Welcome our guest tonight to the stage. Id like to take a minute to share some information about our upcoming programs. This season, we will host a number of exciting speakers and engage in conversations including february 5th a sweeping historical discussion how the right to bear arms from americas founding until today. On february 7th, a retrospective commemorating the constitutional legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia two years after his death. On february 21st, a special Members Program on the role of dissent throughout american history. On march 20th, an exclusive book launch with National ConstitutionCenter President and ceo Jeffrey Rosen on William Howard taft and of course, much more. To purchase tickets or for more details about these and other upcoming events, please visit constitution center. Org debate. If youre interested in becoming a member, visit the membership table directly outside the auditorium lobby on information how to join today. Members receive free tickets to our popular daytime programs, discounted tickets to evening events like tonight, all while directly supporting the centers nonprofit, nonpartisan mission to bring people together of all ages and perspectives to learn about debate and celebrate the u. S. Constitution. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce two great friends of the National Constitution center, Michael Nutter was elected mayor of philadelphia in 2007 and served two terms. Esquire magazine named him in 2011 to its americans of the year list and named a public official of the year by governing magazine in 2014. He is an executive fellow at Pennsylvania School of social policy and practice and a professor of practice in urban and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He joins us today to discuss his latest book mayor, the best job in politics which he will sign copies of following the discussion. Were also pleased to welcome tonights host. Mike is on cnn, a host, a New Hampshire columnist and an author. He has been an msnbc contributor and guest of hardball with Chris Mathews and prior to returning to broadcasting as a fulltime endeavor he practiced with james e beasley, the namesake of Beasley School of law at Temple University. Please join me in welcoming them. [applaus [applause] thank you so much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, mayor, good evening. Good evening, michael. Mayor, the best job in politics, why is it the best job in politics . Because you get stuff done. You can see the value and the impact of your work, you can help to change peoples lives and its a whole lot of fun. Host is it fair to say that if you had been able to master the periodic table when you were ten, you would never have pursued a career in politics . Tell the story. [laughter]. Guest its pretty likely, but there came a point where i really didnt give a damn about the table. No, i went to penn, a Biomedical Engineering major, admitted to the Engineering School. It became very clear in much like an auditorium like this, only bigger, that by mid semester, you could pretty much sit wherever you wanted and i think after pretty much failing the first three exams, it was clear that, a, i was not passing this course. B, i really didnt give a damn about the table of elements and, c, youre really not going to be a doctor in one semester. Host you had to work to get to work. Guest yeah. Host how were you able to achieve that . Well, this is being recorded, so. [laughter] respect the university of pennsylvania. No, it was a long, torturous kind of path. About 95 of that torture created by myself, by not necessarily being the most studious person, lawyers will kill me for saying that. And set up at the nightclub and probably working 60 hours a week and studying, maybe about 60 minutes. And so i tried to leave Engineering School because again, it was clear there was no future for me. And after my first semester i tried to transfer, they denied my application because i had not kept the full course load, which at the time was four courses. The Engineering School found out that i tried to transfer and said if you do that again and youre not successful, were going to kick you out of school. Okay. So then i said, okay, but i want to go to wharton and i want to take the course of study to entrepreneur management and switched to the faculty arts and sciences, and i never declared a major, but i kept taking wharton courses and saying, a, youre not a wharton students and b, you have a pretty low average and c, if you dont get yourself together, were going to kick you out of school. So i finally got more serious about my work. I did take a number of courses multiple times because i really enjoyed them. [laughter] and, so in may of 1979 i was six courses short of graduating. For some bizarre reason they actually let me walk in graduation. My mom was thrilled and my grandmother, i dont know what youre so excited about, i have to go to Summer School tomorrow, but probably, maybe kind of my First Political deal. I had an agreement with the dean of undergraduate at wharton. Look, i have six courses im not coming back in september, this is it. He said if you achieve a certain average for the six courses youll be good to go. I hit the number right on the number. And he said, well, youre in and youre out, goodbye. But its been nice knowing you. Host you mentioned a moment ago the impulse discoteque. And you write about this in the book. Did master mike learn anything from mix master mike, anything that applied to your governance . Thats possibly some of the best training and ill tell you why. At the club i met a lot of people, i shook a lot of hands, i had to remember a lot of people, and