>> congratulations to the class of 2016. today is your day of celebration and you've earned it. >> the voices crying for peace and light, because your choices will make all the difference to you and to all of us. >> don't be afraid to take on cases or a new job or a new issue that really stretches your boundary. >> you spend your summer abroad real ships rather than internships, and the specter of living in your parents basement after this graduation day is not likely to be of greatest conce concern. >> watch commencement the streets to the class of 2016 in their entirety from colleges and universities around the country by business leaders, politicians and white house officials. on c-span. >> antenna on c-span2 take a live to a forum on community organizing and civic mobilization. 17 citizen groups will be speaking today and will be hearing opening and closing remarks from ralph nader, author, activist and former presidential candidate, this is being hosted by the center for the study of responsive law at constitution hall, talking about breaking through to power and find the democratic solutions between local communities and the federal government. expected to start shortly on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and here on c-span2 we will be hearing throughout the day from leaders of nonprofits and social service organizations. also read and from former presidential candidate ralph nader. the first portion of this all the forum is going to start here on c-span2 until about 1:00 when it will move over to c-span3 at that point to finish up the day. the senate will be gaveling in at 3:00 eastern here with gavel to gavel coverage on c-span2. we will do about community organizing and civic mobilization, hearing from 17 different groups. and again the opening and closing remarks by ralph nader. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. [inaudible] >> on jim hightower. [applause] [inaudible] since my daddy took me to the show years ago. so let's get started, beginning with our leader. ralph nader, of course, is the author, yes, it's been 50 years now of unsafe at any speed and numerous consumer protection, environmental, worker protection laws in our country that is made it altogether a better place to live. the late great southern humorist said something some years ago that we in the south have always known to be true, that is there's a great big difference between being naked and being naked. being naked means you have no clothes on. being naked means you have no clothes on and you're up to something. well, i believe in the image of ralph nader nakedly own imagination but the naked truth is that ralph is always coming up with something, including this great democracy rally. ralph nader. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you, jim hightower, including to all of you here and those watching around the country to live streaming, thanks to the real news network out of baltimore, maryland. this is indeed the largest gathering of a conference of the citizen advocacy groups covering more issues and reforms than ever brought together under one roof. most conferences are focused on single important issues, but we thought that it would be important to demonstrate one speaker after another, what is involved in building the civic community, the civil society. it was in many ways a demonstration the whole is greater than the sum of its partner we all know problems and injustice in society are all connected to one another even though they may be treated in a specialized way. but what's important to focus on is how did these groups accomplish what they accomplished? that's why we asked them to talk about their accomplishments. citizen groups are not very good at celebrations. they will celebrate the 20, 30 or 4450th anniversary, but they are so busy doing their work that they can't compare to the celebrations in the sports arena, in the entertainment arena, and the political arena. many of which are always covered by the mass media. but this is more than a celebration. it's an elaboration forward to the next 50 years, and to shape the kind of much, much stronger civil society that's needed in terms of resources, terms of education, in terms of grassroots mobilization, in terms of redefining leadership so that it becomes a force that produces more leaders and not just more followers. but the occasion, this is the 50th anniversary year of unsafe at any speed, and the occasion as an opportunity to very briefly look backwards and see what it was like in the early 60s here in washington, d.c. it was pretty barren territory for citizen groups. the lobbies were here. they were not as great as they are now in terms of numbers and staff, but they were pretty much all over capitol hill and all over the various agencies. i remember when i was going up to one office after another in the senate and in the house, i could see that there was a pall over anything that was called consumer protection or environmental protection or worker protection. sandra magnus and, the chair of the powerful senate commerce committee, was considered the business age on capitol hill for all kinds of industries and commerce. i remember trying to call the senate office building offices, and they would always ask him who are you with? i would call agencies and they would all say, who are you with? i would sort of look around, you know? who am i with? i'm a citizen. one time i was in a parking lot and i made a call to senator's office to talk to the staff are, and the receptionist said, who are you with? luckily, there was a dog that yap right into the phone and i heard a click. i guess they were not amused. but we persisted and we develop the critical quadrangle of civic success in washington, d.c. the first is full-time advocates pressing for the change. the second is a reception to public hearings in the house and the senate by the critical chairs. the third is open-mindedness in the white house, not knee-jerk vetoes. and the fourth is the mass media. the mass media, not just reporting, but reflecting and communicating the public sentiment, or to use abraham lincoln's words, the public sentiment what we see today is majority opinion. so when you have the majority opinion and you have a receptive congress and the of an open-minded white house and you have a media that looks at this issue as