Our digital producer is here, bringing all of your feedback thinkout the program. One of our guests today, having Great Success in getting corporations to be transparent about where they are spending their dollars. What is interesting is one industry that is a huge resistor is tech. Yes, i am from the bay area, and i killed me you are telling me my tech goings may not be transparent. But our community has twitters in, it says the capitalist argument is based on consumer knowledge, you cannot sell goods and shares while hiding harmful content. Not being transparent show as lack of understanding of democracy, and you should not be in business with those failings. Strong words as always they will be tweeter in today. So anyone watching at home, keep tuning in. All right, Tech Companies arent the only ones holding their cards chose to the chest, the Obama Administration has kept secret some of its biggest decisions until after the midterm, everything from the nomination of a new attorney general, to decisions on the keystone pipeline, Corporate Tax reform and rates for the Affordable Care act. If those were made public prior to november h, would they have effected your vote . Many mill observers say yes, and that radio silence from the white house saved but Party Candidates who is nearly as he as president bush prior to the 2006 mid materials when the democrats took over the house and the senate. So while many will say it is just smart politics does he owe it to the congress to put all the cards on the table . With us on set, and their implications both now and the 2016 races is lauren fox. In washington, d. C. , john hudak, a governance studies fell he at the brookings institute, his research focuse focuses one relationship between power and policy. And he has done extensive work, and also in washington, d. C. , steven alakar, mt. Of the millen i am action project. That is a National Organization focusing on next jeb ration political leadership. So john, key policy issues like Immigration Reform, announcements about premiums on insurance through the affordable key act, all held back by the president until after midterms. The Administration Says it is not protecting. Coms by with holding these announcements do you buy it . Oh, absolutely, it is strategic, they are holding back on these decisions so they dont get injected into these campaigns. Campaigns and politics are some of the most heated periods that we have, and while it does benefit the president , to hold these back to protect southern democrat whose are trying to get elected or reelected, it also protects the legitimacy of policy areas that may get twisted or perverted by a Campaign Season and the rhetoric around it, that might not happen as strongly during a lame duck session or later. So lauren, had this information come to light prior to the midterms do you think it would have had an impact on some of the key races in. Certainly i think in different places it would have had a different effect. In a place like colorado i think if the president would have come out in support of a unilateral action, may have helped to get the ha tino vote. Two other thing to think about is these southern democrats it is going to make a big difference for them. They dont have to rung against the president on everything else. I mentioned Immigration Reform, where do you see that going. Well, the president is cheerily going to have to use executive power in this area if this congress cant get anything done, the next congress surely wont. The next congress will be more republican in the house and the senate, and with that translates to a majority, john, but it will surely be more conservative and certainly one that is going to be much less willing to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform at least in the way the president wants. Perhaps as divided america, is president obama intentionally delays some of these key priorities until after the midterms she says he doesnt want his loyal followerring to abandon him, the last ten are the only ones he has left, and three of them are his wife and kids. I think being political active is a great Halloween Costume idea, i am sure a lot of people over the weekend wore that. Describe the relationship, do you think president obama has with congress, in one word, here is ted, nonexistence. Ronald says smarter. So stephen you just heard from our community, moving forward, how do you see president obama getting anything done on these big issue issues isse divided congress, with all the stalemate. First of all, these decisions were political, but it should not be a surprise to anyone that being president of the United States is a political position. I think it is smart to be pushing the obamacare sign ups, the attorney jeb nomination etc. , until after the election, because thats when we can have a more productive reasonable debate about these issues. Is it going to be productive . Or will this be something that is pushed think in a haim duke before the end of the year, when maybe a controversial candidate can get pushed in . You know how things get ginned up, fear tactics are used and we dont want the nomination to be mired in those type of Election Year politics, i think you would have a better, although still relatively dysfunctional debate, during the lame duck session. I think we will see