House, now that we been able to reopen and have you all here. I hope you take time afterward to walk around if you have another chance to see what weve done. By the end of this year we will have brought over 15 authors to toledo and thats made possible through generous report of the Library Legacy foundation and gifts will allow us to not only bring world are nine authors to toledo but also help the library to be at abthat includes things like homework helpers, the ready to read program and our summer read. Speaking of summer read, we will soon be announcing a winter read so keep an eye out for that we will try to get our Community Reading just like we do in the summer through the month of january. In addition to the Library Legacy foundation we owe a debt of gratitude to our presenting media sponsor. Buckeye broadband and the blade supporting sponsors peer group and hcr manor care. And Community Sponsors runs of the library. As i mentioned, weve had a great year of authors so far and we are not done yet. I hope you will join us later this month as we wrap up the 2019 series. We have authors, kevin wilson on november 14 at 7 00 p. M. In the glass media room downstairs. Tickets are free but registration is appreciated and books will be available for sale at that. Thats november 14. We also will have authors presenting the joy of cooking on november 23, 2019 here in the mcmaster center, tickets are 50 but they include a copy of the newest edition of the book and a small sampling of some of the most loved recipes and cocktails. So hopefully well see you there. And now, for the reason you are all here today, our moderator for this afternoon is a pulitzer prizewinning columnist and professional in residence at canaan State University school of journalism. Shes the author of two nonfiction books including and his lovely wife which chronicles successful rates of her husband and presenting author we see name for the u. S. Senate. Her novel, the daughters of erie town will be published by random house in spring of 2020 hopefully to bring her back here next year for that. Please join me in welcoming to the stage miss connie schultz. [applause] [applause] dont laugh while i get on the stool. Our guest author is a senior u. S. Senator from ohio elected to see in 2006 a member of the Democratic Party he began his political career in 1975. Prior to serving this United States senate he served as u. S. Representative for the 13th district ohio secretary of state, member of the ohio General Assembly in a talk in ohio Public Schools and ohio State University, he has written three books to melissa which is desk 88, eight productive senators who changed america. Tells the proud history of his current desk on the senate floor by sharing the stories of eight men who were there before him. An eagle scout, our guest is a native of mansfield ohio he spent summers working on his familys farm, he is as many of you know very to our moderator this afternoon and they live in lincoln but together they have three daughters, a son, daughterinlaw, three sons in law, seven grandchildren and two blue big Furry Friends in franklin and walter. Please join me in welcoming to the stage the honorable Sherrod Brown. [applause] [applause] okay. Ready. Weve never gotten that reception in our other book talks. Hello husband. [laughter] weve done a number of these now and it seemed odd at first for me be up here with my husband on stage. Its not something id done before but more i thought about it nobody knows his book i come close second to you i suppose. In terms of just how hard you worked on it what i would like you to answer first because i been watching people and listening to them asking the same question over and over again. Youre such a good writer if sherrod hadnt been so funny and literate and his emails to be there would never been a date. Talk a little bit about how the book came about in the writing process itself. Can i Say Something really nice about the library a number of you saw connie and connery interviewed Stacey Abrams earlier this year. It was marble to watch these strong smart women sit up front. Special thanks to kathy and jason and the number of volunteers, luanne, louise, mike, so many of you to make this happen in the library board. In ohio still we are necessarily have the best State Government we do libraries better than any state in the country. Lets get to the questions. ab the committees are more or less placed by committees of seniority. Someone had told me that senators carved their names in the bottom of the desk drawers the fourth when i said. He said thats gotta be bobbys because i have jacks desk. He did get first choice. But then i started thinking about the senators who signed this desk. Im guessing theres at least one senator or maybe two who almost never heard of or would know very little about. You do do your job better whether you Practice Medicine or law or run the library or get able or work in government or work in business or work in fifth third, if you know the history of your institution and of a business you do it better. Connie went online and found probably a dozen or 15 books about senators or the senate all out of print all very inexpensive in 10 years i read about 100, most are about 160 books and i interviewed about 100 people. I wrote it for the same reason i wear this abit was given to me at work is memorial day workers mine workers took a canary down to the minds. Its about workers, fairplay, civil rights, womens rights. Talk about the writing process itself. I wrote what i thought was a good for strep. By about 2011 i had a pretty good strap to connie she said not even close. She said first of all. I said this with love. She said the writing wasnt good enough at that point. I hadnt done enough rewriting and more importantly i had not done, she said there was just not any historian can write a book about senators and you have to bring yourself in the Senate Perspective into it. I didnt start over but i did a much deeper dive