Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160808

Visit ncicap. Org] over the weekend, the green party held their annual convention nominating dr. Jill stein as their president ial nominee. Acceptance speech, she talks about criminal justice issues and lays out what she calls a Green New Deal to transferred to renewable energy. We will show you the entirety of 55 p. M. Eech at 6 eastern. Republican president ial nominee donald trump laying out his p. M. , andgenda at 8 at 8 30 p. M. , on book tv, political memoirs. And then on American History tv, our series, the contenders, looking at candidates who ran for and lost the presidency. And we will look at the Economic Performance of red and blue states and which states have been better off with tax rates, education levels, and household incomes. After that, Peter Gleason toward at recent efforts corporate governance. Washington journal is live every day at 7 a. M. Eastern. Month from congress returning, three months away from election day. Particularly for members of the u. S. House, they have to balance reelection and traditional meetings in their jurisdictions. Lots of postings about town hall meetings. Upcoming conversation coming up tomorrow, tuesday, and the ninth of august. Some members lots of tours of factories and other locales focusing on issues, like in this case, Border Security with mike mccall, the chairman of the Homeland Security committee and senator john cornyn of texas. In fact, they shot some video there. Lives of matter. Every day, they put their lives on the line. With theere today border not too far away. We know the threats are coming across the border as well. Willhis legislation essentially stand so we have more of this active Shooter Training throughout the United States and in hill. Go county. Triage thell help elements of Law Enforcement and ,mergency responders and medics so the funding can go towards a comprehensive effort. And north dakotas republican congressman kevin cramer during that big state with a posting with kramer ine jamestown, talking about health care, the v. A. , federal lands, national security. You can follow members of congress as well just go to we have members of congress lists. Again, we have members of congress m and back a month from now, and politics very much on etroots natione n members. They talked about what is next for their Political Revolution. This next panel consists of Bernie Sanders supporters there are three of them running for office this fall. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. All right, lets get started. I want to thank everybody for coming today. We are going to have a question and answer session as we move into this. We want to start off by giving everybody a chance to introduce themselves, tell you a tiny bit about themselves, and we will get into moderating questions and open up for all of you. First, i want to thank you very much for being here, especially at 9 00 a. M. If you were like me, you are up extremely late last night and this is really super early. Thank you for taking the time to come here and participate. With that in mind, i would like to get each panelist the chance to briefly introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about why they are here, starting with Alexander Rojas from Brandnew Congress. Alexandra all right, so, hello, everyone. My name is alexandra. I worked on the Burning Campaign as a Digital Field manager on the organizing team shortly after, Brandnew Congress is not an old concept. We have been talking about it for quite some time. It is not necessarily a new idea, so it was a good place for me to go next after bernie and just sort of a background, i am still in progress was going to 21, school. But bernie, as many volunteers, has just consumed. Im now into political organizing as well as activism. Great. Have state senator maria mariacde all chappellenadal. I am in the second term of my time in the senate with the missouri senate. It was a pleasure to endorse bernie. I think i did that in may, a little bit later because i wanted to have an opportunity to really listen to the issues that impact the community that i represent, which is ferguson. Ms. Chappellenadal i heard the message loud and clear, and decided to endorse bernie because we needed to go in a new direction and people who have been voiceless for so long deserved champions who are not only in congress, but also in the white house. Excellent. Thank you. We also have misty snow, who is a democratic candidate for the u. S. Senate in utah. Shes also the first transgender candidate to win the democratic primary nomination. Misty. hello. I am running for u. S. Senate in the state of utah. Its the first time i have run for office, so a lot of people were surprised. I entered the race late. He was really wrong on a lot of important issues. He was a selfdescribed conservative democrat. I felt we need to nominate people who are actually going to stand up like things that benefit things like womens reproductive rights, the lgbt community, a living wage, reforming our criminal Justice System, which disproportionately incarcerates people of color and issues like that he was completely silent on or liked to on. The republican position i challenged him for the nomination and i just won the primary a couple weeks ago, on june 20, and i am happy to be here today. Thank you all for coming to see this panel and thank you for hoping organize this and inviting me and other people to it. Thank you. Mr. Chamberlain excellent. Thank you. Finally, we have come with alan grayson, running for u. S. And it in florida and was reasonably a reasonably early bernie supporter. Alan . Mr. Grayson we invited people to come not only to vote for the two candidates, but also to explain why. The vote came in at 86 bernie, 14 secretary clinton. Bernie sanders supporters clearly want to see fundamental change in the country and understand that the system is rigged and we need some but he we need somebody as a leader who is going to change that. Thank you. Mr. Chamberlain in charles chamberlain, the executive director of democracy for america. We are an organization that started 12 years ago after governor howard dean ran for president. We started a longterm organization of which since then, we have elected over 846 candidates to congress, to office up and down the ballot across this country, raised over 50 million for candidates and, specifically, with the Bernie Sanders campaign, we endorsed very early, raised 1. 