The city council at age 26, the youngest in that citys history and became mayor at 35 and the youngest mayor of a top 50 city in the United States. In 2012, he gave the keynote at the Democratic National convention, the same speech that put barack obama on the national map eight years earlier, and in 2014, president obama asked him to serve as secretary of housing and urban development, a department with a 48 billion budget and 8,000 employees that worked to expand housing opportunities for americans. As a candidate for president , Julian Castro has focused on the needs of the most vulnerable, been a leader in the field on policy, and taken bold positions, including the role of iowa and New Hampshire in our nominating process, which brings us here tonight. Last month he made news by being the first candidate to say out loud that iowa and New Hampshire should not go first, sparking a national debate. And he purposely made that statement in iowa and wanted to come here and talk with iowans directly on why he stands by those comments. So im pleased to welcome secretary Julian Castro. [applause] a few words about the format. I am going to ask a few questions first and then well open up the floor. I have not shared the questions im going to ask with secretary castro or anyone associated with his campaign and neither i nor secretary castro knows who in the audience is a supporter or opponent, we dont know what questions anybody will be asking. So the floor is really open and were hoping to have a Frank Exchange of ideas. My first question is the you know, iowa is a small state and a state thats relatively inexpensive to campaign in and doesnt it kind of make sense, in a sense, to have a small state go first so that as the nominating process is pretty open and not just to the frontrunners who can raise a lot of money . Mr. Castro first of all, thank you very much, laura, for moderating tonights event and thank you to everybody for being here. Its great to see folks who are out here vetting the candidates as we head toward the iowa caucus, which is only eight weeks away, which ive said is always eight lifetimes in politics. If i can, let me just start off by, as i see it, why were here tonight. For those of you all who have been following the campaign, weve been marching to the beat of our own drum. Weve been doing things a little bit differently from the other campaigns. I have been speaking through and speaking truth and standing up for the most Vulnerable People in our country. I was the first to put out an immigration plan, to say that Donald Trumps cruelty doesnt represent who we should be as americans. Ive been fighting so that we can reform our policing system in this country, even though most candidates wont touch that. Ive visited a trailer park in waukee, iowa several months ago to talk to folks like matt chapman, who i think is here tonight, after they got a letter from a private equity group that had bought out the trailer park and all of a sudden, the residents got their rents raised more than 60 , including arletta swain, who lived there four decades. I stood up and put forward a plan to make sure that we eliminate lead as a major Health Threat in our nation after what we saw in flint and other places across the country. And i am the only candidate to put a plan forward to revamp our nations foster care system, because too many young people who end up in our foster care system never get to graduate from high school or end up dont geted, they to reach their dreams. And i see what we are doing here tonight is keeping with two parts of this campaign, number one, telling the you truth at a time when you have a president who wont. And then secondly, standing up for those who are often left out, those who are cast aside. Im going to tell the truth. Its time for the Democratic Party to change the way that we do our president ial nominating process and were going to have a conversation about that tonight. Part of the reason for that is that i dont believe that the two states that begin the process, iowa and New Hampshire, are reflective of the diversity of our country or of our party. Now, the iowa caucus has existed as the first chance for people to vote since 1972. Our country has changed a lot since 1972. Our party has changed a lot since 1972. Its difficult, i think, impossible for us to tell black women, for instance, that were relying on them to help us win in 2020 after theyve helped us so well in louisiana and alabama and other places, and then start in two states that hardly have any africanamericans at all. To answer your question, laura, there are some good things about iowa and also New Hampshire. One of those things is that compared to having to campaign in a state like california or my home state of texas, it is less expensive to do that here, right . You have less media markets, you have less ground to cover, and so theres certainly some advantages to starting off in iowa and New Hampshire. At the same time, some of those advantages, for instance, the media markets, they get washed out because everybody raises their rates for advertising, you know, in iowa and New Hampshire. And so it becomes almost as expensive to campaign in these states as a bigger state simply because of the economics of advertising, the cost of that. Also, there are different ways to think about the fact that you have a smaller state, but states with a lot less density than other states, right . For instance, i imagine we have people in the room who have been part of campaigning. One of the easy things to do in an urban environment is block walking, canvassing. Door to door canvassing. There are relatively few parts of iowa where it is easy to cover a lot of ground in block walking or doortodoor canvassing compared to other places in the country. And so one of the things i have pointed out, for instance, is as we look at other states to consider to go first, we should look