Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20141126

The world. As you may have seen in your own country, or as the slide show indicates, theres a Global Movement toward candidate debates making candidate debates a part of elections in a diverse range of countries. Its at least 65 countries so far. And i suspect the number is higher. Why are more countries organizing debates . I think there are several reasons. Debates provide a unique opportunity to compare candidates. They are generally the only time in a campaign when voters see and hear directly from the candidates, appearing side by side, in the same forum, at the same time. Debates also increase focus on policies in a campaign. In some countries, candidates traditionally campaign on personal attacks or slogans, personality, religion or ethnic loyalties. In contrast to our debate, forces candidates to have more indepth positions on the issues. For example, in jamaica, polling after a 2011 debate showed that 70 of the public was more informed on candidate policy positions because of the debates, and 30 actually said they changed their vote as a result of the debates. In the u. S. , after the 2012 debates, some 60 of voters said the debates were more helpful than the Campaign Commercials in deciding whom to vote for. I think weve also seen the debates lower political tensions and promote tolerance in countries coming out of civil war, where elections can be a flash point for violence. Debates can reduce tensions and show that even bitter political rivals can express their opinions respectfully and shake hands on national television, which sends a message of National Unit to the whole country. For this reason, many countries coming out of conflicts such as afghanistan, iraq, liberia, and sierra leone, have held debates. For example as well, in debates in ghana, ma louie and kenya, the candidates publicly agreed during the debates to accept Election Results or go to the courts rather than the streets with their complaints. Debates also help citizens hold elected officials accountable. Once in office, the specific positions taken by candidates during debates are on the record. The public and the media can hold them to their promises. Debates also promote a positive international image. Theyre highprofile events covered by national media. I recall the debates in peru picked up an additional 25 million viewers, because cnn espanol covered the event. And from a broad debate, theyre seen as signs of a growing or healthy democracy. Debates can project positive image internationally that can hopefully promote tourism. And the neighbors likewise ask, if leaders there can debate, why cant we do the same here. Im reminded of an editorial that appeared in zimbabwe by citing debates in nigeria, and the u. S. Jamaican debates also led to inquiries from groups following to seeking suit in tobago. At the same time the benefits of debates for candidates is many. Debates provide the chance to speak directly to the electorate unfiltered by the media. The candidates can reach more voters in the debate than going town to town, shaking hands. The nigerian debates in 2011, ive heard estimates they were viewed by 50 million people. So thats coverage that you cant buy. Candidates can also connect with independent or undecided voters who are less likely to watch or attend a campaign rally, than the party faithful. Debates also level the Playing Field where one party dominates the media. And they allow parties to showcase emerging leaders such as women, youth, and revitalize the image of the party and show inclusive ness but despite the benefits, holding debates can be hard, and many fail for political or production reasons. Universal challenge is to get candidates to commit to debating, especially incumbents. As i mentioned in the u. S. We had that problem with the 16year gap. On the production front, the tv production front, another example was in 1976, the audio went out at the u. S. Ford carter debates. The candidates stood silent on the stage for 27 minutes on national television. Which as you can imagine was very uncomfortable. And to increase success rates, we found the debate groups can benefit from pooling their lessons and expertise, and in that respect, i would close by noting debate resources that are available for those who are interests, including the website of the commission on president ial debates, debates. Org, and debatesinternational. Org that has debates from around the world, including the Debates International network which is an 18country association of debate organizers. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, matt. We will follow that by diana, and then open it up for questions. Good afternoon and thank you to afis for participating in this forum. As peter mentioned, i do a lot of research and writing about debates. Ive also been on several ifis projects, including in georgia. Did some work in afghanistan recently. And did an ndi project many years ago in benin and some work with another ngo in south america. So i also have had this international experience. But as a professor, the research is the thing that has been of most interest to me. And ive had an opportunity to compare some of what viewers how they respond to debates in the United States, and whether that is similar in other countries. So what i want to do is talk about basically what makes a fair debate. And well start there. Kind of the purposes for debate, which i think matt outlined very well, it is a sidebyside candidate comparison, and its usually the only time youll have that throughout a campaign. Many years ago, after the Kennedy Nixon debate, a media researcher in the United States noted that there are usually three agendas going on at a debate. The candidates debate because they have something they want to say. And its usually not what the questioners want them to talk about, which is why they dont often answer the question they were asked, or they talk about something other than the question once theyve answered it. The media obviously have an agenda, and theyre creating the questions in most of these situations. And then the public has an agenda. There are certain things the public want to hear. As matt referenced, the debates focus on issues. And after you have heard hours and hours of negative advertising, or very short clips on newscasts, its really important to have some extended time devoted to it and they want to hear about the issues that are important. And whats happened with technology is we now have far more opportunities for the public to have input into the questions that the media are actually asking. Whether thats through the polling data, or through the use of questions that the public sends, oftentimes realtime, as well talk about in a minute. So all of those agendas, everyone gets to have a piece of this debate, and its one of the few times you have that in a campaign. Obviously theres more depth. And they do reveal leadership traits. Some of the research that ive done over the years in conjunction originally with the commission on president ial debates was to establish a program called debate watch, where we encouraged people to invite friends into their homes, or to open up schools, or community centers, watch together, and then talk. And if you go to the commissions website, youll see debate watch, and the kinds of questions that we ask people to discuss. I had hundreds of these groups that we had transcripts of. And what we found was that the debates collectively, as they watch over the 90 minutes, or hour or two hours, begin to see what kind of a leader this person will be. They see how they think on their feet. They see what happens when theyre attacked. They are given difficult questions to ask. And so both their verbal and their nonverbal communication tells something about what kind of leader they would be. To give you an example, in 2000, when president gore or Vice President gore debated then governor bush, at the first debate, one of the agreements was that they thought was that the camera would only show the person speaking. But they were doing split screens, where you were seeing the person who wasnt. And the Vice President was sighing, rolling his eyes, reacting to things that governor bush was saying. When i went into focus groups afterwards, people were saying, he was rude. And he was doing it on stage with television cameras. What if he brings the world leader in, and hes rude to him. And so people interpreted this behavior as some indication of how he might govern. So they were saying, we found out something about his personality. It was very interesting. And i looked at the transcripts from across the country, and we had similar kinds of reactions. So they do provide that type of leadership trait. And then as matt also mentioned, they synthesize issues. As ive said, if someone were asleep, and woke up the night of the debate, they would know basically everything that they had been talking about in the campaign up to that point. Because all of the major issues come into play. When i go into negotiated debate, or help plan a debate in the United States, or in another country, i always start by saying, what makes for a fair debate. One is you have clearly stated rules. In the United States, the agreements are now 20some pages long. And they talk about things such as the height of the podium, or whether or not the audience can react, or who will be in the audience or what kind of shots you can have on the camera. So its very important that the rules are developed by the sponsor, or jointly developed by the candidates. But that Everybody Knows what they are. They dont change. And everyone has agreed to them. And this was one of the things ive spent a lot of time on when ive done some of this and im sure you have, too, matt is making sure everyone is aware and you dont change the rules once somebody shows up. One of the most important things is that there is an opportunity for equal time. There are some debates where its very clear, you get the time signals, and you alternate and everyone has the same amount of time to answer. But there are other debates that are more fleeflowing. And its very important for someone to be keeping track of how many questions went to one person as opposed to another. And how long they really talked, so that you can begin to even it out. Believe me, here in the u. S. When we have our informal debate where theyre sitting, someone is probably keeping track of that time, and its usually reported. Its very important everyone has equal access. That doesnt mean a speaker will use all of his or her time, but they at least have to have the opportunity for that. Uninterrupted speaking opportunities, where no one is going to interrupt them. They have their time. That doesnt mean it doesnt happen. But then the rules begin to come into play, if somebodys interrupting, the moderator may take time from the person who interrupted. All of those types of things are recognized. And both with american and also international debates. The format matters. Whether you have a single moderator or you have a panel, it makes a difference in the dynamics of the debate. Which is one of the reasons why the commission went to the single moderator. The focus groups, a lot of feedback in general, indicated that the single moderator would really provide more emphasis on the candidates and more opportunity to debate rather than switching among people. If you have the town hall, where citizens are asking questions versus a journalist asking questions, you get a very different result. Citizens ask very different kinds of questions