Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings June 22, 2024

Followed. An agency that over the past several years has been mired in a tory us gridlock. Theyve had difficulty really agreeing on anything of great subs. Substance. As a result, many of these areas that we are talking about are very fuzzy. Court nations, Nonprofit Organizations and whether they can spend as much money as they want to on politics coordinations, Nonprofit Organizations and whether they can spend as much money as they want to on. Many of these issues are being punted. Agencies cannot agree on it. They will be weighing in in 2016 which leaves everything up in the air on these specific questions. Host for the radio listeners we showed a headline to one of Dave Levinthals recent stories about gridlocked elections watchdogs. Questions about these Campaign Reports . Time to call in in general. Democratic line, st. Louis missouri, good morning. Caller good morning. Mr. Leventhal, this is a hypothetical question. If you were to add up all the money that was spent on campaigns, president ial on down to state legislatures, over 10 years what kind of figure of money with that be . Guest the caller is going to challenge my math at 930 in the morning. 9 30 in the morning. I can tell you this, without penciling it out in full, you would be talking about tens and tens of aliens of dollars. Tens and tens of billions of dollars. President ial, Congressional Elections easily exceeded 5 billion in 2012. In 2016 that is likely, almost certainly going to well exceed that figure. That does not include state races. That is not include mayoral races. If you go back over 10 years you can see from these examples how this money is going to add up very quickly. Some people will make the case that all right, that seems like a huge number, but look at the operations with advertising budgets and spend millions, even billions over a long. Of time to promote their products. Long period of time to promote their products. What is so bad about these candidates getting their message out . A fair thing to debate. We have this wonderful thing called the const duchenne, it has a First Amendment that gives us a right to speech. Free speech is one of the most revered aspects. You can talk about what you want to do is a candidate. You can tell the public what you think is right and what you think is wrong. I dont think you will get an argument from anyone that the candidates do not have the right to get this message out . All right, can you use unlimited amounts of money to do it. Can you be somebody who does not revealed to the public that you are funding massive campaigns to support or oppose, to promote or teardown a certain candidate and effectively operate in the shadows while you do this . These are some of the big legalistic kinds of questions. Even some people would consider it moral questions, as we do this most public of things sending people to washington to represent us in the halls of power. Host mary, republican line good morning. Caller im curious to know who finances the center for public integrity. I just googled it and i found the two names that jumped out at me george soros and arianna huffington. Can you explain why you have support from such a leftwing force . Guest sure. I am not involved in the financing of the center. Im a journalist. I can definitely say that if you go to our website we have a list of numerous funders, some of whom are conservative, some of whom are liberal who support our work. We are an investigative News Organization and we take money from any source, foundations primarily, and individuals who want to support our work. We would encourage anyone regardless of political persuasion to look at the work that we do, judge it for themselves, and support it if theyd like to. Host can you tell us about where you worked before you came to washington . Guest seven years at the Dallas Morning News before politico. And then before that the mighty eagle tribune come tribune, covering mighty New Hampshire politics. Host as you said, Dave Levinthal, a man who knows Campaign Finance inside and out. We have about 10 minutes left rear questions. Robert, line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Host go ahead, robert. You are on with Dave Levinthal caller Dave Levinthal. Caller what would you think if donald trump dropped out of the race . What if he ran as an independent . How would that affect the election . Guest republicans do not know what to do with donald trump right now. Some of them do, those are the ones who are supporting him, thinking that he is the ultimate anticandidate candidate. Someone who is going to breathe life into the Republican Party that they year has feared too far to the right or the left or lost its compass. Lots of reasons why lots of people are supporting all of these. Candidate. Dachshund. Myriad candidates. If he did not win in the republican primary season, to pull a ross wrote in 19 ross perot and run as an independent. Even start his own party. Who really knows what donald trump is going to do. He is someone who is a total ex factor in his race right now and as a result is causing a lot of const or nation among republicans. Certainly the other candidates running the nomination. And the party brass, who are concerned about many of the comments hes making. Most recently one was very critical of john mccains military record. Donald trump is in this election and he is probably here to say. As a result, this notion of him breaking off . He could run his own campaign for sure. He has the money to do it. Whether he has 4 billion, 10 billion, 6 billion. Host how much money could he put in . Guest as much money as he wanted to from his own pocket. If you wanted to be selffunded like ross perot did he would have the ability to do that. This is somebody where money