Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joy-Ann Reid Hosts DNC Chair Candidates Forum 20170125

Welcome to the Democratic National Committee Chair form. Im amy allison and we are so thrilled that youre here. Along with our partners me to an inclusive we want to welcome you here today. Take you for joining us 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 across the country from ohio, to nevada. We look forward to your comments and perspectives and if you dont mind using hashtags we can follow along in the conversations, and another note, we we have some voting members of the Democratic National committee thank you for being here for this conversation we want to thank you for your service were talk about the elected and reelected presiden oba, they frame our nversation today. To get us started i want to want to bring to the stage former Nevada State Assembly met in Vice President of public affairs. Please give a round of applause. [applause] hello. How is everybody feeling tonight . This is fantastic. Look at this turnout. I know we are reaching hundreds of thousands of people on our live stream. That is really exciting. Thank you for being here this evening. Me too is a very proud because as a Digital Media company that strives to give voice to the 200 percent, those who are 100 american and 100 latino, we know how important it is to provide access to communities of color. We produce contact from a latino point of view. At a time when multicultural use of user on their way of becoming a majority in this country conversations like this and to access to conversations like these are more important than ever. In that spirit, mitu is the bay on trout to bring to a young man who has a powerful words to say about the power of words. [applause] [applause] in 19 oh six and earthquake ruptures the San Andreas Fault killing an estimated 3000 people. Vibrations can break boulders and devastate lives, then our work can split open minds in the geographical shape of its content because sound is vibration. Our verb starts earthquake. Lets break that ground. Leaders from being slaves, and 2010 and earthquake takes the lives of 300,000. Do not underestimate the hercules behind your tongue. Your voices are the reason that access is tilted. True silence is the reason its dying. So if earthquake can destroy lives, our voices can rebuild them. In 2011 and earthquake devastate fukushima japan. I have been to the mountainside. And i looked over and ive seen the promised land. The only thing in our way is a mute mountain. So we crumble mountains. We crack rock without needing a pipe. Give me one word, one sentence can make the ground move like a tsunami. A tsunami. You can hear their words crack in the concrete, cracking the blast, believing that earthquake would cause repercussions. The future, the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. So today, i have a dream. In my dream wasnt heard. Today i have a dream. But my dream was deferred. Today i had a dream about a king but the king wasnt her. The legends are angry, the world is violent while we stay. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The opposite reaction of division is multiplication. Problems rectus solutions. Solutions. Oppression reacts to revolution. The death of Trayvon Martin reacts to the execution. Voices react to vibration. Vibrations react to earthquakes so sound is vibration. Our verbs are as earthquakes. Thats break the ground our Fallen Heroes are trapped beneath him. Lets react, leaders from slave react. Lets speak and talk like an earthquake. Be like a rock and watch. Its granite, planets shake. [applause] give him another round of applause. [applause] i can honestly say have never come to a political event where it open so powerfully. We have such gratitude to our partners for bringing you to this audience. Again, our live our live audience, please let us know youre there. And shout out from when you are joining the lifestream. Given the outcome of the most recent election. It is clearly a critical moment for the Democratic Party and our country. Who lisa says chair at the dnc . The strategy of the party is going to be central to the success of getting back power. So the road to tonights form began in earnest from appointment analysis articulated in democracy and colors founder the book, brown is the new white. Said, among other other things and it challenged us to look at the power and the potential of the new american majority to leave 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 people of color 46 of the Democratic Party and those numbers will continue to go up. The reality calls for a new type of leadership and a new type of understanding of who the voters are and what they want and political leadership. Steve and his wife have been working on this nonstop calling for solutions in this racially polarized climate. So tonight, we have a unique opportunity to have an open conversation about how rice impacts the paths forward like the great dr. Says, our task is to build a new language that pulls people together and explores new avenues to political strengths to save the hearts of democracy. To hold race and class, together not to cut across race but to cut through it as we find the solution that perplex in challenger nation. We have a deep belief that the next chair of the dnc must have the skills to leave and to organize a National Dialogue on race, on Racial Justice and are not made multiracial unity. This form will help us assess the readiness of each of the candidates youll meet tonight to participate and advance that effort. We invite federal democrats to take real ownership of the party and to contribute to its future direction. We invite a new era of transparency and democracy the Democratic Party. We invite an opportunity to openly discuss the structural and strategics changes we need to make to start weeding. We invite open discussion on reform agendas put forth by these candidates to bring us powerfully into our political future. Now, it is my honor to introduce the first woman, first black woman, ceo of the Democratic National committee who had some historic winds and diversity in terms of staffing and contracting. I want want 12 comes to the state juliet. [applause] good evening. It is my pleasure to be with you this evening with my good friend donna. And thank you allison for your introduction and thank you to democracy and color for presenting this gathering to us. In a month from now the members of the dnc, and i come itself among them will come together to elect our next chair. It is an exciting and pivotal time for us, for our party, for country. We just witness the inauguration of a president to most americans