I hope you have time to walk around the library if you havent had a chance to see what we done. By the end of this year we have brought 15 authors to toledo and thats made possible through generous support to the robert legacy foundation. It allows to not only bring world renowned authors but helps us be a catalyst for positive change in toledo county. And that includes homework helpers, the ready to reprogram in the summary. And speaking of summer read we will be announcing a winter read. Keep an eye out will try to get the Community Reading just like the summer the month of january. In addition to the foundation we always have gratitude to the media sponsors, buckeye broadband and the supporting sponsor in our Community Sponsor friends of the library. As i mentioned weve had a great year and we are not done yet. I hope youll join us later this month as we wrap up the 2019 series we have authors with kevin wilson on november 14 at 7 00 p. M. Downstairs and tickets are free but registration is appreciated and books will be available for sale after that. Thats november 14, we will also have authors presenting the joy of cooking on 2019 and tickets are 50 and they also include a copy of the newest edition of the book and a small sampling of cocktails. Hope to see you there. And now for the reason you all here today, the moderator is a puts a prizewinning colonist and profession at School Journalism the author to nonfiction books including and his lovely wife, and the husband and present an offer for the u. S. Senate. The novel the daughter of yuri town for 2020 and hopefully will be able to bring her back for that. Please join me in welcoming to the stage connie schultz. [applause] dont start until i get on the stool and miss. Ill topple over. The senior u. S. Senator from ohio elected to see into thousand six. The member of the Democratic Party he began his put a cooker in 1977 prior to serving he served as a u. S. Representative for the 13 district ohio secretary of state in the General Assembly and has taught in the schools and the Ohio State University has written three books, the latest of which is senators who changed america. Until the proud history on the senate floor by sharing the stories of eight men who were there before him. An eagle scout, where he spent summers working on his family farm he is as many of you know married to the moderator this afternoon and they live in cleveland their three daughters, a son, three sons and laws, seven grandchildren and two Family Friends franklin and waterford please join me in welcoming to the stage their honorable Sherard Brown hot. [applause] okay were ready we never got that reception and are other talks. Its truly honored to interview him but the more i thought about it nobody knows his book i come close second to you in terms of how hard you worked and how many years you been working on it than i do. What id like to answer first because i been watching people and listening to them as the same question over and over and first of all we know you wrote this book all by herself. [laughter] its not that funny. Like you had nothing else to do but also youre a good writer and if you not been so funny and literate in his email to me there never wouldve been a good day so i know hes a good writer. How the book came about in the writing process itself. What you learned over the course of writing the book. Can i Say Something nice about the library. Please do. It was wonderful to do this in the library into get to do it at this library and a number of you saw connie interview Stacey Abrams earlier this year. Its two really strong smart women stood up front high school and talk about their lives and what they were doing and special thanks to kathy and jason in the number of volunteers in so many of you that make this happen in ohio still we have not had the best State Government for much of her adult life but we do libraries in the state than any state in the country. [applause] i would make one other point. Freshman with everything in the senate is done by minority where your offices were used to on the senate floor, the committee you are requesting typically are more or less done in place with committees by seniority so there was ten freshman and ten left for which we said on the senate floor and i walked around and i realize i was not there were no bad seats you dont sit behind a post at the stadium so someone had told me that senators carved their names in the bottom of the dusters so i pulled out dexters and the one i looked at said for the lawyers black government of south dakota, and of tennessee, kennedy. So i said khmer this is 2007 and he walked over and he was for five desks away and i said which desk is this and he said it has to be bobbys i have jacks. So he did get first choice. But then i started thinking about the senators and many i knew and some i did not and im guessing theres at least one senator may be to who almost never heard of or knew very little about and one is glenn taylor, well talk more about him and around the same time, because i love history and i always believe that you do your job better whether you Practice Medicine or law around the library or working government or business, if you know the history of institution in your other business you do better. So connie went online and found a dozen 15 books about senators or the senate all inexpensive because nobody was reading those things and they started to read books and over the course of time i read about 160 books and i interviewed 100 people so the book was laid out to talk about eight senators and commentary on each directly or indirectly. I read it for the same reason some of you have maybe heard me talk about the workers memorial day where they took a canary down and if the canary died the mine worker was on his own he did not have a union Strong Enough or government they cared enough to save his life to make him safe. So this book is about the role of government, the power of government to improve peoples lives whether in the Labor Movement and union in nonunion its about lake erie and workers in civil rights and women rights and all of that. Talk about the writing process itself and when you thought it was ready. [laughter] i made a presentation to my Senate Colleagues because they wanted to know about this so i gave them each a copy last week and one person i came into office said connie write this for you. [laughter] that was their first reaction