joining us, the author of the bill, senator patrick leahy, democrat of vermont. of course, chair of the senate judiciary committee. senator leahy, good to have you back on the program, sir. >> it's good to be with you. >> i understand you have a bit of laryngitis. thank you for honoring the commitment to come on anyway. i promise to make this painless. let me start by asking -- >> listen, when i -- when somebody makes a commitment to you, tavis, they should be there. i'm proud to be on your show. >> i'm honored to have you back on the program. i'm not naive in asking this question, but what to your mind is behind these attacks on the voting rights act? >> in my mind, it is nothing but a concentrated effort of voter suppression. you know, when we wrote the voting rights act, we had a bipartisan majority -- bipartisan coalition, passed overwhelmingly in the senate and house. i remember when george w. bush signed it, again with a bipartisan group. yet, five republican appointees on the supreme court knocked out the most important part of the voting rights act. it gu

joining me now is the chair of the senate judiciary committee and the bill's sponsor, senator patrick leahy good morning, sir. >> good morning, it's good to be with you. >> it's good to have you here this morning. senator dan coates says your bill goes too far at a time the u.s. needs as many tools in its arsenal as possible, in other words, ice sis inspiring lone wolves notoriously hard to stop. is this the right time to curb the nation's spy agency in >> of course it's the right time. i understand dan coates has his feelings, but he's wrong on this. i think the reason why there are so many people sponsored my bill they go from the right to left and i'll give an example. ted cruz of texas, chuck schumer of new york but more importantly it's backed by the director of national intelligence, by the attorney general. most of the high-tech companies know that if we don't have something like my bill, they're going to lose tens of billions of dollars in business overseas because people will stop trusting the united states. my bill is just a common sense way of saying collect information, but do i

tonight with less than two weeks until the midterm selections, a conversation with senator patrick leahyont, chair of the senate judiciary committee about how new voting rick may keep hundred of thousands -- riekzs may keep hundreds of thousands from casting their ballots this year. over a year ago, the supreme court struck down a key provision of the voting rights act of 1965, opening the door for states to place restrictions on who can vote including implementing new rules requiring voter i.d.s. leahy and other senators have a bill pentagon th-- bill pending now. we'll have a conversation with one of the true innovators of funk music, george clinton. after nearly 40 years of touring, he swears this is his last. he's written about his life and career. you'll love the title -- "brothers be like, yo, george, ain't that funking kind of hard

patrick leahy introduced legislation called the leahy law which bars sending weapons to any militaryts which are involved in consistent human rights violations. there is not the slightest doubt that the israeli army is involved in massive human rights violations, which means that all dispatch of u.s. arms to israel is in violation of u.s. law. i think that is significant. the u.s. should be called upon by its own citizens and by u.s. law,adhere to which also happens to conform to international law in this case. amnesty international, for example, for years, has been calling for an arms embargo against israel for this reason. these are all steps that can be taken. the second is the tax exempt status that is given to organizations in the united states which are directly involved in the occupation, and on humanicant attacks and civil rights within israel itself, like the jewish national fund. take a look at its charter with the state of israel, which to the it to acting benefit of people with jewish race, religion, and origin within israel. at one of the consequences of that is that by

senate judiciary committee chair patrick leahy is asking comcast to strengthen its commitment to netity by pledging to never create internet fast lanes on its network. paid prior to rize and is the product -- practice in which netflix pays comcast to obtain preference for it its data on the provider's network. and afounder of bondage pioneer over voice over internet protocol, he joins us from new york. first of all, comcast says it is reviewing this letter about fast lanes but has no plans to do so. how do you see this actually ?laying out yeah co netflix raised the ante by making their consumers outraged and going to the consumers. they are trying to leverage rules and regulations so that they look like the good guys and everybody else looks bad. fighting anyone against neutrality -- the solution that netflix is pushing for is that if they have their way, it will happen overnight and it will be silicon valley's fault. everybody becomes regulated. 11 years ago, i went to washington with a law that said voice communication on broadband is not to be regulated as a telephone service and