after the midterm election, there will be a lot of wait and see, and we may not even know the results of who controls the senate. It may take some time, and it can be until january until we know what happened in georgia, so i think what we will see is the president moving quickly, and thing like Immigration Reform, i dont think we will look to congress, and i dont think thats going to require much compromise in congress. Actually if i can jump in, i think the Senate Republicans if they take the majority after this next election, will be incentivized to really act on Immigration Reform, because they will be starting to look towards 2016. I think the republicans will have a greater responsibility to court this vote, the hispanic vote, and to be seen as a leaders on thissish you have seen senators like senator rubio saying that he believes Immigration Reform can get done in the next two years. If the president takes unilateral action that will be a biggies appointment i think for many in the country who wanted to see a broad bipartisan deal get done. Lets talk about the Affordable Care act, and the enrollment, why push it back. My guess is that he is assuming in certain states those numbers are not going to look good for the administration, but in two months whenever they decide that they are actually ready to release these numbers if we find they are encouraging in states like georgia, and kentucky, and louisiana, and arkansas it is going to be a really a wrong political gamble. Isnt it a bad omen . Prior to the midterm, we were hearing thiothece two in alaska were going to do double digit rate hikes. Well, what is important to remember, i believe, with the rate hikes is of course, not just what the rate hikes are, but what they would have been had the Affordable Care act not come into play. Now, thats a more nuanced conversation and a more difficult argument for the president to make, and it makes it all the more reason to delay this decision, because Campaign Season is not the time that it is made. She should focus on the fact that even less likely will get done if republicans control the congress, you need the democratic seats and then here is jorge, a loyal streamer, he says he is going to flounder, congress will stall, yet again, we begin another election season, and he sums it up with a big ugh. Well, on that ugh, a big thanks to our guests, and john hudak, we will be seeing you later in the show, corporations doll out a lot of money, pretty much under the radar to drive the agendas, would you like to owe where that money is really going, coming up next, the most and least thrill transparent companies. And later, why more americans are redefining civic engangment. Volunteer, and i am in the stream. Welcome back, billions were spent on midterm elections a lot coming from corporations, the dont have to disclose where the money is going. Joining us now on set, the president and founder of the senate for political accountability, his organization does what may seem impossible. Getting gigantic corporations to disclose mill spending even though they are not legally obligated to do so. And out of new york, Julia Samuels executive director of engine, an organization that supports hitech entrepreneur ship. She represents text start up companies in their work. Welcome to both of you, bruce, i want to get to the how of what you are doing, because obviously you have some high persuasive talents. Yes. But first, hundreds of millions of corporate dollars are dumped into the process, can you give us examples on the vehicles in which they get money into the know. They do it several ways. Think trade associations you have the u. S. Chamber of commerce, the National Association of manufacturers, American Petroleum institute, that are spending on independent expenditures, they also do it through contributing to 501 c fours can are the social welfare organizations. Nonprofits in. They are nonprofits all of these are nonprofits, and all of those trade associations and c fours, no does chose sure is required. They can do it by distributing to the governors association, so groups giving money to attorney general, so there are various ways they do that and most of the contradictions that they make are undisclosed. So in september, your organization came out with an index of transparency, what metrics to you use to decide how you do the ranking. We have 24 indicators that look at policy, disclosure, and oversite to really measure how companies are disclosing their spending, managing their spending which means making the decisions. Also reviewing for risk, we develop these with academic experts with companies and with corporate governance. A shout out to your organization, public accountability, check out my website, you said these are the Top Five Companies we have csx, ups, what can brown do for you, capitol one, and even microsoft, however, we asked our community, should shareholders be informed should this be more corporate transparency, pretty much unanimous, jessica says yes, because the corporation is using public money, and azam says shull, as a shareholder i have a right to know how my capitol is deployed. Now, bruce, i will take the side of chamber of commerce, so 501 c six, they say if we do full dischose sure, it will lead to intimidation, showing of free speech and harassment, what is