On cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listened with the cspan radio app. Next, president ial candidate cory booker participates in a forum on a forum on Civil Liberties. Hosted by the university of New Hampshires law school. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon and welcome. Good afternoon and welcome. I direct thehn and center. The Center Provides curricular, Financial Support for law students who are interested in Public Interest careers. It serves as a phase of the university here by preventing public programming like todays event. We are happy to be able to partner with the aclu of New Hampshire on this series of Civil Liberties and the presidency. It serves as the face of the university here in concord by presenting public programming such as todays event. We are happy to be able to partner with the aclu of New Hampshire with an ongoing series of Civil Liberties and the presidency. We are happy to welcome to the law school senator cory booker from the state of new jersey. Not New Hampshire. [applause] senator booker has been a senator since 2013. Before that, he was the mayor of newark, new jersey, from 2006 to 2013. He served on the council in new york. Graduate of Stanford University and yale law school. Moderating todays event will be genie from the aclu of New Hampshire. Neither the aclu New Hampshire nor the rudman center, we are both nonpartisan organizations and neither endorses political candidates. With that, please welcome senator cory booker. [applause] hello, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Sit down, for crying out loud. They have already told me to not go beyond the boundaries of the aclu sign. As a former footfall football player, whenever im stationary, i think a linebacker will hit me. I really want to get into a conversation. Understand that im here because literally, americans were really willing to stand up for the rights of people who do not necessarily look or pray like them or are even in the same geography. It was a group of activists in a small town in new jersey years ago that made this determination that black families would try to move into northern new jersey suburbs, the can for the best public schools, and they said they would stand up and fight for them. They formed a group that would do sting operations in new jersey and they would follow black families around. Away couple volunteering would say hey, i would like to buy this house. One family was mine. I was two months old in 1969. My parents were denied moving into the house i grew up in. Activists showed up and helped my family by home they were originally denied. What is amazing about the story is the light couples, papers were drawn up and on the day of the closing in the Real Estate Agent office, the white couple did not show up. My dad did, and a volunteer lawyer from that group of activists. They confronted the Real Estate Agent in his office and then he stands up and punch as my dads lawyer in the face and six a dog on my dad. Growing up in this beautiful town, in this great neighborhood, every time i dad told this story, the dog would get bigger. [laughter] my family has values that your family probably shares. I grew up in a university because of a 4. 0, 1600 receiving yards. 4. 0 for carries. I studied for oxford and law school. For my parents, that was not success. My father said life is not about degrees you get but the service you give. Running legal clinics at yale, i decided my life would be about trying to pay back all of the blessings i inherited from activists willing to stand up on the front lines, take punches, people willing to stand together for my rights. You drink deeply from wells of freedom, liberty, and opportunity. My first job, i decided to move into one of americas lowest neighborhoods. I became a tenant right lawyer and i had to pay it forward. My career began in no low Income Community fighting for america. I am the only United States senator and the only person running for this office below the poverty line. We fought and made tremendous changes. We made changes in our community. Walk around my block. I try to get reporters to do it with me all the time. Black businesses have opened. Schools are outperforming the suburbs. Are of thousands of jobs being created fighting against gentrification by doubling the production of Affordable Housing and making sure everybody has a community to live in. We are able to transform newark and outcomes people thought were not possible. Now the Number One School system in america. So many changes that when i got down to the senate, i knew what it took to make changes. It is how we made change in newark. Bring people together to stand and Work Together to understand we were all called, as king says, a that in justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. A black guy going down to the senate, the fourth ever elected in the country, i wanted to be a voice of lived experiences and start taking on the big fights that were devastating communities across this country and communities in my hometown of newark. Those were things like criminal Justice Reform, the only major bipartisan bill passed by this president was something i write i helped write. Even the things i did not get past, the dignity of women in prison, that legislation is so strong it has picked up by 10 states and passed on the state level. I have one driving concern my entire life. Will this nation lift up to all of its people and say we will be a nation of liberty and justice for all, but these words are still aspirational. I want to make one interesting point to you. Change does not come from washington