than journalists do, which gets back to that agenda idea. Whether you have a single rebuttal opportunity, where you have a chance to ask followup questions means you get more depth to an answer, especially if someones evading. So thats been a really important piece of research. Whos debating, how many candidates there are makes a difference. And in parliamentary systems, youre going to have multiple candidate debates. We typically have twoparty debates here, but in 1992, when we had three candidates, when ross perot joined the major party candidates, it made a real difference in the dynamics of the debates. The number of people there makes a difference. Whos asking the questions. Is it journalists . Is it the public . Do you have experts . And do you have the opponents asking questions . And one of the debates ill show you a brief clip from, they are doing more of that in nonpresident ial type of debates. And oftentimes in the primary debates for the u. S. President. But this has also happened in a lot of international debates. And its important in many cultures that the candidates actually do directly connect with one another. What else matters is the context of the campaign. When does the debate take place . In the u. S. , they typically want two weeks after the last debate. And thats usually the way the timing works. Because if there is a major error, the candidates want time to clarify that, to go out and deal with it, to talk about it, and to have the debates a little more in the distance. Whether its a close race or not makes a difference. And this may make a difference as to how many debates someone participates in. An incumbent whos in a close race is usually more willing to debate than one who isnt. Whether its an incumbent or a challenger. And their style of debate is often influenced by whether its an incumbent or a challenger. Challengers are much more aggressive. Incumbents have to look president ial. And so it really makes a difference in their demeanor and in the way they approach their arguments. The time, how long they get to answer, the length of the debate itself all has an influence on how much the public is going to learn. The culture. This is one of the things that i find when i do work internationally is to get a sense of what the viewership culture is, and whether or not the culture is amenable to Something Like a town hall. Several years ago the corian Broadcasting Center invited me and a few other scholars in to talk about the way we do debates, and they basically said a town hall wouldnt work here. That may not be the case ten years later. But ten years ago because debates were so new, they didnt feel it was appropriate or the right time to do it. So there are a lot of other cultural issues that come into play with how one does the debates, even who you are inviting. In georgia several years ago when i helped organize the mayoral debates, we had two rounds of debates. One was with the qualified candidates, and the nonqualified, the parties who had not reached a certain level in the previous election or didnt hold enough number of seats in the parliament. We made sure everyone had a chance. We ran it on two consecutive nights. The staging of the debate. Are they standing up, sitting down . Are they able to move around and talk to the people who are asking them questions . All of that, once again, affects the dynamic of the debate. And then the postdebate coverage. Thats one of the things here where we have the spin doctors, people who talk about what happened and why it was important or why it wasnt. Of course, everyone thinks their own candidate won. The postcoverage often influences what people think about the debate good they didnt have a chance to watch all of it. They read the coverage, listen to it, read the blogs. That can have as much influence some of the time as the debate themselves. Because it often clarifies factual errors that were made. So the coverage is also important. Basic thing is, do they matter, why do we do them. And they do. For people who have already made up their minds or leaning, they reinforce their choice and they often mean somebody gets up and goes out and votes. They feel better about the person for whom theyre voting. They tend to reinforce more than they change. For undecided voters, especially firsttime voters, they are very important. Once again, 20 or 30 years of research, of surveys, focus groups, and also exit interviews have shown that. They provide new information for nearly all viewers. Even people who follow the news have told us, and we found the same thing when we did this in other countries, they learned something that they didnt know about their own candidate that became important. They provide these unrehearsed, real moments. Theres always a question that no one expected. Or some type of a reaction. And how they handle it says a lot. And then they demonstrate the leadership traits. So they really do matter to voters. Okay. The impact of the social media is huge. And i wont i think if we can get the picture. Yes. One of the things thats happened in the u. S. In the last couple of elections, and its also been done in some other countries, are the meters, where they get a group of people who are acrosssection who watch the debate and then react to what is being said. Its either a positive reaction or negative reaction, or neutral. And so heres an example of this little device that they click on if they turn the dial. If theyre positive about it, theyll turn it positive. If theyre negative about it, they turn it negative. If they keep it in the middle, its neutral. And theres a group of people in the primary debate in the u. S. That are watching it. And then this is the way the graph comes out. So you can see the blue is positive. The red is negative. You can kind of see when somebody says something it attracts the actual moment in which this happens. So you begin to see which questions people reacted to out in an audience. Theyre nonscientific because its a small number of people. But it at least gives some indication. And on some of the networks, they will actually show these meters as the debate is going on. The other impacts with social media are that you can have realtime questions from viewers. One of the examples ill show you in a minute is where they had this group of journalists sitting off in the corner with their laptops, and people were emailing, or texting questions that they wanted asked, and then the journalists would screen them. And for one part of the debate, they actually used the questions that were coming in in realtime. The other thing thats interesting is that twitter and facebook, people are reacting. The media reports on that, in the u. S. , about how people were reacting. What were the most common tweets . What did people respond to . Chat rooms, people will be on live. Once again, when i was in georgia, they actually had a chat room going on simultaneously with the debate. And then when they rebroadcast the debate, you could see some of that going on. Instant polls, which are not scientific. As soon as the debates over, you can punch in a number, text it, tell who you thought won. And youre getting this very instantaneous poll. And comments on news stories. If you read the news stories, that are online, there are hundreds and thousands of comments about the debate. That people begin to get a reaction to. So the social media has made these far more inclusive and interactive with the public. Then in 2014, for the nonpresident ial debates, what weve seen is that many of these are very traditional with a panel. And thats because theyre often done in a studio. And so thats the most common way that they tend to be. Weve seen more multi candidate debates, especially if Public Television is broadcasting those debates. The Libertarian Party has qualified candidates for many positions throughout the country. Some of the debates will actually have everyone who is on the ballot in the debate. Weve seen new formats with questioning the other candidates, or formats where at a certain point they bring in the questions from the audience. And then the more Traditional Town halls. A real variety of formats. Much of the experimentation in the u. S. With new formats comes at the nonpresident ial or the primary level. And were seeing much of that this year. Social media, as i said, is very strong. And then we have added new twists on rules disputes. Something thats now called fangate, which ill show you a short clip of that in a minute, down in the florida governors debate. So i think were ready now to yeah. First one i want to show you is the florida governors debate. This is an interesting one, because the democrat candidate is a former republican governor who switched parties. And so there was a dispute over it gets hot on these stages. And the former governor, crist, wanted a fan under his podium. And this was move it forward a little bit. Governor crist has asked to have a small fan placed underneath his podium. The rules of the debate that i was shown by the Scott Campaign say that there should be no fan. Somehow there is a fan there. And for that reason, ladies and gentlemen, i am being told that Governor Scott will not join us for this debate. You can hear the audience reaction. Governor scott did eventually come out and debate. But this is an example of what i talked about with the rules. The rules being clear, people needing to follow the rules, and here was a case of where Governor Scott did not believe that former governor crist was abiding by the agreement. And he made his point and eventually he did come out. But the point was made. Another example is are these a multi no, this is an example of some innovation that was going on in the Georgia Senate debate. This is a threeway debate with an independent candidate. So here is an example of where in the United States, in addition to the two parties, we have an independent candidate. And one of the things i wanted you to see was joining the discussion. And theres the twitter. So that people knew where they could tweet to give reactions. Democrat michelle nunn, republican david purdue, and Third Party Candidate amanda swaford. The political reports the race is a tossup. This debate is an hour. This was one where they brought in audience questions, but they also let the candidates question one another. And then there were followups to the candidates questions of one another. So it was a very different format than what weve seen other places. If you just want to go to the last one. The last one i want to show you is vermont. And this is a multicandidate debate, where everyone who is on the ballot for governor is in the debate. They did the same thing for a congressional seat, where every person on the ballot was on the debate. This is very atypical in the u. S. , at a general election stage. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our biannual debate. Im stuart ledbetter. As you heard, weve invited all seven candidates for governor this year to be with us tonight and all seven have joined us. From left to right, they are, peter diamondstone, representing the Liberty Union party, chris erickson, an independent, dan feliciano, representing the Libertarian Party. Scott miln is the republican nominee. Bernie peters is an independent. Emily peyton is an independent. And peter shumlan is the nominee of the democratic party. Our format is pretty straightforward tonight. Ill ask a question, everyone gets a minute to respond. If needed, i might ask one or more to rebut. Thanks to our time keeper, laura, sitting at my right. Well have time for a closing statement as well. Okay. So this was one where it was a very traditional format, but some of the questions came from the viewers. They had been sent in ahead of time, and also they were collecting them during the debate. Those were some of the changes we have seen this election cycle. At the state and congressional level. And i guess id close by saying that, after researching debates for the last 30 years, and being involved in planning of many debates at many levels, i am a Firm Believer in their importance. And i do think they have a major impact on the political culture. I think they have made, especially in the u. S. , its difficult for someone not to debate. Its difficult not to face the public. And the attitude that Many Americans have is, no one asks no one gets a job without doing an interview. And if you think about the debates as a very highpressured, highpowered visible interview, thats really what it is. Thank you very much, diana. [ applause ] so well go straight to questions and answers. And we have microphones out there. I would ask you to introduce yourself when youre speaking, name and affiliation, and then give us a short question so that we can get several questions before were up in about 12, 13 minutes. So who would like to present the first question . Please . Im from senegal. Translator what you have just told us is particularly interesting, but im very curious about something here. I was struck because in my country, in senegal, we are not used to seeing these types of debates on television for the public for public consumption. And these are traditions that exist in certain advanced democracies. In france, of course, there are televised debates. In senegal, however, the Electoral Campaign takes place under the supervision of a public body. Which watches over the whole thing, and makes sure that the candidates are on equal footing, and that opportunities are equal on all sides. Especially when you have to promote when theyre promoting their platforms. So the Television Debates are moments during the campaign, the Electoral Campaign where the candidates may avail themselves of a certain air time in order but equal air time for all candidates is provided. And they can make a statement, or there may be meetings that are organized by the Television Channel itself. But there are never these types of sidebyside debates, such as you have just shown us. So my question is the following. In such a case, in this kind of a format, is there a sort of oversight mechanism of the statements made by the candidates . Is this controlled . Or are they free to express themselves as they wish according to the tradition that we are used to seeing in the United States, and contrary to what we see in my country, where in my country the statements made by the candidates are verified, facts are checked and verified in order to make sure that there are no slippages, or that something hasnt been said that might compromise the campaign of another candidate. So everything that is broadcast has to be controlled, and monitored, so that afterwards they can make sure that the candidates have not abused anything, and that it is a Public Organization, the National Council for audio visual regulation, or words to that effect. So there is a very different approach the approaches are very different from one country to the next. It seems that there is a complete coverage of everything in the United States, whereas in my country, freedom of expression, it would seem, is constrained by certain ethical rules, and the official Public Organization has to oversee everything before statements to be broadcast, either by television or by any other media. So when there are two candidates running for president , during the second round, this is when we have the well, in my country, there are two rounds. And in the second round, the two candidates might face one another. But in the second round, they are in the campaign themselves. But weve never seen two candidates in the second round start getting into a public debate on television. So its a very interesting experience that you have shown us. But my feeling is that freedom of expression is complete and comprehensive in the United States, but perhaps it is imprudent, or not such a good idea for some of these debates, or formats to exist in countries such as mine where it might be much more of a foreign issue and complicate things. Thank you for the question. Who would like to respond . Can i start. Go ahead. Okay. Very interesting question. And in the u. S. , what has happened over the last several election cycles is that they have sort of fact watches. So university of pennsylvania has an entire center that does factchecking. Factcheck. Com. So the statements that are made can be checked online. The media also does fact checks. And you will find those often times in some of the reporting. And that was one of the things that i was talking about is that the coverage after the debate is very important because when there are incorrect facts stated and both candidates tend to do it, you will see newspaper articles online that will give that to you. Given your political culture and election culture, i can see where this would be difficult because and ive worked with other countries where if an ad is put on and its not true, the Election Commission would pull it. Never would happen here. If you were to do debates, you would have to build in some way of doing that verification afterwards. But here we are free to say whatever. Can we have the next question, please . [ speaking Foreign Language ] we dont have translation. Do you have translation now . Im sorry about that. Translator so im well aware that debates are very important in the electoral process in the United States. And im from haiti and i work for the president s cabinet. I have a little concern here that id like to express. Id like to take the example of the two debates that i followed in my country, by example. And, in france, the latest president ial debates, ill use as an example as well. We realize that these debates, indeed, made it possible for the candidate who won the debate to win the election. However, they prepared in order to convince their constituents and voters but not always on the basis of, how should i say . Verifiable facts. So this is, to me, a new practice in order to win elections for a candidate to win elections to wellprepare his statements and his discourse, but without necessarily taking into account the voracity or the objectivity of the information presenting. Do you not think, therefore, it would be necessary for organizations, those that organized the debates, that they carry out a sort of objective, well, verification of the debates beforehand in order to not create more frustrated people. Because if proposals are made during the debate, these promises are not kept, well it can make the population very frustrated. And also, it would make the third, second third, second debates very significant. And a second question tied to that. I see that youre not mentioning any of the advantages or rather that disadvantages of the debates for candidates or the country itself. Does that mean there are no disadvantages in debates . And im just talking about the United States here. Whether were talking about the candidates o for country itself, actually, do debates have any disadvantages . We were fortunate yesterday to sit where we had the Fact Checkers talk to us about how they do exactly this. So the issue of Fact Checking was dealt with really well in the session yesterday. And i learneded much about the efforts that are being done to make sure that what is said by various politicians does indeed get called out if it is not correct. But i realize that what is raised here goes a little bit beyond just checking the basic facts as such. So the question is in the same direction as the first question, and then to add to that, the issue of the disadvantages of the debates for candidates and maybe matt would like to respond to this one. Certainly. I think the reason i think many countries are turning to debates is they provide more information than a campaign. Where you have ral lies, a candidate can get by with just a quick slogan. Peace, development, democracy, and it doesnt give the voters a lot of information. A debate as i think diana has mentioned, you go on record, publicly, and the media in the country and others have the opportunity to analyze those statements and say whether theyre true or in terms of maintaining the integrity of the bait, again, as diana has signaled, you can set up rules that determine the behavior of candidates and the importance of being honest and no insults and things that affect the tone of the debate. That can be part of the discussion as well, to do all you can to make sure its an Honest Exchange of ideas. In terms of disadvantages for candidates, i think for every candidate its a personal decision, whether or not they want to participate. Some debate better than others. But, at the same time, i would think on balance, most benefit from the exposure and they can certainly take different strategies if they feel someone is a better debater than another and play down their expertise and positioning in the media. They they will they will have the opportunity here from kabd dats and really lay out their because people are againing to expect that they will have the opportunity to hear from candidates and really lay out their platforms. Good. One last question if we have one from the audience. The last question of the day. Please. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator my name is anduk from indonesia. My question says how is the process in making the questions or raise the questions in the debate. From the debates in the u. S. Election. How big is the process of the voters to change their mind . Thank you. I think in terms of there are many sources. If i understood the question correctly. What is the process for selecting questions in the u. S. On the president ial level, and it may vary, i think, for the general election president ial debates, a moderator is selected, an experienced tv journalist generally, and they are solely responsible for the content of the questions. Only they know what they are. The commission does not. So that is one source, one way you can come up with questions. But i think around the world as has been mentioned, they can come from the internet. They can come from voters in the audience. They can come from other candidates. They can come from a panel of journalists. They can come from a single journalist. Theres no one formula. And, often, youll see mixed formats and debates to give different flavor and color to the discussion. I interviewed a couple of the journalists who were the single moderators for commission debates. And what they both told me was that they had their Research Units of their networks what the common themes were, in the Campaign Speeches on the ads, they looked at what was in the nightly news, in newspapers, what the polls were saying, were the important issues that the public wanted to discuss. And then they provide briefing papers to those moderators and they develop their questions out of those. Some of the debates ive worked on in other countries, weve followed a similar pattern. And then have even let the candidates know ahead of time. And weve done that now in the u. S. That there will be four topics and heres the general area so everyone knows ahd of time that there will be nothing unexpected, even though they wont know the specific questions. With this, id like to close this session and thank you, the audience, for