On this stuff. You all remember you are watching this that you had a bunch of folks showing up at the State Capitol with guns because governor was trying to protect people from covid well we are proud of her. Oh yeah, i wish we have so many more voices here but, as you can see, the role of the attorney general, expansive sony things and as soon as you said republicans are trying to entice covid we are seeing a shout outs, we need an attorney general in texas and in florida. We know and we need you to help us with that. I do want to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about daca and what general becerra has done out in california. You lead the fight to protect the daca program from trump and the chance to illuminate it entirely. Can you share why this fight is so important to you . It is to me. But it also appears that this has been a [inaudible] continuing on their attack on dreamers. What steps come next to preserve the daca program . For me this was a very personal case, being the son of an immigrant, but more than that, because the dreamers have been so courageous. Their motto is undocumented and unafraid. When you put yourself out there in the public and say i dont have papers, you know what you are facing. To still do that, there arent too many people who are more courageous than that. So theres no reason why we cant be as courageous, unafraid as they are. And so when we took on the case, and every one of us who is on this chat was part of the effort because it was a nationwide effort by coalitions all around, not just ags even, it was just a coalition all around. We had one goal in mind, and that is to let these kids who are american stay american. And so while most people thought it was an uphill battle, i remember after our team had come out of the Supreme Court on the argument, i had a whole bunch of folks say to me, gee, that was tough, you know, you gave it a college try. I said, you know, dont give up hope on this. Dont give up hope. And at the end of the day, i believe the reason we won is because we believe in the rule of law. We believe that a government that puts something out there for its people and has people rely on it to their detriment doesnt just yank something away. Youve got go through a process. Even an executive order, which isnt a law, maybe one president can establish an executive order and the next president can yank it away, but you just cant yank it as if nothing was involved. That was the case we tried to make. Fortunately, enough justices in the Supreme Court felt that same way, and now our fight continues because now weve got an administration that isnt willing to accept a Supreme Court decision and is now trying to dismantle daca through other means, and so were going to do everything we can to make sure this administration to its very last day, thank god hopefully we can all say january 19th will be his last day, we will make sure that the daca students, the dreamers continue to make that American Dream a reality. Thanks to everybody not just my colleagues who are on this call, but everybody who came to stand up for the dreamers who dont have the rights to stand up for themselves. Yeah, and i think this one is also super personal because i will be honest here, i cried when the decision was made, and so here to stay for all immigrants and for the latino community, at least for me, thank you, and to our ags, really meaningful. To the ags i do want to lets talk about aca, the Affordable Care act and whats happening there. As you are all well aware, the Trump Administration and 18 Republican Ags are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care act, calling the entire law unconstitutional. The coalition of democratic ags, which ag becerra again has been leading have fought back every step of the way. Can we discuss why this lawsuit is so critically important especially during this unprecedented covid pandemic . So ag, i see you nodding a lot. We will start with you. It was special because javier, being the good man he is, literally the friday before i took office, he said so join me on this conference call. Were announcing our case that now to the Supreme Court and this goes to my background which is in constitutional law. I want to first say back to the rule of law point that javier said it is surreal that were litigating this case. The theory that the Justice Department has was basically just rejected in a Supreme Court case. It involves severability which is you dont knock down a whole statute because a part of it might be unconstitutional. In the face of that principle, all these republican attorneys general and the doj have basically said we dont care. We are going to seek to end healthcare for millions of americans. In colorado 400,000 people have healthcare because of the medicaid expansion. And 700,000 people have protection from discrimination because of the protections from those who have preexisting conditions, who otherwise might get discriminated against. Were in a pandemic, and this administration is still trying to take away healthcare, making what i think is a surreal argument. In the face of that, the democratic ags and i want to note two brave Republican Ags who are defending the rule of law are standing up for whats a core principle, which is laws get passed in this country, we expect them to be followed including by the president and the administration. I believe just like what javier said, that principle will be vindicated next year, like we have indicated the principle we need a fair and constitutional census, just like we made clear that the dreamers have to be treated lawfully and fairly, now it is about healthcare and the Affordable Care act. We are seeing a test f of our institution and testing of the rule of law. I often say the rule of law is on the ballot this fall, obviously the race for president , but also the race for attorneys general and District Attorney. We need to be a nation committed to the rule of law, just governance. Im