Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140628

One plan would increase that tax by . 12 per gallon within the next two years. The as he taking on the debate take you to the debate on both sides we are asking your sock your thoughts on the your thoughts on the nations roads and bridges. Republicans can call in at you can also catch up with us on all your favorite social media pages, twitter, or email us. A very good saturday morning. Gearing up for what is going to be a busy travel week created an increase of 1. 9 percent in traffic over last year. This report coming out last week. An estimated 41 Million People will travel during the holiday. Nce day 89 of those will be traveling by car. Is 39 Million People using an automobile during the holiday. That means a lot of wear and tear on the nations roads. The mechanism used for funding road repair is on the road to insolvency. Heres the headline from the national journal. There have been some proposals on capitol hill for an increase in the tax. Sayre is what they had to in an editorial this week. We want to hear your thoughts. Would you support an increase with the federal gas tax . Before we get your calls on this topic we are joined by a transportation reporter with the associated press. Explain us how the gas tax is used to Fund Transportation projects and what the proposals are for increasing that now. The revenue from the gasoline tax and diesel tax goes into the Highway Trust Fund. That fund is the main source of federal highway aid to state and productsid to transit transit projects or systems around the country. Latest pushhind the to increase that gas tax . Them a there are several different proposals in congress. Senator murphy from connecticut and senator corker from they would increase the gas tax by . 12 over the next two years. It will continue to rise gradually as the cost of or repairing roads or building transportation projects increases. One is very similar. He would do three annual for sent tax increases, so he would spread it out over three years and it would still amount to a total of . 12. A congressman has another proposal. There are a couple floating out there. Host herea chart is a chart showing federal gas tax rates from 1933 through the latest. You can see the increases over the years. Int last increase happened 19 93 and it hasnt increased since then. How are these proposals being received on capitol hill and by thewhite house . Guest white house is not supporting a gas tax increase afar. They have their own plan for ensuring that the highway fund for the next four years it would increase federal transportation spending. On closing tax loopholes to do a lot of the funding. It does not propose a tax increase. I have to say that so far there is a lot of pressure a lot of pressure on congress to raise the gas tax from transportation advocates to the construction industry, chamber of commerce, all kinds of groups. Resistance a strong to anything that is perceived as a tax increase. How much concern from critics on the Highway Trust Fund is directed in how much money is being spent . How much is spent on other programs like bike programs that i heard criticism of . Guest very little is spent on these alternatives. Is bent on transit. It depends on if they are critical. There was an agreement in the reagan administration. Host is that mass transit guest it is subways, it is does systems, it is that kind of thing. The idea is they take people off the road. Host before we lose you, what are some of the alternatives to raising the gas tax . There have been proposals for more four more tolling. What are the alternatives besides this gas tax rate . Guest you are already seeing a great deal more tolling. There is promotion of public and private partnerships. This tree industry comes up with some of the money to build the road, government pitches in some more, and the industry who roadthis gets to toll the for 5000 years. Host she is a transportation reporter with the associated press. Thank you for getting up with us. Would you support an increase in ourfederal gas tax . Facebook page also has this question. A few responses from the facebook page. Kim shepherd writes you can read all those responses and join the conversation as well. Dan called in from South Carolina on our line for republicans. Good morning. I am up almost every morning watching your show. Job, threel with my to five days a week. It just sounds like these roads are getting worse and worse. Of i used to live in upstate new york. A it takes a lot of maintenance. Tax increase. T a this according to the American Petroleum institute, the combined total of gasoline taxes from state, local, and federal taxes. 35. 15 cents, this is compared to North Carolina at 56. 1 five cents. Have you been watching these proposals on capitol hill . Do you think an increase of 12 sons is about right . My maintenance expenses can be pretty high. I think it is going to be to doo get someone something unless we have some easy way of getting it. I would support it. Go to cliffl waiting in essex, maryland. Good morning. On washington journal bang on washington journal. Caller of most states have lotteries, and most of the lotteries are supposed to pay for education and roads. They are getting us multiple ways. Time we turn around there is a new tax. As far as these toll roads, i think they are bad ideas that ideas. Thats ridiculous. Way tohat is the best pay for roads where you are in maryland . Caller the roads around baltimore are horrible. This is a high tax state in maryland. Things are a lot cheaper and the roads are a lot better. With the way happy things are now . It sounds like you are not . Caller i am not. We are talking about the federal gas tax this morning. Would you support a federal . Ncrease in the gas tax one of the senators is senator don carper. Increase. Enting a he calls raising the gas tax most responsible way to fix the Highway Trust Fund. The that is a tweet from him earlier this week. Tweeted out about this issue of raising the gas tax. Taxaid of raising the gas will not help families succeed, tweeting out a link to the white house being open to a gas tax increase. Finally democrat chris murphy in the senate, he said it is time to admit the emperor has no clothes regarding transportation policy. Modest gas increases have to be on the table. Tois murphy on that proposal increase the gas tax by . 12 over the next two years there would be offsets in that proposal. Fromis a little bit more his joint statement with the republicans that he is working with to push that proposal out to raise the gas tax. Chris murphy writes in his statement this modest increase will pay dividends in the long run and i encourage my colleagues to get behind this proposal. The senator he is working with is corker of tennessee. Here is that joint statement from chris murphy and bob corker. Lets go to joshua waiting in amsterdam, ohio created caller ohio. Theer its a shame how left doesnt see the consequences of their actions. They should get better gas mileage. As cars are Getting Better gas mileage you are not spending as much on the gas. He were not buying as you normally would. My biggest thing is they are being they are paying their pensions premium they shouldnt beginning the big pay. Who gets 37 per hour to load a stop sign. They are way overpaid, their pensions are so much. They should go on Social Security like everyone else. We have to get out of this unionized federal stuff. Back and read let the independence taken over. Host patrick is in nevada on our lines. I was calling into support raising the gas tax. Maybe four cents over three years. I cant remember which senator supports it. Carper would be the senator that put forth that proposal. Grownupse have to be and realize we pay taxes. It is not a sin, it is not a tragedy, it is a fact of life. If you want your roads to work for you you have to pay for them. Since we havent done anything to take care of the trust fund since the 90s it seems like common sense to me. Host how are the roads in reno . It could be better downtown. The nicer neighborhoods get the better treatment. They definitely need to be repaid. Some information from the congressional budget office, looking ahead to projected ifrtfalls in the future funding receipts stay the same, if the gasas tax tax stays the same. It reaches a almost 100 billion shortfall in the congressional bus in the congressional budget office. This proposal to raise the federal gas tax, lots of stories about that in local papers. A National Review online took on this story today in a piece they did advocating against raising the federal gas tax. Pressinge there is no policy reason to increase the tax. The fund has plenty of money to especially if the money were spent more effectively an email writes that is their piece from last the gasinst raising tax. Lets go to john economy from brand very texas on our lines for independents. Thank you for checking my call. The taxpayer actually pays the toll road. As i understood this fourthly, only 20 of the trust fund goes to roads and highways. Said 20 goes to transit projects, the sort of mass transit projects. Caller i would like to know what the money is doing before giving them any more money. Host do you want a full audit of the Highway Trust Fund . Guest i would take that and a heartbeat. Texas, whereis in the taxes for gasoline comes to 38. 4 point four cents. Americants from the the Trillium Institute on gasoline taxes. Steve is up next on indiana is up next in indiana for our line for republicans. Go ahead. Caller it is about 60 right about . 60 right now. Isnt that enough . 59. 21 cents is the combined federal state and local gas tax in indiana. A few tweets on this subject. We are talking about the subject for the next 25 minutes on the washington journal. Do you support an increase in the federal gas tax . Know what roads, conditions, and infrastructure is like in your part of the country. Lets go to baltimore, maryland on our line for democrats. Caller howre you doing . Great show. The a lot of states have already risen the gas tax so individual states have risen the gas tax already created gases over four dollars per gallon in most states. The it is hurt and who have to go to work created it is hurting come hurting companies that have to deliver products. If we have to pass the jobs bill, the jobs bill has a proponent for fixing the infrastructure but they dont want to do that simply because they want to get back at the president. It it is not fair to hurt one person and heard citizens. Him if it passes the jobs bill they dont want to do that. Him we need american citizens. I have nothing against immigrants coming over here and we need american citizens working. If things are Getting Better, they dont mind paying taxes. Americans that were already over here, they need those jobs. We have a District Attorney who spent 11 million on an office. He already had an office. Waste like that that can be used to help us. We are wasting money on some things. On dumb things. Our infrastructure is falling down. Bridges fall, that cost the government even more pivot tax cigarettes even more. Tax cigarettes and alcohol. Host in maryland the state 29. 3 cents per gallon. The federal asked taxes 18. 4 cents per gallon. Lets go to chuck waiting in florida on our line for independents. Good morning. Caller i think the whole price structure needs to be fixed up. The world is awash in oil. Mexico, canada, the United States, why do they still control the prices . Where does the military get all their money to build highways . We are in nation building. Where the hell does all that money come from . Host you say take this money and put it into other Infrastructure Projects . Caller give it to wall street, the biggest socialist program out there. Host what is your thoughts on the use of toll roads to pay these projects . Caller if we get the price where it should be, why should wall street make money off of gasoline . They are not the biggest producers anymore. I dont think the toll roads would be bad. Of we need new highways. Host in florida the combined gasoline taxes is in the higher side of states around the country. Want to point out that on newsmakers this week Senate Republican conference chair john of south dakota joined us and he discussed whether congress should look at a gas tax increase to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] a User Fee Program is the most logical place folks are going to end up. Index it after that. Indexing it would help. Of we have more hybrids on the road. At the amountng they have in the past. It is still something that highway users pay for. There are reasons for when you are looking at all the various scenarios and options, if you have to raise revenue to do this it is an option that is being discussed. There are other things being talked about as well. Republicans on the side and some of the democratic side are talking about repatriation, repatriated funds. Getting them to bring it back in the country, tax it at the lower level, that would generate some revenue that would fund things at a time. That is not a permanent solution either. See that entire interview tomorrow at 10 a. M. And 6 p. M. On cspan. Onlineers is available at cspan. Org. Our phone lines are open to take your calls. We want to point out some other headlines from around the country. Includes asked sellers at gm. A total number of recalls for the year has surpassed 30 million vehicles. Talking more about otto mowery it automobile recalls is for the washington journal. The defense of marriage act ruling happened a year ago. He will be talking about that ific later in a roundtable you want to tune in for that. The front page of the washington , binding it to europe is the headline, shrugging off a russian threats in a burgeoning civil war. Ukraine signed a landmark deal all the major papers keeping an i on this situation in iraq. Here it is a story from the Washington Post. Iraq relies on planes to fight isis. They are frustrated with the pace of attacks and deliveries. They desperately try to cobble together to tie al qaeda in inspired insurgents. They are more than 100 iraq he , which were flown to iran during the 1991 gulf war. Of that story is in todays Washington Post bank. In todays Washington Post