did not vote for. We also 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 regrets for us as democrats, and and the other was full of hope and possibility, give our party an important opportunity to regroup, retool, and remind ourselves of who we are as democrats. That we have a mission, a 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. We need our next chair to understand that is the mission, the mandate and the moral obligation that it is. I dont like to talk about diversity because it seems to me that it is hard to quantify. Its like taking a teaspoon of pepper and putting it in a powder salt and thinking he made a difference. But, we really havent change the quality of the salt. I prefer to talk about the come star party, representation. [applause] i believe that our parties apparatus must be representative of a community of the communities who made her pretty strong and vibrant as well as the community that were trying to reach. Top to bottom and bottom to top. Staffing, appointments, consultants, pollsters, candidate recruitment and fundraising. [applause] in every area, at every level, we need, we must must have a way to 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] it is a challenge, but it is not impossible. And i know because ceo of the 2016 and 2008 Democratic National convention i achieved this 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 owes 50 minority spending. [applause] so in front of the camera and behind the scene our staff it was not the best in spite of diversity, but because of diversity. Because we because we brought every voice, every community to the table. Our diversity is not our problem, it is our promise. [applause] this commitment, this 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 will hear from seven of the now 11 candidates who are running for chair of the dnc. We want to know tonight, and we look forward to answering the questions, what are the steps and strategies they will take to engage the new american majority. I consultants, who drives the strategy determines the outcome. How will they choose consultants and strategists for the party . On recruitment of new candidates, how will they build the bench so its reflected of the electorate . What is the plan to recruit the next generation of progressive leaders . On fundraising, how do we raise and spend dollars for minority communities . We look forward to hearing the answers. We are thrilled to have seven tonight or qualify, each, each of them to leave the Democratic Party into its next future. We look forward to pointed questions that get to the heart of the matter, no pussyfooting around. We want real answers about how our party will move forward under their leadership. Thank you, god bless you. [applause] without further ado we have an opportunity to invite our moderator to the stage. Joy n reed is host of a emjoi on msnbc on the weekend. [applause] she is also a columnist to the daily beast and editor of we are the change we speak. Speeches of barack obama that recently came out. We are thrilled and thankful that youre here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. This is excited. Thank you amy. Good evening everyone. Thats in d. C. Good evening. So i would think George Washington university for hosting and also democracy and color for the invitation to be here. My friend jessica and jamaal and of course steve philip. This is an important debate. I think this is the central debate that the Democratic Party has to deal coming forward. Im glad you are here. Let me introduce those candidates for dnc chair who are with us tonight that will debate. Lets start with congressman keith ellison. [applause] lets bring on mayor keith [applause] i did okay . I said i was going to say quickly so he would not know i got it wrong. Raymond buckley. [applause] lets bring in jamie carrington. [applause] and now cream. Lets bring on the honorable tom perez, last but not least, sally brown. Thank you all for being here. You can ever see. Tonights what im going to do, my plan is to break this up into a few sections. I want to start off with the elephant in the room, the obvious. We just we just had an election in which democrats won the popular vote but did not win the white house. One of the core questions that came out of this election is, who should democrats be targeting Going Forward . I pulled up statistics here we had africanamericans vote for the Democratic Party at a rate of 80 percent. 88 voted for the democrats. Among white voters it was 37 percent. Among latinos in . Among latinos and this number is in dispute, 65 . Some talk that it was more than that. And and among Asian American voters, 65 . One other piece of data about the election as you had white voters with a College Degree, white voters with a College Degree still favor the republican party. And only white women with a College Degree only favorite Hillary Clinton, but just barely. Despite the fact the fact that Hillary Clinton improved on her numbers with white voters with a College Degree and spent time courting those waters and focusing on the, she did not manage to in that group. You still have white voters without a College Degree overwhelmingly for donald trump. Celeste talk about the debate of whether not democrats spent much time trying to win over particularly white women voters and failing to do that at the end of the day. And whether the Democratic Party would have been wiser to focus more time and attention courting voters of color. Ill go in reverse order. I think its really part that we have a conversation with all of the people. The idea of talking to specific groups of people doesnt seem to be working for us. The times to accept that we have one thing in common, were human. If we focus on giving power back to peoples a great equalizer. Powers what will bring us forward. The Democratic Party needs to realize this more than anything else. There people out there who are not being heard. We need to make sure bringing all of those voices together we stop filing our conversations into specific groups of people. The folks in our country dont feel like their kids are going to have a better life than they had. Thats an issue we have to sell. If we dont solve it nobody else is going to. Tom perez. I think its a false choice have to say that were going to go to one community or another. What we need to do and what we did a poor job of his making house calls. We didnt get out there and persuade. You cant show up at a church every fourth of october call that an organizing strategy. And thats what we did is democrats. When we are there, ted kennedy, 1980 at Democratic Convention talked about the most important civil rights for any person is a job