and that hurt my feelings but i got over. Its hard to be me. So then i wrote what i thought was a good first draft starting in 2008 and 2011 i had a pretty good first draft and she said not even close. [laughter] she said the writing. I said this would love. She said the writing was not good enough and i had not done enough rewriting and more portly i had not done she said any historian can write a book about eight senators and you have to bring yourself and your perspective into it. And i did not start over but i did a much deeper dive and i had no deadline i dont do this for a living i have a day job. But 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. In the payoff in some sense was the first big review of the book in the post which was posted friday night and done by historian from toledo and by the name of brinkley who grew up in perrysburg and i so appreciate that historian did the review not a Political Writer because we do like Political Writers. [laughter] i was not assaultin insultini went deep enough into this with a historic accuracy and im not a professional historian but i think i might and i put a lot of seriousness into it. The reason i offered to critique i did at the time is precisely because youre a senator writing it and brings up a perspective and bring yourself into it i encouraged you i need to write about all of this. [laughter] i also encouraged you to tell more about yourself because one question i have heard asked by reporters is how does a guy who grew up as a doctor or a father and middleclass ends up being such a champion of workers rights and civil right. It has so much of your early story involves your mother. Talk about your mom. My mom grew up in a town in georgia a town of 500, she went to washington during the war and worked for the oss which later became the cia and she met my father for mansfield ohio, they married and they met in 1945 and 44 and my dad had just come back from overseas serving the country and they moved to mansfield a little southern girl from a small town and she had she would talk about segregation to us sometimes and she found it as a little girl in georgia in the 30s she found segregation first puzzling and repulsive as she thought of compounding and repulsive and much of the way she saw the world was the race and she would tell me i remember, i was born in 52 so i remember all the 60s and 70s busing issues where people were bus for integration and toledo and cleveland and most of our country and she said i remember busing in georgia its when they forced bust black kids passed the good white school to send them to inferior black schools. Thats the way my mom always looked at things, she dug deep and did all kinds of things when i was in high school and got to pick up Shirley Chisholm and was head of the owi ca which she would sit next to the urban league for the best advocates for race and womens rights of anybody in any Ongoing Group in our country and she got to pick up Shirley Chisholm for a speech went. Talk about what she did for voter. In 2004 my mom is 84 living in mansfield and my dad had passed away four years earlier and she thought John Kerry Campaign was on the run well enough in towns like mansfield are not tension enough president ial anyway toledo or cleveland or columbus wood. So she said she was going to do something, she talked a friend in doing this it took a card table put in her trunk and of her american car i would add, she drove to a Grocery Store in the part of town where lots of people were not registered to vote and over a week she did every friday for six weeks or Something Like that and she register 900 voters because shes an organizer and brown she kept the names and phone numbers and called all of them to get them out to vote. [applause] that is the stuff she knew what to do. She was a woman who knew her mind. She did not start dating the first time i met her i saw an evening gown and i had not bought a gown since prompt since prom and we are going to a formal event and i know her 20 minutes and she standing next to me and we look in the mirror and she never lost her southern accent and she says connie would you like a necklace to go that dress and i said them a little concern and might draw attention to my cleavage and she said isnt that what youre trying to do. [laughter] that was at 83. And one more thing about your mom, she was the first in the family to vote for barack obama. She came out for obama and 0 seven early and i was not endorsing anybody she was the first one in the family and when my mom was dying in january of 2009 when Obama Took Office we were with her in hospice both my parents died in hospice and i would do commercials anytime for hospice how important it is you maybe never understand how important hospices connies mom was a hospice worker in a home and a hundred people showed up and her mom died. Anyway, my mom and my brothers and i and connie were staying there and on january 19 she said i want you to go to the on a ration and leave. It turned out that was my mom the last day she got out of bed and she sat up and watched inauguration in her last good lucid day on earth, she died two weeks later and we can back that night or the morning and we were all with her when she died but she just thought it was the greatest thing, the southern little white girl daughter and father that it was greatest thing that we had a black president in her country. Arent you glad you included that in your book. I think its a good context. Now forget the nice stuff were going to the next part. [laughter] its all good. One thing you know my response to reading the biography about these different men in the senate, they were very flawed human beings, some of them not successful at all. And i never talk to why you wanted to write the way you did and why included him when you working on a book like the. I just dont think if your writing history that you cant taper over parts of their lives and celebrate other parts of their lives and nobody believes any of it, i would not go so far to say fake news but nobody would believe any of it but i thank you all that to the reader in your own integrity and your own soul. Second i want to show one thing connie taught me is when you ask people to change, her dad had real issues about race and we always wanted him to change and when he changed he began to change in his lashes and you embrace that, you cant say you are like this. I looked for that and