8 million for him, our members participated in over 115,000 phone banks. Over 115,000hat phone banks helping to make 75 , million phone calls during the course of the campaign, which is an outrageously awesome number and is one of the reasons why the media was not capable of killing the campaign, and we played a very important part in that. We really appreciated being able to do that. It seems like a perfect way to continue on the work of what democracy for america is all about, which is fighting up and down the ballot across the entire country. What you are here for today is what are the Political Revolution . We have got really great candidates. Bernie is no longer a candidate for the presidency, technically, that will be true in a few weeks. Since he has endorsed hillary, i think we can say that pretty confidently. We have Political Revolution candidates up and down the ballot who are in a position to make headway for the Political Revolution as soon as the Upcoming Elections that are happening right now. That said, this is definitely a longterm movement. If you look at the work of what democracy for america has done, this is 12 years later, after a very similar, exciting grassroots president ial campaign that motivated and empowered the grassroots across this country. We are still around 12 years later, and bigger than ever, doing incredible work. Im excited to see what happens as the Political Revolution moves forward. I can only imagine. The only won one state, vermont. The only about 500,000 people at our largest point, for example, on our email list. The Sanders Campaign won 22 states. They knocked on 5 million doors. That is pretty amazing. Just imagine what that is going to mean as we continue to move forward. I want to put some questions to our panelists here. It is pretty straight forward. I would like to start with you, what lesson you think we can than from the Sanders Campaign as we move forward right now, and maybe longterm . Ms. Rojas i would say the biggest lesson that i learned from both starting off as a volunteer and entering the campaign is to have trust in grassroots organizing and your volunteers. This movement would not be possible without the millions of people and volunteers that stepped up and demanded change. Regardless if bernie is not going to be our president , for the generation that was able to watch bernie and hillary debate, it shows that people are powerful. I want to emphasize the amount of trust we had within the Bernie Sanders campaign, relate and relied on grassroots volunteers to do the bulk of the work. Mr. Chamberlain great, so maria, you are running for congress locally here against lacy clay . What are some of the lessons if you like you have learned from the Sanders Campaign that actually apply directly to the campaign you are running right now . Chappellenadal i love this question. Just be real. Talk to people. Have a relationship with people were on the ground. Communicate, translate. Something that happened, i think all of you know about it, it is called ferguson, the ferguson uprising. Our congressman did not show up until day seven. That was four days after tear gassing and two days after buildings burning. And congress was on a fiveweek break. Congress takes a fiveweek break every august. I am dealing with a challenger who is riding on the coattails of his father. Between the two of them, they have served for 40 years in years in congress, one family 48 that has served for 48 years. When things went down in our community, that was like one of my first wakeup calls that we have some serious, serious issues that are going on, and we need someone who is present, not only someone with president , but someone was willing to communicate the challenges that people live every single day and to be unafraid to communicate those challenges. When i said, at the very beginning, be real, people want to hear the truth. Despite who you piss off people are going to be thankful for that. I will give a little filibuster. I learned that this year. 39our filibuster on lgbt writes [applause] ms. Chappellenadal thank you. We got into another crisis, and it is radioactive waste that has been in our community for seven generations, sorry, seven decades. Our congressman has not done anything. I was serving as a School Board Member and a state senator because i wanted to my community that i live in. I resigned from the school board when i found out the number of cancer clusters that we have in the area that i represented and he represents. All of a sudden, get this wakeup call. I should visit st. Louis. There is nothing more pitiful than having an Absentee Congress member. You know, he grew up in maryland. He went to Elementary School in maryland. He went to middle school in maryland. He went to high school in maryland. He went to college in maryland. All of a sudden, there was a seat that was open in st. Louis, and he ran for a special election. Then, there was another seat that was open, and he ran for a special election. Then, his dad resigned, and he ran for congress. He has been living in maryland for quite a long time. You know i think what is , important, what bernie brought to the table is that you should always be among your people and speak the truth. If you make a mistake here and there, you know, you are speaking the language of the people. Never be afraid of speaking the language of the people. Someone will understand, and we deal with racial issues pretty badly here in st. Louis and in missouri, and i thought at one point in time, there are a lot of white folks who were upset with me for translating