at the urban to rural sort of mix, right . And pick a state that has had a good rural to urban mix. I think in iowa that it actually tends to tilt toward a more rural state and the same thing in New Hampshire. You have one city, manchester, that is basically close to boston. The biggest city in the state. I actually think that we can find places that represent that balance of urban and rural better than these two states. Laura i have been writing about i have been speaking about the Iowa Caucuses on my website, and sometimes say being an iowan , democrat who criticizes the caucus is how to not have friends and not influence people. [laughter] laura you took it a step further for saying iowa shouldnt be first and i commend you for coming here and talking to us about that. When ive had conversations about deficiencies in iowa deficiencies in the Iowa Caucuses with people, the first thing they say is this is the state that launched barack obama to the nomination in 2008, so doesnt it show that even an overwhelmingly white state can give a fair shake to people of color and candidates of color . Mr. Castro people make a good point. Barack obama won here in 2008, but we know that whether were dealing with the president ial nominating process or anything else in life, right, one time, one exception does not prove the rule on anything and ive been surprised at how many people have thrown away their logic when they argue this. Right . Sure, barack obama won here, but i think its also true that neither New Hampshire or iowa have ever sent a person of color to represent them in the United States senate, for instance, the idea is not that it can never that it is a lot harder and makes it more difficult because the diversity thats represented in a lot of other parts of the country is not represented here. The other point that ive made very clearly is its not just about racial and ethnic diversities. The iowa caucus, as you and others have pointed out, is not set up to be very voter friendly. What if i told you, what if we didnt know about the iowa caucus and told you this is the way voting is going to be set up theres no early voting, you can only vote at one time at 7 00 on one night, if youre disabled or a shift worker and its hard to get there at that time, hey, you cant vote by mail, you cant absentee vote. Thats the only time that you can vote. You would probably think that the republicans came up with that system of voting. [laughter] mr. Castro you would say forget it, these republicans are out to get us again, they are about suppressing certain votes of people with disabilities or shift workers. That is what they have done and we have criticized them for that kind of activity. We have to take a look at our own house, and my point has been we can construct our president ial nominating process in a way that actually represents our values. Whether we are going to live by our values as democrats to encourage more voting instead of limiting that voting. Even though weve had one exception in terms of a person of color getting elected, that doesnt mean that it doesnt make it harder for other candidates of color to get elected, and very importantly, for communities of color to elect their first choice candidate as well. Its not only about the candidates, its about the communities as theyre represented and who they get to actually vote. And the consequence of that is that a lot of momentum is created by what happens here in iowa. So that means that when we do get to the most diverse states after iowa and New Hampshire, that those states actually have less people to choose from. Youve already seen some candidates drop out of this race because of how theyre doing largely in these two early states. You may well see more people drop out of the race. You certainly see people drop out of the race after Iowa Caucuses. That means that so what if we have a nevada and you have a South Carolina, if you have california and texas on super tuesday . Theyre not getting the same slate of candidates that iowa gets and that New Hampshire even gets. That makes a difference. Thats one of the reasons we need to reorder the schedule. Laura that leads into the last question im going to ask before turning it over to the audience members. The question of the barriers to participating in the caucuses, its a huge issue that you raised. Shift workers, care givers, people with disabilities. And i was very excited earlier this year when the iowa Democratic Party came up with a proposal for a virtual caucus where there would have been six windows for people to call in during the week before and i thought, i expected tens of thousands of people to participate that way. As we know, the Democratic National committee determined that that was not going to be secure and you were the first candidate to release a statement when that happened and you said that it was an affront to the principles of our democracy for the dnc not to allow the virtual caucus to go forward. I was also very disappointed by that. But maggie kirtz published an article at 538 shortly after that where she quoted Cyber Security experts said it would have been an absolute hacking nightmare for people calling in and registering their votes. Is that a fair criticism when we know foreign governments are trying to influence our elections, is it worth the risk to make caucuses available to people by phone . Mr. Castro of course its a fair criticism and we know that russia as well as others may be trying to influence our elections, but principally russia. Of course concerns about cybersecurity are valid. My disappointment with what happened with that plan, the virtual caucus plan, is it seemed like there was a lack of coordination. I know i give a lot of credit to the iowa Democratic Party, theyre fantastically organized and i have no complaints. This is maybe one of the best organized democratic parties of any of the states in our union, as