giving us your time and giving our presenters very good questions. And thank you to matt and diana for coming here today and indulging on this extremely important issue. Thank you. [ applause ] heres a look at whats ahead today on cspan 3 next we continue our electoral theme with a look at Campaign Finance issues. Then a panel talks about Voting Rights issues. And later the u. S. Supreme court looks at a case involving the separation of powers. Heres a look at tonights prime time programming here on cspan 3. At 8 00 eastern, remarks by the president of the kennedy center, deborah rutter. On cspan 2 at 8 00, American University citizen conference with civic, business and education leaders discussing what it means to be a citizen. And on cspan at 8 00, more congressional retirement interview with carl levin and ralph hall. Part of our week long series. This thanksgiving week cspan is featuring interviews from retiring members of congress. Watch tonight through thursday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. I dont want to look back at that so much as to look forward to the next couple of months and in the next couple of months theres a couple of things i would like to do. One is to get my Defense Authorization bill passed. This is an annual effort, a major effort involving large amounts of staff. I also want to finish up some work on the permanent Sub Committee on investigations, looking at some gimmicks which are used to avoid taxes. Ive been a member of congress for 34 years, and you know, to finally get beat, if i was a manager for a baseball or Football Team and i had 341, i would be in the hall of fame. So it doesnt bother me. And it really it didnt bother me to get beat. I had 18 cochairmen who were chairmen, my 18 candidates in my district that were supporting me and wanted me to run, and i did. And on thursday, thanksgiving day, well take an American History tour of various native american tribes. Thats at 10 00 a. M. Eastern following washington journal. Then at 1 30, attend a Ground Breaking ceremony of the new Diplomacy Center in washington with former secretaries of state. And Supreme Court justices at 8 30 p. M. Eastern. Thats this thanksgiving week on cspan. For our complete schedule, go to cspan. Org. Thanks for your comments about our programming. Here are a few we received about q a. I just watched your program question and answer, and i find that very offensive to put someone online for an hour, on air, who knows very little about islam, very little about sharia. She misquoteded the koran, and perhaps you can find someone accurate and one can refute very i find it very offensive, and im completely shocked as someone who watches and respects cspan to see this program. Im completely, completely shocked. And i dare to say the Worst Program i have seen on cin 20 years. I wanted to comment on the the q a on cspan with the author noni darwish. She has given the most complete and concise articulated explanation of the muslim religion in the modern world that i have not heard of. Im a religious scholar of over 65 years. She should be commended just for this speech. Thank you very much, cspan. And continue to let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400. Email us at comments cspan. Org. Or send us a tweet. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. More from the day Long International foundation for Electoral Systems forum, examiniexamin examining issues around the world. In the next panel the current commissioner along with former member, Trevor Potter, discuss the complexities of Campaign Financing and transparency issues. This is just under an hour. Okay, welcome, everyone to this panel on Campaign Finance. This session is entitled money talks, free speech, Political Action committees and the future of Campaign Finance regulation, and we will deal with all those issues in the next 60 minutes. In case you need interpretation, please note that english is on channel 7, arabic on channel 8. French on channel 9. And spanish on channel 11. If you need a headset and you dont have one yet, please indicate that to our colleagues who are providing them. I am the finance adviser. Next week i will celebrate having been with ifis for ten years and ive had the pleasure of working with the finest initiatives in many parts around the world. But much more importantly we have two prominent speakers and is president of the Campaign Legal center, which is an ngo here in washington, specializing in issues regarding money and politics. On my direct left is ellen winetraub, nominated through the federal Election Commission in 2002 and who has since twice as chairman of that commission. And in true interest of bipartisanship, she is a democrat. And shes previously counsel to perkins coyle llp and a member of its political law group, where she counseled, political ethics, nonprofit law, recounts and lobbying regulations. Before that, winetraub was counsel to house of Ethics Committee and served as chief of house ethics manual and major contributor, two documents im sure that are needed. While at the committee, she counselled those on investigations and often had legal responsibility for committee and compliance initiatives. Weve discussed this session in advance and Trevor Potter will start by giving an overview of the case law in this area. And ellen winetraub will discuss the resulting spending patterns and the disclosure consequences in this particular election cycle. Following these presentations well will open the floor as we have done previously for your questions and interventions. There are many factors that influence processes. Many are covered in the various sessions of the u. S. Election program. But one factor that is always important is the role of money in the electoral process. I have yet to visit any country where people tell me that money isnt important in our elections. Whether it is huge spending on advertising or votes buying or abuse of state resources, or corrupting the candidate nomination in the Government Party in nondemocratic systems. The importance of this factor is now recognized around the world. And in a recent study of 180 countries, they couldnt find a single one that didnt have at least some legislation in this field. And this includes some latecomers, including my own native sweden, which passed its first law in this field in april this year. However, theres also growing understanding that creating laws is only the first step. The vast majority of Political Party and Campaign Finance laws around the world are not implemented. Supporting legal reform is an important part of our work with political funds. But it is only the first step. The vast majority of our work involves implementing the regulations. As part of this we cooperate with many public institutions, such as election management bodies that have a mandate to enforce. In this context, i want to mention the recent published political finance oversight handbook, which is in your packets. There are more Copies Available outside. This is, in turn, part of our training in detection and enforcement curriculum. And one of the people who kindly helped us field test this curriculum is commissioner winetraub. We also spend a lot of time assisting Civil Society groups that monitor Campaign Finance, including in the tunisian elections last week. And their report, which should be out in a month or so, will be the first Campaign Finance monitoring report ever in tunisia, if not in north africa. During the last first 15 years i have supported political finance initiatives in over 40 countries and theres no sign that the need for this work is declining. One excellent example where work with political finance can never end is the United States. And even though the first rules came in this country over a century ago, and several decades have passed since the legal reform in the 1970s, there is a lot of work still to be done. And, indeed, many are arguing that the tras parnsparency and oversite of the role in u. S. Politics has gradually got worse in the last few years. Well hear more about this issue from our other two speakers. I will hand over first of all to joel potter. Thank you, magnus. Its a great pleasure to be with you today at ifis. I admire the work of ifis and have had an opportunity over the years to spend time with groups such as yours who are coming to these elections. I always enjoy it greatly because it gives me a chance to step back and think through what youre about to see, but i have to say that i think what youre about to see and hear explained by commissioner winetraub and myself is probably more confusing today than at any time that i have known in my professional career, so i dont necessarily envy you trying to figure it all out. Were trying to figure it out ourselves. But im glad youre here and magnus, thank you for your opening remarks, sort of setting things in context, because i think americans tend to forget that there are other democrats in the world struggling with the same issues we are, that theyre not unique. From your perspective, youll have an opportunity to see the issues magnus raised, how money is spent, how is disclosed are, indeed, ones faced by most countrys any country having an election. Our system has is a constitutional system so we have a constitution set up that created two houses of congress and an executive branch and then an independent judicial branch. Congress passes laws, which means they have to pass both chambers, the house and the senate. Then they have to be signed by the president. They are now a law, but they are interpreted by the Supreme Court under two circumstances. Either where a case arises where a party says, we think the law says x and another party or the goth says, no, the law says y in those circumstances the dispute goes to what congress meant. The other circumstance in which a dispute reaches the court is where someone who whose activity is governed by the law says that the law is contrary to the constitution. That congress has created a law not permitted by our constitution. That, actually, is something that the court has said frequently in recent years. For much of our history the court had nothing at all to say about congressional regulation of money and politics of limits on who could spend on disclosure. In the middle of the 20th century we had a scandal you may have heard of, called the watergate scandal, which involved a great deal of money being spent by the Reelection Campaign of president nixon. Some contrary to the laws that existed. Some of it not disclosed. Some of it appearing closer to a bribe. And congress enacted a new set of laws to react to that. That limited money, disclosed money. And there our Supreme Court stepped in when they were challenged in court. What they said is our constitution, specifically the First Amendment of the constitution, limited the power of government to regulate the raising and spending and disclosure of money in politics. Our First Amendment, in my experience, is unique, in that its an absolute prohibition on government doing certain things. The full text is, Congress Shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or of the press or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble to petition the government for the redress of grievances. All of this went back to the period of the revolution in the late 1700s and was a reaction to the things the British Government had done in the american colonies. But if you listen carefully, you didnt hear anything about the government regulating or not regulating the spending of money in elections. What has happened over time, its