the issues that my constituents were concerned with, but when i found i was that they were also grateful for me standing up because they saw that the silence that we had been living and breathing for quite a long time is the same type of silence that they had been dealing with when it came to radioactive waste contamination where children getting sick. Sorry. Mr. Chamberlain i was not trying to cut you off in the middle of your sentence. You are saying it is not just about truth, you are saying it is about action. When you have some who is an absentee not getting done what they need to get done, you need some of the to stand up and take action and do work, which makes a lot of sense. Mr. Chamberlain one of the things that is really barrier smashing about the Sanders Campaign manager way in which it repetitively, over and over again broke conventional wisdom. One of the big ways i think conventional wisdom was broken was the concept of, you have to run to the mill to get independence. What we really saw was that actually, independents wanting able, articulated vision, they are not looking for the middle. They are looking for somebody that inspires them. When you look at a 22 point victory in new hampshire, it was based entirely on that because it was the independence of give at 22 point victory. So, i think that is a really interesting way in which it smashes conventional wisdom. I think it is a great lead in to you, misty. There is the idea that theres no way a democrat can win utah. What, i have a guess as to where you are going ahead with this, what do you think you can learn from the Sanders Campaign and how is it going to impact your race as you move forward . Ms. Snow you have to speak what you believe in, kind of be honest about your beliefs, do not do this moderate, saying one thing and doing another thing. They want honesty. A lot of people are frustrated with politics as usual. He want to see change. The state of utah, theres a reputation of being conservative, but it is a really young state. If you look at the population about 18 and over, it is the youngest state in the nation. The problem with utah is that Voter Participation is really low. 2014 election, state of utah had about 28. 8 turnout rate, the Second Lowest after texas. A lot of democrats and democratic voters, they feel like there is not a choice because Utah Democratic Party for a long time has nominated these selfdescribed conservative democrats who are prolife, antilgbt, prowar, almost indistinguishable from republicans. Then, they end up losing by 30 point margins because they do not appeal, they do not offer an alternative. Its important to offer a real alternative to republicans. We are going to be a, as democrats, we are going to stand up for a living wage, womens rights, the lgbt community, affordable college, try to address our racist criminal Justice System which leads to people of color being disproportionately stops, searched, arrested, charged, convicted, incarcerated. Look at the future instead of trying to think about these old ideas, and saying the things people honestly, a lot of people want politicians to say. The guy i am running against, mike lee, is not that popular in utah. He has a 38 approval rating. A lot of people think he is going to win the election. People have understated me. A lot of people thought i would never win the primary. I won the primary by 19 margin despite being outspent four to one. [applause] mr. Chamberlain the won because you speak the truth. Ms. Snow the issues i was talking about really resonate with voters. Mike lee has like one million dollars, which is not a lot for a senate race, but a lot of people dont think it is competitive. There no donations coming in. I think, with pension, a lot of people are realizing that the Bernie Sanders movement, the next step in the Political Revolution is we have to start supporting candidates down the ballot, like the senator from utah has just as much power over your lives as a senator from florida or vermont. If we want to change our dialogue as a nation, we me to get more progressives elected throughout the country no matter where they are from. More progressives you have in congress, the easier it is to support a Progressive Agenda and to start fighting for the policies that Bernie Sanders talks about. We want to have a 15 minimum wage, affordable college, reform, and more progressives in congress. Every victory you get is another vote, and i think that is the lesson we need to learn and i think that is where we need to go forward. Mr. Chamberlain excellent, thank you. [applause] mr. Chamberlain sort of continuing on this theme of this conventional wisdom of the idea that in red states or purple states, that somehow, im a democrats win better by being more moderate or conservative, nobody on this panel has probably experienced that conventional wisdom more strongly than congressman alan grayson because he is somebody that is actually elected in bc and working with the establishment every day. We have seen organs to them, as the case may be. [laughter] mr. Chamberlain we have seen the entire establishment is sort of working against you, much like with bernie from the president on down having endorsed youre absolutely terrible opponent. Were not even talking about your general election opponent yet, were talking about your absolutely terrible opponent in the primary. I would love to hear, what do you feel about, what have you learned from the Sanders Campaign manager are taking and implementing in your senate race, and how are you commanding that mention a wisdom . Mr. Grayson im pleased to see there is an audience for progressivism. The Senate Campaign is the most successful progressive president ial campaign in the last 50 years. If anything deserves applause, it is that. Right . [applause] grayson it gives us hope that the Democratic Party can still be the home of progressivism. There has been doubt about that for the last several decades. It seems that there is room the qualities of justice, equality, compassion, and