Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150901

You will eventually find it. The biggest thing that jumps out is use your good judgment. When youre talking about model aircraft, not commercial flight, that was a notice and we can talk about that here shortly, really is use your good judgment. In the event that you violate good judgment, i guess, by going into restricted air space you are looking at fines. Scott, i know youre going to talk before we get into more of the laws, what about i mean, its pretty obvious to me that theres privacy issue here thats raised by the small drones that anybody can operate, do you have any thoughts on that . Yeah, thank you. So i think that the Civil Liberties concerns fall into two buckets, number one spying and number two is complicated, First Amendment, the right to photography, so, you know, our big focus has been putting some rules in place to ensure that drones used by government agencies, local Police Department dont become a tool for massive surveillance. We dont have a issue with particularized mission or swat raid or what have you or a lost child. We are concerned that that National Security and specially local Police Departments will use for mass surveillance. Of course, individuals will use them for privacy invasions, and we have not called the regulations in that area because its a clear complicated issue. Its unclear to what extent the kind of privacy, which is like the kid down the block flying outside the window which should be covered, peeping tom laws, harassment, rules, et cetera, that may come into account. And also theres going to be a lot of innovation. We dont want to step on that. Also theres First Amendment issues. We have had numerous lawsuits around the country against police Police Departments when they interfere with peoples rights to video tape Police Officers or trains or bridges and so forth. Im sorry, you need to put that camera away. Thats an order that is frequently heard. Sometimes people are harassed or worst because of photographing police without interfering with their operations, and we pretty much won every lawsuit that we filed. The court has pretty much a First Amendment right to photography. That cuts in complicated ways. I guess i would say that bottom line for us is and you know, i think were going to be seeing a big clash here with our National Security agencies which have concerns about the Security Threat posed by drones and another thing thats always clear powerful in this country, industry. I mean, we tolerated carnage in the Railroad Industry and they were all kind of errors and crashes and mistakes, we tolerate huge carnage in automobiles in the highways. How much carnage in order to read is huge innovations, conveniences for all of us, really cool applications, how much will we tolerate . In many ways the civil Liberty Communities dont have a dog in that fight. We respect that theres going to be a lot of innovation, we like that. I guess the thing we keep an eye out for that security not be used as a pretext to prohibit people from using drones for photography by agencies that dont want to be subject to to public scrutiny, by Police Forces that want to you know, theyre dealing with awry riot, we saw it in ferguson, they were harassed. And so that is our interest, but we dont you know, we dont deny that there are big security problems, we dont deny that there are big benefits from the other side too. Let me ask you, just generally, what do you think about the regulation of the use of these things and are there courses, you know, in the law today or do we need to start from scare one, what are your thoughts on that . Sure, thank you, so i thank the aba for inviting to appear here, so as don mentioned the framework is in really two pieces, maybe three pieces at this point. You have the proposed regulation that has to do with commercial use, that was mentioned, you have the faa and the 2012 modernization act sending out a different framework for hobbiest. The faa has regulations out there that apply to operating aircraft that we know are going to apply to to uas. Its on your little thumb drive if you can pick that up for the conference. Its a regulation thats going to apply to faa, uas, rather, theres framework that applies to using the uas in a reckless way. That would be Internal Revenue theres also a number of federal statutes that would apply in this space, some of which maybe specific to the use of an aircraft, for example, so if you were photographing or scheduling a defense installation or using for that purpose, you are violating code, thats also in your materials, and looking at exhibiting statutes in sort of a creative application of Technology Neutral lens, you could see how existing criminal statutes, we can go into that if we want, how those statutes could be made or thought to apply to a uas circumstance if someone was operating a uas in conflict with that. Theres a legal framework, there maybe some gaps that folks miect might perceive. Fred, im thinking out loud here. Were talking a little bit about the legal and criminal ways that you would confront improper use of the uass, is industry looking at Technological Solutions . Yes, as a matter of fact, my company we help companies that want to fly uass legally, we write the operation man manuals. We help those that we like to go fly and then we do Something Else to those that we dont want to fly, but, yes, there are technologies. Actually quite a challenge, technologywise. Militaries around the world have and theyve been able to take some of that technology and move it slightly in order to to deal with this threat. It basically takes approach, not one aspect of sort of the Silver Bullet but depending on the area that you need to defend or protect, it would involve some type of radar system, electronic surveillance, it would it would involve long range and electric optical cameras. To pull all of that together you need a control thats going to asimulate all of that data. And then you have to determine the intent of that. And then we get into a little bit of gray area on the legal aspects on once you found it, fixed, tracked it and identified it, now what do you do to engage it and probably what youre allowed to do to engage it. You probably have one set, but generally overall, you start to run into things that scott was talking about. There is a federal law that you cant just shoot at an aircraft. This is an aircraft when its flown for the purposes of flying outside. If you shoot it, drone, you can wind up in prison or fined. So if a drone was hovering outside your bedroom window with a camera on it, i supposed you can call the police but you could not shoot it down . I guess what the answer that is it hasnt been tested in court yet. Right. Let me jump in here for a second. What the reference is made for is title 18 section 32, which has to do with the destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities, obviously theres certain intent and state of mind require that you have a shooting down an aircraft should be evaluated with the same framework whether or not it violates section 32 because youre shooting down an aircraft. There are state statutes that may govern, oregon, for example, has a statute that addresses peeping tom using uas so the state could respond. So it would violate title section 32. And anybody advising somebody to do that needs to be thinking about the statute. It has some other applications. We can get into it in terms of if someone is using a uas to threatened an airplane. One of the questions thats often asked in that regard, i dont have an answer, whether or not you ground with a net rather than destroying it or harming it in anyway. I dont know the answer the net answer because i guess it depends. So its not on your property and you throw a net over it, can they sue you for it, its possible. Its talking about i just want to touch for a second on that and where we are with visavis state legislation. Theres been 20132015, 283 drones that have focused on government actors and privacy, and so the majority of these proposals focus on government actors and basically prohibit, prejudice, Law Enforcement which is a primary interest, target of these bills and some that pass into law. From using a drone for purposes of collecting information or evidence without a warrant, and then a lot of these bills carve out specific exceptions when it would be permissible. A number dont include an exception which seems a lotle odd. The concern that i have after looking at the issue and this kind of dronethreat issue for lack of a better term, none of these bills, none of the laws address the possible threat. The focus has been on government actors and not so much on the private individual. Frankly, it is kind of hard, its a complex problem and how do you address it. So you have the surveillance privacy issue and you have the threat issue. We talk about the threat here for a second. One thing that you didnt mention fred and i wanted to bring it up. Have you seen the youtube that the kid guns, thats relatively new. Theres been one out there a russian guy that hooked up machine guns to his drone and hes talking about all look at the bad guys over there, i dont think i know those guys and flies it and hes watching them through surveillance capability of his camera and shoots these dumbies all there has been 46 that passed and, in fact, 28 in the last six months. So a lot of activity in 15. But the majority of these bills do not address the threat issue, and in my humble opinion is a significant issue that needs to be looked at. There is one or two states, i cant remember which ones, oregon, a couple of things that banded weaponnization of drones. Yeah. That would kind of cover it. Interestingly