for over talk about jobs, we talk about opportunity the second pillar of the Democratic Party is that we voice taken care of folks in the shadows making sure they get into the sunshine. When we Pay Attention to those two pillars that is how we succeed. We are organizing, whether it is in milwaukee or rural wisconsin, in talking about that message of hope and opportunity thats when the Democratic Party is at its best. When hope is on the ballot we win and what appears on the ballot we dont to say hi. Thats i think we need in every zip code strategy that is around that basic message of Economic Opportunity and a party that is about everyone. Inclusion is our strength. Diversity is our greatest asset is a country. We could talk about that everywhere. When you talk about opportunity we need to talk about our you lifting people up for dragon them down. We sometimes get bent out of shape are you in the center of the party left of the party, you lifted people up or bringing him down. When we get people with jobs we give people that opportunity. When we make sure communities have safe and constitutional please were expanding opportunity. When we make sure immigrants have access to the American Dream were expanding opportunity. I think that works everywhere. [applause] i absolutely agree with sally and secretary perez. You have to do a job is democrats engaging americans of all hues, genders, generations and generations and backgrounds. Ill be very blunt. The dnc did a piss poor pathetic job of engaging young people of color in the 2016 election. We have to oh nine. We also did it very bad job of communicating inter sexuality. Racism, classism, 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 to voters that are now getting the focus of the media attention. One of the things that compelled me to get into this race, the possibility of overcompensating for these mistakes. We cannot do that as a party. [applause] i have to agree. Something we do quite often is with the question we say i just dont understand how these people vote against their best interest . It goes one thing. Its about trust. Voters in this country to not vote here most of the time, they votes here and here. The problem we have is that were always trying to focus on the we dont folks on this. Its a question of trust. Do working class people trust that the Democratic Party is fighting for them. Two latinas feel like we actually are fighting for them . You can go on and on with all the various groups. Used to be a teacher. I taught ninth grade social studies. The one thing i taught was was the most powerful way to persuade anybodys to show and not tell. The problem that we have had for the past decade in this party is that we do a lot of telling and not enough showing. So if we really want to talk about how to we talk to millennials, wes, we have to show not tell. How do we tell to the Africanamerican Community . Dont tell me youre for criminal Justice Reform when the opportunity comes and you dont vote to write on it. [applause] we have to get back to connecting where we are showing them instead of telling them. [applause] i think youre going to hear similar story from all of us on this. I think weve spent so much time together it is our eighth or ninth time, we understand what the challenges is. The reality is how will we move forward . I think a lot of millennials and americans were upset and disappointed with the way the nomination process worked out not bleeping it it was fair fair. I think we need to make sure the votes of the people in each state is respected and everybody is welcome and they know it is a fair process. We need to completely revamp and reform the way the party operates and structure. So everyone feels welcome. Nothing made me angrier than a few weeks ago written story about art u. S. Democratic senators and the ridiculous number of africanamerican staff to have. I would go and meet with the each of the senators and say this stuff stops now. We need to make sure the dnc properly reflects the diversity of our party. We need to make sure our staff properly reflects our party. We need to make sure the contracts and all those millions that we dole out reflect the diversity of the party. We are all talking about how we are to reconnect with the people in the community, and i believe it is going back to what works. It worked when howard dean had it and he stood up to washington and set we are going to fund it in the people of the places who the city said down, we want the money. He said no. And we wanted 2006 and we wanted 2008. And they wanted 2009 when the fight came and they took the money away and then we have lost, lost, and lost again. And they say how are we going to for that. You head up about 300,000 that would thousand that would give you about five or six staffers for every party that could build a ground operation across the state. We transferred 15 million, there it is. [applause] i will china to repeat so many things that are said that are so right. But i would like to try to add a couple of things. One is this conversation happens about how we reach out to white workingclass voters. I think now is the time we need to stand up and say that cannot, must not, and will not have anything to do with abandoning to core of racial and social justice that gives our party the moral foundation. We are world where fear i called the salad bar problem. We think the only way to speak to somebody is one group at a time. We talked about intersexuality. Im a lefthanded multis american gay war veteran. I dont know exactly what caucus am supposed to go to first versus second or third. But what i know is if we only talked to one group at a time but only the issues that their only care about and we only talk to the Africanamerican Community about African American issues or Lgbt Community about lgbt stuff, and then we find the latinos they [speaking in native language] the reality is, africanamericans care about equal pay for equal work. And people in the Lgbt Community care about Voting Rights. In the best answer ive seen for the salad bar problem is when its on saturday. When i was in south bend marching with the women of south bend in solidarity with women in country and around the world. , that was a womans march. But it was a march for all of us. All people and young people and people of all colors. I suspect people from different Political Parties were all united in solidarity with the women of the world. And i think solidarity, not isolation is the way to move forward as a party. [applause] u. S. The question which group should we target and identify the percentages of who voted for canada. The truth is, there is a lot of people who should have been voting for us who did not show up in the statistics because they did not vote at all. 