every now and then, you know, you might have to throw someone out. You know, im not like the biggest guy around so i learned some negotiating skills, some people skills on how to nicely put somebody out of a nightclub, and as mayor, you know, i met a lot of people, i shook a lot of hands. I had to remember a lot of folks, and every now and then i had to put some people out. [laughter]. Host i want to talk about some of the political battles that youve waged over the years. Lets begin with mrs. Lewinski, 282 votes to Michael Nutters 48. Who was she and what happened . So, mrs. Lewinsky was a Committee Person in the 52nd ward. I got involved with councilman john anderson, he was seeking to become ward leader in 1982 and i was in a division where they were looking for a Committee Person and i went down to Voter Registration. I was a Wharton School graduate so i was about data and information and regressive analysis and figure this thing out. And i went down to Voter Registration and because i wanted to understand the constituency. There were three apartment buildings, i lived in the cool building and the other two had most senior residents and like 1898 date of birth, 1901, 1905. So, this is very old constituency here and i was in my early 20s, and so and it was apartment buildings. And so there were days where i would literally wait until someone came out of the building and then suddenly i realized maybe i can go in this way to put stuff under peoples doors which you were not supposed to do in the first place, but she knew everyone and i know nobody, and she kicked my butt. At the Time Committee people ran every two years and now its four years. I ran again, got closer. It was clear it would take about 20, 25 years to ever beat her. She may have passed away. So, another big political decision, i moved. [laughter] its funny how you never forget the lessons from the first campaign. When i was when i was at penn law i ran for the state legislature in bucks county. I lost by 419 votes and ive since located 236 of those people. So, you get elected to city council and one of your First Initiatives, sort of ahead of your time as we live in this era of black lives matter, was the formation of the Police Advisory commission. How come . There have been a series of events prior to my time in city council, i had legitimately done a bunch of research, actually councilman anderson had looked at this issue when he was in city council in his term and it just seemed that at the time, at least, once a complaint went in, it pretty much went nowhere. Folks had lost confidence and at times credibility on investigations. Others say they had similar civilian related bodies and did the research all around the country on this issue. Put it forward, and it was controversial. The mayor at the time, mayor rendell had been a former district attorney, really hated it, like a lot. That was like september of 1992 when i introduced that legislatures and i was seven, eight months into the job freshman councilman creating this controversy. And battles back and forth and we passed that bill 116. The mayor vetoed it. But to credit ed rendell, i think he knows that i know this, so a lot of behind of scenes conversations it became clear that the mayor wanted to end the controversy and in a pretty dramatic fashion then councilman wallstrap changed his video on the override and the bill passed 125. Host im not giving away the book for free. When they get the book tonight, and id like people to buy the book on cspan. Guest id like them to buy the book. Host you express regret for your position initially on the Domestic Partnership deal. Talk about dealing with that issue in this book. So, i dont think it was very wellknown at the time, but councilman anderson was gay. This was not the totally loving, open progressive city that we are today, socially at least, in the late 70s, early 80s, but i saw and experienced in a pretty personal way the impact that his status, i guess, if you will, had politically. From time to time threats of people trying to out him, other comments that were made from time to time, and so i developed, you know, a great sensitivity to some of the challenges of folks in the lbgtq community. It got complicated because i was pushing the Police Advisory commission, at the same time councilman ortiz was pushing for Domestic Partnership. And one was against Domestic Partnership and i got caught in freshman rookie mistake not being able to separate those two things in the way that i should have based on my own perspective and feelings and i didnt do anything to undermine councilman ortiz, but personally i was not as supportive publicly as i should have been because i didnt want to jam myself up on the Police Advisory commission. And ended up not going anywhere and i made a commitment to myself in that moment that this issue was going to get resolved and i was going to be the person to do it. Host the Police Advisory commission, one example where councilman Michael Nutter was ahead of his time. As i look back at your record and look at 2000, the smoking ban, really the First Initiative on this scale and scope, was a pretty significant achievement for a still young councilman. Yeah, and as later, in my career, a lot of credit goes to, goes to our daughter, right there. She was working at a firm and did a lot of consulting and travel and rather than completely torture olivia with my cooking, i decided to take her to dinner. Actually passed that restaurant just the other day and were sitting there and you know, i always got some paper and crayons and drawing, doing that. And she observed that there was a man smoking in the restaurant and said, you know, that man is smoking, does