peace. Theres consensus in a large swath of the party that the system is rigged, and something needs to be done about it. Voters want elections to be about something. We have gotten into this rut in america were political discourse consists entirely of ad hominem attacks. There no doubt that both candidates are evil because all we have seen as negative ads about them for literally weeks upon month. That is not what people want. One thing we remember from the Sanders Campaign is him saying, enough about the damn emails. People want to hear about what we want to do to make our lives better collectively and how the law can accomplish that. That is a message that is fundamentally a progressive message. When the system is broken, we need to take the system over and change the laws, change the rules in order to make things better. The other thing we have learned from the Sanders Campaign is this. The democracy is not quite dead yet. Were not quite at the point where the oligarchy gets everything will thing it wants. The Sanders Campaign established a new paradigm in the wake of Citizens United regarding Campaign Finance and that turned out to be very important. Before he ran for president , senator sanders was the only member of the senate who raised most of his Campaign Funds from small donors. For two cycles in a row now, i was the only house member out of 435 of us to raise most of my Campaign Funds from small donors. Now, we saw that happen at the president ial level. While the campaign was actually going on, senator sanders actually outraised everyone else. What we see is that there is an alternative way to run for president for senate. Im the only Senate Candidate in the entire country raising most of his money from small donors, 150,000 contributions already and if you want to go to my website, senatorwithguts. Com and make a contribution, i will not stop you. This is what we need. I look around the chamber of the house and i see 434 other members who are largely bought and bossed by special interests. Democracy just cannot survive that way. After the Citizens United decision, i was in the courtroom when it was rendered and i was on msnbc that night and i said that if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye. The Sanders Campaign is a sign that we are doing something, that there is a possibility that we can have a functional democracy in this country, and i find that very encouraging. Thank you. [applause] mr. Chamberlain so, continuing on that theme, alan, what do we need to do to get the party to get it and to catch on to the critical aspects of the policy fight, the vision for america . So often the Democratic Party makes the decision to say, look at the other guy, he is terrible, we are not quite as bad, so vote for us. Midterm elections, often running as republicanlite instead of real values. Those are losing battles, we have lost over and over again with that. You look at 2014, we won races where it was a bloodbath across the board for democrats. They talked about a vision for america, jeff merkley, al franken, brian schatz, those of the people who won. How do we do it . How do we convince them, if winning is not enough to convince them, how do we break through and make that happen . Rep. Grayson i think there is little to no hope of that happening. It is appalling to me to see how corporate bought and paid for democrats completely control the process. You are right that i have been attacked mainly because i am a progressive and they want to see a right wing bought and paid for wall street democrat running against marco rubio instead of someone like me. He cannot possibly win on the issues, so what they do is attack me personally. They are not very good at all at defeating republicans. They do have a certain flair for getting under the skin of democrats. And finding ways to try to undermine progressive democrats when we run for office and we have seen that all around the country. Donna Edwards Campaign is a good example of that. I could give you other examples as well. I dont think these people are ever going to wake up and realize what they are doing is foolish and will cost us 900 legislative seats around the country just in the past six years alone. I think it is time for a new generation, somebody like Elizabeth Warren, who knows the public is with us. I introduced a bill to expand medicare to eyes, ears and teeth. The party adopted platform to extend the xm bank. Which is corporate welfare only for foreign corporations. In the same way that the Democratic Party is now in the process of adopting a platform and thank goodness for bernie fighting as hard as he did, and withholding his endorsement until he was satisfied with the result, we have a platform in the house of representatives, and the number one item on that platform is defeating isis. Im sorry, but in my district, where the average wages are 12 an hour, people are way more interested in the 15 minimum wage than they are in defeating isis. That is just the way it is. The entire leadership, nancy pelosi aside, the entire leadership of the party has now been corrupted by money, it is completely to its own failures time after time. It is not interested in polling. It showed that when you actually ask the public, where you stand on issues, on solid, specific progressive proposals . Overwhelmingly, the public is with us, the leadership is not with us. My only hope is to have the leadership replaced. Mr. Chamberlain we just need a complete and total overhaul. We have got to elect new candidates across the board. Which is why mistys fantastic example of taking on republicans i feel like, i feel you want to say coming else. Rep. Grayson in my lifetime, i think the most progress that the party ever made was when howard dean was in charge of it. We need an outsider [applause] rep. Grayson we need an outsider could come into the party and to recognize that it is the progressive values that propel it to victory. Mr. Chamberlain we have got to bring candidate talking about pushing that in new ways and a third