washingtondays post. Also an editorial on the situation in iraq this morning is the wall street journal. That is in todays wall street journal. We have about 15 minutes left. We want to get your calls on this topic. Would you support an increase in the federal gas tax . Don has been waiting in cincinnati, ohio on our line for democrats. The proposal to take all and local road problems away from washington and send it back to the states, i think it is a great idea. We cant get washington to agree on anything. We have ancinnati very important bridge across the ohio across the ohio river that needs to be replaced. We cant get people in washington to talk about it. Control we have some over the state politicians. Just a comment about what you iid about the middle east, dont understand how we can possibly think at this point that we are going to have any useful impact on what is happening in the middle east. I think if you ask the iraqis to vote about whether ,hey would have the dictator they will certainly vote in his favor. Host staying on the subject of the federal gas tax, your plan was to talk about sending it all back to the states. Of would you do away with the Highway Trust Fund and National Planning for the road system and make it an issue for each states . Caller i think there should be a place for Highway Trust Funds and National Planning but we cant get the folks in washington to concentrate. Possibilitiesbout and big influence in money and washington should be great. This will never happen either, to take the federal gas tax and presently pay send it back to ohio and let the local politicians worry about that. It is never going to happen from washington. Mike is from mount sterling, kentucky on our line for independents. Caller i am wondering how much money has been taken out of the that was put fund in there for the roads to begin with that they use to fight these wars in afghanistan and iraq. Now we have to replenish that with taxes on people. Theyif we replenish it and turn around and say we need to find another war somewhere else . Keep that money where it belongs. They are asking responsible people for more money. We have irresponsible people running this country. The taxes comeky to 48. 5 cents per gallon. Want to read you a bit from the editorial board, a column by reporterestine for the in lansdale, pennsylvania. Talking about this issue yesterday in one of their pieces. He writes the deadline facing congress is not the debt ceiling nor is it spending bills, it is the Highway Trust Fund. In a few weeks states will have to start slowing down or delaying Infrastructure Projects, which is the upset of what we need them to do. That is the piece from lansdale, pennsylvania. Kim, good morning. Caller good morning. Say that inike to my opinion all the politicians make more money than the average working man. Why dont we start at the top and sliding salaries . I feel for certain we can come up with more than enough money to take care of take care of the deficit. Our government does not come back. We give them more than enough money. Manage it correctly. We wouldnt have these problems. Not enoughnk theres money to get from the salaries . Making if they are 80,000 per year like the average man is doing, absolutely. Of lets start cutting pensions. We cant have them as working people. There are no jobs out here. How do they expect us to keep paying and going . Is not the funding but more the management of the project area the here in south florida they are always working on the roads. Barbara is in texas on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller i am with kim, the republican. I believe they should take back the race the senate the raise the senate has given themselves. Should have the gas tax. Fore is enough money to pay some stuff instead of giving them some pensions. However, they are not charging they are getting the roads up and down the roads. They are putting it on the taxpayers, which is wrong. Congress didnt do anything, take their money away. According to the los angeles times, shortfall comes to about 18 billion. Him do you think there are 18 billion to get out of the salaries of congress . Caller there are people that that can vote them out. We need to vote in people that instead of being biased against a person and trying to code trying to hold everything against that person. Job, they doing their only want to focus on not doing their job and pinpoint everything on barack obama. There isnt 18 billion to take from them. I believe they should go home and send somebody. When theo a job dge is start falling and when the bridges start following and they start suing nobody is going to care. Host here is the new House Majority leader from california. Last weekend he talked about this issue and was asked about a potential gas tax increase. Of he said Kevin Mccarthy talking about it last week. This has been a topic of discussion all week here on capitol hill. We want to get your thoughts. Of anthony is in the heat in east hampton new york. Caller , i do not believe in a gas hike. Whether you drive a mercedes or a honda, it is fair. The taxes should be on new cars and based on horsepower. If you have a little honda with dollar per dollar horsepower, that is enough. If you have a big diesel truck, that is a commercial invention commercial investment. These vehicles are 500,000. Him what is another 500 or 1000 . I think it should be equity. Should be everyone pays according to their horsepower. Do abouthat would you a low post power vehicle like an electric vehicle that doesnt use as much gas and so the driver doesnt than pay as much in federal gas taxes because he is using less fuel . Guest i believe he should reap the reward. There was a sign on gas stations that said be rewarded. Should if you spent that much money to buy an electric car or hybrid car, you should be reworded and not pay that heavy tax on the gasoline. Pay only on the horsepower. Not enough money on the new cars, then we have to pay money on the used cars. The roads have to be fixed. We have to pay the bills. It is not going to come from santa giving up their money. We have to pay our own way. It has to be through horsepower. Host, bob is waiting from baltimore maryland as well on our line for republicans. We heard about some of the conditions in baltimore and the previous callers have not been so happy. Caller it is really horrible. I dont think we should be raising the gas tax either. I do agree with the man from ohio. Problem with the exception of the state highway system. If we have a fee system for interstate highways and lets local jurisdictions take care of their own problems it would be fine. Host is that tolls or mileage . Caller tolls. Washington money to i think they give us a number. Is its like the Social Security trust fund, that is a bunch of ious . I know that situation exists. Money gets spent on what ever they need to spend it on right now in i would like right now. I would like to have somebody independent managing that trust fund. Host some history courtesy of wall street journal we go to john in costa mesa,. Alifornia caller the rows have been neglected for 20 years. It is a much longer flight then it would be to impose a gas tax. That is aqueous that is a quicker solution. Centperot proposed a three tax increase. We wouldnt be looking at this problem today. I am surprised senator kolker is behind us. Grover norquist disciples are against tax. Host his proposal calls for offsets in this increase in other areas. In otherhe key part areas, to find offsets for whatever increase they are getting. Six cents per year over the next two years in that plan with senator murphy. And the majority leaders proposal to open up federal lands, i think a much more direct approach. I dont know how that tax is aoken down but i would pay . 12 gas tax increase not to have told roads. Those toll roads are unsightly. It is not the free america i grew up in where you can cross the country without running into these roads. Nudity keep them open and improve the roads. We desperately need that. 20 years without an increase and without the highway transit. Host two tweets on this topic. Right they write that is all the time we have in this segment of washington journal. We will talk about a week full of decisions from the Supreme Court. This week marked one year since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the defense marriage defense of marriage act. We will take a look at the issue of samesex marriage. We will be right back. We believe all men are created equal yet many art night equal treatment. We believe all men have certain unalienable rights, yet Many Americans do not enjoy those rights. Entitlede all men are to the blessings of liberty, yet millions are being deprived of those blessings. Not because of their own failures but because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply embedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. Understand without rancor or hatred how this all happened. But it cannot continue. Our constitution, the foundation principlesblic, the of our freedom, forbidden. A morality . Forbidden. Law i will sign tonight forbids it. The 50th anniversary with president johnsonss adjusts the nation. And here the reports of those that covered congress. Sunday night at eight eastern on American History tv. Daniel shulman on the koch to political rise power, and the two decade battle over there them this is a massive lawsuit that played out between the four koch brothers. Sidees and david on one and bill and frederick of the other. This culminates into a boardroom shoretel boardroom show them boardroom showdown. They were essentially tied to expand the size of the board. This would have ended up opposing charles as the chairman. They would have taken a greater role in the direction of the company. The end result is bill is tossed out of the company a few years later by his brothers. Of there is a really dramatic where the the book board has to sit down and decide his fate. Daniel shulman sunday night at eight eastern. Host last week was a busy one for the Supreme Court and the most highprofile decision of the term hasnt even been released yet. Here to spotlight what is happening is just brave and bravin. In riley vt happened california, a case that could have more caliph more ramifications. Guest this really is the most significant privacy decision the Supreme Court has delivered in the digital age. Case involving whether please needed a search warrant to go to the contents of cell phones in the arrest. Draw areme court may very narrow line between different circumstances in which police can simply search a phone before theyrrant can do that. Indy the end the Court Unanimously came down with a very strong affirmation of traditional privacy rights that the constitution has protected for digital data. Although it felt specifically with whether or not a warrant is necessary when they see the cell phone of someone who is under arrest, the language is really what is striking. Prior opinions by the Supreme Court show somewhat tentative familiarity with the realities of 20th century life for Many Americans. Was a very loud shout saying we get it, we know how people live, we know how important mobile devices are, how so many people have them almost attached to their bodies. Wrote of justice someone who landed on our planet from mars, thinking the cell phone is part of the human anatomy. This was an opinion that was very important for police. Clear message that if they arrest somebody, they go through somebodys pockets. If they open a cell phone, they can search the physical units to make sure there are no weapons or drugs hidden. When they want to start pulling through the digital data, anything people have on their, if they want that stuff they need to go and demonstrate probable cause to a magistrate and then go for it. The language says we understand the Digital Privacy is a whole new world. Chief Justice John Roberts writing on this case. Host heres chief Justice Roberts writing on this case this seems to be the key quote in several stories. Your story at the see this story wsj. Com. Atw it was clear the justices had reservations about what the police were doing in the two cases they had. Whenever the court speaks unanimously about a breaking legal issue, it is a little surprising. Those are individuals with very strong views. In some areas they are in conflict. Perhaps it was a little bit of a surprise. Did write ajustice concurring opinion where he agree partly with the chief justice. He had a slightly different view of the reasoning. When the court speaks unanimously about a big issue like this it is particularly significant. Show our viewers a bit from justices narrowing the scope of this case. He said guest that is an interesting quote. Up what happens in california is the state Supreme Court ruled there is no need for a warrant to go through cell phone data. The state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law saying a warrant is needed in doing exactly what Justice Alito suggested. Governor brown of california vetoed that bill saying the courts should decide what the boundaries are. Enough thely California Attorney general said leave it to legislature. The other members of the Supreme Court decided they did not want to wait. This case he agreed the Fourth Amendment certainly required warrants in the to arrest. Host if you have a question on any of the cases before the Supreme Court in this term, jess is here. Jess bravin the phone lines while viewers are calling in, what does this case mean . What are the implications for potential future case about privacy issues with the nsa and all these concerns about the nsa getting into the private lives of citizens . Directthere is no implication but there is certainly an indirect one and a message for the government to consider carefully as it inc. s about the legal justification for some of its surveillance programs. Builtderal government has on in its legal theory 1979 case known as smith versus maryland. A warrantfound that is not necessary to install a pen register that monasteries outgoing phone calls for a particular phoneline. The ruling was it was not private information because the caller has to make the connection with the phone company to make the call. Att case was