is not a concern for him. Support would be another thing. It goes back to that notion that if you have a lot of people donating to your campaign, its more than just money you can use. Its an investment that people are making to support you. Whether donald trump gets that is very unclear but he definitely has the requisite amount of money to run his own campaign, if hes going to spend his way to do it. You can be a billionaire, but when you are talking about billion dollar campaigns he will have to pony up a lot of his own resources. Host good morning tom republican line, louisville. Caller im wondering how much of the Actual Campaign money is spent to continue illegal immigration. I guess the simple fact here in kentucky california has got at least nine representatives that do not represent citizens. They are actually representing illegal immigrants. I know in texas the Supreme Court was going to look at the fact that republicans were redistricting so that they could take advantage of those illegal immigrants. To me that is probably the biggest in going on that you hear nothing about. What would you have to say about that . Guest in a campaign sense it is difficult to quantify how much money in a campaign is going to a specific issue, like illegal immigration or any other issue, for that matter. What i know is this. In the past we have seen some candidates spend a good chunk of their money and resources on messages, on advertisements or Promotional Materials that did talk about the issue of illegal immigration. We havent talking about super pacs and outside groups a lot. Some of those organizations also talk about immigration to a pretty strong degree. They cast those messages and advertisements in the light of what those candidates have done, what their record is. As you will see with other issues as well. While i cannot give the caller a specific figure, you connect spect that certainly on the republican side during the primary that areas antedates are going to be a various candidates are going to be talking about this issue and expecting to say a decent amount and spend on that issue as well. It will definitely be in the mix. Host just a couple of minutes left. Tom, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, democratic line, good morning. Caller all of the money they are spending on these elections is at seen. Let me tell you Something Else. When george bush, the dad, became president , one of the first things he said was we are going to have a new world order. Peace, prosperity, partnership. One nation. Thats what the democrats are doing two. Im a democrat. Between hillary and bush . I cannot vote. Another thing. The black population of this country, between 18 and 30, is over 22 , yet we are taking in all of these immigrants. All of these immigrants. Its awful. Host lets see of we can get in dave, california. Caller i wanted to ask we spent all of this money, billions of dollars on and pains in the. We dont have no money here. That seems pretty greedy to me. I just wondered, if it seems like the Election Officials are just in bought. People are always talking about immigration. They can solve immigration in a minute to what the president of the United States says. They dont want to do that. They want people to come here and work for two dollars per hour. Cheap labor. Thats the only thing. Build a fence, built 10 fences, it wouldnt do any good. If they want to solve a problem when an employee target people illegally, he will go to jail and that solves the problem right there. Host what are we looking for when are we looking at the next Campaign Finance numbers coming out . Guest potentially you will have a new set of numbers coming out in october for the candidates themselves. What we will get our first look at what the super pacs who are supporting the candidates are raising. Just at the end of this month we will be reporting on that as well. The last caller brought up an interesting point as well why are we in this situation in the first place . Why can we not change it . In short you have the players also serving as the referees. Neither the democrats nor the republicans want to give the other side and advantage, which is why it is so difficult to get reform or change on the Campaign Finance and passed into law. End passed into law. Host ck. We will have live coverage at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. A russian on synthetic and designer drugs, including legalizing the drugs. This is one hour and a half. [inaudible] good afternoon. We have Foreign Policy studies here at the Cato Institute and i want to thank you for being here. Thank you especially to those of you watching online. The topic today is extremely timely, News Organizations as recently as yesterday in the Washington Post has talked about the proliferation of synthetic or designer drugs that produce psychological and mind altering effects policymakers have really scrambled to outlaw substances that can regain legal status with a modest change in chemical make up. Some of those masquerade as such innocuous products as air fresheners or potpourri. The question we are debating is can these new mind altering substances be outlawed without resorting to tortured legal rationales . Are there alternatives to a prohibitionist strategy or could policymakers better promote Public Safety by requiring strict production standards but not attempting to ban their use . In this recent analysis for those of you watching this is also available online, this new study examines the issues that we will be talking about today and im pleased to welcome him here his remarks will be followed by eric sterling and jacob hornberger. A few words about my friends and mentor ted. Ted is a senior fellow for defense here he served as the director of foreignpolicy in 1995 and is Vice President for defense