the historic district which was once the location of a large livestock industry. watch the cities tour of fort worth, texas saturday at noon eastern on c-span 2 book tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3, working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. host: here to talk about the role of moderates and governing and politics and what is ahead for 2018. what is your mission, how are you funded? guest: it is democrats and republicans trying to bring leaders together to self problems. funding is private and where we are focused is congress. we are trying to cultivate this bipartisan block.

48 members evenly divided between the parties. host: is this a creation of new did that evolved independently? guest: we spent several years trying to get these members in a room together on the hill. it was not easy. tor time as they started build relationships, a lot of them recognize they could create something more robust. last year they created a formal caucus. it is not controlled, it is member driven, a congressman from new jersey and tom reed york, in a lotw of senses, think of it like a freedom caucus with a political center is a good and long think about how they are operating. host: about the same size? guest: a bit bigger. host: those are republicans and democrats. the issue of moderates on

ipitol hill, would you say moderate is an endangered species up there now? guest: if you look at the caucus some of the people in there would identify as moderates but not all of them. but what differentiates them from other members is they recognize they have a responsibility to govern. they recognize to try to get 60% of something is better than sarah percent of nothing, which is different from how a lot of members have operated. host: what is in your background brings you to this no labels position? speechwriter in the commerce department and for vice president biden. i have been working with no labels for five years. the started as the tv -- tea party movement crested. though someis even might argue this started with the tea party in 2010, you now

see similar activity on the other side on the left, have very powerful forces in each party who will not brook any compromise, who see any leader who wants to work with the other side as a traitor and that is a problem. host: members are bipartisan on capitol hill, back in their primaries and home states, they are being tugged politically or challenged from the left in the case of democrats or the right the case of republican representatives. to guest: that is that problem. nine out of 10 house districts, the primary race is the only race that matters. only 10 or 15% of the electoratn representatives. to guest: that is that it turns out. you can have a district with one million people whose representation is chosen by 50,000 people who happen to be way more ideological and partisan than the typical voter and that is how you end up with a congress that is way more partisan and ideological than most americans.

has your group tried to bring more people into this organization? guest: we are active trying to build up citizens and local communities across the country. toas in minnesota talking 200 people. the idea being that right now all the incentives in the system are wrong. if i am a member of congress and i go to a town hall or i get you males or phone calls, it is almost always from the fringes. that has an effect. it is narrow -- negative reinforcement. our thought is if you could mobilize people and push and the other direction you get different results. host: how do you do that in a system where there are some people -- places where a third party can have an impact, are dealing in a system that is set up for left and right and democrat and republican.

guest: it is getting people to participate who do not typically participate. for a long time, people who were disaffected with politics, their instinct was i'm going to shut it off and shut it out because i cannot take this anymore. they are starting to recognize that when they abandon the playing field, they leave it to the extremes and the extremes make it worse and people recognize there is an urgency to push back. host: ryan clancy is the chief strategist for no labels. for independence and all others. send us a tweet if you want. we touched on this a moment ago. we want to look on some of the races. they are in competitive races on the republican side including mike coffman in colorado, brian fitzpatrick, pennsylvania, tom

in new jersey. on the democratic side, josh gottheimer, stephanie murphy in florida, and tom o'halloran in arizona. do those members of that problem solvers caucus see their benefit being a member? i am trying to work for bipartisan efforts on capitol hill. guest: absolutely. they are not running from their membership in the problem solvers caucus. quite the opposite. they go into their local districts, town halls, this is what people want to hear. most people if you read the headlines on any given day, it is nothing but fighting and dysfunction. to have a member come back and say i am part of this group that is trying to get to yes while everyone else is stuck on no. this is something people really welcome. one of those members, you'd --

he did something notable. he is the key driver on immigration. a lot of people have been reading about. well we were -- why we find this promising, a discharge petition is the rank-and-file rising up against the leadership and saying you are refusing to give us consideration of any kind of legislation on the floor, so we will try to force your hand. what we are starting to see is these members are sick and tired of eating along for the ride and doing whatever readership wants. if they cannot get a bill they're willing to force the issue. host: have most of the members found that? guest: they have. thanks for waiting and go ahead with your comment on the independent line. color: i am a supporter of no labels and i am excited about everything the problem solvers are doing.

i think it is the proper response to the tribalism we are seeing in our government and it is the secret to turning things around. i am very excited, i have never been excited about anything political so very much. guest: thank you. we appreciate that. one of the things that is different is there are no shortage of groups that have ideas about how to fix what is wrong in washington. people say we need to deal with gerrymandering or money and politics. or start a third party. , those reforms are problematic. either they will not do what people think they are intended to do, or they are really hard. they will take a long time to get done. but we are trying to do is work within the system and try to fix things now. we think the caucus is the best vehicle to do this. host: let's hear from roseanne on our democrats' line.

