Transcripts For CSPAN Joy-Ann Reid Hosts DNC Chair Candidate

-- come on, let's clap. we made it through the storm. [applause] >> welcome to democracy in colors. democratic national committee chair forum. i'm amy ellison, co-director of democracy in color. we're so thrilled that you're here. and along with our partners, me to and inclusive, we want to welcome you warmly here today. thanks so much for joining us here at george washington university for this historic and important conversation about the future of the democratic party. we want to welcome our viewers on live stream who are joining us from across the country. everywhere from ohio to florida, to california, to nevada. and we look forward to your comments, your photos, your perspective and if you don't mind using the hashtag dem in color or #dnc forum, we can follow along the conversation. we want to thank our partners jessica bird and the raven group for making tonight happen. [applause] >> and another note, we have some voting members of the democratic national committee in the audience and we want to thank you for being here today for this conversation. [applause] >> we want to also thank you for your service. the words, the music and the message of the new american majority, that is the multi-racial progressives that elected and re-elected president obama frame our conversation today. so to get us started, i would like to bring to the stage former nevada state assembly member and vice president of public affairs for me-to, lucy flores. please give a round of applause. [applause] >> hello. how is everyone feeling tonight. yes, this is fantastic. many goodness, look at this turnout. and know we're reaching hundreds of thousands of people on our live stream, not only tonight but afterwards as well. and that's really exciting. so thank you all for being here this evening. mitu is a proud media partner with democracy in color and inclusive because as a digital media company that strives to give voice to 200%, 100% american and 100 person latino and we effect people of color. we produce content from a latino point of view that resonates across cultures, across genders and across communities. and at a time when multi-cultural youth are on the way to becoming a majority in this country, conversations like these -- that's right. numbers are numbers, folks. we are on our way to becoming a majority. conversations like these and access to conversations like these are more important than ever. in that spirit, mitu is also very proud to bring to you raul herrera. a young man who has some powerful words to say about the power of words. [applause] >> in 1906, an earthquake ruptures the san andreas fault, killing an estimated 3000 people. if vibrations can break boulders and devastate lives, then our words can split open minds and alter the geographical shape of its content because sound is vibation. our verbs are its earthquakes, so let's break the ground our fallen heroes are trapped underneath. resurrect poets from graves. leaders from being slaves. and in 2010 an earthquake takes the lives of 300,000 haitians. do not underestimate the hercules behind your tongue. your voices are the reason this planet's axis is tilted, but your violence is the reason this planet is dying. so let's cause a ruckus. if earthquakes can destroy lives, our voices can rebuild them. in 2011, an earthquake devastated fukushima, japan. i have been to the mountain top. and i looked over and i seen the promised land. but the only thing in our way is a mute mountain. so we crumble mountains, we crack rock without needing a pipe. just give me one word, one sentence can make the ground move like a tsunami. you could hear the words, cracking the concrete. cracking like the blast of rebels from the past, cracking like the blast that took tupac's laugh and left this world, x-exited this world, believing an earthquake would cause repercussions. the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. so today, i have a dream. but my dream wasn't heard. today i have a dream. but my dream was deferred. today i had a dream about a king, but the king wasn't heard. the legends are angry, the world is violent while newton's law states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. if the action is division and then the opposite is multiplication. problems react to solutions. oppression reacts to revolution, the death of trayvon martin reacts to zimmerman's execution, and this is just law. voices react to vibrations. vibrations react to earthquakes. so sound is vibration. our verbs are its earthquakes. so let's break the ground our fallen heroes are chopped underneath in, resurrect poets from graves and react and leaders from being slaved react, let's speak with trembling towers, talk like an earthquake and watch as granite, planets shake. [applause] >> raul, give him another round of applause. [applause] >> i can honestly say i've never come to a political event, a forum like this opened so powerfully. we have such gratitude to our partners mitu for bringing raul to this audience. and our live audience, please let us know you're there and shout out from -- when you are joining the livestream. now given the outcome of the most recent election, it's clearly a critical moment for the democratic party and our country. and who leads us as chair of the dnc and the strategy of the party is going to be central to the success of gaining back power. so the road to tonight's forum began in earnest from the poignant analysis articulated in a democracy in color founder's book, brown is the new white. it said among other things and it challenged us to look at the power and the potential of the new american majority to lead the democratic party forward. the current president made raw appeals to white nationalism and steve has rightly stated unequivocally that the democrats lost because they did not know how to directly address race. [applause] >> the fact is that people of color are 46% of the democratic party. and those numbers will continue to go up. and the reality calls for a new type of leadership and a new type of understanding of who the voters are and what they want in political leadership. and steven and his wife susan sandler have been working on this nonstop, calling for solutions in this increasingly racially polarized climate. so, tonight, we have a very unique opportunity to have an open conversation about how race impacts the path forward. like the great doctor reverend barber says, our task is to build a new language that pulls people together and explores new avenues to political strength to save the heart of democracy. to hold race and class together as we -- not to cut across race, but to cut through it as we find the solutions that perplex and challenge our nation. we have a deep belief that the next chair of the dnc must have the skills to lead and to organize a national dialogue on race. on racial justice, and on a multi-racial unity and that this forum is going to help us to assess the readiness of each of the candidates you'll meet tonight to participate and advance that effort. so, we invite fellow democrats to use this opportunity to take real ownership of the party and to contribute to its future direction. we invite a new era of transparency and democracy in the democratic party. we invite an opportunity to openly discuss the structural and strategic changes that we need to make to start winning. we invite open discussion on reform agendas put forth by these candidates to bring us powerfully into our political future. and so now it is my honor to introduce the first woman -- first black woman ceo of the democratic national committee who had some historic wins, diversity in terms of staffing and contracting, and i want to welcome to the stage lea doubtery. [applause] rev. daughtry: good evening. my sisters and brothers, it is my pleasure to be with you this evening at the behest of my good friend done as brazile. -- donna brazil. and thank you for the introduction and for democracy in color for presenting this gathering to us. in a month from now, the members of the dnc -- and i count myself among them -- will come together to elect our next chair. and it is an exciting and pivotal time for us, for our party, for our country. we've just witnessed the inauguration of a president who most americans did not vote for. we already just witnessed the powerful gathering of millions of women from around the world -- and men. come together in solidarity and common purpose to send a message that the hard won rights of women and girls must be protected and advanced. these two events, one on the heels of the other, one filled with sorrow and anger, and regret for us as democrats. and the other filled with hope and possibility give our party an opportunity to regroup, to retool and remind ourselves of who we are as democrats, that we have a mission, a mandate and a moral obligation to work, fight and speak on behalf of those who cannot work, fight or speak for themselves. to be successful, we must reach out to every segment of the electorate, and we need our next chair to understand that as the mission, the mandate and the moral obligation that it is. now i don't like to talk about diversity because it seems to me that is hard to quantify. that is like taking a teaspoon of pepper and put it in a pound of salt and thinking you made a difference. but you really haven't changed the quality of the salt. i prefer to talk about when it comes to our party, representation. [applause] rev. daughtry: i believe that our parties apparatus must be representative of the communities who have made our party strong and vibrant as well as the communities that we are trying to reach. top to bottom and bottom to top. staffing, appointments, consultants, pollsters, candidate recruitment and fundraising. in every area -- [applause] rev. daughtry: in every area, at every level, we need -- we must have and we demand to be represented in the party to which we have been loyal and which has relied upon our votes year in and year out. [applause] rev. daughtry: it is a challenge, but it is not impossible, and i know because, as ceo of the 2016 and the 2008 democratic national conventions, i achieved this goal. in 2016, my staff was 60% female and 54% people of color. [applause] and not only