understand, lara. it's all part of the balancing that i talked about, we're trying to do, with the transparency that we need to do to get the public's trust, and what we're trying to do to ensure that we are protecting enough critical information. initially, one of the big drivers was we were going intot. that is really what we are trying to balance. >> earlier in the program, the comment was when the first article was delivered, it would be a usable particle. you used to say in order to avoid some of the pitfalls, there would not be a big ramp-up. it would be a slow number per year. we factored in the value we gave you the four

and tried to make it in a quantity that if the budget went up or down, we still could fit it in the air force toa. we didn't expect to go to the huge economic order of quantities. we are factoring that into the longer-term. >> can i ask what is to become of the lockheed boeing -- i want to get that right -- last fewn find the minutes of this briefing online. we take you now to the brookings institution for a discussion on state parties and their role in the national plug process.

>> good afternoon, everyone. i'm a senior fellow here at the brookings institution and the founding director of the center for effective public management. we are really pleased to welcome you here today and welcome our c-span audience today to a panel called "state parties and -- and

a neglected path to healthier parties." state parties have always been the ugly stepchild of american politics. never like them. everyone tells you they vote for the person, not the party and they have been doing that for people withand yet, absolutely amazing regularity vote for the party. want to explore these parties as institutions. parties are completely essential to a functioning democracy and today, i think we've got people up here who are going to talk about that and talk about the pros and the cons. let me introduce them and then i'm going to hand the floor over to jonathan and ray who have written the paper that if you have not gotten it, it is out there. then we will have a discussion

and include the audience eventually as well. to my immediate left is jonathan rauch, a senior fellow in the government studies program here at bookings and a contributing editor of the national journal and the atlantic. he's written a lot of books and a lot of papers, but my favorite is an e-book which i encourage you to find called "political hacks, machines, big-money and backroom deals can strengthen american democracy." and if that doesn't get you interested, nothing will. anhis immediate left is associate professor of political science at the university of massachusetts at amherst. ray also has a new book out called "campaign finance and pluto polarization -- when ." -- when purists

prevail." , thes left is jason perkey executive director of the south carolina democratic hardy. after serving in the kansas democratic party and has the theinction of being executive director and president of the association of state democratic executive directors. he speaks for all the professional people who run political parties or at least democratic local parties. is jason perkey -- is john phillippe. this includes federal and state finance campaign compliance and very interesting, the 2016

republican presidential nomination process. him really, really busy. at the end of the panel is eliza newlin carney, senior editor at "american prospect" where she manages their website and writes a weekly column called "rules of contributes to magazine features. she is most famously known for coining the term super pac, easy we now have as an part of the political lexicon. .his is a great panel they have interesting things to say and i am going to turn it ray first to jonathan and to talk about the work they did in preparation for this panel. thank you all for

coming on this beautiful day. it's great to see some old friends in the group here and thanks of course to ray, my co-author, and i need to recognize sam stoddard who is research assistant and all purpose analyst and friend working on this paper. extremely helpful, we couldn't have done it without you. it is chaos out there. both in the campaign and on capitol hill. ray and i don't need to belabor that point. what we decided we would do is go out there in the country and look for a non-we could actually turn still connected with something that would reduce the amount of sheer chaos and frustration. we think we have found such a knob and we think it is hidden in plain view. we think it is time to refocus and this is actually low hanging fruit. there's a lot that can be done

with bipartisan support that isn't very difficult and that would make significant event -- significant inroads. we did a bunch of things. we sent a survey to all 100 democratic and state democratic hardy's and got back 56 of those in time to use, which is quite a lot. comparede per -- we the results with earlier surveys. we also interviewed 15 state party executive directors and a few chairs who were part of that group in some detail about their responses and collected national data to look at funding and other such questions. we tried to put that together and what i hope is the most coherent picture of what is going on in state parties at the moment and what we found are interesting. focus on the findings of our conditions and ray will focus on hardy and -- on policy

and recommendations. two things i would like to focus on -- state parties are actually very much alive. they are very much unique and important as political entities and have the aspect of something we call the public good. let me try to unpack that. there has been a trend in political science to view parties in general and state parties in particular as masses of people in networks, interest groups, politicians, and whatnot. other people said parties don't really do much anyway anymore. we found that is not true. state parties have a distinctive cultures and professional to take a long-term view of things. we found they do some important things. integrative. they look across races at every level simultaneously.

look across hierarchies and integrate national parties with county parties and stand in middle of all of that. they also integrate across time. one of the things that is most important is that they are durable institutions. who can slashdate and burn or an outside group, as one of them put it, we are the stewards of the brand. they need to be accountable for long-term results and reputation. we talked to one dvd of the democratic party in a deep red state who said they are spending time and money running out turnout in safe democratic districts. they say why are you doing that? isn't that a waste of money? they say we need to worry about turnout for state offices and this is where we are going to get it. orhought no candidate interest group thinks like that. only a state party would. they also do something like gardening.

howere keen to find out state parties will actively endorse a candidate and say we pick this one. you will find at the back of the paper that the survey results are are all -- are all there. these to be gatekeepers back in the day. someone like donald trump could have never even been on the ballot. our they still are gardeners. they operate through jawboning and will go through a candidate and say you are a good candidate, why don't you run for this office instead of that office? they shape the landscape to make the races is more winnable and the candidates a little more reasonable. they also all recruit. that's a key function of state parties. they are building a bench for the future which is something candidates and interest groups don't worry about. stock andop capital

these are people you can pass on to the next candidate and that is very important. polarizingey are due . ray and his colleague, brian, have a new book out that finds in states where parties are stronger, legislatures are less polarized. executiveto a state director who came from a conservative advocacy group and told us how much his perspective had changed once he got into the party. for all of those reasons and others, state parties perform a lot of functions that are important to society. they have a lot of positive spinoff. sadas you all know, the fact about public goods is they tend to be underfunded because

no one is capturing all of the value. we decided to find out how they are doing. the answer is they are struggling. charts one and two and three show what is happening. terms since mccain-feingold passed in 2002, they are sort of flat. republicans took a nosedive and kind of built back. democrats are kind of flat. we also look at function, what they do and who they employ. not a great deal of change. size of staff and activities. what is different is the competition is running circles around them. figure three in the table, we looked at independent spending versus party independent spending. the parties become miniscule compared to the resources outside groups are throwing into campaigns.