today there was news that north dakota has passed a bill that allows the police to use quote unquote nonlethal, less lethal weapons on drones which generally has been a pretty strong consensus against any type of weaponnization of drones. This is really a departure. If we can hold a strong line, then i think that would probably help on both sides of the equation. That was your next question, right . The oregon or north dakota law, if its not lethal taser or gas. I was talking about whether the damage to aircraft law would be covered by taking it down with a net. I can imagine some josh, i think we have an idea for students who want to write a paper, the application of the Second Amendment to an armed drone used for home defense, when you start looking at the Supreme Court cases, that would be an interesting paper. Im not sure how it would come out, but that would be interesting. Keeping with this, im thinking industry would have a lot of views for this information. In other words, all kinds of information can be gathered with these small drones and big data i could see a commercial company saying, well keep track of your kid, factual Recognition Software and the kid is a minor. Well keep track so you dont have to try to tap into the cell phone or locate. Any thoughts about that legally . Any thoughts on that . Yes, sir. I was making note. A drone to follow your kid everywhere he or she goes . A new dimension to helicopter parents. [laughs] i think they had that on the jetsons actually. Right to photography versus privacy. I dont think were ready to take position on a question like that yet. I mean, this is a huge complicated thing watching the technology integrate with human social norms and spaces and theres a little bit of, you know, not citing the cases before us. Jay and i agree that this is another great topic for students out there. Any thoughts on this . Well, i think this is an interesting area for a number of reasons, one you can see the sample of the drone that were talking about in terms of a small drone, whats missing from this drone flying and what we have in man aircraft as we have a pilot to look out and see whats going on. Youve got aircraft controllers that are able to spot flying and move them in different directions. I think technology has to catch up with where we are. We may see some applications in sum rural areas but its hard to imagine until the Technology Catches up whether or not we are going to see drones following your children at cities and the tension that exist in that space is innovation and Economic Growth versus safety and security and how much do you put in regulation whether your drone has to have these capabilities, where you can sell it is something the public has to deal with and policymakers have to deal with. Until we have the technology that can have these things flying in the air safely, i dont think well be facing the drone following your kid too much. Im going to take that in a whole different direction. Has anybody actually read the notice of public rule making that just came out in february . One person. Okay, another hand. Two people. [laughs] okay. We know who the arabs are now. Im a nerd. Ill admit it. I have drones that follow kids around, well if the [inaudible] also advertised with iran, so this does exist and could be seen from a smart device either close or at a distance. All right. So youre talking about the go pro . A small uad and circles them a little min drone. I was thinking maybe along the lines that big, Something Like that, you know. This is a service being provided. If the rules are passed as they were proposed, it has to be visual line of sight. You have to have the operator following the kid all of the time. Thats not going to work clear well. We can talk later about rule making, but it has clear interesting proposal visavis commercial use. Don, i thought i had the perfect idea for you. Im going im going to find the hovering drone. At the same time, one of the things that we havent talked about, you kind of went to civil liability, amazon delivering, you look at that and everybody thinks this is a great idea and then all i can think of is some little kid seeing that thing starting to land sticking the hand up, you know, what do you think about civil liability and, jay, i got this from something that jay said that, you know, in this country we do a lot of dangerous things. We have automobiles that kill 30,000 people a year, weve come to accept that. It would have been much worst because of the civil liability revolution which forced the industry put in place Safety Devices that might not have done for a purely commercial reason other than that. What do you think about the future civil liability, that a good thing, bad thing . [laughs] hes going off script here, just for the record. Gee, ive never done that before. Ill answer my own question. I think that this is maybe one of those areas where we can decide eventually over time whats reasonable, what a reasonable person would do under those circumstances, what the expectations should be and i do think that itll come to some of the things that youre talking about, what kind of sense and avoid technologies, what limitations there should be, which and i do want to get to q a from the audience. What would we be looking for in the future . Do we need a comprehensive small drone bill or specialized or would we try to build off of its existing regulation with a few teaks, is that all we need . What does the panel think . Lets look at it from the governmental point of view. As a technological matter i think that i mean, if regulations are not put in place that really slow it down, we are seeing a ton of drones being bought and used. The world is well supplied with stupid people who are going to do stupid things and theres just going to be drones that fail. A lot of birds are territorial and will attract. So i cant even begin to imagine where this is going to go, but the legal system is going to have to deal wit. I dont with it. I dont know. I mean, when it comes to privacy, you know, we we hold out that it may turn out to be necessary to pass laws to protect privacy, all kinds of mass privacy invasion thats not covered by existing laws, and we dont mind seeing in federal level and the faa involved, so they have to stay off that. But others may answer better than me when it comes what steps from for the industry. Yeah, that will have to be resolved. I think were at a point in history where we were when we went from the horse and buggy to cars. We had rules that were great for us, buggies and probably tried to plied those to cars when they first came on the trail. We are doing the same thing now. There really is no dedicated law yet where use aircraft to govern these, while we are trying to make it, meanwhile the technology for this is moving ahead as morris law and doubling every two years. There has to be some change. The era of free flight of these is coming to an end to the modelers out there, if you will. Eventually you will come to some sort of licensing and you should be registered and licensed. Right now theres quite a deal when flying a drone. Youre on the ground safe and sound holding one of these, dont forget that there are two pieces. We focus on the aircraft but this flight tech here is also clear important. Thats tied to a person. When that drone is up there flying and that person is not at risk, thats a mindset, what they do with that drone is going to be watched. They have to be accountable for what happens to this. In some cases i dont think were quite there yet. The moral hazards, sort to speak, have been allocated. Im reluctant to predict the future on this. A will the of the Different Things that you are seeing is going to put a will the of pressure on probably the congress to try and revisit what was a fairly handsoff kind of approach to the hobbiest. So we might see some would recollect in that space. In terms of the threat that you have been mentioning, the faa does have the authority with the secretary of defense under title 49 United States code section 40103 sub b sub 3 with regulations that have to do with the National Security space, so we may see some things in that area. Some of the panel talked about Homeland Security and the legislation and the difficulty of getting things through to congress. Right now there are 16 bills pending that in one form of another mention uas. None have made significant progress. We may see some enhancements of the penalties to discard some of the hobbies use to increase penalties. We will see movement in the federal and the state regulatory space in this regard. Including detection in which when they scaled back but it was not on the visual radar at a airtraffic controllers. But to go back to where every started with what the general said this is real. Defect that president marco was standing on a stage with her dignitaries one flew upright in her face. Have you seen that video . Anybody . This threat to israel and to go back to your question if we need something comprehensive i really feel that we need a comprehensive federal legislative scheme on this topic that deals not only with the government by individuals as well. And to where you stand i am on the military and rand and with the ftc so what you have is a patchwork of different laws out there. So this stuff applies at the state level. Military exemptions people are not thinking about this as a military member i am saying if youre not thinking about this is legislation it is up big problem that you are trading that we need to for more overseas missions and some have taken into account and have done a great job but a comprehensive scheme. The widely Something Special including the federal trespass law that it doesnt prohibit someone