candidate whos doing it in an open primary, but we also have Brand New Congress where your actual mission is to replace everybody. Right . Can you tell us a little bit about how you are you planning to do that . Yeah. A Brandnew Congress is an idea that former staffers and volunteers came together with. Ms. Rojas it has been in the making for at least a decade. If you guys are familiar with zac, its a unified National Campaign to elect 400 plus candidates. The reason we say 400 plus is, and this is for the 2018 elections, we have some existing members that i think we should stay in there, as well as others that will jump on board if we give them a reason to. We are aiming to generate the same amount of volunteerism, small dollar donations by funding people through the Online Fundraising with one website, and get people excited about running those 400 candidates, and for 2018, sweeping congress that way. Mr. Chamberlain is there anybody who is going to qualify as already being good enough . Or every race, everybody everywhere has to be removed . Alan really wants to know the answer to that question. Rojas well, theres people like senator sanders and Elizabeth Warren who have consistently shown that they fight very hard for progressive values, and what their constituents really want, what the American People want. That is why we say 400 plus, in addition to the fact that it is sort of wonky with the way that different cycles work on that sort of thing. Mr. Chamberlain i want to open it up for you all to ask questions. We have microphones. We would like you to come up to the microphones. So you know in advance, the microphone actually will not be amplifying you internally. They are for the recording. Anybody who would like to answer question, get up and get in line at one of the two mics. We will get to you in just a moment. While people are doing that, i do want to ask, maria, you have taken on the mantle of being a sanders democrat in your race. What has that meant . Before i say that, i love your breakfast of champions right here with the red can of mountain dew. That is a sign of a candidate that is definitely working hard, when youre starting at 9 00 a. M. With a mountain dew. Ms. Chappellenadal this is my second one. [laughter] mr. Chamberlain excellent. What does it mean to be a sanders democrat in your campaign so far . Ms. Chappellenadal there are so many people who are on the ground, running, who have been inspired either by ferguson or by Bernie Sanders. What i have chosen to do in my senate life is to support many of the candidates who are running on a progressive platform. Before, there was this movement for congress. Im doing a movement here in st. Louis for progressives so we can take out some of these establishment democrats do nothing and dont show up. Sen. Chappellenadal that is what i am doing. I have my own Bernie Movement right here and i happened to be the legacy i want to leave here in st. Louis because we need younger people in inspired people, and people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work. What it means is challenging your party as often as possible, as a senator, i do that. If there is enough room for a prolife democrat in the senate, there is enough room for a ferguson democrat in the senate. And in congress. [applause] mr. Chamberlain misty, anything to add on that, what it means to be a sanders democrat running in utah . Ms. Snow the issue is about fighting for things like living wage and affordable college. Utah is the youngest the in the nation. We have more millennials per capita. A lot of people make a lot of media deal about me being the first trans person elected in the senate, but i would also be the first millennial, and the first woman from utah. There would be a couple other firsts that are more important than the fact that i am trans. I happen to be trans. I just happened to be that way. I wanted to put these issues out there. I wanted to give a voice to important issues that were not getting voiced in the utah democrat party, because nobody was talking about things like the 15 and the 15 minimum wage or reproductive rights. Some people told me that they voted for me at the convention because im the only candidate even talking about issues affecting people of color. Theres a huge silence in utah party, utah democratic issues affecting people of color. I got a lot of respect for that because i know there are important issues, but there is 79 white we do have our prison population that is disproportionately minority. We have the problem of black teenagers getting shot by police. Have a kid, 17, shot by police. He did not die. He was severely injured. Hes not ever going to be the same because of the injury. That is an issue. Its not just an issue that happens. It happened in my own city in Salt Lake City where unarmed lacked teenagers are being shot by police. It happened in my own city installing city. We need to really adjust the way we do our policing in this country. We need to reform our courts and our entire system. Its a huge problem. I want to give a voice to a lot of these issues because what i find is that these issues really resonate even in utah because in utah there is a lot of people who care about these issues, a lot of also young people who have not really got involved in the political process but are getting excited, they got excited in march. A lot of people i think are getting excited about me because im talking about a lot of the same issues. Im hoping to get a lot to support me in the fall because i think we can i won the primary. I got 30 of the vote. 50 ,was pulling 37 to which might seem bad. Six candidate got 31 of the vote. Getting 37 in the june poll is really good in utah. I feel like we can close the gap , especially if i can content can continue to build name recognition and fundraising. Hopefully, that will continue. Mr. Chamberlain great. my opponent, mike lee, got a lot of money from wall street. I would like to not have to do that. Bernie sanders has the right idea. You can do it from small donations. He dont need to take bribes from corporations. Mr. Chamberlain thats another great pitch heading to someones website. Ms. Snow mistyksnow. Com mr. Chamberlain talk into the mic. Please do that. It will not actually amplify your vote and put by your voice. Please talk loud. Good morning. How are you ladies and gentlemen doing this morning . I would like to wish you well on your campaigns. This is my question. How do you propose to make sure Health Care Workers get health care within the state if you work 10 hours a week and a minimum wage here is 7. 