what they tell us are things like this -- we believe we are fighting for our lives in the legal and judicial framework. the super pac's present a direct threat to state parties existence. day arelem is not that falling behind in absolute terms, it is that they are falling behind in relative terms. is much less transparent and accountable than party money. their interests are much more parochial and extreme. they tend to be polarized and they tend to be extreme. that is problematic if the public good is declining. now i will turn it over to ray who talks about policy factors and what to do about them. want to thank brookings for providing resources and to this project. is the rulesument

disadvantage state parties. the rules shackle parties from doing more of what they do best voterat is grassroots engagement across the party ticket. second, the rules make it harder to sponsor tv and lack the resources and leave outside groups. starting with grassroots activity, by far, the biggest complaint we have heard is that mccain-feingold federalize this core grassroots activities at the state level. that is their bread and butter in the essence of the public good. federal law just makes it harder. raise money inst complex ways to do this and it minimalize is what they do and their byzantine rule that uses voters to register and get them to the polls. they make a good living off of

this but i know we want to encourage more volunteers and they do to and we can change some of these things. another problem is federal election activities. it is very broad and it captures basic grassroots work which is intended to help candidates and local state elections. because of this, parties have to spend regulated money on traditional grass roots work. we were told simply telling voters to vote on november 8 and precinct 12 counts as federal election activity. so you leave off the part about when and where to vote. we want parties to be doing this. we want to beginning voters to the polls. in our view, parties could do even more of this. why does it have to be restricted to these mccain

goodold rules? the public is providing candidates and a renegade candidate like trump at the state level hurts the party brand. we can talk about chairs and directors and if you are organizing together, you are going to push back against such renegades. the fact is the laws discourage party ticket campaigning, the kind of campaign that encourages this mutual campaign. high costo use these federal dollars. in some states, party leaders focus on a few candidates in competitive races rather than the full slate. act more likearty a super pac and encourages political fragmentation.

the party isn't careful to circumscribe its activities. they stay in their lanes. that is what we heard a lot of. lane, grassroots activity -- that is their lane, the super pac. parties cope by specializing. they focus on two big things -- voter data, voter mobilization, and that is the holy grail of american politics. parties seem to dominate year but they still face more and more competition. concerns about the program supported by the koch brothers that work. they don't always share the data they collect. let me turn to the tv side of things. we show youegy --

those in our survey, have party said they advertise on tv and radio. we ask directors -- your something that was really fascinating -- we ask them to assess the environment for independent spending. inre are stark differences independent spending that give parties more free access to money. if there is no limit on contributions -- here's the problem with state laws -- it is simple math. if you restrict the party, you get more independent expenditures. in states that have contribution limits, 65% of respondents said independent groups sponsor more than half of political ads. states without those contributions, only 23% said that.

states with contribution limits, 65% of our respondents said independent expenditures is often a key factor in governors elections. less than half said that in the other state. we don't like this division of labor. super pac's are rarely in the campaign for a long haul. they're like the tent circus. way thisentioned the division train -- drains talent. we think it is time to restore some balance. based on some premises we laid out here, the party provides the public good, which we think are being undersupplied. state parties, even if they are not disappearing, are falling behind. some people might not like this and darknk super pac's money is here to stay.

here is our recommendation. raise or eliminate contribution efforts to the party. this could do what brian and i describe as building canals not dams. you want to divert -- money's to fall into politics, diverted toward the most accountable venues. we think that is the place. number two, led parties coordinate with candidates and aggregate their spending as much as possible. it's exactly what state parties should be doing. three, we recommend tax subsidies because parties divide underperforming public good. allave not thought through the implications here, so we are just putting this out there for discussion. treated parties are like nonprofits, we talk about how the discount is good for them -- why not for tax purposes as well? reduction toke tax

places like gale, why not for parties performing this public good? -- basic regulatory changes we agree with the brennan center to roll back the federalization of state and local activity. by narrowing the amount of activity that must be paid for with federal bleed -- federally compliant funds. let state parties be state parties. let me conclude by saying there are no magic bullets. we are realists and we need to start somewhere. eliminatingtart some of the disadvantages the parties face, especially at time when parties seem so fragmented. helping state parties is the low hanging fruit. there's not even a great risk in making these efforts even if they don't achieve all the

things they say they might achieve. it is certainly less risky than trying to amend the constitution or some of these very expensive public financing scheme. you can see we have quite a provocative paper here with even the recommendations. let me turn it over to our discussion. jason, do you want to go first? yes.: thank you. this is something republican parties and democratic parties like are dealing with. my counterpart in kansas and i spoke about all of this. my counterpart in south carolina talks about this as an issue. we are facing this every day. most of my colleagues believe they provide three core functions. we are a large organization. a multimillion dollar

organization. but it boils down to doing three things. we as an organization have to grow. we try to measure as many voters as we can and from there, we try to figure out a way to talk to voters in a meaningful way and keep them engaged during the election cycle and especially during the off years so folks know and are up to date on the issues that are important to us as a party and important to the state and the nation. the last thing we do is try to turn out as many folks to vote as we possibly can. all three of those separate things are considered federal activities. everything that spawns off of them is considered a federal activity. funds we have the to use in order to pay for any activities that come about as a result, we need to use federal

funds. nonfederal funds are also in a separate bank account. or some of the folks down ballot federalg some non- activities in our states. , overuth of the matter is time as a result of super pac's and a number of other things like the mccain-feingold act, state parties have been boiled down to having two pieces of article capital. we served as a male bank and ran a lot of mail through our state parties as a result of being able to pay for mail at a much reduced rate and we served as a house.as a data the democratic party has far and away the best data on voters and communities that any candidate would ever want to go after. we served as those two things

and over time, asked staff and shares and organizations, we try to come up with more added value to our organizations, to our states and candidates. working closely with our county parties in order to figure out different ways to communicate and ways we could grow and turn out voters. at the national level, we are fortunate as the association of state democratic chairs to have a leader in rate buckley who serves as the chair for the new hampshire democratic candidate. not just democrats, not just republicans, but all of us. we put together a plan in order to address them. to putcted the staff together a series of trainings for the purpose of understanding exactly what the impact of mccain-feingold has on state

hardee's because believe you made, the last thing you want is to get bob over the head freezing incorrect funds to pay for something. through the leadership of the executive director and the they have settor, up a training program for state ways of theearn the fec. while neil i think is going to put his kids through college as a result of the legal work, we don't pay him enough to make sure we stay out of trouble. when some states do, we feel really fortunate to have someone like neil who has relationships with the sec to work with us on any issue. to stress is what i started with -- this idea that it's not just state parties dealing with this issue, it's

not just democrats state parties, we both are. what i would hope would happen at the end of the day is our federal legislators, our members of congress would start to sit down with us more often in order to have a conversation about the party that their state that may have recruited them to run way back when what may 1 entered congress continues to get them reelected and serve the or republican parties and their state can hopefully hear the challenges we are facing on a day-to-day basis and do something about the laws ray just referred to. we agree and issue of the contribution limits is an issue for us. we agree being able to coordinate more allows us to spend money more effectively and wisely during the course of a campaign. making the contributions tax-deductible is an issue,

especially for larger donors looking for a way to spend their money at the end of the year. and the regulatory rollbacks are something that hopefully we start working more closely with our members of congress that we can face and address. thank you. john, from the other side of the aisle. it is aank you, pleasure to be here and i want to thank ray and jonathan for their work and brookings for hosting a very important program. is, delighted, as jason that there's more attention being focused on the plight of state parties in today's day and age and i think there's a lot of room for common ground, but not just bipartisan. ideological as well and it could be among people who have different goals or see different problems in the system right now. isot of folks think there

too much money going to less transparent and grassroots oriented groups as the authors mention. if you have a problem with that, one way to counteract that is to create reforms that will strengthen the most transparent, most accountable to grassroots oriented groups in the system. one specific reform they talk about and we can get into those is raising more illuminating contribution limits. a lot of people say that's more money into the system, and to begin with, that isn't true. keep in mind there's not a dollar that can not go into the system now that would be in the system if state parties could raise money for themselves. it's just a matter of where it's going to go. increasing contribution limits could have the ironic effect of

increasing the strength and influence of low dollar donors because what you will see a state parties are much more driven by low dollar donors and the mixc's are and would change as more high dollar money comes to state parties but it's going to be a mix, not 100% high dollar donors. the other thing you need to look at in that respect is the national committees have high limits compared to state party committees. that doesn't mean we don't raise low dollar money. the fact is it costs a lot of money to raise low dollar money and money that could come in the door from high dollar contractors could be used to build low dollar fundraising programs and the state funding -- state parties don't have the resources to do that just now. increasing or eliminating limits could have a positive effect on state parties.