elected officials and public officials, there were three people in particular of the eight senators that i think journey the furthest from the early career an early lives. One was the hugo black, i will come back to him because he journeyed the furthest but also Robert Kennedy and albert gore senior. Kennedy worked for mccarthy and his father was a difficult man and he is probably has that through his father. He also wiretapped doctor king when he was in the general. Two big things happened in his life, his brothers assassination in warmer tragedy for the Kennedy Family and many more to come. That changed him to be sure, he became more of his own man and learn more about the greek for those things. As lincoln used to say, lincoln staff learn to understand the white house and free the slaves and preserve the union and he said i have to go out and get my Public Opinion. My study of bobby and i never knew bobby of course, i know some of the family but bobby really did go out and listen and hear people and get his Public Opinion best. In the story it came out of a dinner where marianne and peter were there. Senators eastman and stennis refused to do it. And and you may remember this from studying this, john kennedy, all of his federal judges went Treatments Committee and eastland wouldnt allow kennedy to appoint anybody but segregationists, eisenhower appointed much better judges. The civil rights decisions that were done right, the decisions were right, eisenhower judges, not kennedy judges, she had no use for the Kennedy Family. Bobby showed up with Peter Adelman, she had no use for Peter Adelman either but she married him some years later. Bobby showed up and she told us that night, everybody, all the media and tv cameras out of the sack when he went in and he picked up this dirty little child and she said i would not have wanted to hold him and she saw empathy she had never seen in a human being. I dont know when kennedy became that empathetic, usually it is gradual but those two things, he became the body kennedy we all know and most of us like in the mid1960s before his assassination. Hugo black came the furthest. Gore went from an uneven career to doing the right things, probably lost reelection because of what he did with vietnam war, one of the only southerners and he opposed two bad nixon racist judges. Nixon went after him and defeated him in 70 and hugo black, full circle by the 1950s after brown the board, the most important integration decision in American History at that time. After that hugo black was burned in effigy in tuscaloosa because he was for immigration. You mention the war and one of the things i found so interesting in the chapter about the value of public hearing. And most americans do not have Washington Post coverage. It was when watergate was brought back in the hearings and in the climate we are in, what are the words of encouragement about the impact of public hearings or are we not there anymore . They dont carry the same weight. The impeachment hearings, whether they want a republic or not, do the American People want it. The American People want everything to the public. They want a light shone on government, on what we do. That is part of the idea of representative government. In january 1966 the pool bright hearings shone a light on the amount of the point johnson tried to stop cbs from covering the hearings. They were covering them live. He actually convinced cbs to take the hearings off and run, im not making this up, run reruns of i love lucy and fred friendly at cbs resigned over that but the hearings continued and got a lot of attention and ted kennedy said to me in his hideaway in 2007 or 8, it was those hearings the changed the american public, saying what he said. The hearings had a great impact. I think the hearings, and these hearings, and Richard Nixon didnt do some things like helping his election. That i think the house will impeach. I have an idea what the senate will do. It is a jury, 400 jurors and we should weigh the evidence not at that point, listen to Public Opinions, the hearings are really important, American History, and the same hearings and mccarthy hearings, and the Affordable Care act, the hearings have a gravatar surround them in that committee, and ask the question live. We are talking about impeachment, what will it take for any republican, and not the republicans, and in the senate, they change their mind about support for the president , number of people are asking what would it take, i hear republicans talk privately to me and others. They think this president is not informed. He doesnt run and administration or and in accordance way. Many think he lies, many think he is a racist. They arent for two fundamental reasons, they like what he does, very conservative, young judges, they like his attacks on Voting Rights and Worker Rights and the environment and they like the tax cuts. The other reason they dont is a real palpable they Say Something negative and follow up at all they bring a primary on themselves. Part of the reason they primary on themselves is if you are a trump supporter and one of the 3540 that seem locked in you typically watch fox, you listen to conservative talk radio and never hear your republican elected officials criticize him, unlike any president. I was critical of clinton and obama on trade. They were dead wrong on trade. I was supportive of them, i wasnt afraid to say it. You mention trade. You are asked in chicago. Isnt trump doing what you would have done but not the way you would have done it . Donald trump, i had conversations with him about trade issues. The handful of senators and i wasnt surprised. I was beginning to see this but his two big issues, taxes and trade, his depth of knowledge in the steam, he doesnt read, doesnt listen to briefings. His problem on trade is he thinks i advocated for them. Tariffs are a temporary tool to get a longterm policy. Trump thinks tariffs are the longterm policy and they never work that way and the second thing is he didnt work with our allies. Rather than aim the tariffs indiscriminately, Different Countries around the world, you figure which companies are the serial cheaters, fundamentally china, south korea, turkey, mostly those three and you build allies and support with our allies to help reinforce those tariffs in those countries that cheat the most and that has been lost. What hes doing isnt working, it is turning farmhands and clearly hurt our