and i had no deadline i dont do this for a living. Obviously i have a day job but i wanted to make it i wanted to make it what it should be and im very grateful for that because if she had not done that it wouldve been a shadow of this and the payoff in some sense was the first big review of the book in the post today the Washington Post posted friday night and it was done by an historian from toledo. By the name of Doug Brinkley going up in terrys work. I so appreciated historian did this review, not political writer. We dont like political writers. We do like political writers. [laughter] he was not in any way assaulting her but i think the abof historian because went deep enough into the stat historical accuracy and im not a professional historian, i dont have a phd in history but i think i can write and put a lot of seriousness into it. The reason i offered the critique i did at the time was precisely because you are a senator writing it and he brings a different perspective. So bring yourself into it, i also encouraged you, i so love being right about all of this. [laughter] i also encouraged you to tell more about yourself because one of the questions i so often have heard asked of sherrod, specifically by reporters is how does a doctor, very strong middleclass family and it being such a champion of workers rights and civil rights. So much of your early story involves your mother. Talk about your mom a little bit. My mom grew up in a town called mansfield georgia, town of 500. She went to washington during the war. She worked for the oss, which later became the cia transmogrified cia years later. She met my father for mansfield ohio and they married and they met in 1945. She found segregation first just puzzling and then and then repulsive as she thought of, confounding and repulsive and much of the way she saw the world was through race. She would tell me, i was born in 52. I remember all the 60s and 70s busing issues while people were bussed for integration in toledo and cleveland and much of our country. Its when they force bussed black kids past good white school to send them to inferior black school. She did all kinds of things when i was in high school she got pickup shirley chisholm, head of the ohio ywca which she would say next to the naacp and urban league where the best advocates for race and womens rights of anybody any Ongoing Group in our country and she got to pick up abfirst speech once. Talk about the work she did with registering voters. 2004, my mom was 84 then, living in mansfield my dad had passed away four years earlier. She thought the john carey campaign wasnt being run quite well enough in mansfield. Towns like mansfield are sort of not a pretension in a president ial race so she said she was gonna do something about it so she got up and talked to a friend in doing this they took a card table put it in her trunk and of her american car i would add of course, she drove to a Grocery Store in a part of town where there were lots of people werent registered to vote in over a week i think she did every friday for six weeks or Something Like that she registered 900 voters and she, because shes an organizer and emily brown, she kept all the names and phone numbers and called all of them to get them out to vote leading into the election. [applause] thats the kind of stuff she knew what to do. She was a woman who knew her a [inaudible] the first time i met her i had just bought an evening gown which i have bought in a gallon since prom. A daily member of congress, which really thrilled my editor, who were going to a formal event so she standing next to me we were staying at her home i know her 20 minutes and she standing next to me as were looking in the mirror and she never lost her southern accent. She said, connie, would you like a necklace to go with address . She said is not what you are trying to do . [laughter] only 83 then. One more thing about your mom, she was the first in the family to support barack obama. She came out for a while, probably 2007, early, and i was not endorsing anybody and was just, she was the first one of the family and when my mom was dying in january of 2009 when obama took office. We were with her in hospice in our home. Both my parents died in hospice and i want do commercials anytime anybody the hospice asked how important it is. Connies mom was a hospice worker for years and years. 800 people showed up in her moms wake when she died because she had helped so many people. But my mom, my brothers and i and connie were there and on january 19 she said, i really want you to who go to the inauguration and leave. I turned out that was my mom the last day she got out of bed and she sat up and she watched the inauguration it was her last really good elusive day on earth. She died about two weeks later. We came back that night but the next morning and we were all with her when she died but just was, she just thought that it was the greatest thing this level southern white girl daughter of a farmer thought it was the greatest thing that we had a black president in our country. Argue god he included all that in this book . I just think it gives such context. Now were to go to the nice stuff. [laughter] its all good. One of the things as you know my response to reading the biographies, the stories about these different men in the senate is they were very flawed human beings. Some of them not additionally very progressive at all. And we wanted him to change and he began to change in his last years. So i look for that and elected officials and there were three people in particular that journey the furthest from their Early Careers and Robert Kennedy and alberta gore senior kennedys father was a difficult man to leave it at that and they probably got the job through his father he also wiretapped doctor king when he was attorney general and two big things happened his brothers assassination one more tragedy to the Kennedy Family at that point with many more to come that changed him to be sure he