so proud to work with these great leaders to do just that. I do want to open up the floor. Either of the ags, if one of you feels like you want to jump in first and continue off the great things that ag weiser said. Phil was pretty good on that one. [laughter] during a pandemic, i want to say that these we do have races coming up, and we will talk about as we have kind of mentioned here. We have Republican Ags who are consistently and will at no cost not even during a pandemic, they are trying to take away healthcare from thousands across the country, and so Pay Attention to the elections and whats coming up. I see a lot of chatter here about who their attorneys general are, and so im glad you guys are paying attention, but Pay Attention to what they are doing. Some of them of the Republican Ags are even under indictment. Take a look. But ag healy or ag becerra, did you have anything else you wanted to add to that . Yeah, you know, these are really important fights, and its really frustrating when you see republican governors and Republican Ags and states encouraging people not to wear masks. They are the same states where they have fought to take away healthcare from people, and now in the crisis that were in, their numbers have only gone up because of the irresponsible action and resources that weve needed frankly in the northeast have now been diverted there, which you know is appropriate on some level but so unnecessary. Every day we battle these guys. Every day it is about protecting people, standing up for people. Healthcare is a fundamental building block. You know, i just i really i cant add to anything that either phil or javier said, except to underscore i think for all of us you know we do these jobs because we understand the profound humanity in this work and the need to be there. Whether its a bunch of us you know, a bunch of us were down on the border two years ago as we were fighting family separation. Our very first action together as democratic ags was to take on the travel ban, the muslim ban. You know, its been great to hang with everybody through this. Im hoping that, you know, come november we will see less action against the federal government, but we certainly have had our muscles tested, and, you know, i think have i mean, thats one thing. Folks probably dont know this, weve won over 90 of our cases against the Trump Administration in the courts, stopping bad things from happening, whether it was on rollbacks of environmental regulations or, you know, Consumer Protection actions, you name it, and thats a record, you know, to be proud of. Farah i will add a couple of things. The attacks on the Affordable Care act arent just a straight direct assault thats now before the Supreme Court. The Trump Administration has been trying to essentially pick apart the Affordable Care act for the last three and a half years. They have tried to stop women from exercising their rights to reproductive care, and we fought them on that. They came up with a rule that said there should be religious exemptions for providers that could refuse to provide services not just to women by the way, could be an lgbtq person, if they dont like the way they behave or what their status is, you can almost for any reason, so long as you say religiously i dont want to provide this Person Services under the trump proposed rule, they could have denied a woman, lgbtq, immigrant services, and so we fought that. We were successful in most of the cases to protect a womans right to have access to services. They tried to come up with a rule that said that you had to split only for abortion care the cost in your Insurance Plan between all your other Healthcare Services that you get and abortion. And so what they were trying to do is by the way, even if the charge for that additional plan for Abortion Services was one penny, you still had to have them segregated which means for a lot of people they would fail to get the second plan or forget one month to pay the plan and they would lose it. It was ridiculous what they were doing. They have been attacking healthcare, more than just the assault on the Affordable Care act. For 133 Million People who have a preexisting medical condition, donald trump says he will protect them through an executive order. He doesnt need to do that. Thats already protected in the Affordable Care act. He needs to stop trying to dismantle the entire Affordable Care act. It is a very callous, devious and harmful game that this administration has played in playing with the rule of law. And thats why were standing up. Yeah, this is keith here. I will just dive in and say that everything my colleague said is spot on exactly right, but, you know, its a good time to just remind everybody that yes, congressional races are important. Absolutely we agree with that. And yes the president ial race is very important. But there are a whole bunch of other races that are absolutely essential to your quality of life. Ag is one of them so are District Attorney races and prosecutor races. These are critical, and we need the nation to plug in. I will also Say Something that xavier mentioned thats not exactly on aca but its related and thats this where historically the freedom of religion was that the state could not discriminate against you based on your religion. They are changing this doctrine to say that an individual business can discriminate against people because of who they are. Somehow it is a front to hobby lobby to provide equal access to Reproductive Healthcare to women. Somehow its an affront to some videographer to require that they serve the public equally and that they will not be able to say that were going to deny services to a same sex couple who wants to get married. Theyre literally using the doctrine of freedom of faith, freedom of religion to discriminate against people. These people who called for a muslim ban also want to say that a company can fire you because youre transgender, deny you service because