to fly over a military base to look because it applies to the ground it is very ground centric i also think there is some gaps of what you talked about the neck response and what other response but did say military commander is defending his base against one of these should the air force or the army be sued . I think not there should be and the federal tort claims act as well so this is to be very comprehensive. This is a constitutional moment when it comes to the industry the future may be determined by a single incident or a terrorist attack. There will be a lot of pressure for regulation so what i have seen include making a drum with a transponder so anyone can see where they are in the upper area but also who owns the drones with that behavior. Also all prohibited anonymous photography. Also after the White House Incident there were proposals to build the geo fencing to be controlled and is centralized way that will cdu have centralized control technology what about those that tinker with their own technology . We dont like that regulation it is the Civil Liberties issue they are drones and aircraft that are regulated heavily and that is the debate he will see. Lets open up to questions. Please come up to the microphone. It is up pleasure to hear you speak it is sad to think a Major Incident with the consensus on how to proceed but with the difference of opinion could be used to take down a commercial aircraft. And i get answers that suggest people dont think it is possible because they dont fly is the way helicopter flies and it would not be sucked into the engine with the outer metal shelf so what do you think about that . Thank you very much for your service with the tsa. These can be a danger to an airplane. It may not hit the airplane but if i wanted to be a bad guy i would take a few and they only cost maybe 300 and put them up on approach to a major runway. And let the airplane flight to its. To a one to bring down the airplane or cause billions of dollars of economic damages in one day . What is the reaction of the airport authorities going to me they will divert those to different fields to find the operator in the meantime to look all kinds of different locations so you have to think about so to bring down an airplane or send a message. What you have seen in that paper recently is quite frequently where drones are interfering with medical choppers. Not a routine problem but pretty routine and more recently in california with the California Wildfires wildfires, they could not get the aircraft to drop the fire retardant. A lot of issues there. We dont want to get the bad guys idea is what we could parade will whole list of horribles live the way the you can do that. But not here. If there is the assumption that if its a drug will be a catastrophic but it would take out that engine but that is not catastrophic for a lot of their letters but there is the assumption it would be worse than it is. They may agree that there has been some are pretty weird Little Things have run down airplanes that you wouldnt expect. I will reintroduce myself to the panel. I lived in harlem and recently we had a drone on the 26 floor fly into a bedroom and the adjoining building is the bus depot blew spotted the guy on the street. So what do i do without pulling the shades . Do i shoot him . I think the consensus has been from the panel that pulling the schaede is the option right now. But correct me if i wrong but i do think there are some of peeping tom statutes but that is why i ask the question in can make pullout the pistol . Even with special forces. So you just say basically we care and do anything but pulled down the shade . I have six binders is in my office of various statutes or proposed legislation i cannot recall if york has passed a lot and if they have a provision that would prohibit that activity. But hypothetically if you did shoot down the drone in the middle of a city where will the land . One of the things that we found with military operations in urban areas when the enemy shoots at your planes that ammunition and ends back in the city with Collateral Damage and the iraqis would shoot missiles and one came down in a market area. So we look at the pieces of the iraqi missile. Any other comments . Some states have laws like oregon that it is illegal to make a photograph or fly a maybe a peeping tom lot that they may be neutral but the states could apply to governess but the question is if you are in the location or a state of the elements of a crime has been established and then the other elements of the statute. It is a violation of the fourth amendment. Woman of the things that i would advise to the word is not supposed to be operated that you have a sense of for it is legal and where it is not probably outside your bedroom window is not the right place but that people tend to look up you should look down. Dont forget there is somebody out there in the flight deck it just happens to be on the ground. You raised together a interesting question with the typical homeowner policy would cover a drug operation even as a hobbyist. I never knows the answer to that but for that would be interesting to see how the drug industry approaches this because i am not sure how they would assess the risk. Argue have thoughts . Just to back up to the third order that was not intended, but if you see him in his best to call lawenforcement because he is flying is a flight deck there is a statue to interfere with the flight crew as well. So i say good testament to go down the of legal parameters if you wrestle them to a the ground arabia in violation of Something Else. But most prolonged to lew the of ama but it is all based on data we have 80 years of data so they can establish what risk is an price accordingly. Right now there is no data. Nine whatsoever 700,000 will be sold this year when day, how of radio shack or off of the amazon there is no place to record that so the industry doesnt have any idea psoas somebody wants to get to an insurance policy it will cost you three times so guests of a decision guess what the decision will be . Im a general. [laughter] if it doesnt matter. Industry will have to do some of heavy lifting and to do productliability and it thinks about the economics is to deliver things that you have to have of failed safety brad chicana means a lowpaid over engineered. But it is safer in 1964. And i know that the amazon flanders so there you go you can put a governor on that to go above that. With the issue to be sucked into your the 747. Putting aside the fact of the fortune 500 can go ahead to have that type of defense there are companies out there that come to mind is a German Company that says you cannot shoot jets out of the sky with the cyborgs and pledged. En to clearly a taken into account that most of these drones nofault out of the sky a stabilized if the pilot is no longer in charge. So you dont have that peeping tom problem. The issue not be a peeping tom lot but it looks as though it is. What you run into does do get into a signal interruption there are a bunch of sec rules so once again whoever uses that as a defense has to make sure they understand the authorities certainly in defense of a National Security asset in terms of your personal home, i dont think he would be on solid ground and you could find a good lawyer. [laughter] separate from the criminal statutes of the sec to think about collateral consequence if fewer gm a wireless signal and people called 911 to be disconnected the collateral consequences to jam a signal is the military commanders with isnt just the question if it is violating a statute of collateral consequences flowing from a particular act assuming the you could know that this is a separate question. Then there are a resilience system without redundancy and to understand is that so with uncontrolled flight somewhere will that go a school bus full of kids . Of the defense side of the issue no matter how much geo fencing somebody can have the drone and defeats in its. That is whole other Security Threats. I cannot go into the details of the threat but there are issues of Public Places with the drones not just picture taking. At the same time they are afraid of things flying over but it should be just one standard lot nationwide. You have any comments . For any public gatherings the number is 30,000 there is a restricted so that goes up around that the new to include the Nascar College games so there is restricted airspace but what trading to read Jim Schroeder operators turgot to determine when the straight fight mr. June zone becomes active because probably dont know. That is probably the Public Affairs campaign. And then the neck case. And the next big thing is grown differences to have a very holistic approach to have collateral and the intended consequences with what happens with the frequency space that is the next big bang have argued construct a defensive system that acknowledges these other interest in a productive way . And it will come to balancing like automobiles that require a licensing the automobile house to be inspected but it is sent the next level if we heard 30,000 for year down at 10,000 you have to take up a test every year with all sorts of other things we as a society have decided there is a balanced and maybe that is the future of drones. Maybe we should hear from the panel . Do you think that home defense against drones are a big Public Events like that . Will that be the next big thing . Certainly in this community because the first time that have been said the stadium therell be a few lawsuits against that. Is the stadium do was a potential threat that they did nothing with the capability to do something will drive action. In terms of personal recommendation there are some authorities