color: i am calling about the nature of name-calling that has come out huge. in the last couple of days. when you have a leader who campaigns on name-calling and all of the people that he was running against in the primary, and he continues to do that, then you have a backlash and people cannot restrain themselves because anger sets and. and the name-calling, it is kind of like a vicious circle of when are you going to pull back and have some restraint and go, ok, this is not the way to go. think how are we going to solve this when our current president is constantly throwing , not usingvitriolic some awful names when it comes to opponents are people that do not agree with him. i wonder what your comment would be on that, sir.

it is problematic. everyone has a role to pull this back. you summed it up perp it -- perfectly when you said it is a vicious cycle. that does not seem to be a way out of it. what we are trying to do is get leaders who do not operate in that fashion. who are trying to be constructive and we see this in the caucus. that is one of the things we find most promising. one of the things, for example, that these caucus members have promised, they refused to campaign against any other member of the caucus, which is a huge deal. it starts one later at a time but we need more people who are willing to pull back and where the easy thing is to love a grenade into the debate on any given day, long-term, that is a real problem and it is not getting us anywhere. grouplet me ask you, the .ims to protect moderates

what about name-calling and ads, theprimaries in such, candidate is attacked by an ad, how do you counsel that member to respond? just do not fall into that trap. naive aboute not politics. we're keeping about the issues. bag -- and being ain't bean bag. policy disagreements they should debate them. the issue is when that kernels into something else. and the ad hominem attacks, it is the willingness to always look for the worst and what the other person is trying to do. that is a problem and not

helpful. host: steve next in minnesota. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: curious about under the kind of world you would like to move us towards, how would you measure the effectiveness of congress as problem solvers were able to get more critical mass? is there a parameter or index you could use to see whether you made progress and publicize as a way of getting more people on board with the idea? guest: first of all, the most important measure would be the passage of more bipartisan legislation. it is tougher for us to do an objective index. it is easier for single issue groups to do a straightahead report card or ranking. what we are looking for is more bipartisan legislation and for a reason. it is not that we in the abstract think it is a nice thing. we think you get better results when legislation passes that way.

it stands -- it tends to stand the test of time. host: on twitter, bobby asks -- is the purpose of your caucus to gain agreement among congress? would you sacrifice the needs of the people to get along? what about health care, women's rights? guest: the problem solvers caucus might not have a lot of visibility outside washington but on four separate occasions this year, they have aligned on ambitious reforms on health care. they offered what is still the only bipartisan health care reform proposal in the house. immigration and border security, on infrastructure, and on gun safety. that is a big deal to get 42 members, democrats and republicans, behind it. the bad news is none of those got a boat and there is a reason. it is that the rules that govern congress today are so dysfunctional they have to change.

in the next couple of days, no labels will launch a significant campaign focused on this issue. what you see today is the power in the house is in the wrong places. sometimes the speaker has too much power. sometimes the ideological fringes. who that tends to leave out our people with influence in the past, committees, rick and file members. they are along for the ride. host: what is your first caps on rules in the senate and the call to end filibusters on certain legislations? guest: the first book we came out with was make congress work and we are starting with the house. that is where we see the most dysfunction and most opportunity for change because there will be a new speaker next year. that could provide an opportunity to drive changes. host: let's go to new york, manny on the independent line.

caller: good morning. what i am serious about is -- curious about is you have the tendency in both parties for people to be encouraged to identify themselves, whether by gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and that is what is causing a lot of the attention. -- lot of detention. -- causing a lot of tension. not that there should not identified by those, but what can we do to get people to have more of an identity of americans and we are all in this together? guest: it gets back to what you just said, we are americans first. people lose that. identities are important, whether your religion, your gender, that has always been a part of campaigning. the problem we get into is when people put those forward to the exclusion of everything else. we forget we are americans first and we need more leaders willing to put the country over the

party. host: we had several more minutes with ryan clancy with no labels. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. (202)-748-8000 for democrats. (202)-748-8002 for independents and all others. back to the hill article on your efforts this fall -- they write you are planning an aggressive effort to spend billions of dollars to predict moderates from primary challenges in an attempt to get incumbents incentive not to cater to the party grassroots, typically dominate primary contest. where does it come from? where does it come from? guest: private donation and that is a separate effort from the labels, so there is an independent expenditure group doing that. no labels is a 501(c) four. host: on the issue, david says -- you need voter participation in order to diminish the vitriol as long as the primaries are dominated by flamethrowers, we

will always have problems. james in kentucky -- jane in kentucky on a democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i followed no labels for quite a while and really admired the work you are doing. today, in that i have have trouble identifying the problem solvers caucus members. how can i get information on who was involved in that? guest: the best bet is to contact the offices directly of the cochairs, josh gottheimer, from new jersey, or tom reed from new york. host: that could? caller: thank you. guest: next in wisconsin, independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. labels,upporter of no

and i am wondering with all of the rich rial and pressure from extremes, have you lost -- all the vitriol and pressure, have you lost any members? my congressman, sean duffy, i asked him about the labels and he was -- about no labels and he was positive. for anyot been back discussions. i do not see his name on anything. i hear he is on fox news a lot. that is my question. so when the problem solvers caucus launched last january, there were two dozen of them and today there are 48, so they are adding members. they have a standard for adding new members called the noah's ark rule so if you are a democrat who wants to come on, you have to bring a republican and vice versa. they had been gaining members, to the extent there are members