economy. It could have been done deadly. Another question im seeing on various forms, i want to go at this with the question. Is there a message of hope . What is it . Lets start there. You have written this book about the progressive history of the senate. Progressive movements are not particularly longterm but they have a great impact. Is there a message of hope in this book . There is. What connie said about the progressive areas i document directly, indirectly without talking much about the first one of the 20th century, wilson. Wilson was a pretty racist human being, there were progressive things became out, the Federal Reserve compensation, women getting the right to vote during his administration, didnt always support this initially. It was the times, the elections of 8 and 12 with roosevelt and wilson, public sentiment build it, then the 30s and the 60s, the greatest progressive heroes of our nations history. Those progressive eras are always shortlived, they last two or three or four years, they have great accomplishment with longterm consequences making our country better in my view and the furious reaction mostly from conservatives, a fight between progressives and conservatives and they want to hold onto wealth and power and privilege, look at tobacco and the cigarettes, the smoking rate dropped by two thirds, a Huge Public Health victory. These progressive eras, we could be on the verge of another one in 2020. It takes elections to do that. This is not the worst time in our nations history. A lot of people i think trump is the worst president in my lifetime, maybe the worst president in history. I didnt know a lot this is not slavery, we had slavery for the first 65, 75 years of our existence. Think about jim crow. Think about world war i. Think about world war ii. Think about the civil war, thing about the mccarthy days. I spoke to 100 clergy about immigration. We are talking about we couldnt have had this meeting in the mccarthy times. People have come together in a way we havent seen in a long time. I want to read a question allowed. What strategy should the democrats take to reverse the damage republicans and trump have done for our country. It is a difficult question but i hope we get a chance. A lot of it starts in the local level, people running for office. In toledo and oregon and rockford. It starts with that, library, there is a sign in the library where people were freed by education and wars but whoever said that it starts with pushing back on hate speech one at a time but also our government doing better than it has done. That is a big part of this. How did you decide, we keep getting this, if you look at the picture you can see, how did you decide where to sign in and why is it so big . Guest it is not quite as big as it is dark and bold. A lot of senators sign their desks when they leave, some never sign, harry truman signed ten different desks. I have had the same desk that came with the senate. Many senators move every 2 or 4 years to a different desk and dont sign until they leave but we decided to sign my swearing and a, my third swearingin, january, it was our second oldest grandchilds sixth birthday and we brought six of our twee 7 grandchildren to washington and thought it would be a good day to sign understanding that our grandkids were more excited about the train ride then they were about grandpa carving something in a piece of furniture. The way they do this, when i talk to my democratic colleagues about this i told the story, i read the last part of the book which details this. I wanted them to think about doing it the same way with family and friends because most had never thought about it. We walk into the cloakroom off the senate for which is considered part of the senate floor by custom enrolled in the Senate Archivist or Senate Curator was in their had little hospital gloves in the cloakroom. She thought it was sacred in the sense that she shouldnt touch it. Only the senator gets to touch it which is curious but that is the tradition and she had laid next to it like a fork, knife, and spoon, a pencil and in all, the cutting tool and a sharpie. She suggested that i write it, you want to start a new row here because with your book people are going to want to sign it and she said you should make it big enough and bold enough and take the time to do it, not just barack obama and Hillary Clinton signed their desks with a sharpie and they did it quickly and didnt pay much attention because they both were ready to leave. He was becoming president and she was becoming secretary of state and i had more time on my hands so i carved it into the pencil and carved it and filled it in and then our grandchildren ran their fingers over the surface of where we carved it. Host it was quite a thing. You dont write on furniture, you dont carve on furniture. Examine what they are not allowed to do. Guest it created problems for their parents but not my problem. Jackie ran her finger over and said this feels rough and pulled the desk out, it wasnt in session and went back in and slid it in the drawer. Host think about this, you waited for it to be around before you sign it, you dedicated the book to your grandchildren. Guest and to you. To my mother. Host we have a lot of grandparents in the room. One came up to me before we started. How does that inform your work . Guest you get more serious through your job and what you see. I am rarely fearful or discouraged. I cant help but think what happens if we continue in the direction we are going in four more years and where that means we are as a country and i dont want my kids and grandkids to have to deal with that. It makes us more serious about whatever our task at hand is. I am 66. Yesterday i was 67. [applause] guest i feel lucky to be relevant the age i am and that i get up every day and fight issues i care about. This book grounded me more. I realize more, it made me more serious about the gravitas of this job. I dont want to sound more important than i am but the gravitas of this job at this time. Host i have seen that evolution. Speaking of young people, how can we ensure that Climate Change is recognized as a serious threat around the globe so that those belonging to Younger Generations such as myself still have a safe, habitable and clean planet to occupy in the future . Guest to me next to human rights, civil rights, Worker Rights, the most important moral issue of our time. I dont have any question