you will have a same sex wedding, deny you Service Healthcare because you want reproductive services. This is a critical fight for the public, and i will say even by extension, yes, you need to be plugged into ag races but we need to win the u. S. Senate because trump is trying to load up the judiciary with the most outrageous right wingers that you have ever seen, and just for scale, understand that obama got about 95 people in the federal judiciary. Trump has gotten nearly 200 in half the time. They are trying to blot out the rights of workers, civil rights, through the judiciary, and who is your advocate there . Well, thats us. It is also the judges who will tell the story. Thats why these cases i mean, these races are critical for your attention. Thats why we need you to plug in and help us win these races. Thank you, i do want to make sure we make time for elections, and then before we jump to questions, and so, folks, if you have questions, please click on the q a at the bottom of the screen and feel free to ask there so we can get to it. But weve talked a lot about a lot of issues, but i do want to talk about our 2020 elections. Ags actually have elections every year, and so turning to our 2020 election in just a few months, what are we, 82 days, 80ish days we have ten races this year where people will directly elect their state ag. We have really great opportunities to flip some red states blue, such as montana and indiana. Since all of you have campaigned before, whats one thing you have learned while out on the trail thats important in ag campaigns and what makes for a great state ag . Ag healy . You know, i think so much of it is the people business, and you got to be out there. I dont listen to any polls. Im not looking at the polls right now. I dont believe much in polls. So, you know, for me prior to law school, i had a basketball career, and, you know, my view is always play like youre behind, and you play right to the clock. I think thats the mentality that we need to win these races, take nothing for granted. And also, you know, as ive learned in my state, people think of massachusetts as very blue, well, you know, we had yes 2 million hillary voters but we had over a million trump voters, you know . I think within our state, we recognize as state ags that there are people, you know, of all different parties, but theres a lot of commonality, if you find a way to connect with them, get a chance to make your chase. Thats why i love being a state ag and being able to be out there that way. Im just emphasizing that, you know, you cant do enough or work hard enough to win races, and grassroots matter. Ive learned endorsements now that ive been elected, it is not to say that candidates dont want endorsements but it is the power of the people. Thats what builds movements and wins elections, and thats why im so proud of the democratic attorneys general association really, you know, for bringing it the last few years thats brought in this amazing class of colleagues out there who are truly representative of the people in the communities that we serve. I will jump in. Lets see, ag weiser, we flipped your state in 2018. Lets hear from you. I want to say this group has been great about being a team and with real mentorship, as well as former ags. I will Say Something that i learned from maura, also first time candidate, it is important to educate people about why ags matter. All of you who are on this zoom call, you have a sense of why ags matter, what an impactful position, please, spread the word, focus on these races. They should not be overlooked. I use the phrase that i know others have used which is were the peoples lawyer. We protect the civil rights, the consumer rights, equal rights, and thats something that i made clear throughout my campaign. Another thing, and predecessor here in colorado, i traveled everywhere, every single county in my state, 64 counties. You show up and listen. Just like maura says, grassroots, you respect people. I dont care who you voted for for president. I dont care if you are going to vote for me or not. If you are going to show up, i respect you. I want to listen to you. You have to keep showing up and building relationships because whats been said, it is so true, we are close to people. We are the peoples lawyer. We show up. We listen. Its something that teachers will tell you. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. By showing up and by caring about communities and working with them, you can build relationships. You can build trust. And right now were living in a time with less trust in our Public Officials than ever before. I will tell you, one of our goals as state ag to build that trust, to show people we are fighting for them, and im proud of how all the leaders on this call embody that spirit in a palpable way. Could i just mention quickly that a few years ago the democratic ags had a halftime executive director, now we have a full, and we have a much bigger stronger team. We went from being housed, you know, i think we were in colorado to washington. The fact is we have gotten very serious about electing dem ags. Quite frankly, the republicans were kind of ahead of us, they really geared up their operation before we did. You know, look, Netroots Nation, just because somebody has better ideas doesnt mean they are going to win. We need you to help out and to pitch in and to make these races really competitive. You will lose 100 of the races that youre not in. And you dont ever know. You never know if you get in there and fight, you can change the odds. Somebody might say at the beginning of your race, oh that person has no chance of winning. How do you know . You get in there. You fight. You start doing well. You get out there and talk to a lot of people like phil just got through saying and you can change that race. We need folks to really start taking these races seriously because literally your lives depend upon it. If you look at how weve been defending