out there who dont have the capabilities with state and local but they dont know if they have the authorities so last to have the numbers federal state local authority is the maybe responding to a civilian or military should get together that if this happens what are the legal authorities . If the discussions disclose there are legal gaps or trading gaps, then those discussions should the to do things to happen in the time you want to respond is not rand the drone is on the way but have that conversation now with the damages done we want to do something about it but if we dont have that right response than maybe the evidence trail cannot respond so to have folks get together to work with the vulnerabilities to those who may be affected something they can do right now in terms of the response actions. Did my a opinion it is the cross disciplinary approach as well. You gave engineers and scientists at the table to explain the defense engaged operators execute that then tears say this is what we need to do to you get there everybody is a working together we will not have a solution. The ngo community, we could go on for the rest of the afternoon but what we come out of bed i cannot summarize better than what has already been done but a least we know that there are things that have not thought about so i think we know the questions to go forward to look dissolutions to have the table top before we have that event i really hope that we do that. Stake you so much allowing us extra time. Thank you. [applause] i hope we can encourage you to come back next year because so much will happen between now and next year in this space in those papers could be written by Law School Students between now and then we will move to the next panel the supply chain without too much more to get them up here. [inaudible conversations]. Nt. Washington journal continues. Host our guest is mara keisling. Good morning. Guest good morning. How are you . Host fine, thank you very much. We have heard a lot about the term transgender this week. What is technically a transgender person . Guest a transgender person is somebody whose identity, how they express the internal senses , is different than what you would expect from somebody based on what the doctor said when he slept them on the behind when their firstborn. Host how many are in the united dates . Guest widow know for sure but we think about 1 million so its about one third to a half of a percentage point. But go one of the aspects of the organization is dealing dealing with a quality issues and things like that. When it comes to a list of those issues of top concern for transgender people what are they . Guest well this termination. We have a about one transgender person murdered a month just for being transgender. Job discrimination access to i. D. Document the show who you really are so you dont get hassled or heard when you have to produce i. D. But to talk a little bit more about that access to i. D. Documents. What do you mean by that . Guest most people take their drivers license for granted. The picture looks like them in the name fits who they are and agenda marker gender marker thats who they appear to be paired for trans people its harder to get i. D. That matches who they are and since 9 11 it so much more important to have good i. D. In the United States, to have i. D. That is accurate based on who you billy ard consistent from one form of i. D. To another. As good as his drivers license or does the go further than that . Guest drivers licenses passports and military discharge papers, Medicare Cards, things you wouldnt think about. Medicare cards have a gender marker on them for no apparent reason. Was it when it comes to federal law in the statutes what statutes apply to the transgender person . Guest more and more we are hearing courts interpret sex Discrimination Laws to save you discriminate against a transgender person is because of their sex. You dont think its the right kind of manner the right kind of woman so we believe in employment Housing Education and health care, i think we have a little more work legislatively and administratively to do litigation wise to have that absolute cemented in. Host at the federal level, whats happening on the state and local level . Bo. About 4 of a population lived in jurisdictions that had local protection of that number now is about 60 . We have almost 20 states that have explicit laws that protect gender identity. And hundreds of local jurisdictions. Host if you want to ask our guest question phone lines are available to seven 202 7488000 for democrats in 2027488001 for independents. We divide the lines partisan but is this a partisan issue when it comes to the issue that both the sites that were working on . Guest absolutely. That has nice been the case and certainly one party has been more favorable than the other but thats becoming increasingly less true as more and more families have transgender kids or even or bisexual kids. Thats how families are really learning about this and thats how we are teaching people to go to school with us, to go to the church and a mosque with us and more and more we have a lot of republican supporters. Host w instance, to use the womens room. And for a transgender man, someone born female and becomes a man or becomes identifying as a man and may have a beard, we want him in the mens room. Him ina society, want the mentor. I dont mean me personally. It is something that i think people arent yet familiar with, but it has been going on for decades. We have had city and local laws that protect trans peoples writes. Host but there are lawsuits considering concerning this. Guest sure. But we are waiting all of those. You know, nothing in any of these laws would allow anybody to do anything in the bathrooms. Anybody who does anything illegal in the bathrooms, they have done something illegal. If they havent done anything illegal, i think everybody should just leave everybody alone in the bathrooms. Host and talk about the work about the agency that deals with work. Guest the eoc has been a really important part of the trends toward clarifying sex Discrimination Laws to protect transgender people. The logic is pretty simple. You wouldnt expect the judge to say, you were fired for converting from catholicism to judaism, so that is not religious discrimination. But judges used to say that. They would say, you are fired from converting from a man to a woman. Andjudges and now the eeoc the u. S. Department of justice and other agencies have said, yes, that doesnt make any sense. If somebody fires you or discriminates against you because of your sex, it is sex discrimination. And they have come up very clearly on that. Host 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7458002 for independents. 202 7480003 for for transgender people. On our republican line, you are on with our guest. Caller your guest mentioned in the open that there was no apparent reason for gender to be on a license. That is, like, ridiculous. It is for cops to identify physically the person that they are looking at. It is just amazing to me that because you decide you are not the gender got made you born with god made you born with, nobody is gender. Guest well, thanks, tony. I think you miss her me. I said there is no reason for gender to be on the Medicare Card. In another few years, i will have a Medicare Card and it will have an f on it. There is no reason why a Doctors Office needs to see that. It doesnt help anything on the card. It has always been there because they were never pictures before. That is why there is a gender marker on drivers licenses. When i got my first license, there was no drivers license. So a Person Police officer would need race, age, height, and sex on the license. That is not true anymore. The real id that was passed a little more than 10 years ago require states to keep the gender marker on the drivers license. It doesnt really do any good at eventually that will come off. Host lets hear from wayne next. Wayne is in nebraska. Go ahead. Caller i am wondering who made the law so made a law that taxpayers have to pay for sex changes for people in prison . Guest i believe it was thomas jefferson. Let me clarify what i mean by that. The amendment to the constitution which which probably differs in that night we went at the eighth amendment is the one that disallows cruel and unusual punishment and over the history of our country we have always, always been committed as a country to the notion that denying health care to prisoners was in fact cruel and unusual punishments so if somebody breaks their leg while they are in prison we fix their leg and if someone has a heart attack we treat that. More and more its unanimous, in the medical community that transition related care including transition related surgeries for transgender people is in fact good, smart Necessary Health care and as such our constitution says its cruel and unusual punishment to deny that to prisoners. Thats our constitution and im a big believer in our constitution. Host either put federal programs that cover transition surgery . Guest so the main federally controlled Health Care Medicare no longer has a National Determination that disallows coverage but in fact people are not getting medicare currently to pay for surgeries. The same at the Veterans Administration. There is a regulation that disallows the Veterans Administration from conducting or paying for transition related surgeries and the federal Employee Health benefits program , the office of Personnel Management is still not telling Insurance Companies that they must cover them so there is not a lot of federal money to use for this at all. If at all. Host Employer Health insurers, does it cover to . Guest 10 years