regular beets, not just occasional features seeking pulitzer prizes or other prizes, you have the critical quadrangle for success. and after the passage in 1966 of the highway and motor vehicle safety laws signed into law by lyndon johnson in september 1966, a little over nine months after "unsafe at any speed" cannot come imagine that kind of speed that occurred those days in congress compared to now. after that there was a profusion of civic activity, citizens groups were started. others were expanded, antienvironmental consumer worker area, open government, whole variety of citizen groups open their doors, brought in young people, interns, brought in people, activity going back to the 1930s as well as people who honed their skills for the first time in the critical task of seeking justice. i remember in particular the establishment of one agency after another, the occupational safety and health administration, the environmental protection agency, consumer product safety commission, the establishing the air and water pollution laws, critical umbrella air and water pollution laws continue to this day and other laws. guess who signed them? richard nixon. why did richard nixon sign? he didn't believe in them. he had flourishing introductions to them that were really terrific, and decide one after another because he feared the rubble from the people coming out of the '60s. i might say it's the last republican president to be afraid of liberals, i might add. and it was a rumble of the people reflecting majority sentiment that radiated toward this national capital and made him sign legislation, given his ideological recollections would have been very, very improbable otherwise. so the sequence was, an aroused public directing its attention to the commercial interests telling him they perished restrained themselves, focusing on existing law to elaborate it on political and government institutions, and getting through the media here the importance of the civil society is hard to exaggerate. looking over at american history, it's hard to see any major social justice movement that started from within government or from within business or from within any institution. it started in the hearts and minds of very few people, the people who started the abolition movement against slavery in the late 18th century, early 19th century. the people who started the women's suffrage movement. six women meeting in upstate new york in the 1840s. to sit down strike by workers in flint, michigan, and warren michigan to start the united auto workers. rosa parks refusing to go to the rear of the bus in montgomery, alabama. this flash, the latest stage of the civil rights movement. it all starts with a few people. we should never be demoralized by forgetting that historical principle. it all starts with small communities, small groups. what's happened today is the commercialization of our elections, from the profit centers that the presidential debates have offered to the commercial media like fox and cnn and others who put on these debates, decide who's going to be in tier one and tier two, imagine that, to the super pacs and the business of raising money in order to advance t through our electoral process commercial values over civil values. the commercialization of these elections have reached a point in american history where they are off limits to democracy itself. they are off limits to democracies in several communities. the people who are the experts, movers and shakers in our country indeed is civil communities come in the citizen groups from some of which you will see today. they are not asked for their participation. they are not asked for their expertise i the media or by the political consultants. wins elections are off limits to democracy, this society is in real trouble. the importance of these groups reflect what they can to called -- what can be called a civic personnel. we've heard of an athletic personality, that athlete who has the in degree to win. records of the entrepreneurial personality to start new businesses where no one has tried before, but we don't often talk about the civic personali personality. people who you will see on this stage throughout the day and day two, three and four of this week, which we have called breaking through power, which also can be called a civic marathon. they have the features of a civic personality. they know how to separate truth from fiction. they know how to be resilient. they know how to rebel-- retail discouragement. they know how to share credit. and now to keep up-to-date on the information. they know how to a patient and long attention spans. they know how to the short view and the longview. they know how, and like to teach young people who will be their successors. these and others, including an ever more refined strategic and tactical sense represent a civic personality that no one is really born with. it's something that is learned. it can be taught in our schools, but it is not. it can be taught in terms of on the job training. it can be heralded as well. if we had a more rational society in terms of our definition of heroism, we would not only have a hollywood academy awards, we would have a national civic achievement academy awards. and a lot of the people you will see on this stage would be nominees for those awards. these are people who could have minimized themselves and continued successfully through life, materially. instead, they chose to maximize themselves in the great quest for justice in which senator daniel webster once called the great work of human beings on earth. what we have found in terms of the experience of these groups and others around the country is that 1% or less of the population in any congressional district or state legislative district, organized and engaged in pursuing a change a redirection or a reform, and reflecting majority opinion is unstoppable. it doesn't matter how powerful corporations think they are, how and ginger politicians think they are. it's a unstoppable force. many other groups today have far less than 1% organized throughout the country, supporting their efforts on capitol hill. that is something to think about it because we hear a lot about the other 1% that rules us. populace by occupy wall street. but i think it's time to talk about this 1%, that throughout history it has taken less than 1%, in