congress met. washington went in person to the congress and delivered the speech that had a series of recommendations, relatively short speech. in those days they actually used to cut the state of the union message up into paragraphs and create committees to address each one of the issues the president suggested. washington and adams followed that practice. they created this idea that from time to time was an annual message. the years it was known as the annual message. it didn't become known as the state of the union message until the 1940's. in 1948 there was a hollywood movie called state of the union. that cemented the idea that it was the state of the union message. washington and adams went in person to congress. ,'s jefferson didn't enjoy public speaking. he gave to public speeches while presidents. his first and his second inaugural address. jefferson like to be known as a writer, not a speaker. he got the idea of the president going to congress personally to deliver a list of things he wan

they're members of congress. if you're going to go out there as candidate running for president in primaries and successful with these people, it's not an effective technique to stand up there and say the problem with american democracy is you guys, congress. those have been trying to win over. some of those people, you know, actually agree with that, many of them, they are great leaders in congress. absolutely, congress has become the broken institution but not many of them like to think of themselves or institution as the broken institution of american government. it's not a great strategy. what's striking is, i studied these debates that i was not allowed to be part of but i studied them carefully, there's no point at which any of the candidates ever talk trash about congress, never say anything about congress. >> how about the campaign finance system? >> they do, but this is what's frustrating, even as the issue is being surface, it's being surfaced of which candidates is or is not. we just had a president wh

i happen to be one who continues to argue that congress has allowed too much of congress' responsibilities to be placed in the executive branch of which by necessity they will have greater leeway with the pursestrings. we ought to be about the business of finding ways in the federal budget to create jobs, support struggling americans and ensure that we're not leaving those with the least among us to fend for themselves. more states in these few stats have moved away from biennial budgets than towards it. currently, there are 19 states that have some sort of two-year budget. much less than the 44 states with biennial budget cycles in the year 1940. in comparison, only three states have switched from annual to biennial budgeting. now seven of the ten biggest states have annual cycles. it's clear that so many states have abandoned biennial budgeting over the last decade. therefore, i think that it's fair to say that you cannot responsibly implement a meaningful budget two to three years in advance. mr. chairman, i certainly thank you for holding this hearing today. i look forward to hearing f

shows he thinks congress is a toothless tiger. sometimes you have to spy on an ally like in the early part of the last decade on schreuder who was close to putin in doing strange things. unless you have exceptional circumstances it should be hands off. >> what bothers the israelis most is they were specifically target i targeting benjamin netanyahu because he disagreed with the iranian deal. i spoke with a former israeli ambassador on this earlier. let's play the tape. >> i hope there was no cyber implant. that would be an invasion of privacy and a disgusting act, not only, you know, from the u.s., but against such a close friend. >> so they really object to that specific targeting in a private office of an ally. >> i think if i were in their shoes i would be more mad we didn't know there was a cyber device in the prime minister's office. that's what i could be concerned with. secondly it wasn't just netanyahu. it was president ehrowan of turkey. as a nato ally was kept off the list as b.b. was with regard to eaves dropping. and t

congress met. but washington went in person to the congress. went to the senate chamber and delivered a speech that had a series of recommendations. relatively short speech. but in those days before there were standing committees of congress, they used to cut the state of the union message up into paragraphs and create ad hoc committees to address each one of the issues the president suggested. washington and adams, john adams, his vice president who became president, followed that practice. and so they created this sort of idea that from time to time was an annual message. in fact, the years it was known -- for years it was known as the annual message. it didn't become known as the state of the union message, really, until the 1940's. in fact , in 1948, there was a hollywood movie called "state of the union" and that's what really cemented the idea that the annual message was the state of the union message. president washington, adams went in person to congress. thomas jefferson didn't enjoy publi

but folks in this room will not rest until congress does. [ applause ] because once congress gets on board with common sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. but we also can't wait. until we have a congress that's in line with the majority of americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence to save more lives. actions that protect our rights and our kids. after sandy hook, joe and i worked together with our teams and we put forward a whole try to tighten up the existing place. but today we want to take it a step further. so let me outline what we're going to be doing. number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions. [ applause ] >> it doesn't matter whether you're doing it over the internet or at a gun show, it's not where you do it, but what you do. we're also expanding background checks to cover violent criminals who try to buy some of the most dangerous firearms by corporations and various cut outs. we'r