but to washington. It is not like they said hey, lets give women the right to vote and then they said ok break. No. One day, came to the senate floor and said, i see the light, let those negro people have writes. No. Why do those lawyers represent black families . One night, sitting at home, march 7, 1964, the movie most americans were watching that night was judgment at nuremberg in this historic night in america. They broke away to show a bridge in alabama. The Edmund Pettus bridge. Civil rights marchers were marching, get stopped on that bridge by state troopers who would not let them pass. Then this guy on a couch in new jersey, a white man, sees them get viciously beaten. We know the day as bloody sunday. I spoke to john lewis his chief of staff today. He was on the bridge. What does one guy on a couch in new jersey do . Does he sit there and be a spectator for democracy question democracy . No. He got up on the couch, realized he could not afford a ticket, so he decides to do this Great American tradition, the best i can with what i have and where i am. Who might need some Legal Support in new jersey, a group of activists in the living room, they put together a sting operation. Four years past he said. A family coming up in the south so they cannot find housing and northern new jersey and they are being turned away. He said we represented the family and you know the two names on the case fire and i said no. He said your parents. Im literally sitting here right now because of civil rights activists that i know. I am also here now because it like i new jersey, middleclass and living comfortably, new that his freedom was intrinsically tied to the mothers of america. He stood up, and im running to be president for the United States. I could be the first descended of slaves in our country to go to the white house, built by slaves. All of these things are possible not because of who the president was her who the senators were, but because of the engagement of the citizens of this country. People understand patriotism isnt love of country. You cannot love your country if you do not love the men and women of your country. Not sentimentality, love is sacrifice. Service. When great activists said, what is love look like in public . It looks like justice. Thank you for being hit today so we can have a conversation about justice. [applause] thank you. We will get started with a q a. Me having the privilege of asking questions and taking questions from the audience. Well start with a question, our criminal Justice Reform and race. We have an inherently unjust criminal system in this country where too often, your experience of the system is based on the color of your skin and your income level, as opposed to what we have an inherently unjust have long experiences. This issue you bring up, criminal Justice Reform, is not just a tavon my website. It is my lifes effort. I started in law school when a crime bill passed. I knew it would lead to from the time i was in law school to newark, this nation was building a new prison or jail every 10 days. This is not just Racial Disparity and incarceration. This is the new jim crow. It has literally devastated american communities. At villanova, they did a study that shows we have 20 less poverty if our incarceration rates were the same as industrial peers. What should offend all of us is, i went to college and saw a lot of people using drugs. I know, not here this law school, but there is a different standard for different people. There is a no difference, blacks, whites, using and dealing drugs, but if youre black, you are almost four times as likely to be incarcerated for it. If you say that we do not incarcerate people for marijuana usage anymore, and 2017, there were more marijuana arrest than all Violent Crimes combined. Its a lifetime sentence. You may not serve jail time, but now you cannot get a job or a loan from the bank. Your life and economic outcomes have changed. If you have children, their lives are changed forever. We now have more africanamericans because of mass incarceration. More africanamericans under criminal supervision of his country than all the slaves in 1850. Before i talk to you, about what i will do as president , this will be a fight. In every level of my career, we talk about being in reforms and making big changes. This is not a side issue for me. And the mass incarceration, i will do everything my power to tear down the system and end Racial Disparity come all the best disparity, not just incarceration but the things that lead to incarcerations. We have systems of suspension in our schools that were the same exact infractions, African American boys and girls are so much more likely to have out of School Suspensions which are correlated with challenges with police. We have a Racial Disparity from environmental injustice, housing injustices, Racial Disparities in housing that all lead to massive disparities and it has to stop. My career has been based upon this. More than a dozen pieces of legislation i have been pushing a moving as you United States senator speak to that. When i am president of the United States, we have seen other president s line up with new visions of, tough on crime, hiring police, all of that stuff that over incarcerate our country. I will be one of the legacies, one of my legacies will be ending mass incarceration, not a punitive Justice System but restorative Justice System. I will press you on a couple of specifics there. Legalizing cannabis . There is able in the senate called the marijuana justice act. I wrote it and lead it. Please do not talk about legalizing marijuana, if not in the