65, you dont qualify for benefits. Mr. Chamberlain this sounds like a great question for you, maria. Sen. Cllenadal happellenadal let me address one of the differences with the Establishment Party that i am a member of. It was suggested by our caucus that we file a minimum wage bill of 10. 10. I refused to sign onto that bill. I would be recalled if i filed that. I filed the 15 minimum wage increase this year and i said i cannot hold my head up and go back home knowing that i signed onto a minimum wage increase of only 10. 10. The second thing, i am looking at your tshirt. For the last 12 years, i have been a huge proponent of home care workers, and let me tell you why. I used to work for the lieutenant governor, we did an assessment on Nursing Homes and people who are in their homes. More people of color stay in their homes as they age. We are looking at that population of people, the folks who are serving those individuals as well in those pockets. It is absolutely true that you do not, and are, do not, get paid a livable wage whatsoever for the work that you do. I am guessing you are a member of seiu. All right. Fastestgrowing union in the country. They are also one of the unions that have stood up for immigrants and Refugee Rights before any other union. What i would encourage and also try to do my best and have done and work towards is ensuring you do have coverage. I also have to tell you that we have not passed Medicaid Expansion in the state of missouri and it is costing, this is money that should come back to the state to benefit you. My mom is also having to deal with the challenges that are presented to her because she is depending on the aca. I get it. I think that you do, and i will work towards, i think you deserve more. I want to major you have your own health care benefits. What you do and what your allies do and the other folks who are in seiu is the work that people are unwilling to do. It is absolutely remarkable of how you give of yourself to help the people have stood up for us for so long. I want you to have your health care and you deserve to have your health care and when you see those advertisements of the increase of the minimum wage, ask them, is it 15 or 10 . Just because him and he says just because someone says, yeah lets increase the minimum wage, you ask them, are you talking about 15, are you talking about 10 . Excellent. Thank you very much for your question. Good morning. My question is about some tactics we can use to make especially state legislatures more progressive. One thing the right has done really well and the past years is taking big money and putting it in small districts where it can have a really large footprint. One of the most inspiring things to me about the Bernie Sanders campaign was that they send money to 21 other candidates by doing tandem fundraising, and that includes some state Legislature Candidates who with one email send of small dollar donors from the Bernie Sanders campaign were able to fill up their budgets probably for the next few cycles. How can we encourage more campaigns that do have large fundraising lists that are able to mobilize the National Progressive small dollar donors into small races where that money can make a huge difference . How do we make that common . Mr. Chamberlain i think thats a great question. Let me just add to a 13 go together. Maria kind of mentioned that she might shoot me for saying, but i filed my nec report yesterday, so it is Public Knowledge now. [laughter] one thing that is happening here in missouri, just to talk about maria a little bit, she is, i am the executive director of prochoice missouri, and im running for Committee Woman here in the city of st. Louis, and so, since maria cannot spend the money in her state General Assembly campaign, she has been giving it to about 25 different candidates my age, but most of them younger, running for Committee Positions to take that our party at the state level, where missouri refuses to talk about abortion, or other issues progressives care about. Maria has taken the money she cannot than on her race, and given it to us. We not only help her against an incumbent, but really do that grassroots work at the most basic level to change our party and to change our state. It would not only have 25 young people Running Party positions, but we have bernie Campaign Manager is running for state rep. Another young man who introduced burning at a rally is also running for state rep. There is a lot of us. Part of us, we are all bernie supporters, but we were all black lives matter activists before we were bernie supporters. How are the rest of you taking that kind of leadership . Mr. Chamberlain thank you very much for your leadership and for running for an office in the party. That is critical. I would argue its one of the most important things that we can do as a Political Revolution is to recognize that our job is not just to get elected to congress or to the u. S. Senate. Our job is to get elected to school boards, water districts, offices across, up and down the ballot. They have huge impact. If you think about it, sometimes, they had a bigger they have a bigger impact on peoples lives than a member of congress can have. So often, congress is just that stagnant and things do not actually move forward. Constantly, corporations and even corporate democrats win in the smalltown races. Its not just that they are having a direct impact on your life, but they are also building themselves into a position