that, we set a goal of one-third of minority spending and we exceeded that, reaching almost 50% minority spending. [applause] rev. daughtry: so in front of the camera and behind the scenes, our staff was not -- our convention was not the best in spite of diversity, but because of diversity. because we brought every voice, every community to the table. our diversity is not our problem. it is our promise. [applause] rev. daughtry: and with commitment, with leadership and with intentional direction, we can achieve these results up and down the ballot, up and down our party, just by having the right tools. so tonight we will hear from seven of the now 11, i think, candidates, who are running for chair of the dnc. and we want to know tonight and we look forward to them answering the questions, what are the steps and the strategies that they will take to engage the new american majority. on consultants, who drives the strategy determines the outcome. how will they choose consultants and strategists for party. on recruitment of new candidates, how will they build a bench so it is reflective of the electorate, and what is the plan to recruit the next generation of progressive leaders? and on fundraising, how do we raise and spend dollars from minority communities. we look forward to hearing these answers. we are thrilled to have seven tonight who are qualified, each of them to lead the democratic party into its next iteration, into its future, and we look forward to pointed questions that gets to the heart of the matter, no pussy-footing around, we want real answers how our party will move forward under their leadership. thank you and god bless you. [applause] aimee: and so without further ado, we want an opportunity -- i want an opportunity to invite our moderator to the stage. joy ann reed is host of a.m. joy on msnbc on weekends. give her a round of applause. [applause] aimee: she is also -- she's also a columnist at the daily beast and editor of we are the change we speak, speeches of barack obama that just recently came out. we're so thrilled and thankful that you're here. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. thank you so much. appreciate it. thank you. all right. this is exciting. thank you, amy. good evening, everyone. good evening. joy: that is a d.c. good evening. it is so polite. i want to thank george washington university for hosting this evening. it is very important and democrat in color for the invitation to be here. my friends jessica bird and jamal stevens and steve phillips. this is an important debate. this is the central debate that the democratic party has to deal with going forward so i'm glad that you are all here. without further ado, let me introduce those candidates for dnc chair who are here with us tonight that are going to debate. let's start with congressman keith ellin of minnesota. [applause] joy: there he is. all right. let's bring on mayor pete --. and i got it right? i said i would say it quickly so i didn't get it wrong. raymond buckley. let's bring on jamie harrison. [applause] >> and now jehmu greene. [applause] >> and let's bring on the honorable tom perez. [applause] >> and last but not least, sally boynton brown. [applause] >> all right. thank you all for being here. you guys can all have a seat. you have some water there. so tonight i think what i'm going to do, my sort of plan here is to break this up into a few sections. and i want to start off with the elephant in the room, the obvious. we just had an election in which democrats won the popular vote. but did not win the white house. and one of the core questions that came out of this election is who should democrats be targeting going forward. i pulled up some statistics here. we had african-americans vote for the democratic party at a rate of 88%. 88% of african-americans voted for the democrats. among white voters it was only 37%. among latinos, and this number is in dispute, it is 65%. vote latino has postulated that it was more than that or trump got not 29% but closer to 20%. and among asian-american closer to 65%. and one other piece of data about the election is that you had white voters with a college degree, right. white voters with a college degree still favor the republican party. and only white women with a colleague degree favored hillary clinton, but only just barely. and despite the fact that hillary clinton actually improved on her numbers with white voters with a college degree, spent a lot of time courting those voters and focusing on them, she still didn't manage to win that group, and white house voters without a college degree went for donald trump, more than 70%. so let's talk about this debate of whether or not democrats spent too much time, frankly, trying to win over particularly white women voters. and really failing to do that at the end of the day. and whether or not the democratic party would have done a better job and would have been wiser to focus more time and attention courting voters of color. and i'll just go -- i'll go in reverse order. we'll start with sally boynton brown. sally: i think it is important that we have a conversation with all of the people. i idea of talking to specific groups of people doesn't seem to be working for us. it is time that we accept that we have one thing in common, we're human. and if we focus on giving power back to people, it is the great equalizer. power is what will bring all of us forward. the democratic party needs to realize this more than anything else, is that there are people out there who are not being heard. and we need to make sure we are bringing all of those voices together, and that we stop piling our conversations into specific groups of people. the reality is that folks in our country don't feel like their kids are going to have a better life than they had and that is an issue we have to solve, because if we don't solve it, nobody else is going to. >> tom perez? tom: sure. sure. i think it is a false choice to have to say that we're going to one community or another. what we have to do and what we did a poor job of in this election, we didn't make house calls and get out there and persuade. you can't show up at a church every fourth october and call that an organizing strategy. and that is what we did as democrats. [applause] tom: and when we are there, ted kennedy in 1980 at the democratic convention talked about the most important civil right for any person is a job. and when we talk about jobs, when we talk about opportunity, and the second pillar of the democratic party has been that we've always taken care of folks who are in the shadows, making sure they get into the sunshine. and when we pay attention to those two pillars, that is how we succeed. and when we are organizing, whether it's in milwaukee or whether it is rural wisconsin, in talking about that message of hope and opportunity, that is when the democratic party is at its best. when hope is on the ballot, we win. and when fear is on the ballot, we don't do so hot. and so that is why i think we need an every zip code strategy that is married around that basic message of economic opportunity and a party that is all about everyone. inclusion is our strength. diversity is our greatest asset as a country. and we can talk about that everywhere. because when you talk about opportunity, we need to talk -- are you lifting people up? or are you dragging them down? we sometimes get too bent out of shape about are you on the left of the party, the center of the party, the right of the democratic party. are you lifting people up? or are you bringing them down? and when we get people a job, we get people that opportunity. when we make sure that communities have safe and constitutional policing, we're expanding opportunity. when we make sure that migrants have access to the american dream, we're expanding opportunity. i think that works everywhere. [applause] >> i absolutely agree. i think that we have to do a better job as democrats engaging americans of all hues, genders, generations and backgrounds but i will be blunt, the dnc did a piss poor, pathetic job of engaging people of color in the 2016 election and we have to own that. we also did a very bad job of communicating intersection, racism, sexism, homophobia and we did not make a better way of communicating to all of these communities that are affected by these issues. if we had, we would have turned out the white voters that are getting the focus of the media attention, and one thing that compelled me to get into the race is the possibility of over compensating for the strategic mistakes. we cannot do that as a party. [applause] >> jamie harrison. >> i have to agree. something we do quite often as democrats is we ask this question. we say i just don't understand how do these people vote against their best interest? right? it is because it boils down to one thing. it's about trust. voters in this country don't vote here most of the time. they vote here and here, and the problem we have is a democratic party, it is a question of trust. do working class people trust democrats are fighting for them? do african americans feel the democratic party has their best interest? do latinos feel like we're fighting for them? you can go on and on with the various groups. there is something -- i used to be a teacher, taught ninth grade social studies. one of the things that i taught my kids the most powerful way to persuade anybody is show and not tell. the problem we've had for the past decade in this party is that we do a lot of telling and not enough showing. if we want to talk about, how do we talk to millennials? we have to show and not tell. how do we talk to the african american community? don't tell me you're for criminal justice reform when the opportunities comes and you don't vote right on it. [applause] >> amen. >> we have to get back to connecting where the voters are and showing them instead of just telling it to them. >> ray buckley. ray: you'll hear a similar story. we have spent so much time together. this is our eighth or ninth time. we all understand what the challenge is. the reality is, though, how will we move forward? i think a lot of the millennials, i think a lot of americans were very upset and disappointed with the way the nominating process worked out, not believing it was fair. i