Cente center. A round of applause with that mandate mission with those duties ahead of us with the National Constitution center is the only institution in america started by congress to disseminate information about the u. S. Constitution on a non partisan basis. Beautiful. That sounded great. [applause] there is no more important than to disseminate the most important ideas and we have several upcoming programs including december 2nd we will host and then arrange legislators and scholars for that impeachment process. That Historical Perspective is called the girl in the picture remembering vietnam with the activist of a child who was mobilized in the napalm photo remember her running down the street that the prophet and composer rich mann wrote and it should be an extraordinary evening. Now we will start a very special program. Now they dont represent us reclaiming their democracy. Now one of the most important constitution theory and has a new book how to interpret the constitution and at the same time and of this constitutional reform that brings them together and this is the first stop on his book tour i am so honored he would be here. [applause] and after we talk about his great new book i will bring into distinguished interlocutors to join us on the question if we need a Constitutional Convention of the different reform the chairman of the us has term limits working to establish term limits at all levels and to have ideas and then daniel has just written a very powerful article to change the composition of the Supreme Court and then in st. Louis and then to be published in the law journal please welcome. [applause] and with an apology talking about the importance of Campaign Finance reform its part of a larger problem of a larger representative. But i dont feel that i have been disciplined enough to talk about this in a way to get all americans in the conversation and in a way that speaks so talk about money and politics part two trigger for many people and it is a dividing discourse. So i actually believe the kind of enthusiasm you demonstrated and to be so excited this is a nonpartisan effort and it ends with the stories of these Reform Efforts that have a single central rule partisan politics is part of the conversation so a twentysomething if anybody is interested to work on gerrymandering from michigan. And then collected 400,000 signatures and in that effort that never can you say democrat or republican and inspire people to want to be a part of this movement and we all embrace that with a deep desire without the hate and the division that defines politics right now so that is the motivation so what i was really upset about is that it is one example the way we allow the Representative Democracy that many conservatives will tell you we have a republic but to be representative of democracy the thing about a Representative Democracy is supposed to be representative. So the fact you are white doesnt mean you have more power but we have allowed the system of democracy to eve all on many dimensions so its the most obvious. Thirty and 70 percent raising money to fund their campaign but theyre not raising money from the average person but from the tiniest fraction of 1 percent to 150,000 americans that is the obvious that we like to focus on. That gerrymandering is a way to render us an equal with members of congress. Congress is divided into districts with the objection to create state seats in the district you know if you are representative youre not worried about a party from the other side that you are to be my somebody in your primary. With the more extreme versions of the people they are challenging. If you are a democrat even more Leftwing Democrat which means so thats constantly focusing to the extremes the extremist have enormous influence way beyond their numbers if you think about representative. We have the suppression of the United States of america elects the president must not true we have delegated the election to swing state america. The 14 states that is close enough to go either way like pennsylvania that is what alexei president in 201699 percent 99 percent was done of campaigning so these are the only states they care about with the regulatory policy you are happier than those out there and then when trump came to office immediately and in the offshore drilling ban. But who cares about new jersey it solidly blue. Will never matter for a president ial election but florida is a critical swing state but the thing about swing states you are decent citizens i come from pennsylvania. But in general they dont represent america industry is not cuttingedge. But they shouldnt be represented more. So add these altogether on any number of dimensions to build a Representative Democracy that does not represent us. Sometimes it benefits the rich and gerrymandering and the swing stators Electoral College and to those out of pattern power but the point is the Representative Democracy to be equally represented thats the core reform. Spirit the constitutional theory book of new understandings so what degree did the framers anticipate what the current unRepresentative Democracy of the hopes in the framers . And as the great compromise but also wilson that was a terrible compromise. And then equal representation. Men it doesnt make sense to have a branch that is representative and this is a moment in the constitutional history with Representative Governments are familiar to have the crown and not think of the constitution in the same way to represent the aristocracy. And the challenge for us is to figure out what we understand because as much as they took seriously the senate representing states they are appointed by the state legislators we dont have senators appointed by state legislatures anymore they are appointed by asset the election. The gap between big states and small states is humongous compared to them now the difference between california and wyoming is 70 one so the unrepresentative caused his massive and huge so i acknowledge if you look at Representative Government to both branches that we have a real compromise in the context of the senate and then to explicitly that there would be two senators from every state that they are said to be and amendable with the slave trade in 18 oh eight and the other was at requires equal representation in the senate and of those can change without changing article five so what can we do to change the way the senate works to get as close to representative as we can and if we can solve all these other problems in this Representative Democracy. And that the institutions are failing they did not anticipate their failing to represent with those thoughtful views of the moderate majority and to be polarized and critical if we the people and failing to educate ourselves over constitutional issues the way they anticipated and also the fractured media landscape tell us how citizens are failing. The congregation of the National Constitution center doesnt recognize this but not everybody focuses on these issues as you might be. Part of the reason this is such a problem is a unappreciated coincidence so the familiar thing with the 20th century is the explosion of broadcasting and we have a period of time where people refer to as the. A broadcast democracy. When america is focused, all of us on the same sources every single day the same time every day is the news that is delivered to us