about that. A dozen years ago the Republican Party mostly thought the same. They were closer to the fossil fuel industry than most democrats but they recognized Climate Change as a serious problem. They recognized too that human beings contributed to it, maybe not as much as progressive democrats did they recognize that then, then came the Koch Brothers essentially taking over their party and the whole dark money that every republican knows if they step too far on climate issues, even those that i now want to they are endangering their future in a republican primary because the Koch Brothers, the dark money, it is not recalling a number of you in this crowded asking for 1500 and i have done that to review this crowd but somebody coming in, i had more money spent against me. It has been broken since, 40 million, a lot of outside money. We didnt know where it came from. Dont have to disclose a lot of it. We forget it was the gun lobby and the oil companies. We know what were up against. I think the pressure is beginning to build. One of the things every senate democrat, a lot of Senate Democrats are looking at their Committee Assignments and thinking how do we deal with Climate Change, i will be chairman of banking, starting to work on this, talking to jay powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, he is walking a tight rope because trump criticizes him all the time, so do republican senators. He understands the is cute the issues of risk and insurance and banking when they ensure and finance various projects, the risk they are taking on Climate Change and understanding that needs to be factored into their decisions and the Federal Reserve plays a major role in that. My place in the banking committee, will be aggressive in 2021. If we dont i will still be aggressive but less effective to shine a light on what we need to do across the board whether it is transportation, alternative energy, banking and finance, any one of those. I want to say one thing. These eight senators are all men and always, you know that and that is not a surprise. I put in the book early the next eight senators 100 years from now whoever these next eight people who sign this will look a lot more like toledo and more like america and will be a more progressive country as a result. [applause] we have a couple over there. A comment instead of the question was when i was in college i took a course in constitutional law my senior year and i became fascinated with hugo black. I had a chance to meet him before i got out of college. Thank you for putting him in the book. He was an incredible human being who i think has been greatly overlooked in our history so thank you very much. Pat lady of vermont met him as a law student, not many people talk about that. Host lets have it come question. We are of a certain age and when we were in high school and junior high we talked about people of a generation like they were evil things and now we are hearing okay boomer. Do we need to work with our young adults in a way that is different . Guest start by paying attention and listening to them. Encouraging them to vote. There is such a generational difference in politics. There always has been. It seems more pronounced now especially on the issue of Climate Change. I know almost young people even fairly conservative republican the dont fear what would happen if we dont address Climate Change, understand diverse city better, who are supportive of Marriage Equality and generally rights for lgbt q people. It is a very different generation. The difference is more marked today than it was when those of us in our 40s and 50s and 60s were growing up. Please repeat what you said to Anderson Cooper about bloomberg. It calmed me down. We are in chicago, connie interviewed on stage and they wanted to tape at 7 00. 7 am chicago time, definitely about bloomberg and i dont have this genetic disposition democrats tend to have the anguish over everything about our party especially that there are a lot of candidates in the race. I like most of them. I dont know all of them. I know some better than others. I think this plays out. Some of you dont know yet who you are for. I dont either. I want to watch how they do in the next 3 months. Bloomberg getting in the race, i dont think there is anyone save your. When we make the contrast between who we are and what trump has done we win but can i give a healthcare example . You will notice the democrats in all these debates fight over medicare for all or build obamacare and what i want them to say and ask them to say, everybody on the democratic side once universal coverage. They have different speeds and different have to get there to be sure but contrast that with trump who tried to get mccain voting no, and expanded medicaid, he made the decision, working with him, 600,000 people got insurance, the Affordable Care act, all canceled out. Of trump wins his case in the district of texas, we want to get to universal coverage, the contrast between that and where trump is trying to take us, that is how democrats need to talk because i think all this fighting is a way to lose if we keep fighting among ourselves. Does that answer questions about medicare for all . [applause] over there. Im a senior in high school and plan on going into politics. I want my name carved in the desk like yours. I was just wondering what is the number one piece of advice you have for somebody like me urging the political world that is pretty hostile right now. What advice do you have . You were in high school . Four years from the state house. Where do you go to high school . Notre dame. Not the ability but the financial ability to intern to volunteer in campaigns. I would not volunteer in the president ial race is important as that is. I would appear in the let legislative razor county commissioner race and then you learn more, you have a chance to advance in the organization and you gain a lot of skills you might have. When you are working with a president ial candidate what if she is not financially able to do the internship . It is still volunteer. The problem is you have to have a job, to job sometimes, 8 or 10 an hour. Great part of your biography when you start running. Because you will be like most americans, you have to work hard in what you do with everything else. If you were to go back, are you a senior, you vote next year but not this year. Okay. If you would organize and get 50 people to register to