a couple of other points i will make and one thing you may be wondering is why is the guy from the national party committee here? two reasons i think are important for the discussion. are very committees well integrated. a matterm is not just of national parties, state parties and local party committees. we all need to be strengthened but the regulations in place have drawn fissures between the different levels of party committees. for instance, as mentioned in the paper, national party committee officers can not even raise money for state accounts and state candidates. the chairman of the republican banned byommittee is federal law from raising a single dollar for a state candidate for local candidate or state party committee to help

state and local candidates. measures such as rolling back those kinds of restrictions could help the state parties. other reason i think i'm here from a national party perspective is we are set up a little differently on the republican side. i worked with state parties all day, every day. we don't have a separate state parties association so i get questions from state parties all the time and as i read this paper, one of the things that struck me is how much of what i was reading was reflect in the kind of questions i get an sentiments i hear from folks on the ground every day and the frustration and confusion. i teach election law at the state level on a regular basis and it's very complex. the most highly regulated entities in the political system and the least equipped to deal with it because they are so

highly regulated because there are so many structural daises against them. try to walk them through the rules and how to allocate costs between state and federal accounts. hopefully not exclusively. partially the other two laws, all they want to do is grassroots activity and all they want to do is engage with voters and they find out they can't do that without employing lawyers and not spending time on actual voter context but instead on mere compliance. i think there's a lot of room for reform and i think there is common ground and i think there's looking -- i think brookings and the authors of this paper for their work. thanks to brookings for

this event and ray and john for taking this seriously. accountabilityt, some ofsparency -- these ideas are excellent and i support them, but others i would say we need to be careful in crafting our solution so we don't bring about the opposite of what we intend and have the effect of weakening state parties by exciting voter anger at big money. ago that weo long had deregulation of the parties in the form of soft money. the mccain-feingold law took effect, we had a series of scandals involving the lincoln bedroom and buddhist monks. withonors were rewarded

ski vacations and getaways and exclusive access. what theyem got wanted. anyone who needs reminding of the problems of that era can record that was the supreme court ruling that upheld that law. what that record showed was that no one was happy. donors were unhappy and felt shaken down. the voters were increasingly upset and that is why that law was enacted. we shouldn't forget that. that wasn't long ago and there were some dangers that occurred when parties were deregulated that would be a shame to replicate. of that euro that speaks to this paper is at that time, there were elected officials who set up leadership packs, their own political action committees in the state, taking advantage of the fact

that the states had no contribution limit. aat is something i think is little bit of a red flag in this paper because it is revoking the band on that -- the and on national party officials raising money. to make surell those types of abuses did not take place once again. a couple of contradictions i'm going to quibble with a little bit. on the one hand, state parties are presented as pure and virtuous and outside groups are secretive and polarizing. state parties are forwarding the goals of establishing infrastructure and sitting with a lasting brand. they are described as less corruptible than candidates, but let's not forget it is elected officials running for office who are running the state parties and they are the ones tasked with raising this money. less corruptible

than the candidates is a complicated article. given a clear role candidates play in running and raising money for these parties. the paper also does say these parties and outside groups are competing to hire the same people, duplicating messages and tasks. anything, that illustrates the fuzzy line between parties and outside groups and we see that in this election or the republican party, some established leaders are concerned about donald trump. that came out first against trump was none other than the club for growth. an outside group of the type resized as meddling in primaries. but they were the first to do what establishment party leaders wanted to do. i don't know if we can really were partiesties

in general are that separate from outside groups. i think often they have similar goals and i don't think they are less corrupt. question raised in my mind by the statement in this paper that corruption is less important than moderation. i think that is at odds with the anger voters feel right now. i think voters feel is a huge problem and it's turning up in poll after poll as being a huge concern to voters. if parties become perceived as being driven by special interest donors or big money, voters might go against it rather than becoming part of the grassroots army. there's a perception we move money from one place to the other, will have trans parent see and accountability. there is some evidence here that

in states with less regulation, that is happening. will -- a danger that that there will be more money and if the problem is outside disclosing, maybe we should focus on disclosure. virtually unanimously, the supreme court upheld in the citizens united ruling. having said that, there are some here.ideas that includes the idea that they should allow contributions to be tax-deductible. i think that is something that is of interest to republicans as well and i would use that as an example. calledarty reform group take back our republic support tax credits. possiblehat's a strong

area of common ground. overduegree it is way to let parties coordinate with their candidates. i think that is something you can an act today. i know there are dangers to that in there probably would be people who argue against it but i think a lot of lawmakers would rally around that. we could narrow the definition of federal activity by state parties, but with the caveat that it needs to be done with extreme caution so federal elected officials don't turn state parties into personal slush funds away they did before mccain-feingold. in closing, i would say nature we talked not just to one another, but voters in this process. i think there is an alternative model for state parties. it has been proposed by congressman john sarbanes-oxley match low dollar contributions for candidates and i think that

could be applied to state parties. i think that would be more calculated to strengthen them because once people make a small contribution, they are invested in the process. note i would say is the federal parties already have quite a bit more access to unrestricted money as a result ruling in 2014, without going into too much joint fundraising committees to raise much larger contributions. and this is actually happening. elected officials on capitol hill are setting up joint fundraising committees and raising contributions up to $300 and a time to give to political parties for new special accounts created by a spending bill that allows parties to operate special accounts with much higher contribution limits for buildings and conventions and recounts.

