and so we have carolyn lukensmeyer as the president of americaspeak one of e four sponsors of the event. and just a terrific person for listening, understand what's being really said, and taking us forward. and secondly, e.j. dionne, who people, who needs no introduction here at brookings for sure. but was one of the leading journalists and leading democracies i would say in our country. so let me ask carolyn and e.j. to come up and out for us. [applause] >> thank you very much, miles. let me add my thanks to brookings for having this evnt here, and to our compatriot organization, demos, and every day democracy and the ash institute for putting already two years worth of work into an id that, whose time we think may have come. every single person who is a leader of a democracy reform movement that i know, a you met exemplary examples of them here today, has from the time that i began working in this field, which is 15 years ago, made the following statements. that we believe, we believe there is a nascent movement in this country for a stronger democracy. a recognition that 200 plus yea

we id so with carolyn lukensmeyer as our facilitator. present it to both campaigns, both the obama campaign and the mccain campaign. to our, not to our surprise, but to our appreciation the obama campaign, as a campaign, and in the obama administration was president obama s elecd, took up our issues and had-- has been having a real dialogue with us on them. in the summer of 09, an even larger group of people came together,over 100 from a wider number of organizations and groups, and continued the work of oving that agen, discussing with the administration, trying to make real progress. the progress of that meeting was a report which is in the folder that you have. and we're not releasing it today because it's been out but we are sort of wanted to make the recommendations in it real and more resident as we go forward. today there's also been work with federal managers that americaspeaks has led to make them work and talk to each other and governed in a more collaborative and participatory way. and has been tremendous amount of work on ele

are aware of the people that put this event toether, from americaspeaks, one of the partners, carolyn lukensmeyer joe golden joe, where are you? regime and. thank you very muc from demos i want to thank brenda white and also acknowledged having the key and the two key leaders of our washington ofce were sitting in the back of the room. thank you very much. from everyday democracy, martha mccoy who's here, and pat scully who could make it today, but has been part of t process everince. d archon fung fro the ash center at the nnedy school of harvard has been a bad as part. and also jane austen a huge amount of logistics work just last week to make sure we get here. so thank you to all the been part of it. perfect timing. and i wan to introduce karen hobert flynn. you have her bio in your ocket, but karen is someone who is the vice president for state governments and state chapters fo common use. she's also a connecticut, a leader of democracy work in connecticut where she and i worked together for going on 25 years. and it's been a delight to work with her and very happy to have r the panel. eshoo