new technologies, it is to say that we have to think about the introduction into a bigger framework land just local regulations around taxis. it is about the income distribution, labor market policy, climate policy. we want to make sure, where are

the gains going. that might not just be one particular internet company to get engaged and that, but the community as a whole has to precisely because of all of those backlash issues. >> i think -- i'm david simon i am with salesforce. we provide software as a service. i think when you have rapid technology change, you have rapid technology displacement. i think one of the places where this needs to be reevaluated very hard is education. this constantly -- this country has ignored science engineering, and math for most of a generation and we have yet to really try to take advantage of the technology.

in terms of people being displaced so they can get new jobs that are valuable, the idea of sending people out to community college -- by the way, community college is valuable and its an expensive way to reeducate people when you have the internet. it creates a problem. however they going to get their daycare taking care of when they have no job and they have to go someplace? it takes care of the earlier part of the problem, which is that policy makers tend to get stuck in a certain way of thinking and you have a real dichotomy of the twentysomethings who are the people doing a lot of the work for the policy maker. but the policy decision maker as someone who looks like me who was entrenched in a way of doing things because that is how they have been doing it for two generations.

>> matt. in terms of policymakers, the thing they don't get is the difference in economics between a brand-new nation and a nation that is only two or three years old. what we have seen over and over again with the internet is that these login pretty quickly. that is especially doubly, triply true with sharing a economy nations. which are essentially just market making. -- economy niches. which are essentially just market-making michesniches. how many car sharing programs

are going to survive? three? i think maybe two. when the economy becomes self, -- self-sustaining. >> even if two or three right sharing companies exist there may be dozens of limo companies and taxi companies they have replaced. so there is still a consolidation in the market. >> and by the time you are down to two, as we have seen with traditional auction houses, it is very easy for them to collude. you don't even have to do in the ill legal conspiracy to make sure you are offering the same sort of deals to people who want to sell their artwork. >> i wanted to jump on the point

about educating and say i think that it is true these technologies are disrupting the labor market and creating new opportunities. 40 2% of our users sold on at sea for the first time who would not have started businesses otherwise. it is more than that the stem education, which is important. preparing folks for this new and changing economy which is not because of technology of alone. it has been changing for a long time. how do we prepare workers who have been displaced for that new role and i think that is a bigger question of reform.

>> i had to say something about the stem comment. at harvard law you have mr. teitelbaum saying it does not exist. that in fact, america has plenty of stem workers and the connect about the shortage of stem workers is a traditional cycle that happens again and again. most typically in the 50's after sputnik. it shows that there does not seem to be a problem. wages has been stagnant even for those workers. the idea that we can work our way out by teaching everybody math is incorrect. >> what about the concern in the tech industry about immigration. the president is considering

economic action on immigration of congress does not act but that seems to be politically charged. and some taking a reactive role to try to push movement on the immigration front. does anyone want to comment on immigration? >> joel? >> sure. my ceo, mark zuckerberg, has taken a very forward role in trying to push forward immigration. there's many complaints of comprehensive immigration reform, i think you are specifically focused on stem. most of the companies that operate in this realm do

perceive that as a shortfall in highly trained engineers computer scientist who can produce at the level that is required to remain globally competitive. most of the companies around here would be interested in reading the work of professor teitelbaum, but as a day-to-day matter they know they are not able to find from the u.s.-trained work force u.s.-born people, a sufficient number of the skilled engineers they need to keep these companies growing, innovating in competing. so that is where immigration reform on the high-skilled side comes through. they probably get about 50% of the year of the h-1b visas. those are temporary visas for

highly skilled workers. many have been educated in american universities but our foreign-born. we get some from the lottery from people we have given job offers to. as a global company, if we cannot bring those people to the united states to work with our engineers in california, we are probably still going to give them a job. we're just going to put it somewhere else. that is probably not good for the united states, not did for building the centers in austin and boston and other place that we want to maintain. i am taking facebook as an example but i think this is true for a lot of the people around the table. we have about 80% of our users in the united states. we want u.s.-based companies having their base here in

serving the world. i think the prospects for complex immigration reform are looking dimmer for congress. the president is considering taking some executive action. we are hopeful he does that. that he tries to address all of the aspects, both the current undocumented problem and the skilled workers. >> this whole issue of immigration makes the case for -- that -- the community to get more invested in sort of long-term policy conversations. we have a disaster on the border right now. it is part of a much bigger systemic problem where issues like governments and state failure -- it is getting wrapped up in that.

some are calling it under the headline of "resilience. " this community again take some of this problem-solving of complex sorting in filtering of the challenges we are facing as a global society. i think it is going to be hard. it cannot just be about the visas for your company. i was surprised that someone who has been working in washington, d.c. for 14 years -- one of the first things forward. u.s. did was take out what you desperately need as your allies on the immigration issue. that stuff is also

relationship-based. washington, d c is like a city that is a junior high or high school. there are the jocks, the homecoming queens, the nerds. there is a moment right now where there is such a need. people should intentionally bring these problem-solving minded folks together in figure out new ways to do this. it is not going to look like the old models of lobbying. inside congress, it looks like the tendency to use a campaign to govern and it is making governing look like campaigning. people who look at congress say this cannot be campaigning sites. it sorts sentiment, not substance. unless we find a way to privilege certain kinds of

information, like what is the subcommittee institutionally responsible for. that is what is needed for authentic, high reputation sources. if we are going to move toward a future where this community that has largely commercial interest in the space could help create some new rules. i feel like it is these process roles that are missing and they do not really exist right now as a social norm. >> so, one response. look at, i think -- and adam is a great person to talk about this because six or seven years ago he started the pioneering to try to educate and communicate with constituencies in new ways. just -- you know -- one thing i want to point out, i think all

of these observations about ways we can change institutions make sense. i think also as companies and institutions we need to operate in the world we live in today. that is the big difference between silicon valley's approach to the world and washington's approach to the world. silicon valley c system and they want to go around them, change them, disrupt them. unfortunately, at least for now congress still operates as a democratic body with members who go home to their district and while they may care a lot about what people in silicon valley think in alabama or the district date take a lot more about what people in their own district think. while we're trying to get policy changes, and this is what i think was struggled with in trying to get comprehensive immigration reform done, you

still have to change the minds of the people of -- at home before the congress changes. that was one ad as part of a broader effort in a strategy to figure out how to build the effort in a district to give members of congress the fortitude to take a popular vote in silicon valley and a difficult vote in their home valley. there is a miss -- there is a mix we are going to have to do for a while. we're going to have to try to convince people in some old-fashioned way but using new tools. >> to talk a little about the portfolio, i am confused slightly. first, i used to work in congress. i love the institution. it would also have to be in institution that wants to save it self.