controversial the time and is the bedrock of the legal theory the government has cited to justify surveillance programs. Ont rely so heavily precedents that come from a very different technological world. It is based on what the world looks like then. We are going to examine it in this current modern context. That is why they distinguished the cell phone from all the other prior cases in which police were permitted to go through the prophets, go through a phone book, a diary, a billfold or a wallet. That is why they believe they can go through a cell phone. That should be something that i expect boyars in the Justice Department are looking at the very carefully as they considered the legal rationale for some of the programs it currently has. Host ralph is in new york on the line for democrats. Cspan. Thank you for want to talk about the Supreme Court opinion. Minis time the three all three nominees for the National Labor board, one managed to make the national the senate did not filibuster him. Richard griffin and sharon black background. That is why they kept filibustering close to nominees, did not want they them on the National Labor board. That is why in particular Lamar Alexander and bob corker, those two senators, that is why they kept filibustering coast to nominees. It never made it to the Supreme Court. Are all management dominated. Thank you for your time. Host as you are taking us through, the viewers comments on this through the viewers comments on this, a picture showing guest there are two questions in this case. One is the broader constitutional question that applies across the board. The other is a specific situation at the nlrb. National Labor Relations board is an independent agency that was established during the new deal to administer the wagner act and other laws that govern collective bargaining process in the United States and making decisions about fair labor practices and calling and organizing elections. Thats why the president is nominating one member whos a republican with a managing background. But a majority vote wins at that court and it is true that republicans trying to stymie that agencys action did block the president from appointing enough members of the board to have a quorum because the Supreme Court held that there must be a quorum for the National Labor Relations Board to take any action so that was the political background to what was going on. To get around that political opposition, the president invoked his constitutional power to make recess appointments during a recess of the senate. And he did it in a way that basically the court said went too far. He did it in a way that no president had previously done by relying on a threeday break in proceedings at the u. S. Senate. And the court said that in its review of a prior recess appointment during a session of congress, no president had done that in a break that was shorter than 10 days. So the question is when does the president s during a congressional recess begin and what is the definition of a recess . Those were the issues before the court, not the specific political or Labor Management concerns at the nlrp. And what the court said was of the at the Traditions Court over the past 200 years and answering in some ways technical and grammatical questions about the meeting to the recess appointment clause, the majority of the court said we are looking at the text of this clause that might seem to have a very narrow power that the president has and it rises under limited circumstance and we also look at the way that the president and the congress have acted over 200 years and their understanding of it and weve come up with this interpretation of really restoring the traditional understanding of the recess appointments clause. Host and the days that they laid out that interpretation . Guest one, they said its never a recess if its three days or less because each house of congress can adjourn for up to three days without the permission of the other but once its longer than three days, it needs the permission of the house. They said three days, too short. 10 days is the historical minimum. So 10 days, ok. And in between three and 10 days, if its some kind of National Catastrophe that the senate cant get here and its an emergency, then it might be ok. But perhaps more significant than the day limit, the court also addressed another matter which was how do we tell when the senate is in recess . The administration had argued that whenever theyre not conducting business and if they technically are opened for business where nobody shows up, they come into session for one minute. The next minute, they go out of the session. Even though theoretically, they can do something, theyre not really doing it. Theyre just doing that to get around my recess appointment power. But theyre not really transacting business, then it s. If they do not have the formal capacity to transact business. If its a quorum call and they have to go out of session. There is a slight hedge to it but pretty much, it moves the lever of power somewhere towards the u. S. Senator because the court said that the recess appointment power is a backstop. The normal way we expect appointments to be made as the constitutional contemplates is by the president but with the advice and consent of the president. Host brooklyn, new york is next. Good morning, richard. Caller im very surprised that i havent seen an uproar regarding the decision about protestor proximity to abortion facilities in massachusetts. There is in practically every locale in the country, theres usually a perimeter defined around holding places at election times of 100 feet in order to protect the voters. Yet women going in for an abortion are not even get afforded a proximity of 35 feet according to the Supreme Court decision. It seems to be more, in this common era, a for more threatening situation than voting used to be at the time that the the election laws were im surprised to see there havent been a large groups making a lot of noise about this and i expect theres going to be some kind of contest where somebodys going to be within one foot of an election hearing site just to have the Supreme Court equalize the field. Guest this is an issue of a 35foot buffer zone that exists around Womens Health Cleveland Indians clinics that perform abortion to keep protestors away. It was not specifically banning any type of speech either antiabortion speech or prochoice speech or whatever you might call it. It applies to anyone. This buffer zone said the only people who can go within 35 feet of the entrance are either people who have business at the clinic such as patients or employees or p. E. D. s p. E. D. s walking on the sidewalk going down the block and transiting that place. Space. Ut did not outlaw buffer zone. One colorado had installed in which within 100 feet of such a facility, people had to maintain a distance of at least eight feet from anyone entering or leaving the facility without their consent. Think about it this way. Someone approaching or leaving the facility gets an eightfoot bubble around which people are not allowed to come and accost them or talk to them. Host regardless of where they are in the parking lot . Guest thats right. Within that 100 zone, you are allowed to exclude others from coming in and presumably bothering you because you cant give them consent if you talk to them. Massachusetts did have a similar law prior to the 35foot buffer zone the Massachusetts Legislature concluded it wasnt good enough. It was too hard to enforce it. Its very hard to measure how far people are away from one another. So they said it wasnt working. The Supreme Court said they havent justified the restriction on speech of people who want to address women entering these facilities. It said that if women are harassed or accosted, there are other laws that present arassment and so on. Laws are going to be enforced. So the Supreme Court said theres too much of a restriction on speech. The issue of buffer zone or no speech zones around polling places was not involved knick. But it is worth in this case. But it is worth noting that voting is an important event and it is a somewhat more minor restriction on speech than you polling e where places are on Public Schools or on private property. And once again, where speech can be excluded anyway so there are some differences. Perhaps more interesting arc lot of people have said that in their view, the Supreme Court itself has a buffer zone. The Supreme Court building is surrounded or at least its fronted by a plaza, a beautiful marble plaza which is Supreme Court property but its a public palacea and people are of course, allowed to strand and have their pictures taken at the court and admire the fountains and what have you. But the court does not want to ra protest there. And there is a lawsuit in lower courts pending that says that is a restriction of free speech and the court sees it differently. But some people have accused the court of being hypocritical in insisting on its own free speech buffer done. And host were talking to jess bravin, with the wall street journal. How much years have you been covering with the court . Guest nine years. Host hes here to talk about this term at the Supreme Court decisions that came down this past week. And looking ahead to the last day of decisions coming down on monday. Lets go to georgetown, kentucky, next with bonnie from the democrats line. Go ahead, bonnie. Caller i have two comments and i would like to ask mr. Bravin a couple of questions. On your other program, i couldnt get in some of our road gasoline gas goes for all the judges pensions to start with. And i wanted to ask him why our court now, our Supreme Court, that moves this court is not interrupted in the constitution in making laws for theirself. Because Mitch Mcconnell voted that corporations are money. Now, i do not believe, mr. Bravin, that our forefathers intended for all this money to be put in the halls of congress and in the country for to buy elections. I do not know whats wrong with these roberts court. And the civil rocks thing. This congress and senate pass this in 1964 and Lyndon Johnson signed it and they go and take it down. I do not understand what their meaning is unless they want to help destroy these country. Could these judges explain what theyre doing or could you explain what theyre trying to do . Guest let me just start by saying, bonnie, the court divided 54. Last significant minority in the Supreme Court that shares your views about this and that it indicates that these are close questions for the court and that there are certainly compelling reasons on both sides. Let me say that we are talking about issues that divided the court. Lets first talk about the Campaign Finance laws that bonnie mentioned because there was a case earlier this year involving Campaign Finance called mccutchen vs. Federal elections commissions. And whats going on in the court right now is really what the lawyers would call a shift. For many years, the court viewed some restrictions on Campaign Contributions and spending and so forth as a permissible way to protect against corruption in the political system. The current majority on the court and this shift really took place in 2006 when Justice Sandra day oconnor retired and ucceeded by a leitao alito. To speaking or reading or so forth. The views said you cant speak unless you have money to get your message out. You cant learn about issues unless you can someone is presenting them to you or its available for you to buy. So they view restrictions on Campaign Spending and contributions and so forth very skepically because they view it as almost equivalent to or entirely equivalent to a restriction on speech. The minorities does not view it as speech. So you see a very, very different conception of what money and politics really is about. Earlier this year in this mccutchen case, the Supreme Court held it throughout a restriction that said no one can give more than about 12 125,000 over a twoyear federal election cycle to all federal candidates and committees combine. It was whats called a aggregate cap. It only applied to people who had more than 125,000 available to give out to political campaigns so thats a relatively small number of people whose rights were affected by that in our country. Many people dont have that kind of money on hand to give to political campaigns. But the court felt that it did not make any sense. If the only purpose for the restriction of Campaign Contributions is to prevent corruption because it left in place, the limits on contributions to individual candidates so lets say you can give 2,000 to someone running for congress maximum. That maximum stayed in place and the court said well, if youre avoid bribery, it doesnt matter if youre giving money to candidate b, how does that affect candidate a if each can only get 200,000 . It was a restriction on the speech of people who like to spend more than 125,000 every two years on politics. Minority didnt see it that way. Their definition of corruption was broader than just i give you money. You do something in exchange for that money, which is how the majority conceived it. They thought the entire perception of the system as rigged was a form of corruption hat could be perhaps mitigated by this aggregate cap. Host jess bravin of the wall street journal here to answer your questions. Heres a question from jody on twitter. Is the Supreme Court still banning cameras . Guest the Supreme Court does not allow cameras at oral arguments and that is something that has certainly irritated the folks here at cspan who regularly write to the court and ask the court to reconsider this policy. They do not permit cameras at oral argument. And they although, of course, if you want to see what justices look like, they are quite happy to appear before the camera, especially when they have a new book out that you may want to consider buying. Justice sotomayor was on last week on abc. Im sure you can find earlier broadcast with Justice Scalia and Justice Briar and justice oconnor. They all do show up from time to time. The one place you cant see them is when then working for you in the Supreme Court arguments. But i will say this, bonnie. You can listen to them. At the end of every week of arguments the Supreme Court