he know thats bad for him and i said, yeah, well, thats what some people do that. She went back to drawing and she said, well, arent you with city council . What are you going to do about that . Shes five years old. Not an awful lot you can say and yes, im on city council and yes, i need to do something about it so we started that journey, and took six years to get that piece of legislation passed and it was actually one of the last bills that i voted on before resigning city council. Host Police Advisory commission, smoking ban, Campaign Finance reform, another feather in your cap. Yeah, did a lot of work in that area, but i always make it a point, the first Campaign Finance law was actually passed by councilman after the 2003 election, i think we all remember a lot of things from the 2003 election, the bug and all of that, but its also clear that there were concerns about Campaign Finance, about pay to play, about you know, how the government was functioning and operationing and so, late november, early december of 2003, the first piece of legislation came through the mayor at the time, mayor street was opposed to itment Council Passed it anyway and i subsequently did another piece with restrictions, new contracting legislation, if you did business with the city you could only give a certain amount, a whole host of things, and then subsequently the ethics board. I read every indictment that came subsequent to the 2003 election. We made numerous amendments, updated indictments that the federal government was coming forward that was in the case of ron white and corey kemp. And i think it was one of those moments where only in that kind of crisis could we have ever gotten that kind of legislation passed. People were not excited about this. We were the only place in the state that would have Campaign Finance limits, which subsequently were litigated all the way up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and we were successful. Host as you look back now at the bug, what does Michael Nutter think about the successful effort to cast that as John Ashcroft and the republicans from washington trying to dictate the outcome of a philadelphia mayoral race . Well, i mean, i think we now know that i mean, that story was a complete fabrication and totals bu bull. In the moment it worked. Many of us knew there was no way in the world that was really what was going on, but, its a heavily democratic city and folks did not like george bush, certainly didnt like John Ashcroft so there was a narrative that was ready made after they kind of, two or three days after that big explosive story, everybody was radio silent and couldnt figure out what was going on and they laid out that scenario and people bought it. Host you point out in the book, and a lot of folks forget that the margin in that cast in street two it was bigger than four years prior. I dont know if the guru of numbers, but know this well, the 99 streetcatz race i think the margin 9400 neighborhood, one of the closest in modern history, and i think the rematch, i think mayor street won by like 85,000, it was some absurd number based on this whole fiction that had been created about the republicans in washington were trying to take down the black democratic mayor of philadelphia, which would then lead to the republicans being able to win pennsylvania in 2004. That was the fundamental theory, which just made no sense whatsoever. Host summer of 2006, you resigned from council, you have your eye now set on the mayoralty. I was surprised. Maybe i knew at the time, ive forgotten, what a shoe string operation it was at the outset of your campaign. Describe it. Im not we may have borrowed some shoe strin strings. I mean, you know, so in may of 2006 we take a poll. Im still on city council and i mean, it was wellknown firm, garrett, hart and recognized pollster, and the poll said no matter who runs you cant win. Well, how much did we pay for that . [laughte [laughter] back and forth, back and forth. In the end its like what are we going to do. He said difficult not impossible. Okay. But i think at this point just kind of jump right into things, you know, you dont just decide, well, you shouldnt. You dont just decide youre going to quit your job and run for mayor, i dont know, small in a large city without a conversation with a whole lot of folks and the first one really has to be at home. You know, having support more than support, but having real support from lisa and olivia just i mean, you cant do it. So a lot of conversations about that. There was one discussion, i mean, when the final kind of decision was being made, olivia said, well, dad if this is what you really want to do, then thats what you should do and well support you. About five minutes later, she said, oh, by the way, so, you have to quit your job in city council . And i said yes. Quiet. She said, so do i need to get a job . [laughter] theres no interest like selfinterest. So, so theyre all in. You know, were starting to assembly this team and we get this office at 123 south broad street. Its about 500 square feet. Aaron is down there, and then this redhead guy comes in the office within day and i said, well, who is that . That was republic who, you know, i mean, maybe its dissipated it was clear he was not from west philly, accent. And he had come to school and somehow found his way to me, evolving politics over in u. K. And were in our little 500 square foot office, plenty of desks and suddenly people are coming to volunteer and we had the move and the operation became much bigger, no one thought we could win. Host of course, you had a secret surprise on your side. I have a video screen here for a reason. Oh. Host i hope it works. And if it