was much more introspective learning about the greek poets but lincoln staff wanted him to say in the war and he said no i have to get my Public Opinion why i study body i never knew him of course or any member of the family but he really did hear people to get Public Opinion. The dinner that we had with peter started off with the kennedy staffer Marian Wright grew up in South Carolina went to Yale Law School and then she read the lawn ran the Head Start Program and they refused to do it so she ran it kennedy came to the poorest part of the country she didnt like the kennedys and you may remember this because all of his federal judges in the south went through the committee and eastland would not allow him to appoint anybody that was segregationist eisenhower appointed much better judges when the decisions were right where eisenhower judges not kennedy judges. Bobby showed up with this guy but she marries him years later. [laughter] but bobby shows up all the media and the tv cameras said he picked up this dirty little child and said i would not have wanted to hold him and something she had never seen in a senator and hardly a human being. So he became that empathetic and then became the Bobby Kennedy we all know. But hugo black became the furthest gore went from the uneven career to do the right thing with his bosses election for what he did with the vietnam war and because he opposed to racist judges nixon went after them and defeated them but hugo black went from the kkk member full circle by the 19 fifties after the most important integration decision at that time after that hugo black was in the tuscaloosa law school. You mentioned gore but the value of a public hearing and to talk about the value of the public hearing during watergate because it was when watergate was processed in the current climate we are in or are we not there anymore cracks its easy what the republicans want but do the American People want that. American people want almost everything to be public they want a light shine on government thats the idea. And what youre referring to is january 1966 the fulbright hearings which gore participated in that johnson tried to stop cvs from uncovering the hearings actually he convinced cvs to take the hearings off and run reruns of i love lucy but the hearings continued and got a lot of attention and he said in 2007 that changed the american publi public. So they had a great impact so to have people speak with a can see the hearings to think the house will likely impeach i know nixon didnt do some of those things and trump asks a Foreign Government to help with the election and would do what i would do because of a jury or that we should weigh the evidence not listen to Public Opinion so we will see i think they are really important united American History shows its a huge impact these are the same of the mccarthy hearings the titanic hearings and i was in that room when we wrote the Affordable Care act so they have a gravitas around them and they know how to do that. And if you have so talking about impeachment what will it take any republicans to stand up to donald trump to support in the senate cracks we have enough in the house but in the senate than any republicans are changing their mind so what would it take is there a possibility of that quex. I hear republicans talk privately they think this president is not informed. He does it run the administration in any coherent or legitimate way. Many think eli is a lot many say he is a racist. They like what he does it with the attacks on voter rights and working rights and the environment and they like the tax cuts. The other reason that they dont there is a palpable fear that if they Say Something to follow up they bring a primary on themselves part of that reason is if you are a trump supporter between the 35 or 40 percent do you listen to conservative talk radio and watch fox you never hear elected officials criticize him unlike any president. I was critical of clinton and obama on trade brick i think they were dead wrong. I was supportive of them most of the time but when i wasnt i wasnt afraid to say and that era has changed. Where are you with trump on trade . President drop ive had conversations with him in the oval office with full of senators i was not surprised but his two issues taxes and trade even on the issues that he cares about but the tariffs i support tariffs in the past i advocate for them but they are temporary tool for longterm policy. And they never work that way so and then to look at that indiscriminately you figure which are the serial cheaters. And then you build support with our allies to reinforce those tariffs and that has been lost. What its doing isnt working clearly it has hurt our economy and could be done differently. s not the message of hope but with those perspective and now not particularly longterm is there message in this book quex. Yes what connie said the progressive era i can document directly and indirectly talking about wilson by any measure was pretty racist but there were progressives that came out and the Federal Reserve like women getting the right to vote during his Administration Even though he didnt always support this initially it was the times and the elections of roosevelt and the democrats in public sentiment but then the thirties and the sixties the greatest progressive era that they are only shortlived they last two or three or four years they have great accomplishment with longterm consequences making our country better mostly from conservatives and conservatives want to hold on to wealth and power and privilege and they will do whatever it takes look at tobacco now dueling with the ecigarettes when country the country has almost quit by two thirds. I think very well we can be on the verge of another and the sentiment is there. People are discouraged i think trump is the worst president in my lifetime. Maybe in history i dont know about canada. [laughter] but its not the worst time. Think about slavery. For the first 75 