they sign these tenure contracts and they don't like them. they cut staff and they continue to cut staff. they don't always want to make the hard choices. it is incumbent upon us to help. but you cannot save somebody who does not want to save themselves. when i look around the table the folks who represent policy many of them have deep connections in washington. when you look at some of these issues, you need to be more involved in immigration and government and securities. that is why we have government. google and facebook did not get into this to solve a refugee prices in latin america. i think they are certainly willing to play a role, as many companies are, but that is a government mix. there -- i think the benefit is,

there are good people in government and some word doing this at a local level but you want both things here. you have to save the institution you might not want to save and help them get better. >> i am definitely confused. thank you. >> i was just going to make the point that one of the innovations that a number of these companies represent is reputational networks. there is a great example of that happening in the executive branch. a recent article about how 10,000 employees are using a site that is a way to share ideas and dialogue. 10,000 federal ploys from books in the white house down to regulatory agencies are using this.

reputational mechanisms that help them sort that kind of them from the public and other federal agencies and so forth. how we make policy, yes, a lot happens in congress but a lot happens in regulatory agencies. the monetization of regulatory agencies in the coming decade. one small example, the platforms are developing in open read -wright api. you don't just have to go to the website of the agency to put a comment in, but advocacy, grassroots everyone can on their own platforms contribute. we can use technology to sort and way and all those things. that is a big part of how we govern. >> michael. >> i would like to read on top

of immigration reform a way -- something that affects every internet every company. the roles of relatively new companies, jan get. when it comes to immigration reform our companies have done more than their share to push this debate over and have a big constructive conversation in to move the ball down the court and get it done. the last reform was in the 1980's. i think internet companies deserve a lot of credit for not just picking up the mantle on what is best in business interest, but they have taken up on what is best for the entire economy.

there are a lot of issues and as new entrants come in they have to make a decision, are we going to be protectionist? like the question last night at about railroad ties. we are coming up in better ways and it is improving our society and economy. we want to see that happening. one issue we have not raised at that is important to startups is in issue of pattern forming. we have seen a surge in patent trolling. you are dealing with startups in having to deal with court cases.

>> i want to take a minute. we have around the table people from industry, academics, public servants, it we have a moment here when we should have a discussion about what is missing. what do we not know. what about giving broader context to policy issues we are looking at? in your mind what are some important areas for research for discussion to really begin here as we look forward over the next couple years. so that we can make good policies and to citizens. >> i think some of that has to start with education and engagement. i think that is one of the

reason why you are saying groups like the sharing economy engaging with government. for government to make good policy and be thoughtful in how these are going to evolve in the future into the right policy that works in the wrong one. i think now is the time for a lot of engagement and a lot of conversation so that the groundwork is there for smart policy to be written versus where we have -- where i have seen we have been for the next few years which is reactionary policy. not necessarily based on a real understanding of the industry or the issues or where the industry is evolving. that is a joint responsibility

for government and our industry to start and continue that conversation and start building this bridges. >> we can articulate what our policies are but it is very hard for us to get good data about how effectively or ineffectively the systems that are being built by some of the more innovative companies in these spaces actually do or do not change the goals. a lot of decision-making gets done in the realm of anecdote. if the companies have a vested interest in really certain data that tells a story it is an area for people who are interested in policy research to look at. to say what is the overall impact of an alternative to the transportation availability to cost, to supply and areas that are under supply, things like that that give us some hard data we can look at to see how well these services do or do not support the policy objectives that we have.

>> carbon accounting is important. there are a lot of claims in the sharing economy about the footprint lowering aspects of these activities. we do not know much about how true those claims are. airbnb just did a study. we are going to be doing more and more count -- carbon accounting in coming decades. this is an area where the industry could get out in front. in theory, it should be a happy story to tell. and also to be a model for the kind of putting these accounting

systems into place and being kind of proactive about it. i think it would be really fantastic. >> i have never encountered a politician who was anti-innovation and very few are anti-internet. and innovation as we know has effects, has consequences. we talked about one of them. it can be disruptive and cause shifts in the workforce. the difficulty that a lot of us are in, oftentimes there is a quick reaction from policymakers. we were for innovation until we started seeing these disruptive effects so now i need to put the eyes on that.

these are all valid questions. we have a structure of labor laws, of child safety laws privacy laws and we might not agree on the structure and specifics, those laws generally reflect a consensus that those things are important. the format that they take may be different from the way it is taken in the past. i am not sure that protecting a taxi medallion system is the way to ensure that we have a vibrant middle class. i do not know his answer is. i think that one possibility is to it saw things play out. a couple years ago, wind -- there were a lot of paid workers and in part because of pressure they were facing they voluntarily acted to give more

robust health benefits. they were thinking we are a large employer of middle-class people. we think this is the responsible thing to do. some of these internet businesses become more mature. companies will grapple with those effects as well. i feel like with respect to policy there can be a do no harm approach. letting some of these things play out. some of the old values that informed older laws will manifest themselves in new ways. maybe more modern ways. >> just sitting here i was struck and molly started off by saying a lot of these debates were about other aspects of what is happening on the ground.

