EurasianeurAsian Affairs. Live coverage here on thoigs. Cspan3. Foreign Relations Committee will come to order. We have an unusual procedure today. As usual well defer to the outstanding senators who are here to introduce others, and we thank them for being here. Its an honor to have you here in our committee. We will let them go first so that they can go on to their other business. We will then convene adjourn and convene the business meetings for just a moment and hopefully pass the nominees out and pass some bills out. And then well resume with the great testimony we know well hear from our nominees. So with that, again, we welcome you. If i i dont know if i can remember the seniority order. I know senator cornyn is first in soeniority. Ill let you guys armwrestle over it while senator cornyn gets his comments. Thank you so much for being willing to come and make good comments about outstanding nominees. We thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, chairman corker. And Ranking Member carden,
[applause] good morning and welcome to the center for American Progress. My name is carla martin. Im the the Vice President for policy. It is my honor to welcome to this exciting event. Our lineup today is a real testament to the importance of this issue to this administration and to president obama. Nearly one in three americans has some type of criminal record that creates barriers to employment, housing and many other pathways to opportunity. Some americans with criminal records are even barred from casting a ballot which denies the right to participate in our democracy after they have paid their debt to our society. The impact of these barriers goes beyond those previous convicted of a crime. Criminal records are a family sentence. In fact, they have found that nearly half americans children now have a parent with a criminal record. Study after study has shown that the barriers associated with the parents criminal record can severely limit the childs opportunities and lead to worse
And then drive it forward in 2017. Thanks for listening. [applause] i know j stand before you and lunch but i am happy to take any questions for you. Just an opportunity to talk about a book. It is called fixing the future and how canadas government worked together to rescue the canada pension plan. It is an interesting story and the same issue as the Social Security except we ended up with a situation where we doubled the contribution rate and built up the reserve fund and stabilized the contribution rate. It is a fascinating story. You have to figure out the story. I think that is a great point. The way the public and the private sector have come together we have studied this to achieve the policy in canada. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Once again i want to thank ida and the Aspen Institute. [applause] sunday, Hillary Clinton speaks at the mayors conference in indianapolis. We will have live coverage starting at 4 p. M. Eastern. And later, cspans conversation with democratic president
[inaudible conversations] thank you for coming out tonight with his politics prose that busboys and poets event did as they had the honor of hosting dana hatcher, for his new book, the poverty industry. My name is david. I work with the event staff at politics prose that we just have a few quick announcements to make before he introduced daniel tonight. First off, this is at politics prose that busboys event. We are selling books and hosting events at three of the locations. You are here at the location. You can also find a set to think and tacoma. Grab a calendar and you can see Different Event scheduled throughout the city. Part of that partnership is now you are in a restaurant and you can order food and drink at the same time while here in the great work talk. I encourage you to do so and treat your waitstaff well. At this moment, take out your cell phone to silence them so we dont have any unnecessary interruptions. After the event is over, we will have a signing table an opportun
Democracy. When we can look our brothers and sisters in the eyes, black, latino, young, women, so sameday registration, getting out there and thinking about what were passing legislatively , racial inequality. We must be on the forefront. Really being there on the ground. The black lives Matter Movement is a movement afoot, a Climate Change movement afoot. They can register. They are registering people to vote, but we have to commit to them that we are going to deliver for them, not just take that vote. Thank you very much. Thank you. [laughter] [applause] Robert Weissman has led Public Citizen since 2009. As well as anate expert on a wide variety of issues. The floor is yours. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you to the committee for your leadership, and thank you for your stamina. Solve itsll not greatest problems if we dont rescue our democracy, severe inequality, catastrophic climate get there ifll not we dont deal with the democratic def