that money is coming in and i don't see a change in the strength of the party. it's a complicated political landscape and i think we need to proceed with caution. andne: thank you very much thank you to everyone. i thought i would give ray and john a couple of minutes to respond before we go to the audience. ray: i want to point out one thing -- what we are talking about is state parties. lincoln bedroom thing, i think it is almost quaint that was our biggest worry. you can only fit one couple in the lincoln bedroom at the time. and we knew who they were. there was a guest list. that's not true anymore. trust is a funny thing. during the height of soft money, there was more trust in congress

and the government and at any point in the 10 years before that in the 10 years after that. i'm not sure people make the distinction between all this money that goes to super pac's -- our pouring -- our point is if they are not making the distinction, at least give it to the parties who are going to be more accountable. they are the people who have to govern eventually. possible tomoney as the ones who are going to face the burden of actually having to govern and face the people. they are not really the same people. some of them are. as one example, why do you think senator mcconnell faced so much difficulty pushing in a writer from the tea party because he wanted to have more money to coordinate? they know it is giving the party

more power. so there are differences out there and one of the most telling stories we had was it depends on where you sit. we had one executive director who was working for a very conservative group. his perspective changed entirely. my job is to get republicans elected, not conservatives. when i was doing that, that was my job. this equation that they are all the same is problematic russ. let me stop there. jonathan: thank you for the comments there. especially allies of. if we had magic bullets with no downside, all of this would be easier. it is possible if you lighten

the contribution limit on parties, more money would flow in. i'm not sure we think there's anything wrong with that. money flowing to parties can strengthen their relative clout in the system and if you have looked at the presidential race right now, you might think strengthening relative clout might be a good ring. looking just at the amounts, but look at where they are going. to look atough just the individuals and the names and say it's all the same people. the incentives are very different whether you are an insider or outsider, whether you have a long-term stake winning elections, in which case you are likely to look toward the median voter or if you are just and for the short-haul. our reformry community has lost sight of that and boiled everything down to a simple follow the money rubric. the idea of matching low dollar

contributions to state dollars is interesting. we didn't evaluate it for this paper but it could use evaluating. we also think it is less likely to happen. if you go to the american public and say should we match contributions to parties, we think they would give you a resounding no. a tax break might be more practical, but it is certainly worth a look. for your all again wonderful and challenging comments. elaine: jason or john, any thoughts? john: i will respond to allies a just a little bit as far as mccain feingold and what they did and what was nearly -- what speculation at the time. we can talk about the lincoln bedroom, but those were national committees. the restrictions were driven by mere speculation that national

parties and federal candidates would use parties to circumvent the national soft-money ban. without any evidence. we are in a different time and a different system with a lot more groups involved. they've been freed up to be more involved by citizen united and there's every reason to take a look back and say what has been the experience and mccain-feingold passed and is the mere conjecture about circumvention that existed at the time enough to keep state parties so restricted in this new d -- new day and age. i wouldn't courage and examination of that. the way in which i drilled down a little bit is on coordination. we have state candidates on the ballot almost two years no

matter what state you're in. the idea we can coordinate with them because there is a congressional candidate on the ballot and the inability to participate in a coordinated way , despite the fact that we are all democrats are all republicans seems absurd. it also seems absurd a state party cannot put out a mailer that we could use state funds that lists all of those candidates running for office on the democratic side without being forced to use one type of funds, one type of activity. it just doesn't seem logical and also seems very restrictive and something that is unnecessary. we are an added value to all the candidates running for office, whether it's at the munich to the level, and the state level all the way up to the presidential level. added valuede that but these laws restrict the added value we are able to provide. these recommendations may and

john set forth at least start the process for us to be more engaged and in order for us to get more people engaged in the process. we are restricted and the ability to do voter registration, less people will get registered to vote. if we are restricted in a way we can communicate meaningfully with voters, less voters could be engaged. if we are restricted in the way we turn out voters, less people are going to turn out to vote and those are things everyone would agree we should be doing more of. more people should be registered and we should be having important conversations about the impact of laws and regulations and more people should turn out and vote in order to share their voice with the american people or with their communities. i thought i would take the prerogative to enter my two cents since this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

one of the things we will see when the general election begins is that there will be people in many states in the united they to do not get a presidential campaign. the candidates will simply not go there. they won't go to hawaii emily will go to alaska. but they also will not go to the safe states. they will simply stay away from all but about 10 states. there's a lot of speculation that over time, the polarization , which is a result of lots of to whereeople moving there are near people like them gerrymandering -- there's some speculation that there so many states where your vote does not matter. in the middle of nebraska, your vote probably doesn't matter and maybe you don't other to vote in the presidential race. because there are more and more people who feel like that, it's

got to have an effect on participation and everybody in the country, no matter how they are concerned, everybody believes in maximizing participation. and yet the institutions which , as we are consistently have been hearing, hobbled in their ability to do that. howard dean when was chairman of the democratic national committee iran something called the 50 state strategy. the first thing he did was there were some states that were in -- such atate that bad state that they could not afford a lawyer or accountant. , building block infrastructure things like that. he second thing he did was looked for blue voters in red states, which i thought was a

big, big change. most people now think his holding of the party held the democrats get out of their slump congress in the 2006 and the presidency in 2008. i think there is some evidence that parties really can increase participation and increase that connection to elections in a way that the super pac's cannot. thinke with ray -- now to act on the scandals, the lincoln bedroom -- compared to dark money, compared to the koch brothers, many difference organizations and what they are doing, i think there are bad things that happen all the time and we might be looking at them much lesser of two evils. other comments?

want toust briefly, i go back to the idea of the risk of corruption and appearance of corruption. they are raising the kind of money that would go to super pac's, that is what i worry about. i love the parties as much as everyone else and a door engagement and i would hate to see voters turn away from the parties because they perceive them to be doing this. john: i would agree to that but there's a lobby for what is termed campaign-finance reform. it is frankly folks with a position that they want less they arepolitics and hell-bent on convincing the public that money equals

corruption. frankly, that's not the case. the appearance of corruption could be there. dce lobbyists to have a stake in that game are convincing people money equals corruption. give too much credence to that sort of argument. elaine: any other comments? why don't we go to the floor. there somebody with a microphone. why don't we start in the back of the room? >> i saw the op-ed in the new , cantimes several days ago the sanders campaign go local? i'm wondering what the role of the state parties would be in allowing and insurgents to play

a role in the campaign? >> we ask that and what they say is that it's not our job to prevent insurgents. we don't lock anyone from running. we give our data to anyone who asks who is a candidate. they tend to have an open door in unusualpt circumstances when they feel they have no circumstance but to step in. they step off and virtually all of time. eliza: lyndon larouche is the actual one. isathan: they said it because if we are seen as stepping in and stopping people, there will be blowback against us and people will run against the party and it has been

effective. is this kind of gentle process of having a lot of conversation with a lot of people and encourage people to run for the spots and educate people and they say they will. if someone is hopeless, they can be less aggressive in supporting up person among the margins, but it is a soft power kind of approach. jason: i can give you some tangible things that we did. my deputy director is on leave working for senator sanders' campaign. she's actually in michigan. they moved her from south carolina to michigan and we have cultivated staff that wound up working on the campaign. we provided an office space for

both campaigns to do training of their volunteers, to hold press conferences, to have meetings with surrogates, to do any number of things. we do it in a completely even keel way. before senator sanders even announced before secretary clinton or martin o'malley, they had access to all of that information equally and at the same time. they had access to all of those resources and access to information at the same time, so there was no -- there was not an ounce of favoritism at all given to any of those folks that would lend itself to any type of campaign, whether it was an established when -- establishment one or insurgent one.

jonathan: i think one answer is why should they be any less corruptible than the parties -- and i think you just heard the answer. where a party sets, it's harder to favor a particular gender because they are all your customer. elaine: how about right over there? >> i'm richard skinner with the sunlight foundation and this is for ray and jonathan. what did your respondents have to say about the role of national party organizations like the republican governors association and democratic governors association? they do play a role but we did not ask them about that. what were you thinking?

right. that's probably a function of the fact that the money is not going to the state parties, so they have to rely on these outside organizations to spend that money, which is a deeply second-best solution. is a deeply second-best solution, that you have to run state campaigns from washington. was there anything else you were alluding to? >> just simply that this is party money as well. if you have donors who care about politics, they will probably get to the rda or the jda. curious as to -- you're talking a lot about super pac's, but not a lot about party organizations or super pac's that are like house majority pack and senate majority pack closely aligned with party leaders.