ago no Health Insurance plans did and now more and more art. More and more Companies Know in order to keep the people they have to have Good Health Care plans and this is an important part of that. So people who do not rely on government funded health care are now more and more a lot better off than people who rely in government. Host whats the cost transition to surgeries . Guest well it varies a lot. I think most americans believe theres something called sex reassignment surgery when in fact their whole array of surgeries that some people may need and its different for everybody. Theyre what we call top surgeries from the top have been there autumn surgeries which you can figure out that too and theres just a range. Host we are in a situation now where we still have for instance a transgender man who may need a hysterectomy or not for not transgender related reasons. But doctor may say you need a hysterectomy and if the Transit Needs a hysterectomy and his nontrans coworker needs a hysterectomy she may get her and he may not and thats discrimination even if its for the same treatment. Host our next caller is john. John, go ahead. Caller our first question is how many transgendered citizens are then United States and my second question would be caitlyn gender does not perceive completely with the transgender process. Though you think this will be a huge setback for your organization . Guest we think there is one third of the u. S. Population is transgender identified so probably around 800 to 1 million, 800,000 to 1 Million People and as for caitlyn gender i dont know what her plans are. I dont think, well i know theres nothing someones transition. Its different for everyone. Some people like to transition socially. Jenner has clearly transition socially and let everybody know that she is a woman. Some people transition legally, change the name etc. And some people change medically, but thats also not a clear line all the time. I do not know what medical treatments Caitlyn Jenner has had or does have and it doesnt matter to me. I think most of america will make there some chance about what medical treatments she has accessed and thats between america and Caitlyn Jenner. Host what is Caitlyn Jenner gone with the issue go . Guest would Caitlyn Jenner has done has been really amazing over the last two weeks and last month after the diane sawyer interview one of the main things are news outlets all of the country have been inviting trans people in two tell their stories so why while she has created this moment where hundreds of thousands of people are telling their story and more and more people in america are meeting a trans person who they think they knew. Obviously most of us dont know Caitlyn Jenner but a lot of america thinks they know her through her sports life or her cardassian life. I think its been an amazing gift. Posted the first she makes is what concerns me is the media treatment of the jenner case in particular is something we all need to be part of. Guest yeah i have personal problems with the whole idea of celebrity culture but thats where we are. My job is to take this cultural moment, which is only happening under Caitlyn Jenner. If it was just some random person off the street like me it wouldnt be a big deal. Diane sawyer wouldnt have interviewed me and vanity fair put in with wouldnt put me on the cover. Thats what they do and Caitlyn Jenner in the middle of that is intensely in the middle of that and i think there are some real positive to that. So you know yeah i dont know why all of america has to be dragged into celebrities everything but thats how america is right now. Host the other point that kevin parker makes goes to your point,. [inaudible] in stark contrast seeing jenner all gussied up like some 1940s vargas girl. Guest i dont know but i want to comment on that but what i would say is theyre all different kinds of transgender people. There are glamorous transgender people and there are some people who can bury barely eat. We have a dramatically high poverty rate. We are four times more likely to be living on less than 10,000 a year and we are more likely to be fired. We are more likely to be uninsured. We are more likely to be homeless. Certainly five years ago 90 of us have been homeless and some point in our lives. So Caitlyn Jenner is not typical trans person but there is no such thing as a typical trans person. We are just people like everybody else and so some of us are celebrities. Not me. Host mark the budget director for National Center for transgender equality. Caller hi ive got a question. I have got a son who is transgender, borni want to be sensitive and i want to learn. Things shouldhat i stay aware of two best support him . Guest fred, thank you so much. First, let me say i am from harrisburg, right across the river from you. I grew up there. And it is good to hear from somebody from back home. Yo theres a really great group in central pennsylvania that i would suggest you get involved with if you are not already, but actually the most important thing you could possibly do is what you are doing. You are saying this is my child, this is somebody who i am attached to for life. This is someday care about and somebody who im going to support her. You know is transitioning going to solve all of anybodys problems problems . No, its still really hard to be anybody in this life right now and its hard to be trans and its hard not to be transit if you are transgender its hard to not transition and its hard if you do transition but it makes a really big difference as you were saying in your sons life. I would just suggest that people locally. Its a great lgbt during harrisburg and with support groups and i think meaning people and getting to know people can help with your situation and your family in better context for you. The most important thing for everybody whether they are transgender or not is family exceptions and Family Support so thank you deeply for that. Host this is alan las vegas. Go ahead. Caller hello. I read a book several years ago and i will tell you the title of it in a minute but it goes into the life of a young girl he she doesnt know you know when she becomes an adolescent she discovers that she doesnt feel like a girl. But she knows shes a girl but the thing is that she didnt just wake up one morning and sat book . Guest yes, i sure am. Host i will let our guest respond. Guest i sure am. It is really a good book. There is Artistic License that goes into anything like that, and you are absolutely right. Ar most people, this isnt suddenly i woke up when i was 32 years old, you know . Using Caitlin Jenner as an example, she has done a really good job over the last month or so explaining how when she was a kid and this is how it manifested itself been. And when choosing teenager and went to his young adult. She started going out and meeting transgender people to try and understand it when she was in her 30s, but it wasnt until her 60s when she could execute a transition. It sounded very clinical, to execute a transition, but i have now met kids and doctors of kids who get at 18 months, 36 months, five years old would just know. I did. I ha hought about this every day of my life and i dont know why, i dont know what causes it, i just know every conscious they of my life since i was three years old i have known this to be absolutely true. And i have known that what society was telling me was my amazing, loving, wellmeaning parents were telling me because we didnt know any better in the early 1960s. You know, we know better now. And it is really improving a lot of kids lives. And books like that do a good job of of educating people about certain aspects. Host what happens when miners want to go through a transition . What laws govern that . Guest again, there are different kinds of transitions. So, i know lots of folks who, you know, their children will say, i am a boy or i am a girl, and they will let them live that way. You are not going to do a medical transition on a three or fouryearold. I am not an expert on the medical stuff, but that is true. When kids start getting towards puberty, that is when you have tahink thats when you have to start thinking about what that is, what should be done, but kids very young, on the bruce jenner interview they interviewed a friend of mine who said she has seen 18monthold just say no, not grow, boy and we know. We know what and its Interesting Society doesnt think to ask how kids are sure about their gender. Most little boys and little girls are absolutely sure that they are little boys and little girls and they arent different than what their parents said. We dont challenge that. We dont say how does the 4yearold nontrans kid know that they are not trans . Is just because thats sort of a default thing, but yeah said kids generally will socially transition very young but they wont medically transition. Host davis up next from indiana, hello. Caller how are you doing . My aunt was born a boy and she had surgery young and i totally support her you know even though i dont talk to read out much unfortunately. But i see a lot of my own family and friends and stuff who not just with transgender but with the lgbt community, its a secret you know, and this Little Family friend network. They say a lot of bad stuff about those people who live that kind of lifestyle. What can be done about that not just from the public and from a public thing but what can be done with . As you got your point david. Guest thank you. The most important thing that happens is what happened to you. You had one in your family and it has made you more understanding of what transgender is not that you have experienced it yourself but that you know somebody. Its not some abstract thing that some athlete reality show star in hollywood is experiencing. Its something your family is experiencing. Right now we saw serve a month or two ago showing that 20 of americans say that they know a transgender person. 