this commission, let me be clear, this commission has no preconceived notions or preordained results. we're fact finders. in the days ahead we will gather the are haven't facts and data and at conclusion of our work we will present the president a report of our findings. i'm confident this commission will have healthy and robust debate but the president and i expect nothing less because respectful debate is also a hallmark of our democracy. i know we'll find many areas of common ground as well. i'm pleased to report the commission has done its work,ai requesting publicly available date. we are grateful for 30 states providing information pursuant to the laws of their states. today is percent of several meetings the commission will hold in the several months. we'll hear from each of the commission's misdemeanorrers about. each of you brings unique perspective based on experience and research and we welcome your participation and insights. would i like to note our commission includes five current and former secretaries of state and secretary coback and i look working with each one of yo

this commission, let me be clear, this commission has no preconceived notions or preordained results. we are factfinders. and in the days ahead, we will cover the relevant facts and data. and at the conclusion of our work, we will present the president a report of our findings. i'm confident this commission will have a healthy and robust debate. the president and i expect nothing less because respectful debate is also a hallmark of our democracy. i am pleased to report the commission has already started its work requesting publicly available data. we are grateful for the more than 30 states that have already indicated their intention to provide this information pursuant to the laws in their states. today is the first of several meetings that the commission will hold in the coming months. today we will hear from each of the commission members. each of you brings a unique perspective based on your experience and your research and we welcome your participation and your insight. i would like to note that our commission includes five current and former secretaries of state. the secretary a

this commission being the trump commission. it has morphed from there. what it has become now is just a vehicle for voter oppression. it is important to remember what the recent gop history and voter suppression has been. i am the former secretary of state of missouri, i was the chief election in a state with a republican supermajority. i have seen the gop voter suppression playbook up close. there are three steps to it. step one is to undermine faith in american denmark she, so people believe drastic measures have to be taken. step two is to put up obstacles to voting. step three is to put up obstacles to those obstacles. that is how the gop voter suppression playbook works, and what you are seeing from the trump commission, what i refer to as the voter suppression committee to reelect the president, what you see from them is step one in the process. it is important to remember that this isn't really, they pretend it is but it isn't a positive -- a policy difference between the parties. it is a political strategy from the republican party that goes back

look into is on the commission, who is leading the commission. vice president pence has a history in indiana of voter suppression, a history of --acking legitimate legitimate and patriotic voter registration grabs. that is what a drive is, it is patriotic. you have folks like haunts -- hans, too controversial to be on the federal election commission. secretary of state chris cavaco kobac to my first secretary of state meeting five years ago when president obama was putting for legislation to make voting more convenient and accessible in this country, the secretary said that his commission to do so and the legislation to do so was wrong. the federal government should have no role in any of this, that it is complete overreach. now, president trump is in power. the secretary obviously has a different view. he is somebody who is the lead vote suppressor of this country spent loads of-- kansas taxpayer dollars to prove voter fraud and has been unsuccessful. lastly, we have had this argument in this country. american heroes marched across a bridge in s

we've launched a commission, dnc commission, that we'll not allow them to move forward in a manner to hurt our community. their leadership is not led in a bipartisan way. chair and vice-chair are republicans, many republicans on that commission found many ways to push back against us. the commission that we have pulled together is to make sure that we have the democratic response to demonstrate and we are serious in making sure that we push back and what we hear from the trump administration and find more ways to vote. we should find more ways for people to have access to vote and opportunity to get registered, to be talking about vote by mail and early voting and about the opportunities in more of our communities to engage rather than from the trump administration. as we saw the trump administration and the commission asking data which was obviously soundly rejected across the country in a bipartisan manner to demonstrate that's not what we should be pursuing. lastly, this is our continual attempt of demonstrating the new vision of the democratic party saying we will come together an