when an agency is dependent on congress for its budget, it is by necessity more responsive to congress. why would we render congress impotent to act one year out of every two? true, the two-year budget gives agencies greater certainty of what they'll be able to spend. but doesn't that come at the expense of congress now having far less certainty of what those same agencies will actually need and far less control over how they're spending it? furthermore, as has been pointed out, it's difficult to peer one year into the future, it's far harder to anticipate conditions and needs two years hence. under the biannual budget, agencies would start their budget process 28 months before the beginning of the second year and 40 months before the end. the natural result has been pointed out is going to be an explosion of supplemental bills in the second year which is the very antithesis of good budgeting. i think the proponents of biannual budgeting tacitly admit the shortcomings. we've heard the suggestion to modify the proposal by retaining the annual cycle for reconciliation and appropriation b

congress isn't to be heard. congress is to be dispositive. >> what you guys are missing, total context here. there would be chaos. chaos. congress is doing nothing, zero. congress obstructs this president -- >> it's his best friend, what are you talking about? >> the president responds, and you sea why is this president trying to -- he's trying to do something for the american people. >> where have the republicans obama. the number one thin president obama wanted, the first six they got it, paul ryan did big op-eds on it. they worked with him consistently the one thing obama wanted was the administration funded through the next year republicans gave him a $1.1 trillion spending bill thatport people did not read, the republicans have been terrible unbridled authority. >> laura, you would have isis fighting in the middle east, yet this congress has not even acted to give authority to this president to go after isis. let's talk about the failure of congress? talk about congress abandons -- >> congress should vote o

thank you for the work that you did on really rescuing congress from the last several congresses. it was a do nothing congress. there were legislative inquiries. but the most important from our constituents was of course the annual budget. and i appreciate that. director levine, this reach, of course, was if you were to name them, perhaps the primary business of this committee this year. and of course your agency was called to the carpet. now, the legislative business that you would have been, i suppose, most taken to task force would have been how you responded. constituent services falling out of legislative business. i wish you would describe pursuant to what this committee wanted you to do, how you responded, what services were affected, the notion of, i understand, a hotline for congressional services to contact on behalf of their constituents and other services that in fact, responded to congress's concern about the obm breach. >>> sure. i see my time is about to expire. >> please complete the answer. >> thank you very much for the question. what we have tried to do is two-f

congress still needs to act. but folks in this room will not rest until congress does. [ applause ] because once congress gets on board with common sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. but we also can't wait. until we have a congress that's in line with the majority of americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence to save more lives. actions that protect our rights and our kids. after sandy hook, joe and i worked together with our teams series of executive actions to try to tighten up the existing rules and systems that we had in place. but today we want to take it a step further. so let me outline what we're going to be doing. number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions. [ applause ] >> it doesn't matter whether you're doing it over the inteteet or at a gun show, it's not where you do it, but what you do. we're also expanding

by members of congress. some members of congress. but president obama delivered an address that day that was palpably charged with genuine passion and commitment. the president made a promise to not give up. i remember standing there with my family and vice president biden, listening to our president speak. our feelings of despair were replaced with feelings of hope. i remember thinking, who will help them with this? it is a tall order. since then, i've come to know and respect and learn from many amazing individuals and organizations that are doing good, smart work in this space and many of you are here right now. many of the folks in the gun violence prevention coalition including sandy hook promise have had numerous meetings with vice president biden and president obama and their top advisers to advise this issue. but we cannot do it alone. the president cannot do it alone. every gun related death is preventable. we need your help. we need everybody engaged in this. president obama made a promise as an elected official and a promi

some members of congress. but president obama delivered an address that day that was charged with genuine passion and commitment. the president made a promise to not give up. i remember standing there with my family and vice president biden listening to our president speak and our feelings of despair were replaced with feelings of hope. and i remember thinking, who's going to help him with this? that's a tall order. and so since then i've come to know and respect and learn from many amazing individuals and organizations who are doing good, smart work in this space, and many of you are right here right now. many of the folks in the gun violence prevention coalition, including sandy hook promise, have had numerous meetings with vice president biden and president obama and their top advisors to address this issue. but we can't do it alone. and the president can't do it alone. the thing is every gun-related eath is preventable. and we need your help. we need everybody engaged in this. president obama made a promis

obviously a law of congress can be repealed by another congress. they want to put the basic principle of civil equality into the constitution, but another thing about the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments that is important to point out is that they all have this final clause saying congress shall enforce these amendments to by appropriate legislation. compare that to the bill of rights, the bill of rights is a set of restrictions on congress. congress shall make no law. the states were not bound by .hat says congressment -- it now sees the states as the danger to liberty and congress can override the states when they try to deprive american citizens of their basic rights. it's a fundamental shift in the federal system from a state centered system before the civil war to one in which the federal government has far more power, particularly when it comes to defining the basic rights of all citizens. in the 20th century, little by ,ittle, the core incorporated said ok, because of the 14th amendment the states now have to abide by the provisions of the