and Foreign Policy studies from 1995 through 2011. This includes the fire next door, mexicos drug violence and danger to america and bad neighbor policy and those are directly relevant to this topic more probably toward a prudent Foreign Policy for america. He is a contributing editor and serves on the editorial boards and is the author of more than 600 authors and policy studies and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, wall street journal los angeles times, foreign affairs, and many others. He is a frequent guest not just here in the United States but also in europe and east asia and elsewhere. And with that i introduce you. Thank you very much. It is certainly correct that this is a timely topic and it seems like every time you make turnarounds there is a major news article about synthetic drugs and the alleged threat to Public Health and safety in my study focuses on designer drugs which is a subset of artificial substances that mimic the effects of traditional mind altering drugs. They had been around for a number of decades and we are certainly familiar with the methamphetamine phenomenon which has been around for longer than three decades. If you go back to the 1960s over the use of lsd this is not a new issue per se. But what we have seen in the past five years or so is a new family of synthetic drugs and those are the ones that i call designer drugs and there are two major categories and one synthetic marijuana often chose high the name of spies or k2 and bath salts that mimic the effects of cocaine and also flakka is probably the best known of that category. As is indicated a lot of the designer drugs are marketed as perfectly legal substances, everything from this to pet food, most of the substances are labeled not for human consumption. Lets just say that people have disregarded those warning labels with a vengeance and the increased use of designer drugs most of those are coming from production site either in mexico or suburban sites in china and then shipped over to the United States and other markets. As the levels have risen the news media stories have also surged often with headlines about the dire threat to Public Health and safety. Theres no question that there has been a surge of use in designer drugs. Just accessing the data to Emergency Rooms will show that there has been a tremendous surge over the last five or six or seven years and that the drug prohibition argued that this poses an especially serious threat to children. The official of the Drug Enforcement Administration Says that the biggest population are 12 to 17yearolds. The rationale is because these drugs until recently have had an aura of legality and that they were very easy to get and children were prone to use them. I was extremely skeptical about that argument. Children and usually by that we are talking about teenagers have had very little trouble getting access to explicitly illegal substances over the years. I assure you within 15 to 30 minutes you will know who the local drug dealers are and the students know who they are and they can refer you very easily. Many of us can testify for personal experience that it was never difficult to get our hands on liquor even though theoretically we were barred from access to such dunces until the age of 21 years old. I can testify my own experience that i drank more from the ages of 15 to 21 then i have since that time. Easy access argument falls apart pretty easily. What about that most users are designer drugs are 12 to 17yearolds. Well, again we dont have great data on this as of yet. But it pertinent to note that the druggies generally is a special menace to children and a common theme of prohibitionist for decades. And yet the Mental Health Services Administration confirmed the findings of earlier surveys that the use of marijuana and other Illegal Drugs is predominately an adult vice. Well in excess of 80 of users over the age of 18. And there is very little preliminary as it is indicated that this is different than those substances. They dont seem all that popular among teenagers to begin with. Natural marijuana is still by far their drug of choice and the university of michigan monitoring the future study in 2014 found that some 35 of High School Seniors reported using marijuana during the Previous Year and that figure has been remarkably studied over the past two decades. Its a personal thing with me and i get annoyed every time i hear teenagers and especially those in their late teenagers described as children. High School Seniors are either already adult or already 18 years old, or they are 17yearolds on a sharp threshold of adulthood and we want to keep that into perspective. Moreover if we look at drug use among teenagers the synthetic drug issue is not all that big and figures from the 2014 unit of university of michigan study found that the use of marijuana actually declined steadily among all surveyed from 2010 and among 10th graders, reported use from the previous 12 months is the synthetic marijuana it went from 11. 4 less than 6 and this is not a system with a very of an epidemic. We have no chance. What do we do, ignore the problem . There are things we can do. Thethe goal should be to channel the trade every substance as well as other current illicit drugs and illegal channels come into the hands of reputable businesses which means requiring standards for labeling and dosage so that customers no what there getting. And then as citizens of a free society they get to make there own decisions. People see a percentage of the population has a great desire to get high one way or the other. People have been sniffing glue and paint thinner for decades. We are not about out those substances. It would not be effective if we tried. Again the focus ought to be on

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