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 were not going to the door said talking to people about their basic core needs. In the fifth Congressional District of minnesota even though people might say we Campaign Like were ten points behind every single election. As a result, i would average about 150,000 votes in 2006 votes in 2006 and now we get 250,000 in the last election. Because we get people out to vote who had not been voting were able to keep minnesota blue in a year when a rain swept over wisconsin and michigan. So instead of just say what percentage or what category voted for the democrats. Lets go get some people who have been ignored by the Democratic Party by knocking on their door. This really is the key. It is a great book let me just tell you, he identified my district, and i think its on page 129 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. Because of it we are able to see our governors, state democrat, attorney general, governors, and she was there she was knocking on doors with me. Im shouting you out girl. And so this is really, the Democratic Party ignores the blue states, ignores threat state, goes to the swing state and only talks to the likely voters and only talks to them with television ads. So he feels left out . Everybody. The [applause] and reliance on statistics im going to come back to even more. But reality is that sounds good and i think thats important that we also know that racially polarized voting is the reality in the United States and that is a fact and democrats have invested heavily in trying to win over particularly the white collegeeducated women they invested their resources and my question all of you evaded is whether they made a mistake in not devoting more resources. Im going to come back to you again because the question is whether or not the dnc and the Clinton Campaign were in error iand devoting so Many Television commercials to our kids that are watching and mocking of television commercials. So many resources trying to win over the voters in arizona and coach of the show all Republican Voters based on Donald Trumps were standing and not enough in cleveland. We didnt win at the end of the day. We need to make sure that we are reaching out and lifting up the voices of people that dont traditionally get their voices lifted up. Weve got to make sure that we are targeting those resources when they need to be targeted. When you knock on a door i knocked on all of the doors on the block and pick the neighborhood south based on the places i need to go. We need to be spending more time in america and more time in our communities of color where we can lift people up and get them involved in the process. We cant just leave people out of the communities. I will make the question more specific because one of the complaints you hear from voters of color was that the Democratic Party, the Clinton Campaign, the dnc were not focused enough on the issue of the Voter Suppression and that there wasnt an effort to combat what was seen as aggressive Voter Suppression in places like North Carolina and wisconsin that it was essentially absent. Two you feel that is the case . Is a civil rights issue of our time. We have to understand that this is and always will be part of the playbook. Why is it part of the playbook . Because it works. The secretary is a full employment act for the civil rights lawyers. In North Carolina by the time he won the suit it was too late and as a result you look at the africanamerican turnout and it wasnt as good as it is in 2004 or when the president is on the ballot but it was even lower than it was when john kerry was on the ballot in 2004. I spent a lot of time in the states texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, and the list goes on. Thats why we have some good folks working on this but its a group of three or four people. You cant go to a knife fight with a spoon and that is what we are currently doing right now. And thats why what i call for in my platform is we need to establish in office of Voter Protection and engagement. Both offense and defense because youve got voter purges and these are wrong and illegal and theres the whole voter id law and the state of texas if you are at the uc austin it doesnt count, but youve got your concealed carry license and that counts. That is wrong. The voter id fall in texas was put there to make it harder to vote, period, and the story. So we have to play offense and defense and that is exactly what we are calling for. Oregon played offense. We should have the same day registration and universal Voter Registration. That is why we should b what weg day in and day out. I couldnt agree more and i did that unanimity among the group. If we take the 10 milliondollar tv budget and cut it down and put that into organizing and make sure that its a ten and enterprise, we would have won arizona but there was a 3 milliondollar buy in october othat didnt move the needle at all. If the they have they had been g that ispending thatin florida, s invested for four years in organizing, they turned down 12,130,000 more voters because of that and what was the margin of victory, it was about 110 or 115,000. That was the difference maker. When we do that, we succeed. Im going to jump around a little bit and go to the congressman because he were more saying that its a mistake to the targeting etc. But the statistics show 23 are progressive voters of color and about 28 of the electorate so that adds up to the working majority but again you came as a supporter of Bernie Sanders, very popular in the audience and among the progressive voters. Did senator sanders do enough to activate the voters of color because the exit polls shows that they were some of the least attached and many of them voted third party. There is a lot of that. I will say when Bernie Sanders came to minnesota, i had some people in my district say they want to talk to the candidates. I will see what he can do a. It so happened that he did show up and i think that at least in minnesota that was an Important Message that they have some tough questions. He answered those questions. We have to work harder to talk directly to young people of color. It is as big if not bigger than baby boomers right now. Theres the winning combination and as steve said eloquently in the book if we turn out the vote would be ~ 365 days a year we have to be knocking on every door and spend money on the community because social media to talk to the needs of young people. Its a matter of time but heres the deal. The reality is we havent been doing that for anyone and if we want to win, those investments have to happen and they have to happen now. Whether it is Bernie Sanders or anybody, we have to get involved and we banned the Democratic Party to make sure we are investing in young people and people in communities of color because thats how youre going to win michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio and districts within the path forward. What would be your plan to increase the turnout attachment among the voters of color . Ipod us to reiterate something that was said. We are not repeating the same lines over and over because there is so much we want to bring forth. In 1985 i thought i had to do something for my community, but early going to the funeral of a week for a couple of years. So i was one of the original founders and we started meeting monthly. I became one of the first openly gay legislators. 