we talked about things that have nothing to do with patent trolls or net neutrality or any of these issues that people say let's let the nerds talk about that. you're seeing power companies changing society more rapidly than society can keep up with. i have been first row seat in the battle of bing, and am concerned about how we're actually going to fix these institutions. at the local level you see people going in and that makes me optimistic but when we look at congress, i do not know. we are working on this but i don't think you figured it out either. one thing i would ask all of you to keep in mind is we definitely feel an attitude of the company -- government is broken, let's avoid them. just ask yourself to the early moderators point.

what we do in 2030? you are forcing a lot of changes in society that has impacts far beyond who gets a taxi and who is driving this taxi. our institutions cannot keep up with that rate of change. a real positive note to end on. >> before we wrap up and i know people have some flights to catch. we do have some people who have not had a chance to talk. chris or kerry or, who else? has not had a chance. to anything before we wrap up? >> i am from trip advisor. i guess just on a more optimistic note. there are some of these companies that are disruptive companies that are starting to take care, they are not technically employees.

they are trying to treat their task as well by directing them and getting good deals on health insurance and cell phones and tools they might use in the tasks. i think with companies that are working through this. uber faced protests by the drivers and seattle.

i am optimistic that there will be a good outcome. people, i would not want to get into an uber if i felt the driver was losing money and is really unhappy. my driver said we are alive, it is wonderful. businesses are not dealing with labor so much. >> we appreciate you bringing it up. >> there will be -- every driver has been genuinely happy. i'm interested in mobility and their happiness. i think i am optimistic that these new companies will be able to find an outcome that is good for workers and consumers, good for the economy.

>> this has been a great discussion listening to all your points. i wanted to make a comment and combine seth and david's point. you talked about infrastructure and david, the dichotomy between those making the decisions and the people, the consumer. what i see as a pattern here is how can we decrease the social distance between the

decision-makers and where those policies impact. you're looking at the city of san francisco has an introduced a platform that is similar with a crowd sourced people living in the city to solve problems and decide what to use. new york is -- i see great opportunities for health companies to decrease that social distance. disconnect and users expecting things intimately. adam said he used to have to

look into the basement of the municipal building for a record but now you can get it immediately. what are people expecting of congress in the time it takes to make decisions? i would -- i do not know the answer but with the instant gratification we have and over -- uber, there was a mistake and they refunded my money in 20 minutes. >> there are a few things that i have learned. i was often confused. there is a big difference between policy deliberation and delivery of service and resources. when you look at -- that speaks to the expectation that people should be able to do anything, anywhere, anytime.

having a deliberative body that \rapid might be a problem. you need better deliberation. it would be different because we are doing things which is preferable for the current situation. you need better deliberation. this does bring up one of the scariest things about the internet on policy. this notion that you have a lot of companies that deliver information based on what they think users want. you see things like the filter bubble and these behaviors where people are connecting with people who share their worldview. you're seeing a similar thing happen in politics as people race to more extreme positions literally move to new geographies. it is affecting our debate. i wonder how we stop that. if the model for an internet company and we try to make our robots work to deliver that instantly, that does not force them to think differently about

stuff and it reinforces their worldview. i do not know how that stops but it reminds me that what is best for our users is not what is best for our citizens. we have to make sure that we are cognizant of that. >> leonard from monster.com. i wanted to circle back to the startups and what they should be thinking about. if they are entering a regulated industry they have to keep in mind going back to my days as a civil servant. the risk reward ratio is entirely different than it is for an entrepreneur. the first time that there is a fatal accident due to a ridesharing service, everyone will look to that official that let that service operate. the risk is extreme but there is no reward. you are starting up that service, your reward is a million or billion dollar enterprise. you have motivation to get it done while the civil servant will be thinking do no harm

until i am certain it will work out. there is no good way around that except the cooperative efforts we have heard about and educating officials about why your service will not do any harm. i am encouraged by the what people said about the collaborative efforts that are occurring. the them -- the entrepreneurs go charging into the room and do not realize the person they are meeting with, if they are not protecting interest, they are risk avoidance for reason. probably because they are thinking do no harm. >> this is a stimulating interesting discussion, covered a wide range of ground beginning with our initial discussion of use of the first amendment around data online and in between talking about some of the challenges facing governments and startups and navigating unfamiliar terrain. the challenges all in the midst of different kinds of change and

on that note, i will let our cohost give us some closing thoughts. >> i wanted to thank maggie williams and the staff for making this symposium happen. i wanted to thank our moderators. these are important issues. as the policy landscape changes and companies if we have the same conversation, there are new topics and that will be exciting. this conversation helps move the ball forward. thank you very much. [applause]

during a roundtable of cyber security -- the senate will vote on monday to move it forward. the congress was urged to pass the bill. arkansas governor asked what the president is doing to end the stale mate. >> politics, as you know, the art of compromise is sometimes important. we wanted to be funded, but what is the administration putting on the table to resolve this policy. for example, can it the administration withhold putting into play the executive order until it is finally resolved by the supreme court. because this issue is ultimately going to be resolved in the

court. what is the administration putting on the table to resolve the current impasse? >> governor, my response is that we want to have a debate about immigration reform. we have been wanting to for about three years now. we were hoping the house would pass a bill. the house did not act. so, we in november, issued a number of things that a cross-the-board would improve the immigration system. it is not just a new deferred system. it is a southern border -- it is getting immigration personnel a pay raise. it is helping to facilitate a pay raise in high tech.

