Transcripts For CSPAN Key CapLsatcill Hearings 20140102

Backlash against republicans. Why does this tend to happen in second terms . Think about when a brandnew president is elected and you are young enough to remember in 2009 , whether you were democrat or republican, liberal, moderate, conservative, there was a real curiosity how this new president is going to do and howxcitement, passion, is this guy going to do . Y people wanted the country to do well after tough times, and that is fairly typical when a new president is elected. But over time, the novelty wears for myd over time decisions are made, tough, governing decisions are made that tend to tick people off, and that the fresh, new ideas and to dissipate some. The team that elected the president lycian really, they generally go off and make money. So they have the cteam on the field. The final thing is chickens come home to roost, things that you said or did in the first term come back to you, and they will thingsou on your ass, like that come back to haunt you in the second term. Also, there is a tendency for bad things to happen to president s in their second terms great sometimes it is economic downturns. For example, president eisenhower had two recessions in the last two years he was in office. I did not know you could have two recessions that close together. You could have unpopular wars in the kennedy and johnson administrations. You could have scandals like and ford. In nixon Monica Lewinsky for clinton. And the thing is, iran contra for president reagan, but that things usually happen in the second term and people getting and tired. Lets do something different. It is a pattern that holds up pretty darn well. So those are the two questions. What is it going to be . Well, when i look at what is going on and look at the polling i needede thing to get a chance to go by the office and print this out our website is cookpoli tical. Com, and when you go up on the home page it is all free you look on the righthand side of the page and theres a box, and it talks about the political environment, and then it says read more. Itthat, and there is a is about a 10page document that we update several times a week with the polling data that we think of polling data that is most relevant ascertaining what is the environment going to be like. To start off with right direction, wrong track numbers, and then we go to president ial approval, and we have the gallup cnn, and pew, and then we go through consuming or Consumer Confidence. To the extent we are taught Midterm Elections are a referendum on the incumbent resident, then looking at the president s job Approval Rating is important. It is said that americans vote their pocketbooks then they tend to vote if they are worried, scared, fearful about the economy. They tend to be more pessimistic, which is not good for an incumbent party. As they feel good about things they typically vote on other things, but we have a Consumer Confidence rating. Then we have favorable bothorable ratings for parties from the various polls, and before that some numbers from the Kaiser Family foundation, which is the largest objective body of polling on the Affordable Care act, watching several questions there in terms of their popularity, and we have the generic ballot texts, maybe onouple other questions there. That is a good way to check in and see how things are going. When i look at what is happening right now, the Democratic Party has lousy favor numbers. Worseican party has numbers. The president s approval numbers right now are about 42 , which bushactly where president was at this point in his second term, which is after direct was already after iraq was already turning sour. It is for some days digit four digit the same where president bush was at this point, which is not a good place, and republicans took some significant losses in 2006. The republican theres no reason to believe that republicans have improved their standing one iota among minority voters, younger voters, women voters, moderate voters none whatsoever. At the same time you look over and you look at the president s of approval numbers and they are on the track toward where you have bad second term Midterm Elections, and it is what it is. Maybe things get better, maybe they do. We will see. That is why you do not just take a poll and skip the election. That is why you have campaigns. Right now it looks like both of those things are going to happen or both of those things look to be if you were going to have the election today operative, which would tend to suggest canceling each other out. When i talked about what kind of election it is going to be, at this point am a theres not any evidence that this is going to be a wave election, because for people to vote against somebody, they kind of have to vote for somebody. And the thing is they do not like either side here, and so i do not see them handing out compliments or willynilly handing out victories to either side because they are not really happy with either one. I guess a media urologist would say it is like an unstable air meteorologist would say it is like an unstable air mass. That is the, ok, environment, lets get down to cases, and next speaker is going to get into races, but i want to do it from a larger sense. You have the house and the senate. In the house immigrants would need a 17seat net gain to get a majority in the house. In the big scheme of things, 73 is not a particularly big number. You can look there is a great ornstein, tom malbon, and they now have it up on the web. They will publish they do not publish on hardcopy anymore. Go through the brookings or the aei website. When you go back and look over remember am trying to what my point was im getting over a chest cold 17 is not much. It really is not. But the thing about it is in the new world order, it kind of is a lot, because there are very few competitive districts out there. I started as i mentioned earlier, my newsletter in april of 1984, and it was not uncommon 100, 125,ays to have 150 or more competitive districts. Now the pending on how you determined define it and i was reading someplace they were using higher numbers, and saying the finding it defining it as a voting for president in one party and congress for another, it went from 99 10 years to only 25 now. The better statistics is that 96 of all the democrats in the house are sitting in districts and 92 ofcarried, the republicans in the house are sitting in districts that mitt romney carried. Theres just not a lot of elasticity in the house left anymore. Part of this is redistricting, and we have had you can either call it gerrymandering we have had it as long as we have had congressional districts. Because state capitals are now adding so much more polarized along partisan lines, because computer map making has gotten so much more sophisticated than back in the old days when people were working off of a card, cards, numbers on paper, it has gotten awfully good right now. If you are the dominant party in a state and you want to absolutely minimize the representation of the other party, you could do an amazing ow much better than you could before. There are other things that are a place as well. For example, population sorting. There is a wonderful book that some of you might want to read , andguy named bill bishop he talks about how people in a , ine vote with their feet that people tend to move and concentrate with people like themselves. People are more comfortable when they are with likeminded people. And this is becoming more and more and more so. When you look at democratic look geographically across the country, one of the districts that democrats tend to can to be large urban areas, closein suburbs, and college towns. Where do republicans live . Smalltown, rural america, and reachesxurbs, the outer of the suburbs. That is a clear pattern or political pattern that is out there. Even notwithstanding any political gerrymandering that is taking place, you have this taking place as well. Then the final reason is to get about the last four elections. In 2008, you were member the iraq war was getting really pretty ugly. President bushs numbers were down to 28 , Something Like that. The 2008 election, you had a really ugly election for republicans. N 2010, it got even worse 2008 an ugly election for republicans, and so a lot of republicans that are sitting in competitive streaks or districts that may be a democrat ought to have, they got washed out back in 2008 just as they did in 2006. They had back to back ugly elections for republicans, that window cap a lot of republicans in competitive districts. In 2010, the way it went the other church in was a fabulous year for republicans, and it washed out the see of a lot of democrats that were sitting in districts that should have been republican. Wasing out of those in 2008 a decent election for democrats. 80 senior for democrats. For democrats. R you sorted it out so there are not many fish out of water that are out there. It has been his motorized the elasticity it it has minimized the elasticity in the house. It has made it difficult for the press to make a 17see games as it would be difficult for republicans to make a 17seat gain in this environment. And you look at the individual races one by one and we have a fabulous house editor David Wasserman who does this, and all he does from one election date to the one two years later, is right now more likely than not that republicans would actually pick up a handful of seats, 3, 4, 5, 6, a very small number, based on their where there are open seats and where the competitive races are, and that is not aced on any macro assumption whatsoever. Then you get over to the senate side, and i do not want to poach into that, but democrats have a lot of exposure. The thing to remember about the senate always is that just as the house has twoyear terms, is set in a house two years earlier. In the senate with 600 year term somebody with sixyear terms, so when one party has a fabulous year in the senate, six years later they are going to be playing defense. Big risk of vulnerability. That is exactly where democrats are in the senate and where seats thatf the 8 are most likely to make a difference, six of them are in states that mitt romney carried. Again, i do not want to poach on to the next speakers turf. That is how i view the political environment right now. On a micro level, democrats have a little bit more exposure in the house. In the senate they have a lot of exposure. At the same time for republicans, to