he should be on this commission. and finally you've suggested crisco bok of kansas, secretary of state assembly plants in my library with when i first went to a first association of secretaries of states meeting five years ago when president obama was putting forward a package of legislation to try and make voting more convenient and more accessible in this country secretary stood up and said his commission to do so and the legislation to do so was wrong, that the federal government should have no role in any of this, that is complete overreach. now the president trump is in power the secretary obviously has a very different view. he is somebody who is the lead vote suppressor in this country, has spent loads of taxpayer dollars to improve voter fraud and is been completely unsuccessful. and the last thing i would say is we've already had this argument in this country. american euros marched across a bridge in selma facing down dogs and batons and hoses for the simple idea that we all account and i'll get right to vo

i am referring to the warren commission. the security bureaucracy tried to steer the commission toward what the cia later referred to as "the best truth." i wanted to focus here today on one specific way this cia's leaders tried to do that, namely by not disclosing to the commission that the cia had been engaged in efforts to assassinate fidel castro. three years ago, the cia acknowledged in a remarkably candid report that of the decision of "agency leaders in 1964 not to disclose information about the cia anti-castro schemes may have done more to undermine the credibility of the commission than anything else that has happened while it was conducting its investigation." that is quite an admission, but if anything, i think it is rather in understatement. the warren commission represented the very pinnacle of the american establishment. look at its members, chief justice of the united states, former governor of california, earl warren, chairman of the armed service, richard russell, after the senate building is named. house de

this commission, let me be clear. this commission has no preconceived notions or pre-ordained results. we are factfinders. in the days ahead we will cow to the facts and data. at the conclusion we will present the president with a report of our findings. i am confident this commission will have a healthy and robust debate. the president and i expect nothing less because respectful debate is a hallmark of our democracy. i know we will find many areas of common ground. the commission has already requesting work, publicly available data. we are grateful for the more than 30 states that have indicated their intention to provide the information. the first of several meetings the commission will hold. today we will hear from each of the commission's members. unique you brings a perspective based on your experience and research. we welcome your participation and insight. i would like to note our commission includes five current .nd former secretary of state we look forward to working with each one of you. to foster collabora

this commission -- let me be clear, this commission has no preconceived notions or preordained results. we are factfinders and in the days ahead we will gather the relevant facts and data and at the conclusion of our work we will present the president with a report of our findings. i am confident the commission will have a healthy and robust debate and the president and i expect nothing less because respectable debate is a hallmark of our democracy. i expect nothing less. we are grateful for the more than 30 states of already indicated their intention to provide this information pursuant to the laws of their states. today is the first of several meetings in commission will hold. we will hear from each of the commission's members. each of you bring a unique perspective based on expense and research and we welcome your purchase patient and insight. our commission includes five current and former secretaries of state and secretary cavaco and i look forward to see working with each one of you. we wish to ever respectful relationship for the benefit of andnation's electors process. i'd like

the goals of this commission are clear.s commission was set up to lay the groundwork for a massive push of voter suppression laws and policies on a national scale. we think that goal is a very and our hope ultimately is that states will not in any way legitimize the work of this commission by turning over data that could be ultimately abused by cyber hackers. there are 200 million registered voters in our country and we have never seen an effort like b and pullom together this extensive amount of data on individuals in our country. so we are going to be watching closely to see what states do this week, secretaries of state will be convening at the national association of secretaries of state. they are holding an annual summer meeting in indianapolis and our hope is that at that forum we will he -- see secretaries of state take action to condemn the commission, and make clear they will not allow this federal overreach to interrupt the good work that they are doing across our country to maintain their own state registration r

unlike past commissions that have looked into election issues, this is not a bipartisan commission.s dominated by republicans and people associated with the president. it is also dominated by people who have a clear ideological bent to think there is a large amount of voter fraud way out of the mainstream of what experts think. the vice chair of the commission 's secretary of state crystal rock of kansas, who is also running for governor. he has built his political extravagantound claims of voter fraud. he offered really restrictive bills, proving citizen requirement and a voter id bill that prevented thousands from registering and voting. the godfather of the modern anti-voting movement. when he was at the department of justice under bush in the mid to thousands, he was instrumental in a political investigation of voter fraud that resulted in u.s. attorneys being fired and a major scandal. wayhave j christian adams, out of the mainstream when it comes to claiming there is a large amount of fraud. is personal white whale is the idea there are lots and lots of noncitizens registering