>> we did run across that a little. if you route all this money through the party, you have corruption issues. now the state parties are trying to do is set up their own super pac's. there is now a court challenge underway. it will probably go up to the supreme court over the extent to which they can do that during but they are finding themselves saying, a-ok, if we cannot raise the money inside the state party, we will take a former state party chairman or the current state party chairman and set up a state super pac. we can't coordinate with that group but we know them and they know that and they can rake in the dark money and spend it. nobody we talked to think that is a good idea on any side of the equation. but it is headed towards -- the doors are open for the money headed in that direction. i don't think it is a great

solution. we do have these principles of federalism. but it want to point out one thing that often gets overlooked about how much money the parties are getting. when the amendments were made in raisethe parties could $10,000 for their federal cash per year. so that is 20,000 dollars. today, it would be $100,000 inflation-adjusted. the parties are still a $10,000 per year. that is equivalent of $4000. so they are going backwards in terms of how much they can raise. since 1974. a simple social -- a simple solution, let's just set it at the value of 1974, $100,000. even that would have been a better solution. i still have an adjusted for inflation. is that true? i don't know. >> [indiscernible] >> ok. they didn't even index. >> they did not index the limits

and just want to make sure everybody here heard that. cheryl: the in -- they index the inflation for the candidates and i think that should have >> let me support in say something about bipartisan support. was a push to make the nomination announcement at thanksgiving. we did have a higher -- iowa caucuses two years -- two days after new year's. which is not ideal. the two parties governor very worried about that and had some formal and some informal coordination in the year since. you will notice that this year, everybody started in a much more civilized fashion in february, that both parties agreed on the

first four states before we got into the big states. so in this time of massive polarization, where sometimes it seems that, if the democrats say black, the republicans will say white, just out of reflex. a history ofn cooperation in order to preserve the prerogatives, in this instance, the nomination system. that i think it is very likely you will see a lot of cooperation among the parties as we move forward. every cycle, one of these super pac's does something that the candidates or the parties really don't like. mitt romney, the end of 2012, superined about the pac's. he didn't like there as. he felt they went off message. he felt they were detrimental to the message. establishment,l

if you will, are coming to say that themselves what really have we rocked here in these -- have weight rought here in the super pac's? more questions. yes, right here in the end. >> john samples, cato institute. you just made my case for me in a sense. it has long been my conviction that the whole point of campaign finance regulations, for example, already is word to suppress voters. so one of the things that is actually being done here when you suppress outside institutions is to in fact make it easier for insiders cannot be challenged. incumbents love that. incumbent party people love that. pointms to be the whole

for these kinds of regulations are the primary point of real meeting rather than a formal meeting. another statement made here that action gives credence to that is that you equate it, the political activities of large and effective or somewhat effective organizations, the cook brother -- the koch brothers organization, with corruption itself. anyone under an ada da reading is actually not -- rating is actually not a legitimate part of the political system. so is it the case, in fact, that we should all be wary of these and institutional changes because, in fact, they have decided insider things, interests?as and

ray: i see your point about protecting incumbents. it's one reason for this contribution limits. but of all the organizations that income is should feel the most is the party. parties want to take control of the legislature. they will use their funds to get the other side. that's why incumbents don't like strong parties. unless they are on the verge of capturing the legislature. then they need the parties. now they are relying on these outsiders to do it for them. so i'm for, you know, limits on the candidates. no limits or very high limits on the parties. to me, that would be the best way for having competition in the system. jonathan: i see those as kind of

two versions of the same question, which is aren't we trying to savor the people we like? one of the nice things about of building channels, not dams, is that we are not on board with saying the outsiders can't spend the money. even if we were, i don't think it's enforceable. we just don't see why the insider should be so persistently and consistently disadvantaged. so we would like them to compete on a more level playing field and let the people out there who are making the everyday political decisions decide where that money should go on political rather than strictly legal grounds. engineeringis not the system. that is d engineering the system. it is something that a lot of libertarians, i would hope, would join us on. also on incumbent protections, there is a very interesting book that came out a couple of years -- by a political scientist

by a pair political scientists. when the parties selected candidates, races were more competitive. it turned out the parties had more interest in recruiting strong challengers and were able to find a good fight. when the party stepped out, you had which crash -- witchcraft advocate stepping in. in fact, you have a much less balanced, less competitive system in a way when you went to open primaries. so think hardware the incentives really lie here. elaine: back to the audience. right over here, the young man by the wall. : i'm young. i appreciate that. elliott friedman. referring to jason's comments earlier, candidates are

guaranteed the best rate for advertising time, then the parties and the super products -- super pac's pay commercial rates. jason: i do not believe so. the single most attractive thing for donors to super pac's's anonymity. when i asked for contributions for people, the question is will mining show up somewhere, especially when i am talking about large dollar donors. so our ability to raise the funds to go up on your, regardless of the price on it, is incredibly impacted by the fact that i have to report those contributions for people who want to give to me. these are folks who want to give so that we can grow our party. we can add more people to the electorate. we can talk to folks in a

meaningful way. they want us to build that are models so we can turn out more voters. but the last thing they want to have is being shown up on an nbc report or stateroom. that is -- or state report. that is the single issue, especially among large donors come apart from a tax incentive for being able to get a dig duction -- a deduction. eliza: i want to follow up on what jason said. i think that a lot of people are going to give to the anonymous groups simply because they want to be anonymous. even if you try to create channels, they will still not go to stay parties because they don't want their names disclosed. that is something to keep in mind as well. in fact, it is not the super pac's that don't disclose, because they have the full disclosure imposed upon them. but it is the politically active tax-exempt groups.

ain't: right up over here by the wall and then we will -- elaine: right up over here by the wall and then we will go to you, sir. >> thank you for fascinating conversation. germany were political campaigns are the most disciplined and rest organized events possible. they are also by far the most boring events you could possibly imagine. the reason is because the political parties have total control over the nominating and recruiting process. states, you united have not only donald trump, but on state levels, candidates that would raise many eyebrows in europe and germany. could you speak to the wasting parties recruit candidates and what they actually do? do they approach people or do you wait for some billionaire to show up?