get a majority they need a sixheat gain. They have to not run the table, but pretty close to win the majority, which is why i would put the republican march rd incentives considerably less than 5050, even though it is almost a hundred percent chance that republicans will pick up seats, but not the six seats that they need. And just sort of as an aside, it sure as heck looks like republicans were going to pick up a bunch of seats in 2012 and in the end they did not do that. Part of that was because of these brand problems we were talking about. The other problem will exist again, and that is that in this can tea party era, rob republican primaries have become ready exotic places great there has been an increased tendency for republican primary voters to choose people who god did not necessarily intend for them to be members of the u. S. Senate. [laughter] it has cost them seats that they should have one. Won. L atther you are looking nevada, colorado, delaware in 2010, or at missouri or indiana in 2012, arguably, right now the , and republicans should have five more seats than they do right now, but they do not because they nominated terribly flawed candidates that were not able to win seats that appeared to be very winnable, if not [indiscernible] that is one more consideration out there. Lets open this up for questions, comments, accusations. You had your hand up a long time ago. Let me go with you first. I apologize for that, but my question is, is you talked scenarios, and i agree because you are the expert. It could be something else, but those would seem to be the you had your hand up a long time ago. Let me go withtwo most possible. Exactlyseems to be right. My question is, could you speak to the difference between the electorate who votes and the efforts between midterms in president ial elections because it seems to me that those are quite different and also determine which scenario is more dominant. President ial elections tend to draw obviously a much bigger turnout, broader turnout, and it is a turnout that more looks like the country. Goterm elections, you have a lot of voters that are sort of casual voters. Sometimes they vote, sometimes they do not. They oftentimes vote president ial, but in any election other than that, they do not show up. The group that drops off the most is younger voters, downscale voters, you really younger voters, and one particular group that stan greenberg, the democrat pollster, who with james card fill carville had this polling think tank thing for the democratic side that they focus on the young single women voters , that women voters under 30, 35 who were single is one it is a group that when they vote they vote. Inavily democratic, but the w is an opportune term because they do not turn up for Midterm Elections. It does not mean that all midtermwin elections because they lost control of congress in 2000 six, which was a Midterm Election. Generally speaking, the Midterm Election turnout dynamic is something that is more favorable while a democratic while president s role is more favorable to democrats, that is true. It is not determinative, but it is an important factor. You were next. I guess you spent a lot of time studying elections. What has been the most surprising result in your time, or what results in the last election shock you the most that you did not expect . Ll, that is an interesting one because there are a lot of surprises you are in this bigness business long enough, you see stuff that i did not see that coming, and relatively wonntly, after barack obama the iowa caucus and then lost the New Hampshire primary to hillary clinton, that was a shocker because somewhere in this big country there somebody who predicted that hillary would win the New Hampshire primary after losing the iowa caucus, but i never met them. That was one. I would say professionally i would say it was at 1994, gingrich Midterm Election. The reason is that we had not since inelection 14 years, since 1980. Thei had vivid memories of 1980 election. Long before i got in this moderateam i am a independent now, but i got my start, grew up as a democrat and had my first few political jobs on the democrat side. The election by 1980, i was at the headquarters of the democratic senatorial having committee. I was visiting some friends. Actually, lucy who is now my wife was working there at the time. Date indiana was the first indiana and kentucky are the closingtes poll times. Yh lost at about 6 30 in the evening. The democrats at losing until well after midnight. It was like boom, boom, boom. That was the first wave election since 1974, the watergate election, but i was in college in 1974 and was working on the hill, but not aware that much. 1980 was that was really something. We went 14 years before that was replicated. You had people Running Campaign committees on each side who had never personally experienced a wave election. There is a tendency to get a little too wrapped up in this all politics is local think if you go a long time without a wave election. And so it is like hard to imagine it happening until you really see one up close and personal. That 1990 41 was probably was probably awe. Tep back in there can be some people that will be relied on to predict that their people will win every single election. Arecan figure out who they and never listen to them. The first person that did not qualify in that category we my house editor at the time was a young man who is now a lawyer and intellectual property expert at the Motion Picture association. He was our first house editor. We were over at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee side,do this with each staff come and run to the races, and on background, what are you seeing, trade notes back and forth, because we meet with a loud of candidates, and they meet with the candidates and trade notes. Anyway, we were over the there and had just done the alabama to wyoming run down of and political director at the time, a Media Consultant now, the meeting was over. Some of the people wandered off. It was just two of us standing in the conference room. He said, charlie, are you seeing anything odd out there . No, not really. He said, the last month or two we started seeing some now, this was april of 1994. He said, we started seeing some very odd numbers around the country in places where democratic incumbents are to be this is in a different era and numbers were universal. Butsely higher than democratic incumbents that are in the mid50s that should be in the mid50s are just over 50 . Urban areas, role areas, suburban areas, north, south, east, west, across the board, and i remember at the time thinking i have not noticed that. Early on a cycle you do not see a lot of polling data on the house level, individual house races. Dave andred thinking, vic feys io, the chairman of the committee at that point, maybe a are trying to lower expectations so if they had a good election result, a big victory. June, as ixt may, sell more data coming out, it started looking like, i think he is on to something. You can start seeing it built over the summer and build and build and build and build. At that election, republicans needed a 40seat that game to get a majority in the house. Gain to get a majority in the house. If you gave republicans every conceivable seat that they could possibly win, they still could not get to 40. It was building and building you could see the direction of the arrow. You can tell the wind was blowing strong. At the end, i was saying maybe there is a one in three chance that republicans get a majority in the house, but that is like how many of you have gone bird hunting. Thet is a shotgun, you lead bird a little bit. If you aim at the bird, your shot will go behind the bird. You lead the bird. It was going this way, so i was saying one out of three. It not only not only did they get 40 seats, they got 52. You had republican candidates getting elected who did not get a dime from their own party, that their own party did not even think they were going to win. Conversely, democrats losing and their party did not think they were of all rural ball. That was the spooky, a natural thing that happened in these wave elections. I would have to say that one in 1994 and i remember the next really big wave election, 2006, was a wave against republicans. Early on in that cycle i remember the two guys running for the House Republican they started asking me early on if they felt pretty good about things. They raised more money than democrats. We got this and this and this. Back in 1994, what did you see and when did you see it, out of curiosity . Gradually, some of those things started happening, although its happened earlier. By 1994, it it was the first time in your professional career or you really see a bigtime wave and you just go, wow, look at that. There were somebody else over here. Ok. Here and then we will go back. During your remarks you compared obama plus favorability bushs. To w what were the Party Favorability ratings at those times . That is an excellent question. I have not looked it up. And the answer is probably. The other thing is in these Midterm Elections, some of it is votingvoting your you are angry at a president , congress, something that is going on, and you can vote against them. The other part of it is lets its 1994. No, lets use a more modern example. 