>> in response to the opening meeting of the commission, the voting rights commission criticized it, and question the justifications for it. this is a half hour. >> good morning, everyone. we are joined by congressman oury, our vice chair, secretary of state from california, joining us today. we are here because we know president trump has brought forth a commission. they will be having their first meeting around the myth of voter fraud, which we consistently and regularly reject. our job should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. we have come forward to create a commission that is focusing on, what are we going to do to protect the opportunity for americans to vote across the country all the time. he will be here to provide consistent response from what is coming from the trump administration. when you have leadership such as chris cole buck, which has demonstrated always to have people difficult to vote. that is why we are pushing back in the manner. we are expanding the work under our vice chair, who specifically is over thing civic engagement and voter engagement.

, name, as you recounted i integrity voter commission, creating the commission and asking it to go and evaluate chiefly to evaluate that issue of voter fraud, the extent to which voter fraud elections andican what effect it may be having on actual outcome of election, but ask the commission to investigate that other side, beside the democrats want to see barriers to folks exercising the right to vote. ost: before we go further, any evidence about the claims that ended up in the popular vote? so, there is -- there are a lot of academics who come generally academics come down on the side of no widespread evidence of voter sort of the term you will hear from that side, there are absolutely studies on the other that suggest that hundreds of thousands, one study suggests and polling ling suggest that perhaps 800,000 inelvisible voters may have cast ballots in last year's election. models, polling and modeling based on a bunch of different factors. the main issue and this is one reason why the president create third degree commission, there been a national systematic look with somebody ho ha

and thank you to jason candor and terry soule for chairing this commission, the dnc commission. thank you to alex. and everybody who has been part of this effort to speak up against the trump commission that undoubtedly will strip away the rights of so many american voters throughout the country. voting should not be an obstacle course. the problem that we have in the united states of america is not that too many many people vote too often, it's that not enough people vote in each of our elections. and i say that coming from the state of texas, which has among the worst records, if not the worst record, in trying to do everything that it can, because of it's leaders, greg abbott and other republican state leaders, trying to do everything that it can to suppress the vote, repeatedly federal court after federal court has found that the state government has violated the rights of so many texans, including african american and hispanic. so when we think about this, that the coback commission will likely be promoting, which is really la political point shaving process. they realize 9

ford, cvn 78 as commission officer. upon commission of u.s.s. gerald r. ford report for duty as commander officer. admiral richardson, gerald r. ford is in commission and i am in command. [applause] [applause]. executive officer, set the first watch. >> aye, captain. officer of the deck, set the watch. >> aye, aye, sir. >> the officer of the deck. the commander's direct representative and while on watch is responsible for the safe operation of the ship and crew. the long blast is a traditional symbol of an officer on the deck's authority and the ship of the line. we are pleased to have mr. greg willard with us today. greg was the white house staff assistant to gerald ford while he was president and served him after he left office. greg will pass the long blast to lieutenant of south orange, new jersey. the first officer of the deck. the petty officer of the watch is quartermaster first class from miami, florida. the messenger of the watch is yeoman third class bridges of fayetteville, north carolina and t the boss is from wisconsin. [whistle] >> set the w

the rationale is that the commission, prior commissions and until we change it this commission as well too, believe that somehow we are protecting investors by prohibiting them from investing in certain high-risk securities. i've been questioning that premise because as we know, high-risk also equals high expected return. so what we're doing is actually, i'll use, protecting in quotes, here, we're protecting investors from potentially high expected return securities, you only have to look to silicon valley and see the unicorns out there that are attracting large amounts of private capital. i was out in san francisco and the amount of private capital that folks are willing to throw at these companies is amazing. and so, at least in sill condition valley it doesn't seem like there's problems with access to capital. but from my perspective from the investor, mom and pop investors, main street investors aren't sharing in these returns to these companies and companies are taking much longer to go public, in some cases are not going public. the average investor is being prohibited from inves