there are nine different initiatives that we launched in d assembler. -- in december. it is not just a deferred action program for the parents. on your point, my point is that if congress wants to have a debate about our executive actions, about executive reform, let us do that. but, do not tie that to the entire budget of the department of homeland security which includes the coast guard, the secret service fema, cdp ice cvs, and so forth. that is why i am fighting for a clean, fully-funded budget. because there are real consequences to my departments of ability to pursue its business. in two homeland security, as

long as we are facing the prospect of a complete -- as long as we're facing a shutdown of the complete department as we are now. when congress comes back into town, they will have to d side how to break this impasse. the president has said that he will veto an appropriations bill that comes to his desk that d-fonds our executive -- defunds our executive actions. we will still let him seek a stay and that will play itself out. i want to break this amp. >> as congress comes back from its break, the house is focusing on education issues.

the senate to resumes debate on homeland security spending. we will get more from a capitol hill reporter. >> congress comes back from its presidents day recess and we are joined by a reporter from the huffington post. she talks about the standstill on the measure -- on the homeland securities lending measure. what is the latest as the senate comes back? >> they have been cut to an impasse for weeks. they are still to in impasse. the problem is the republicans say they will not support funding the department of the homeland security unless there is some way to

republicans say they can't support anything that doesn't block those and democrats say they don't support anything that includes blocking these actions. both sides have dug in their heels. the likeliest thing is that they end up kicking it down the road and doing another continuing resolution and we have this fight again later this year. >> the federal judge halted the implementation of some of those executive orders and late this week the white house saying this they will seek a stay of that. how does the texas order complicate the debate in the senate? >> i think there is potential that could be used to break the stalemate so if republicans were to say, ok, these things aren't going forward anyway, maybe we could support some sort of bill that would fund the department. while these orders aren't taking play. the fact that the obama administration is seeking a stay

that would allow these programs while this whole thing gets sorted out sort of complicates things because it it would make it if they succeeded the programs would continue to go into effect. it's exactly what the republicans don't want. at the moment, it appears that it's not necessarily going to help matters. this injunction won't change much. >> remind us of the deadline congress faces and what's ahead on monday, when they return. >> the deadline is february 27th. they need to do something by then or dhhs faces a shut down. on monday the senate will vote again on this bill that already passed the house. it failed multiple times before because the democrats blocked it. they're going to block it it again.

i don't think anything has changed. the idea is to continue showing the house that the senate can't pass the house's bill so ultimately they're going to have to come up with some type of of plan b. if they want to pass funding for dhhs. >> let's look at a big priority. the nomination of loretta lynch to be attorney general. we understand a vote is likely in the committee next week. how many republicans will it take to pass her and what does that look like in terms of passage in the senate? >> there are several republicans who have indicated support for lynch. the problem is whether republicans would try and block her on the floor. you have people like ted cruz and jeff sessions, the issue of immigration they won't allow loretta lynch nomination to move forward.

there is potential that if they wanted to pass her and confirm her in the full senate they would have to do that and mcconnell would have to do that on relying mostly democrats rather than mostly republicans and that would be awkward. it's looking like there are a decent number that do not support her. >> a look at what's ahead on congress and you can read more at huffing post.com. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> keep track of three of them led congress and follow new members through the first session. new congress, best axon -- access on www.c-span.org.

>> the new america foundation hosted a conference with michael rogers. watch it live at 9:00 a.m. on c-span2. >> coming up, lawrence lessig tulsa proposed changes to the campaign finance system. from the national government association's winter meeting, jeh johnson talks about the state of cyber security. later, "q&a" talking about her book about interment camps. >> harvard law professor lawrence lessig signed a secret pact. professor lessig said -- they

probably describes as the public loss. this is about one hour 25 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. hello, everybody and welcome to the jccsf. i'm delighted to host all of you for a terrific evening with lawrence lessig. [applause] a special thanks to tonight's partners, uc hastings college of law, usf school of law, mac light creative commons and counter pac. [applause] our guest this evening is harvard law professor, lawrence lessig. he is known as the elvis of cyber law. one of the country's most

influential theorist on the intersection of law, culture and the internet, he's shifted focus to the corrosive power of money on politics. he walked 200 miles for the new hampshire rebellion to encourage citizens to end the system of corruption in our nations capital. the next walk starts this sunday and it's not too late to book a plane ticket and join him. we have flyers in the lobby. they look like this. they can tell you how to participate. lawrence lessig is here tonight to talk about made aipac, the crowd funded super pac to end all super pac's and what is in store for 2015. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming him to the jccsf. [applause]

>> okay, so my computer shutdown and now i have to try to make small talk. what shall we talk about as it comes back to life? umm -- the weather. it's going to be incredibly cold and new hampshire. the high right now is six degrees in the place we are starting our walk. i don't know where this went. so, it's wonderful to be here back, in san francisco. talking about something i began here in san francisco because i

was forced to begin talking and thinking about this. my dear friends from san francisco, aaron swartz who, the second anniversary of his death is this sunday. and whose memory is vibrant in this community and around the world. but what aaron was focused on, he often described to me as simple justice. as he talked to people about the simple injustice of the world we find ourselves in, there was a growing frustration. one way to understand this

frustration is to recognize the way in which we refuse to acknowledge the real nature of the problem we are talking about. america has been focused for the last year on a range of problems related to race in america -- michael brown, eric gardner, the injustice of the systems that we feel as a system of inequality that gets described as a system of racism, and there is evidence to support the racism. this recent study of the racial distribution of death of 218 deaths involving police tries to map the predicted incidents according to race and you see

the predicted incidents for whites are fewer than the actual incidence. you take this and brought this out to what the actual differences are and as the statistician summarizes, the answer to the question what is the probability we would see a distribution at or more extreme than this one, assuming race plays no factor in police related deaths is on order of 10 to the -82. if you are not a mathematician you might wonder what that is like. you can compare it to this number -- 10 to the -79, which is the probability of being hit by lightning, 13 times in one year. [laughter] which means the probability of 10 to the -82 is a really, really, really small

probability, which is to suggest there is a high confidence in the judgment that the race of the victim is related to the violence. there are lots of quibbles one could have with this study, that what comes through in our culture is the view that this manifests a certain kind of racism. that gets framed as if it is the racism of bull connor or the racism of the 1960's. and the 50's, and the 40's and all the way back. there is no doubt in my mind there are jim crow racists out there but there is no doubt a pattern like this is not reduced -- produced by that sort of racism. it is a different racism, maybe a more fundamental racism, a more fundamental inequality.