years. Think about jim crow. World war i and the depression and civil law civil war and talking about immigration men to have this meeting exactly. I am very hopeful and people have come together. So what direction and strategy should the democrats take to reverse the damage they have done to our country . I hope we get a chance to. We have to. A lot of it starts at the local level and people running for office and in toledo but also oregon for go it starts with that and a library where people are freed by education and it starts pushing back on hate speech one at a time but also the government doing way better than it has done is a big part of this. How did you side where to sign it and why is it so big quex. Not so big as dark and bold. [laughter] a lot of senators signed their desk truman signed ten different ones i have had the same one many senators move every two or four years and they dont sign until they leave. It was the second oldest grandchild sixth birthday we have seven grandchildren we thought it would be a good day to sign understanding the kids were more excited about the train on the way over than an old piece of furniture. So i talk with my democratic colleagues about this. Because i want them to think about doing it the same way. So we walk into the cloak room and the curator was in there taking the drawer out and thought it was sacred in the sense she should not touch it only the senator gets to touch it. Thats curious but the tradition so she laid next to it a pencil and the cutting tool and a sharpie and the awol she suggested i write it where i did and start a new row to make it big and bold enough and take the time to do it. Obama and clinton did it really quickly and didnt pay much attention because they were ready to leave. He was becoming president and she was secretary of state and i had more time on my hands. [laughter] and that our grandchildren all ran their fingers over it. We have told them their entire lives you dont write on furniture you dont car and thats exactly. Thats a problem for their parents. [laughter] of Course School was not in session then but one the senate wasnt in session. You tell the story and waited for the grandchildren to be around before you signed it and we have a lot of grandparents in the room. How does being a grandfather and form your work . I thank you get more serious about your battle and what you see. I rarely one really fearful or discouraged and with the direction we go in four more years i dont want kids or grandkids to deal with that so it makes us more serious. I am 66. [applause] i just feel lucky to be relevant at the age i met and continue to get up and fight on the issues that i care about. This book is grounded be more and that because i realize that more. It made me more serious about the gravitas of the job. I dont want to make it sound i more important than i am but at this time. Speaking of young people , how can you be sure Climate Change is a serious threat around the globe to have a safe and habitable and a clean planet to occupy. And with civil rights it is the most important and you may remember one dozen years ago with the Republican Party mostly thought the same they are closer to the fossil fuel industry but they recognize Climate Change as serious is not connected to lake erie that to human beings contributed to it and then came the koc brothers and all the dark money that every republican knows that they step too far on climate issues even those that i know want to , they are endangering their future in a republican primary because the dark many its not me calling a number of you in this crowd asking for a thousand dollars or 1500 and i have done that to a few of you but its somebody coming in in 2012 i had more money against me the highest in the country a lot of outside money we didnt know where it came from. Its been broken since then and we figured it was the gun company and wall street for the oil company we know what were up against. But i think the pressure is beginning to build. Every Senate Democrat are looking at Committee Assignments thinking how we deal with committee change banking Housing Urban Affairs one of the things we are working on talking to jay powell pretty regularly as chairman of the Federal Reserve hes walking a tight rope on dash as trump criticizes him so he understands the issues of risk and insurance and banking when they finance the projects with the risk of Climate Change and understand that needs to be factored into their decisions. My place in the Banking Committee will be aggressive in 2021 if not will still be aggressive but thats to really shine a light on what we need to do across the board whether transportation or alternative energy or banking and finance or any one of those i also want to say one thing the men that are all in the book the next eight senators they will look more like toledo and america we will be a more progressive country as a result. [applause] when i was in college i was taking constitutional lame senior year and i became fascinated with hugo black i had a chance to meet him before i got out of college he was an incredible human being and greatly overlooked so thank you very much spin i thank you. Senator leahy from vermont he was a law student. Thank you for that. You and i are of a generation of a certain age in junior high we always talked about evil things and now we hear boomers we need to work with our young adults in a way thats differen different. Listening to them and encouraging them to vote there such a generational difference in politics it seems there always is especially with the issue of Climate Change. Even if they are fairly conservative republican knows that will understand diversity better than those who write for the lgbtq and not to be sure of that but its more than when we were in our forties or fifties or sixties. Please repeat what you said to Anderson Cooper about bloomberg that calmed me down. [laughter] we were in chicago yesterday and then this morning meet the press