the house, i'm talking about the congress, an enforcement trigger that requires the congress to stay and do its work until those appropriations bills are moved. if we would do that, you would be surprised -- we probably could get both of these things done. we could have appropriations and budgeting done. some of the concerns and fear that is are out there about biannual would melt away like the morning dew. if we could get that done. sometimes congress works better -- was surprised a year or so ago, two years ago after the senate failed to pass any budget at all, we put into a debt limit increase another piece of legislation that i had worked with jim cooper on, congressman cooper from tennessee, called no budget, no pay. a piece of it. like a miracle in 20 days the u.s. senate after three years of not doing anything passed a budget. and in a enforce f-trigger moved the -- and that enforcement trigger moved the senate to get involved. quite frankly, the 233 co-sponsors, those co-sponsors are the voices of 700-plus thousand people in each of those districts. they are saying we need to

number 2 -- you talk about statesmanship in congress. i just want to have a quick memory on air for senator dale bumpers of arkansas, who i think was the ultimate statement. you may be correct that a good number of members of congress do find employment in washington as lobbyists or members of corporations that are doing business and what have you. that is not true, however, for all of us. let me just say for the record that the lugar center help formulate with former staff members of the foreign relations committee that i receive no salary or compensation. do this because i believe it needs to be done. we need to work on arms control and food security. there are many persons like myself doing this kind of work in washington or in the states or constituencies in which they came. i admire that. i do not want to criticize anybody, but i would say a good number of us that have come out of congress have tried to capture some of the idealism that we found there, some of the ability to work together, and continue to do that. senator richard lu

by members of congress. some members of congress.sident obama delivered an address that day that was palpably charged with genuine passion and commitment. the president made a promise to not give up. i remember standing there with my family and vice president biden, listening to our president speak. and our feelings of despair were replaced with feelings of hope. and i remember thinking, who will help them with this? it is a tall order. so since then, i've come to know and respect and learn from many amazing individuals and organizations that are doing good, smart work in this space and many of you are here right now. many of the folks in the gun violence prevention coalition including sandy hook promise have had numerous meetings with vice president biden and president obama and their top advisers to address this issue. but we cannot do it alone. the president cannot do it alone. every gun-related death is preventable. and we need your help. we need everybody engaged in this. president obama made a promise as an elected official and

if congress will act i will. as many have noted the usurpations and diverted attention from a long list of domestic and foreign policy disasters and their service into a bedrock principle. as we canvas the many constitutional assaults of the past seven years. to do that we need to speak for about 30 minutes discussing several issues and then we will here opposing commentary on the book and then open it for questions. i will introduce each of our speakers. a professor at the george mason university school of law where he has been teaching since 1995. he has written over 60 frequently cited scholarly articles, the author rehabilitating lochner defending individual rights against progressive reform which has come to all of you , especially those who are still on the persuasion. he is also the author of you can't say that they growing threat to civil liberties from antidiscrimination laws , the author of only one place of her dress, the co-author of the new ring more expert's and also phantom risk, graduate of the ol

congress provided one. what the focus of the is what happens afterwards, especially the violation of civil liberties. spanish-american war, world war i did not even come with the territory that would lay claim to. hen war broke out, americans savored their distance from the conflict. atlantic aven for the ocean, wrote u.s. ambassador to kingdom walter heinz page, and president wilson press and the country that the country would stay out. never attempted to intervene in european affairs, he said. remote and for most americans a distraction. the british leaders noticed this. to the ish ambassador u.s. complained that americans anught the war was a bore or immensely interesting spectacle provided for their entertainment. the british worked to overcome this. the target of their propaganda neutral nations. this means that the information had about war would ometimes be exaggerated in the hopes that the u.s. would join the war on the side of england. reporting tforward sometimes broke through american indifferenc

everyone knew he could call a special session of the 39th congress to pass it after the 38th congressthis presents an interesting counter. reconstruction developed very differently. congress would have been in session upon his assassination. the answer is lincoln and his allies that political capital getting the amendment passed. showed some level of democratics of work for ending slavery. it seems likely that maryland and missouri would ratify. thee was no hope for confederate states of the border states would join them. the sooner the issue would be out of lincoln's hands in regard to peace talks in desperate he could say that slavery's fate rests with the american people in the process grade -- and the process. a question as to which states could participate. lincoln explicitly rejected senator sumner's argument to includes -- exclude states. doing so fit with his generally lenient rican section -- reconstruction policy. endorsed political rights for pac-man in the speech. john wilkes booth stood in the -- and promised that is the last speech he will ever make it up -- make. the qu