if we were to talk about how to solve that, we would look beyond the simple image of a hateful person. we would look for structure of poverty or the stupid war on drugs. structural problems that require we think of a more difficult task, a task that solving this inequality without focused picking out the evil of individuals, picking out the evil or outrage, but we don't do that. we can't do that.

not because it's hard for people to understand these issues as contributing to these kinds of racism, but the focus on simple injustice, the focus on the outrage, the focus on the difference between the good and the evil in this story pays structures of media that talk to us about this. it pays the activists organizations that want to rally us about this. keeping it simple keeps the fury going. so while we get nothing done, we remain angry and focused on the simple injustice we see. here's another example tied directly to what i want to talk about today. the simple injustice around the institution that is congress. we all know the perception of their confidence in this institution has collapsed. 7% have confidence in the institution of congress. the crown jewel of our democracy

according to our framers article one, congress, 7% of us trust. more than 50% call the institution corrupt. when we talk about it being corrupt, we focus on people like abramoff or william jefferson, people we think of as criminals. there is a quote corruption inside of this institution, no doubt. but there is also no doubt that the failure of this institution is not produced by that form of corruption. it is a different kind of corruption, a more fundamental kind of corruption. it is not bad souls engaging in criminal acts, it is good souls engaged in a system that drives to this corruption. if we wanted to solve that corruption, we would have to look elsewhere. look elsewhere from beyond the

prison walls, but we don't do that. we can't do that, not because it's hard. our focus is on the simple injustice, the outrage of thinking of this institution in these good versus evil terms because it makes it easier to organize. it makes it easier to vilify the results you don't like, using it simple keeps the fury going while we get nothing done in fixing the problem it represents. the simple injustice. hides the real injustice. the real work it's going to take to fix it. if we wanted to think beyond the simple, to understand something beyond the simple injustice, what would it be at least as it

relates to the institution i know something about, congress? what are the real problems here? at the end of august, hong kong discovered something which triggered an incredible revolution in the streets, first by young people and then joined by people from across the city. what they discovered was the method hong kong would be forced to adopt for electing the governor. china had promised in 2007 that the chief executive by 2017 would be popularly elected, but the china's people congress laid out the procedure and as the procedure described, the ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a

broadly represented nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures. a nominating committee. a committee composed of 1200 citizens, which means about .0 24% of hong kong. what the chinese were describing was this two-stage process -- there is an election where all the citizens and on -- in hong kong would have the right to vote, but there's a nomination process where the select 1200 would have to vote. and you have to do well in the nomination process to be able to run in the election. a two-stage process with a filter in the middle between the two stages and that is what triggered the strike in hong kong because the view was the filter was biased.

as protesters describe the 1200 being dominated by pro-beijing business and political elite. as the chairman of the hong kong credit party put it, we want genuine universal suffrage in hong kong, not democracy with chinese characteristics. but is this particular feature chinese? the answer is it's not unless boss tweed was an ancient chinese profit. [laughter] because as tweed put it, i don't care who does the electing, as long as i get to do the nominating. we should describe the system tweed was constructing. let's call it tweedism. it has this form -- there's two steps, the nominating process with the tweed's vote and the citizens vote, and a filter in between. that is what boss tweed wanted. in the history of democracy in america, there is a long history

of tweedism, most dramatically in the old south stop it's embarrassing to recognize 1870 america passed an amendment to the constitution that guaranteed to african-american males the right to vote. the perception at the time that was passed was this would be the future of democracy in america and in fact the future looks more like this. for 100 years -- that's exaggerating a bit. for 95 years, it was the concerted effort to exclude african-americans on the ability to vote to stop no place more ambitiously than the state of texas, which enacted by law and all white primer. there's a general election where all americans got to vote. african-americans, if they got to register. there's a white primary and you

had to do well in the primary to run in the general direction -- in the general election. a two-stage process that excluded in the critical first step african-americans from the system, but the consequence that they had a democracy that was responsive to whites only. that is a profound and indira singh stage of tweedism in america. but let's think about tweedism in the new america. we take it for granted campaigns will be privately funded. funding of campaigns is a -- is an essential step to getting elected to any major office. we have a two-stage nominating process. to get the funders vote, he has to campaign for a, which means you have to raise money for it. candidates spend for congress,

anywhere between 30% and 70% of their time raising money to run the campaigns to get them elected. they do it in things like this where they have parties, where they say for $500, you can come to a reception and 420 $400, a photo up, meet and greet and reception. this is a game that gets played, but they spend an extraordinarily -- an extraordinary time dialing for dollars -- between two and four hours of a calling people they never met, developing a sensitivity and awareness about how what they do will affect their ability to raise money. bh skinner gave us the image of the skinner box were any stupid animal could learn what buttons

it needed to push to get the sustenance it needed. this is a picture of the modern american congressperson. [laughter] as the modern american congress for some learns which buttons need to get pushed to get to the the votes they need. we develop a sixth sense. what is needed to satisfy the obligation? they become shape shifters as they constantly adjust their views in light of what they do what they need to raise money. one person describes always lead to the green. he was not an environmentalist. this is a two-stage process with a filter in the middle, begging the question is the filter biased? that depends. that depends on who the funders are. we -- here is what we know about who the funders are. about 5.4 million people contributed at least one dollar

to any congressional campaign, which means about 1.75% of america contributed to campaigns. but if you take that 1.75 of america, the top 100 gave as much as the bottom 4.75 million contributors. the top 100 gives as much as the bottom 4.75, but it's only less than 2% of america we are talking about. if you look at people who gave $2600 at least, that is about .044 percent, a little less than the amount of people named lester in the united states. that's why i called america lester land. you look at $10,000 or more,