wanted me on they wanted to tape at 7 00 oclock so we had to get on the plane. So i dont have this genetic disposition the democrats tend to have two anguish over everything about her party especially if there are a lot of candidates in the race require like most of them i know most of them i dont know all of them. Some better than others. I think as this plays out you dont know who you are for yet. I dont either and went to watch how they do perk i think bloomberg getting in the race he gets in the race but i dont think there is anyone save your. I think when we make the contrast between who we are and what trump has done we will win but healthcare for example all the democrats at the debates fight about obama care but everybody has different speeds and paths to get there to be sure. But contrast that with the trump who tried to get mccain voting no and the Affordable Care act. I mentioned john kc and i were working with 600,000 people that is all canceled out if trump wins this case. And then make the contrast between that and thats how democrats need to talk because its just a way to lose. [applause] i am a senior in high school right now i want my name carved in a desk like yours. Was the number one piece of advice to emerge into a political world that is pretty hostile . What advice do you have . You are in high school he was only four years older than you. Where do you go . Notre dame. [applause] if you have the financial ability and counterintuitively i would not volunteer at a president ial race but county commissioner or state level and then you can find yourself gaining a lot of skills course working for those president ial candidates. But what if you are not financially able . It still good to volunteer but if you are in school then you have to have two jobs at eight or ten dollars an hour. But the great part of your biography like most americans. If you would go back, you vote next year but not this year. If you are to organize to get a group together like 50 people to register to vote you are two or Three Friends you would make an impact and also get peoples attention. You sherwood. As we said earlier there such a generational divide it would be determined by the energy of the young. Thank you for that. We named our first dog after Franklin Roosevelt the first and second rescue we named him walter but most people dont remember Walter Reuther please put them in a harness and in their own seatbelt to keep them safe and to be in an accident three years ago he survived protected by all the airbags and he was tethered by a harness and a seatbelt. That jeep was so safe a guy ran a stop sign the air curtain comes down keeps the glass from exploding into the driver. Tell every reporter who asks. And i talk about the dog. But apparently like all of Northern Ohio it sold out. Even in australia. But the dog lived. [laughter] what is the country song with a Bumper Sticker quex. I dont care if its a country song as long as the dog lived. [laughter] i heard an alarming statistic that was taken a large percentage of americans who are totally comfortable with a Strong Military rule in this country and im worried how you felt about this or how we got to this position is it because congress over time has succeeded so much power to the executives that a lot of people think the only branch that matters is the executive . Polling is all over the plac place. And i think it is legitimate i dont know the numbers but they are alarmingly high. Those who are more comfortable with the autocrats personally with the small d democrats clearly hes more comfortable even with north korea and president xi and the boy prince in saudi arabia then he is and you know that so you start with that. Weve always had a strain in history of people that are anti immigrant. In the 18 thirties or forties there was a donothing party it was in opposition of immigration and they talked about they had a weird religion they are talking about german catholics in 18 thirties and forties and looking at the diversity and from all over the world but its always been the antiimmigrant strain in this party its just weird that president articulates all of that with a compliant media that does the same as just a question of pushing back and always talking to people. I will push back on what you call the media. Lets be clear on that. I didnt say that. [laughter] show them your button. Its from ray gun from iowa that a journalist almost 40 years but now president calling us enemy of the people and then potentially attacks us its more important than ever i was not being dismissive of your question i didnt mean it to be that way im glad you said it was pbs because you do have to be careful how they are presented especially their online pools you should bes suspicious right away. You are right congress has seated too much power. It has happened slowly but it is the erosion it is also accelerated with the protection of this president by the leadership in the senate. Me very much enjoy reading your biography of those true leaders that have changed our country for the good. So a good summer job would almost pay for one year of college education. So the cost of Higher Education has gone up twice the rate of inflation which is one. 4 trillion of college debt and is held by the Us Government in the Interest Rate is five. 7 percent and this is strangling the generation. This is an arbitrage by her own Us Government because the ten year treasury is one. Eight i borrow money from the government and then i pay five. Eight. So what do we need to do to get that Interest Rate down so its not such a stranglehold on this young generation because they cant swing this compounding at 6 percent. Actually we need a congress that pays more attention to that. I hear it from grads those that had 50 or 60000 if they go to private school and what we have put on that generation. I like the way bernie has talked about free college. It sounds too far in the future and it sounds unreachable park i was talking to kathy at