80 of people either dont know somebody or they just dont know somebody but what it means is not a real thing for them. People still have an understandable but unfortunate doubt that my experiences are real, that somehow i must be making it up or trying to pull some political agenda on somebody. When you are my family and you know that i have always been a good and reasonable person and now im saying this you can hear it better and you can be willing to learn and when we heard from the father from pennsylvania, thats not something for the blue you are expecting but now ill bet he doesnt go to work and make fun of transgender people because his son is one. That was the most important thing about the most important thing. I think the policy work we do at our organization is really important that the most important transport that is being done is people every day educating people at work, educating their families and the people they go to synagogue with and their classmates. I was going to say there had go students but their classmates. So i think thats how we do it in is just going to take time. Host the organization is the National Center word transgender quality their web site trans equality. Org. Mara keisling is the executive director. Guest thank you so much. This is part of our spotlight on magazine series we are joined by florence and a contributor to the new republic in her piece for the june cover issue, taking care of our own paid leave goes from progressive pipe dream to political reality. Lauren sandler lets begin with where does this debate stand unpaid family leave . Guest stance in a different place than it did a year or two ago when i was pretty much a nonissue. You may recall president obama bringing up a family refinished speech. A number of states are considering their own paid leave policy which when you consider that the whole discussion about family leave stalls out after 1993 when president clinton signed the fmla into law. Thats a family medical leave act which allows 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Its been nothing for over 20 years and all of a sudden its a big what was your. Host yet maxi writing a piece, the the first and today the last time a sitting president took action on family leave is february 5, 1993 when bill clinton signed the family medical leave act making it his first loss in office. Talk a little bit more about this law. Its unpaid family leave so what does that mean . What is the impact of unpaid family leave on women in the workforce and our economy . Guest well its on everyone really because women arent the only people raising kids and taking care of their parents or themselves and i think thats where we get tripped up on this often. We see this as a womens issue but its really everyones issue. We also see it this apparent tissue but when you think about it we may not all the parents that we all have parents and when we talk about family leave and plan not just talking about babies that we are talking about anyone needing help in our family. Im sorry. Host you go ahead and finish your thought. Guest oh okay. What happens with the family medical leave act is they were supposed to consider paid leave which is what every country in the world except for new guinea offers when you have a baby or you need take care of a sick Family Member but that eroded over time. This is something that the business lobby was very much opposed to any can see why. Why would we pay workers to not work . However it is accepted throughout the rest of the world. So what happens through time we were able to pass a bill that would allow 12 weeks of unpaid leave. So theres that bit you would think that would apply to everyone in the country. That there are 40 of usass only covered companies that have 50 or more employees within a 75mile radius, and employees who worked for the company for over a year and so on. Many of us dont even have that basic protection of not losing a job if we have a baby or need to care for a dying Family Member. Whats trickier than that, a lot of people cant even afford to take the time off. There is the old adage that one should save in order to have a baby. But when so many people are living at the line at the moment, it is hard to imagine for example how representative massie would have those for afford to could not have himself or his wife take significant time off for each birth. So we really encourage people in this country to have babies, to care for their babies, to be good to spnspn to be good Family Members. Host you said there is legislation in the senate that would put forth a proposal for paid family leave. How would it work . Guest work very much like Social Security and would be an earned benefit. Employees would pay a couple bucks in a week, employers would pay a couple bucks in a week and if you needed it and you would have to demonstrate you rely it would not be an entitlement. Employees would pay a couple bucks a week. Be the cost to taxpayers . Guest youd pay in a couple bucks from your paycheck and your employer would pay a couple bucks and not like it would be a tax across the board. Host is there traction for this legislation . Could it get through this congress . Guest well, not really. And this is the issue at the moment is even though 64 of voters say that they would increase their support for someone who considers paid family leave to be an urgent matter alongside equal pay and some other issues even though over half of republican women think this is a good idea, somehow lawmakers on the hill havent quite warmed up to it yet. Its interesting, where weve seen paid leave enacted, so three states have it now, california, new jersey and rhode island. And california, there was a huge move against this over a decade ago when it was signed into law, business did not want it. But in retrospect, 3 4 of conservatives in california support paid leave because theyve seen what a good idea it is when they actually get to live with it. Host talking about paid leave and heres the breakdown by states. The states that are gray here have no Legal Protections beyond the family medical leave act passed in 1994. The darker green states, states that guarantee unpaid leave, the green states with stripes are states with unpaid leave that have paid leave bills pending and there are also states with paid leave bills pending, other states with paid leave bills pending and then these darker states, as lauren said, these are states that legally guarantee paid leave. Thats our discussion with all of you for the rest of todays washington journal. I want you to weigh in. Republicans 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. 2027488002. Lauren sandler joining us from new york, a contributor to the new republic and their june cover story has this discussion about paid family leave and possibly being within reach. Tony in bethlehem, pennsylvania, a democrat, tony, youre up first. Go ahead. Caller good morning, greta, the old ball and chain just headed off to the salt mines. She works for the post office and is a delivery girl for the post office and i stay home and watch the kids. Theyre good kids. Stop fighting host a think a bit of sarcasm there so ill move on. Lets talk a little bit about the title for this piece. You said it has moved from a progressive pipe dream to political reality. Why was it a progressive pipe dream . Guest its something advocates have been working for for decades now but its been a very grassroots operation, really an oldfashioned political movement, right . So you have a lot of people who really deeply understand this story first hand and theyve been telling their stories, theyve been working with advocates on the ground but to get this issue to trickle up and push through some of our ideology about who should be working, who should be taking care of the family and what our country can support, its been a tricky move. And so what has really happened is in the past several years, this has grown tremendously. The word on everyones lips is momentum. Local governments and state governments and now what we were talking about, theres finally a federal bill. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton is talking about the issue in her stump, the president is talking about it, the department of labor has put forth money for grants to research this, valley jarrett and tom perez are out on a lead on leave tour and suddenly its something people are paying attention to. And not just democrats. And this is interesting. You know, it may be a question of how Something Like this gets traction. But even conservatives like representative martha roby are paying attention to the fact this is something that voters want. She has put forth her own bill saying why dont we use overtime for paid leave, which to Progressive Advocates isnt a great idea. So employers would get to pick who gets to use overtime, when they get to have it, which isnt a great way to deal with crisis management. I know my baby came at an unexpected time. Furthermore, overtime was something that was hardfought so employers wouldnt overwork employees. So to me if the bill isnt a grated idea but does show even conservative politicians know that this is something that voters are wrestling with and really want a solution to. Host you write that paid leave would benefit women indeed would go far in what many have called the Unfinished Business of feminism, maybe why we dont have it. Guest in 1993 when clinton signed this into law and in the 1970s when family started talking about the issue family looked really different. Right now 2 3 of family have a woman, a mother as a co or principal breadwinner, 25 of families have a single mother. You know, most women work now. Most women work by need and even beyond that plenty of women work by choice. And yet were the only country in the world that says, you know, were still making it difficult for you. As much as we rely on the female work force. But this isnt just a womens issue. We found when men take leave to be with their own babies, theyre more involved in their kids lives throughout. Its clearly better for everyone. And when you think about how our population is abling right now, so at the moment we have 35 million americans over the age of 65. By 2030 that is going to double to 75 million. Its a lot of people to take care of when we think about our own parents and what their issues might be. Alzheimers rates are skyrocketing and its not just about mothers but everyone. Host and beyond pregnancy, there are other issues here as well that come up that people need paid family leave. Guest absolutely. We tell americans you should value family first. You should be an active parent, you should care for your own parents and yet our law are really an outlyer in the world when it comes to how we can help people do that, not as a favor but to keep our businesses running. We lose employees because we are forced to make the impossible choice to lose their jobs or to care for their families, we rack up enormous turnover costs, our morale sinks and its bad for business. Weve learned it looking at states with paid leave now. In california where there is huge resistance, now 99 of businesses think paid leave is good or at least has no negative effect on businesses. In new jersey where there was resistance, its been terrific for business. Turnover costs have been reduced per employee from about 5,400 to over 18,000 per employee. Wherever this exists people who were opposed to it think its a great idea. Host lets hear from bash, from smith creek, hi, bash. Caller i work for a union shop that 80 of our employees are on the fmla leave act and no one shows up. Its not being used the way its supposed to be used so i dont see how thats going to benefit companies when theyre forcing people to work overtime to fill in for the spots for the people that arent showing up and now you want to pay them to not show up . Host Lauren Sandler . Guest theres a lot of concern about fraud, for example, in california before it was passed but in interviews with employers throughout the state, those who opposed it before it was passed and those who supported it, that simply hasnt been an issue. Host take a look at who has access to paid leave. In your piece for the new republic you break it down by demographics. What do you find . Guest in california and new jersey and rhode island where there are paid leave programs, people have access. And in parts of the private sector, you know, the more youre paid, the more likely you are to have paid leave. If you work at morgan stanley, you get three months paid. If you work at facebook you have great paid leave. If youre a lower income worker, youre far less likely to get the leave that you need more. Host looking at the demographics, if youre white, nonhispanics, 61 have access to paid leave. 62 for asians, 61 for africanamericans, and 43 for hispanics and in educational attainment, if you have a bachelors degree, 72 chance f having access to paid family leave, some college, 66 and obviously it gets lower with the less education you have. Al in vermont, an independent. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller hello. Yes, i just wanted your guest to explain or just talk about the fact that the United States constitution does not allow for those kind of laws. Its very limited in what authority the federal government has and while a state like california may be able to have those laws, it would depend on the individual states. But certainly not at the federal level. It just destroys our federal onstitution and it is very disrespectful, the people that want our people in the country to follow the constitution. Could you just explain it . Guest its all a question of how one interprets the constitution and every time a federal law comes up, its certainly an issue that gets discussed and it should. But i think we need to take seriously our constitution exists to protect our rights and equality and this is something the rest of the world considers to be a right and something he is suffering from deep in inequality. Host matt, a republican. How are you guys . Caller the question i have, you made a comment a little while ago about how businesses will see less turnover and things like that. Why havent they instituted this on their own since there is such a benefit. Why does the government need to compel them to make a Good Business decision . Host thats a great question. Plenty of businesses have and the issue is about evening out the playing field. Its tough to offer this benefit for the employees that you care about when down the street someone isnt. Guest and so its become a real issue. Its tough to be a business that wants to do the right thing by their employees and also sees the gains from it to then have to compete with companies that dont. Host what companies are doing this on their own . Guest most Major Companies are. Microsoft made huge news recently when they said we guarantee it for our own inhouse employees. Now we need thousands of contractors to agree to it, too, which isnt for whitecollar employees but anyone who contracts out to microsoft. Votophone generated a paid leave policy globally which will apply to people in the u. S. So the bigger the global company, the more likely there is going to be decent paid leave. But its something people have taken a long time catching up to in part because it hasnt been a major topic of discussion in our country. Caller i watch cspan every morning but i do work for an employer in california. Im retired now but was able to use it for myself and i had no problems with my employer and i was able to use my sick leave for it and also when my mother was when she had a medical issue, i was able to use it for her as well. I must say that it would be so nice if we could have paid fmla than have to use your sick leave for fmla. Host can you talk about that for a little bit . Guest this is what we hear from a lot of people. When you have the opportunity to care for your mother when shes sick, when you have the opportunity to care for your baby when shes born or for yourself, you know. I was just thinking about my own birth. I had a c section. That was eight weeks when i wasnt allowed to walk up and downstairs when i was recovering from my own surgery. And when i was taking care of a baby. It was great that i had a partner. My husband was able to stay home and take care of the baby with me. I cant imagine how that would have worked otherwise. These are basic things. These are about how we love the people in our lives and how we care for them. And right now i think we all feel were stretched way too thin, right . That were working too much and that what we have to sacrifice tends not to be at work but at home with the people that we love most and can be heartbreaking. This is harder for people who can afford it less. And when you have a tear episode of poverty really know what it means to care for a Family Member or have a new baby. 10 of people who take leave have to go on public assistance to do so. One week of missed work is a month of groceries for a lot of people who are poor and those choices are impossible choices. So for everyone, the people who need it most and people who just have a right to this basic freedom the rest of the world has, i think that we really need to be talking about this. Host san diego, california, pamela on the line for democrats. Youre on the air. Caller oh, hi. Yes. Im a payroll provider in california and i just wanted to set the record straight here that even though the law was passed in 2014 and became effective january 1. Workers are not entitled to that paid leave until july 1. So our guests stated that employers say that this is working. And it hasnt even got in effect yet really. Host Lauren Sandler . Guest the law was passed 13 years ago and there was over a decade in intensive studies looking at how that works. There may be a new provision that your caller is talking bout im not aware of. Host richmond, kentucky, an independent. Caller you recently mentioned Larger Companies had been willing to provide this paid leave on their own. I wondered ondering if the federal law would impose Financial Burdens on smaller businesses who may be struggling financially. Guest an excellent question and is a concern for Small Businesses. Whats interesting is there a group called a Small Business majority which is nonpartisan and polled Small Businesses all over the country and what they found is a majority of Small Businesses actually support this. So what they have found is that people really want to help out their own employees. If youre a Small Business you know the people who work for you really well. And you feel deeply and you want to give the support and the company down the road doesnt and puts you in a tough position. Furthermore, this is something i think this is something interpreted that employers will pay for. Its really something employees pay for. Different states handle this and different state bills that are being considered make different suggestions for it and in all these situations its something employers are not exclusively responsible for. Either employees pay for it out of their own paycheck or split it with employers. Host Lauren Sandler, heres reaction on twitter to this conversation. One viewer says small biz is