people against the covid disease, were saving the lives of people. Our staffs are saving the lives of people. These things are critical. I want to mention that phil i couldnt agree with you more. This is is a relationship business. Yes we do mailers and tv and radio, but it is that persontoperson connection that people really feel. You cannot ask a question in an ad. You cant explain to a mailer how you felt when you couldnt afford insulin. But if you show up deal relationally you can make a connection with people that will go far beyond what you imagine so. I will say thank you phil for making that point. And thank all of you for being right there. If i could just add, i will simply say, this is 2020, not 1920, but for the state ags, it might look a lot more like 1920. In a way weve been the backstop. I know people have said that before. The state ags have served as the backstop to stop the trump criminality. But i will go a step further. I dont think we have just been the backstop. We have been the tip of the spear in defending what we know, but trying to push forward even during the time of trump, an agenda that says we can be forward leaning, even though weve got a backwards administration. And so ags have served a purpose which i now think has become very evident to most americans. Before you wouldnt have known. And i think more and more people are depending on ags to come forward. I know that in california, were being asked to do a lot more than we did before, and its only because i think weve become very visible as an office, and my sense is that Netroots Nation is the kind of team that understands what it means when sometimes youre taken for granted but you get all the work done. I think the ags, at least the democratic ags feel like for the longest time, ags were taken for granted because people didnt really recognize what we did, but now that we see were in the 21st century, it is 2020, not 1920, i think more people are beginning to see that ags have a role. I hope you will help us make sure there are other states that get to experience our four states have been able to experience by having progressive forward leaning ags at the helm. Uhhuh. My screen froze for a second. Thank you, ags. Thank goodness it is not 1920, and were talking about building racial equity. I mean we are far from there. Lets definitely elect more democratic ags. Weve got some champions here on this panel here, but i do want to ask a question that came in from the chat here. And so anybody. This is an open book to anybody. Whoever wants to jump in on this one. I will ask one question and then well wrap up great conversation but were almost at the hour. Can you speak to what ags are doing and can be doing on predatory lending . For example, on rent, where predatory lenders rent out Bank Charters to charge Interest Rates that exceed state usury limits. As we know these predatory loans drive black and brown communities deeper into poverty. Open it up to whoever would like to jump in first. Well, i will just say that i think this is bread and butter work for our offices. Predatory lending, whether youre talking about payday lending, mortgages, sub prime mortgages or any other number of other financial instrument. I think all of us have gone after and continue to go after those who are violating state usury laws, charging Interest Rates that they are not legally awe lowed to charge. Not legally allowed to charge. We get injunctions orders to shut them down. We try to get the money back and get it back in the victim, consumer, lenders pocket. Many of us have spent a lot of time issues on sub prime lending started back in 08 and 09, going after the big banks and investment banks for the role they played in the securititization of mortgages. That work has continued in different forms over the last ten years in all of our offices. We go after a lot of the shady predatory debt collectors, right . Youve got people who are out there just hounding people, violating the way youre allowed to collect debt in our state. And finally, on student lending, you know, many of us have sued the student lenders who, you know, at these for profit colleges who engage in predatory practices by targeting first year families to go to college, veterans, people who qualify for federal loans and then, you know, end up taking all their money without providing them the education they are entitled to. You know, thats another form of predatory lending, predatory practice that all of us have worked hard to do. In fact, some of us most recently, we sue the Devos Administration every other week, but most recently got back an order in court that required her to pay up on the actual, you know, predatory loans that were made to these students, and its an example of i think the important work that all of us are doing. I know my colleagues have many more examples. Let me jump in thats my last word. Its an honor to work with all of you and our colleagues across the states, and i really think that farah is right. I think democratic ags are the gain. They not only have been holding the line but driven us forward. You dont have a more progress body of actors in government period anywhere in the country than the likes of democratic ags. I love the relationship with Netroots Nation and i think together we can get a lot done. Thank you ag. I think ag weiser, you wanted to jump in . Yeah, let me jump in and start with her point, which is our role here is to defend people and protect people. Those who prey on people, whether its big companies, keith talked about the importance of antitrust, xavier talked about flyby net operations that might try to take advantage of people and maura talk about predatory lending. We are here to protect people. Our government is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Thats the spirit we need at a time which were really facing a crisis of confidence in government. We are i believe representing tip of the spear is a good metaphor of what good