in the relatively middle of the roadway you cannot help but be exposed and you are exposed to the same story. That. From 1950 to 85 for us defines our conception of what american democracy is the something happens during this period also polling captures the National Imagination with fdr with the straw Poll Technology and said they would beat fdr i can talk to a thousand people not only will they lose by a lot but by how much you can lose everybody laughed but of course when roosevelt won the largest majority of any contacted elections in history people were convinced it was because of technology that the people believe what they saw. And then to grow up together during broadcast democracy we can watch people progress whether civil rights which has risen dramatically confronting people with the horrors going on in the south or vietnam or the impeachment of nixon these issues where we grow up but now we have left a broadcast democracy some ways weve gone back to the 19th century we live in a world thats partisan and fragmented and the consequences profound when we think about Critical National issues that we need to address like impeachment the striking thing about the thing about nixon look at the poles of republicans and democrats the support for nixon is almost perfectly correlated they like him at a certain point then at exactly the same moment they stop because were all watching the same news and its the same story you might have a different reaction if youre a conservative republican but a liberal democrat but the facts are the facts you bend it to the facts nixon goes from 85 percent six months before when the Senate Republicans walked over to the white house but in this environment thats not policy we watch our shows they watch theres regardless we will come out of this thinking i cannot believe this is what happened another will say i cannot believe anybody didnt know this was going to happen we will have people who dont understand other then i asked people can you explain why that person disagrees with you . Is not just that we know that but you dont even know why because we built this environment where we live in a separate universe will obama said if you watch fox news you live in a different reality than the New York Times you have to address the same issues together but here is where the connection if this was true for history to accept this democracy in the 19h century people have their own reality the north and south have their own reality that the difference now we can actually see how different we are and we actually reinforce our views on the basis of our different realities. So the craziness of the current view is transparent to everyone and the idea of democracy the more we see how crazy we are. Of course we wont go back to the seventies that we need to think about how you build a democracy in the world where you know we will live in these different realities so how do we knit together an understanding on top of that reality that can represent america to make us confident and hopeful . How do you think we can build that america . Well talk about those particular reforms if the Constitutional Convention is necessary but first lets talk about your provocative suggestion that we need civic juries and that properly formulated deliberation modeled on the Constitutional Convention itself introduce citizens to more recent outcomes that would inform. I had a weird experience of traveling to mongolia and observing the very first mongolian pole about the constitutional amendment because they have laws they are not allowed to consider an amendment to the constitution it is a random selection of the population there are 700 in the parliament so just the right number of people from the rural areas half of them set on buses for two nights half of them then half of them women its the demographics that say you have to show up and participate in this process i went to a constitutional law professor how they could never figure out these issues it takes some real training to understand. [laughter] and i was blown away listening to the conversations through a translator over the course of those three days as they came to an extremely sophisticated view that made me take seriously something that i had read about and has seen that i began to believe in at that moment how we could construct visions of ourselves are institutions to represent ourselves to speak in a way we would respect and a way to be proud of it is modeled on the jury but its much better because its representative drafted to come together to deliver it after we been given information with the process to understand the issue. So what i argue in this book is i still believe in the Article Five Convention although i get in trouble from my liberal friends thats mighty and i will stick to it but at the very least all of us should agree we should create a shadow process to the Article Five Convention if we had a law that said of 20 states call for article five on any subject balance budget, the term limits, campaignfinance than there will be five deliberative polls on that issue where you select 500 americans bring them together and give them issues and thats why i am pitching this to you i agree. [laughter] so you give them both sides of the issue and what you see from that is america reflective to think about this particular issue and when you think about it like that republican tradition that citizens are a Public Office but we are the only Public Officers like the president of the United States is not someone that mattered you asked him a question he answered it on the basis of the information they had given to him based on lots of smart people thats their view. If you walk up to the streets of washington should be within her rights to say i dont answer quiz questions. Get to the Supreme Court give us a chance to have an oral argument and then i will give you our view or even a jury listening to a case you dont just walk into the jury room and take a poll though it midway through the jury is a process for coming to a view and its only if they get to speak so you make dinner the telephone rings you pick it up when you think of that guy . You dont know anything about these questions you dont have a chance to reflect that you are asked to give your view and it is representative so what you expect . Even elena kagan would be stupid if she couldnt have a chance to reflect so why do we accept the indignity of we the people to be in the most stupidest and ridiculous way possible why dont we insist on a process because im convinced looking at the problem of democracy im totally against that i deeply believe in democracy but i believe were the people have a chance to know something and reflect and give their view in the informed and balanced way. You are profoundly right none of us can have an informed opinion the best arguments on both sides was one of the greatest privileges ive ever had is to host a podcast i call out the scholars and friends i cannot have an informed opinion about any of these issues from the president s decision to rescind the dreamers act into ive heard the arguments on both sides and this is my job to know about these questions how do we expect the citizens so im excited to work with you and cspan viewers to support the idea if we can find it we will do it now one last question. If you can have the Article Five Convention what reforms would you propose