2the 24 team is winning across New Hampshire and the turnout for democrats went up 3 when it was down. This year we talk about the Millennial Vote being down. It was up in New Hampshire because we had that grassroots operation that every single state come every single Congressional District, every town, community, neighborhood should have. Because we have that, we have an entire female delegation so that is an important thing against donald trump, but we barely won. We need to take what youre doing where the turnout is up and people are involved and make sure that happens everywhere. Im going to reject that we need to do either or. Its about having a conversation in every community. The millennial and africanamerican, white working class, lgb, latino. Everyone believes the Democratic Party is not talking to them, because they are not. We are not. It is the washington insiders that are sending hundreds of millions, over a billion dollars in tv ads. Can you imagine if we hired hundreds of thousands if not organizers across every Congressional District. It goes over all of us in the grassroots should be on the toss and deciding what the party should be about. And we need to make sure that the staff is diversified and that the state parties are diversified into contract. Its absolutely essential that 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 and empower them and they will go elsewhere. I think the solutions are going to come from washington. They are going to come from our communities. My experience from daytoday, though the governing and also politically is the progressive mayor from the blue innercity in a very red state. We made it a priority and a goal that every district including the minority majority district needed through oldfashioned organizing and making sure that 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 higher values and our organizing success since then has been based on the same ideas. We worked hard to separate the tactics. After we were facing the wave that came our way in 2016 were able to get the first representatives in the state house in a long time. In a district that was far from democratic. It was tied to the values from a organizing tactics and the need of the local community and not driven by the cookiecutter approach or top down. But how it affects peoples lives. It doesnt matter where you put your media spending if you are not talking about your values. People vote their values in the turnout for what they believe in. I believe we need to get back to the values that make us democrats including those we have not been as comfortable talking about on our side of the aisle. When they say the system is rigged we say that its perfectly fine to. We assume people of color are going to vote for us because we have a d. Next to ou your name t is the definition. We need to not only win but deserve to win. [applause] you are in a state that has a Large Population that is essentially a frustrated both because percentagewise they are more than michigan but they are not able to affect statewide elections. What would be the plan to improve the voters of color . It has to transform itself. We have become a Political Organization that goes out every two or four years and we do that through tv and radio but what we need to do is go back to what used to be which is a Grassroots Organization that is in the Community Helping people solve the issues that are facing on a daytoday basis. She had to drop out of high school and find a job. Jobs are hard to come by. I need your help because ive losit wasmy job, my mom did that was actually his office had made some calls i and my mom got a jb shortly thereafter. The most important thing to her was her little baby boy and this politician have to be able to take care. That is what we have to get back to in the Democratic Party. Again its all about trust we are giving Service Activities across the state from blankets in the homeless to the homeowner workshops, resume building skills. When we are able to prove to people. We are helping them address the issues that are pressing and in front of them, that is how you change the mind and the heart of people. When we talk about what we need to do, we have to prove to people that we are fighting for them and we are on their side and we have to back. We will continue to have these academic conversations. [applause] i agree this is a transformational moment that we are facing in the Democratic Committee and a lot of people ask why did i get into this race about 11 days ago. One of the reasons i got in. I was disappointed that the Democratic Party didnt take the opportunity after the losses in 2016 and give you all a voice in this election and thats what needs to happen we need to revolutionize the leadership and how we engage with millennial. He talked about 2004, john kerry on top of the ticket. Not necessarily a charismatic candidate. You know how that increase happened in 2004 . Because the leadership engaged with millennials in ways of using technology and innovating the communications with them. That is what the Democratic Party needs to do and this transformational moment we need an organizer. Thats what we need to tap into. It wasnt the Democratic Party. It wasnt john kerrys campaign that rolled their eyes. Outside groups spent 40 million engaging young people. They implemented the Voter Registration and gave it away for all of the allies. The Democratic National committee needs to spend 40 million a year engaging Millennial Voters. Theres a lot of conversations about the strategy. They need to have the technology, the staffing, training, the resources, all those things are important but we need to revolutionize the state parties to learn the concept of a. We need to make sure that the state parties are the hub of innovation and we are training an army of messengers. We need to put them in front of the