there is presented to the commission a proposal for the bylaws of the presidential advisory commission on election integrity. the proposal closely mirrors the bylaws that were provided by the gsa. a prototype of bylaws. as many people may know, there are approximately 1000 commissions at any time. many are ongoing. presidential commissions are more rare, they only represent about 4% of that 1000. but they all have bylaws. so we started with a model and staff has suggested minimal changes to them. proposed -- these are the proposed bylaws. at this point, i'm hoping that members of the commission had a chance to look at these bylaws. the next point to be appropriate would be a motion to adopt, if there is one. >> so moved, mr. chairman. >> second. chair kobach: there is a motion and a second. actually, one of the items in the bylaws is that we don't require a second. [laughter] chair kobach: so mr. blackwell and mr. adams moved and seconded respectively. now the issues before the commission, is there any discussion of the by-laws? -- bylaws? they seem to straightforward to me, as well. i

chairman and members of the commission.i hope the next time we meet will have a full commission with wonderful to see you and it's important that you are here. i have an observation first and that is is some curiosity that i raise this the chairman of the committee asked each one of the commissioners if they supported net neutrality. each one said yes with some additional comments. twenty-nine mr. pai this might unravel net neutrality as we know it. with all due respect to you, i don't -- i don't think it's a credible statement to say that you support it because everything that i have read about what you said is the promise to unravel net neutrality with its protections. so, it's easy to say i'm against blocking and i'm against throttling and i'm against whatever. who is going to enforce that? the house. it's an observation but i think it's an important one to place on the record. i've raised this before in previous hearings with previous witnesses when they bring up the whole economic case and the chilling of investments i

i think theis: commission for making that a -- ank the commission for making that a priority, so very important that constituents have access. thank you. >> the gentleman yields back. ms. dingel for five minutes. rep. dingell: thank you, chairman, thank you to all the witnesses. i know you like being here as much as going to the dentist. i want to talk about cybersecurity and build on my colleague mr. mcnerney's questions. i know it's important to members on both sides of the aisle. it's really a nonpartisan issue and it's something we've got to get right. the distributed denial of service attack that the fcc suffered on may 7 is concerning to all of us, especially because the commission has not been very forthright concerning what actually happened. chairman pai, i do appreciate your response to some of senator wyden's questions on this. -- on this issue and mr. mcnerney's, but i want to follow up on that. you've presented your plan to mitigate bottlenecks. could you talk about this plan in greater detail and would you be willing to update the members of this committee when the plan

the commissioning germany for the uss gerald r ford. -- the commissioning ceremony for the uss gerald ford. live coverage on c-span. [no audio] [no audio] >> we are live in norfolk, virginia, waiting for the commissioning's our money to begin for the navy's newest aircraft carrier, the uss gerald r ford. president trump has arrived. the crowd waiting for the ceremony to begin. we also expect to hear from defense secretary james mattis today, as well as virginia governor terry mcauliffe. the president has arrived and the ceremony should get underway shortly. live coverage on c-span. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ waiting for donald> trump and the commissioning ceremony for the uss gerald r ford. the presidential helicopter has landed on the deck. defense secretary james mattis and virginia governor terry mcauliffe also among the speakers scheduled at the commissioning ceremony today. m writing about the $12.9 billion ship -- it has not yet launched or recovered any live aircraft. the most visible difference ford and her predecessors as the island superstructure, nearly half the size of past ships. there's al