think we have to address that and make sure the votes of the people in each state is respected and everyone is welcome and know it's a fair process, that their voices are heard. we need to completely revamp and reform the way the democratic party operates and is structured. we need to make sure everyone feels welcome. you know, nothing, nothing made me angrier than a couple weeks ago reading the story about our u.s. senators, our democratic u.s. senators in the ridiculous percentage of african american staff that they have. that is unacceptable. i am not going to allow that as our chair. i would go and meet with each senator saying this stuff stops now. we need to make sure the dnc properly reflects the diversity in our party. we need to make sure that our staff properly reflects the diversity of our party. we have to make sure that the contracts and all of those millions that we dole out reflect the diversity of the party. now, we're all talking about how we're going to reconnect with the people in the communities, and i believe it is going back to what worked. it worked when howard dean had the 56 and he stood up to washington and said, we are going to fund it and the people at the dl and all those other alphabet places that run this city said no, no, no, we want the money. and he said no, and we won in 2006 and we won in 2008. they won in 2009 when the fight came, and they took the money away. we lost and lost and lost again and they said how will we afford that? >> you add up $300,000 and would give you staffers that can build an operation all across their state. we transferred $15 million last year to the ds and dccc and dga. there it is. >> all right. [applause] >> i'll try not to repeat so many things that have been set but are so right, but add a couple things. one is this conversation happens about how do we reach out to white working-class voters. i think it's time for all of us to stand up and say that cannot, must not, and will not have anything to do with abandoning the core of racial and social justice that gives our party its moral foundation. we're in a aware and we think -- we are in a world where we think the only way to speak to somebody is one group at a time. that has never computed for me. jim was talking about intersectionality. i'm a left handed american gay war veteran. all right? i don't know exactly which caucus i'm supposed to go to first versus second or third but what i know is if we talk to one group, we think they will only care about. we only talk to the african american about african american issues. we only talk to the lgbt community about lgbt stuff and find latinos -- [speaking spanish] >> we're only talking to people one at a time. we have universal values when the reality is african americans care about equal pay for equal work and people in the lgbt community care about voting rights and the best answer to the salad bar problem is when i saw on saturday when i was in south bend marching with the women of south bend in solidarity with the women of the country and around the world. [applause] >> that was a women's march, but it was a march for all of us. there were old people and young people, and people of all colors, and i suspect there were people from different political parties, all united. united in solidarity with the women of the world, and i think solidarity, not isolation is the way that we can move forward as a party. [applause] >> congressman? >> joy, you asked the question, which group should we target when you identify the percentages that voted for the candidate. the truth is, there is a lot of people that should have voted for us because they didn't vote at all. >> amen. >> the truth is we have a very serious turnout problem in the democratic party. in detroit where i was born and raised, i represent minnesota now, 100,000 fewer people voted this time than in 2012. because we're not going to the doors and knocking on people and talking to them about their basic core needs. now, in the fifth congressional district of minnesota, even though people might say we're a safe seat, we campaign like we're ten points behind every single election. and as a result, we had, i would average, about 150,000 votes in 2006, and now we got 250,000 in the last election, and because we got people out to vote who haven't been voting, we were able to keep minnesota blue in a year when a wave swept over wisconsin and michigan. so the thing is instead of just saying what percentage voted for, which category voted for the democrat, let's go get some people who have been ignored by the democratic party by knocking on their door. [applause] >> this really -- let me tell you, this really is the key because steve phillips wrote a great book, brown is the new white, i would recommend you read that book, and he identified the district about page 129. [laughter] >> somewhere around there. about how in 2014, the state of minnesota actually we had a 3% dip in turnout, but my district had a 5% increase in turnout and because of it, we were able to see the governor stay democrat, attorney general, governors, i got some minnesotans here. she was there knocking on doors with me. i'm shouting you out, girl. [laughter] >> and so this is really the truth is a simple fact. the democratic party ignores the blue states and red states, goes to the swing states and only talks to the likely voters and then only talks to them with television ads. >> yeah. >> so who feels left out? >> everybody. >> everybody. so we -- there is no excuse that we're not putting money into black media, latino media, native american media. >> amen. >> there is no excuse not to run ads on latino radio and black radio, and there really is no excuse for the money we spend they are not taking it and deploying it out of washington to the people. we have to take it from the consultantocracy and give it to the people of this country. that's how we're going to win. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you very much. now while you-all squirmed my statistics, i'll come back to more because i do love a number and the reality is that that sounds really good and you-all sound great and that's important, but we also know that racially polarized voting is the reality in the united states, and that is just a fact, right? and that democrats have invested heavily in trying to win over and the clinton campaign invested heavily in trying to win over particularly white college educated women. they invested their resources there, and my question, which all of you very skillfully evaded was whether they made a mistake in not devoting more resources -- [applause] except for jamu and jamie. i'm going to come back, sally, to you again because the question is whether or not the dnc, the dccc, dscc and the clinton campaign were in error in devoting so many television commercials to our kids are watching, not enough television commercials to african american radio as keith ellison said. so many resources to try to win over white voters in arizona and poach additional republican voters based on donald trump's, you know, poor standing among americans and not enough in gotv in cleveland. whether or not that was an error. >> i definitely think the way that those resources were targeted didn't work. we didn't win the election at the end of the day. we need to make sure that we're reaching out and lifting up the voices of people who don't traditionally get their voices lifted up. white people we hear from all the time and they get targeted all the time. we got to make sure as democrats that we are targeting those resources when they need to be targeted. i will say i don't think they needed to spend all the money on television they did. when you go knock on a door, i don't pick certain doors to knock on. i knock on all the doors on that block and i pick those neighborhoods out on the places i need to go. we need to spend more time in rural america and more time in our communities of color where we can lift people up and get them involved in the process. we can't just say we're diverse and leave huge swaths of people out of our communities. >> tom perez, i'll make the question more specific for you because one of the other complaints you hear from voters of color is the democratic party, the clinton campaign, the dnc were not focused enough on the issue of voter suppression, and that there was not a full effort to combat what was seen as very aggressive voter suppression in places like north carolina and wisconsin, and the dnc was essentially absent. do you feel that's the case? >> i think voter suppression is the civil rights issue of our time. [applause] >> we have to understand, folks, that this is and always will be part of the playbook. why is it part of the playbook? because it works. and part -- the secretary state of ohio is a full employment act for civil rights lawyers. they purge voters and then by the time you win the suit, it's too late. in north carolina, by the time we won the suit, it was too late and as a result, it wasn't as good as it was in 2004. it was even lower than it was when john kerry was on the ballot in 2004. i spent a lot of time suing states, texas, south carolina, north carolina and the list goes on. that's why, and we have some really good folks at the dnc who are working on this, but it is a group of 3-4 people. you can't go to a knife fight with a spoon, and that's what we are currently doing right now. that's why what i called for, we need to establish an office of voter protection and engagement, both offense and defense, ok, folks? by the way, americans abroad are victims of voter purges. these are wrong and they are illegal and the whole voter id law in the state of texas. if you're at the ut austin and you know, that id doesn't count but if you got your concealed carry license that counts. that is wrong, the voter id law in texas was simply put there to make it harder for african americans and latinos to vote. period. end of story. what we have to do is play offense and defense and that's exactly what i'm calling for. oregon played offense. vote by mail. we should have same day registration. we should have universal voter registration when you turn 18 years old. that's what we should be doing day in and out. and we must make sure to get back to the original question. i couldn't