camera on the podium come on the stage as. They train people, give them resources and release them on to the world and we need to do the same thing. It cannot be the same talking about the values, talking about the principles, talking about the policies that are life or death issues. As greek politicians you look nice but we are going to put people in front of the camera that will be at the podium and be on the stage. [applause] the Democratic Party has been an opportunity in the process that we are going through, and i do think that we have to acknowledge if we dont take advantage of this opportunity, as an organizer i hate the opportunity of not having and no an organizing moment. If we dont take advantage of this opportunity to transform the party, we may never get it again and that will tak take soe that understands management which i have done in a way as an organizer at rock the vote and in the private sector this is the time that we can do something new. I look to the young people in the audience and it saddens me that you dont have a vote in the process. Maybe there are some members here. How many people do not have a vote in the process . Another fun statistics speaking of the Millennial Voters that have officially passed as the largest voting bloc in the country via the largest voting block in my generation will pass the boomers by 2028. Its about the voters of color because they are so numerous. Lets talk about some of the issues that voters care a lot about. Obviously, we have a new Justice Department coming that can make black wives matter protests a lot more charged, and a lot more difficult. I described it as john lewis with no rfk from the 60s. What should the strategy beat regarding blackwhite smatter . How should a dnc message blackwhite smatter . Black wive lives matter . It came up because of mass incarceration. All these social problems they worked on aiworked on as a lawyd activist my whole life and what i would say the dnc needs to do is make itself in the kind of place black wives matter for its electrical energy. So for example, the demonstration is key. Ive done it my whole life and i will do it more. But you have to have a legislation to go with it but ultimately result in the change. Youve got to have the demonstration resulted in legislation that you end up with a whole lot of frustration. So that is the key. We will prove ourselves worthy of your vote for the energy by including the leadership. You will see the reforms that you are protesting for and that is the way that we engage. [applause] they look at the communities of color like those in every other city in the country. That is a matter of moral urgency. Its not a partisan issue but lets be real about this, one party is more than those concerned in the other. I was very pleased to get the numbers in from the Police Department and see the uses of the fourth round and citizen complaints were down. Partly because the police chief understands we dont measure success by the arrests but whether if the service went out and that shows up until now, we have friends in washington to give us the framework and we are doing it at home again. The work has to be done from the ground up. It sure does help when you know that washington cares. The task force believes that the president convened to change the entire conversation about what it means to authentically build relationships of trust in colorr and the Law Enforcement. Right now, im afraid we cannot count on washington carrying one. That is an emergency. But make the job of any mayor that puts the Community Together so much harder. The communities cannot be held together in the way they ought to be. All of us need to be engaged in the movements. At that level of the shared values, the leaders in the movement understand that we are authentically delivering solutions that will make sense to them and if there is ever a question about that, look no further than the new attorney general of the United States. It doesnt matter if others matter less or more but its ridiculous how it is spun in why i am so passionate is with me just tell you a little bit about what happened before all grieving and i was shocked that america elected a donald trump. I got home around 4 00 in the morning, 6 00 in the morning i was woken up. I saw that it was my niece. And what havent even processed in my mind when i was so upset about the results of such a process would help it the night before. She said you have to get me out of here. She feared for her safety by what happened on election day. Im suntil all of america unders the fear that is out there because what we are seeing happen across the country we are never going to be able to move this country forward. I never again want to get a call like that. It was a soul crushing experience for me because when she said get me out of this country because my life is in danger because she has that overwhelming fear, that is something that is not just certain cities or parts of the country. Its all across the country even in rural New Hampshire. So when people say black wives matter, youre right they matter. [applause] we have a lot to get through. Folks started talking about identity politics and all this into that. Ive been a black fan my entire life. [laughter] a few miles down the road where walter scott was shot, you know for a lot of folks all this is new. Most all of us have family in the south. This stuff has been going on for generations. It is plain and clear but going on for decades, this is not new. I am taught as a little kid to be weary of Certain Police officers. When im in my car driving and the blue light comes behind me, there is a fear that goes through me. Folks dismiss the fear and that feeling and they say thats just in your mind. But you see it time and time again. I remember the first time i learned about emmett and i looked in the mirror and this face reminded me of his. My friends, this party if should be no question that this party embraces to save blackwhite black lives matter. [applause] if you want us to have to fight for us. [applause] but yes, if i am the chair, we know that black lives will matter. [applause] black. Lives. Matter. What can the candidates appear to support the movement . As someone thats been the last six and a half years debating and fighting with conservatives who dont know anything other than we have a serious communication messaging problem in the Democratic Party. We need to start by making sure that our party and our elected officials and leaders understand the implicit bias and have a conversation about the implicit and explicit bias and instituted in the Training Program and into how we recruit candidates and within the framework of the teams and the members that will be deciding. Thats something the chair can do. The other thing they have to do is hold the media accountable. It comes from the media images that make not just people watching fox news but all over the world. The media is not always our friend. The u. S. Media elites and Cable News Networks delivered as this nightmare in the white house. We are not going to take it anymore. Such training democrats on the bias and not just the elected officials, but holding the media accountable so that this is a longterm strategy so that we can shift the conversation and changed the conversation around how black people are reflected in the country and that is something the dnc chair can do. [applause] of all the questions you ask tonight or this is the one that is most personal to me. I have spent the bold of my career working on issues of Police Reform. 