from the minority or majority, i'm worried about his commission. i think chairman pai is been a great leader but it's two, three, four chapmans from now i'm worried about. >> chairman pai come last question for you updated as on the process and you mention the 1.75 billion we provided is insufficient to cover the total cost of repack lightly. he did mention whether the 39 month deadline will be enough time to complete the process. is it too early to tell whether it will be enough time to move at all within 39 month? >> it is a little too early to tell. there's different phases and we haven't commenced full announcement of what the status will be sufficient that i can commit to this committee that we will keep you apprised promptly of any department on the front if we get the sense the 39 month will not be able to be met. >> thank you. thank you i will give you 29 seconds back. >> sounds great. ms. clarke. >> thank you, madam chair. thank on ranking member takano also thank our commissioners and it's great to hav have your befe us to answer question

ford, cvn 78 as commission officer. upon commission of u.s.s. gerald r. ford report for duty as commander officer. admiral richardson, gerald r. ford is in commission and i am in command. [applause] [applause]. executive officer, set the first watch. >> aye, captain.

sharyl: he says the commission wanted major edits.rd bowen: now what they also conveyed is that the edits were not optional. if i did not make the edits i would probably be taken off the witness list. sharyl: bowen says he had to cut out eight pages; almost a third of his planned testimony. and almost nobody knew that when he testified on april 7, 2010. richard bowen: i warned my business unit management repeatedly during 2006 and 2007 about the risk issues i identified. sharyl: did they have you take out names of people responsible? richard bowen: yes, yes. they had originally wanted me to put in the names and the specific instance of cover-ups that i had witnessed. all of that had to be taken out, , at least the names. sharyl: financial commission staff members who dealt with bowen say the reason his testimony was shortened is simply because it was too long. they deny suggesting any edits, say there was no attempt to censor or silence bowen, and say that all acted with the best of intentions and followed the highest ethics. the atto

fraud commission. "the truth cannot be repeated often enough. the congressional advisory commission is a sham and a scam." your response? guest: i wonder why the new york times is so opposed to have a commission that research is and investigates the american election process. we at the heritage foundation provided a printout to the members of the commission this a database of voter fraud cases across the country. we have reached almost 1100 cases. some of them are cases in which hundreds if not thousands of fraudulent ballots were cast. elections were overturned. you have to wonder why the new york times is so opposed to looking at that, and how can we make it that are so everyone is eligible to vote and no one spoke is overturned -- one's vote is overturned. ont: trump's new assault voting rights, and it includes a photograph of you and says you are a former attorney in the george w. bush justice department described as the from person for undermining the civil rights mandate that protects what he wri

the obama administration commission on election administration, and if memory serves, i think that commission met in alaska, if i'm not mistaken. it was somewhere on the west coast. i was a far-flung place and am not suggesting we go there, but i'm suggesting that perhaps half of the future meetings be in places other than washington dc. so i'm welcoming suggestions as to where those places might be. >> mr. terry? i won't go into where the places might be, but i would suggest two things. one underscore something for me. i had the pleasure of sharing census monitoring board and cochaired with tony, a former member of congress. impressed with the data, the survey data that the census collects on a variety of subjects. , ii actually think that would underscore, given that we will have sometime in between, because folks have other jobs to attend to, that we get the document that was underscored. the other thing, i had the pleasure of serving on the committee that pushed the machines out, the dollars out for the machines. it was an extensive study. they looked at, it probably hasn't changed. what

ford, cvn-78, as commission officer. upon commission of uss gerald r.ort for duty as commanding officer. united states ship gerald r. ford is in commission, and i am in command. [applause] >> executive officer, set the first watch. >> aye, aye, captain. >> officer of the deck, set the watch. >> aye, aye, sir. >> the officer of the deck and his commanding officers are the direct representative and, while on watch, is responsible for the safe operation of the ship and crew. the long glass is a traditional symbol of an officer of the deck's authority. we are pleased to have mr. greg willard with us today. greg was the white house staff assistant to gerald ford while he was president and served him after he left office. greg will pass the long glass to lieutenant chincotta from south orange, new jersey, the first officer of the deck. the petty officer of the first watch is quartermaster -- the messenger of the watch. and the bosun of the watch. [whistle] >> set the watch. on deck, section one. >> sir, the watch is set. >> very well. captain, the watch is se