puts online full audio recordings of the argument. So you can download them. Listen to your computer or your mobile device which cannot be searched by police without a warrant and listen and see what they sound like. And you can also read the transcripts the day of the argument. Those are posted after many years of requests from the news media. The court puts a transcript on its website every day after the oral arguments. So you could also reenact the arguments yourself if you can get 11 friends together. Host cspan. Org, also a place to go to look for those oral arguments. Lets go to harold from the ndependent line. Caller i believe the president at the time he made that decision knew that it is going to be illegal. They knew it takes several years by through the system 90. Nobodys mentioned that. He court said he was wrong big time. Theres been hardly mentioned in the papers or anything. Over a thousand decision that all these d decisions they made, whats going [indiscernible] answer that question for me. Host a return to the National Labor report. Guest thats right. Harold was talking about the clause. If no one reported that the vote was 90, how do you know what the vote was, harold . Just a question there from me. We reported that the court voted 90, that the president had exceed his authorities for these ecific free appointees the court divided 54 as to the scope of the president s recess appointment power with four members of the court. Four conservative members of the court conning that it was extraordinarily limited what the lower court had done and only applies to the brief or the period between two formal sessions of the congress and only to vacancies that arise during that brief period. The majority, again, construed more broadly but gave the Congress Many tools to stymie the recess power. What happened to the decision that the nlrb made during this period . Well, lawyers for the government said they are studying the opinion. There were about 450 decisions that were made during that time. We expect that parties that are unhappy with the outcome may petition for a rehearing. However, the president subsequently did seat members of the board who were confirmed. So he does have a majority of democratic appoint this who may share appointees who may share views that their predecessor had. Now, in thee disputes, and these disputes, the losing parties may wish to figure whether its worth the expense of asking for reconsideration if the outcome is going to be the same. Im not speaking about any specific case, but those are some considerations that may be underway. Host walter is on our line for independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. To bonnie, i love you. My sentiments for her and this court has been totally you know, busted up and as you said, split decision. And the good part is 90. Even though i might not agree and i really dont agree with the conservative side, but my question to you, sir. The idea that we got this privacy thing. Is there any way in gods world that these weve been given a possibility at a womans right to choose, privacy wise, were affirmed or you understand my question, sir . Guest sure. The question is where do the abortion rights stand within the rights of the Supreme Court . We can say that from the court has not had a straighton case challenging the basic holding of roe vs. Wade in the opinion that recognized womens abortion rights. But there have been cases involving efforts by states and the federal government to restrict abortion rights or regulate abortion rights. And the court has pretty much sent this signal, you might say, through some of the orders and that have come its way. The court has not been willing to consider regulations or to accept regulations that effectively abolish organization rights. They recently when they asked the lower court to explain whether or not an oklahoma law was a regulation or a elimination of abortion rights in some cases. The lower court said the regulation effectively eliminated a nonsurgical abortion. And so the Supreme Court allowed an enjunction against that law to stand. In other cases, the skort Supreme Court has allowed stricter regulations to exist. So basically, the court is saying it is more receptive to restrictions on abortion rights. Thisi do not they is an issue that the court is also very divided on. Host joe from new york is next on our line for independents. Joe, good morning. Joe, are you with us . Caller yes, i am. Hi, can you hear me . Host yes, joe. Go ahead. Caller can you tell us how the Fourth Amendment ruling applies to the following scenario . Law enforcement observes a person using a Wireless Phone in an area thats marked unauthorized recording. Does Law Enforcement have the right to seize and search that phone opposite a case where a Law Enforcement arrests someone for a larceny and someone has a phone with them . Theyll need a warrant. Will they need a warrant if they observe someone or recording in an area that needs authorization and theyre recording without authorization . Thank you. Host hypothetical from joe. Guest i cant give you legal advice about whether you can do that or whether anyone can do that and whether it could be searched without a warrant. I can suggest what the court seems to be indicating which is this, which is that. Police are entitled to look inside cell phone contents and mobile devices for evidence of a crime. The question is what do they need to do in order to do that . And the answer was get a warrant. So, if for instance, the police were to have reason to believe there is evidence of a crime on a smartphone or cell phone which they often will have such reason to believe since theres so much information on it, it doesnt mean they cant ever look at it. They have to go to a magistrate and they we have probable cause to believe that well find evidence for crime on this device. Host there there emergency situations that would allow them to skip that step if guest yes, there are. There are circumstances. If it is an emergency, for instance, so heres a hypothetical. Lets say theres evidence of a location of an abducted child that might be on a phone. Or if they think the phone and they are going to its going to trigger a bomb thats going to explode or Something Like that. They dont have to wait to wake up the judge and get him to sign a warrant. The difference is that they later have to justify it. They have to show there really were or they sincerely believe there were circumstances that require them to skip the warrant requirement. So it cant be an exception that swallows the rule. They dont want to bother the warrant to begin with. Unless there was an emergency the aid he had to view recording or they were going to pirate a bomb, the question would be is there any reason why, after they arrest their suspect, they think hes recorded something illegally or whatever on the phone, why cant they wait to get a stpwharnt they can disable it, lock it up. If they get it, then they can search it. Host david is on our line for democrats. David, good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, david. Caller hello, mr. Bravin. Am i getting am i pronouncing your name right . Excuse me. Jess . Guest jess is fine. Caller thank you. I have a concern about the way the court seems to be slipping is own personal religious and beliefs into the rollings that they rulings that they are making. And the idea that one or two of ing a usices are part of in day, i think it is called agnes day, i think it is called, the very conservative stand. Dont understand how they can tainted by being abortion. Mething like i also wonder about things like Clarence Thomass wife. I understand that she was extremely well paid lobbyist for the drug industry for several years. In fact, she may still be from what ive heard. About threeas million box a year. I would say that would be a good reason for a justice to excuse himself from hearing cases. Host all right, dave. Were running out of time. We want to give jess bravin a chance to respond to some of his concerns. Guest well, the justices have personal opinions and personal beliefs just like the rest of us. And their role is to separate their personal inclinations to what they might do as a voter or if they were a member of congress or if they were president from what the rules are and the laws are and within the framework that they are given. And my suggestion, really, is if youre concerned about how the justices are ruling and whether you fear they are being unduly influenced, read the opinions themselves. Those are now on the Supreme Courts website. They go up after they are delivered. Sometimes theyre very long. Sometimes they have very technical provisions to them. We certainly in the newspaper try to summarize them but theres no way we can in an 800word story tell you all the reasons that the justices have relied on when theyre issuing an opinion that could be over 100 pages long. So i think that, you know, it is worth reading their opinions and it is worth listening to those arguments. Because you can now. There all terms Available Online and see what they ask, see how they approach questions. See what they write in response. And i think youll have a good sense of how closely whatever external influences may exist on them, whatever personal belief they have. How those affect the way they do their jobs. Host in our last minute or so on this topic. As a reporter of the Supreme Court, how much do you get to know the justice personally . How much do you see them . Is there a cafeteria where you could see them in . How much personal interact and interaction do you have with them . Guest well in prior generations from what ive read, there were a lot more contact between journalists and justices. Some justice had favored journal who is they talked to frequently and so on. Im not that well liked and i dont know that any of my colleagues around the court are or reporters are either. Its a cordial relationship. I mean, theyre there for life. Many reporters have been there for some time and developed some background and topics there. So, they tend to recognize us and we do see them obviously in the courtroom. We see them sometimes when they give lectures or there are certain receptions and events or christmas parties. Sometimes they will invite the press lunch. Sometimes well have oneonone meetings with them. So we see them. We talk to them. Formal , it is a fairly kind of relationship, at least in my experience. s not paling around and playing poker with them. Theres, you know, theres somewhat more exposure, some greater sense that we can get in and sometimes theyll grant interviews and youll have conversations with them. Usually, if it involved something not related to the decisions before them at that exact moment but some other matter. Host and i want to get richard in. Hes been waiting in laurel, maryland, on our line for independents. Go ahead, richard. Youre on with jess bravin. Caller ok, thank you. [indiscernible] i would like to make somewhat of all this flack thats going on regarding elections and scandals and etc. It will probably end [indiscernible] i feel like all and the president is being in that election cycle all these things came up. They came up within the same year. Enghazi, the insurgents, syrias issues and theres one more host are you concerned theres always a next election cycle . Caller no. What im concerned is that most dortch issues were mpose an issue with the voting public to vote against obama. And thats my opinion. I just want to hear a comment on that viewpoint. Host politics of the day and its influence on Court Decisions. Guest one thing that richard said, hes talked about corporations are people and corporations having rights that people have. Thats part of the opinion four years ago that permitting corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures. Theres a case that were all looking forward to on monday, also deals with corporations and thats what i would like to point viewers towards. Its known as hobby lobby. Its a big arts and crafts chain that have that name. And the question there is can a private for Profit Corporation exercise religious rights . There is a federal law that permits to opt out of extremely burdensome laws for reasons of religious expression. The owners of that company and the owners of another company are arguing that their religious beliefs forbid the use of certain contraceptives that must be provided under Health Insurances since passage of the Affordable Care act. They say they are entitled to an opt out requirement. And the government disagrees. On monday, theyre going to find out the answer it is aait is whoo kinds of religious expression a private forprofit company as opposed to a church or nonprofit might have. So that is really run to look forward to if youre concerned about or interested in what rights Corporate America has. Host and viewers can read about it in your work at the wall street journal. Always appreciate you joining us to talk about the Supreme Court. Up next, this week marked one year since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the defense of marriage act in our saturday round table. We take a look at samesex marriage. And David Shepherdson will join us to talk about the Auto Industry as automakers are close to setting a record for the most recalls in a single year. Well be right back. At 1971, it was on a sunday, august 15. It was very much one. Those moments when Richard Nixon appeared on National Television halfway through bonanza. Not really my time but maybe you will remember that show. And he interrupted that see to say we are not going to allow the dollar to be converted into gold anymore. And this, in many ways was one of the most significant event, the most significant things to have happened in the history of money and it was a very decisive moment where essentially he shot the goldwyn doe. Thats what the term was, where people could not simply come in fort knox and say here is 100. I want to get the gold value. And that was a consequence of the bad window that the government got into. They were trying to fight the vietnam war and pay for the great society. And it just didnt work out. There was a deficit. There was a trade deficit. Author and conservative ember of british parliament, qwasi talks