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 in santa cruz in the three and a half years that existed in seattle and portland, new orleans and albuquerque. The first thing ive learned is we live in a world of false choices. That is a false choice. In the aftermath that we saw earlier this year you would see donald trump and Jeff Sessions saying what side are you on are you on the police side or the Community Side . That is the wrong question. They tell me if you dont have the concept of community as a Police Officer, you aint got shit. Thats what they tell me. [applause] those to send these were hard. I had democrats who didnt want us to do this and they were able to succeed. In arizona, the former sheriff of arizona they were behind us and without the community, you cant 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 the black wives Matter Movement or a remarkable coalition in phoenix fo, the remarkable coalition in los angeles that brought about the Police Reform including Law Enforcement we cannot paint with a broad brush. Its a pox on our house when we are not taking care of this issue. And if we do not have a Police Department that reflects the community. How can you help the Latino Community if you dont have latino officers . Its kind of hard to communicate in my experience. And that is why we need a police force that reflects the community. We need a Business Community that reflects america. Thats why we need as Sandra Day Oconnor said, we need all pathways of leadership to be physicallvisibly available. At the dnc needs to reflect that. Ive heard people say from time to time this is not a policy child. This is absolutely in organizing job and they changed management job and its important for the dnc to understand the policy and Voting Rights and policy and policing because if we want to be a player in this we need to have some depth and substance so that we can be a meaningful player. My career has been about the civil rights and labor rights and about what they did in the march on washington to the march for jobs and justice. It was a march that said just because you pick up trash doesnt mean you can be treated like garbage and i have worked on the back of a trash truck and they should be treated with dignity. Everyone should be treated as dignity and as others so eloquently pointed out, we are not there yet as a nation. We have to do this. And the dnc needs to lead the charge with the blackwhite blas matter. Im glad you were there. Im scared to death of the department under Jeff Sessions because he doesnt believe in the dissent decrees into the changed lives. I got a call from a Police Officer in cleveland that had a series of incidents involving fatal shootings of people with Mental Illness to what brought us in their and i got a call after the incest decreed that said we saved a life today because they were properly trained and equipped to do their work and that is because of the work that so many people did. The reason i am so excited about what happened this weekend is that it is so personal for everyone across america. We have to turn this moment into a movement and we cannot do that unless they are firing at all so lenders. They are not right now, but i am confident that they will be. [applause] black lives matter. We have to accept there is prejudice in our own party. [applause] we cannot continue to hide it and we cannot smash voices down when they are trying to scream us into becoming you dont get it. I dont get it. I am pleased and honored to be here today to have a conversation. I am so excited that we are here, and im listening because that is my job, to listen. [applause] my job is to listen in and be a voice and to shut other people down when they want to interrupt. We lift people up so we all have equity in the country and we get where we are going. We have an opportunity to do something different. We have an opportunity to confront the fact we have not been in alignment with our values. We are so far out of alignment i dont even know the way back im listening and talking to people because you have to answer the you can tell me what to do. Every system in the party is designed to give power back to the people. Especially those disenfranchised since the country started. Ive been trying to connect with anybody. I am not a politician, i am a human being and i cannot get along without you all. Follow me. I depend on you and the people around the community. Wwe pull people in our voluntees and then we send them out to have conversations with people. I think i made my point. [applause] we are running short on time so now im going to have to click on answers. A show of hands in the way the party update im going to ask each of you to raise your hand if you believe philosophically it should be open. Open primary. Open to what . Being able to vote in the primary or only registered democrats vote. So open primary, closed primary. I think its up to the states. Philosophically i dont think you can have a onesizefitsall approach. We have open primaries but what happens sometimes is republicans crossover into the majority of the counties they pop up somebody and that person will know they are republican. The idea of the fear that is behind not having open primaries is because the Democratic Party hasnt done a good enough job of making people connected to the party. Thats why we have to rebuild the party not just from the grassroots up also understand the damage. If we fix the brand of the Democratic Party to the fear of the open parties would go a way thaawaybut these are the steps e to take very strategically in the sense of bringing organizing to the problem. Is there anyone that believes the Democratic Party has fallen on the voting registration without the incentive to register more democrats . Does anybody believe that . We want to