congress three times said, no. he's going to write that into the law, and he's going to prosecute people who fail to do it. that is a blatant violation of the separation of powers which basically says under the constitution congress writes the law -- harris: well, then how is he doing it? >> -- the president enforces them. he's going to direct agents of the department of -- or the bureau of tobacco, alcohol and firearms to find out where gun transfers have occurred, where the person's selling or giving the gun didn't have a gun ladies and gentlemen with which to do so -- melissa: can i bravely take the other side? >> it's the most difficult federal license to obtain. it takes over a year to get it. that's how intrusive is the background check on the person seeking the license. harris: interesting. a plethora of information there. and you want to flip it. melissa: well, i mean, i was listening closely to what he said about this because we have talked about this very issue s and he said that was going to apply to peo

it looks at issues that are relevant to congress today. i should stress that the center is strictly nonpartisan and the focus of the program is not to advocate for particular policies are legislation, but rather to provide historical context that policymakers and the public as they deal with difficult issues. i want to acknowledge the financial support of the andrew mellon foundation, which makes this possible and in particular, i want to thank the two people who actually organized these events, and that is commander niz, the- amanda mo assistant director of the center over there, and frankie lyons, a very intern who is outside the door. the passage of the voting rights act 50 years ago is rightly regarded as a landmark piece of legislation. it largely eliminated discriminatory -- actions. aitics complained it created system of racial gerrymandering. congress repeatedly reauthorized the law.y point of the justice roberts framed his decision in historical terms, arguing, our country and has changed in the past 50 years. it seems appropriate

congress still needs to act. but folks in this room will not rest until congress does. because once congress gets on board with common sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. but we also can't wait. until we have a congress that's in line with the majority of americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence to save more lives. actions that protect our rights and our kids. after sandy hook, joe and i worked together with our teams and we put forward a whole series of executive actions to try to tighten up the existing rules and systems that we had in place. but today we want to take it a so let me outline what we're going to be doing. number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions. [ applause ] >> it doesn't matter whether you're doing it over the internet or at a gun show, it's not where you do it, but what you do. we're also expanding background checks to cover violent criminals who try to bu

thank you for the work that you did on really rescuing congress from the last several congress' reputation. maybe it was busy legislating inquiries. one fromost important our constituents was the annual budget. i appreciate that. mr. levine, this breach of course -- if you were to name them -- perhaps the primary business of this committee this year. and of course, you were called to the carpet. business thate you would have then been i task forost taken to was how you responded to the coming upts services, of the legislative business. i wish you would describe, pursuant to what this committee wanted you to do, how you responded? what services were effected? the notion of a hotline, i understand, for congressional offices to contact on the half of their constituents and other services. that, in fact, responded to congress 's concern about the opm breach. my time isassume about to expire. >> please complete the question. >> what we have tried to do is to i can fold. working to provide services to all of those that were impacted whate separate incidents, we call the personal records and the

some members of congress. president obama delivered an y that wasat dat charged with genuine compassion and commitment. the president did a promise to not give up. i remember standing there with my family, and vice president biden, listening to our present our president speak. our feelings of despair were replaced with feelings of hope. i remember thinking, who is going to help him with this? .hat is a tall order since then, i've come to know and respect, and learn from many amazing individuals and organizations who are doing good, smart work in this space. many of you are right here now. many of the folks in the gut violence coalition -- gun violence coalition have had meetings with president obama and vice president biden, but we cannot do it alone, the president cannot do it alone. the thing is every gun related .eaths is preventable we need your help. we need everybody engaged in this. president obama made up thomas as an elected official and a promise as a father that he would do everything in his power t

congress you have to be respectful of the president. one member of the house did interrupt the president and did shout out and he was censured by the house of representatives. that is unbecoming conduct. president obama: the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> liar. >> the office of the constitution dn and wrote the corner stution in secret they did require certain things to be open, not open. they don't require congress to meet in open session. just from time to time to publish a journal of their proceedings and they don't ask the president to give an annual message but ask him to deliver a message on the state of the union. they would be pleased to see that the president comes very much every year. they would be astonished to realize that the congressional record is published every day after the proceedings and not only the state of the union but words of the members of the house and senate. that is something they had intended that this was a republicic, it was a democratic republic and was repres