same paragraph, you do not talk about expunging peoples record. [applause] im a guy who never drank alcohol. My bill involves im in law school, lets be specific. These schedule lysing marijuana and calling for a number of other things. Expunging records. Holding states accountable. State laws. I believe, fundamentally, that states legalizing marijuana should not exclude people from getting contracts to sellers. This is an industry that is overwhelmingly white. A lot of folks convicted for doing things that two of the last three president s admitted to doing, cannot even get business opportunities. It is called the marijuana justice bill because it is a lot bigger than legalizing cannabis. Many of the people incarcerated in this country are incarcerated in state prisons and state jails. There is a question of how much the president can actually do to end mass incarceration. Howd you incentivize the states to take action . I know you believe that Substance Abuse disorders are medical issues and should be treated medically instead of through incarceration. How do you incentivize states to adopt the same philosophy . You know that one thing that drove mass incarceration was federal policy , to change mandatory minimums, and gave the money needed to build more prisons. We make massive amounts of dollars available to the states that we are changing criminal Justice Systems and locking people up. I was the mayor of a city with complicated challenges. We know there are streams of funding. Thank you. [laughter] the casualty of this campaign for me is always my voice. Now i can talk with my inside voice. There are streams of income we can now withhold from states that are not doing productive things. My Justice Department, i view them in my civil rights division, i will view them the same way Johnson Administration and the Kennedy Administration did. Making sure the ideals of our country. If you have Racial Disparities and incarceration, they are our there are fundamental problems with that. In the same way the Obama Administration, use the Justice Department to investigate disparities in policing. North new jersey, and i was a black mayor the data analyses, they showed us we have massive disparities in the stats we were doing against lack and brown people. In the same way the Obama Administration was leaning into the account buddy of policeman, they help cities like mine do a better job. We need to do better on disparities and incarceration, education, and the treatment of lgbtq americans. Many states have savage inequality on race, orientation, and even religion that have to be addressed. We will go to the audience. I grew up in melbourne. [inaudible] on a serious nature, the Current Administration is to do everything they can to drive wedges between all of the minorities in the country, black communities, brown committees, hispanic communities, Southeast Asia and communities, and muslim committees. There is a huge increase in hate crimes across the country, including just last week at a rabbis home during the celebration of hanukkah, a celebration a lot of time when oppressed people fought back and won. I am curious what strategies you can do to reunite yourself when they are afraid to speak up when theyre on their own, but realize we can overcome and that is the most critical part. Anyone from new jersey quoting star wars. Thank you. As a scifi fanatic. One of the things making fear in jacked into our society. We have become a more fearbased culture because of a president from his immigration policies, striking fear to immigrant committees, all the way to even condemning nazis. Since 9 11, there have been more terrorist attacks driven by rightwing extremists and the majority of those happen of white supremacists. One thing, if im president of the United States, im commanderinchief. Martin with her king said i cannot legislate you to love me but i can pass rules to stop you from lynching me. I cannot have lost to change her heart, but i can pass laws that can restrain the heartless. We can do a lot more to naming and acknowledging white supremacy, naming and technology and decent antisemitic violence, naming analogy and he islamic violence, and support it before it happens and better do the things we know and researchers know can diffuse these things before they rise up into violent acts. Number two is the energy you are putting out in the overall oval office. This president now is using their platforms to divide the nation against itself, to try and pit americans against americans. You may not want this as president , but i hope you will support me if you do. So much is about policy issues but the thrust of my campaign is creating conditions necessary to make the policy change is possible. It means to stop hate in this country, where we go home from the holiday for the holidays and cannot sit with family members because of the tribalism in our country and the 60 Million People who voted for donald trump are not our enemy. I want to put Mitch Mcconnell back in the back benches, i will do everything i can to make sure that happens. It does not happen by being like the very people we are trying to get out of office. [applause] im running for a town hall in iowa, im a big guy, a former allamerican football player. The older i get, the better it was. The big i stop me and puts his arm around me and says dude, want you to punch donald trump in the face and i look at him and say, dude, that is a felony. We black guys do not get away with that much. We beat him because activism called to the best of who we are and inspired people in birmingham, when king wrote those letters, he did not write t