agree more and i think there is unanimity among this group. if we take that $10 million tv budget and cut it to six and put that four into organizers and make sure it's a 12-month enterprise, we would have one arizona. -- would have won arizona. instead there was a $3 million ad buy in october that didn't move the needle and if they spend that for a year in florida. the republicans invested for four years in organizing, they turned out 120, 130,000 more voters and what was the margin of victory for them? it was about 110,000 or 115,000. that was a different maker, folks. and when we do that, we succeed. [applause] >> i'm going to go to the congressman because you were in the camp of no mistakes. but the statistics show that 23% right now of all eligible voters are progressive voters of color. >> right. >> progressive whites are 28% of the electorate, so together that adds up to 51% of the electorate. you have progressives and again not able to carry it over the finish line. you came to the 2016 election as a supporter of bernie sanders. >> yeah. [applause] >> who was very popular among some of this audience and among a lot of these younger progressive voters. did the sanders team, did senator sanders do enough to activate those young voters of color and encourage them to vote? because i think the exit polls show that they were some of the least attached when it came to the electorate and many of them voted third-party, so was it a sanders team error and not motivating them to vote for the democratic ticket? >> you know, whenever you don't win an election, there is a lot of that kind of thing, who didn't do what? who should have done more? clearly, i should have done more. everybody should have done more, right? i will say this. when bernie sanders came, i had young people say we want to talk to the candidates. i said i'll see what i can do and i asked senator sanders would you come to a high school in the heart of the, you know, communities of color and talk to people. i don't know. when would it be? it would be this time. are you inviting both candidates? we are. it did so happened that he did show up, packed the high school and i think that at least in minnesota, which went for senator sanders, that was an important message. they ask him some very tough questions, got in his face a bit. he answered those questions in a forthright way, and the fact is, the outcome is we did have an excellent outcome in the particular state. look, there is not one -- we have to work harder to talk to record to young people of color to young people of color and turn them out. the millennial generation and if not bigger than baby boomers right now. the millennial community of color is the winning combination. and he said eloquently in the book, this rising american electorate are enough to win an election if we turn out the vote. let me tell you, dear hundred 65 yearthe year -- 365 days a we have to be knocking on every , door, we have soto spend money on color media and social media to talk directly to the needs of young people and people of color. it's a matter of investment and it is a matter of time, but here is the deal, the reality is we haven't been doing much of that for anyone. and if we want to win elections, those investments have got to happen, and they have got to happen now. so i'm happy that everyone is committed, whether it's hillary clinton or whether it's bernie sanders and everyone that we have got to get involved and really revamp the democratic party to make sure we're investing in young people, in people of communities of color, because that is how we're going to win. that's how we're going to win michigan and wisconsin, pennsylvania, but also ohio, california and districts within there, and that's the path forward, so thank you. >> thank you. i want to go to ray buckley on the question of as dnc chair. how would you, a statement that doesn't have a lot for people obviously, but what would be your plan to increase turnover and attachment to people of color if you were dnc chair? >> i want to reiterate something we have all said, but want to make sure, there is not a word that any one of us are saying that we don't all agree with. so what we're not doing is repeating the same lines over and over because there is so much we want to bring for it. in 1985 in the midst of the aids crisis, i felt i had to do something for my community. so many of my friends were literally going to a funeral a week for over a couple years. so i was one of the original founders of the citizens alliance for gay and lesbian rights and meeting monthly but all we were doing is talking. that's not what i'm about. i'm not about talking. i'm about doing. i ran for the legislature in 1986 and became one of the first openly gay state legislatures in -- became one of the first openly gay state legislature legislators in the country. that is what i did with my state party. the congressman mentioned about the turnout. 2014, when republicans were winning across new hampshire, our turnout for democrats went up 3% when it was down 3% country wide. we reelected the senator and reelected governor hassen and cut loses in half and held a congressional seat. this year, this year, where they talk about millennial vote was down, we were up. we had the grass roots operation that every single state and congressional district and town and community, every neighborhood should have. now because we have that, we have an entire democratic congressional delegation, female congressional delegation. now that is an important think worth fighting against donald trump but we barely won. because it wasn't of any help to what was happening from coming from washington and so what we need to do is take what we're doing statewide in the state of new hampshire where turnout is up and people are included and involved and make sure that happens everywhere. when it comes to people of color, i'm absolutely going to reject that we need to do either or. it is about having a conservation every community. every community. millennials, african americans, white working class, lgbt, latino, everyone believes the democratic party is not talking to them, because we are not. we are not. because it is the washington insiders spending over $1 billion in tv ads, and what is happening is nobody is having interaction. can you imagine if we hired hundreds if not thousands of organizers. it doesn't matter deep blue or deep red, everywhere having a conversation with people so that we know what they are talking about and we are hearing we need to flip the pyramid upside down instead of the dnc to lords overall of us. the grass roots should be on top, and it should be about the people deciding what the party should be about, and we need to make sure and i mentioned a little bit about the staff is diversified and the membership and state parties are diversified and contracts. it's absolutely essential. it's absolutely essential we do that, because there are so many young people of color that are not being offered the opportunities they deserve because they are the future of the democratic party, and if we ignore them and do not bring them in or train them and empower them, they will go elsewhere, and we can't afford to do that if we want to have a progressive majority in the future. [applause] >> mayor, what would be your plan to increase turnout among voters of color? >> the solutions aren't going to come from washington. they are going to come from our communities. let me tell you what we did in south bend. my experience day to day governing and politically in a red state, mike pence is in indiana, and we've been able to succeed, not just my own reelection getting 80%, which is not something we achieve through ideological centrism or triangulation. it's a priority and goal to make sure we won in every district, including the majority districts, which is a diverse city. we did it through old fashioned organizing, making sure we were reaching out to people where they were and making sure we were speaking to them with a message that spoke to their needs, but also spoke to higher values. and our organizing success since then is based on the same ideas. it is how we made sure the first african american city clerk, the second highest city office in south bend, got elected after we worked hard to support her through the same tactics. it is how we made sure in the last election as we were facing the wave that came our way in 2016, that we were able to get the first african american representative to represent our area in the state house in a long time. uaw leader, by the way, in a district far from strongly democratic. how did we do it? a strong message tied to our values and strong organizing tactics, not by a cookie cutter approach and talking how these things would affect people's actually lives. it doesn't matter where you put media spending if you're not talking about values. people vote their values. they turn out for what they believe in. i believe we need to get back to the values that make us democrats, including values we haven't been as comfortable talking about on our side of the aisle, like freedom. but who can say you're free if you're not able to exercise your right to vote? who can say you're free if you're living with crushing student debt? we can't be the party when they say the system is rigged, we say the system is perfectly fine. we have to be the ones to point out they are the ones that rigged it. [applause] >> same when we talk about the things we always talk about like fairness and families and talking about the future. we can't just assume the new american majority will be for us just because. if we assume that people of color are going to vote for us just because we have a d next to our name, that's the definition of taking people for granted. >> absolutely. >> we need to not only win but deserve to win, and only with that message in the right place will the tactics and organizing and all those other pieces come into place, too. [applause] >> all right. >> i want to give jamie and jamu a chance to answer how they would increase turnout among voters of color. jamie, you're in a state with a large after condition american -- large african american population percentage-wise more , in south carolina than michigan, right, but not able to affect statewide