.008% of america. if you think about the effect of the supreme court decision for the decision that created the super pac. in 2012, 132 americans gave 60% of the super pac money spent in that election cycle. whether it is lester land or sheldon city, the point is we have a system where the tiniest, tiniest fraction of the 1% dominates this first stage in our election process, a two-stage election, a general election where we are all invited to participate and something if you have an id, and not a white primary, but a green primary in america and it you must do well in the green primary to run in the general

election. there are people like jerry brown, but you believe and your campaign manager believes you must do well in the green primary and so you live your life as if you live the green primary. the vast majority of americans are excluded from this article first that with the consequence that we are a democracy responsive to the funders and maybe only -- it's a little controversial -- i'm not allowed to show the princeton study. this incredible study was published last year trying to measure the effect of the economic elite on political decisions. they gathered the largest empirical study of actual policy decisions in the history of

political science and tried to relate the actual decisions of our government to the views of the economic elites and organized interest and then the average voter. they found a graph that is intuitive if you think about what this says -- those favoring a policy change those from zero to 100, the probability goes up. that's the way you would expect it to be -- the more it is supported, the more likely it is to be adopted. something similar with interest groups. the more who supported, the higher the probability it goes up. this is a responsive system for economic elites or organized interest groups. here is the graph for the average citizen. that is a flat line. regardless of the percentage of average citizens who support something, it has no effect on its probability of being adopted. as i described in england --

when the preferences of the economic elite and the stands of organized groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average american appear to have only a miniscule, and near zero, statistically nonexistent impact on public policy. this is a democracy where the average voters views don't matter to the probability of a policy being adopted. here is one context in which that consequences quite dramatic. this graph was put together to describe the change in the distribution of average income growth over different periods across our history coming out of recessions. here's the first one we are talking about. the bluegrass represents the percentage going to the bottom 90% and the red are is showing the percentage going to the top

10%. this is showing the top 10% getting 20% in the bottom 90% of getting 80%. you might have trouble with that or not, but the bottom 90% is getting significantly more than the top 10. here is how that carries out across the next period. the 2009 -- 2010 recovery, the bottom 90% actually lose income relative to the top 10% who gain more. this change, according to hacker and pierson, is tied directly to changes in government policy and changes in government policy are tied directly to the influence of the tweeds in our democracy. this is tweedism. it's not dominated by a beijing

political elite, the green primary dominated by a business and economic elite. it is just as extreme as the story in hong kong. remember, i told you .024 percent is the percentage of hong kong that is to be in the nominating committee. if you ask what percentage of voters maxed out to just one candidate, they gave $5,200, that number and percentage of voters is .024 percent. many would say $5,200 doesn't achieve real influence, so it's worse than .024 percent of the average of percentage of voters, but it is as tiny, it is as distorting, and it is just as wrong.

what does it do? what is its effect? a recent book describes america not as a democracy, not as an aristocracy, plutocracy or clip -- kleptocracy but america has become a vetocracy. that means it's a system where it is easy now for economically powerful groups to block a change. it is tied in his view to our systems of checks and balances and our polarized political culture, but in addition to those, it's tied to the number of funders who fund campaigns. in a system with a tiny, tiny

number, that means a tiny, tiny fraction has the power to block reform because their disagreement with reform is enough to stop the policymakers from adopting it. this is not just reform on the left, this is any change if it is against organized money whether from the left or the right fails. anyone coming into a room like this has an issue you care about -- it could be climate change health care, tax policy, i don't care what the issue is. at the federal level, you all have an issue you think is important. you spend your free time, if there is such a thing a thing anymore, supporting causes that

would advance this issue. even if your issue is the most important issue, change on that you won't happen until we change this corruption first. this corrupting influence is the first issue because it locks the ability of our democracy to control, to steer the direction of our democracy and it stops us from having that control. we are like the bus driver who discover his steering wheel is no longer connected to the axle. so what is the solution here? the truth is, the the solution is not hard to describe. if this is the picture and the problem is the bias filter at

this center, the solution is to find a way to either eliminate the filter or to eliminate the bias. the number of republicans in the spirit of tate roosevelt has become to push -- has come to push ideas like vouchers as a way to fund this problem. every voter gets a voucher think of it like a starbucks card -- a store value card that allows them to allocate a certain amount of money to candidates running for office and candidates can take those vouchers if they agree to limit the contributions they take to vouchers -- let's say contributions are $100. $50 a voter would be about $7 billion. the total amount spent way candidates was $1.5 billion,

which means this is real money but the point is the voucher system would mean money coming from many, many people, not just the .04 percent or the .024 percent. it's not everybody is going to participate but it's not biased in the way the current system is biased by allocating the funding to the tiny fraction of the 1% and democrats have been pushing this idea of matching funds -- john sarbanes's -- the government by the people act take small contributions and multiplies them to make them much more valuable. $100 becomes $1000 because of a 9 to 1 match, encouraging candidates to get lots of small contributions, not contributions coming from the .04%. still a filter, but not biased in the way the current system is biased.

with both of these systems, the thing that matters more than the current system is, god for bid votes. voters will stop that is what is mattering to the democracy. equal votes from equal citizens. to describe the solution to this problem is not hard. why don't we have the solution? why do we have political movement to push for this solution? political experts tell us is most people don't care about it. most people look at the corruption and they are ok with it or they are ok with it relative to other issues they want to fight about. i don't think that's actually true and evidence comes from a series of studies. the most recently did was in december of 2013. we asked the public how important is it to you we reduce the influence of money in politics. the answer was 96% of americans said it's important. the very next question we asked was how likely do you think it

is we will reduce the influence of money and politics. 91% said it's not likely. just like most of us wish we could fly like superman, but because 91% of us are convinced we can't, we don't throw ourselves off of tall buildings regularly. we are resigned to our human mortal status and live life the way one would assuming you can't fly from the ground or tall buildings. we don't organize to do anything about it because we don't believe anything can be done. we've added to been franklin's slogan that if there is nothing sure but death and taxes by adding a corrupt government. that means the question here is how do we resist this resignation? what is the strategy for fighting resignation?