2006. Robbinsa republican, have control of congress, deficits have gone up. Maybe you just do not vote, because that high variability in isterm elections where it more socially acceptable not to vote in Midterm Elections than in a president ial election. A lot of times it is sort of disillusioned partisans staying home. Lean yourndents who way staying home. I have not looked at those numbers. That is a very good question. I think it is safe to say that the numbers were not that great. That is a good question. How about back in the row. Twocan you identify the narratives as being raining issues, being associated with a president with a lower approval or with a republican brand. Fightshere are two major in congress, do you feel the narratives that will happen at the individual campaigns will be candidates trying to separate themselves from their party as much the can or trying to anchor their opponent about their partys record . Another good question. When you are a member of one party, you are an incumbent, and in enemyu are either territory or a district that is not friendly. And your president is not popular. , and some tendency people get into this tendency, to trash were president and to run like hell away from them. As a general rule, that does not work real well. At the same time, do you want to embrace him and identify yourself more closely with him . Of course not. Theres something that is in between. I do not agree with the president i agree with him on some things, i do not agree with him on others, and i have got some real misgivings about x, y, and z. Sometimes that works, sometimes it does not, but the thing is one of the things is what happens if you just trash it president from your party, among the people that normally come hell or high water who will vote for you, you will turn some of them off by doing that. Those are some people that you can actually rely on. Work,enerally does not but you could establish distance without trashing an incumbent for your side. Election. Was a famous bush 1990, george h. W. , and his Midterm Election ed rollins, who had manage president reagans campaigns, had a top job at the Republican National committee. That went out to all the Republican House members effectively we all love president bush and he is a great guy and all that, but your most important job right now is to get reelected and do whatever you need to do to get reelected and feel free to put distance between yourself and the president. Not surprisingly, the white house went crazy. I am trying to remember whether ed had to resign or not. Do you remember if he did or not . They were calling for his wretche for his resignation. [indiscernible] for some of the races such as the Vulnerable Democratic Senate seats where you have nonincumbent republican candidates for senate him a do you expect them to distance themselves from the key or is that going to be an internal debate within the party, because there could be comments about rob gens having to make about republicans to make firm statements about other they would shut down the government or know they would never do that. One of the good things about this upcoming election for republicans is at least in the senate most of the prime races are in states that romney won and that where president obamas job Approval Ratings would be significant lead below average. In other words, alaska, arkansas, louisiana, and to elect certain extent georgia, a lesser extent north carolina, you can tell i have been on vacation for three weeks. She can and iowa are the own michigan and iowa are the only two that are in states that obama carried. There are gradations in all of these. Torture,le, obama lost but only by eight points. There were some states where he lost by 25 points. Losing, but not getting destroyed. North carolina, obama lost but and two Percentage Points he had carried it for years earlier. At the same time, arkansas, louisiana, kentucky where Mitch Mcconnell is up, obama lost by disastrous amounts. Where republicans need to do well in the u. S. Senate they do , if any to put as much distance, between themselves and the National Republican party. Certainly in alaska, arkansas am a louisiana, kentucky, absolutely for sure. It depends, and that is the answer to almost any question. It depends on the circumstances. In the senate there is a lot less of that that has to take place. Yeah. Yes you highlighted i guess you highlighted in 2006, the last couple midterms that happened, and one thing our distinguished presser has pointed out, there has been an increased polarization within the legislative branch. Does that translate to more of a wave effect given the increased polarization from these different midterms it throws off a little different but then the president ial elections, but midterms, especially the last two, do you see that as being one of the catalysts . I think i follow what you are saying, and if i do understand it, i would say what has been going on the last 20, 30 years these kinds ofy wave elections and make them more likely. To washington,ed 19 72, as a freshman in college, there were a time of service from theand crafts south and elsewhere. There were a ton of liberal moderate republicans from the north, northeast, the west. So the parties say this is the democrat party, the Republican Party, there was a substantial overlap between the parties. And so was the Republican Party a right of center party . Yeah, but there were a lot of people on the right on the Democratic Party, too. They had some awfully conservative people who were a lot more conservative and some of the republicans. The conservative moderate thatrats acted as a alice kept the democrats from going off on the ditch on the left as liberal moderate democrat theblicans were keeping republicans from going on the ditch to build right. There isoes make i think to the next that this is maybe it is a slight exaggeration, not too much, but instead of having a left of center party and a right of center party, we now have a fairly left party and a very right party. Angry at some saying, it is a lot easier for them to pick out the red jerseys and the blue jerseys now, that there is more ideological cohesion there, but also at the same time, the force in the opposite direction is that so few of them are in districts that are really Enemy Territory kind of districts that that tends to be an offsetting factor. Im not sure how to answer that. This stuffs a lot of is a lot more complicated than it sounds on paper. Ok. The world is a lot simpler in the highdigit networks. Yeah. Speaking to that, my question and i hold an unpopular view that the democratization of primaries is a bad thing and has increased only polarization. Can you speak to that idea that the democratization of primaries has only led to more conservative and more liberal candidates . Let me address that differently. If i could wave a magic wand and do two Major Political reforms in this country, the first would be for redistricting reform, and the second would be for primary nomination reform. There are aer lot of different ways to do it. Ill walk has a terrific system where they have a room full of statisticians sitting in a basement that you get, and it is to an honest redistricting as humans can probably do. Again, it is not hard in iowa because you have a state that is very white and all the counties are square. It is not a heavy lift doing that when you do not have to worry about Voting Rights act considerations and things like that. California in 2012 went to a new system, and it is this very, very elaborate, complicated process of selecting these commissioners that in turn select the people that draw whatever and someone said if you diagrammed it out it would look like the old diagrams of the hillary care, it would look like a pile of spaghetti in terms of branches of authority. But it works very well, and you saw as much competition in congressional races in california in funny 12 than you had seen in in 2012 than you had seen in the last years. Again, each state decides its own election law and no two states are identical. Some states have party registration, some do not. My example, in maryland, wife is a registered democrat. I am a registered independent. I cannot vote in any primaries at all. She can only vote in democrat primaries. Allowedif you independents to choose on election day, you take either a democratic or republican dallas on voting day, i think it would help bring things back toward the center as with redistricting reform. I do not think either of these are a Silver Bullet or will solve the problem, but could address things. I think some of the bad things that have happened, i think having nomination conventions for races below president is really bad. In utah, for example, you bennett senator robert who was by any rational definition a very conservative incumbent senator and hard working and very high really regarded could not get on the theary ballot because of rise of the tea party movement, and he had voted for tarp, and that was back in 2008, and he could not at on the primary ballot in 2000 10. The polling eisele, he would have won a primary if he had gotten on the ballot. Regina has these goofy virginia has these goofy conventions where they allow some pretty exotic the tenetrticularly governor, governor, things like that so that even a pretty mainstream, relatively mainstream candidate for attorney general cannot even win. It is that kind of environment. I would do that. Lot harder it is a to do things. I think the increasingly zedologically polari nature of certain elements in the news media with very clear is toclear right, that pour gasoline on the fire as sites,ith certain blog that kind of thing. There are a lot of moving parts here. Yeah. Hang on one second. Another reform that has been done in california and louisiana, i wanted to ask you about it, the idea that theres a primary the top two candidates and those are the twp top candidates for the november election. Would that help as well . I think it might. Those systems are not identical, but they are pretty close. Donertainly has not anything to moderate anything in louisiana. But in california, i think it contributed to that. Where you saw cases where two democratic incumbents thrown together by redistricting, and they are competing, but in a general election environment so that you have fairly liberal democratic members going out trying to get republican votes, moderate independent votes, a vote is a vote, get it wherever you came, and that reduces some of the ideological, some of the rhetoric, and brings it back down. There are a lot of different ways to fix things. You never know which ones are going to work and which do not, and a lot of times you have a lot of unintended consequences where you set out to do something that is an admirable objective, but that makes it worse. Feingoldple, the mccain finance reform made things worse than before. So you always have to be careful with that. Anybody that has not asked a question yet first, and then we will double back . There has been discussion in recent years about the political of young people. Have you seen an increased turnout in young people, or is it that a small amount of us are more vocal . It has ticked up some, maybe not as much as adjusted by the popular press. But 2008, the proportion picked up some. The thing i noticed with and theal voters institute at politics at harvard has done a lot of work in this area, but i have spent a lot of time on campuses, and my impression looking on the data, as well as anecdotal, is the millennial generation, is an interesting group. Unlike conservatives, they do but unlikevernment, liberals, they do not love government. Their experience