elections in the same way. what would be your plan to improve turnout among voters of color, all voters of color. >> thank you, joy, for that. so the democratic party has to transform itself. we have become a political organization that basically goes out and begs for votes every two or four years, and we do that through tv and we do it through mail and radio. but what we need to do is go back to what we used to be which was a grass roots organization, that was in the communities helping people solve the issues that they are facing on a day to day basis. so, you know, when i grew up in rural south carolina, my mom was 15 years old when she had me. 15, 16 years old. she had to drop out of high school in order to take care of me. she had to find a job. jobs are hard to come by. and so it used to be one of those things back in the day where you could reach out to your city councilmen or your congressmen or your senator and say, i need your help. i need your help because i've lost my home. i need your help because i've lost my job. my mom did that. she reached out to both of our senators at that time. it was fritz hollings and strom thurmond. well, we laugh about strom thurmond, but it was strom thurmond who made calls and my mom got a job shortly thereafter. my mom never forgot that. because the most important thing to her was her little baby boy. and this politician helped her be able to take care of him. that is what we have to get back to in the democratic party. so when i became chair understanding that connection, again, it's all about trust. understanding that connection i decided to launch a program. we call it south carolina democrats care. so on inauguration day, instead of just rallies and protests, what did we do? we went out all across the state of south carolina doing service efforts. service activities across the state. from blankets for the homeless to tutoring of young kids, homeowner workshops, resume building skills. when we are able to prove to people democrats aren't in power in south carolina, but when people see that we're in their communities helping them address the issues that are pressing and in front of them, that is how you change the minds. that is how you change the hearts of people. so when we talk about what we need to do in order to get folks out, we have to once again prove to people that we are fighting for them. that we are on their side and have their back and until we do that, we'll continue to talk and have these forums, why aren't these people voting for us? they aren't voting for us because they don't believe we're for them. and until we do that, until we transform this and transform the function of what the dnc does, we're going to continue to have these academic conversations. thank you, guys. [applause] >> jamu, same thing, what would be your plan to increase turnout of voters of color? >> i definitely agree with jamie this is a transformational moment we're facing in the democratic national committee and a lot of people have asked. why did i get into this race about 11 days ago? one of the reasons that i got in was as i watched the race develop and dnc's rules and by laws put together how this process would be decided, i was really disappointed that the democratic party did not take the opportunity after our losses in 2016 and give y'all a voice in this election, and that is what needs to happen. we need to revolutionize how we elect our leadership at the dnc. we need to revolutionize how we engage with millennials. i think it was secretary perez, talked about 2004 and john kerry on top of the ticket, not necessarily a charismatic candidate. do you know how that increased happen in 2004? i'm sorry, at the risk of sounding trump-onian, under my leadership at rock the vote we engaged with millennials in ways using technology and inviting -- innovating our communications where we saw an 11% increase in turnout of young voters. in this transformational moment, we need an organizer leading dnc. that is what we need to tap into . in 2004, it wasn't young people wasn't john kerry and the democratic party who rolled their eyes and me and said young people -- it wasn't young people rolling their eyes and days before the election, they came back and said we're counting on young people. they went from rolling their eyes to i'm counting on you. you know why? because outside groups spent $40 million engaging young people. rock the vote implemented online voter registration and gave away the free for allies. the democratic national committee needs to spend $40 million a year engaging millennial voters. there is a lot of conversation about the 50 state strategy. they need to have the technology, the staffing, the training, the resources, the shared services, all of those are important, but we need to revolutionize state parties to become hubs of invasion for -- hubs of innovation for young people to go in learn concepts , about disruption, learn the concept of failing up. try a lot of things. throw a lot of efforts at them and fail up. this is what happens with the entrepreneurial spirit that the millennial generation can bring to the democratic party, and we need to make sure state parties are those hubs of innovation. we need to make sure we are training an army of messengers. we put together so many elected officials in front of the camera, at the microphone, on the podium, on the stages. guess what? the republicans, what they do, is train young people and give them resources and provide foundation for them, and release them on the world. and we need to do the same thing. it cannot be the same faces talking about the values and principles and policies that are life or death issues, and so it is time that we said it's great, politicians, y'all look nice, but we'll put young people in front of the camera. they will be at the mic, podium, and on the stage. [applause] >> the democratic party has an opportunity in this process that we are going through, and i do think we have to acknowledge that if we don't take advantage of this opportunity as an organizer, i hate the opportunity cost of not tapping into an organizing moment. if we do not take advantage of this opportunity to transform the party, we may never get it again. and that is going to take someone that understands brand management, which i have done in ways as an organizers at rock the vote and in the private sector. this is the time we can do something new. so i look to the young people in this audience and it saddens me you don't have a vote in this process. maybe there are some dnc members here. i see my old roommate from the afl-cio. i know he has a vote. maria, you have a vote. how many people in this room do not have a vote? we can change that. we should have changed that. those are the types of ideas i would bring to the dnc. [applause] >> i think sally raised her hand. you raised your hand, as well. another fun statistic for you speaking of millennial voters. millennial voters have officially passed the baby boomers as the largest voting block in the country, so they are now the largest voting block, and my generation, generation x, will pass boomers by 2028. this is a conversation not just about african-american, hispanic voters, but young voters of color. they are so numerous. let's talk about some of the issues younger voters care about. obviously we have a new justice department coming that could make black lives matter could be and a lot more difficult. in i described it as john lewis -- i described it as john lewis with no rfk from the 1960's. what should the dnc's messaging strategy be regarding black lives matter, and i will let everyone answer. i'll start at the other end. how should the dnc message black lives matter? >> the dnc has to acknowledge black lives matter are responding to urgent problems in the community. black lives matter cropped up because of mass incarceration, you know, trayvon martin's execution, all these sort of social problems that -- i've worked on as lawyer and as a young activist my whole life, and what i would say the dnc needs to do is offer and make itself into the kind of place that black lives matter feels it can channel its electoral energy. so for example, demonstration is absolutely key, i believe in it, i've done it my whole life and i'll do it some more, but i also know that you got to have some legislation to go with that demonstration that you are seeking. it just like john lewis was fighting for the 1965 voting rights act and 1964 civil rights , act. resultonstration has to legislation, or you end up with a whole lot of frustration. that's the real key. how can we get black lives matter but also fight for 15 in , the union, the immigration struggle, the 350.org, all of this great energy that is out there and say look, we'll prove ourselves worthy of your vote. your electoral energy and do it by iluding you in leadership. we are going to do it by helping you form our platform and writing our platform and we'll do it by making sure if you put your time, energy into helping democrats get elected, you'll see the reforms you are protesting for. that is the way that we engage. >> all right. [applause] mayor. >> again, when i speak about the values to make us democrats, one of the core values i talk about is fairness. fairness is justice, and you have a crisis of confidence right now, crisis of trust between the communities of color in places like south bend and every other city and the country. and the law enforcement officers who are sworn and trusted to protect their lives, and that's a matter of moral urgency. it is not a partisan issue, but let's be real about this. one party is a little more attentive to those concerns than the others especially at a , moment like this. the scary thing is, up until now confronting these issues head on , in south bend, and i can tell you as a mayor, is a challenge. i was very pleased today to get the numbers in from my police department and see the uses of force were down and citizen , complaints were down. partly because my police chief understands that we don't measure success by how many arrests are made, but whether we're driving use of force down , even when calls of service one up, and citizen complaints -- that shows we are doing the right thing. but up until now, we had friends in washington to help give