there's presented to the commission a proposal for the by laws of the presidential advisory commission on election integrity. the proposal is a, is pretty closely mirrors the by-laws that were provided by the gsa, right. gsa, has, sort of, proto-type of by-laws as many people may know, there's approximately conditions at any given time. many of thes are ongoing. presidential commissions are more rare, they only represent about 4% of that thousand. but, they all have by-laws and so we started with the model and have -- staff suggested minimal changes to them. this is the proposed by-laws. these are the proposed by-laws and at this point, i'm hoping that members of the commission had a chance to look at the by-laws. and next point to be appropriate would be a motion to adopt if there's one. >> so moved. >> second. >> and there's a motion and a second, and actually, one of the items in the by-laws is that we don't require a second, but at this point, we have not adopted them yet. so -- mr. blackwell and mr. adams moved and seconded respectively. now the issues before the commission, is th

obviously the commission is in its infancy and so we have only had one organizational call and one commissioneeting, so i think some of the factual information is being presented as we go to the next meeting i think in september, and all of that will be considered and taken a look at and we will consider whatever facts that they present to us. >> so we are in a situation, mr. cox, of we have what i would say a grand jury seated and now we're looking for a crime. is that why many of us in the civil rights community are saying that this may be more about voter suppression than voter fraud since there's no one that has even come forward with any kind of evidence of this mass voter fraud? >> yes, reverend al. thank you very much for having me. that is exactly right. as our complaint alleges this commission was designed for one purpose, to manufacture evidence of vote fraud in order to suppress the votes of african-american and latino voters. as many studies have pointed out you are more likely to get struck by lightning than to experience the kind of in-person voter fraud that this commission was

looking at the data behind this commission and also looking at the after his of the commission, i was -- actors of the commission, consider the source and the data and see it as a pretext for ongoing voter suppression as a way to sort of freeze the voting rolls in place so we don't have more diverse city moving forward. to purge off people who have moved recently, who cannot afford to pay $555 for a copy of their naturalization security naturalization certificate. nermeen: can you talk about some of the immigration groups thahat someh has worked with, classified as hate groups by the southern poverty law center. >> that's correct. he was legal advisor to a group called fair m&a to immigrant group that received funding from the pioneer fund. the pioneer fund is a fund that by naly -- it is founded zi sympathizers. the goal of the pioneer fund is to have a connection between race and intelligence. many otherwise a premisess -- many other white supremacists. an author of anti-immigrant laws in arizona and other states that were struck down by the supreme court as unconstitutional. for ye

the commissioning ceremony. explained -- he is expected to be deployed in the next few years and house as many as 2600 crew members. >> ship company, tension. arrive --uests please -- ship company, attention. -- will the guests please rise? please rise. and -- gentlemen, our platform guests. ,ommander stephen barstow united states navy, i ships chaplin. miss mary ellen baldwin, the president and ceo of hampton roads, navy league. mr. greg willard, white house staff assistant to president ford and commission in committee cochairman. mr. byron cavity, commissioning committee and cochairman. mr. douglas devos, committee cochairman. from huntington ingalls shipbuilding, mr. matthew mulherin, who most recently served as president of newport news shipbuilding. rear admiral bruce lindsey, united states navy, commander, and naval air forces atlantic. rear admiral brian antonio, united states navy, program executive officer, aircraft carriers. vice admiral thomas moore, united states navy, commander, naval seas shipments

commission meeting today.for your time, appreciate it. >> thank you, kate, great to join you. >> you have been very clear you're no fan of this commission and you're not giving over your state's -- the data that was requested from your state. what did you think of what the president just said right there. if there's any state that doesn't provide the information you have to wonder what are they worried about? what are you worried about? >> well, in terms of kentucky, it's making sure that 3.3 million kentuckians' sensitive private information is not pub in the public domain and importantly in the hands of vladimir putin someone who all intelligence agencies confirm sought to interfere in our elections it's also to keep say credit what the constitution and the 10th amendment prescribed for our elections, they are to be run by the states, the voter registration rolls especially if particular. the decentralization, kate, to our elections, that's what led to the headlines instead of being meddling outright disrupt