[laughter] i don't know. jason: well, yes. we are waiting for neil, our lawyer, our resident alien air. we are going through this in south carolina -- resident billionaire. we are going through this in south carolina. we have a group of people who know a lot of folks, get in a room and identify what races are on the ballot this year and we try to go out into the communities and identify the strongest candidate who will carry a message that enough people in their communities will believe in and get behind in order to win. some stay parties get into it a little later than others and some get into it very early. what i found is those stay parties that get into it earlier are able to cultivate a candidate better and be able to provide them with better resources.

people who are getting and later finance their own campaigns because of the amount of money necessary in order to win and the amount of time it takes to raise $2700 a clip, if you are running on the federal level, or the $5,000 a clip on the legislative level. but it's just a group of people within our party or the community who would like to start winning races again or continue to win races at the party level, we just formed a committee. it is really that simple. grade: something that struck me when i -- ray: something that struck me when i was going , it lookse survey like state parties do spend more on candidate recruitment now, particularly the biggest jump at

the local office level. yet their contribution to local candidates were down precipitously. or at least a lot fewer stay parties are giving to local candidates then used to. i wanted to highlight that fantasy if there was anything behind that that you guys picked up. but also, because i think sometimes in d.c. we lose what is going on at the state and local level, at the local level in particular, where local parties are having a lot of challenges themselves and have very strict limits that they have to abide by in order to stay outside of the complex federal regulatory system. it strikes me that it is problematic to be draining state they resources for among reasons we talked about. but if it means less resources for local candidates, in an age

where not only is there inflation, by campaign costs are going up regardless, there may be cheaper ways to reach voters than there used to. but the media's a fractured now, there are so many different things you have to spend money on to reach the same number of voters and make the same kind of impression. likeyou factor in things early voting and things that drag election day through the fall. it used to be you could do one mail piece by day before the election and recruit your friends to work a polling place. you can't do that anymore in a local polling place. because only people have already voted. , it appears to be, is less and less of a resource for those people who really need it. elaine: did you want to add anything to that, jason? ok. jonathan: to this specific question, we didn't ask why state parties are moving away

from direct contributions and toward recruitment and other indirect. is because thebe latter is a lot less regulated the lamese it is strategy. it is easier for them to compete on localization that it is on money because there is so much more money out there. sam, did you have anything to add on that? sam, overall, the types of activities that the stay parties are gravitating towards, to us feel like the activities have a little bit less influence in terms of creating messaging or reputation at building a brand for parties. are theg those advertising, but also the sorts of things that they need to do in order to recruit candidates is really important. so what you have then is stay parties find themselves serving the needs of candidates in these , theof impartial ways jason has been talking about, their ability to build a brand to the extent that that is not

on television or done in other means is less able. they are also less involved in the organizations that they are now being forced to compete with. here we have all these private organizations. we spoke to some many stay parties who deal with turnover and inconsistency in their own leadership or their own strategic focus. private organizations are much more able to craft, set the strategy in those means. that doesn't make state parties less valuable. it means that, in order for them to be able to support their own images of they brand, they need to at least have more available playing field. elaine: i think the gentleman right here. just wanted to go back a couple of questions. there were comments made about the anonymity of big donors.

i think that is what people are really against come anonymity. that speaks corruption. corrupt, it may not be but the perception is the reality and i think that is where the voters get angry. i said here a couple of years ago brookings. there is a former prominent senator and i asked, do the people in capitol hill really understand how angry, how graying -- how angry the electorate is? unfortunately, he gave me some mealymouthed political answer -- oh, of course they do -- but nothing changes. and that is with the electorate is really angry about. the anonymity is the perception of corruption and nothing changes. jason: the true irony for me is that they are engaging in the same exact activity as state parties and yet they don't have to have the same reporting requirements that stay parties

do. those groups are doing candidate recruitment. those groups are making sure that their candidates are getting over the finish line. those groups are building a volunteer apparatus. americans for prosperity is recruiting people to go door-to-door to make sure the frontthat alec what's in of state legislators are passed. they are doing the exact same thing, but they are not required to report the same things we are. this disclosure issue is very difficult and very cup located. politically active tax-exempt groups to subject the less you law, have [indiscernible] this is something people will have to start talking about in a serious way. stop simple find a name-calling and get to the nitty-gritty of

how you can craft requirements that do not trade on free speech . elaine: next question, right back there by the wall. interested in jonathan's and raymond's ideas of pragmatist versus purist. and thinking about perception. i can't help but think about superdelegates. there's one superdelegate sitting in the panel right now. i guess my question for you to is what does it mean when a and the dnce endorses a candidate outside of the party, such as an independent, and what does it mean on the other side of the aisle when a note -- when a lawmaker endorses a row candidate. i'm not saying doubled trump, but we can think donald trump.

eliza: the state party chairman are superdelegates. well, first of all, the dnc members who are superdelegates do get elected. so i could imagine, for instance, if i endorsed donald trump tomorrow, that come time to elect a new democratic national committee, i suspect that maybe i wouldn't be on the slate and maybe nobody would vote for me. so there is an accountability mechanism in there. i think for the opec -- the elected officials and members of congress on the democratic side are superdelegates in on the republican side or not. the committee members are all superdelegates. but a congressman who did that would be big news. and it would be big news in his or her district. i suspect they would get a primary challenge.

next time around. this is the parter -- this is the power of parties. parties, for all of their weakness, are still incredibly powerful. we've never had a democracy that has -- that doesn't have political parties. as much as people dump on them, this is how people organizing cells in democracies. there are accountability mechanisms to the voters take party seriously. and punished superdelegates who go endorse somebody outside the party. as for the narrower question that comes up a lot, with the superdelegates ever controlled beenntion, there's superdelegates in the democratic party since 1984. they have never voted differently than the publicly

elected delegate. again, for the same accountability reason. they get elected themselves and, unless there were some really comparing -- compelling reason, the delegates well vote the way publicly vote and the elected delegates vote. you can see a situation where maybe the voters didn't decide, ok, where you go into a convention and there is a third, eighth third, a third of the delegates and nobody has the first ballot. then they would have some power to make a decision. but it would be because the voters didn't actually decide, as opposed to turning over the will of the voters. i know there is a lot of talk about, but i really don't see it happening. one last question. one last question from some intrepid -- come on, there were more hands.

there we go. the entire panel seems to say that it's a good thing that we increase participation. but my understanding, perhaps misunderstanding, is that republicans particularly don't want increasing for dissipation. -- increase in participation. how do i put those together -- if i do? jason: is that a question for me? will say this, as a republican, as an employee of the national republican committee, we are all very excited about the huge advantage we have in voter turnout in the primary and caucus season this year over the democrats. so we are all for participation. jason: the elections of our -- our state legislative elections

are so important for the purposes of drawing maps. they are also very important for the purposes of laws that can be passed that would create voter intimidation and voter suppression within our states. and right now, we have a slew of secretaries of state who are writing laws that are inhibiting people from getting to the ballot box. they are also not doing something very important, which is educating voters on those laws here in your is an example. if there are new laws on voting on the books, a majority of the americans that live in a community in which those laws were changed have not been educated sufficiently about those changes. but if there is a change in the speed limit, you better be sure there's a roadside out there -- a road sign out there that you can go 45 instead of 55. in america, we have done such a horrible job of educating people about those changes so that, when they show up at the polls, they don't go confused, they don't feel alienated, and they don't feel like their vote won't matter. i think that's the issue.