about the history of money. Tonight at 10 00 on after words. Part of book tv on cspan2. And this moroccan month on our book club, were discussing amity slaves, the forgotten man. Join others to discuss the book in our chat room. Book tv, television for serious readers. Now you can keep in touch with Current Events use any phone, any time with cspan radio at audio now. Hear congressional coverage, Public Affairs forums and todays washington journal program. And every weekday, listen to a recap of the days event on washington today. You can hear audio of the Public Affairs Program Beginning at sundays at noon eastern. Call 2026268888. Long distance or phone charges may apply. For over 35 years, cspan brings Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete coverage of the u. S. House. All as a Public Service of private industry. Were cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite survivor. Watch us on tv, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host and thursday marked one year since the Supreme Court ruled portions of the defense of marriage act unconstitutional. Here to discuss the current status of samesex marriage in the United States is brian brown, president of the National Organization for marriage. And Sarah Warbelow, what is the most Significant Development on this issue since a year ago thursday . You know, there are many ways which samesex couple are ecognized. Host the most Significant Development since a year ago thursday. Guest well, i think its the total misapplication of the windsor decision by state judges, essentially having judges in the federal courts and state judges decide that their view of marriage is better than the voters and thats the descent of paul kelly noted in the at the present time circuit, judges acting as philosopher kings deciding that the peoples decision on the matter of marriage is without merit and that their decision is more important. And then using their power as judges to assert that over the states. Host 18 federal Court Decisions over the past year against samesex marriage ban. Do you think that at the moment Circuit Court decision is the most significant, at least . Well, its a Circuit Court decision. Its also important theyre split. There was one as i noted. Paul kellys descent was quite important. It was very good. That bodes well for us because if this isnt going to end at appellate courts. This isnt going to owned the Circuit Court. This is going to the United States Supreme Court. And were going to see circuits split and even if we dont see a circuit split, the Supreme Court is going to take it. That ultimately is where all of these arguments are going to end. It doesnt matter i mean, its never good that judges decide that they get to use their own opinion at the law but it doesnt matter if there were a number of more decisions by federal court. What matters is what happens at the Supreme Court. Host before we get to the Supreme Court, that 10th Circuit Court decision that receives so much publicity. Our thoughts on that decision. Guest 18 federal courts. Republican appointed judges, democratic apoint judges. This is a nonpartisan issue. Increasingly, americans of all backgrounds, of all political and religious beliefs are coming to embrace marriage for samesex couples. I think were just seeing where the future is headed. The Supreme Court will obviously be taking it up and probably much sooner than anyone ever anticipated. And every single decision that occurs at the lower court level just reaffirms that it is a constitutional right for samesex couples to marry. Host do you think the Supreme Court is going to wait for another circuit Supreme Court decision or do you think theyll take it up from this 10th Circuit Court decision you say sooner rather than later . Guest its too early to tell. Were waiting a decision on the Fourth Quarter fourth circuit. It wouldnt come down prior to the october term in which the Supreme Court would have an opportunity to taking the 10th Circuit Court decision. There are several other cases teed up in front of the sixth circuit and the seventh circuit. So the court may have quite a few to choose from. Host so brian brown, we were talking about Public Opinion on this topic. I want to show our viewers a graph of Public Opinion over time on samesex marriage, this going back to 2003. The yellow line being those who oppose samesex marriage. The red line being those who support samesex marriage. You can see that changing, flipping around 2009, 2010. Is Public Opinion turning against those who oppose samesex marriage . Well, as supports are re defining marriage that somehow, the American People embrace samesex marriage. If that was true, why are supports avoiding at all costs another referendum . In ohio and in oregon, they refuse to submit signatures for a referendum. Why . Because if the courts are doing the work for you, why have the voters have their say . So, i think its ironic that on one hand, theres this claim that somehow, the American Public supports samesex marriage and on the other, theres a refusal to allow the people of each state to decide. Those two things dont make a lot of sense. We saw before proposition 8 only 35 of the public in california supported traditional marriage. When the actual vote came, it won by 53 . Weve seen time and time again that poll being misrepresents where folks are at. And if you look at the vote, 31 states have voted to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Only three states have voted to dedefine it. One, North Carolina, just voted a little over a year and a half ago to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Host brian brown is with the National Organization for marriage. For folks that dont know of your organization, tell us about it. Guest our organization is supports the faith communities that sustain marriage. Host and Sarah Warbelow, the Human Rights Campaign. Guest the Human Rights Campaign the nations largest advocating transgender gay, americans. Host if you have a question or a comment for one of our guests, our phone lines are open. Publicans can call at 202, and a special line or altogether lbgt viewers. We will start with charlotte. Caller good morning. My penguins its your business what you want to be. But my thing is everybody wants to shove it down your throat. Not everybody believes it that way and i think people should be allowed their opinion instead of everybody trying theyre wrong with their opinion. Thank you. Host charlotte, are you still with us . Caller yes. Host on the issue of samesex marriage, would you support it in tennessee . Caller no. Because i believe in it. Again, thats my personal opinion. Dont shove your opinion down my throat. I dont want to hear it. Host all right. Caller we all have opinions. Host ill let Sarah Warbelow respond. Guest i appreciate that. I know theres a lot of changing opinions and many people are going to hold firm to the opinions that they have and thats ok. What is important is that people have the ability under the law to access the same rights as everyone else. And i know that this has been in the news a lot and it probably feels overwhelming for some individuals to have the significant discussion but im hopeful that once the Supreme Court decides this issue once samesex and all ouple are going to marry, this will recede in the background. Host this week in indiana, heres the front page of the indianapolis star. Utah for n out to another front page. The state to appeal for the marriage ruling. The court oked samesex marriage descent d. V. D. s states rights out there. Now. Go to mississippi george, good morning. Caller yes, sir. How are you doing . Host good, george. Go ahead. For my opinion is that our first president , george washington, and that is all citizens should be treated equally. But theres a standard that we stand on and were not standing you e standards because if go to the biblical terms on it because all our money, on our money, we have in god we trust. And thats what our law is. And on that standard that we got to base our standard in this earth realm just as god did in the heavenly realm enjoug the fruit of the spirit and also, when you say that, do you say everybody have a right. Yet everybody has the right in this earths realm but there are laws and orders that we should be abounced by and that constitution is the thing that we stand on. Host all right, george. Ill let brian brown jump in. Guest the notion that somehow the Supreme Court is going to finally end this issue one way or another is fundamentally flawed as the justices themselves have note with the roe v. Wade decision, abortion it did not end. In fact, it polarized the country for decades to come. On the issue of the broader issue of people feeling like they cant stand up and state where they believe on this issue, especially supporters of traditional marriage, weve seen one told he was kicked out of his bed for contributing to proposition 8. Weve seen the duck dynasty fiasco. Weve seen donors harassed, intimidated, death threats. This has gone on at the same time that proponents of samesex marriage are saying if you redefine marriage, this is a live and let live proposition. Nothing will happen to you. This is only about equality. It is not only about that. Its about two different ideas of marriage on the table. And the arguments being put forth in the courts are essentially those of us that believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman are beliefs of hatred and irrationality. You can put that proposition into the law and say there will not be effect of a marriage that is between a man and a marriage. One of the ideas of marriage is going to win out in a law. Either theres a view that . Is something unique and special about a husband and a wife or the revision in which husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, its all irrelevant. Its only about personal fulfillment of the couple thats disconnected with child bearing and child rearing. These are two fundamentally different ideas. People of goo will can disagree on those but if the law embraces on one, it wont affect the other. Host this is from the desiree news showing the states courts that are ruled in favor of samesex marriage since the Supreme Court decision in windsor last year. Go ahead. Guest marriages change significantly over time. The idea that we had about marriage once we would never accept now including women being inferior individuals within a relationship. We actually have laws based on those notions that was once part of our history. We have come to reject those. So marriage changes over time. And whats remained fundamental and a core critical piece is that two individuals come together because they love one another. They want to care for each other, support each other. Many of them choose to form families. And they want an environment in which to raise their children. And samesex couples are looking for the same types of things looking into a marriage that most other couples are looking for as well. There is not one monolith view of marriage. Host chesapeake, virginia, is next. Bob is on the line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. In my opinion, the whole problem , those that the definition you have the definition of a marriage as a wedlock and intimate union of a husband and a wife, one man and one woman. There is no definition for a samesex couple. I suggest that there be another definition, say like a homage. You say a marriage between a man and a woman, a homage between a samesex couple. Each union has its own defined definition and should be allowed to stand on its own merits both legally and morally under the law. Marriage for thousands of years has been defined as a union of a man and a woman and should not allow dortch be regind as some other definition. Host bob, would the rights be the same under the two different terms and definitions that you use . Caller that could be perfectly equal, but youre changing the definition of marriage. This should not be allowed. D then, whenever they have a homage in the newspaper or they send out marriage things or married in the church, then the person knows what theyre going to expect. Host brian brown, youre shaking your head on the viewers call . Guest well, the idea that somehow, peripheral changes to marriage over ons of history have any similarities to the reality that it was only 15 years ago that samesex marriage was even conceived of in any state, and that the defining characteristic of marriage throughout Human History has been the fact that its based on the distinction between male and female. To somehow say that this change is just like other changes, i just think people wont i mean, its obvious that is not true. This is changing what marriage fundamentally is. And if you talk about the change in the way that was brought up earlier, well, this is about affirming peoples rights. This is about affirming the dignity of their relationships, then you have to ask this simple question. Why not three, four, or five people . Why is this only about samesex marriage . Why do supporters of samesex marriage now deny rights to those that want to practice polygamy . Because once you change the fundamental truth that marriage is, by definition, the union of a man and a woman, all the other characteristics of marriage are up for grabs. And so i ask why not . Why not three, four, five . We already have lawsuits using the exact arguments put forward in the lawsuits in many of these states that are trying to claim that there is a right to polygamy in our constitution, which clear is is not there, just as a right to redefine marriage is not in our constitution. Host sarah, do you want to respond . Guest yeah. The issue is a red herring. What we would have to do to accommodate polygamist families as radically different that what is under the law to accommodate samesex couples. As weve seen in a numerous state, we have 19 states that allows samesex couples to marry. It is a simple matter of opening up our marriage codes because samesex couples resemble opposite sex couples in so many ways, caring for their families, their children. You know, making lifetime fidelity commitments to one another. And and the response of polygamy or other types of multipartner relationships just dont fit into the structure