with government not work veryes well. It is not very effective. Thato this is a generation at least on economic role of government, in that narrow sense, is more jump all, open to write it sector solutions, alternative to traditional government solutions. However, there also a very libertarian generation. ,nd that libertarian aspect including abortion, gay rights, cuts other issues, absolutely against the grain of where the Republican Party has been and is one of the Major Barriers to the Republican Party doing better with young voters. You just look at the data on samesex marriage. It is kind of a nobrainer. I was talking to a conservative leader who had been visiting campuses in a southern state, are in with people that the individual chapters of an extremely conservative organization, ok. And she had just come back from a couple of campuses, and she asked these conservative student leaders what they thought about samesex marriage. And none of them had a problem with it. And these were kids that were like really, really, really, really, really conservative, and it is like, wow. Obviously you are some people who do not hold that view. And i am not suggesting the Republican Party changed their positions or anything, but i think they ought to look at how ghting ofhe wei issues and turning the volume and frequency down on certain issues, they could be more marketable to this newer generation. Harry. Times mentioned a couple there was not a lot of flexibility, especially in the house. Do you see that to be a more permanent thing . Ll, i do not often tour around terms like permanent and ever, because they imply a really long time. And stuff happens. That is one of the advantages of doing this for a really long time, is you have heard people make these grand statements of permanent this and that, and then it is not so much. I have heard the demise of each of the parties rejected several times in my career. I will not say. I think this is a very real trend. It is showing some durability. But it is not to say that you could not have events or circumstances that could reverse it. In terms of the better nature of the partisanship of politics am a the better nature of the partisanship of politics, theres no way to quantify this or prove it or not, but to me 9 11 was an event that could have been a real game changer in terms of the political environment. And that the date after the 9 11 of congressbers gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building and sang god bless america. Go i was thinking, maybe possibly something good could come out of this horrific tragedy of where people learn to Work Together and stuff. But after that brief boom buyout moment, and kumbaya i do not laying any side, but that controversy of should we invade iraq yesterday broke out, and that fight over iraq, not afghanistan, is what tore the two sides back apart to the point where it is worse than it was before. So you think, wow, if an event like len 11 cannot like 9 11 cannot effectively change the dynamics, what would it take . That is pretty scary. Of what has happened, it has been coming a long way. To quote tom mann and norm ornstein a second time, they have another book, it is as bad as you think, which i agree that things actually in washington are probably worse, even worse than most people think. Who are goodorm, friends of mine and respect enormously, they put a disproportionate level of the blame on republicans. And while if you were just talk about the last year or two or three, maybe, but when i step back and go back to the 1980s and look at how did we get to this poisonous environment, i think theres plenty of blame on both sides, a lot of blame on both sides. I can point to just as many examples of democrats doing things that contributed to the environment getting to where it is as republicans, and just to there was a house race in indiana in 1984, the first year i started my newsletter, in the eighth district, between two people where there is no need to remember who they were. The election result was kind of like florida 2000. It was basically a tie. God only knows who really won that race. Different counts have different what they probably should have done is what New Hampshire had done in a sentence race in the previous in a senate race in the previous decade and what louisiana had done in a house race, which is basically say rerun the dam thing. We cannot tell who won. Andocratic leadership only a what the speaker, jim wright was majority leader then and my understanding was that jim wright urged and convinced oneill to basically gavel it basically say the house constitutionally, the house is the final judge of its members. We are seeking our guide. Up until that point the republican minority in that house had been in that minority for 30 years, 15 consecutive elections. They were a pretty docile group. Any very few of them having realistic hope of being in the majority unless they change parties. Of the one over the other, and the brazen, arrogant approach to it, it is so its so enraged rep up against that some of the most moderate, mild mannered public and inhouse went crazy. Moderatenson, a liberal republican from connecticut. That led to the rise of newt bobrich and pushing aside michael, who was the oldschool republican leader. Newt gets in. Jim wright becomes speaker. He goes on wright on ethics stuff. Warfare develops. I do not want to put all the blame on democrats, but that is where sooner or later maybe this would have happened, but that triggered it. It was mostly inhouse of representatives, where you had this bitter artisanship. Ats senate was not like that all. Gradually, you begin seeing house members, democrat and republican, coming over to the senate. In the house, it is majority rules. If the majority does not like how things are going, that is tough. Filibusters, with consent, the senate cannot deal with that kind of partisanship and still function appropriately. Seeing these start house members moved to the senate, it was like a contagion and in to a new body a contagion coming into a new body. Then the bork nomination. Up to that point, if you were rejected it was one or two reasons. Either you were not ethical or you were not qualify. The idea that you were rejected because people do not agree with you, that had never happened before. When democrats a sickly rejected the bork nomination, forcing it to be withdrawn, that was the first sign that that contamination had started to enter into the senate, and now the senate is probably even worse than the house because its it it cannot move was a body designed by the foundingfounders fathers to not move easily, quickly. It was the most it it was supposed to move deliberately. You interject that kind of partisanship and hatred, particularly now, where you have leaders on both sides of my harry reid and mitch oconnell, who despise each other and despise the other side, on top of a very partisan body that is not designed to function like that, you have a pretty dysfunctional situation. I do not remember your question. [laughter] who else . Jack, you got the question. Lets go to jeffrey first. You said early most of these elections midcycle, they vote their pocketbooks, but we talked about young people and their social views. Do you see social cues becoming more important in how people vote in some of these elections . I think voters do not americans used to vote their economic selfinterest much more than they do today. Or to put it differently, they now vote on issues that are completely aside from that economic selfinterest. A prettyhy you see large number of very highincome people, highly educated people, people in very high tax brackets who are voting democratic. Why are they voting democratic . Maybe they are prochoice, maybe green on the and prior night, 80 support samesex marriage whatever reason. At the same time you see a fairly large number of down who at least theoretically, historically, you would say would be better off with democrats who are voting more and more republican and are getting more and more conservative. They may or may not be voting against their selfinterest, but they are voting on cultural, social issues, than a long sort of straight economic class lines. Yes, i think we have really moved away from that to a large extent, not totally, but to a large extent, absolutely. It has made things very complicated, so that a poor state like West Virginia has become a very republican state, at least on federal issues, despite the fact they used to be as rockribbed democrat as any. Hang on. We are going to give this guy a workout. Tickets inmentioned terms of house, senate, and the presidency. Can you speak a little bit how an active and especially competitive governors race could affect that . Specifically we have competitive races in florida, george or a georgia, and a lot of open house seat. How does a governors race affect the National Campaign . I think active, high visibility races, races that engage people, they obviously draw a lot of attention and can help increase turnout. How much . You know, one of my beefs with political scientists is that sometimes they try to quantify the unquantifiable. But sure, it happens. How much . Who the hell knows . But of course, it happens. But theoretically, if you have a knockdown, drag out, high visibility engagement on a mayors race, it could drive turnout in that city. To really blah, then why vote . We hear less about it now than we used to, how a lot of white americans dont vote compared to other countries. Ive always felt that if you talk to a european, for example, and you ask them how many opportunities do you have to and over four years, generally, they will come up with two or three. There might be a state election, the federal election, and maybe one for the eu. That is basically it. And generally only one thing on the ballot for each one or two. Or two. Ach one, you think of here, think of federal elections, sometimes state elections, sometimes municipal elections, bond issues, special elections all of these things so that over a , imyear timeframe guessing, in a lot of states, you could vote 10 or 12 times. You could be asked to vote 10 or 12 times over four years. Does that devalue the importance of voting some . Yeah, i think so, particularly in states like virginia, kentucky, louisiana, new jersey, mississippi, that have already or state elections. And a lot of the municipalities have odd year elections. It devalues it. Electcond thing is, we jobs in this country that for the life of me i do not