there are hesitant to join, it might be because it demands you make commitments. i mentioned earlier you cannot campaign against other members. that is not something that leadership likes. the most notable thing they have done is they have agreed if 75% of the caucus can get to yes on an issue and 51% of the respective d's and r's, that compels everyone to support it. that means a member gives up their voting card because that is with the caucus ones to do but that is how you get influence. the support ask on of one member in the primary, this is from the website the intercept on greenwald's website about dan lipinski. they write he was facing a robust primary challenge from a progressive democrat backed by many constituencies that he clashed with over the years. they write that he represents a

solid democratic seed but has become one of the more conservative in the house with opposition to abortion and hostility toward marriage and immigration rights. he narrowly defeated newman in the primary, backed with primary support from the labels. he is a member of the problem solvers caucus and representatives who work to solve problems. , hehe case of dan lipinski has been a member of the problem solvers caucus and in your consideration of supporting him, was he the best candidate in the race? guest: absolutely. that outside political effort i was talking about is a sickly the signature focus over the cycle, protecting members who are challenged in their primaries from the right or left. in this case, it was a democratic race. there will be other basis where it will be republican but -- basis where it will be republican -- races where it

will be republican. this gets to the core problem, people complain leaders do not want to work together. the reason they do not is because most of the time it means they lose their job. until to create a reward for problem-solving, you will never change anything. host: do we see these problems on the state level? guest: you doguest:. what is interesting is states are often doing better than washington because they are forced to work together. lots of states have a mandate that a budget gets balanced. here we do not and they do not pass them anymore. better.end to work i was out in minnesota last week and you are starting to see more nationalization for hyper local races that have nothing to do

with national politics. they are injected local statehouse races and in one case, i saw one for the local probate judge was drawn international issues. everything is getting national. host: we will hear from elaine in washington, republican line. caller: i have three points. first, you said the most dysfunction is in the house. yet, they have sent 400 bills to the senate sitting untouched. they have not looked at them. the second, if they got secret votes in our house and senate, we might have a middle of the road because people could not identify if they are booting with or against a party. the third thing is when it comes to gerrymandering, i think i'll districts with the government should be computerized. everybody should have the same computer and it should be set on boundaries given to the computer and then we cannot complain

about this or that party giving preference to one party or the other. host: several points, thanks. you can address any. guest: the first one with the house, the fact they sent over 400 hills, this gets to the problem. how are they sent over? do they have bipartisan support? in a lot of cases, no. that is the problem. lots can pass the house on a partyline basis, but it needs 60 votes in the senate. unless you pass things in the house with an eye towards can it passed the senate? in the senate as a graveyard for partisan ideas. we need more bills to pass in a bipartisan fashion. it can berymandering, helpful in some cases but we had looked at this. if you look at political science research, a lot of the polarization is self sorting and

districts, liberals want to be with liberals and conservatives with conservatives so it can help the margins but ultimately, we think the biggest issue is voting. even if you redraw this text, if you do not get more independent-minded voters, you probably don't have a different result. host: here is mary in illinois on the democrat line. caller: i am so happy to know there is someone out here like him. i had given up. andst turned on my tablet the former speaker of the house, john boehner made a statement this is no longer the republican party.this is trump's it is sad to say that, but they pushed him out. he has ahat is why right to say what he said. thank you. have a good day. host: one more from missouri,

jonathan, democrat line. caller: my name is jonathan bell , and i agree with the last caller. i love your work. . you are trying to have -- i look what you are doing. you are trying to set examples for people in the united states not to be left or right that help them find a middle ground. and havem 13 years old been watching c-span since seven years old, and i love to see this, what i am looking at now. thank you. host: thank you. glad to have you. guest: that is fantastic. for thosest say that listening who want to get s.org is wherebel we are. in the next couple days, we will have a significant announcement, some ideas, and the campaign we are launching to change dysfunctional rules. host: we look forward to having you back before the 2018

>> live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up saturday morning, goldwater institute starling coleman described -- discusses the right to do try it legislation. will joinephen joffe us. then popular mechanics tom chiarella on how the carrier plant is faring. be sure to watch washington journal, live at seven a.m. eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. >> sunday on q&a, patricia o'toole discusses her book.

>> there is a huge psychological literature about wilson. i read it, but i have the sense tot it is reducing him oedipal tangles and things that i did not feel i could deal with on the strength of my own knowledge of the theory. some people have said his stubbornness in later life was a kind of reaction to his father's strictness. and they can point to one story made his follow -- father him revise a thing he wrote a whole bunch of times. and the suppositions are that wilson resented this. that he was a good boy and he put up with it. when you read every mentioned, about his father, they are worshipful. he never had an unkind word to

say about his father. a presbyterian minister. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on q&a. 2018span's coverage of commencement addresses continues with former president jimmy carter at liberty university, school founded by conservative pastor jerry falwell. devos atlowed by betsy ave maria university. and mark meadows at patrick and -- henry college and keisha bottoms at georgia tech. he can find all the commencement speeches we have covered at our website.