of marriage in the same way and its much more complicated issue. Guest i dont think thats the answer to the question why you should not have three, four, five people. Youre saying the same thing that youre claiming supporters of traditional marriage are saying. Youre saying its based on a male and a female. Why isnt is just that its based on two . What is the binary structure that its based on . The distinction of male and female. If you get rid of that, you have no logical reason to not say why not three, four or five . Theyre going to claim the same things about rights, privileges, and yaw really done have an answer to them. Guest but we do have a history of polygamy throughout the world. Its something that the United States has rejected but that actually is a part of the world, marriage history and marriage tradition. That doesnt means its necessarily the right choice here in the United States and something that i assume will continue to be debated. Host back to the callers. Eddie is waiting in North Carolina on our line for republicans. Eddie, good morning. Youre on with brian brown and Sarah Warbelow. Caller when you guys said it is a constitutional right or things like thats wrong. There is no constitutional right for straight marriage or gay marriage. But getting to the point where youre using equal rights clause in order to get the samesex marriage to go through, wouldnt that be the same thing as challenging the progressive tax code . Youre not treating people equally because they make more money than the person that doesnt make any money . So a person thats rich can challenge the court how the code saying im not being treated equally as someone who doesnt make as much money that i do . Guest well, the way that our jurisprudence written it up in order to attain the highest degree of scrutiny, the closest look that the courts going to take on a particular issue. One of the things that we ask is that your situation is something that cant change. And we know that peoples economic status does shift and change over time. It can be hard to change economic status. But it is different than an individuals Sexual Orientation, which is something that were learning more and more about, but all of the evidence begins to suggest is something that you cant change about yourself. Host and brian brown, you mentioned the idea of a referendum earlier. Heres a tweet from tattered rainbow. Civil rights should never go to referendum. Only the craziest votes normal people say home because its not their concern. Do you want to respond to that . Guest i think it shows the loathing for American Democratic processes that weve seen time and time again. Youre begging the question. If i believe there was a civil rights to samesex marriage, i would support it. So its begging the question to just make a claim that theres a civil rights to samesex marriage and there is not a civil rights to redefine marriage. Many of the people that are calling in are starting from both reason, religion, wherever it comes from. Theyre starting from a point where they recognize what should be clear and obvious is that theres a distinction between male and female. There is a distinction between motherhood and fatherhood. There is a difference. So then to claim that somehow, once you accept that difference, that there is a right to redefine it is simply wrong. There is no right to do that. So, again, the notion that the American People cant be trusted with certain questions and that our elites and philosophers can get to decide these issues for us is fundamentally flawed. And i dont think its going tend to up winning out at this United States Supreme Court. Host youve got a special line in this segment of the washington journal for lbgt viewers. Jerry is calling in from indiana. Jerry, good morning. Caller good morning. I want to make a comment that people are confusing religion and our government and our laws. This is a separation of church and state. Its the way it should be looked at. It was not a religious issue. It is a legal issue. And i think your panel actually defines that because you have a religious leader and you have someone from a legal group. Using religion and they use that as a basis to argue against it. And our constitution, you know, has the separation of church and state. Its part of our law. Host ill let Sarah Warbelow go first. Guest the other piece is theres a plethora of religious views out there. There is a religious group in North Carolina, a church, that has mounted a lawsuit against North Carolinas law prohibiting samesex couples from marrying because the way the law is written, prohibits them from celebrating those marriages in their own churches. And so, i do think that this is something thats separate from religion. In a large part, because there isnt one single religious view on this issue. Host mr. Brown . Guest im that pastor or a priest or anything like that. It is true that marriage stands on its own, apart from any particular religious tradition. Through natural reason, marriage is by its nature the union of a man and a woman. What is marriage . By Professor Robert george and ryan anderson. I recommend it. Its the rational case for marriage but at the same time, because theres a clear rational case for understanding marriage as humanity as understood it and during different cultures, times and places, different religious traditions, that doesnt mean that people of religious faith are somehow barred from entering this discussion merely because theyre motivated by their religious faith. So its a misunderstanding of the separation of church and state and thats why in this country up thats why in this country up until 14 years ago, no one would even conceive that the constitution included samesex marriage. Clearly our founders didnt. In fact, for utah to become a state, it had to ban polygamy if they wanted to become a state. Thats what they did. Thats when the union of one man, one woman became clear state law in utah. Again, what were doing is using the courts to put living constitutionism on destroyeds and have judges have the ability to fundamentally change the very nature of american law. On this issue of the definition of marriage, marriage has been redefined many times throughout our history. Caller my question is for ms. Warbalo as to why her organization put confidential organization about donors that was illegally leaked by the i. R. S. And illegally obtained. I dont think that is ethical behavior. I was wondering why her organization felt it promoted their cause by putting such information on their web site. Guest mr. Browns organization has violated laws in maine and other states with regard to the disclosure of donors and we feel it is important that people be aware of that information, and if we are going to have civil discourse in this country that we know who is participating in that particular discourse. Guest that is a good question. As weve seen in the news, the i. R. S. Did settle a lawsuit that we launched and we admitted that they disclosed our private list. The Human Rights Campaign doesnt list all of its 501c doe nores, nor do we. On ave never put the list our web site. I will say after our lawyers contacted the Human Rights Campaign they did take it down because i think they realized it was not only unethical, it was criminal. However, once its on the web, if it comes out, it is out. I will say, this is a point that all americans should agree on. We shouldnt be intimidating, attacking, and punishing people that stand up for their right to free speech, including donating. One of the reasons we pursued this lawsuit is to affirm that for everyone. Plenty of our donars who are happy to be public. Some say i dont care who knows, i want them to know. The fact is that people should not have an understanding from the government that they can make a contribution from either a Human Rights Campaign and then have the government take that list and give it to their political appointments. That sounds like something out of the soviet union, it is not something that we as americans do. Nation ian brown is for for america. We have a special line for lbgt viewers. Mike is waiting on that line in clearwater, florida. Mike . Caller good morning. Host go ahead, mike. Guest i would like mr. Brown to know that my partner and i have been living together for 28 years, and we have been paying taxes. Marriage equality is important for the younger people, not so much for us. It is an important issue, and you should consider the younger people. Full federal benefits are going to be required for these people. Again, not so much for us, but for these younger people. Thank you. Host those that support same sex marriage by age according to polling this past year, 1829yearolds are the highest age group that support same sex marriage by age. Guest we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do in a cadameia. This has been 30 years of groups being involved in schools, teaching the ideas that those of us that believe in marriage between the union of a man and a woman are somewhat bigoted. We have a ton of support online, a ton of ewe important from other people and young people who have heard the argsments and are starting to hear our arguments again. Great book, what is marriage . Second time ill bring it up. Dont believe the lie that there is only one side to this debate. Proponents of same sex marriage have done a good job getting their arguments out there. Increasingly theres a tendency lence those of us that move sarah . Guest we are also seeing support from Older Americans as well, and across the board. I think young people are more likely to know people who are gay or lesbian. They are more open than ever before. People have friends, siblings, cousins, neighbors. It is every, ordinary, gay americans who are part of our families coming out, being open about who they are, introducing their partners to parents, saying, you know, we want to get married. This is what marriage means to us. It is a value that we have. Those are the things that are changing. Guest we have about 10 minutes left in our roundtable. Lets go to diana on our line for independentents from georgia. Caller i have a quick question to make. Voter, i independent am conservative. I have a problem with the term marriage. It was in the bible. It is the symbol of the wedding band. Have the courts the courts have ruled that is a christian term. I have no problem with civil union. Instead of saying, you have benefits for marriage, you have benefits for civil union. Thats all i have to say. It is all about terminology. Guest we have experienced with other terms. There were civil unions as early as 19999. Virtually every state felt it fell short. As much as there was an attempt to create equality, it was never true equality. No one grows up and says, i want to be in a civil union. People grow up and say, i want to be married. There is a dignity and respect and understanding that comes along with the terminology. We understand what it means to say that someone is married. A civil union or partnership is a different term. When you introduce someone as your domestic partner, people ask, are you talking about someone you live with or a Business Partner . It is for those reasons that these ultimate forms have fally en by the wayside. Host the dark purple states in this map are where samesex marriage is allowed. The gray states is where samesex marriage has been hallenged. Our next call is from florida. Dennis, go ahead. Caller i think everyone with samesex attraction should be treated with respect. However, science has not determined, in spite of what the media tells us, science has not determined what gives samesex attraction. Given the choice, i dont think would erosexual parent include home sexual marriage for their child. So if the courts could have an impact on our children wharks rights and obstacle gages does a parent have to protect children from this . Ill hang up and listen to your answer. Guest i think there have been a number of big lies told. One is that we somehow know the even gay rights activists have said, we dont have the proof of that. The reason why it is important for groups like Human Rights Campaign to say this is true is it is the basis of a lot of legal challenges. They want to create an analogy between race and Sexual Orientation in the law and say mmovable. Hangeable, i the fact is, Many Americans, orthodox jews, evangelicals, believe homosexual activity is wrong. That is just a reality of where we are as a country. Samesex marriage is something thats used that used to be a club to blugeon them to tell them their beliefs are somehow harmful simply because they think it is wrong. One can easily hold the idea that we need to affirm the dignity of all human beings and treat everyone with respect and compassion while at the same time not supporting the redefinition of marriage. I actually think thats where the 50 million americans that stood up to protect marriage thats where the overwhelming majority are. There are extremists in every group on any movement on the side of folks that would break into the Family Research council ith a bunch of chikfila bags that want to shoot people, but there are also those that want to redefine marriage, and there are some people that say hateful things on the side from the other side. I think what we need from both sides of the debate is to state that we will not accept hate threats and personal attacks. I think that includes the sort of claims that the Human Rights Campaign is making about the fact that those of us that believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman are somewhat bigoted or the equivalent of racists. Go ahead. Guest i think we completely free with you. This needs to be a civil discourse. Neither of our organizations want to promote that type of behavior. We do not use terminology like bigotry. It is something we have intentionally disavowed. We think it is about changing minds and ideas. It is more about looking at friends and family and saying, you know, i want whats best for my child. I want whats best for my family members. I think if you look at the science the piece that i think is most useful to examine is what happens when there are efforts to change an individuals Sexual Orientation. When those youngsters are put into programs