the library earlier. He went off to harvard and is in his eighties and heard him speak to a group of senators we didnt have free Public Education that School Started to do that. We need to think about expanding but what do we do between now and then clicks it means regulating these for profit schools or dealing with Interest Rates it means putting more into pell grants and that their tuition continues to go up. So what is working in the senate today . Its worse because of trump and mcconnell but i never romanticize the past even though i have written about sometimes in senate history. Ms. 95 men and one woman and they cannot pass of the rights legislation. They were productive in many ways there was a lot of southern democrats that were segregationist that think more like i do. In those days the parties have become more monolithic or homogeneous. There is a guy in the senate from missouri roy blunt he was secretary of state in missouri at the same time i was in ohio. He said we have known each other 30 years we only agreed on five things all five or federal law. That is what you do in the senate. I find somebody like todd young as a new member he call cares a lot of International Health and i work with isaacson and moran on veterans issues. Not the big issues of war and peace in taxes and big deal government regulation but we Work Together with ohio and transportation and farm bills but its up to us to find senators to work with us. We really do get a lot more done than you think we do that way but is still too partisan and a dysfunctional place. When the next person sits down at your desk in seizure name how do you want them to remember you . I have to think about that. I will answer with an anecdote. What im proudest of i have done in the senate is nancy pelosi and i in 2014 we failed to get a provision on the Child Tax Credit in 2014. In 2015 we set out to do this. It was an expansion permanent to put two or 3000 in the pockets of people making 40000 a year coupled with what i pushed obama and department of labor to do if youre making 35 or 40000 they call you management you will get overtime so now you get time and a half at that income level. With those two things together the Republican House and senate we figured out how to get it passed for quite said in the book if i do nothing else in the senate that is worth the career that affected millions and millions of people at that age making that kind of money to get 3000 more to raise their kids or by close or what matters. [applause] when i think of your question i think of who was he on her very first date he brought two pages of his favorite quotations i asked him to read them aloud to me. But we had the same favorite quotation from George Bernard shaw. Thats what i think of that i would add. And i will add that. First you have the unusual first name how did you come by it. As a kid did you have a nickname you can share . My mothers fathers name is sherrod my mothers greatgreatgrandfather my mom and dads family great grandfather and great uncles fought against each other in the civil war in the battle above the mountains in tennessee. My brothers name is Charlie Brown so i argue i got the better deal. [laughter] that so i got the name. I didnt like it i thought it was a girls name. In school they have the printout it would save brown theres a lot of spaces but only had the first five letters and watching the teacher go to town on that. I wanted to play baseball for the Cleveland Indians i always blamed the people think im prolabor i ways blamed to my dad he was wanted to fire the manager for lefthanded some people call me lefty. Not a star by a long shot. In 2006 he announced on the air with the africanamerican name Sherrod Brown then he said that they called your husband a woman percocet i gave a speech and said i married to an africanamerican woman. [laughter] so its totally on how his name is interpreted. I am a lefty to i love you even more. My question is the first time ive had a chance to ask a senator i have called so many times and it says we will get back to you and they never have. So is it to no avail when you call an office . Is there a better use of my time and energy to let me know what im thinking . I would never discourage you from doing what you are doing. It is important for i think it is important. The more it effort on so you sign a petition thats too easy but if you have a hand written note that shows a little more strike of belief. Just keep doing that. If somebody continues to disappoint you you work to defeat them or as democracy i know a number of people have them on speed dial and call us repeatedly. So dont give up. He should respond to you if you werent a good office. I am sure some of you have written once or twice maybe i didnt answer but we always try. Our assistant state director we put a high premium on responding and we all should we our Public Servants and that is our job. Just keep trying and dont give up. [inaudible] [laughter] we were born at the same plane one same place at the same time two hours apart. [laughter] what makes connie a great journalist . And what makes connie as senators life partner . Thanks mom. [laughter] you are welcome. [laughter] she would have loved you. Do tell. With her ability to do so many things. She loves her students she teaches two days a week and puts real time and effort into that. Shes writing a novel that has taken her years because at the beginning she was a very accomplished journalist not sure if the same skills would apply to being a novelist. I call her that because she likes it so much. She has earned it she does the senators wife kind of work she is called upon to do. I said you were worth the wait. Thank you. [applause] she is a great journalist because she has integrity and listens to people and asks very good questions and she is an amazing writer but she also took it seriously. She is one of the reasons i have always been prounion because that is what i learned even though my mom never belong to a