vote, you would make an impact, and get peoples attention. In this election, this election is determined by the energy of the young. Tell me how franklin is doing . Cant answer that. We named our first dog after franklin roosevelt, our first rescue, second rescue, some energy in his life. And we named him walter. Most people in their 40s dont remember walter. If you have dogs, tether them to a harness. A made in toledo deep in an accident 3 years ago, he survived, he was protected by the air bikes, he was tethered by harness to a seatbelt. That sheep was so safe, got 35 miles an hour as a passenger, a guy ran a stop sign, a plastic curtain comes down and keeps the us from exploding into the passenger, the driver and every reporter who asks about made in america in toledo. And i talk about the job the dog. Like all of Northern Ohio sold out. Shared with a parenthetical but the dog lived. A country song, the Bumper Sticker you have. Wasnt a country song as long as the dog lived. Over there. I heard a very alarming statistic, a poll that was taken the large percentage of americans would be totally comfortable of a strongman or military ruled in this country. I was wondering how you felt we got to this position and do you think it is because congress has seeded so much power to the executive a lot of people think the only branch that matters is the executive . What poles to trust. Polling is all over the place and i generally wouldnt i think this poll has legitimacy. I dont know the numbers but they are alarmingly high. We have a president who is more comfortable with the autocrats personally than with small the democrats. He is more comfortable with ormonde and xi and north korea and Vladimir Putin and them than merkel or may or trudeau, you know that so start with that. We always had a strain in our history of people that are antiimmigrant, issues about race. In the 1830s and 40s there was the know Nothing Party and it was founded, the immigrants they talked about they had a weird religion and came from a place, they speak a weird language talking about german catholics in the 30s and 40s and the diversity and people from all over the world but there has always been an antiimmigrant strain in this party and we now have a president that articulates it and stimulates it and has a compliant media, some part of the media that does the same. It is a question of putting back and always talking to people about it but it is a concern. You call the media, not journalists, not challenging the president i didnt say journalists. I said media. Your button i have that pin made in the us and sold in iowa, America Needs journalists, in all my years as a journalist almost 40 years i never thought i had to defend what im doing but when you have a president calling is the enemy of the people and encouraging people disparage and essentially attack us it is more important than ever to distinguish and on the polling i would not be dismissive of your question, im glad you told me it was pbs. We have to be careful how these poles are presented and if they are online polls you should be suspicious because people decide whether to participate. Congress has seeded too much power. It happened slowly but also any rosen of what it should be but also accelerated with protection of this president by the leadership of the senate. Very much enjoyed reading the biographies of the eight leaders that truly changed our country for the good. I should say in our time, a good summer job would almost pay for one year of college education. Since that time the cost of Higher Education has gone up at twice the rate of inflation, looking at 1. 4 trillion in college debt, 90 of which is held by the Us Government and the Interest Rate on average is 5. 8 interest in this is strangling this Younger Generation and in a way this is an arbitrage by our own Us Government because the 10 year treasury is 1. 8. I loan my money to the government and they pay me 1. 8, i borrow money from the government and i pay 5. 8. My question is what do we need to do to get the Interest Rate down so its not such a stranglehold on this young generation because they cant swing this compound to get at 6 . We need a congress that does that, thank you for that. I hear that not just i hear from parents and recent grads, if they go to use he they might sit on 50 or 60,000 if they went to bluffton or a private school they may sit on 150,000, what we put on that generation. I think we are going to see, the way bernie talked about free college sounds too far in the future, it sounds unreachable. I was talking to kathy earlier, theres a guy named putnam, went to harvard, he is in his 80s, he talked about i heard him talk about we didnt have free Public Education in high school until the 1880s, schools started to do that and we need to think about expanding which we will at some point but what do we do between now and then. It means regulating these for profit schools which have been terrible to so many graduates will drop outs, dealing with Interest Rates, figuring out, putting more into pell grants and working better with state universities that their tuition continues to go up, not just private schools. Question from our audience. What is working in the senate today, how does it differ from four years ago . It is worse because of trump and macconnell but i never romanticize the past because even though i have written about some pretty effective times in senate history, 60 years ago the senate was 95 white men and one white woman and couldnt pass civil rights legislation so i dont look at that as better. They were productive in many ways but there were a lot of southern democrats who were segregationist, northern republicans that think more like i do. In those days the parties have become more monolithic or homogeneous or whatever. There is a guy in the senate from missouri named ray blunt. He was secretary of state of missouri when i was secretary of state of ohio and he is very conservative and he said we have known each other for 30 years and we only agreed on five things and all five are federal law and that is what you do in the senate. You cant do it on a big tax bill. You find somebody, a guy from indiana named todd young cares about International Health and we worked together, i worked with jerry moran on veterans issues. It is my job to work on things, not the big issues of war and peace and taxes and big deal government regulation but we Work Together in