to make it easier to run again for Higher Office as well. It has a really negative triple up effect that is not great. Instead, we have great people like maria who can come from state senate and run up for member of congress or for a member of the house of representatives like allen, who can run for the senate. Thats why we need the support from within. This seems like it to a question for you, alex, to expand upon what else you have to say. Ms. Rojas i completely agree with what you said, which is why a Brandnew Congress is running that Single National unified campaign to generate that same amount of small dollar contributions on a Massive National scale and get people excited about actually taking over the primaries and actually getting people, progresses into progressives into office. I think it is grassroots organizing and small dollar contributions. Getting to work part and organizing is super important in addition to the money that is being spent because we will actually be able to allocate a good amount of resources to that. So, i think that is really important and crucial as we expand. I think also, right now, Brandnew Congress is focusing on congress. Right . Bernie has really created local organizing groups in every part of this country. And so, what Brandnew Congress is about is, yes, we are aiming for congress, but through doing this, we are igniting the flame of people getting involved at a local level, at a state level, at a regional level, and a federal level. I do believe that that is what Brandnew Congress is trying to accomplish and we will continue trying to do that by the small dollar contributions and electing people like maria, mike misty, like alan to actually represent the American People and the demographic makeup of the United States. Mr. Chamberlain the question the good job of question really did a good job of promoting that. Anything you want to add to what she said . Ms. Rojas maria2016. Com. [laughter] i have a question about Brandnew Congress. I live in eugene, oregon. There was a strong bernie group their organizing a march on the same day as your kick off event there. We have been trying to get a hold of somebody and get a hold of someone to coordinate and not getting much response to try to coordinate to make sure we dont step on each others toes. I wanted you to know that in general. Im sure you are overwhelmed with stuff. As a lot of us out here who would love to help. Feel free to reach out for more volunteer help. You have a huge volunteer army in waiting to help. Ms. Rojas headon, we are actually building our sort of internal infrastructure and we are almost completely grassroots powered. The reason we have not gone back to you is that i am the point person for that, and to give you a taste of something that we are working on is building an actual infrastructure within the campaign called the Ground Support team that we are going to be hopefully expanding. It is actually going to be able to support the local organizing that is going to take place in washington, as well as, i believe we have six other teams not only in california but in other states already. I will be reaching out to you hopefully right after this panel, if you stay around to talk about it. Cool, thank you. Inn the question is about philadelphia, another interesting timing, your local kickoff there is i will be july 28. There. A lot of activists will be. It seems like a fantastic ending event to go to. But in the facebook event, people asked about this and somebody commented that this is a local event. Would you all be willing to consider making that a more general event since there will be so many people all across the country who will be there . Ms. Rojas we have two events going on. One on the 20th, and the other on the 22nd, i believe, and then the other on the 28th. Be there, as will well as tons of other volunteers that are not only in this room, but online, and we will be meeting up in philadelphia to sell shirts, pass out information answer questions. , we will be there pretty much prior to the convention and all the way through. Maybe we can talk a little bit after to make sure you can make it to one of those events or we can talk about some other strategies on how to get a general meeting. I think one of the lasting and maybe one of the impacts that i am not sure that is really resonated across the board for a lot of people, and an impact of the Sanders Campaign, which is the incredible amount of grassroots support that is actually be on beyond the kind of metrics that are often reported on. What gets reported on is things like 220 million raised from small donors, and stuff like that. Thats what the d. C. Class is obsessed with. They were obsessed with fundraising ms. Rojas and the email list. Mr. Chamberlain and the email list. That kind of thing. The reality is, one of the incredibly impactful, the most impactful aspect of the Sanders Campaign was the way in which it mobilized and engaged and empowered volunteers to work for them and work for themselves in excellent ways. What is exciting about Brandnew Congress, and what i imagine it will ultimately be a new sanders spinoff as well, i assume will happen, and of course longstanding organizations have extremely similar goals like democracy for america, is that volunteers, we have got a lot of people really engaged out there that want to do actual things. We have a Democratic Party that for decades said sit down and shut up, we do not want to hear from you, we do not trust you to do the right thing. This campaign has empowered volunteers to drive that change externally. That is why you can have a media for six months tell you your campaign is over, and you can continue to go on and win plenty when 20 you can go on and win 20 more states. That is a really important lesson. Ms. Rojas i want to emphasize, i said i was a Digital Field member on the distributed organizing team, and i just want to emphasize that point that he just made. Almost the entire campaign was powered by volunteers, not only in their individual