i fear that we've become, our country and the congress has become a congress that looks at the 20% we can't agree on and said we can't do the 80% because we disagree on the 20%. that's a mistake. it's also not the scheme of government that was created by america in our constitution. and it would be a mistake to do nothing because we can't agree on the 20% when we could agree on 80%. now, i know there's some areas where we're just going to have fundamental disagreement and we're going to continue to fight and oppose each other's points of view. but i've been around here long enough that i know there are people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle, some of whom i disagree with strenuously but working together we can find ways to solve problems and help move the country's agenda forward. but somewhere along the way, the president forgot that and so i suspect he'll be talking about some of his executive orders. and there they have been -- they have been a terrible miss sake. first of all, we saw on his executive order on immigration, there was a lawsuit and a federal judge issued an inj

on february 26, he asked congress for a statue. american ships would be allowed to fire on submarines without notice. and news of the laconia trickle to the chamber as this bill was, um, before the house. um, if allowing private american vessels to shoot german submarines with u.s.-supplied arms and naval personnel sounds like a great way to start a war, this certainly occur to members of congress. this was reinforced by the reaction from other neutral nations and from germany, seeing armed private vessels as vessels of war. concern that the president was seeking to go to war without a declaration was also reinforced by the language of the bill itself. the senate provision provided for authority beyond -- and in the merchant vessels. the president would be empowered to employ others -- and methods as may in his judgment and discretion seem " necessary and adequate." a nice strong bar there. i think it is fair to say that this is wilson's equivalent of lbj's tonkin gulf resolution on the war in the it now. it was a way to go to war

if you can't keep up with congress, i understand that congress is a third-party. if you can't keep up with a document requests a view should reevaluate your conduct. quit abusing the laws and ollow the law. mr. kadzik: we do recognize the gentleman from california. >> thanked the ranking member for -- forgive me for being naïve. it does seem that both the committee and the department should be less pull and tug and gray areas. it strikes me that public documents are public documents. the sooner you have the documents i think it does is all well knowing there was some political latitude. my question is specifically to the ag, i had a specific letter that i sent to the department of justice and the attorney general. i would let you just have it on the record. it was vis-à-vis the ability to enforce the clean air act versus potentially or going to the due diligence when it comes to volkswagen. i have read interpretations that said this gap there was the letter that we said recklessly got a response. i will give that. if you could go back and let our office now -- wha

gets done by congress? guest: we look at where presidents have requested action. persons doing a lot of things in the speeches but one of the things is recommend things to congress, which the constitution stipulates the president can do. presidents vary. bill clinton was known for long speeches, being a policy wonk and throwing in many requests, many small. jimmy carter had relatively few requests and tended to talk about big picture items in his speeches. there is a basic blueprint of the speeches in which the presidents claim credit for things they have done, often that sets up a request for action in terms of the legislature. the we look at is only in year. many times, presidents do not get anything the following year but it may be a request they address and iter may be successful or not in future years but we only attract that year. get lessge, presidents than half of what they ask for in some form. many times president ask for things and they get some element of what they want. basically about 40% of t

host: why did you leave congress? guest: frankly because i felt that i had done everything i could possibly do. i was on the intelligence committee for eight years. term limited off of that. i was on the appropriations committee because i wanted to get things done for my district. atried a little venture leadership and didn't make that. i felt that after 14 years it was time for somebody else. and we had accomplished a lot. and i like the idea of going out on top. i think it is public service jobs, you are not lifetime jobs. there is only so much you can do. and after 14 years, i felt it was time to do something else. i had no idea i was going to be secretary of transportation. i had no idea this rare privilege would have been offered to me, but it was the best job i ever had in 35 years of public service because ethically made a difference. host: bought michael, ray lahood, who represents -- bob michael, ray lahood, who repres tse days? guest: he is our oldest son. we have four grown children. in ran in a special ele

congress still needs to act. but folks in this room will not rest until congress does. [ applause ] because once congress gets on board with common sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. but we also can't wait. until we have a congress that's in line with the majority of americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence to save more lives. actions that protect our rights and our kids. after sandy hook, joe and i worked together with our teams and we put forward a whole series of executive actions to try to tighten up the existing rules and systems that we had in place. but today we want to take it a step further. so let me outline what we're going to be doing. number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions. [ applause ] >> it doesn't matter whether you're doing it over the internet or at a gun show, it's not where you do it, but what yo