ohio and transportation, done some things on algae blooms but it is up to us to find senators in the other party that will work with us and we get a lot more done than you think we do that day but it is too partisan and dysfunctional a place. Where are we . We have a question down here. Who has a mic . The next one, you will be next. This person and you will be next. When the next person sits down at your desk and sees your name how do you want them to remember you . Where was the question from . I have to think about that. I will answer with an anecdote. The thing im proudest of that ive done in the senate is nancy pelosi and i had failed when 2014 we had failed to get a provision in the tax code on earned income tax credit and Child Tax Credit, couldnt get the senate to do it. 2015 we set out to do this. It was expansion and making the earned income tax credit and Child Tax Credit it would put 2 or 3000 in the pockets of people making 20, 30, 40,000 a year coupled with the rule that i pushed obama and the department of labor to do, if youre making 35 or 40,000 you work more than 40 hours, we fix that so you get time and a half and that income level, people making 80 or 100,000. With the Republican House and senate she and i figured out how to get it passed and i said in the book if i do nothing else in the senate that is worth a career because it will affect millions and millions of people, making that kind of money and getting 2 or 3000 more to get their kids to buy clothes and do all the things that matter in their lives. [applause] when i think of that, who was he . Who is he in the senate and our first day he brought two pages of favorite quotations he typed out himself and i asked him to read them aloud to me. It was not a big deal place but we both had the same favorite quotes, the one line from George Bernard shaw, i want to see all you have done when i die and that is what i think of. I will add that. This is very apolitical. You have an unusual first name, how do you come by it . And as a kid did you have a nickname and would you share it with us . My mothers fathers name was sherrod, grew up in georgia. My mothers brothers name was sherrod as my mothers greatgreatgrandfather was named sherrod. My mom and dads familys grandfather and great uncle fought against each other in the civil war, missionary ridge, the battle of the mountains in tennessee. My brothers name is charlie brown. My fathers name is charlie brown, so i got the better deal. The comic strip started the after my brother was born. That is how i got the name and i didnt like my name. I thought it was a girls name and i remember in school in those days you have the printout by computer the would say brown and the first five letters, the teacher just watching the teacher go to town on that every time, i wanted to play baseball for the Cleveland Indians as a kid. I always blamed some people think i am pro labor, i always want to fire the manager in the middle of the season, it was never the players fault always the managers fault, they were really bad in those days. Im left handed, people called me lefty. I was not a star by a long shot. The Rush Limbaugh story coming in 2006, Rush Limbaugh, when sherrod was in, announced on the air that is because everybody wanted the africanamerican named sherrod brown. Two days later, i dont mind interrupting, fox news called your husband a woman. I gave a speech two days later, you are even more liberal than you thought, so we had fun over the years because of how the name is interpreted. Another question from the audience . Im a lefty too so i love you even more. The first time i had a chance to ask a senator. I have called so many times, and on this recording he says we will get back to you and they never have. My question is is it to know avail when you call an office, is there a better use of my time and energy to let them know what i am thinking is what i want . I would never discourage you from doing what you are doing. It is really important. I think it is important anyway. The more effort something is put in the more accounts with an office so if you sign a petition that is too easy but if you write a handwritten note that shows more effort and strength of belief. I think you keep doing that. If somebody continues to disappoint, you work to defeat or work to help them if they please you. It is democracy. I know a number of people that have a problem with speed dial and a call repeatedly. I dont think dont give up. It is really important. He should respond to you. He runs a good office most of the time. I am sure some of you have written once or twice and i didnt answer but we always try. She lives in ohio, works in this part of the state, our assistant state director and we put a high premium on responding and we all should. We are public servants, that is our job but i keep trying, dont give up. Right there. You wants to follow up. Go ahead. Of interest to me, within 2 hours drive of each other. The fact you were born in the same place at the same time and the same day and two hours apart, well done. What makes connie a great journalist . And what makes connie senators life partner . Thanks, mom. You are welcome. Not really my mom but she would have loved to you. Do tell, honey. What makes you a great i marvel at connies ability to do so many things. She loves his students, teachers two days a week or two classes, puts real time and effort into that. She is writing a novel that has taken her years because at the beginning, a very accomplished journalist, wasnt sure the same skills what applied to being a novelist and i love calling her a novelist because she like that so much and she doesnt she has earned it and she does, in addition to everything at home, the senators wife kind of worked, a number of things. I marvel at her ability to do that. I said yesterday you were worth the wait. Thank you. Journalism, she is a great journalist because she has integrity and listens to people and she asks good questions and is an amazing writer and has that talent but also took it seriously. One of the reasons, i have always been prounion because it is what i learned even though my mom never belongs to a union or understood the union but she knew doctor king died, supporting sanitation workers, understood the older she got the importance of that and and the worker car for three decades, she would have died if she had a terrible asthma attack at 16, spent a week in the cleveland