been incremental, the u. S. Supreme court has interpreted the piece of that that says Congress Shall make no law of bridging the freedom of speech to encompass spending money in elections or giving money to candidates or parties as a version of speaking. The theory being that, clearly, speech is standing on a Street Corner and speaking, it might be standing on a Street Corner and speaking with a microphone, although you would have to pay money for the microphone you have to buy it somewhere. Clearly if you are speaking in taking out Television Advertisements in a system where we do not have government television, its all commercial and you have to pay for advertising or mailings or phone calls or staff, all of that costs money. And so the Supreme Court has said, there are circumstances in which government may regulate the spending of money. It makes figuring out what to do and what the goth may do in this area very complicated, particularly because the population, the members of the Supreme Court change over time. So, as an example, Congress Passed in the 2002, the Mccain Finegold Campaign Reform act which was to deal with Problems Congress thought had arisen from the watergate laws 30 years before. Those laws were challenged in the court. They were almost entirely upheld by the Supreme Court. Then there was a change of one justice who retired. Her replacement felt differently. And the court since then has gone back and struck down important pieces of the law they had just upheld. The final piece of this structure, which complicates life, is that we have, as im sure all of you do, administrative agencies, whose job is to interpret, to explain and to enforce the laws that are passed by congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. And in our case, the Principle Agency in this area is the federal Election Commission. Which i was a commissioner of some time ago. Commissioner weintraub is now. And that agency is essentially evenly balanced between the parties. Not more than there are six commissioners, not more than any three in practice, have meant three republicans, three democrats, as our two major parties. That requires four of six to take action, to adopt regulation or enforce the law. The good news, of course, is that means no one party has control and can use it against the other party. That was the design. But it requires the commissioners to have to be sincere about making the law work because you have to compromise and agree. What has happened in the last five years or so with the current federal Election Commission, which again depends on whos on it, is that the commission has split 33. Three republicans versus three democrats on most major votes to enforce the law. What this means is, is that an important piece of our system, which is the agency that is supposed to say, you have to be disclose your funding. You cant do that. You violated the law, is unable to function. And the result is, there is, as we would say, no policeman on the beat. And the result of having no policeman on the beat is that things get wilder and wilder because nobody is there to stop them. So, thats our structure in terms of how we get laws, who interprets them, the fecs job, what it does or does not. Let me briefly summarize the system, such as it is that we currently have as part of that structure. Congress has said that there is a limit to how much individuals may contribute to political candidates and political parties. Those limits have been upheld by the Supreme Court and theyre not particularly high. Its 2600 ffr an individual giving to a candidate. More if that individual wants to give to a party committee. The three is going to be about a but not enormous given whats being spent in our elections. Congress has said, and the Supreme Court has agreed so far, that corporations and unions may not give directly to candidates or parties. Only individuals, only u. S. Citizens and permanent residents. So, not foreign governments, foreign countries, foreign individuals. That money is required to be fully disclosed, so that every citizen will know who is giving to the candidates and the parties over a very low threshold, over 200. Above that, their contributions are going to be disclosed. Parallel to that, though, to candidates and parties but it is not permissible under our First Amendmented right of flee speech to limit how much individuals can go out and spend on their own. To advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. So, you have two different systems here you have the give money to candidates and parties. That can be limited. Spend it on your own. Go out and take your money, buy Television Advertisements and say, you know, vote for obama, vote for romney, defeat so and so, theyre terrible, reelect so and so, theyve done a great job for our state. That cannot be limited to what congress can spend. Congress had said about a hundred years ago, corporations cannot spend money in the case of elections. And that had been the case in this country until Citizens United in 2010. So, there has been a significant change in our system with the Supreme Court saying that corporations and unions, again, u. S. Corporations and unions, have the same rights as u. S. Individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money. What the Supreme Court said, though, is that that money should be disclosed and is required to be disclosed under the law. So, if i give to a candidate or party committee, the candidates and Party Committees disclose it. If i, as an individual, spend the money on my own, so i take out an ad that says, vote for smith, it could say, paid for by Trevor Potter and i would be required to file with the government something that says, i took out this ad to reelect schmidt and it cost me 2 million. That would be legal, but id have to disclose it. A new development that has occurred, which i admit sounds confusing, so bear with me for a moment, is that instead of my taking out an ad in my own name, paid for by Trevor Potter, or a corporation or union, which according to the Supreme Court can now do the same thing, doing that and saying, paid for by general electric, committees have formed called super pacs, which simply means political committees that are registered and reporting with the federal Election Commission so they disclose their donors and they can take all this corporate and individual money and are you not ads in their names. So, the individuals which corporations who have an unlimited right to speak can put their money together into a super pac. Lets call it americans for a better tomorrow. Whatever that is. It will run the ad and say, paid for by americans for a better tomorrow. Now, when you watch the ad, you may not know who americans for a better tomorrow is, but it is public information. The press can go to the fec and find out who the donors were. It can say most of the donors were corporations or labor unions. Will is another type of group that is spending money this year. That is called by the press dark money, which means money that is not disclosed as to its source. So, those are not super pacs. They are ngos. They are nonprofit organizations that are created by individuals or corporations. Their principle purpose is not supposed to be to engage in politics because otherwise they would have to file with commissioner weintraubs agency and they would report their donors. But nonetheless, they can spend and do spend a lot of money on politics. And their creation and their disclosure should be regulated by a different government agency, the Internal Revenue service that focuses on taxes, but for a variety of reasons, it is not doing anything about those groups. So, we have ended up in a situation which was never envisioned by congress, which passed the laws. Confusingly, was apparently never envisioned by our Supreme Court when it changed the laws, because the Supreme Court said that even though corporations and unions can spend an unlimited amount of money in elections, it will be disclosed. Corporations and individuals who are willing to disclose who they are, give to a super pac, which reports the federal Election Commission spends an unlimited amount, and you know who the donors are. If they to want hide who they are, they give to one of these ngos. Theyre referred to by their designation under the tax code, so you will hear 501c4, 501c6, 501c7. Dont worry about it. What it is an organization that spends money in politics and for a variety of peculiar reasons that are peculiar to our administrative system, do not have to do not end up disclosing their donors. Personally, i think they are required to disclose their donors by law. I think thats what the law says. Thats what the Supreme Court said it says. But, my friend commissioner weintraubs agency, does not have four votes to enforce that law. I will say, commissioner weintraub is one of the three votes who has been trying hard to enforce that law. Thank you. But theres not a majority. So, we have a peculiar administrative failure, where an Administrative Agency is not doing its job. And the only way in our system to get it to do its job is to sue it in court. And people who dont like their failure tone force the law and failure to disclose, have sued it in court. A judge has agreed they are violating the law, but the case is still stuck in court. The agency is still not been ordered by a Court Finally to enforce the law. And the result is, we have a great deal of money being spent, which commissioner weintraub was going to tell us about, and a lot of it. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars is not disclosed as to the source of the funding. And as a result of Citizens United and the introduction of corporate and union money to our elections, we have also a great deal more money being spent in elections than we traditionally, historically have. In a system which does not have public funding for house and senate candidates. So, the election youre seeing this year is totally privately fund funded. If the money is by candidates and parties, its limited and disclosed. If its by these outside groups, which are supposed to be independent of candidates and parties, then it may or may not be disclosed depending on whether or not its through a super pac or one of these ngos. Thank you very much. With that, commissioner weintraub will tell you just how bad the system ive described is in practice in terms of the amounts being spent. Well, thanks for that leadin, trevor. Trevor is a republican and i am a democrat. And republicans and democrats frequently disagree on issues of Campaign Finance and the First Amendment in this country. However, trevor and i frequently agree. So, are you not getting a representative sample of the debate that usually takes place between democrats and republicans on these issues. I want to take a step back. I think there are really important principles at play here. One issue that is really important in this country is that our courts in particular have been extremely protective of the right of every citizen to criticize the government and to do so without fear of any kind of penalty. Or reprisal. It is important to remember that. If you watch the tv ads, and they are often ugly and unpleasant to watch. But the courts see this as a fompl of protecting the rights of citizens to criticize their own government. And the candidates from office and the office hood lers. Now, there are different ways that one might go about doing that. I think it is particularly interesting, particularly in an international group, to take a look at some of the different way that one could come to these