register people whether they are in a closed system or not. With go to the next one on the philosophical party and which direction without a president and the white house the chair will be the most visible of National Democrat in the country. Its a question of whether the posture of the Democratic Party should be to work with President Trump where we can or fight him all the way. Start with donald trump. That is a question that is absolutely ridiculous. The committee doesnt meet with the republican president. We are about building a strong party, not taking positions andd rolls away of legislators. We know the chair and what he spent his time getting this messaging against a democratic president. If you saw the millions of people that marched in the streets this weekend and participated as a Democratic Party we have an opportunity to be that resistance. It is not about working with donald trump or his bigotry or someone that takes our healthcare a way. He will get the opportunity if we dont provide a platform for those millions of people. I have to shorten you. Very quickly. I think that we should accord donald trump the same courtesy that Mitch Mcconnell afforded barack obama. [applause] very quickly literally this is three things coming your three bullets of how you can make come true the prediction that therell be a surge of latino voters got the latino growth grows and we do not see that. Theres a lot of fear running through parts of the communities and also the american hispanic community. Three bullets points of how you increase the latino turnout. We have to have latino candidates first and foremost. We need to go and recruit candidates and make sure we are reaching into communities and recruiting them when we are hiring people and investing any kind of money into communities we need to get away from paying white workers to go out into communities of color where they dont belong and make sure that we are actually lifting people up. Organize, organize. When we organize, we succeed. We organize making sure we have people from the Community Organizing within the community. We saw in yuma arizona and find they organized we do that and reflect the community and succeed. That show is no longer the sheriff because we organized. We have to invest in the states wit where the base is growing. When even the victories are not going to be immediate he have to have the candidates and live tv to replicate to create a surge of candidates that are women, lowincome households, women of color to create a pipeline so we are bringing the candidates in the end we have to invest. Not just a little on the side to make it seem like we check off a box. We need to get the same resources the consultant scott. [applause] i agree on the pipeline in South Carolina we created a fellowship where we are training the next generation to run for the office. My goal this year is to make sure for the first time the two have a latino candidate on the ballot running in the state because we have to do that. The states where democrats control everything, the governorship and the legislatu legislature, use those as laboratories to fight back against the Justice Department and with donald trump into the Homeland Security department are going to try to do to the community in the coming years. The Democratic National committee doesnt even have a fulltime staffer. The state parties received money but are not required to have a latino outreach program. Number three come if we stop spending on Corporate Media we would have the ability to hire thousands of young latinos who would work in their own communities and get them to register. Register, organize and recruit. We dont have a lot of time if you gbutif you go to the site ae the opinion of the pharaoh platform you will see some ideas about how we can get better results than registration. Organize and that means making sure we show up in every part of the community and organize around the issues and recruit this is something im surprised hasnt come up yet im not just talking about the candidate recruitment. We started with the school board and weve got to do that for recruiting but not everybody can afford to take a semester. [applause] if its a party that people are turning out thats part of what i mean we need to invest in the media and advance the candidat candidates. We have a very powerful dnc driven texas project. There is the comprehensive Immigration Reform and empowerment. To make sure that we are not going overtime here we have two minutes. I want you guys to talk about how we diversified staffing and contracting but what would you do differently as the chair . It is a concept of multiplicity and we need to get out of the idea of affirmative action where you are checking boxes that important. I recommend having a hiring committee that has all of the different groups of people that we need to in our party so that they are making the decisions on how we go through and hire staff. Things that are worth doing are sometimes cumbersome but if we are going to be parties to give power back to people, we need to start giving those things that take a little bit more time. You need to make sure you are hiring the best and the brightest. Take a look at my track record everywhere ive gone and make sure the before you buy things you know you have a diverse cadre of folks that are out there to purchase. This job is a turnaround job at scale and it requires someone who can take the fight to donald trump and someone who can help organize and requires someone who knows how to churn around a complex organization and scale the 45 billion from 17,000 Employee Department of labor was one such example and thats what we need because we have a lot of agreement on what we need to do here. But i have been able to do is make sure we implement and thats why im out here asking for folks support. Is this our closing . It appears to be a. That is live at 9 30 eastern. Live to london for british Prime Ministers question time. Each week we bring you Prime Minister theresa may taking questions from members of the house of commons wednesday mornings on cspan2. We invite your participation using hashtag tmq. Prior to question time members finishing up other business. Live to the floor of the british house of commons. How williams i am not seeking a running commentary. A special deal with cuts, did he or she have a similar deal . I dont recognize the basis of the question. The automotive sector is exceptionally strong as a result of the missile contracts where many of these supply companies it would draw attention to the Great Success my right honorable friend, the secretary of state for defense played in bringing aspen martin to wales. It is something we