the problem is not convincing people there is a solution but could actually be adopted. what is it we could do for that? as many of you know because i'm sure many of you were supporters, the beginning of the year in march, we announced we were going to watch something called the mayday project -- mayday as in these -- as in the distress signal, saying it's a mayday for this democracy. the objective is to be a super pac to end all super pac's. what would it take to run a series of campaigns that would win a congress committed to fundamental reform.

and we would fund that by kickstarting it -- you can't kickstart a political campaign but to fund this amount to run this experiment. six are certain amount from the bottom up and get as much of it matched the top down as we could. committed to fundamental reform -- the plan we laid out is to run a pilot in 2014 and then based on the fact, when in 2016 and push legislation in 2017 and in 2019, prepared to protect it by passing whatever constitutional reforms would be needed to defend against the supreme court. in the first stage, we were able to raise $11 billion from more than 57,000 contributors around the country. [applause] with the objective to elect a candidate committed to this fundamental reform. the truth is with that as the objective, the project was a bust.

because out of the eight candidates we supported, two won, only one of those races was really competitive. people look at this and say this demonstrates the public doesn't care. it's not as bad as that looks. if you look at the report of the data we were able to pull from surveys before and after, it shows a significant number of voters are deeply committed and care about this issue, just in the synonymy of the election in 2014, that was enough to -- the tsunami of the election in 2014 was enough to overcome. we made a bet and we lost the bet because we did not prove to the skeptics a system that could scale, so there were no clear path to 2016, which was our objective. to get us to a place where we

could elect a congress committed to fundamental reform. when we lost in this dramatic way, one part of me was relieved at the defeat because the truth about politics as its run today is that it's deeply dissatisfying and disgusting and most of how it works. the constraints of politics today is almost impossible to imagine using it to educate people in a constructive way about this issue. i've likened it to trying to teach an algebra course by screaming out the various lessons and students are walking through because most people don't want to hear the message while they are trying to watch a patriots game. most people want to ignore it. the method for communicating to them must communicate in a way

that is almost impossible to move people. but the other part that echoes a kind of guilt in how it felt an authentic to the ultimate objective of this movement because it game was an insider's game. you are electing regular candidates to fix the problem with other insiders. the problem with that is that we don't believe insiders when they tell us they are going to fix the problem. 80% of americans believe the reforms that have been passed have been designed to help current members of congress to get reelected than to improve the system. we are cynical about the reformers as much as we are cynical about everything else. we have to find a way to stand outside the system that the challenge here is to be

authentically outsider in the effort to force change on the inside. that sounds like a harder problem and in some ways, it is. there was something so appealing about the idea of demonstrating that throwing up a message demonstrating congress should be enough to rally voters and raising hundreds of millions of dollars to win a congress, there was something simple about it even if there was something somewhat corrupt about it. so this forces us to think what's the way to go forward that could force a change on the outside, from the outside, a choice of change. i'm going to describe three elements of that strategy. one element is to make the change plausible. one element is to make congress panic.

one element is to make the issue presidential. first is the plausible. mayday had the idea of electing a congress. the bet was we could demonstrate the power of the message to elect candidates. this was a bad year to make that bet, so now we have to pivot to figure out what the work is that can contribute to the project. what are we doing now? the objective is to figure out a way to turn the army around and to focus it on a much more manageable project of recruiting the incumbents to admit to reform. if there's a majority in congress and those committed to reform, the project is to shrink gap to make it seem plausible

that we could actually get fundamental reform. not necessarily a majority committed to the vouchers but committed to some reform. how will we deploy this? a top secret project that gets announced at sxsw, there's a strategy for a platform to enable the tools of this infrastructure we call the internet, and incredibly powerful ability to recruit targeted actions in districts that convince voters in districts to get their members to commit to reform and we believe it is feasible to get within striking distance by the end of 2015. in march, this structure is announced and we launch a

project to bring about a commitment. republicans and democrats both to this system of fundamental reform to make it seem plausible, but that's not going to be enough. much more interesting is creating panic. this guy, george mason, one of the framers of the constitution, two days before the constitution was published in philadelphia, he noticed a problem. the only way to amend the constitution at that time was a provision that gave congress the power to propose amendments. george mason stood up and said on the floor of the constitutional convention, what if congress is the problem, a system where only congress can amend is not much of a system of congress is the problem. it's the first known instance of

"the simpsons" d'oh. they created a second way to amend the constitution. article five gives the states the power to demand congress call a convention, not a constitutional convention, but a convention for a very limited purpose to propose amendments. what is clear is the idea of a convention terrifies washington. it terrifies the seed to imagine this entity that can propose amendments, even though it requires 38 states to have a power called into being by this process terrifies them. the closer we get to the magic number the constitution specifies, 34 states calling for a convention, the more the panic grows.

what is not recognized is that right now, there are between 24 and 28 states who have passed resolutions calling on congress to call an article five convention. vermont, california and illinois have, last year, past proposals to call for a specifically related to the corrupting influence of money in politics. as more of these organizations push for more states to join, we will in the next two years get incredibly close to the magic number. i think we will probably get over the magic. as that happens, congress will respond because historically it has always responded to cut off the convention movement and giving people who are pushing for a convention that they want. we may, through this process get what we want from them even before there is a convention.

best example is the amendment gave us an elected to stop originally there was a senate picked by state legislatures. people didn't like that. they thought the senate would be filled with rich people who were corruptly elected. [laughter] they said we should change that to have a directly elected senate. the senate is not going to have anything to do that. there is a process for calling for an article five convention and when they got within one state of enough states to call for an article five convention congress sent out the 17th amendment created the elected senate. so, that panic produced reform and that reform was central to bringing about what was perceived to be a solution to the problem and that's the same dynamic we should expect here. the closer we get to forcing a constitutional movement, the closer we get to achieving something of what congress might do.

maybe most important immediately is presidential. in the modern american political system, reform only happens if it comes with the president pushing it, not just the president pushing it, some people might remember, there's this guy barack obama who talked about this problem precisely and once he walked into 1500 pennsylvania avenue and looked around, he realized there was no chance congress would ever address this problem, so he dropped the issue completely. we need to get a congress close to being able to pass it and a president who wants to pick it up and make it presidential. it is not their natural wish to talk about this issue. if you look at the polls related to corruption in government, and 2000, it was not even an issue on the top 10 list.