us the framework to do it. we're doing it at home. the work has to be done from the ground up, organizing-wise or politically, or in the government, too. the task force on 21st century policing that this president convened and i sent my police chief to changed the entire conversation about what it means to authentically build relationships of trust between communities of color and the law enforcement committee. -- and the law enforcement community and right now, i'm , afraid we can't count on washington caring one bit. that is an emergency. that makes the job of every mayor whose most important function is to hold the community together. -- community together, so much harder. and never mind the mayor's view, it makes life harder in our our communities because our communities can't be held together the way they ought to be. all of us need to be engaging. movements, not for the perspective of only how it will benefit us politically, people can see through that pretty quickly but at the level of our , shared values so that the leaders in these movements understand that we are authentically delivering solutions that were actually make sense for them, and if there is ever a question about that, look no further than the new attorney general of the united states. >> ray buckley. >> yes, black lives matter. >> i'm not sure there is an issue that makes me more angry than when you have news media and right wing folks somehow changing the subject. if you are supportive of black lives matter, it doesn't mean you don't believe other batters -- you don't believe other lives matter less or more. it is ridiculous for how it has been spun. and why i am so passionate is let me just tell you a little bit about what happened to me on election morning. well, we were all grieving, and i was shocked that america elected donald trump. i could not believe it. i got home around 4:00 in the morning. but at 6:00 in the morning, i was woken up. i saw that it was my niece. and what had not even processed i was upset about the results is how she was going to as a young african american 20-year-old, how she processed what happened the night before, and she was sobbing so hard that i couldn't understand at first what she was saying. and i kept saying, what is wrong, what is wrong? she goes, uncle raymond, you have to get me out of here. she feared for her safety by what happened on election day. now, until all of america understands the fear that is out there, the justified fear because of what we're seeing happen across the country, to african american lives, we're never going to be able to move this country forward. it is important. i never again want to ever get a call from "the today show" like that. it was a soul crushing experience for me because when she was saying get me out of this country because my life is in danger because she had that overwhelming fear, that is something that is not just certain cities. it's not just certain parts of the country. that fear is all across the country. it's even in rural new hampshire. so when people say black lives , matter, you are damn right they matter. [applause] >> jamie harrison. i'm going to ask everybody to be mindful of time. we got a lot to get through. >> you know, sometimes, you know, we get a little p.c in this party. [laughter] >> a little? >> folks started talking about identity politics and all this and all that. i've been a black man my entire life. [laughter] >> and my experience as a black man that grow up in south carolina. few miles down the road where walter scott was shot. you know, guys, for a lot of folks, all of this is new. let me tell you, if you're a black person, particularly a black person, and most of us all got family in the south, this stuff has been going on for generations. [applause] >> juries where the evidence is plain and clear, but yet, the people get off "not guilty." going on for decades, this is not new. where i am taught as a little kid to be wary of certain police officers. when i'm in my car driving and the blue light comes behind me, maybe not pulling me over but to see it, fear goes through my body, goose bumps on my arm. and then to have folks dismiss that. dismiss that fear. say oh,that feeling and that's only in your mind but you , see it time and time and time again. i readber the first time about emmit till and i remember , going home and looking in the mirror and this round face reminded me of his. my friends, this party, this party, it should be no question that this party embraces, acknowledges, and fights to say that black lives matter. [applause] >> a party in which barack obama 95% of the vote. the most loyal constituency in the democratic party. [applause] >> so we got to stand up and ask this party, you want us? then you have got to fight for us, too. >> yes, yes. >> but yes, if i am chair, we know black lives will matter. [applause] >> can i steal that line from jamie? [laughter] >> look, black period, lives period, matter, period. as dnc chair, what can any of the candidates up here do to support this movement? as someone who has spent the last six and a half years on fox news debating and fighting with , conservatives who don't know anything other than to lie for a living, i've been able to win with the truth. we have a serious communications and messaging problem in the democratic party. [applause] we need to start by making sure that our party, our activists, our elected officials, our leaders, understand what implicit bias is. we need to have a real conversation about implicit and explicit bias and institute that ,n our training programs institute that within the framework of the staff and the team and the dnc members who will be deciding the selection. that is something the dnc chair can do. the other thing the dnc chair has to do is hold the media accountable. [applause] because implicit bias comes from the media images that make not just people out watching fox news, but all over the world, scared of when they see jamie harrison and that has to be called out. the media is not always our friend, and that's something i bring to this debate where i understand the games they play , and i am not going to play them anymore. as a democrat, this is our opportunity to say you as media elites, as these cable news networks, profited off the 2016 election and delivered us this nightmare in the white house. we are not going to take it anymore. so training not just in aircraft on implicit bias training not , just elected officials on implicit bias, but change the conversation about how black people are reflected in this country, and that is something the dnc chair can do. [applause] >> tom perez? >> of all the questions you have asked tonight, this is the one that's most personal for me. because i spent the bulk of my career working on issues of police reform. i prosecuted an lapd officer pre-rodney king. i had hair and no replacement parts -- [laughter] -- and i saw a toxic culture in that department. when i had the privilege of coming back to the department of justice, we ended up negotiating more consent decrees in my three and a half years there than the previous 15 years that that law existed. consent decrees in seattle, portland, new orleans, albuquerque, cleveland, so many other cities, and i learned a few things from those experiences, folks. the first thing i've learned is we live in a world of false choices. you either have respect for the constitution, or we have law and order. that, my friends, is a false choice. we ask the wrong questions. in the aftermath of the unrest we saw earlier this year, you'd see donald trump and jeff sessions saying, you know, what side are you on? are you on the police's side or community's side? that is the wrong question. i've spoken to millions of law enforcement officers, and they tell me if you don't have the trust of the community as a police officer, you think that ain't. shit. [applause] those decrees were hard. i had democrats, frankly, who at times didn't want us to do this. ok? so wasn't just republican opposition. i had democrats who didn't want us to do this. we were able to succeed because we had the community behind us. people causing what john lewis calls "good trouble," whether it's the black lives matter movement. whether it was the naa in arizona with joe arpio, the former sheriff of arizona maricopa county. [applause] that is because we had the community behind us. without the community, you can't do anything in this space and i learned a lot from that. and that is true in the voting context as well. and that is why whether it is a black lives matter movement, whether it was a remarkable coalition in phoenix, the remarkable coalition in los angeles that brought about police reform, including law enforcement, we cannot paint with an unduly broad brush. it's a pox on our house when we are not taking care of this issue and we don't have a police department that reflects the community. [speaking spanish] >> how can you help the latino community if you don't have latino officers? kind of hard to communicate in my experience. need a policey we force, law enforcement, that reflects the community. that is why we need a business community that reflects america. that's why we need as o'connor said, we need all pathways of leadership to be visibly available. this is the unfinished business of america. civil rights, that's what ted kennedy said, and he was right, and the dnc needs to reflect that. we need to reflect that in everything we do. i heard from time to time people say this ain't a policy job. , will you know, this is -- well you know this is , absolutely an organizing job and this is absolutely a change management job, and i think it is important for the dnc to understand policy and voting rights, policy and policing, because if we want to be a player in this, we need to have a little bit of depth in this substance, so that we can be a meaningful player. and my entire career has been about civil rights and labor rights. it has been about what they did, the march on washington. it was a march for jobs and march for justice and a march that said sanitation workers just because you pick up trash doesn't mean you can be treated like garbage. i have worked on the back of a trash truck, and folks on the back of a trash truck should be treated with dignity. everyone