union. She knew doctor king died the martyr supporting sanitation workers. The older she got the importance of that i married connie probably would have died and had a terrible asthma attack at 16 and spent a week in the cleveland clinic. Thank you. What do we have to do to take the money out of the election process . There are millions and billions of dollars that it takes. Terrible. Its just terrible. You dont want to know the amount of time that i spend fundraising especially the last years of my term. Nobody should feel sorry for me it just means taking time away from the things i ought to be doing. The only solution is to get a congress that cares about it. Pelosi does but she cannot do it just in the house and the Supreme Court will actually weigh in on this. I was talking to a federal judge not so much strategy but he said with the right Supreme Court it would take about two years to work its way up. That grassroots still win elections. I am outspent in most of my races in outspent in 1990 and usually outspent but if you have the right discipline and message an Organization Also see many wash across candidates and campaigns and wash them out its a terrible affliction in our country. You just answered a part of the question if you have any more thoughts of how do you get rid of dark money out of politics because it has driven so much of where we are going as a country with income inequality and many other issues. You see it most the financial addition of the economy and environmental Climate Change and Energy Production and you see it with the gun lobby. Trump got more buddy from the gun lobby than any candidate in history in any race. I was in dayton two months ago and said we will do even bigger i said you need to call mcconnell on background checks 85 percent public support and banning assault weapon 60 percent support he said we will do bigger than that. And then he went back and met with wayne it really is the gun manufacturers and the top of those organizations really a lot of gun owners and nra members think we need safety rules in place. What is your advice for aspiring authors . Talk to connie schultz. [laughter] is a wonderful novelist. I try to encourage women and people of color to write more. With that opinion writing and coverage i was a workingclass kid the first in my family to go to college. Im teaching those kinds of kid kids. You dont have to have any tethers. But if you have the attention it can happen and you have that talent if you keep working on it. Very few people are born how to write but i tell myself i was a writer from a young age. Because an illustration by a dear friend and i call it the monster under the bed. s liabilities imagine the child invited them up. So thats a negative voice in our head and says if you have a story to tell. The way i look at it as long as i dont hear a word and to say not a word from you. I have two lines in the great africanamerican poet if they call you its one thing but what you answer to is something else. If you are determined you will be a writer. [applause] a screenwriter said write one word and read 1000. She learned to write in so much because she was working ins one of our customers came up to her and said you should read the new yorker. She couldnt afford it so she went to the Library Every week. The best week by week writing you can be exposed to. Us sportswriter red smith once said writing is easy you said add a typewriter and open your vain. Its hard work. I write a lot. [laughter] i write a journal not like connie does but it is practice and you get better at it. But no matter who i was writing for i told myself i was writing for the New York Times because that was my goal at the time. Its important because its what you tell yourself. I hope your messaging for yourself and my mom always used to say you Better Believe in yourself theres plenty of people already ready to bring you down. I wish you all the best. Senator you talk about the cost of communication. Because those are public airways, why cant the government fix it so there are all kinds when youre running for the house or senate . Thats a great question. We could. If the rules were set in place there could be subsidies. Every time anybody has tried to do Public Financing or those kinds of ideas they will say that stands for politicians and it makes it hard to do the things that would make our democracy more responsive and its an uphill flight and those that you ask on dark many in those post trump years they really will start in 2021 but we have to get serious about restoring democracy and a lot of levels from hate speec speech, communication between candidates and the public. If anybody else wrote a question we have a long ride home youve been a wonderful audience. Thank you. [applause] sam houston talk about courag courage, he felt he was impervious and shot three times and shouldve died. When its time to get a commission he goes to washington pretty close to here according to the map i have a nap so i can see everything. [laughter] the country is fragile encourage has to be calculated. A number of black elected officials on this country is gone for fewer than 151872 more than 10000 today including of course the twice elected black president that is the Voting Rights act. Smoking at the turn of the 2h century in the early 19 hundreds was considered something almost an american so the anti Smoking Movement of the 20th century rode a wave of nativism and what is appropriate for healthy cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Cap next on book tvs afterwards, university of virginia history professor, discusses the political history of tobacco in america afterwar is a weekly Interview Program with developing ups interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. All afterwards programs are also available as podcasts. Congratulations. Thank you. Its a significant work. I think its fair to say you moved the seal. Thats a tremendous think here coming from you. Thank you so much. How does it