your response. We have found that companies dont respond to that. Companies see disclosure as part of good governance, they sees eight part of the continuum of transparency, so the argument doesnt wash when it comes to what companies are doing. You talked about the chamber of commerce being engaged in secret spencing, what is that. Secret spending means undisclosed you dont know who the donors are, the spending is public, you see it on the television, you will see it in mailings they will have the tag line on it, but the fact is the source of the money is undisclosed. For companied that presents serious risk, because anonymity cannot be garn teened, there have been enough instances where they promised in a minute i want some examples of that, but julie, if i am on the tech side, we were a little surprised that a lot in the Tech Industry were not transparent when it comes to disclosing the spinning, to what would you distribute that . I think most of that has to do with the fact that largely the Tech Community is fairly new to the mill process. It is fairly new to d. C. , and they are still trying to navigate the best way forward, i think what you see is this knee next reaction of not knowing what to do, so the instinct is lets just not tell. I dont necessarily think thats a good instinct, i agree with what bruce has said, but i do think you see this tension, as the companies are getting much bigger for many of them this is the first second cycle that they are really engaged in in didntc. Do you think this is a little bit of crisis of conscious . They have built their bran on inclusivety, and on being creative they are finding to get anything done, they having to part of the big ol boy network. I think you hit on something, that is troubling. Theres an inherent tension, a lot of these companies are based out many silicon valley, they grew really large, and made it very quickly, by working hard, kind of building they company, not really thinking about policy, and politics and now all of a sudden, they realize they have to may that game too. And the two cultures dont align much of the time, and there is an inherent tension this, and it is really it is interesting to watch them investigate that. Het as talk about the must be, lets follow the money. Center for public integrity, they are asking who is buying the senate, and it says 410 million estimated t. V. Ad spending on the senate races. By just checking on North Carolina really quick, 62. 1 Million Dollars, you have 9. 9 Million Dollars from parties and then you have the whopping 37 million from groups. Dark money, packs and then you have our Community People rise unand says corporations should not donate money, they dont vote. Corporations are not people, and speaking of the Tech Industry, facebook just kit this, i am on the Facebook Page about political engabement, code of conduct. They are talking about all their political contribution. Federal, state, first quarter, 2013, they are all about transparency, and apparently their rating has gone up, but julie, this a few that dont dischose anything, i was surprised to learn net knicks, i love netflix, does not dischose anything. What do you think strategically is the big get for Tech Industries to be more transparent. Part of what we are running into, and part of what you see a hot in the Tech Community, is that a companys culture will be lets say just for example very socially lip real. And they will be engaged as a company in some very popular issues one that you see a lot is gay marriage, and then the company h realize for business reasons they feel like they need to be donated to a certain candidate who doesnt agree with those other values. So you see theres a tension here, something that is good for the company, and something that the people that work at the company believe in. And so i think in a lot of instances these companies are actual hi being not being transparent to protect themselves from their own employees their own community. And thats a very interesting thing to think about. The transparency i think we need is internal. So the company can say to its employees and community, this is why we are doing this. And this is what this means. What about bruce what about companies that have been caught, so to speak, publicly, with money going to mace that maybe they are not proud of or maybe reflects on them poorly, can you give us examples of companies this has happened to. You know, this is the problem that microsoft had a while ago, with gay marriage, one of the early gay marriages initiatives. They contributed to the opponents of gay marriage, this was a tremendous exmotion internally, and what julie is talking about, really is an example of the importance of transparency, internally as well as exterm hi, when you take a lock at transparency, you have a case of etna. It was a good agreement, and the company had agreed to trade association disclosure, including special assessments and enthis it turns out while they supported the Affordable Care act, they were contributing significant millions of dollars to groups that were opposing it, they came out in a filing they made, and etna has had to deal with that, you have that agent, now in the case of target, there was disclosure, but the company had very good position on gay policies, or dealing with gay issues in their hr