should be treated with dignity. and as others have pointed out, we ain't there yet as a nation, and we have to do this and the dnc needs to lead the charge. side by side with the black lives matter movement. side-by-side with nclr. side by side with progressive leaders in law enforcement that tell me time and time again i'm glad you were there. i'm scared to death of a justice department under jeff sessions because you know what? he doesn't believe in these consent decrees, and these consent degrees change lives. i got a call from a person, a police officer in portland. they had -- they had a series of incidents involving fatal shootings of people with mental illness. that's what brought us in there. i got a call after our descent decree from someone that said we saved a life today because they were properly trained and equipped to do their work. and that was because of the work so many people did. this stuff is way personal for me. and the reason i'm so excited about what happened this weekend is this stuff is way personal for everyone across america. they are waking up and we got to turn this moment into a movement, and we can't do that unless the dnc is firing on all cylinders. it ain't right now, but i am confident it will be. [applause] >> black lives matter and it makes me sad that we're even having that conversation and that tells me that white leaders in our party have failed. we have to accept there is prejudice that exists within our own party, and we have to have that conversation. [applause] we cannot sweep that under the rug. we cannot continue to hide it. we cannot smash voices down when they are trying to scream. listen to me, you don't get it. i'm a white woman. i don't get it. i am pleased and honored to be here today to have the conversation. i am so excited that we're here. and i'm listening. because that's my job. my job is to listen to the issues. [applause] my job is to listen and be a a voice -- my job is to listen and be a voice and my job is to , shut other white people down when they want to interrupt. [applause] my job is to shut other white people down when they want to say, oh, no, i'm not not prejudiced. i'm a democrat. i'm accepting. my job is to make sure that they get that they have privilege, and until we shut our mouth, and we listen to those people who don't, and we lift the our people up -- and we left our people up so that we all have equity in this country, so that we're all fighting alongside each other, so that we are all on the same page, and we clearly get where we're going, we're not going to breakthrough this. this is not just rhetoric. this is life or death. this moment in our country, the democratic party has the opportunity to do something different. we have the opportunity to really confront the fact that we have not been in alignment with our values. we've been talking a lot of smack. we need to make sure that our actions and our words and our values all match and around the issue of race, we are so far out of alignment, i don't even know the way back, but i am listening and asking and talking to people. i am talking to people of color because you have the answers. you can tell me as a leader what i need to do, and that's exactly what i'm going to do, is continue to have those conversations, and continue to talk to people, and make sure that every single system in our party is designed to give power back to the people. all people, but especially those people who have been disenfranchised in our country since our country started. so please, please, please, please this is a conversation i want to have and i am from idaho. we are so white. [laughter] >> so white, right? like i've been reaching out and , trying to connect to anybody of color i can find to be honest with me. [laughter] i am not a politician. i am a human being trying to do good work, and i can't do it without y'all. so please, please, please, get ahold of me. wethednc.org. i need schooling, and i depend on you so i can go school the other white people. [laughter] >> thank you. all right. >> i want to say -- >> very quickly. >> jamu hit this right on. the thing we're missing in this party is training. we pulled people in that are volunteers. they don't know anything and we send them out to have conversations with people, hard conversations. we promote them to chair of a party where they have power and they have no clue what they are doing. [laughter] we have to at the dnc provide training. we have to teach them how to communicate. how to be sensitive and how to shut their mouths if they are white. [laughter] so, i think i made my point. >> i think so. i'm going to just let you guys know we're running short on time, so now i'm going to have to really have economy of time on the answers. i'm going to make these really simple. let's do a show of hands question. i love show of hands questions. >> no, no. >> we do, too. >> show of hands question. one of the big debates is open or closed primaries. i'll ask each of you not to talk , but to raise your hand if you believe the democratic primaries should be open? >> open primaries. >> she said philosophically. >> open to what? >> open to independenting being able to vote in open primaries or close primaries, where only registered democrats vote in them. so open primaries raise your , hand again. closed primaries? >> i think it's up to the states. >> philosophically, just philosophically. >> philosophically, i don't think you can have a one size fits all approach. [laughter] >> does anybody believe it should be closed? very quickly. >> joy, in south carolina we have open primaries, but what happens is republicans cross over -- >> that's why i'm asking -- >> and particularly in majority african-american counties, so they will pop up somebody and that person is the clone and we all know that they are republican. so that's why i'm a little hesitant -- >> yes or no question. >> let me ask something -- >> very quickly. >> the idea of the fear behind not having open primaries is because the democratic party has not done a good enough job of making young people and all people connected to this party, a "d" by your name, and that is why we have to rebuild this party not just from the grass roots up, but also understand the damage that's been done to our brand. if we fix the brand of the and understand the damage that's been done to our brand. if we fix the brand the fear of open primary would go away. we have to take the steps necessary. >> is there anyone who believes that the democratic party has fallen down on the primary. anyone believe that? >> we want to register people who are going to vote democrat whether closed system or not. >> let's go to the next 20. there is a question about the philosophical bent the party will take. without a president in the white house the dnc chair would be the most visible in the question. -- visible in the country. the question of whether or not the posture should be to work with donald trump or fight him all the way? work with donald trump, raise your hand. >> that question is absolutely ridiculous. >> ok. >> the chair of the democratic national committee does not be with a republican president. we are about building a strong party. we're not about taking positions and taking the role away of legislators or a elected officials. >> we know that the rnc chair, a lot of time what he was doing was message about the president, right? >> you saw the millions of people who marched in the streets this weekend and participated in it, they are looking to the democratic party, and we have an opportunity to be that place of resistance. so, we have to form a solid resistance. [applause] no, it's not about working with donald trump. no, it's not about working with his bigotry. no, it is not about working with -- we will miss the opportunity if we do not provide a platform for those millions of people, millions of women -- >> i have to shorten you. very quickly. >> i think we should accord donald trump the same courtesy that mitch mcconnell accorded barack obama. [applause] >> ok. very quickly. this issue -- i want to get to staffing and contracting, but very quickly, and this is literally three things. you three bullets of how can make come true the prediction that there would be a surge of latino voters. to latino vote rose from 10% 11% of the electoral vote. daca is on the table. three bullet points how to increase latino turnout. >> you have to have latina candidates. we need to make sure we are reaching into communities and recruiting from the communities when we're hiring people or investing any kind of money in communities. we need to get away from paying white workers to go out into communities of color, where they don't belong, and make sure we are actually lifting people love in those communities. >> organize, organize, organize. when we organize, we succeed. we organize around issues. we organize making sure you have people from the community organizing within the community. , asaw it in yuma, arizona border town. and you know what, when they organized in 16, they won. when we do that and reflect our community we succeed. joe is no longer the sheriff because we organized in that community. >> three bullet points. >> we have to invest within the states where our base is growing , particularly latino states. we absolutely have to have more latino candidates and replicate the type of work that i have done to create a surge of candidates, specifically women, low income household, women of color, to create that surge, to create the pipeline so we are bringing those candidates in. not just lawyers, not just politicians. the third we have to do is in we have to dohing is invest within latina media and consultants. and not just a little bit on the side so it seems like we have checked off a box. they need to get the same resources that the white consultants have gotten and been able to push their agenda. [applause] >> ok. janey? >> i agree on the pipeline. in south carolina, we created the clyburn fellowship, where we are training the next generation running for office. andael is -- my goal recruiting this year is to make sure for the first time that the democratic party of south carolina has a latina candidate on the battlefield because we have to do that. the second thing is the states where democrats control everything, use those as laboratories to fight back against the justice department and the homeland security department and what they are going to try to do in the upcoming years. >> ok, raven? >> the latina caucus does not have a full time staff person. >> preach on, people. >> the state party received two, money, but are not required to have latino outreach program. 