states when it came down to it, but the distributed Team Coordinated nationally online through slack, through other digital platforms, and thousands of volunteers, 75 million phone calls, that is significant. It is the backbone in what we are trying to do and expand in Brandnew Congress, it is not only people that have been involved in politics forever, it is people that are ready to get to work and fight for the change that they want. They can be new. They can be anyone, as long as they are willing to step up and get to work. Brandnew congress has stuff that you can do. Mr. Chamberlain next question. Im from code pink. I have a question for congressman grayson about Debbie Wasserman schultz and what the bernie revolution has done to hopefully decrease her status within the party, and for trump, four charles you seem to want , to downplay the list, and the treasure that is that list. Does dfa get access to that list . How would Brandnew Congress get access to that list . What are the internal discussions . And how do non electoral groups get access to this treasure trove . Its interesting that Hillary Clintons name has not come up yet. Mr. Chamberlain who . Ok. [laughter] mr. Chamberlain just kidding. Alan, why dont you go first . Rep. Grayson theres a new executive director at the dnc now. The executive director is performing on of the functions and decisionmaking. I think that debbie still has the title. Im not sure how much she is involved in daytoday decisionmaking. I just dont know one way or another. I will say that people tend to overstate her own personal authority all along, and up the and that the decisions that tended to infuriate certain parts of the party during the past couple of years were not hers alone. That sort of is not, it is not a sophisticated view of how these things actually happen. There are powers behind the throne that are not visible. Obviously since she was in , charge of the party, she is the person people see. But to personalize the way that it has been done because of decisions made regarding debate s and so on is to oversimplify the actual process by which those decisions are made. Mr. Chamberlain congressman, i think that is totally right. At the same time i want to push , back a little bit and say, you look at somebody like governor dean who constantly fought with a party and did excise real power when he disagreed with them. You look at the 50 state strategy, the notorious meeting with from immediate rahm emanuel and chuck schumer, where rahm emanuel walks out of the room and says fuck you. Howard deans response was i dont care. Im still going to do the 50state strategy. Theres something to be said for the leadership in that role, even if there is no question it is hard. And she did not take that role. She just up with that. You would agree with that, right . Rep. Grayson the party under howard been was not the same as howard dean was not the same as the party under Debbie Wasserman schultz. We can all agree on that. Howard dean was more willing to assert himself on matters of principle. Its just a complete different style and a sense of what the position really means. Inbie has decided to excel fundraising for the party. Some people think that is a good idea. Some people think it is pointless because we have no message. [laughter] rep. Grayson that people want to hear. What do you do . You buy a lot of ads and they are just drivel. The answer is, absolutely. When howard dean ran a party, running the party meant something very important. None of us can forget the principle involved. When you run a real republican against a fake republican, the real republican will win every time. That is a lesson that still has not been learned by the Democratic Party. Mr. Chamberlain maria, i see you chomping at the bit to say something. I am watching that race in florida very closely. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has something in common with my opponent. She supports the payday loan industry. I dont know if you read that article times recently, but in missouri, we have more payday loan operations than walmart, starbucks, and mcdonalds put together. That is because of people like my opponent, and others like Debbie Wasserman schultz. The other thing is, neither one of them won a debate in front of the people they represent. Especially, i dont know how many years she has been in, when you have had an incumbent family for 48 years, the people do deserve to have an open debate. [applause] ms. Rojas just to address the magical email list i think it , is obviously, it is crucial that we know that. At the same time, the way that i because Brandnew Congress does not have that list. We have to earn every supporter we get. We actually have to go out. The reason why we are going to be in washington and philadelphia is because we are doing a 100city tour to go out and talk to people. And to find out what they are saying. It obviously would be nice if we had such a big email list already. It would help with our fundraising right now. However, i am excited to work with grassroots and to work with local organizers to find out new ways to talk to voters and really understand and get to know everyone. Mr. Chamberlain to give you my perspective, something that regularly happens among the political professional class is that we literally talk about it like its a list. Its not. I get that it literally is, but it is people. There are people attached to those email addresses. [applause] mr. Chamberlain the fact that sanders has eight Million People on his list, thats fantastic. Those people are out there. Were getting able to envision and leadership and doing the real work. Those people will help find you, find us, and come to us. It helps, the more that sanders can highlight people. That are doing that work, the better. We hope to continue to partner with sanders as we move ahead. My hope is that some of that means we get the exposure that helps bring those people to our door. The bottom line is that there are people, and people are inspired by real vision, real