such as preparative therapy we have decades of research that shows it actually leads to increased use of suicide ideation, increased use of drugs and alcohol. So the outcomes are really problematic. So regardless of how people end up with the Sexual Orientation that they have, we know there are sincerely held beliefs and feelings and changing them is incredibly problematic. There is a great deal of research thats been done about the best way parents can support lgbt and it is that support. Just telling your child i love you and accept you reduces your use of suicide by more than 60 . Thats what every parent wants for their child. Host we will try to get to as many of your calls as we can. Maddy is on our line for lbgt callers in florida. Caller just a couple quick comments. One, as a transgender female, right now preop, my drivers license reads female by my birth certificate reads female until i have the operation. There are many transgender females that live fulltime in a male role and they cant get married due to the fact that it says marriage between a man and a man. But those people do live fulltime as a man. Earlier they were talking about q ove of how gender there is evidence of a sac inside the head that contains testosterone inside the brain that calcifies. If someone is living fulltime as a woman, why cant they have the same rights, especially if it has been proven in transgender people . I think we are the effort to redefine marriage is an effort to redefine what we are as human beings, to do away with the distinction between male and female. And i think the next step is we are whatever we define ourselves as. If i wake up and say im a man, im a man, if i wake up and say im a woman, im a woman. Right now we are sometimes using surgery to alter people to fit wherever their definition is. I was heartened by the fact that paul mchue had a piece about the fact that Johns Hopkins no longer does gender reassignment surgery for children, but that is the brave new world we are embarking on where parents are now buying into this notion that there is nothing substantive or real about being male or female, and actually deciding to surgically change their children with very little no input from a child, this is fundamentally transforming what it means to be a human being. And were forgetting about the rights of children in all of this. Were forgetting about what it means to all of us as far as what our children will be taught in the schools. Thats why i think now is as important a time as ever for people to stand up, contact their congressmen, stand up for the truth that we know in our arts that there is something many special about the union marriage union. Caller you guys kind of answered your own questions especially when it comes to the childrens part. If you want your rights, you have to give them to your children. When they are born, their rights is completely tablingen from them. Do not ask for your own rights if youre not going to give them to your children. Thats what i have to say. Guest i think children need to be part of a family. We have children living with samesex couples. Some of those children are biologically related. Some of those children are adopted. And allow samesex couples to marry in the absolute best way to provide for protections for these families and to assure that all children grow up in safe, secure homes that have the full support of the American Public and the law, and that those children then have the recourse to everything that they need to have the proteches that other children are granted. Host sarah warbalow, Human Rights Campaign, and brian brown, nation for marriage. Thank you for coming on. Host David Shepardson of detroit news joins us to discuss the car industry. Well be right back. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have alienable le rights, yet Many Americans do not enjoy those rights. We believe all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty, yet millions are being deprived of those blessings. Not because of their own failures, but because of the color of their skin. The reasons are deeply embedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand without rancor or hatred how this all hal happened, but it cannot continue. Our constitution, the foundation of our republic forebids it. The principles of our freedom forebid it. More at forebids it. And the law i will sign tonight forebids it. This weekend the 50th anniversary of the 1954 civil ights act with president johnsons address to the nation and the signing ceremony. Later, hear from reporters that covered the debate in congress. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on merican history tv on cspan3. Many author it Daniel Shurman on Daniel Schulman on the koch brothers. So charles and david on one side and phil and Share Holders on the other. His culminated in a board room showdown that bill eppeds up thwarting. They were trying to expand the size of the board and this would have ended up depotsing charles as the chairman and they would have taken a greater role in the direction of the company. The end result is phil is tossed out of the company a few years later. By his brothers. By his brothers. There is a dramatic moment in the book where, you know, the board has to sit down and decide bills fate. Sunday night lman , cspans q. Washington journal continues. Host were back with the Washington Bureau chief of the detroit news. David, thank you so much for oining us. Guest thank you. Host we have 28 million recall cars in the u. S. , on track to break a record. Whats behind these big numbers . Guest g. M. Recalled 2. 8 million cars now tribt contributed to 13 deaths and 54 crashes. That has prompted the entire industry to take a new look at older safety issues because of the intense look by regulators, congress, the public. In the case of g. M. They recalled 20 million vehicles worldwide in the First Six Months of the year. Last year they recalled less than a million vehicles. They had 48 separate recall campaigns, including four just yesterday, and other companies are recalling lots of vehicles because of other safety issues. Host the safety issues driving the recalls, how safe are they . You look at the issue of cars declining in quality or are auto makers being extra vigilant . Guest i think it is mostly their being extra vigilant. Showed cars tudy are Getting Better. What other industry do you have so many different models. There is a lot of prern to pressure to build highcompault quality cars. That said, cars have about 4,000 parts. If something goes wrong, there is a lot of pressure to fix anything that might pose a risk to safety. Host some say because cars are more complex, there is a lot more than can go wrong. Guest thats true. There is tons of more electronic hardware. The other issue is cars have more common parts. There is a company out of japan called tekata corp. Seven different auto markers are ing the same part, so when a component fails, the recall affects many different companies. Host resale was up 11 last month. Why hasnt this had a bigger impact . Guest i think the biggest reason is pent up demand. During the financial crisis, fewer people were buying cars. Another issue, very easy credit. Companies are giving eight years to finance a car. Even though cars financed for four or five years means cheaper ayments. Host you mention easier financing, eightyear terms for cars. Is there any concern that we are moving into more risky lending that could cause problems in the future . Guest yes there is a lot of concern we will have a problem is what ppen studies show is that cars are the first thing people will pay. You cant drive your house to work. Host you can call us on the republican line at 2025853881. Democratic line 2025853880. Independent line 2025853882. I also want to ask you about a story you wrote this week about new measures that congress is taking potentially taking in order to address some of these issues. You wrote that senator Jay Rockefeller introduced a Vehicle Safety act of 2014 that will give the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration more funding to conduct more investigations to get unsafe vehicles off the road more quickly. Federal spending from over 100 2017. N to 280 million by explain how the bill would work. Guest it would offer a per vehicle fee. It would start at 3 and raise to over 5. It would go up to over 100 million a year. Thats never been done before. Critics say the national highway Safety Administration does not have enough people to keep up with the volume of safety investigations and cars on the road. It also gives the government more power. Currently the government does not have the authority to order an unsafe vehicle off the road immediately. It is required to go through a twostep process, a preliminary investigation, go to a public hearing. This would allow a faster urgent process for the government to get unsafe vehicles off the road if a recalcitrant auto company didnt agree. It would also require used car dealers to fix a recalled vehicle now. Currently if you buy a used car, the dealer or owner does not have to notify you to fix those defects. The same goes for a taxi or rental car. You may not know it has a recall thats been fixed. This foes back to 2010 when toyota had its sudden acceleration problems, congress didnt adopt those measures thrfment are two retiring members, rock compel feller and waxman. They are making another push this year to try to get this passed. Host we have richard on the democratic line. Richard, good morning. Caller good morning. Ood morning david. Id like to Say Something about the foreign parts they keep bringing in. Thats why we are having these problems. I think it is china, south korea, and indochina. They are all trying to get the biggest share of the market so we will end up buying their products. Thats what it boils down to. Thanks. Guest you are right, there is a lot more production of parts abroad. Parts are shitched to china, mexico, and other lower wage countries. That said, these parts are being used by all the countries. It is not as if chinese or mexican parts are only being used by u. S. Vehicles, they are also being used by japanese, korean. The global Auto Industry is now relying on these big auto parts companies. I dont think there is evidence that there is an attempt to provide u. S. Companies with sub tandard parts. Host can you explain the spillover effects that the recall may be having on other sectors of the economy. Guest are you talking about millions of dollars in the cost of fixing these cars. They get paid by the auto manufacturers, gives them a chance to sell you know, more cars coming back to get their repairs done. With you but, you know, if you think about the massive impact of autos, it really touches every sector of the economy from energy, environment, to housing, construction, i mean truck sales go up when construction moves up, so the Auto Industry just to by some estimates 3 5 g. D. P. Total based on the aggregate impact. Host we have a call from scott in san francisco. Scott you are on the independent line. Go ahead. Uest caller what a great subject you have this morning. Thank you for taking my car. I would like to talk about the cars having a great deal of problems recently. I think it may be parts, but it may be more likely poor quality workmanship, and that may be attributable to people not really wanting those jobs anymore. Thats my comment. Thank you for taking it. Guest i dont think people dont want those jobs anymore, but you make a fair point that the entry level auto job pays far less, about half of what it used to. Less than 20 an hour for the detroit three. Certainly those jobs are not as sought after as they once were. But in manufacturing towns, where many of these areas are lost thousands of jobs like michigan, these are jobs people still really want and the Auto Industry gets hundreds and hundreds of applications when they have jobs open. Host one of the issues of the Auto Industry talks about is needing to change the culture. We have a clip here of representative tim murphy of mary ittees questioning barr. You have been with the company for 20 years, correct . Yes. How do you change the culture at g. M. I believe you mentioned 15 were fired. Thats 99. 