the rationale for this commission -- prior commission until we change it believe that somehow we are protecting investors by prohibiting them from investing in certain high-risk securities. i've been questioning that premise because as we know, high-risk also equals higher expected return. what we are doing is always protecting end quotes. you don't have to look to silicon valley to see all the unicorns out there that are tracked large amounts of private capital. i was just out in san francisco and the amount of private capital people are willing to throw at these companies is amazing. at least silicon valley doesn't seem like their access to capital. my perspective from the mom-and-pop investors are cherry ninnies returns to these companies and the companies are taking much longer to go public and in some cases the average investor is being prohibited from securities. some people may counter that and say they expect a return but they are too risky to that the average investor investing. you mention as a former finance professor, will be teaching portfolio, the benefits of securities

commission and i am in command.>> executive officer, set the first watch. >> aye, captain. >> officer of the deck, set the watch. >> aye, aye, sir. deck is ar of the direct representative. while on watch is responsible for the safe operation of the ship and crew. glass is a traditional symbol of the officer of the decks of authority in the ship of the line. pleased to have mr. great willer's with us today. he was a white house staff and served gerald ford after he left office. glass to pass the long the lieutenant, from south orange, new jersey, the first officer of the debt. isty officer of the watch petty officer first class jose of miami, florida. petty officer of the watch is human of north carolina -- yoeman of north carolina. wisconsin is the second officer of the watch. [whistle] >> set the watch, on deck, section one. sir, the watch is set. forward march. >> captain, the watch is set. >> very well. we are delighted today to have our sponsor with us. ford,christian gerald r newport news. i would be honored if

why did president johnson want to start the commission? fred harris: well, we were having these terrible disorders, riots all over the country. the worse were of course were in detroit and newark. nobody knew how it was going to end and whether it would be a kind of continuing thing. was it a harbinger of things to come. and so, he said, i want you to say what happened, why did it happen and what can be done to keep it from happening again and again. what we found in the kerner report was as for example here in detroit or in other cities, conditions were so horrible and relations between the police and the people in these central cities were so awful that almost any random spark could ignite this kind of disorder. and that's what happened. soledad: the kerner commission report, you could read this today and apply it to cities like baltimore, ferguson even any major metropolitan area, frankly. same exact problems we're dealing with in america. fred harris: that's the sad thing. we made progress on almost every aspect of race and poverty for

this commission, let me be clea clear, this commission has no preconceived notions and no preordainedesults. we are fact finders. in the days ahead, we will gather the relevant facts and data and at the conclusion of our work, we will present the president with a report of our findings. i'm confident this commission will have a healthy and robust debate the president and i expect nothing less because a respectful debate is also a hallmark of our democracy. i know we'll find many areas of common ground as well. i'm pleased to report the commission has already started its work, requesting publicly available data and we are grateful for the more than 30 states that have already indicated their intention to provide this information pursuant to the law of their states. today is just the first of several meetings at the commission will hold in the coming months. today, we'll hear from each of the commission members, each of you bring a unique perspective based on your experience and research and we welcome your participation and your insights. i would like to note that our commission includ

whether it's secretary of state or member of dnc commission, if this advisory commission, election integrity was genuine and sincere about improving elections going forward, four very basic things they can do. number one, acknowledge the russian interference of the election and investigate russians and help us prepare for 2018 and beyond. number two, help states invest in new voting equipment both more secure and improves the experience for voters in america. and they should also maintain the eac, election assistance commission charged with security standards for voting systems in the country and making the recommendations of best practices of conducting elections and finally restore the full strength of the federal voting rights act because the supreme court decision from a few years ago would undermine the federal voting rights act. that's what unleashed the voter i.d. proposal as and purging of voter rolls and early voting opportunities. the voter suppression agenda this commission wants to advance. >> in a few hours we're going to hear exactly what the outcome is of the very first meetin