3 -- if we stop spending money on corporate media, we will have the ability to hire thousands of young latinos to work in our communities and organize them and get them to register. [applause] >> ok, mayor? >> register, organize, and recruit. when it comes to registration, but if you go to dnc.com, you can see some ideas how we drive better results on organization. we show up in every part of every community and recruit this is something i'm surprised has not come up yet. i'm not just talking about candidate recruitment, you have to do that. we started with school board and then the latina nominee we have to do that quickly, at the operative level, not everyone can afford to take an unpaid internship. [applause] we have to make sure there's resources to do that. >> ok. congressman? >> absolutely. we need to invest in latina media all over the country, and we need to train and recruit the tino tickets and staff members all over the country. candidatesuit latino all over the country. and of course we absolutely need to, i think we should identify states where we know if we take that state, it will make a profound statement. we need a powerful dnc-driven texas project, for example, flip taxes, and that will send a profound statement, but not just texas. that state alone will send signal to trumps of the world and to the latino community and everyone that the democratic party is on the side of inclusion, reform, and empowerment. >> ok. i want to get my timekeeper here to make sure we are not going over time. we have two minutes. i will let everyone close, but i want you to talk about how you diversify the staffing and contracting? you have touched on it a little bit. what could dnc do differently as chair? >> one of the things i talked about in my blueprint is a concept of multiplicity. i think we need to get out of the idea of affirmative action where you are checking boxes. i think that is really, really important. we need to open up to people who are actually making the decisions, so i recommend having a hiring committee that has all the different groups of people we need to in our party, so they are making the decisions on how we go through entire staff. things that are worth doing are sometimes cumbersome, but if we are going to get a -- but if we are going to be a party of the people and get power back to people we need to start doing , those things that take a little bit more time because they are the right things to do. >> i do what i done at department of labor before that the department of labor before that, and that is making sure you are hiring the best and the brightest. take a look at my track record everywhere i have gone. making sure that before you buy things, you know you have a diverse cadre of folks out there to purchase them. this job is a turnaround job. it is a turnaround job at scale, and it requires someone who can take the fight to donald trump. it requires someone who can help organize. it requires someone who knows how to turn around a complex organization at scale. billion, $17,000 employee -- 17,000 employee department of labor is one example. what i have been able to do in the jobs that i have had the privilege of doing is make sure we implement and make sure those turnarounds actually occur. that's why i'm out here asking for folks support. >> just to clarify, is this our closing? >> it appears to be. [laughter] >> all right. look, i have been saying throughout process i'm only candidate that understands the dnc from the inside out. i worked as a staffer at the dnc. i understand the barriers put in front of young people of color who have magically found their way within that institution. i invite each of you to go to my website, where we just put a 2006 at theme in dnc african-american leadership summit speaking truth to the power within the dnc itself. that is the type of person we need in the chair because they because --hed forces because of their are entrenched forces within state party and national party that stop the power from being shared amongst young people, so not only do we have to make sure we are recruiting from a talented diverse workforce, but when they come within our power they are -- when they come within our party, they are not given meaningless position and given a , chance to rise up through leadership. it is going to take someone who understands the dnc and state parties from the inside out to really tap into this transformational opportunity. and that is what i bring to the table. not taking the bs that even ourselves as democrats have put in the barriers we put in front of young people. >> ok, jamie. [applause] >> my staff will kill me if i don't say this. listen, at age 29, i was the first african-american and the youngest person to be executive director of the house of democrats. at age 30, i was the first african-american to be whip operation. bottom line is this -- we have to stop particularly with the consultants. you cannot come to the dnc and get a contract when the only minority face you have is the person that has your phone. [applause] so if you won a contract, you -- so if you want a contract you , have to have an operation where you train next generation of folks so they can do the media and everything else. bottom line -- he have to -- bottom line, we have to transfer -- transform the entire party from the contractors, and i'm the person to do that. >> rayfordnc.com. [laughter] what i want to do as dnc chair, look at what i have done, at state chair of new hampshire. nearly 30 organizers were african-american in new hampshire this last year. one of our dnc members from new hampshire is african-american. i hired the first african-american woman to be director of the association. the leadership are filled with people of color, and young people as well. that is what my record is, and that is what i will fill the dnc with as chair. >> i would make sure more diverse talent is recruited. it boils down to this -- there are framework reproducing activity and framework transforming activities. everyone on the stage once the same thing. if you want to see where i believe why i'm the right person, look at south benton. where i am not only proud that my staff has an exceptionally diversified in my office, but we have worked with the vendor base. part of the solution is in this room, but we have a lot of work to do, and the party has to assume responsibility for that. if we are not walking the walk, we will not be taken seriously by the next generation. [applause] >> you know, friends, when democrats don't when in an elections-- don't win people get hurt. , in ohio, they are trying to take away a woman's right to choose, take away the affordable care act, and every day the paper opens up and we see more harm that people are inflicting upon our people because we did not win elections. now, the chair of the democratic party is supposed to get democrats elected. and that means we have to , increase turnout and win elections by reaching out to all people, including the black committee, the brown community, young people, native communities -- stand in solidarity with people, no dafl, that means black lives matter and vendor base. now i am going to tell you, one of the big fights we have and i , agree jamu on this, we are battling the corporate consultantocracy, where you do think that money is spent on? that's where it should be spent knocking on doors as grass roots. that is really where it should be spent. i'm telling you that i have gotten democrats elected, not only in my own district, but all over this country. we don't have any statewide republicans in minnesota, not any. [applause] let me just tell you, there is no republicans in the fifth congressional district at all. we have chased them all out. [laughter] job of the democratic chair to get democrats elected, that is what i have done. i am the organizer who has done it, and i have raised money over the country -- 50 states i have raised. over $1 million to my state party. >> all right. thank you. thank you very much. let's thank everyone. you can go to their websites and talk to them after. thank you very much. it sorry we went a little bit over time. thank you, all. if ok, wait. we have one more thing for you to listen to. for just in your seat one second. jessica burke, the floor is yours. [cheers and applause] >> jessica for dnc chair. >> i just wanted to say thank you also very much for being here. together? we do nothing. my name is jessica burke, and i have been privileged to be campaign director. this started as an idea as a call to action as what could be possible if we asked all the right questions, and brought this conversation into the light? the only way any of this happened because of the willingness of you, it also your passion and your excitement and dedication. so this is the beginning of this conversation. this is the beginning of building our democracy brick by brick. we want you to stay with us, to get louder to tell people how , the conversation made you feel. we deserve to have led leaders we believe in. at democracy in color, we believe this forum was a love letter to you. was a love letter to your families, was a love letter to open and honest dialogue that says your voices matter and we deserve answers about the solutions we need. so thank you so much. please go to democracyincolor.org. please continue to tweak s -- tweet us, and we hope to see you in the resistance. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> thank you so much. >> give my best to michelle. >> i will. >> on newsmakers as we can, our guest is bill cassidy of louisiana. he talks about the plan he and senator susan collins introduced this past week to replace the affordable care act. i have spoken to seven different democratic senators at length, and i have other appointment set up. we are reaching out. this is not a republican stand -- plan, a democratic plan.

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