issues. In our country, they have a strong libertarian issue. They believe the best way to have the most robust debate on issues of public concern is by having no limits on spending that goes behind these political ads. And that way this side can spend all they want and this side can spend all they want and in the end, all the issues will be fleshed out and we will have a great, robust debate. Thats not the only way one could look at this, if one traveled to the north, and i understand we have some canadians in the room, their courts who also, i believe, believe they are protecting free speech rights look at is it in a different way. That allows wealthy people to dominate the debate and to drown out the voices of others. So, the way to protect the most robust debate and make sure everybody has a chance to get their points across is, in fact, to have some kind of limit on spending. Regulating Campaign Finance money in politics. I agree with what magnus said earlier, that enforcement is a really key component of Campaign Finance regulation or any system of Civil Enforcement of laws. If youre going to have laws and nobodys enforcing them, then you might as well not have the laws because then youre left with a system of voluntary compliance. Some people will voluntarily comply, particularly candidates themselves will be most motivated to voluntarily comply with the laws because they have a reputational interest at stake. They dont want people out there saying, theyre lawbreakers because then people wont vote for them because they dont want to vote for Office Holders who are law breakers. But the further you get from the can d candidates, the less that constraint comes to bear. So, when you have these groups that are removed from the candidates and are running ads and its not transparent, whos behind them, no ones really accountable for the message, then you get into some political messaging that is very ugly and very negative and not necessarily reliable in its truthfulness because no one is being held accountable for the message. So, when we talk about money in politics here, the first question Everyone Wants to ask is, how much money is being spent and there is a lot. This year well probably end up spending close to 4 billion this election. The president ial election two years ago we spent between 6 and 7 billion. And the 2016 president ial race will undoubtedly be even more expensive. And people listen to that number and it makes headlines and they think, wow, that sounds like an awful lot of money. In fact, we probably spent more money last week on halloween holiday where children dress up in costumes and hand out candy and have parties than the 4 billion well spend on this election. Its a very big economy. Its a lot of people with a lot of people and economic actors. To me the key question is not how much money is raised and spent, but how is it raised and spent . Is it done in a way that is transparent . Is it done in a way where someone is accountable for the money being raised and spent and the messages that are put out there. As i said, when no ones accountable, the message is a lot less reliable. Is it done in a way that promotes citizen participation . One of the problems with having all of these negative ads out there which is more likely, more prevalent when we have more independent spenders, when the money gets further and further from the candidates, is that the voters get turned off. Sometimes they say that they just are not interested in participating. Small donors are less interested in participating because they see the wealthy donors are giving so much, they think, why should i give 25 when i see that theres a billionaire out there whos giving 25 million . Whats my 25 going to do . Voters say, i see all these negative ads and i think, i dont want to vote for any of these people. So, i think there is that negative ram fiction that it can discourage participation. Of course, the bottom line concern, is this money being raised and spent in a way that is legal, that is not corrupting of the entire process. And i think that there are a lot of people in this country who have concerns about that. I should say that the threethree splits trevor alluded to on our commission, they are prevalent but it doesnt work the way you think it might work. It is not a question of the three democrats protecting democrats and the three republicans protecting republicans in enforcement matters. There is an ideological divide on the commission that the republicans on the commission believe in this more libertarian view. They believe the First Amendment protects all of this money thats being raised and spent and that we should not be regulating it. And the democrats believe that there are laws on the books, particularly laws about disclosure, that have been upheld. They were passed by congress, upheld and they should be given force. And we should investigate groups that appear to be engaged in political activity and arent registering as political committees. So, its an although it sounds like a partisan dispute, its really more of an ideological dispute about how the laws should function in terms of regulating politics. Now, why does it matter whos behind these ads . As i said, part of it goes to how credible they are. And part of the rationale for disclosure goes to what information the voters come away with. And ill tell you a story. In my own home state of maryland, in the last election we had a question on our ballot about whether to allow casino gambling in our state. This is something that is decided by state law on a state by state basis. And there were ads that started to be run by various officeholders, yes, this will bring money into the state, economic development, well have mror money for education, we should should vote question on this question. Then a group started a advertising. I look to see who is behind the ads. It only said paid for by the Committee Vote no on proposition 6 or 7, i forget which number it was. I got no information from that. These ads said, well, theres no way knowing this money will Fund Education reform or better Educational Services and its going to be a big giveaway to the casino interests so dont support this. Because we have good Disclosure Rules in my state, it came out the sole funder behind these ads saying vote no was a competing casino in the next state of West Virginia and they didnt want the competition from maryland casinos so they wanted us to vote against it. That affected how i viewed those ads and how i assessed what was going on in those ads. These werent people who really cared about the education of the children of maryland. They just wanted to protect their profits in West Virginia. And when the initiative passed, they came to maryland and filed a license application to try to open a casino in maryland. So, i think its really important, and the Supreme Court has recognized this, that voters know whos behind these ads. And what we have now is a system where and it changes from one election to the next. There are changes as we go al g along. Increasingly since 2010 we have a system where more money is raised from fewer donors and with less disclosure. In the in the Top Ten Senate Races in this country, because we dont have the president on the ballot, so the senate is where a lot of the attention is being focused, the senate make change and control from democrat to republican, depending on how how the votes go tomorrow. In the top ten races, most of them, there is more money by a long shot being spent by outside spending groups than by the candidates themselves. In the most expensive race, in north carolina, which is a not a big state. Its not an expensive media market. But it is the most expensive race so far. As of last week, over 112 million was spent in that one state. Of which over 80 million came from outside spending groups. The candidates are taking on a smaller and smaller role in their own campaigns. Now, some of these spending groups are run by friends and associates of the candidates. And are funded by the same donors who support the campaigns. Sometimes they are supported by family members of the candidates. And yet these groups claim that he had are independent of the candidates. So, this issue of independence of the Campaign Spending by these outside groups has become one that is very contentious at the commission and in the legal community. Beyond that we have the campaign and Party Committees and contribution on limits and file disclosure reports with us that tell everyone, every donor of over 00 and every expenditure of over 200. Theyre very detailed reports. Then theres another category of the super pacs that trevor described. These are political committees. They do file reports with us. Not as frequently as the candidates do. And theres an article in todays paper about groups that have manipulated the process so that they are they held off their donors until after the last report was due before the election. As of october 15th, that was the last reporting were seeing a flooding of ads by this group and you think, how could they afford that because in the last report they didnt have that much money. Obviously, they asked their donors to not write the checks, not transmit the money until right after the end of the reporting period. So there will be a flood of advertising and nobody will know whos paying for it. In the last week, atds have bee coming in from outside groups on the order of 20 million a day. Then the c4s that dont disclose at all. And we will eventually see the ads and well be able to know from forms that are filed with the federal communications commission, yet another commission in the federal government, how much money was spent on ads but we wont necessarily see all the money spent by these groups. Some of it will go to reaching out to voters and trying to bring them to the polls. Theres a whole infrastructure that is developed by these groups that shadows the Party Organizations. There are billionaires who are basically creating their own little Party Organizations that are mimicking what the parties do except in a much less transparent way. And we will we may never know how much money is being spent on those endeavors and where that money came from. So this to me is a problem in our democracy when we are moving away from disclosure and i think the voters have the right to know whos supporting the candidates. And the candidates need to be accountable for their own supporters. So, they were moving towards a less transparent system and also a system that is empowering more very wealthy people. We are seeing fewer donors, more money, but fewer donors, because as i said, i think some of the smaller donors are feeling less encouraged to contribute when they see how much money is flowing. And a lot of the big donors are giving a lot, a lot of money. Were talking about tens of millions of cases. In some cases hundreds of millions of dollars from individuals. And i think going back to whether this is a corrupting process, i think one has to ask, what will those donors expect in return for those massive contributions . So, thats kind of where we are today and what some of my concerns are as someone who tries to enforce the laws. Thank you very much. Grateful to both presenters. Well open the floor for questions, comments. If you can raise your hand, well give you a microphone. If you can please introduce yourself and provide your affiliation. And if you can keep the questions and comments very brief, that would be great, so so many people can speak. Yes, sir. I talk in arabic. Excuse me. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator this is impossible as i get from the presenter. Why the members of this commission are not independent, who dont belong to either democrats or republicans . Is there a penalty that would be of those who are using the political money in a wrong manner and had the commission the right to regulate the political money . Thank you for listening. Thank you very much. Well take one more question before we turn over to our census. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator the Political Party, where do they get the money from . Because campaigning is cannot be separated from money. What kind of violation has been done in Campaign Financing . And then how do you how do you resolve that . Thank you very much. Lets take one more before we head over. Thank you. [ speaking Foreign Language ] translator i am from haiti. And i would like very much to learn a little more about the financing of elections. I have heard it said that, in fact, candidates do not have Public Financing available to them. Now, you who are members of the federal Election Commission, do you have funds that you channel into the election . Are you a source of funding at all . But without public funding, how does that happen, im wondering . Thank you. Thank you very much. We have questions about appointing commissioners of the fec, would it not be better to have independence. We have questions about sanctions and violations. Where do the money come from. And does the fec have public funding, a couple words about the president ial funding system. Sure. Let me start with your question about where the appointees to the federal Election Commission come from. Like Everything Else in our system, it is a result of inevitable compromise as laid out by our constitution. Officials of the government, entities committees like federal Election Commission, are called independent but theyre really people who have to be nominated by the president , so selected by the president , and then approved, confirmed by the senate. So you have a compromise between the president and the senate. In reality what has happened for the entire existence of the commission is that the party that has the presidency picks its people. And the other party, which is represented in congress by leaders of that party, choose their people. And even though theyre all technically a president ial nomination, if the president tries to nominate someone for one of the other partys seats without their consent, the senate will not confirm them. So that you have a compromise. And as it has developed, you end up with, in the current world, the democrats being appointed by the president , can conferring with his party, and the republicans being selected by the Republican Leaders in congress. And then the president officially nominates them and both are confirmed together. I think im right in saying, there have only been two commissioners confirmed in the last six years. The others were appointed before this presidency because there has been no agreement between the parties, another area where we have deadlocked. There have been no new commissioners. And the ones like commissioner weintraub, who were there before, remain there because nobody has been successfully appointed to replace them. It is the closest thing to perpetual life we have in our government. Yes, trevor, if you had not left of your own accord, you could probably still be there. Trevor is exactly right. I was appointed by president bush, whos a republican, although im a democrat. My name was recommended by Democratic Senate leaders at the time and thats typical. I should say we should have some sort of an independent commission. Thats clear. Other countries do. Our norms have not caught up with that. You would have the question of who selects the independents, who makes sure theyre truly independent and not a wolf in sheeps clothing. Those are issues. But i think theyre ones we will have to address because our current deadlock system is creating a serious problem. We do have one commissioner now who is an independent. He is a person of no party. He is not a democrat or a republican. But he does he was selected to fill a democratic seat and he generally votes the same way as the two democratic commissioners because thats what he believes is the right thing to do. Its complicated. It was set up to be a Bipartisan Commission so that one party couldnt control. And it at various points in its history, has worked better than it is working today. As trevor pointed out at the beginning, the last five or six years, it hasnt been working very well together. There hasnt been a lot of common ground, a lot of meeting in the middle. The earlier part of my tenure, we did a better job than that. I hold out hope that that could happen again. Financing is largely private in this country. We have a system of Public Financing only for the president ial race. Not for the house or senate. Various states may have their own system of financing for their state level elections. But at the federal level, theres only private financing, except for the presidency. The way our Supreme Court interpreted that law that allowed Public Financing, they said it couldnt be required. So its a voluntary system. The way the system is set up, if one accepts the public funds, one also has to accept expenditure limits. Now, what has happened over the last number of years really since 2000 is that its become clear that candidates, even under contribution limits, have been able to raise so much more money than they would than the contribution than the expenditure limits would allow them to spend if they took the public money, that they dont participate. So, the system needs to be amended. There are bills in congress to fix it, but theyre not going anywhere. We do in response i think there was a question about enforcement. Yes, the commission does have the authority to impose penalties to most of what we do is to enter into negotiations and try to come to a Settlement Agreement once we agree that theres a violation. But the problem of late has been getting to that agreement that theres a violation of the law. Thank you very much. We have several hands in the air. This is what happens when you talk about Campaign Finance. You simply run out of time. And people are waving at the back of the room. To respect the agenda, we will have to discuss continue the discussion during the break. Please, try to grab our two percenters before they leave the building. Trevor, ellen and i sat in this particular session in the 2012 ifis u. S. Selection program. Hopefully we will be sitting here in the 2016 u. S. Election program as well, which when we will be electing a new president. I welcome you back to that event. I just wanted two things i heard. Things are getting wilder and wilder, and more money is being raised from fewer donors with less disclosure. So, theres a lot of work still to be done. On behalf of myself, i want to thank Trevor Potter and Ellen Weintraub for excellent presentations. And i want to thank you for your participation. If youre interested in ifis finance, please grab me at any point during this event. We will take a break and reconvene at 4 00 in this room for a session entitled more power to more people, how americas with disabilities act and the rights are expanding political rights. Thank you very much. Heres whats ahead. Next we continue our electoral theme with a panel on Voting Rights issues. Then the u. S. Supreme court looks at a case involving separation of powers. Former agriculture secretary dan glickman talks about food security. Heres a look at tonights prime time programming across the cspan networks. Here on cspan3 at 8 p. M. Eastern remarks from the president of the kennedy center, she talks about the importance of Arts Education and cultural diplomacy. On cspan2 at 8 00, well show you a citizenship conference. Speakers include retired general stanley mcchrystal. And on cspan at 8 p. M. , well have more congressional retirement interviews. Our focus is Michigan Democratic senator carl levin and texas republican congressman ralph hall. These are part of our weeklong series. This thanksgiving week cspan is featuring interviews from retiring members of congress. Watch the interviews tonight through thursday at 8 p. M. Eastern. As much as weve accomplished in 36 years and i dont want to look back at that so much as to look forward to the next couple months and this the next couple months theres a couple things id like to do. One is to get my Defense Authorization bill passed. This is an annual effort a major effort voinvolving large amounts of staff. Looking at some gimmicks which are used to avoid taxes. Ive been a member of congress for 34 years. You know, to finally get beat f i was a manager for a baseball or Football Team and i had a 341, id be in the hall of fame. Doesnt bother me. Really it didnt bother me to get beat. I wasnt set on going, but i 18 cochairmen who were chairman of the 18 counties in my district who were supporting me and wanted me to run and i did. Also on thursday, thanksgiving day, well take an American History tour of various native american tribes. Thats at 10 a. M. Eastern following washington journal. Then at 1 30, attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the my Diplomacy Center in washington, with former secretaries of state. And Supreme Court justices clarence thomas, samuel alito and Sonia Sotomayor at 8 30 p. M. Eastern. Thats this thanksgiving week on cspan. For our complete schedule, go to cspan. Org. Back now to the daylong forum hosted by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. This next panel focuses on the u. S. And the Voting Rights act. Two lawyers discussed it and how the federal government plays a role in elections at the local level. This is about an hour. Thank you all very much for being here today. Id like to get started so we can stay on schedule. First, welcome to the ifiss u. S. Election program and to our panel from selma to montgomery and beyond, the 1965 Voting Rights act and the future of the federal government in elections. My name is chad vickery, director of the center for applied research the ifis and im joined by daniel tokaji. He is currently professor of law at ohio state university. Hes an expert on election law and Voting Rights specializing in Electoral Reform issues. Hes also the author of election law in a nutshell and coauthor of election law cases and materials. Im also joined by brendan morrissey, with a litigation practice, assisting clients with trial and appellate matters before courts and federal agencies. He was counsel to Shelby County, alabama, in its challenge to section 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights act. Just a couple of very quick reminders. For translation, english on channel 7, air abik is on channel 8, spanish is on channel 9. For todays discussion, were going to try to keep each panelists comments short, about ten minutes each. Two sessions of ten minutes. Then well have the rest of the time for question and answer. A level Playing Field is at the heart of genuine lement elections. Ifiis works to support the right of every person to participate in free and fair elections. Our work, therefore, includes equal rights, justice, inclusion from marginalized or underrepresented groups so they can participate fully in political life. Voter rights have been especially contentious in the United States and litigation to protect equal rights, equal Voting Rights continues to be a subject of litigation and debate. The landmark case of Shelby County versus holder resulted in Supreme Court striking down