99 of the people there are the same. If you havent changed the people, how do you change the culture . Again, the 15 people no longer with the company are either the people that didnt take ack as they should or didnt work urgently enough to rectify this problem. They are no longer part of this company. That was a strong signal to send within the company. Whats most important is we concrete create the right environment that everyone within the company is able to come to work, do their best work, and be supportive. Thats the culture were working to create. Thats the programs weve put in place. Such as speak up for safety and the structural changes weve made. Host in the old g. M. , the new g. M. , how successful has the company been in making the transition . L guest General Motors was created in the 1960s. It was the Largest Company in the world for decades. Beginning in the 1970s, began a slow 30year decline losing market share. As a result, the companys culture never caught up. G. M. Is so big, it is compared to like a battleship trying to turn it around. Had very narrow job responsibilities. It is not a culture people were allowed to encouraged to bring bad news up the chain of command. This whole report shows a whole series of problems which they did not address. I think the fundamental issue, you have to fix cars and address problems when they come up. Host our next caller from anandale, virginia. You are on the democratic line. Go ahead. Caller thank you. All of the information ive seen nce it came out has been jim roberts. I want to get to specific. The fact that cadillac is a eneral motors product. What does the customer have to do to get some reaction from past failures to fix the problem . Guest so there have been a lot of recalls on cadillac this year. There have been 48 separate recalls by g. M. Over 150 by the industry this year. Safeauto. Gov and see if your car has been recalled this year or in the past. In fact, under regulations taking effect by august you will be able to type your v. I. N. Number, vehicle identification number, into the web site and determine if there are any outstanding recalls that have ot been completed on your car. Host you bring up a good point, customer one knowing if their car that is secondly, how does a customer get their car the list . Is on guest 25 of cars do not get fixed. In germany, for example, are you required to get them fixed or you cannot renewed your license plate. Other countries take a much more aggressive stants stance with the thinking being, hey, it is not just unsafe to you, it is unsafe to everyone on the road if you didnt get your recall fixed. People move. It is hard to track them down. If your car is registered, you should get notice, but it can take a while. Host has there been an effort capitol hill to tighten ecalls snl guest he historically, states have been mainly responsible. It is up to stadse states to decide whether you wear your seat belts. What the government does do, it will withhold federal Highway Safety grants if states dont meet minimum starts. One state still does not have a mandatory seat belt law. Uest consumer groups have complained about cars being fixed if they are recalled. Can you tell us about what consumers can do to protect themselves . Guest the lawsuit this week involved carmax. It is not a new car seller. They are not allowed by the auto place to fix these vehicles, but they could take them to a dealer and get them fixed. Car max ops not to check or get these vehicles repaired ff before they sell them. The Consumers Want the f. T. C. To bar in some of their advertising practices that asuggests that they do a comprehensive safety check without disclosing more openly that they do not check for recalls. It goes back to this other issue of rental cars or taxicabs. When you get a rental car, most rental Companies Get cars checked routinely, but you dont know. If you go to a rental car lout lot, you dont know how serious it is. Generally the companies say, it is serious, well get it done quickly. Host good morning, mark. Caller whats gotten me is everyone seems to be attacking g. M. As if g. M. Is the only one thats had these problems. All cars are being recalled. There is i website you can go to. I dont know how many cars are listed in there in the quantities in the thousands that are being recalled. It seems to be a way of life. If you own a car, you have to check to make sure it is not being recalled. Even mercedesbenz, i noticed on one of their web sites, there is a recall on mercedesbenz for a taillight problem. It is like anything else in this world, it is made by men, there are going to be problems. One year ago, they singled out toyota. They will toyota before congress. They were investigating the sudden acceleration. Now it is g. M. s turn. Thats my comment. Guest thats right. There is a huge number of recalls. I think what toyota and General Motors got singled out is in both instances the companies admitted they delayed getting those recalls fixed. In the case of g. M. , as much as 10 years. In g. M. Cases, there were deaths contributed to people after the recalls were made. Host has there been a problem with getting some of these recalled cars and parse fixed . Guest they have 2. 6 million vehicles they have recalled. They expect to complete all the production of parts by october. They have currently fixed more than 10 . They do have a sizable number of parts on hand. Although customers have complained it has taken some time for them to get their cars fixed. However g. M. Did offer tens of thousands of rental cars for free to people nervous about deprifing the cars until the parts were available. So dep someone cant get a part, they should call their dealer or get it fixed immediately. Host we talk about some of the victims in these recalls. To eople have been linked these recalled. 54 injuries as well. What is the status of compensation for people hurt or injuried. Guest g. M. Hired ken feinberg, the lawyer behind the virginia tech, boston marathon, b. P. Funds. Here in washington he will announce the fund and the web site and the parameters for who is eligible. The big question remains is beyond the people injured and killed that we know of, will there be other people found. So people sitting in the back seat. Remember, this defect relates to when the ignition switch turned off, the airbag was depowered, meaning the airbag failed to deploy in these frontal crashes. The big question is, how will this be processed . What will the problem to reply for a claim . We will know that monday. Host did you get any clues how ken feinberg said this might be structured . Guest there are at least 80 lawsuits pending from millions of owners saying the recall has lowered the value of my car or made it harder to sell it. Those claims will not be addressed. This is strictly limited to deaths and injuries related to the defect. In terms of the Big Questions s. There a cap on how much money g. M. Will offer . How many people will be eligible . Those are the questions hes been wrestling with the last few onths. Host what is typically the cost of a recall . What is the most and biggest recall . Guest replacing an engine or even an airbag. Generally speaking, recalls are not hugely expensive. They add up hundreds of millions of dollars. Multiply by it can be several millions of dollars for one big recall. So the industry spends billions of dollars every year on recalls , no doubt. Host we have suzanne calling on the democratic line. Caller hi. Host do you have a question for david . Caller i think the problem here is when we had the nafta thing go through, you know, i think he everybody was thinking about, made in america. What happened to that . I lived in michigan for 30 years of my life. My parents worked for the automotive industry. Thats a ghost town now. Those companies filed bankruptcy. You know . Were becoming a third world country. They dont want to pay us anything. These big c. E. O. s make all this money, and they know something is wrong, but they buy everything at the cheapest place they can. Guest auto production is a goodnews, badnews story for the u. S. The built by Companies Like honda, b. M. W. , and largely in uthern states and nonunion states as opposed to michigan. So certainly michigan has been devastated by the auto decline. In recent years, the u. S. Auto industry has added back many jobs, and there are still over 100,000 direct auto jobs in michigan. So it is p all bad news. Host are there lessons that we are taking from these recalls . Guest i think the biggest lesson is, recalls themselves are not bad. Things are going to break. Recalls are going to happen. For case of airbag, example, because states like high humidity caused these airbag inflateors to fail inflators to fail, and it just wasnt anticipated. What they have taken away is that if you dont frix them immediately, if it is shown that people died, the cost to your reputation and the business can be astronomical. Host we now have jerry calling from columbus, ohio, on the independent line. Jerry, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. First of all, that man from california ought to read the decline of the Auto Industry and you ought to see tucker, the American Dream how general motor stuck it to tucker when he ad a fantastic automobile. He was in the back pocket of General Motors, and General Motors had popout windows and tubeless tires back in 1948. I have a scale sitting on my book case in my den. Further more, they are not paying these guys not the to industry, but they opened marion, indiana, no union paid no union paid the workers 12. Folks, you dont know how you are getting ripped off by these companies when they ought to be able to pay. And you are talking to an 85yearold guy that worked for 25 cents an hour. So again, i always enjoy reading the detroit news, because my home done u town is miscellaneous keegan muskegan. Guest thanks for the plug. You are right, General Motors got very powerful in washington, and had a litany of big mistakes it made, and used its political influence. Certainly in the 1960s, they hiring pologize for private investigators to follow ralph nader. A lot of innovations have come from Startup Companies and are eventually adopted by the big u. S. Firms. Companies like g. M. Are, you know, sfobble responsible for many of the key safety advances hat are in all our cars today. But back when Presley Tucker was around, why has there not been a single successful startup auto company with the exception of tesla . The Auto Industry is very labor intensive. It requires huge amounts of money. So preston tucker, it is debateable whether he failed because of the pressure from other auto from the Auto Industry or whether it just required to much money to be successful. Host can you explain guest the u. S. Auto makers have about a 70 share. It was close to 90 around 1960. G. M. Alone had over a 50 market share. But what the companies figured out is with the resturring of 2008, 2009, the bankrupt sizz of g. M. And chrysler, they were going to stop chasing market share. The whole business is focused on we have to keep the factories running because we have these labor contracts. There was an endless cycle of cuts. Now it is about profitability. It is not about chasing sales, but the number of cars that can e sold profitably. Host pob from melbourne, florida. Caller i was in the car business like 20 years. Y question is, no one is mentioning Quality Control as far as putting the cars through production. Im wondering if the law is taken as seriously now as years ago, like 2550 years ago. Thats a question i have. Guest i think quality is taken more seriously today because of the intense scrutiny because of research by j. D. Power and social media. I think problems aring discovered more quickly, which is why new defects get recalled with a much smaller population. Host our next caller is duke from South Carolina on the republican line. Caller good morning. Thank god for cspan. This is duke mcneill, and it is a pleasure to have the honor. Host whats your question today . Caller my question is to the gentleman. Why is it we allowed technology to be so far advanced, and it seems technology is creating all these problems, you see . And then the taxpayers have to bail out, you know, the industry. I used to work with our Automobile Industry many years ago. If we cant get it writhe right with our engineers, you know, and Corporate Executives with the Automobile Industry, we possibly need someone else to build these automobiles. Guest let me defend technology. It is amazing what is coming out of our industry now. Back up p cameras which will be standard after 2017. That will help prevent hitting a child backing up. Forward mitigation systems. Your consider will alert you or stop your car from hitting the car in front of you on the highway. So blind spot detection. As we go forward there will be a huge number of technologies designed to help us when we screw up. Dont forget, 93 of all crashes on the road are the fealt of the drivers. Host how close are we to selfdriving cars . Guest closer than we think. Google is showing in these tests they can do it. The question is, are americans going to accept selfdriving cars that are not foolproof, and they will have to make decisions at times. Host our next caller is from illinois. Caller i have two questions. I have been listening to the whole program, and i never heard you address it, although i would love to hear it. I have ai 2010 chevy right now. I think it has been the ignition has been recalled. I wonder does General Motors still send out letters to the owners. Im the original owner. The other thing i wondered, i never heard you mention, it has amazed me the number of miles on cars that they drive anymore. They have got to be made much better. My daughter, shes trifing a car my daughter, thees shes driving a car and it has over 200,000 miles on it. Web site to see if there is a recall. By you are right, americans are getting more miles on their cars. I think it is a testament to the fact that cars are far about ther far better than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Host these geneva from texas. Caller i have a 2004 malibu and i have a leak in my gas tank. Ended up being a severe leak. If someone had rear ended me, my car would have exploded. My question is, why have they not had a recall on that . Guest im not familiar with that specific fuel leak, but if you think there was a defect, you can file a complavent with the national Highway Safety transportation at safer car. Gov. Thats thousand the government decides to investigate, they look for trends in complaints. Im not sure about that specific thing, but in general if you have a problem with your car, you should file a complaint with the government to get it investigated. Host we talked about safety reforms pending on capitol hill. This came up before. Is there anything different about it this time that might give it a chance . Guest the country needs to pass a new highway bill soon so we can fix our road. Some of these bills have been atashtatched to those. The real question is, congressman fred upton said hes considering whether he thrills the auto provisions are necessary. I think it depends with a compressed congressional calendar is this something republicans and democrats in the senate are going to make a priority and get done. Host david, thank you so much for being here. You can join us again tomorrow on washington journal at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time or 4 00 a. M. Pacific time. Thank you so much for being ere. Coming up today on cspan, president obama speaking at a white house summit on working families. At 11 00 a. M. , mike rorgers talking about national security, and later a Veterans Affairs meeting about health care at v. A. Facilities. Now you can keep in touch with Current Events from the Nations Capital using any phone ny time with cspan radio on audionow. Every weekday listen to a recap of the days events on washington today. You can hear audio of the five sunday Public Affairs programs. Cspan radio. Call it focused on the challenges facing todays president. President obama was among the speakers. He talks about a number of issues including the minimum wage. This is 30 minutes. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thiswd