right now, as democrats in these states where these laws have been passed, we are accepting it for what it is. we are hoping to elect people that might change those laws. but more importantly, what we are doing right now is putting pressure on the secretaries of state and people running the elections to educate voters on the changes. otherwise, we are going to see less and less voter turnout because of the confusion and because of the lack of education that exists. it is very important that we do about this issue and educate more people about it so that more people will participate in more people will be engaged and we can debate these things at a much higher level than we are right now. ain't: with that, i would for to thank our panelists a great discussion. i would like to thank our audience. and i would like to point out to everyone that they should, if they want to look at this in more depth, go to the brookings raymond lo go to

roger and jonathan rauch. you can get it for free on the brookings website. thank you very much for participating today. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [video clip]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

announcer: a discussion of states rules on this day of primary voting. four states go to the polls today, michigan, mississippi, we will beidaho area

-- i hope. we will be covering those results tonight and taking your calls. of thisissed any discussion, you can watch it any time in our video library at .ww.c-span.org at 5:30 today, a conversation between politico and government officials on the state of u.s.-canadian relations ahead of minister'sn prime visit to the united states later this week. for live: join us coverage of the white house state dinner for canadian prime mr. justin trudeau beginning at 6:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. -- prime minister just and true beginning at 6:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. announcer: republicans will see who receives the 99 delegates at stake in these two states. will have candidate speeches tonight and get your calls and

reactions live during primary coverage starting at 8:00 eastern. lisa monaco talked about us-led efforts to combat isis recently which controls parts of iraq and syria and she spoke at the council of foreign relations and washington, d.c., followed by a q&a section moderated by a security advisor. this is one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. we will go ahead and bring things to order. it is my pleasure to provide over today's session with lisa monaco. i welcome everybody to today's council on foreign relations meeting.

meeting is part of the can at a moscow lecture on homeland security and counterterrorism series which honors the memory moscow, a longtime cfr member, who had an illustrious clear -- illustrious career. i would like to extend a special welcome and thanks to keith moscow as well as members and guests of the family who are in attendance today. now it's my pleasure to introduce lisa to you. besides being an old friend, lisa is a term and is public servant. she assumed the duty of security to homeland in march eighth, 2013. she advises the president in all aspects of counterterrorism policy and strategy as well as the coronation of all homeland security-related activities throughout the executive branch. prior to that, she served as

assistant attorney general for national security. prior to that, she was the deputy general of the humane justice. at the fbi, she was chief of staff to robert mueller and also special counsel to him prior to that. from 2001 to 2007, lisa served as a federal prosecutor. she was appointed to the enron task force where she was co-lead counsel. work in that task force, she received the attorney general award for exceptional service, which is the highest award given by the justice department. 1998, prior to being federal prosecutor, she was counsel to janet reno. prior to joining doj, she partnered in the third circuit.

i would like to welcome lisa to the stand. [applause] lisa: thank you so much. was reverting to his prosecutor days when he welcomed me to the stand. [laughter] our commonting to prosecutor days. the thing that ken didn't tell you is that i have basically been stalking him i hope career. he is one of my predecessors in my current job. so it's good to be here.

it is good to be back with an old friend. it is also very good and a real thesure to be delivering kenneth moscow memorial lecture. i had the opportunity to visit .ith keith backstage we shared a number of stories about our common roots. for those of you who are not aware, ken moscow, in addition to being the kind of guy who likes to run with the bulls in pamplona, was a talented cia operative. he hailed from my hometown of newton, massachusetts. and he died tragically and far too young near the summit of mount kilimanjaro. was likeand his work that of so many other ,ntelligent men and women military men and women, homeland security, diplomatic and law enforcement members.

they all put their lives on the line every single day. they do so to keep our country safe. today, i want to talk about the preeminent security threat that we face, the threat of terrorism, and how isil represents a new evolution of that threat. and how we are waging a new campaign. it was only three months ago that a married couple, sayed ,arouk and tashfeen malik walked into an office gathering in san bernardino and opened fire. they had assault rifles and a veritable armory with them and in their home, including pipe bombs. they also had a six-month-old daughter who they left with their grandmother, with her grandmother, before they began

their murderous grand -- murderous rampage. 14 people were killed. 22 were wounded. sigh he farouk was an american citizen. like the recent attacks from paris to chattanooga, the san bernadino attack was a stark reminder that, for all of our vigilance, for all of our focus, the specter of terrorism persists both for americans and for our allies. instability from syria to somalia provides fertile ground for extremism and sometimes tragically the attackers are homegrown. bernadino, notan just because it was the worst terrorist attack on the united states since 9/11, but because it was a starkly different kind of attack. simply put, the terrorist threat we confront today, almost 15 years after that terrible september day, the terrorist

threat has evolved and it has done so dramatically. what distinctions the threat today is that it is broader, more diffuse, and less predictable than at any time since 9/11. spoke ofonce hierarchical networks and sleeper cells, much of the threat today is online, distributed across the globe. continue to see planning for sophisticated and coordinated attacks, such as those in paris, terrorism today is increasingly defined by small , sometimesan actors with little or no direct contact with terrorist organizations. those people have succumbed to violent extremism. it is what you might call opportunistic or a do-it-yourself terrorism. the primary example of this new type of terrorism is the cancer il.iso--- i

l. isi isil has eclipsed al qaeda. the world has been shocked by the butchery and depravity of these twisted fanatics. their stronghold in iraq il has displayed unprecedented brutality. they crucify their victims and brutalize others. they enslave women and children and teach that rape is an expression of gods will. his -- theyin behead innocents and broadcast it to the world. what keeps me up at night is that this threat is unlike what we have seen before. al qaeda focused on launching

catastrophic attacks against the west. the so far -- the so-called far enemy. they used the internet to post grainy videos in pdf form. isil is different. a recent report was subtitled from retweets to rock up. i think that underscores the scale of our challenge. and onanatics are online the ground. they are at once terrorists, insurgents and bureaucrats attempting to control a territory that was at one point larger than the united kingdom. i still supporters have -- isil supporters have shown an ability to have broader tax, but they too direct foreign fighters attack soft targets, like they did in paris. they deployed crude but deadly chemical weapons, which pose an

imminent threat to syrians and iraqis. and they -- and through their use of social medium, isil has distributed the threat locally. they can inspire sympathizers and adherence air in -- adherence anywhere. they turn lost souls into soulless killers and they do it whether it is in bangladesh or in san bernardino. so even as we focus on isil, we can't take our eyes off of al qaeda, its affiliates or its adherence. from north africa to south asia, their desire to strike at american interests and citizens warrant our continued vigilance. the most active of these al qaeda inemains the arabian peninsula and it has attempted to attack the united states multiple times. andican airstrikes international pressure have forwarded -- have thwarted

external plots and targeted their leadership. we are paying very close attention to groups like al-shabaab and al qaeda and the islamic maghrib, which has shown and that it, too, remains dangerous. taken together, these all form a toxic group. and the different threat that isil poses is a danger that we cannot ignore nor underestimate. this is not an entity we can accommodate. so i will say it again. isil, andelf come -- all of its manifestations, insurgent army, foreign magnet, social media phenomenon, external operations contract, isil is the principal terrorism

threat we face as a nation. backdrop, we are applying lessons learned to a new and adaptive enemy. thanks to the brave military and intelligence personnel that we ale, we have disrupted qaeda's finances and training camps. we have hunted down their leaders, including osama bin laden and many others. qaeda of 15 years ago has been decimated. al qaeda's remaining leaders in afghanistan and pakistan spend plottingheir time their attacks. result of the transformation our security apparatus has undergone over the past 14 years. after 9/11, we implemented a series of legal, structural, and cultural reforms to break down the barriers that had grown up

between law-enforcement, the intelligence community, the military and the functions not named at the time that we now call homeland security. seen first at the fbi and then at the department of justice and now at the white house how we brought intelligence and law enforcement tools together to confront this threat. normals innew anything from airline travel to our interactions with partners overseas. and the courage and dedication of counterterrorism professionals across two administrations has succeeded in averting further large-scale catastrophic attacks on our homeland. with alas we are doing qaeda, we will degrade and ultimately destroyed i sold -- isil. as president obama told the nation, we will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by drawing upon every aspect of american power.