terms of people rolling out their civic sleeves, spending a few hundred hours a year, raising necessary money for full-time staff, and pursuing the strategies for victory. when you look at what these groups have accomplished, i want to compare at the right time want these ceos have been paid. the entire cuba to the budget -- cumulative budget to all these groups that were present their life's work before you today, you only get a glimmer of their quality and the quality of their colleagues and what they are up against, the entire queue with the budget is less than the budget, excuse me, is less than the executive compensation of the ceo of discovery communications, jim coinvestors, microsoft corporation, oracle corporation, lions gate entertainment corporation. what's the lesson from that? the lesson is that there needs to be more investment and justice. there needs to be more investment in these groups and starting new citizen groups and planting the seeds for a more intense forest of democracy. [applause] justice needs money. the abolition movement was funded significantly by rich bostonians and new yorkers. the women's suffrage movement drew on which philadelphians, among others. in the 1950s the civil rights and environmental movements, '60s, due on families such as the stern family from louisiana, and the curry family from virginia. we would like to have some enlightened very wealthy people recognized. that their legacy to america is not in their material accomplishments. their respect for posterity as to what they bequeathed to their descendents, that the legacy to america is to unfurl a civic and political energies of the american people, to turn our country into what it can be, and what it can be overseas as well. finally, finally i want to conclude by urging all of you to spread the word, by your appearance today and watching it on live stream. you have preselected yourselves in terms of interests and commitment, reflecting your own civic energies. it's important for us to have a resurgence of civic activism. after years of powerful corporate forces turning washington, d.c. into corporate occupied territory, and throwing so many of the citizen groups on the defensive. it's important for you to spread the word, not just in the following days here. on day two, breaking through the media. day three, breaking through war, waging peace over waging war. peace is powerful, war is week. and day four on thursday may 26, breaking through congress. the single most important branch of government by far, and the one that only has life hundred 35 men and women who put their shoes on -- 535 men and women who put their shoes on like you and i do everyday i have to understand that the power comes from we the people, the preamble to our constitution which does not read we the corporations own we the corporations. it reads we the people. [applause] turning that institutions around with less than 1% organized back home, reflecting public sentiment and long overdue changes in our country and its impact on the world will revolutionize the aspirations for the urgent development of a deep democracy. thank you. i turn you over to jim hightower. [applause] >> all right. and away they go. thank you, ralph. let's bring on one of these democracy fighters right now. shawn armbrust is engaged in the life and death sight of public interest work for more than a decade he has been executive director of the mid-atlantic innocence project. literally trying to do with folks who have been wrongly jailed, imprisoned for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, even more. she's a board member of the innocence network all across our country as well. you have to be tenacious and you have to be creative to this kind of law. my momma taught me years ago that two wrongs don't make a right, but i soon figured out that three left turns do, that's the kind of creativity that shawn armbrust has been practicing for many, many years. shawn armbrust. [applause] >> good morning. thank you so much or including me in such a terrific event with such terrific organizations. it's an honor to be here today. and i hope i'm able to give all of you a sense of how the innocence of movement collectively has broken through power, to not only freed hundreds of innocent people but also to begin the process of achieving real systemic change. i'm the executive director of the mid-atlantic innocence project which works to prevent and correct the conviction of innocent people in d.c., maryland and virginia. using dna and other evidence of innocence. we have 321 innocent people and helped past 11 laws that would help prevent or make it easier to correct wrongful convictions. is one of the high success rates in the nation, and we're doing it with a fraction of the resources we need. at a fraction of the resources is with some of our peer organizations but we are part of a larger innocence network. with, which has more than 60 separate organizations that all work to get innocent people out of prison. and together we are freeing innocent people and changing laws all over the country that are making the criminal justice system a little bit more just. since 1989 there have been 347 dna exonerations, at almost 1800 no in dna exonerations. from both network projects under the terrific lawyers all over the country. and i want to tell you the story of the innocence movement today. why it started, how it started, what it has accomplished and what we still have left to accomplish. and strength lies in the stories of the wrongfully convicted themselves, that's the one to tell you the story today. i want to do that by taking you back to 1986, and aboard your. it was the first time dna was used in court, in a criminal case in the uk. year later dna first appeared in the u.s. courtroom. dna was revolutionary because it allowed us to take physical evidence from the crime scene, other than fingerprints, and use it to compare to a specific person. either identified him or excluding them. it's hot as volumes about the types of evidence we relied on before 1986, things we didn't know about them. and it is in the context advocates of want to talk to you about today occurred. on february 23, 1986, a woman was alone in the lunchroom of her south richmond apartment building, a little before 10 p.m. a man walked in carrying a knife and wearing a stocking