2004, not an issue. in 2008, it was number four on issues americans though the president address. in 2012, it was number two second only to jobs. corruption in the way our government functions. and while everyone was thinking rob blogavich and while thinking of the koch brothers. if you look at the websites of romney and obama, nowhere in the discussion of issues did they even mention the problem. i had a researcher look at it and is the first time in as far as we can see, when an issue in the top 10 of gallup's list was not mentioned by either candidate in the address of policy issues a promise to take up. they don't want to talk about this issue. it's too embarrassing to talk about this issue.

it's hypocritical, so they will avoid it as much as they can. the challenge in 2016 is how to get them to talk about this issue as they go around and engage in the rain dance to convince people to support them about what ever issue they want people to support them for. the challenge is how do we get to turn the table and force them to consider what they'd rather not consider? how do we get them to address a topic they would rather not have to address? that's the objective of the new hampshire rebellion. not rebelling against the government, but rebelling against this agenda the politicians will bring in the

presidential and candidates will bring. forcing them to say how are you going to end this system of corruption in the -- by getting people to ask this question again and again in new hampshire. new hampshire is a prime target for this. it is a critical primary election and its a state with an important precedent related to this issue. in june of 1999, john mccain went to new hampshire and made the system of corruption the focus of his campaign and the focus led to him winning the primary in new hampshire. but just before he had done that, new hampshire had a tie to this issue that was much more powerful for many of the people who continue to talk about it. the tie was this woman -- a woman named doris haddock who on

january 1, 1999, started a walk in los angeles to cross the country to washington, d.c., 3200 miles. she began at the age of 88. she arrived at the age of 90 walking into washington, there were hundreds of people following her, including a lot of congressmen who drove out to the last mile, celebrating the incredible importance she had focused on addressing what was then for her the fundamental issue, the corruption of the system of campaign finance reform. what the new hampshire rebellion seeks to revive this by remixing the granny d walk. we did the first instance of this walk across new hampshire in january. she walked longer, we walked colder, a total of 190 miles -- did i mention in january? a walk that totaled 210 people

across the course of the walk, reaching tens of thousands of new recruits in new hampshire who signed up to force candidates to talk about this issue in the primary and reaching a million people in the state and around the state of new hampshire, talking about and focused on this issue. this january 11, the anniversary of aaron's death, the second of these walks happen. this time, not just one, there will be four rounds converging in concord on the 21st, which is the fifth anniversary of the supreme court's contribution to this mess, the case of citizens united stop the objective is to recruit 50,000 voters to ask this one question -- how are you going to end this system of corruption in washington? the theory is if enough ask that

question and if the race is sufficiently competitive, it creates an opportunity on the republican side certainly and maybe on the democratic side for a candidate to pick this issue up and if they pick it up and make it an issue, there is a chance that it becomes an issue in the presidential election. would that be enough? in my book, "republic lost," i was skeptical it would be enough. i also describe what you could describe as the regent president. the idea of this was if it's impossible for people to believe ordinary politicians will really take this issue up, what we need is not an immigration politician. imagine somebody like david souter or christine whitman or

-- just imagine the voice. a non-politician who committed to run for president with one promise -- that when elected they would do one thing to pass whatever the reform is that person thought was essential and then promise to resign. that's it. do one thing, a regent -- the regent is there while the children grow up. so we are going to force you to grow up by taking away this corrupting influence and the ordinary politician, the vice president becomes the president. the critical thing about this idea is there's no ambiguity if that person was elected why that person was elected. barack obama says i was elected for 44,000 different reasons but this is one person elected for one reason and there's no reason for congress pushing back

against it because it's clear what the american people said and i was the plenty of dissension to give that person with that person wants because it's the easy way to get rid of that person. once you give them the bill, they've got to go home and you can get back to ordinary politics as usual. this regent president system, if

three parts to make possible this change. because this change is possible. it takes one statute. i think we need 15 senators to switch place. it's possible if people like you stand up and focus not just on the simple injustice, the injustice of the corrupt criminal, but the real justice that we've got to bring back to the system, to the equality of citizens which this system has lost. it is my view, it is my life that this boy started me on that we can get back. it is possible. but the key here is an old harvey milk strategy -- it's possible if we give people hope that there is something that can be done. not hope in the sense our friend obama has abused the term, but hope in the sense of what vaclav havel described.

here's what he said about hope. hope is a state of mind, not of the world. it is a dimension of the soul, is not prognostication, it's an orientation of the spirit and an orientation of the heart. hope is not the same thing as joy that things are going well or a willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success but an ability to work for something because it is good. hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism, it is not the convention that something -- the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense. if something does make sense here, it is my view this republic makes sense that the ideal but 225 years of struggling have evolved makes sense here.

there is something to hope for and there is something even to be optimistic about, that if we organize in the way we now have the capacity to organize, there is the chance, not the certain the, the chance that we can restore this inequality of citizenship again, for once, maybe it has never been here then for once, but for all of us, that is our obligation -- the moral obligation, and obligation it can inspire all if it is understood to be something that speaks to the best of our tradition, which is including and expanding and building a democracy.