know why we vote on them. Consider myself a relatively politically sophisticated person. The Maryland Special Court of appeals, who are they . What do they do . Why are they special . [laughter] you look at a bunch of names where you could say, oh, my god. Nobody knows who these people are. Or, in my home state of louisiana, you know, we elect parish corners. Coroners. Who the hell here is qualified to judge who would be a good coroner . [laughter] one of my favorites is in South Carolina i think they still do this. Elected the they adjutant general, the head of the state national guard. Really . To me, if we want to consolidate elections and prudent ballots ballots, and why are secretaries of state selected . A commissioner of agriculture . Who is from texas . I think there is Something Like 11 statewide officeholders in texas. I think americans probably vote more than anyone else in the world. But it is spread out over a lot of things. I think if we consolidated it, it would raise the value of voting and our turnout levels would go back up. Who has not asked the question . The two opposing narratives that you presented earlier and low favorability in both parties, do you think that is a possibility for more thirdparty candidates to enter the field . And if they do, do you think they are likely to be elected . Do you have a grandfather that is a big lobbyist here in washington . Agriculturalig lobbyist here years ago, bill taggart. It is important to make a distinction between thirdparty and independent. We often use it as a generic term. And third party, libertarian, natural law, green party emma versus just pure independent green party, versus just. Henan. I think we will have more variety of candidates running for a particular thing. Let me put it a different way. Im trying to figure out how to say this. Was the mayor of who wasmely large city very wealthy, who thought about running as an independent for president. With lots ofwn people to just sort of talk about whether an independent can win, that sort of thing. My view at the time was that people were really sick and tired of both parties. They were quick to say they were sick and tired of both parties. There was an openness to this. Have been about 2006 or 2007. To, in theproceeded course of the conversation, basically convince me that there was no way in hell and independent candidate could win a competitive threeway race for presidency where there is a democratic nominee and a republican nominee. And the argument let like this. Say, you were the richest person in the world, the smartest person in the world, a fabulous candidate with a great story to tell and you never make mistakes. As ts say, i you run you run as an independent for president. Theres a democrat of the here and a republican over here. What would happen . Resume ugly, you would win a priority plurality of the popular vote, which would give you a plurality of the Electoral College vote. But nobody got a majority. The election gets thrown to the house of representatives where each state has one vote california one vote, wyoming one vote. And at that time, i think republicans had Something Like 29 delegations, Something Like that. There is no way the independent would win. At the same time, there was this group a couple of years elect, thatcans were out trying to get valid positions in all 50 states for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. Guyi remember meeting the who was the executive director at a lunch conference in arkansas. And i kind of laid this out and said, explain to me why it is forimpossible effectively an independent to win a three way race. And clearly, this had never occurred to him. And prior to this other conversation, it had never occurred to me, so i could not knock him. But it seems to me if you had a group like that that wanted to do something good, what they would do is try to find really substantial, accomplished people to run as independents for the u. S. Senate and house. Had serious,u serious people who were accomplished and had done things in life and worthy of respect, and clearly, competent to do this, you put three or four of them that are legitimately independent that these faux like Bernie Sanders or angus king will stop three or four like Bernie Sanders or angus king. Three or four of those, and you know with Committee Assignments and whatnot, if you want my support on anything, i would like one Committee Assignment for each party. And if not, you will not be looking for my vote on anything. I think Something Like that would do a world of good. Is it ever going to happen . No, no. But for president , i do not see the point. In while with ross perot showed exit polls first of all, the conventional wisdom is that perot cost george h. W. Bush the election. The exit polls showed that of the people who did vote for ross perot in 1992, half of them if you asked them who they were voting for if perot were not running, half said clinton and have said bush. And half of them said bush. I would suggest that perot actually made no difference. Would i bet if they would have been asked a year or two earlier, who are you supporting, i bet the vast majority had supported president bush. And perot had been so critical so early on of president bush that i think his candidacy acted as a chisel that effectively pushed chipped a lot of people off of supporting resident bush, and if perot had dropped out, half of them would have gone back, but half would not have. Costdown, he probably did bush the election, but not necessarily as clear cut as it seems. There is no question in my mind gore in florida the election. That is why we have seen Third Party Candidates get less support since 2000. Only that younot are throwing your vote away, but potentially tipping the election toward your least favorite candidate, you know, if you are rare per public and in 1990 2000. If you were a republican in 1992 and a democrat in 2000. Much. You all, very [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] all tonight on book tv, historians on their books. Span2. V tonight on c and on cspan three, American History tv with programs on the 1920s starting at 8 00 eastern, a look at 1920s culture and society. After that come a discussion on the rise of gangsters in the prohibition era. Then a look at the role of the ku klux klan. Examines racessor relations in the lives of africanamericans in the 20s. Also tonight, cspan series on first ladies continues with a look at the life of betty ford. During her time in the white house, she raise Breast Cancer awareness after surviving the disease, and voiced support for abortion rights. After her husband left office, she publicly shared her personal experience with alcohol and Prescription Drug addiction, which led to the creation of the betty ford center. The life and career of betty ford here at 9 00 eastern on c span. Can also listen on cspan radio. On the next washington journal former mitt romney speechwriter, peter wenner, talks about the strength and service strengths and weaknesses of american conservatives. After that, Jennifer Lalas discusses women in politics. Plus, your emails, phone calls, and tweets. Next, a discussion on the top 10 lobbying victories of 2013. And what big lobbying battles lie ahead this year. From washington journal this is 35 minutes. Host Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper joins us now to talk about his recent piece on the top lobbying victories of 20. 2013. Before we get into the list of winners, you make the point that they year was lobbyist playing lobbyists playing more defense 2013 was a year in which lobbyists were playing more defense than offense. Guest you can compare it to 2010. We didnt have once in a generation legislation coming to effect in 2013. I think Congress Passed about 65 bills into law. Not a lot of legislation to lobby on. You had a very active executive branch, the administration doing a lot of regulatory work. Lobbyists are always trying to block what the administration was trying to do. That was a big part of 2013. Host keep what they have. Guest Keep Congress in check, the administration. It set up some pretty interesting situations. Also, there was a lot of action to restore what they once had him a when you look at the sequester what they once had, when you look at the sequester. That deal to restore the funding is back. That was a big number big victory for a number of groups. Host how long have you been doing these lists . Guest this is my fourth one. My first one was 2010. It has been pretty interesting. Like you mentioned, i think the Immigration Reform bill, had it become law this year, we would have included that in the list. Looking at 2010, we had three or four victories from the Health Care Reform bill as well as from the Financial Services bill. Those bills are so big. There are so many areas that they cover that a number of different Interest Groups rely were lobbying on them and trying to affect parts of the legislation. Host lets get the list itself. The number one lobbying victory that you list is the National Rifle association and the National Association for gun rights being one of the top lobbying winners of 2013. Guest essentially, after the tragedy in newtown connecticut newtown, connecticut, president obama really took the village bully pulpit and tried to advance gun legislation. There was talk of a ban on high capacity magazines, on assault weapons ban an assault weapons ban, and a big push behind universal background checks for gun sales. There was a lot of pressure from the media. There was a bipartisan deal worked out in the senate. It seemed like it was going to happen. The let the nra is known as one of the pack most powerful lobbying groups in town, and it really earned its stripes last year. It failed in the senate. It wasnt going to go anywhere in the house if they did move in the senate. That is a prime example of defense that was achieved in 2013. Host we are talking to Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper, talking about top lobbying victories of 2013. We are taking your calls and comments for about the next halfhour. Democrats can call at 202 585 3880. Republicans 202 5853881. Independents 202 5853882. And if youre outside of the u. S. , it is 202 5853883. You mentioned sequesterrelated lobbying victories. Number four and number eight have to do with that. That is the Defense Industry. Guest the first one was the first i think around march or april. Congress realizing hearing this outcry of Airline Passengers about travel