government, just governance looks like. On this issue about predatory lending in colorado we passed a 36 tax to end payday lending. For me this is a religious issue. It was on the ballot when i was running. It passed overwhelmingly with 78 or so. That says something about people wanting protection. Those who violate that are going to face our Office Coming down on them hard for again trying to take advantage of the most vulnerable among us. We have another challenge on us, which is to help those who are unbanked who are using Check Cashing services. Were out there fighting for people, and it is an honor to do this work. You know, i will just say that, yeah, we do state we do enforcement regarding the fair Debt Collection act, payday lending statutes, Consumer Protection, truth in advertising, this is what we do. This is the blocking, tackling of our job. What i would say is i worry sometimes that people who need our services dont know to call us. The Netroots Nation can help get the word out to folks who may need some help. A lot of times people are being accused and taken advantage of. They are like i dont know what to do. Call your state ag, particularly dem state ag who wants to fight for you. I Left Congress xavier Left Congress because we wanted to be where the action is. That might surprise you. I turn on the tv, all i hear about is congress. Yeah, theyre great, and we love them, but look, as a congressman, if you were the victim of a payday lender, i would have to go call the state ag to help you. Now i can just help you. So please make use of your offices, spread the word, help us get some more dem ags. As i said, i ran for this job to help people afford their lives and live with dignity and respect. Those two things. I get to do it every day. Im so grateful for that. Thanks a lot Netroots Nation. If i could just say on that, it is bread and butter, and were we sued the largest student loan servicer in the nation a few years back because they were clearly driving students into loan payment repayment programs that were not good for them, but they were good for the student loan servicer. We think it is important that these guys act the right way, just abide by the laws. If you are going to hold peoples money and their livelihood at stake, then you have an obligation to treat them properly. And so were in court against that student loan servicer to try to prove that these guys were taking advantage of so many millions of americans of College Graduates in the way they had to repay their loans. Its not just that company. All those for profit colleges that are out there that are essentially marketing themselves and selling themselves and at the end of the day they give you a piece of paper, a so called diploma thats worthless and they take advantage of you because they know by the way, they go after mostly people of color and low income, First Generation College goers who dont have the experience with this, and they take advantage of the fact that you can apply for a federal student loan and you run up your debt on those student loans, they dont care. They are getting the money. At the end of the day, you get nothing. We have gone after them. Let me close by saying this, the Trump Administration, once again is in this. California and i suspect some of my colleague states also have laws that prohibit usury rates in lending. We have a law that doesnt allow that. The Trump Administration is trying to pass a regulation that would allow predators to evade that law by using a federal bank which we dont have jurisdiction over because its federal, and were state, use a federal bank to do their servicing loan activity. It is called rent a bank. They go out there and they go out there and they prey on you, but they do the loan through a bank, a federal bank, so guess what . They get to evade our state rules against usury Interest Rates. And the Trump Administration is allowing this is proposing rules that would allow this to occur to essentially let predatory lenders use banks, federally charter banks to go out there and prey on people. Were going to try to stop it. But once again, novembers critical because we dont need a president who actually wants predatory lenders to get out there and use you as the next meal. We need you out there. We hope you will get out there. We hope you will support the ags that are fighting the fight for you. It is so hard to follow all of you with your closing thoughts. I want to thank our panelists here, our ags and our Netroots Nation. We need you guys this november. If you have a democratic attorney general, then pick a state that doesnt have one and get involved. Visit our website at dems. Ag, take a look at the candidates we have up this year. Get to know them. Get to know the work that they and others across the country have done. But also take a look at what were doing next week during the convention. We will have some great panels there as well. Be sure to take a look at that. Were so excited. Thank you so much for another great year netroots. Excited to see you next year and hopefully soon. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, all. Weeknights this month, were featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 2. Tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, msnbc political analyst maxwell offers her thoughts on identity politics and how to create a more inclusive democratic party. Then Political Consultants harlan hill and ryan gerduski, discuss the rise of nationalist populist movements in the u. S. And abroad. And later, Senior Advisor for former Vice President joe bidens to 2020 president ial campaign, Simone Sanders speaks about how americans can use their voices for change. Enjoy book tv, on cspan 2. Sally yates, the former acting attorney general at the start of the Trump Administration testified on the russia investigation before the Senate Judiciary committee. The committee is reviewing the origins of the investigation and the role of the fbi