policies they gave to a candidate who was opposed to gay marriage, they had very Serious Problems with both employees with customers, so track spainsy is very important. We have heard from companies that disclosure bricks greater dismin, greater care in terms of the Decision Making that they make to really assess the ime cases. And ultimately less risk. And it comes down to risk, risk for the company and for shareholders. All right thank you so much for joining us, when we come back, is voter turn out a fair measure of civic participation, how we measure engangment is updated especially comes to millen yells its gonna be close. Several swing state elections are up for grabs. Are you kidding me . Dont miss filmmaker a. J. Schnacks unprecedented. If i can drink this, i dont see why you shouldt be able to smoke that. Behind the scenes look. Are you gonna do this . At what it takes to win. Its certainly something that doesnt exist elsewhere in politics on television. Midterms election day marathon. Coming up next. Only on al jazeera america. [voting for me is. Important for a number of reasons. Some of which are based in feminism, some on family values, most importantly i vote because i want my voice heard. You just heard from one milliniel, is voter turn out even a fair measure . Reveals that 39 of americas took part in some sort of mill activity. Which is a metric not currently taking into account by the bureau of labor statistics. Pack with this from washington, d. C. President of the millennial action project. Co author of the box. Reflect on public service, thank you for being here, stephen is Voter Participation a outdated measure of civic participation. Absolutely not. Theres no substitute for voting, but as you suggested in the production, this new millennial is redefining the motion of civic ebb againment, because one thing we know about, from the data and research is that we are a very impatient, and pragmatic, for change, so that makes our generation is not going to wait for legislatures to make policy and make change. But rather we are going to grow our own Entrepreneurial Solutions in the private sector. That means both nongovernmental work, and in the for profit space. How do you define civic engangment. I think it has a spectrum. On the one hand, you have the government processes, these are large processes with that includes going out to the polls voting, attending town Hall Meetings or even just writing a letter to your congressman, and then i think these processes have been more popular over the past few centuries. Especially as i have seen, my co author this was the primary method of civic engangment, over the past 50 years or so, i think theres the other end which is more private Community Led citizen led efforts can including volunteers at a soup kitchen or a nonprofit like i did. But i think civic endangerment itself, if i were to define it, it is to improve your community in some way, and dedicating time and effort. So we asked our community, do you consider enganging in the political discourse online as a former of civic engangment, and tony says encouraging them to hold those accountable. And jorge says one tweet can change the debate here is a that is about the drivers license, specially to mobilize a vote, and this a controversial one on personhood, and whether or not fetuses should be included as a person, so this yes o 67, and then also no on 67. Dualing hash tacks we have going back and forth, and we also have little john being youd for turn out for what . Thats encouraging millennials to come out and vote. Thank you for always being useful, do you think all this Online Activity h lead to on the ground tangible ruts and Community Mobilization . It can, but again theres no substitute for really being involved at the ground level so you saw the Huge Campaign around the student Loan Interest rate, and that led to real con depressional action, but one new idea i would suggest to everyone, is if the next big thing maybe ten years ago was social, i would say the next big thing now, is political entrepreneur ship. Because what we are finding is with you care about energy, or education, or healthcare, the real underlying problems facing our democracy is polarization. The grid lock is so pervasive, and even in this mid material, that among the most important that voters are concerned about is congressional grid lock. So we need our best and brightest thinking how we can reimagine and reinvent our democracy shull, and take senate cory booker, and senator rand paul for example, who basically cosponsored the redeem act, a very wide ranging criminal Justice Reform bill, and one of the key take aways from that bill is cooperation, is not reserved for the moderates. As you all know, staunchly conservative even libertarian, and cory booker obviously very progressive, but you can come to the same results for different reasons. So senator paul wanted to reduce the size of government, and reduce the mandatory minimum sentences. We are out of time, hope to see more of that bipartisanism. Lets hope. In the days and months ahead, thank you to all overages until the next time, we will see you online. Program. Got a lot of people running. This is why im in congress. I grew up cast rating hogs on an iowan farm. I need your help. We can not lose this seat. Its the number nationally