you can imagine why. Because everybody takes it as they should so seriously, they invest time and energy and resources. But it was clear at the end that something happened there with the Democratic National committee and they had originally seemed to indicate that they would accept that virtual caucus plan and then they rejected it. The concern that they gave for Cyber Security is understandable, but my frustration was, hey, well, why wasnt this worked out ahead of time and why are we finding out when its too late to go back and do anything about it to fix it . And then they came back with a plan to do satellite caucus locations and i understand that in a couple of weeks, or a week or so, were going to find out what the satellite locations are. But even that doesnt match the will ability that people need to be able to vote in another way at another time. You need to, in the least, the iowa caucus needs to open up the ability of people to participate at different times and essentially to have an early voting component to it and not make people show up in one place at one time and by the way, without a secret ballot. Theres no secret ballot. That means that, lets say that youre an employee and you show up and your supervisor is there at the same caucus or the owner of your business if you work for a small business. And you know, how do you feel if that person is passionate about a candidate and theyre saying, hey, come over here with me, you know . Because you all have been to the caucuses, you know how it is viewed people are how it is. People are trying to convince one another to caucus for their candidate. There are different concerns that ive had and i had hoped that the virtual caucus would also allow, frankly, mixed status families who may have one undocumented immigrant who lives in that house, but they also have folks who are able to vote, especially in the latino and asianamerican community in this state, and i would hope that would take their Blood Pressure down and make people more willing to participate in the process. Because youve got a lot of folks out there right now that dont want anything to do with anything that seems like the government or that theyre going to be, you know, have to provide their or show up in front of everybody. So the more that you can provide the intimacy of a secret ballot and their ability to participate that way, the more likely theyll be to show up during this trump era especially. The virtual caucus would have been better than the traditional caucus at that and we dont have that. Laura regarding the satellite caucuses, the iowa Democratic Party told me today that 173 applications were submitted for satellite caucuses and those will have to take place at 7 00 p. M. On monday, february 3 and the committee hasnt met yet to go through those applications and sort them out. In any case, i think its clear that a lot more people would have been able to participate in a virtual caucus. So now well go to questions. Please try to keep it brief so we can get to a lot of questions, were hoping. Over there. Well, first of all, thank you, secretary castro, for showing up tonight. Honored to ask this question to you. What do you believe is the most effective and cost efficient method of getting underrepresented communities to register to vote . Mr. Castro thank you very much for the question. I actually believe that the states that have done automatic Voter Registration is the best way to get voters registered to vote. [applause] mr. Castro we have a number of states that do automatic registration. When somebody turns 18, they do not have to register to vote. They dont have to fill out a card or go online. We can accomplish that. Florida and california have already done that. And we pair it with preregistration so that people who are juniors and seniors in high school are able to preregister, so theyre already in the mode of getting ready, getting prepared to become voters when they turn 18. I think if we do that, then what youre going to have is at least youll have communities that often have not registered, automatically registered and then you just have to concern yourself, whether you are republican, democrat or independent, with turning those people out instead of also getting them registered to vote. As far as i understand it about automatic Voter Registration, generally that is if you go to get a drivers license or some other government office. Its not they automatically register every person in the state, you know, once they turn 18. Mr. Castro yeah, i think that there are a range of different ways of automatic Voter Registration, with the most progressive ones being when people turn 18. But even if you do it for somebody when they get their drivers license, that they automatically register when they get that drivers license, thats still registering a lot more people than the number of people who are registered in most states in this country. So, i believe that we need to move in that direction of automatic Voter Registration and like i said, a preregistration. In the years to come i think that we should move the voting age down to 17. Because the problem that we have right now is when somebody is 18, when you think about it, theyre kind of in a time of transition. Usually they have just graduated from high school when they are 18. If you have just graduated from high school youre in the working world, at college, university, or sometimes in the military. And thats a time where youre doing something new. A lot of people have left home, right . Theyre not tied to the same social structure that they are used to when theyre a senior in high school. If you allow them to get registered at 17, you can use the fact that theyre part of our Education System to create that spark of enthusiasm for actually participating and voting, because even though people get registered, even when they get registered at 18 today, as you all kno