delays, sitting on planes, sitting on in airports. That was a big time of big part of the lobbying campaign by airlines for america. The air line pilots association, which is a union for airline pilots. A lot of these unions and business groups really got together and made sure that Congress Heard from passengers who were experiencing travel delays and essentially made it known that the sequester was at fault, that the faa and tsa did not have enough funding, and people were facing long security lines. There was an effort there were air Traffic Controllers serving not serving as much as they used to. You start hearing over the loudspeaker in the airport, your flight has been delayed. It is the sequesters fault. That was something that was communicated from the lobby groups in washington to their members in the airlines. Host ratchet up the public pressure. Guest essentially, Congress Passed a bill to do a quick shift of funds from one area back to the federal aviation administration. It was the first stent in the sequester. President obama was saying we either get rid of the sequester or we keep it. It was his leverage to stop the Government Spending cuts. The republicans were saying we just keep the sequester. They want to get rid of Government Spending. It was interesting that this was moved by both sides. The sequester was not here to stay. It is something that can be lobbied against successfully. Host the Defense Industry also took up that call. Guest in the end of the year budget deal between commerce and paul ryan and senator patty murray, between congressman paul ryan and senator patty murray, there is there is the to europe eu twoyear reprieve of the sequester. That was led by contractors. You had a huge coalition of public interests, education, under this umbrella name. I will try not to get too technical, it is for nondiscretionary spending. It is all the spending that is not mandatory, that goes into education, schools, other types of programs that are not necessarily that do not necessarily have to be done. You have the National Association of manufacturers. A lot of people lobbied against the sequester. We tried to name a lot of groups in our list. We cannot name everybody. Those are some of the bigger groups that lobbied against the sequester. Host we will continue to work our way through that list. Tracy is in wisconsin on our line for democrats. You are on with Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper. Caller 80 to 90 of people wanted background checks. Lobbyists at this time in our country are really taking away the rights of the voter the wishes of the voter. When you have somebody like the nra who can basically scare politicians into doing what they want host Kevin Bogardus, if you want to jump in on that. Guest i think the caller is right. The polling seemed to be much in favor for universal background checks for gun sales. That said, the nra and other groups argued that they are representing gun owning americans who are very concerned about gun control efforts, who argue it is a constitutional right to own guns. Essentially, this is kind of how democracy works. Lobbying is also a constitutional right under the first amendment. You have the right to petition your government and redress your grievances. That is something that comes up. Essentially, that is where things get battled out here. There were a number of things written over the past year. While the nra may have won this battle, they may have overreached their hand. They maybe should have tried to reach a compromise. Not necessarily universal background checks. Essentially, they have reached a softer bill they should have reached a softer bill because they might be facing a bigger backlash after another huge tragedy that happens at a school similar to newtown. Host we are talking about top 10 lobbying victories in 2013 host we are talking about top 10 lobbying victories in 2013. Franklin is up next from oregon on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wonder about the lobbying about our tax money, where it goes. Host go ahead with your comment. What do you mean . Caller congress lobbies with our money about where it goes. Instead of making cuts in the right positions, they make the cuts to hurt us instead of overseas. Instead of making cuts to all the countries overseas, they are making cuts on your pocket to hurt us on our pocket to hurt us to make our taxes go up. Host are you concerned about the people who are influencing the members of congress, who make those decisions about where to spend money . Caller yes, the man the congress. Host Kevin Bogardus, if you want to jump in . Guest taxes are hugely lobbied. The caller is right on that fact. There has been a big push for tax reform, which is the idea of closing a number of loopholes, ending credits, bringing down corporate and individual tax rates. That is something that has been a big push in congress over the past year. Lobbyists have been wary of saying its going to happen or its not going to happen, but that does not stop them lobbying on it. A lot of lobbyists want to protect the tax credits that are favored by their clients. Every business sector you can think of has some kind of trade group or lobby firm working on its behalf. There has been a big blow to the tax reform effort. Senator max baucus, the chairman of the finance committee, being nominated as u. S. Ambassador to china with that happening, one of the biggest champions of tax reform, which is going to be this delicate process of trying to the lower trying to lower the rates while closing everyone pase brick loophole and credit everyones favorite loophole and credit. Basically, hell be departing washington. It looks like the new chairman will be senator ron wyden. A champion as well of tax reform. Dave camp basically has one year left as the chairman of the house ways and means committee. Both those committees are the taxwriting committees. They have gone about trying to get tax reform moving. It hasnt quite happened yet. But it is something that is going to be really watched in 2014. Host number three on your list, top lobbying victories in 2013, groups who have lobbied for years to limit the filibuster in the senate, that victory, and when the summit Democrats Senate democrats went nuclear in november. Number two on your list, business groups scored a lobbying breakthrough under the Affordable Care act. Guest i will take number two first. Like i was explaining, the first dent in the sequester, the number two victory was the number two dent in the Affordable Care act. It seems like the white house is trying to make sure there are no changes to the law. Right before the july 4 recess, a blog post pops up on the Treasury Department website. It says we are going to delay the employer mandate, the mandate that says if you are company that has about 50 or more fulltime employees, you have to provide full Health Benefits to them. A number of Small Business groups or business groups lobbied against this and said you have to end this. We cannot handle this, it will raise costs for us, we will have problems keeping people employed. The white house listened. They did not end the mandate. They delayed it one year to give businesses time to adjust and get moving on the Affordable Care act, so we wont see that until 2015. Host in denver, colorado, on our line for independents. Good morning. Are you there . Well try michigan this morning, on our line for independents. Good morning. You are on with Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper. Caller im in the camp that says lobbyists do perform a good duty for us and we do need them. They bring a lot of knowledge. But i looked at the rules and, boy, theres a lot of rules on lobbying. The major rules that are needed that are missing it is obvious to see why they are missing. The number one rule should be that all lobbying has to be done at either the Government Office or at their place of work. Nowhere other than that. They should have to login and logout. That should be covered public knowledge. They dont have to state their business, they just have to state who they represent. Number two ill be quick. Is that anyone that works for our government, whether they are a senator or representative or on their staff, can never be or work for a lobbyist for the rest of their life. There is that is what is going on, the lobbyists are bribing our people. Often, offering them things at a future date. There is no doubt about it. That has been going on forever. These two rules are missing. If we had that, we could straighten up a lot of things going on in washington. There are 15,000 lobbyists. There are only 3000 if you take the house, staff, senate, staff, white house, staff, you roughly come up with about 3000 people. Our people are inundated with lobbyists. If we had these simple rules, it could go a long way to clean up all the things that are getting done that dont add up for the people. Host Kevin Bogardus . Guest thanks for the call. Those are two interesting ideas. There have been some attempts to address that. In 2007, Congress Passed the stringent ethics laws dealing with lobbying in response to the scandal coming from republican lobbyist jack a vermont Jack Abramoff. The caller was trying to address contact should be disclosed between the lobbyist and the lawmaker. That wasnt really addressed in the 2007 law. There is a separate law if you are representing a Foreign Government or Foreign Political Party or foreign entity. Your contact is disclosed, or it is supposed to be, and that is the agent registration act. There has been some effort to say, hey, we should have contact disclosed between lawmakers and lobbyists on the domestic level under the lobbying disclosure act, which is the main law governing want lobbying in washington. It is not a great law. Many people consider it pretty weak. That is a problem here in washington. You could add some more sunlight and transparency on the practices of k street. Number two, basically addressing the revolving door getting back to the jack abram off Jack Abramoff scandal. He said that we pretty much offered a job to a staffer once he left capitol hill. Then at that point, he was ours. Which is pretty disconcerting to hear. I think that is something to think about. Essentially, our coolingoff periods are in place for senators for two years, for house members, one year. Staffers are not allowed to lobby their former boss for about one or two years depending on what chamber they come from. Essentially, you have some attempts to address some of the problems you brought up, but they have not been i think at least in the eyes of the american public, they havent been nearly successful as of yet. Host Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper, joining us to talk about lobbying victories in 2013, here to take your calls and questions. 