clinic. We get that and she does too. Who has the mic . Okay . What do we have to do to make money out of the election process . Millions and billions of dollars it takes to elect people . Just terrible. Seems it could be better used. You wouldnt want to know how much time i spend fundraising. No whining on the yacht, nobody should feel sorry for me, it means time away from things i out to be doing. The only solution is two things, getting a congress that cares about it. Nancy pelosi does but she cant do it just in the house and the Supreme Court will weigh in on this. I was talking to a federal judge not about strategy so much as information and he said with the right Supreme Court it would take two years for something to work its way up to overturn Citizens United but still, grassroots still win elections, good organizations when elections and in most of my races, i lost once to bob taft for reelection in 1990 and i have usually been outspent but if you have the right discipline, right message, i have seen money just walk across campaigns and wash them out and it is a terrible affliction in our country. Where are we . Who has the mic . You answered part of the question. If you have any more thoughts, how would you get rid of dark money because it is driven so much of where we are going is a country in terms of income inequality and many other issues. I dont know if you have any thoughts but i would like to hear them. You see it most in the financial is asian of the economy and energy, environmental, Climate Change, Energy Production kind of issues and the gun lobby. Trump got more money from the gun lobby than any candidate in any race and he looked me in the eye in miami valley hospital. Three, two months ago and he said we are going to do even bigger. I asked him we need you to call mcconnell on background checks, 85 public support, banning assault weapons 60 public support, he said i will do bigger than that, we will do the greatest and then he went back and met with Wayne Lapierre and it is not even the nra or gun owners, it is the gun manufacturers, the top of those organizations, it is not really a lot of gunowners think we need generally gun safety rules in place. Who has got the mic . What is your advice for aspiring authors . Aspiring authors . Talk to connie schultz. Just practice. A wonderful novelist and essayist, there is no substitute than the seat of the chair. I am especially constantly trying to get people to write more, those are the voices still missing in literature, opinion writing and coverage. I never had a contact. I was a working class kid, first in my family to go to college and those kids still and i want them to know you dont want to have any tethers. If youve got talent and skill and the attention, it can happen in the way you know you have talent is to keep working on it. Very few people are born to write or do anything really well. It is something you learn over time but the most important thing that happened to me a young age is i told myself i was a writer. An illustration by a dear friend who was a writer. I call it the monster under the bed. It shows a picture of a child sitting next to the monster on the edge of the bed and i always imagined realizing nothing to be afraid of. That is the negative voice in our heads that tells us who are you to think you have a story to tell . I have it hanging by my desktop computer. It sits next to me as long as i dont hear a word. If i hear that negative voice, good thing nobody is watching because they would think im crazy, not a word from you. We are our biggest enemy but i also think of this. I have two lines from the latest american poet lucille clifton. What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else. You determine that you will be a writer and you will start there. Someone, a screenwriter once said to me right a words, read 1000 words. Connie learned to write in large part because she was working in a diner on the other corner of the state and somebody, one of her customers, working parttime during high school and one of the customers that you should read the new yorker, she couldnt afford it, went to the Library Every week, the best week by week writing you can be exposed to and somebody on a funnier vein, once said writing is easy, you open your vein. It took a long time to do that. I write a journal, i write a lot not like connie does but get better at it. I was writing for the new york times, my goal is to write like that. The messaging for yourself is really strong and dont be the one plenty of people already willing to do that. I wish you all the best. One more. You talked about the cost of communication, tv because those were public airways. Why cant the government fix it so that there are all kinds of freebies when running for the senate and those kinds of things . We could. It is going to be costly but there could be if the rules are set in place could be postal subsidies of some sort. Anytime anybody has tried to do Public Financing or that kind, those kinds of ideas conservatives say food stamps for politicians and makes it politically hard to do things that would make our democracy more responsive and cleaner and pure and it is an uphill fight and all those questions that you ask of dark money is a major, in the posttrump years, i think they will start in 2020 years, weve got to get serious about restoring our democracy on a lot of levels from hate speech to communication between candidates and the public and all those issues. All of you who wrote a question, we have a long ride home, what a wonderful audience. Thank you so very much. [applause] you are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. This Weekend University of maryland Baltimore County president Freeman Rabaul ski talks about achieving a high achieving and innovative university. Alan dershowitz offers thoughts on how Sexual Misconduct allegations should be mishandled. Gloria steinem chronicles her life and career through a collection of her essays and notable quotes. Amity chalets compares the economic debate of the 1960s to those that are happening today. Go to booktv. Org or consult your program guide. Booktv recently visited capitol hill and asked republican senator john boozman about his reading list. Ive got several books im working on right now. One of them is called are dems 1944. Myself and other senators representing the United States at the battle of the bulge, 75th anniversary this year so