as always, whether confronting al qaeda, isil or another threat, we are guided in our counterterrorism efforts by a several core principles. we will always take every appropriate, lawful action to protect americans at home and abroad from terrorist threats. we will protect our values by continuing to conduct our counterterrorism efforts as transparently as possible with clear guidelines, strong oversight, and accountability, and in full accordance with the rule of law. will build and sustain effective multilateral coalitions and work with those partners to anticipate and annihilate terrorist organizations before they require an outsized military response. ourwe will integrate counterterrorism actions with efforts to undermine the forces that few will terrorists, like political oppression and lack of opportunity.

years, we have taken clear and specific steps to institutionalize our counterterrorism approach so that our military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities have the tools and the authorities they need to sustain the fight for years to come. this includes putting in place a durable legal and policy framework to guide our counterterrorism actions consistent with our values. isi specificallyl, first, we are protecting the homeland. second, we are engaging our partners. third, we are taking direct on theto target isil battlefield. fourth, we are disrupting the factors that enable them, like financing. fifth, we are taking creative steps to counter the extremism that fuels and swellsisil's

ranks. the first pillar is part of my job title and will always be our first responsibility as the u.s. government -- protecting the homeland. every day, i meet with the president to discuss the threats we face, whether it is terrorism, cyberattacks, or deadly viruses like ebola. his first question is always are we doing everything we can to protect the american people? he does not take his eye off the ball ever. and i can tell you that the president and those of us on his national security team are focused every day on preventing future attacks at home or abroad, whether the terrorists or home-grown, isil-directed isil-inspired. our first directive is going after isil. we cannot do it alone. the u.s. has built a broad: of 56 international partners. we -- broad coalition of 56

international partners. working through a political process to diminish the terrible violence in syria, -- current cessation of us of hostilities is an opportunity to move that forward, even as we continue to isolate and hammer isil. and we are hammering isil on the ground through direct action. in iraq and syria, coalition forces have conducted almost 11,000 precision airstrikes. today, these terrorists have lost about 40% of the territory that they once controlled in iraq and 20% in syria. our operations are keeping isil guessing, for fear of capture or feeling the full weight of the mightiest military on earth. we estimate that our coalition is taking out one to two key including -- leaders,

their second in command, the finance chief, and mohamed m was a, also known as jihadi john who really has murdered americans and others. isil can'ti still -- survive without the fighters in the finances that sustain its enterprise. that is pillar number four. it is why we are working with partners to slow the flow of foreign fighters in and out of iraq and syria. isil has lost 10,000 or more front-line fighters. at the same time, we are choking off isil's ability to fund its terror. we are striking their oil infrastructure and making it harder for them to extort local populations. up inion is isil-controlled areas. and if you are an isil fighter today, chances are you are being paid far less than you were last year. be no safe haven for

these killers. we continue to go after isil wherever it tries to take root. instance, we removed isil's leader there and recently struck in isolation cap. dashcam. in all of these strikes, our operators do everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties. and in keeping with the tosidents commitment transparency, can announce that the administration will publicly release an assessment of combatant and on combatant casualties resulting from strikes taken outside areas of active hostilities since 2009. going forward, these figures will be provided annually. not only is greater transparency the right thing to do, but it is the best way to maintain the gym -- the legitimacy of our counterterrorism actions and the

broad support of our allies. but no amount of airstrikes and no amount of military power alone can defeat these fanatics and there worked worldview once and for all. approach, initially tailored after 9/11 to fight a top-down terrorist network that operated more like a corporation than a secret army, our approach is adapting to fit today's diverse and decentralized threat. the only lasting answer to hateful ideologies are better ideas. 's menn as we target isil in its money, our final pillar recognizes that we must also confront and defeat their twisted message. we focus on this front as well because isil is trying to occupy as it iserritory just try to occupy physical territory. they are on facebook, on twitter, on youtube.

like 90,000mething twitter accounts associated with or sympathetic to isolate. -- two isil. 7000year, isil produce slipped pieces of propaganda, disseminated by 43 distinct isil media offices. i remember only a few years ago the counter at -- counterterrorism community was worried about an al qaeda affiliate distributing an online magazine via a pdf file. that frankly looks like the eight track tape version of what we are seeing now. with the click of a mouse, these internet savvy extremists are poisoning the minds of people an ocean away. many of these recruits have been middle-class, seemingly well-adjusted in the communities , and of course the fbi has investigated isil-inspired suspects in all 50 states.

so this is not just an american or western problem now. from nigeria to indonesia, this is indeed a global problem. with allies and with our partners, we are working hard to expose isolate's true nature, to highlight their hypocrisy, -- expose isil's true nature, to highlight their hypocrisy, and that they are killing innocent muslim men, women and children. we know that the u.s. government is often not the best or most compelling voice for this message. that is why we are working to enable partners around the globe and in our communities who can againstngly speak extremism. in the united emirates, saudi arabia, malaysia, all stepping theo discredit isil's claim representation of islam.

our counter and violent co-led bytask force, the departments of homeland security and justice, is coordinating our efforts across the u.s. government. though, one of our most potent weapons against terrorist narratives is going to be the power of our ideas and the innovation that has made this country so great. for the past year, we have been working to partner with some of our nation's most imaginative companies. tech firms like facebook, google, youtube and instagram, have all made strides, removing terrorist content that violate their own terms of service and denying isil a digital safe haven. all what it -- already, twitter has suspended 100 when he 5000 isil-linked accounts in just the last month.

125,000 isil-linked accounts in just the last month. our engagement with silicon valley on countering isil online has been more positive than you might think from reading the latest news. i went to silicon valley to initiate the white house's focus on innovating our way through this problem. key techn with leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and students at the stanford the school, their design school. it may seem like a nod choice for someone like myself who has spent two decades in government. the setting was instructive and almost as important as the discussions themselves. that was more akin to an ad agency or creative design studio, we brainstormed how to prevent isil's use of technology

to recruit and radicalize and mobilize. and i have held similar sessions in boston and new york. we brought these worlds together, madison avenue, silicon valley, and even hollywood, along with ngos and civil society. the goal is to develop private sector approaches for countering violent extremism online. we call this the madison valleywood project. these companies are exploding ways to amplify credible voices to counter isil's destructive narrative. and they are just getting started, but we think the collaboration that could come from this project could be quite promising. but this cannot be a top-down effort. it has got to come down from empowered voices, like those i heard last september at a global youth summit in new york that was hosted by the white house and the counter extremism pr