senate judiciary committee chair patrick leahy is asking comcast to strengthen its commitment to netby pledging to never create internet fast lanes on its network. paid prioritization is the practice in which netflix pays comcast to obtain preference for it its data on the provider's network. off pulver is the cofounder fawn edge -- vonage and a pioneer over voice over internet protocol, he joins us from new york. first of all, comcast says it is reviewing this letter about fast lanes but has no plans to do so. how do you see this actually playing out? >> for comcast and netflix, it is a business issue. netflix raised the ante by making their consumers outraged and going to the consumers. we are dealing with a business issue. netflix they are trying to , leverage rules and regulations so that they look like the good guys and everybody else looks bad. at the end of the day, the issue a hand, while netflix as issue about net neutrality, i don't think you will find anyone against neutrality the solution that netflix is pushing for is that if they have their way, it will happen overnight

for for example in the state of vermont senator patrick leahy the chairman of the agriculture committee and nobody is more tenacious in defending agriculture. of course they did a good job protecting the dairy industry be those interests particularly in the senate and we still have it in the constitution which is not changed in the last farm bill is the senate for the ultimate action was taken to facilitate this build to finish. those interests have a lot to do with not only u.s. farm policy that u.s. trade policy and in addition to the variety that we have to deal with. that is certainly a given right now. the senate is a big factor in why u.s. farm policy has remained largely unchanged since the great depression. there've been changes of course that the population in this country is not from a population of 40% rural before the second world war two less than 10% today. yet the programs are still widely supported in the congress. about 40 years ago a political calculus was made in this area that this would not last forever and a new equation was needed to add to this coalition to keep

so, for example, in the state of vermont, senator patrick leahy had been chairman of the agriculture committee and nobody's more tenacious defending agriculture in vermont which had a population of about 650,000 or 700,000 people and, of course, did a very good job protecting the dairy industry in all those years. ok, so those interests, particularly in the senate -- and we still have it. our constitution has not changed and even in the last farm bill it was the senate where the ultimate action was taken to facilitate this bill getting actually finished, those interests have a lot to do with not only u.s. farm policy but u.s. trade policy. you know, in addition to the variety of commodity programs that we have to deal with. so that's certainly a given right now. the senate is a big factor in why u.s. farm policy has remained largely unchanged since the great depression. there have been changes, of course, but the population of this country has gone from a population about 40% rural before the second world war to less than 10% rural today, and yet the programs are still very widely su

cq white house reporters are tweeting a judiciary chair patrick leahy which we got a couple of moments ago that says it but says it is premature to call for new leadership lindsey graham released a statement on the secret service in which he says i appreciate the directors service, but it's time for new leadership and additionally it is time for an independent top to bottom review and the of the agency and its operations and ability to fully carry out its mission. >> so we do expect the topic to be touched on when the briefing gets underway momentarily. we'll have it for you live on c-span2. >> while we wait for the white house briefing to get underway and it should be just a moment marks from house leader nancy pelosi that told a held a briefing despite the congressional recess area she talked about the white house security breach and the challenges to the session of congress. >> good morning. today october 1, 2014 marks the one year since the government shutdown. on that day the republicans chose to do great damage to the economy. for 16 days they kept the government shutdown. even b

they have cory booker, patrick leahy, people from the left and the right, conservatives, republicans, conservatives, democrats, liberals and conservatives and i think that there is a chance in the next session of congress to institutionalize something more efficient and fair. >> we have less than six minutes left. but i can't let you go without asking about same-sex marriage. i've written a piece a couple of years ago now naming you one of the black men that were out front on marriage equality. and it wasn't a decision by the obama administration to no longer defend the defense of marriage act that got the ball rolling for the supreme court's decisions that we saw last year. why was it important for you to do that? >> if you look at the defense of marriage act into the legislative history it is consistent with i think a really bad part of the american history. it was an act based on fear and stereotyping and discrimination it was on that basis we made the -- it seems to me that this whole question of marriage equality is part of a larger piece. i think it is a civil rights struggle of