202 5853880 democrats can call at. Democrats can call at 202 5853880. Republicans at 202 5853881. In dependence independents at 202 5853882. The human rights campaign, freedom to marry and freedom to work noting it has been a banner year for gay rights advocates. I want you to talk about number nine on the list, federal employee unions. Guest essentially, what happened with federal employees this year was they went through some tough times, had furloughs, the sequester ate into government pay for federal workers. When that happened, they held rallies, they talked to lawmakers, they really got their champions on capitol hill up in arms, talking about members from maryland and Northern Virginia who have a lot of federal workers in their districts raising these issues in congress and at the white house. So, they did end up having some success this year. They grumbled about the budget deal. The key thing about the budget deal is it only eats into Retirement Benefits for new federal workers. It leaves retirement alone for current federal workers. That was a pretty big victory considering what was on the table when those discussions began. Getting the twoyear reprieve in he the sequester is also a big thing for federal workers. And you also have to give them some credit after the Government Shutdown. They won backpay. That has happened after every Government Shutdown, but there was a question this time considering the climate of austerity and the angst against Government Spending. They had a number of small but significant victories in a time that has been pretty tough for them. Host looking at your list, three of the top four lobbying victories are from the conservative monied interests. Imagine that. Imagine that. Does the hill break down whether conservative or liberal whetherl races conservative groups or progressive groups did better in their lobbying efforts . Guest we are nonpartisan. I dont think we are keeping score on, this is a republican or democratic victory. I think what we try to do when we figure out the lobbying victories is when somebody really won a close battle and did exceptionally well i think that is why we have the National Rifle association and other gun rights groups. It seemed very light very much like we would get gun control legislation, and we didnt. Youve got to give them some credit. They lobbied hard. They pushed lawmakers. They got out in front of cameras and made their case. They basically were able to go against the white house, congress, including republicans, and, frankly, a media that was very upset over what happened in newtown and thought action needed to be taken. Host were lobbyists involved in the bill that happened over the holiday to prevent the Government Shutdown . Guest i think that must be referring to the spending bill. Im sure that lobbying on spending is one of the most lobbied if not the most lobbied issue in washington. Lobbyists were definitely working that bill, trying to make sure that the Government Programs that their clients favorite are getting funding that they need. On top of that, they are troubling probably trying to make sure there are no policy riders attached to the bill that will hurt or possibly help their clients. If congress was working on something, k street is also working on it. Host an email, as long as we have politicians who need to read large sums of money for their reelection to raise large sums of money for their reelection campaigns we will never truly have a government for the people. How can the average donor compete with those who can donate millions of dollars to a Political Campaign . Guest the best thing you can do as an average voter is get involved, stay engaged, know where your lawmaker is. Lobbyists have said this to me. It is one of the most influential things to sway a lawmaker one way or another on a particular policy is outreach, contact from constituents. Organize voters in your lawmakers district. Get them to speak out on whatever issue that is. One voice may not be much, but several voices, hundreds, thousands of voices can matter a lot. Its a big part of lobbying campaigns today. Lobbyists the traditional lobbying the people and vision, whichle envision definitely still happens, the facetoface meetings the people envision, which definitely still happens, the facetoface meetings on capitol hill a lot of groups try to organize grassroots campaigns from districts that they want to try to sway. Thats a big voice you have an and something you can get going to influence policy in washington you have and something you can get going to influence policy in washington. Host good morning. Caller good morning. It is not required through the law that a representative, political representative, has to respond to a petition. Host you dont think members of Congress Want that engagement from constituents . Caller not individual constituents. They dont have to respond to a letter or any form of communication. They dont have to respond. They could send a boilerplate response that could be a response to any issue. It is not required by law. Host do you think members of Congress Respond to all the lobbying efforts that they get in their office . Caller the paid lobbying efforts, of course. Thats where the money is. Host Kevin Bogardus, i will let you jump in. Guest pat has a point. Lobbying is a multibillion dollar industry. Essentially, companies, trade groups, unions are not paying lobbyists thinking they are getting no result. Essentially, lawmakers do very much respond to lobbyists. You can see that from the policy sometimes that comes out on capitol hill. I think he has a point. Maybe one constituent may not be able to sway a lawmaker. But if youre able to organize and have a number of constituents speak out to a lawmaker, people will definitely hear. See the effect on the Affordable Care act from the concern, sometimes outright anger at it. The bill took a long time to pass because voters at town hall 2009,gs, in august, towards passage of the bill, really made their concerns known and showed up and really gave one or two to the lawmakers. You do have a voice. Essentially, it is one that can be amplified and enhanced by the more people you find who agree with you. Host back to your list of lobbying winners for 2013, you list the oil and gas industry as one of the winners. How did they win in 2013 . Guest essentially what happened in 2013 is the American Petroleum institute and other groups in the Food Processing industry and so on were really concerned about the ethanol mandate. It is a mandate for government to blend a certain amount of ethanol into gasoline. Happened i think for the first time the epa decided we are actually going to lower the thinge, which is a big and was kind of a huge statement and something that was really cheered by the oil and gas industries. Host meaning less ethanol in gasoline and more oil. Guest exactly. Being blended into gasoline and more oil coming back in the gasoline. The higheroups the blend was getting, the harder it was to make this work. It is something where they made their case to the White House Administration and it really made a difference. Host lets go to florence waiting in magnolia, new jersey, on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on with Kevin Bogardus of the hill. Caller i came in in the middle of this. Suchoblem is we are in deep deficit that you know we can never pay that off. Why do they continue giving our government officials their huge paychecks even when they leave . Why dont they get a job, pay their own insurance . Why do they continue . I can understand the pension, but that is not a pension. Host Kevin Bogardus, are there groups that lobby on this subject, for reform of congressional pay . Guest it is a very politically potent issue. You see members of the congress against their own pay raises some time. We have added few instances over the past couple of years we have had a few instances over the past couple of years. There is a monument that lawmakers and their staff dont get paid enough to that is there is some argument that lawmakers and their staff go get paid enough. Paying a quarter of a million to half 1 million to a lawmaker host in terms of after they leave congress. Guest thats a huge incentive for someone to leave capitol hill and use their expertise on behalf of an Interest Group or company. Host whats the current rule on how long you have to wait before you can become a lobbyist after being a member of congress . Guest i think where that is at the moment is a house member has to wait about a year and a senator has to wait about two years. What happens, though, which is pretty interesting, a lot of these lawmakers actually never registered to lobby. They never disclose a are a lobbyist in the lobbying disclose that they are a lobbyist in the lobbying disclosure act, but they sign on as a Senior Advisor or a strategic counselor, names like that. They might not have any direct contact with their former colleagues, but a use their knowledge to mastermind but they use their knowledge to mastermind a lobbying campaign, almost like the man behind the green curtain in the wizard of oz. Some people dont think when they talk to their fellow colleagues that they are necessarily lobbying. Industry to hard keep track of. There are people always looking that, dof i do this or i have to disclose under the law . Most People Choose not to disclose under the law if they think they can do that. Host we have a couple of minutes left with Kevin Bogardus of the hill newspaper, author lobbyingory on top victories in 2013. The hill also puts out its list of the top lobbyists of 2013. You can see that at thehill. Com. Anthony is waiting in palm beach on our independent line. Good morning. Go ahead. You are on washington journal. Caller im going way off subject, but this is an important matter. [indiscernible] the president has done nothing about this. The Vice President , i spoke to him at a meeting they said they are working on it. [indiscernible] host we are staying on the subject of lobbying. I appreciate your call this morning. It might be something we pick up in another segment of washington journal. William is waiting in st. Paul, minnesota, on our line for