the best hope and small biz cant afford this. My own free will tweets in, those plans are already available without stealing from taxpayers. Short Term Disability is how this is addressed. And stella says when you get this paid leave does government still take its cut. Can you answer a couple questions. Guest lets think through them one at a time. The first tweet was reminding me how Chris Christie when he was running for governor of new jersey, he said that he was going to roll back paid leave because it was so controversial at the time. Then he took office, you never heard from him about it again. And the reason why is that even when people oppose it before it goes into law, once they live with it, they realize its a really great thing and reduces turnover and raises morale. People have really looked at this and studied the data and done tons of interviews with opposition. Theyve been living with this and the fact is people really love it. The second tweet, remind me which one that was. Ost the one about disability. Disability pay. Guest absolutely. So there are only a few states that have temporary disability pay and happen to be three of the states which are the three that currently have paid leave in addition to that, new york which is considering a bill right now, hawaii, and puerto rico has temporary disability. Most of the country doesnt have that option. Host the third tweet was when you take this paid leave, does the government still take their cut . Guest ive never heard that question before. I cant imagine that they would but that is information that would be solid on. Host karla in san diego, independent, youre on the air. Caller oh, hi. I was interested in hearing the question you said about the government, do they take their cut . Hello . Host sorry, karla. Were listening. Lauren talked about that and wasnt sure if thats still the case, that they would take their cut on the paid leave, but when people take unpaid leave, Lauren Sandler, theres still are they paying taxes on the disability, are they paying taxes on their vacation ime that theyre using up . Guest i actually dont know the answer to that. Its hard to imagine that they are. But i dont know. Ill look into that. Host and probably varies by state. Each state deals with this in different ways. Guest for unpaid leave its federal and im not sure how the fmla laws suggest we need to deal with that. State by state they are different plans, california, new jersey and rhode island all have different ways of approaching this. Whats interesting about that is theyre sort of functioning as laboratories right now. So we can learn from how it looks on the ground. And we have been. Host kevin is next. Plymouth, indiana, independent. Hi, kevin. Caller yeah, hi. I was just going to make a comment. At least if this gets to the federal level, whether it passes or not, at least maybe it will bring attention to the issue. And possibly states can take up the issue themselves, you know. And as people push for this and ask for this and you kind of nudge the employers a little bit to get them to get on the same boat with you. Thats pretty much it. Host that is exactly the way this is being discussed. So it took a long time for fmla to pass. By the time it did, 28 states had a policy of their own. Guest these are things that tend to work in tandem. And right now there are lots of states that are considering this for themselves. So these things do work alongside each other. And raising the conversation is crucial. This is why the white house backing this issue, calling for bills for congress to demand paid leave and the state of the union was so incredibly important and why the department of labor is really doing a lot to push this issue. But this is a discussion that local governments need to be coming up with plans for, states, and now federal. The issue is it it happens state by state, imagine if you pay because its not an entitlement, right . Its a earned benefit. Imagine if you pay your paycheck into a fund in california and you move across the border to oregon, where does that money go . You dont get it anymore. Imagine if youre someone who, you know, has a baby in mississippi and you dont have the same rights as someone who has a baby in massachusetts. That hardly seems like the way our country needs to work. Host ron, southbury, connecticut, on our line for independents. Hi, ron. Caller hi. I was wondering laurens company, she works for the new republic do they have paid leave for their employees, and also, how do they verify it . There are at while requirements, there must be some requirements. The other thing i was wondering , with the trade debate thats going on, do our competitors, do they have paid leave for their employees that compete against us . I would appreciate an answer. Thank you. Guest absolutely. The new republic does have paid leave for employees. My colleague, rebecca traister, who writes on these issues took time for her baby and im a freelancer and have been for many years now and when i had my own child i didnt have the benefit of paid leave and can tell you its something that i really felt. Now, globally in terms of trade, the u. S. Is the only country,ent except for papa new guinea in the entire world that doesnt guarantee this right. We often think of this as something europe does as some type of socialism but the fact is every other country on earth except for one, which is, you know, a collection of islands with minimal infrastructure, the worst Literacy Rate in the country im sorry, in the world. The highest rape rate in the world. New guinea is a pretty rough place. When we think of the dark corners of the world, thats way up there. Theyre our own ally on this issue when it comes to not providing paid leave. And i think that that says a lot. Every other country in the world mandates this, which means that every country that we are competing with mandates this. Host on the issue of taxes, our producer found this from the Employment Development department in california. Family leave benefits are subject to federal income taxes in california. They are not subject to state taxes. Thats just a little bit of information on that front. Anthony in statin, island, new york, a republican. Welcome to the conversation, anthony. Anthony good morning. I would ask a cspan representative what i am going to say exactly on the air. And you dont screen what people say on the air and this is the first. Let me address the issue of family pay. I think its a great idea but let me shine some light on the industry and whats going on. You mentioned microsoft. And you mentioned that they made news. The reality of the situation is at microsoft employees key professionals from indonesia, the philippines, on the average may be making 20,000 a year. And when you have a situation like that, you cant afford paid leave and cant afford making any type of news in this area. And another fact i want to say, most of the i. T. Professionals in california are unemployed. Because Companies Like microsoft, h. P. , and all other Silicon Valley employers employ people from outsource most of their business. And they dont even get to really acquire family leave because they dont have jobs, and when you are employed by when you are normally a new employee, you get 12 days of vacations and you get five days of sick time and thats because its mandated by law. We are far, far from the notion of actually, you know, getting the benefits were supposed to be getting. Let me tell you one more thing. I work for a German Company and, you know, my German Associates from germany, you know, had months of vacation. I mean, the person just went on a 30day vacation and came back, worked for a couple weeks and went on another two weeks of vacation and that is normal. This is the norm for people working overseas while i am working on 12day vacation and fiveday sick days leave. So i just wanted to make sure hopefully something you can bring to the conversation. Host Lauren Sandler . Guest certainly. Yes, so microsoft is requiring paid leave for its tens of thousands of employees in the u. S. Its not just about whats happening globally. This is specifically about the u. S. And furthermore, when theyre talking about contract employees, theyre not just talking about i. T. People. Theyre talking about, you know, when you buy a product from microsoft, its packed in a box, right . Its about who is packing that box. Its about everyone working on every level of the business. Certainly some of those people are i. T. Workers. Some of them are working human resources. Some of them are driving trucks. Its really for everyone. Host Lauren Sandler, you talked about other countries that have this, almost every other country has paid family leave. How does it work in other countries . Guest Different Countries have different structures and were still trying to figure out what structure would work best here. But, you know, usually its a taxation structure and in the u. S. Were talking about it as a earned benefit structure and thats a little bit. Little different. Host the cover story, taking care of our own, paid leave goes from progressive pipe dream to political reality and find it on the new tonight on booktv, books about the civil war. Next political commentator Cokie Roberts on her book capital dames about the women of civil war era washington d. C. Don doyle discusses europes involvement in the war in his hook, the cause of all nations and later historian James Mcpherson author of the word affords the nation on the lasting effects of the civil war. You are watching booktv in primetime on cspan2. In her book capital dames political commentator sub tree describes washington d. C. During the civil war from the perspective of perm women who lived and