section b of the Voting Rights act of 1965 and effectively removing the coverage formula, determining which jurisdictions require federal preclearance before enacting changes to their voting laws. In an attempt to share insights on the american electoral system, here at the u. S. Election program, this panel will discuss the implications of shelby in the broader context of Voting Rights and political inclusion. Today brendan will speak about the leadup to the filing of the action including prior litigation in the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights act. He will also discuss recent changes in several states, including texas, north carolina, ohio, and wisconsin, and how and whether preclearance would have affected the implementation of these laws. After brendan speaks, dan will provide some more context to the Voting Rights act and the preclearance process. The context preceding the case including what the Voting Rights act preclearance was and wasnt doing, he will also discuss what has happened since 2013, including new state laws and practices and litigation challenges that under the constitution in section 2 of the Voting Rights act. So, with that ill hand it over to brendan. Thanks, chad, for inviting me to participate in this panel today. I want to start out by saying that, you know, im here as to give my perspective as someone who participated in the actual litigation of the case and to provide that unique perspective here for you all to hear. Basically, the backdrop of all of this is that, you know, here in the United States we have kind of dual regulation of election. We have states with primary responsibility and then we have the u. S. Federal constitution which provides certain fundamental guarantees covering, amongst other things, Voting Rights. And so, with that situation, you have basically states with primary power except that they cant do anything that would violate, you know, the United States constitution. Then Congress Also has the ability to, quote, enforce the fundamental rights in the United States constitution. Thats where the Voting Rights act comes in. So, in 1965, congress made the determination that certain additional measures needed to be taken to enforce those fundamental rights. And so there were a bunch of different provisions of the vra, but one of which was section 5. And so what section 5 did was kind of unique in comparison to some of the other things that was that were going on in the Voting Rights act. It set up, for lack of a better term, a prior restraint, basically said states cant do anything, change their election laws in any way, until they get approval from the United States attorney general to make that change, which was its hard to overstate how much of a shift that was from kind of the baseline system that we have here. Kind of flips it on its head, in fact. But that was only in certain areas of the country. And as chad mentioned, those were designated in seconds 4b of the Voting Rights act. So, that set out the form lashgs who actually has to go through that process. Everybody else was under the baseline system. Thats where section 5 comes in. That was it was controversial from the outset. Whats actually interesting is that congress put a provision right in the act that allowed jurisdictions to bring constitutional challenges to this. So, thats something you see sometimes in elections laws where theres some question about the constitutionality of it. And this was not an exception that. In fact, the state of South Carolina and several other states took congress up on that offer and challenged it immediately. The Supreme Court upheld section fives and other provisions at that time finding that given the circumstances that existed in the early 1960s, leading up to this, it was that was a justified use of the enforcement power. It was challenged again on a couple of other occasions, section five was. And again upheld both times. The thing about section five also is that it was limited in time period. So you had a situation where initially it was only supposed to be in lace fplace for five y and reevaluated. In 1960 and 1970 and 1975 and 1982 they reauthorized it. By the time 2005 came around, they were thinking about this again. It was still in place. Basically unchanged in terms of the coverage formula. So Congress Took up the task again at that point. The relevant committees of both houses of Congress Held hearings on whether this was continued to be justified. They took in a lot of evidence. Some of of it in my view better than others other evidence. But they held a lot of hearings. They compiled what was what has been described throughout the litigation as a 15,000 page record that they thought justified this particular action, which nobody can say that they didnt work hard at this. So that was basically the reauthorization process. What was kind of important at the time though is that there were serious concerns about Going Forward kind of on the same basis as had formed the justification for the original act. So Going Forward on the same coverage formula is history enough to justify this type of thing. Or do we need to look at more modern circumstances . Whats really going on on the ground today . Ultimately, not to impugn the academy, they got bad advice about updating the coverage f formula. Folks came in and testified and said, basically, history is enough, plus current circumstances in those jurisdictions. You dont need to look at everybody and say where should this go forward . You should look at is it justified in the areas of the country where you have had this all along. I think ultimately, thats what doomed the act when we get to the litigation. But there was testimony about things happening in other areas of the country, things happening in areas of the country that were covered by the Voting Rights act that did not justify continued coverage. So the testimony was a mixed bag on that. From the perspective of a litigator and someone who brought a case that were here to talk about today, in our view at least and in the view of many covered jurisdictions, there wasnt a lot of evidence of constitutional violations. Violations of the United States constitution to justify continued use of this particular provision. So at the time, there was that was something that was debated and a couple of senators thought, you know, there was a constitutional problem with it. They ended up voting for it. In any event, they kicked the debate to the courts. Thats where the first challenge to that after 2006 was a case called northwest austin. They saw two things. They wanted to get out of coverage. They asked for a bailout. They asked for the court to declare they were they were basically on Good Behavior for ten years. That would put them on a parole system for lack of a better term. They would be out, but they would be subject to continued monitoring. Then they also asked for section five of the Voting Rights act to be declared unconstitutional. That went to the Supreme Court in 2008, 2009 time period. 2009, the Supreme Court ruled on the bailout question, allowed them to bail out and ducked the constitutional question, which raised it again for someone to bring a challenge. So thats primarily thats background, but to tell you how basically we got where i came in. We had been doing work for the project on fair representation, which is a group of folks interested in fairness in elections and things had of that nature. For some time. Some led to litigation. Others had not. We had been doing it memos for them. By the time the northwest austin decision came out, we thought we had a good shot of actually getting the actual litigation. So we sought about discussing with people the possibility of bringing on a jurisdiction to actually challenge the act. So we did that. We had written a couple of briefs. Nobody paid any attention to those. But up to that point, that was basically where it was. So we ended up speaking with some folks in Shelby County, alabama, which was a jurisdiction that was covered under the act by virtue of the state of alabama was covered and Shelby County was a county in the state. So by virtue of that, it was a covered jurisdiction. Shelby county had been kind of a model of Voting Rights, to be honest with you, for a decent time. There had been cities and towns within the county that had had their own issues of complying with section five. But Shelby County was pretty good. So we were we signed them on. They decided to file a complaint. So we did that. One of the things that we decided to do from the outset though was to bring two claims, which ended up being important, i think. The first was a challenge to section 4b itself. Which was the coverage formula. The second was to bring a challenge to section five. Because of some things that the court had said in northwest austin about coverage being outdated, we thought breaking it down would crystallize the issues for the courts when they were addressing that issue. Thats ultimately the way that we proceeded and ultimately the way that the court ruled. It ruled on section 4d finding it was outdated and did not respond to occur arent conditions, did not rule on the section five issue. The baseline that we have today is if congress creates a new formula, section five will be in place. But as of right now, its not, because theres no valid coverage formula. Let me just start by thanking ifes for bringing us all here today, for inviting me and to thank all of you for being here. It is a great honor to be among such a group of people from around the world who care about democracy as much as we do. The foundation of democracy, any democracy, is the right to vote. This right has long been recognized as fundamental by our Supreme Court, even though our constitution does not explicitly product Voting Rights as such. Our courts, since the 19th century, however, has said that the right to vote is fundamental because it is preservative of all rights. None of our interests, be they in education, employment, healthcare, whatever it might be, are safe unless we are able to vote and participate as equals in democracy. I say this by way of introduction, because although this principal has long been proclaimed in the United States, it has not always been respected and even today in the United States there are practices which diminish, dilute or impair Voting Rights by some of our citizens. So let me, in my brief remarks, start by providing some context, both on the United States unusual electoral system and on history, before moving to the question of what the preclearance provisions were and werent doing at the time that the Shelby County case, which brendan discussed, was decided last year. First some context on the u. S. Election system. We are very unusual in two major respects here in the United States. The first is the profound decentralization of our system. Elections are not run at the National Level in the United States. We have no entity with general responsibility for managing elections here as is the case in most other countries. Rather, elections are run, for the most part, under the laws of the 50 states. And they are actually administered at the local level literally by thousands of counties and municipalities, each of which has authority for actually running the day to day operations of our Voting System at the local level. So we have not just one Voting System, nor even 50 in the United States, but literally thousands. The other distinctive characteristic, some would say pathology, of the u. S. Election system is partisanship. What i mean by that is that in most states, the chief