independents. Caller good morning. How are you doing . William. Ahead, we are listening. Say, whenjust want to the gentleman called in about the individual citizen lobbying congress i like the answer you gave him, but i think that is pretty pathetic. What we have is a congress that controls lobbyist is controlled by lobbyists. Everybody knows it. An individual citizen is lost. He american citizen has no say in their government except for elections the american citizen has no say in their government except for elections. Host i will give you the last minute that we have here on washington journal. Uest thanks for the call i appreciated. I think that angst and discussed about the way congress operates and disgust about the way congress operates is common. I can understand that feeling. Ask lobbyistsyou or business groups, a lot of people on k street did not want the government to shut down i would say almost all of them did not want the government to shut down. Did not and it was a smart they did not think it was the smart move. When you ask lawmakers why it happened, a lot of people said voters were upset. People in my district, constituents did not want the Affordable Care act to happen. The shutdown was part of this strategy to try to make that happen. It didnt work. The Affordable Care act is going forward. Essentially, i think that was the response to constituents and voters and something that really wasnt responsive to k street. You can see even now in 2013, congress, washington was responsive to voters. Host Kevin Bogardus is with the hill newspaper. You can see his work at thehill. Com on the next washington talks, peter wehner about the strengths and weaknesses of american conservatism. After that, jennifer lawless talks about women in politics. Plus, your emails, phone calls, and tweets. Washington journal is live starting at 7 a. M. Daily on c span. Later today, watch an encore presentation of q a with your volvo then. Levin. L here is some of what he had to say. Before some timber 11, 1 of the big issues that the new president faced was the question of whether and how the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research. It would involve the destruction of human embryos, which too many is taking the which to many people is taking of the human life. The president made a decision in which he was advised by leon kass among others that said you could spend money on lines of cells that already existed among not on new ones. You would not be using federal dollars to encourage the further destruction of human embryos. In the course of announcing a decision, he said, these kinds of issues are going to stay with us. They are not going away and we need help in thinking about them. He called together a group of 18 almosts, all of them all of them academics at different universities who would come together several times of year and consider some challenging all is a question that had implications. And provide advice in the form of publications, reports. And that is what they did. They wrote a report on cloning, on stem cell research, on enhancement technologies. And on ways of enhancing human abilities. They wrote reports on caring for the aging. And othermentia related issues. I think the council did very important work. It is important work in the long run. The effect on Public Policy is very hard to judge. The president pulled that counsel together after he had already made a stem cell decision, so they did not shape that decision. While i think their work was useful in a number of ways at particular junctures were those kind of questions were central, theyre more important lasting influence is in the reports. Watch all of that later today at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. And more live coverage of the discussion on immigration policy tomorrow from american university. The morning session figured features eric rodriguez, Vice President of the National Council of lebron is a of la raza. And in the afternoon, jack. Artin of fair both are excited to discuss whether they think Immigration Reform can be cap can be passed in both houses of congress. Month, the ninth Circuit Court of appeals in San Francisco heard a case concerning the constitutionality of californias mandatory collection of dna samples from those arrested on suspicion of a felony, whether or not that person is charged. In 2009, Police Arrested Elizabeth Haskell at a rally of the against the iraqi war. She was forced to give a cheek swab. Although she was released without charges, her dna is now stored in a did a bang. This is a little more than an hour. Good afternoon. Please be seated. Were here for the argument of haskell versus harris. Judge gould is appearing by video. Good afternoon judge gould, can you hear me . Good afternoon. You are coming through loud and clear. Are we coming through . Great. I can hear you fine. Okay, counsel ready . You may proceed. Good afternoon. For the plaintiffs, id ask to reserve five minutes for the rebuttal. You have the clock. Youll have what is left over. May it please the court, this case is fundamentally different from king because californias law applies to people who are never charged with an offense and those who are discharged from lack of probable cause. Under mclaughlin and gerstein. There is nothing that can justify taking d. N. A. From these individuals who are not being prosecuted. All of kings interest relate to tracking people as they go through the criminal Justice System up through trial. Counsel, i respect the sincerity of your view, but the reality is the Supreme Court said in king that d. N. A. Was like fingerprinting. If all of the things that you say about your particular clients are true, they would still nonetheless be fingerprinted and their fingerprints retained in a National Data base just like the d. N. A. How do you distinguish that . The court made it very clear several times that d. N. A. And fingerprints are of the same, constitutionally one is a more modern technology. That is not how i read the case. D. N. A. Is different from fingerprints. D. N. A. Is our genetic blueprint. Fingerprints have a history of being used to identify people, they do an excellent job of that. People who are arrested can be identified within minutes using their fingerprints. None of this is true with respect to d. N. A. And if the court had simply wanted to say there is no problem using d. N. A. Anytime our system wants to use fingerprints whether its in the criminal Justice System or applying for a drivers license it could have said. So instead king as required by other cases engages in a new totality of the circumstances balancing test and only after doing that decides that d. N. A. Can be appropriately used in certain circumstances. Counsel, are you challenging the initial taking of the d. N. A. Or the subsequent use . It seems to me that on page 21 of the Supreme Courts opinion, the court wrote the additional intrusion upon the arrestees privacy beyond that associated with fingerprinting is not significant and d. N. A. Is a markedly more accurate form of identifying arrestees. I read that to means the okay to take the d. N. A. At the time of arrest which is what happened to mr. King as part of the booking process. Isnt your argument really what the police do subsequent to the taking of the sample . Yes. Under king the government may take d. N. A. At arrest for people arrested for serious crimes. However it cannot analyze or otherwise use that d. N. A. Unless formal charges are filed and there is a judicial finding of probable cause to believe that the defendant is in fact guilty of a serious offense. You say it has to be a serious crime but the examples that Justice Kennedy used were in making the point about utility of d. N. A. Was the 9 11 terrorists and timothy mcveigh, both of whom were arrested or picked up, stopped on very minor charges. Seems the thrust of the majority opinion is that d. N. A. No matter how it comes into the possession of the government in terms of an arrest is an incredibly valuable tool. I know they use the term serious offense, but its a little hard to understand rationale of the majority opinion being limited to just serious offenses when they make the point using two examples of nonserious offenses. They do. But of course the reference to mcveigh comes from a quote from florence v. Board of chosen freeholders. I think the significance to that quote is if they are encountering them in a traffic stop. But it does not allow them to take d. N. A. From every jaywalker or speeder. Justice scalia i cant comment on the way he reads it he says at page 1989 when there comes before us the taking of d. N. A. From an arrestee from a traffic violation, the court will predictably and quite rightly say we can find no difference between this case and king. Make no mistake about it as a consequence of todays decision your d. N. A. Can be taken and entered into a National Data base if you are ever arrested rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason. He was in the conference and heard what the majority decided, and thats how he reads it. How can we read it otherwise . I think its fair to say that Justice Scalie and the majority read the Fourth Amendment and the interest involved in this case quite differently. I agree. But the reality is Justice Scalia was interpreting the majority opinion which is what controls us here as what he said. And if he is correct in his construction then you are out of luck, are you not . No, because the fundamental distinction between this case and king goes not to the seriousness of the offense. The fundamental distinction here is california is taking d. N. A. From people who are never charged with a crime or discharged for lack of probable cause. He says it doesnt matter if they are ever arrested. He says if you are arrested rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason. So i would respectfully suggest i dont see how you can justify your point. I get your point about what is done with it afterwards, but i dont about the seriousness of the offense or anything of that nature because Justice Scalia makes it very clear about what the majority meant and its not what you mean. Could you clarify one thing . Yes. In king, i understood the situation to be that they could only collect the sample after the individual had been charged as opposed to simply just rrested, is that right . Thats an ambiguity in king. King repeatedly says that. Thats the question presented, people arrested and charged. But if you go to the regulations that the