mask that covered his face. he told her to be quiet, got behind her and shoved her toward the door. he began undressing her. when they got outside, she started fighting back. she screamed and was able to lift a stocking mask to see a little bit more of his face. eventually got spooked and ran away. the victim did her best to describe the attacker. she had only seen the bottom half of his face, but she described a white man he was about six feet tall, 175 pounds, wore a red and white plaid shirt, have light colored shoulder length hair, a beard and high cheek bones. because this was an attempted rape and not a rape victim wouldn't even use the limited forensic science they had in 1986. all they had was the victim who did a composite sketch. a composite was circulated to other police officers, and one of them thought it looked like a man named mike mcalister. he was 29, a little over six feet tall, have light colored shoulder length hair, a beard and high cheek bones. he had no history of violence but did have a history of alcohol abuse and if you call related incidents of indecent exposure. his apartment was a few miles from the crime scene. when police got to his house, he was wearing a red, white and blue plaid shirt. police wanted to take a photo of him and told him he should change his shirt but mike said no, he didn't have anything to hide so why would he change it? police included that photo as one of nine they showed the victim. mike was only one wearing a plaid shirt and the only one whose features closely matched the description of the perpetrator, so mike was arrested. hikes trial lasted four and a half hours and the only evidence linking him to the crime was the victim's testimony. mike was convicted of abduction and attempted rape. that could've been the end of the story but a little bit before trial the lead detective heard about a man named norman bruce derr. he was a white man about six feet tall with light colored hair and a beard. he tended to wear the shirts come and he was a serial rapist. he even -- event followed by police officers in other counties but he avoided detection because he usually wore stocking masks during his crimes. mike didn't notice until 2015, but many of his 1985 and 1986 attacks were in laundry rooms just a couple of miles from the crime that mike was charged with. one -- when the detective saw derr photo he thought it looked a lot like the description of the attacker in mike's case you can go to tell you what i saw those two photos side-by-side for the first time, i couldn't tell them apart. but after the victim saw derr's photo she was to ensure that mike was her attacker and trial went forward. and even after mike was convicted, the prosecutor started having doubts about mike's guild. he talked to the judge and they gave mike a polygraph, but it was inconclusive. he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. he lost his appeal because his trial was considered fair. and there was nothing anyone could do. at that time people who were not in the criminal defense world were not all that aware of the problem of wrongful convictions. a few academics had written articles about wrongful convictions in capital cases, but those just evolve into debates about whether those particular people were innocent, not conversations about what could cause of those wrongful convictions and what could be done to prevent them. but that started to change in 1989 when terry dobson became the first man in the u.s. to be exonerated by dna testing. from 1989-1992, 10 people were exonerated based on dna evidence proving their innocence. and this was a game changer. these exonerations did not hinge on the reliability of witnesses or they were scientific proof that innocent people are convicted. barry cheka neufeld knew we are convicted too many innocent people in this country. they also knew that as long as the fight was about the credit of witnesses we couldn't have that conversation. so in 1992, they found the innocence project in new york litigating cases all over the country in which dna testing could prove innocence. shortly after that mike mcallister got a new lawyer. the lawyer learned that norman derr's attacks looked a lot like the attack mike was convicted of. he attacked women alone using a knife. he was easily spooked and even said some of the exact same things but more importantly, the detective and prosecutor in the case had come to believe that they had arrested and convicted the wrong man. and in some places that would've allowed mike to be released from prison. but in virginia the trial court is not allowed to do anything in a case more than 21 days after a person is convicted. and there was no other way in virginia to bring new evidence of innocence before a court. no exceptions. mike at april date coming and the detective and prosecutor wrote letters supporting his parole. to even appear before the parole board on his behalf, but it didn't matter. his parole was denied. and as i was happening the innocence movement was getting started. in 2000 the first innocence network conference with 10 mostly new innocence organizations, including my own, was held in chicago. each we 1993-2001, 91 more people were exonerated based on dna testing. and that was true even though our system isn't set up to deal with the problem of innocent people in prison. and that's because our system prices of finality. it's hard to raise claims of newly discovered evidence of innocence, it's hard to prove constitutional violations and it's hard to get around all of the procedural barriers designed to keep people from trying to do those things. and so it became clear very early that the innocence movement needed to address not just the disturbing number of innocent people in prison, but also the system's inability to correct that problem after the fact and the things that caused wrongful convictions in the first place. and during this time some people in power begin to notice that there was a problem. they started passing laws allowing for dna testing, raise questions about the death penalty and started talking about the things that caused wrongful convictions. but the prevailing norm was still to be tough on crime. that period of time some democrats take the crime issue away from republicans by issuing their own tough on crime policies from the 1994 crime bill to the 1996