Attorney general and just lets keep that in mind that when ever you see her on the Judiciary Committee seriously challenging those witnesses and the skills she honed during what we do every day. I was honored to serve with general becerra for 20 years in congress and he was my mentor and still is but i just want to say that our philosophy here is to help people afford their lives and liberties in respect. That means prosperity that every america should be expected and it is our job to make sure that they have that chance fighting economic and fighting abuse of people with human rights and honored to be with you guys and i have been to that station many times and want to say net roots nation is tailormade for online advocacy and we have been doing it it was cool. Not to be insensitive. I know it is not cool but weve been doing it and youve been doing this and we ready for the moment is what i am trying to say. Thank you and i am glad to be here. Thank you. Lets send it over to ag. Hello, sarah. Great to be with you. Great to be with my colleagues and great to be [inaudible]. Im attorney general of massachusetts they grew up in New Hampshire but found my way down here for college and ultimately law school and never left. I found my calling and home in the Attorney Generals Office when i left practice back many years ago and became head of the Civil Rights Division in the office. I saw what it was like to work with Kamala Harris and tank on big predatory lenders, not only Consumer Protection suit but a civil rights suit against those lenders whose practices have such a disparate impact on the brown and black community. I later was counsel only brought a challenge that sued president obama and did not sue him that often but we did and ultimately that case went all the way up to the Supreme Court and the law of the land changed forever with marriage equality. Those are my experiences as a lawyer in the office and what led me to run back in 2014 i one in what ended up being a landslide even though it was an unknown candidate to never run for office and was up against a political establishment votes but the reason why i love being with you there today its because its all about grassroots and a pocket of people working with people and being out there and just engaging in that is what makes you all this for so powerful and i think as we have seen all the norms of the democracy and an attempt to be belittled away this is how we build and i dont even want to talk about rebuilding and i dont want to even use that language but talk about building because for the first time in 450 years we have the opportunity to build this in new ways into it ourselves of systemic racism and inequality. We will talk about that today and it cannot be more proud of the fact that we are state attorney general and we have been on the front lines and we have been the line and holding the Trump Administration accountable and trying to stop as much constitutional stuff happening and it was for us to see our former colleagues, Kamala Harris take the stage yesterday so great to be with you and it is great to be with you at grassroots nation. As we said this is the best of the party and you are looking at it and its really exciting to see what happens this week as a former democratic attorney general who can move on and go and do bigger and larger things and so it really starts here. Lets just jump into it. Lots of topics to cover. What is important here and why we love coming is to understand the variety of issues and the span of topics that ags can cover and do in their states, not only individually but to the coalition. Following the recent political movements and demonstrations in communities across america are democratic attorneys general are taking action to address the rising concerns of Police Communities of color as proposing police and criminal justice reform. Attorney generals are peoples warriors in their states and reflecting the same diversity themselves. Today we have 25 democratic 80s in the country who are present the most Diverse Group of azs in history and that includes five black 80s, six women 80s, two Asian American americans, two latinos, two lgbtq, one muslim and one is seek. Its diverse. Hows democratic 80s address Current Events and protect vulnerable committees within each state. Lets talk about some of these issues to find out what democratic 80s are doing as the peoples lawyers, as we like to call it. Lets start with ag weiser since we all wish we were in colorado and could travel but hes building Racial Equity. Democratic 80s are on the frontline so how are ag on the frontline when so many committees of color are feeling marginalized and what are some steps were taking in their role as ag of colorado . Thank you for that lead in and my colleagues and i are part of a team and im honored to serve with them and i went and want to emphasize we are focused on these issues before [inaudible]. What we are now in a moment and opportunity to build, to build toward justice. It will take three different parts of the answer. We need to build an office in colorado that looks like the people of colorado. We need a diverse and Inclusive Team at the Attorney Generals Office. I set up a position for the first time Deputy Attorney general for diversity equity and inclusion we are committed to hiring, mentoring and supporting a Diverse Talent pool, not just to be in office but to become judges and leaders in our state. Some ive hired and her office help people of color and we need to do our part to build a more diverse and inclusive, not just Attorney Generals Office but in the Legal Profession and leadership. Number two, criminal justice reform. When we see our criminal Justice System and the level of incarceration mostly people of color we have to see an opportunity to do that. That goes across the spectrum from ending cash bail which is a big reason why a lot of people are in jail because they cant afford a veil and that is wrong and doesnt support private safety and its unfair and we got to fix it and we have some great pilot programs and we want to learn from california on a statewide basis. Weve got to do better on reentry so people dont just leave prison then end up back in prison. We got to end the school to prison pipeline which they get people even as teenagers of bad pass we are working on all those and finally accountability reform. Im proud of the law we passed in colorado, a National Model and we need to build trust in Law Enforcement make sure we trained Law Enforcement so we deescalate situations and dont have strategies like we saw with george floyd. Weve got work to do and proud of the work were doing and colorado. Thats great. You testified as to how the cash system is fundamentally flawed on many Different Levels so can you share your thoughts more on the inequities of cash bail system. What are the farreaching consequences of a cash bail system for the individual and society at large and how can we address these inequities and overhaul the system . I want people to understand and this is super important and this has been studied that when you keep someone in jail, lets say 48, 72 hours, the chances they commit a crime later go up because when you separate someone from their family they lose their job and that is a destabilizing event in their lives. The goal of pretrial attention should only be to protect Public Safety and not, that only happens when someone is a risk to society but if someone is not a risk you want to let them out of jail as soon as possible and you should not be charging a bit weird many fees that are getting built into our system that is hurting poor people who cant pay them, keeping them in jail and in some cases taking away their drivers license. We have to take down these barriers and we have to ask ourselves are what we are doing here, Public Safety is because its always been this way and we dont have the courage and ability to change this, cash bail is crying out for reform doesnt serve Public Safety doesnt help people and costs money. What california has done on this is a model and we will fight hard to get it done in colorado. Thats great. Either way, see lots of questions in the chat and shout outs from people who are in states where people are in new york and la and from denver so they are giving you all shout outs right now. Theyre giving you lots of love. I completely agree with you there that if you cant, there are so many barriers at being a leader and showing up is part of the most or what is important here. Ag ellison, with everything going on right now we want to talk about george floyd. What happened to george floyd, Breonna Taylor and too many others are most painful examples of how far we still need to go as a country but we have as a country what have we as a country learn from these painful incidences and how can we protect and support our black communities and what can 80s, like yourself, address that hurt and pain and express across the country we will start with you ag ellison. Let me card pricing the attorney General Office can convene, no matter what happens or what your jurisdiction may be, you can pull people together and lose your bully probably to shine a light like cash bail or juvenile the tension, Domestic Violence or a range of things, you can do including this issue of Police Accountability. My office is going down to pull together this document and this is our working group on Police Involved deadly encounters which we did in 2019 as everyone on the panel said we did not just start working on this issue but we have been working on this and so weve been trying to deal with the issue of Police Account ability, Police Brutality all along. We engage lawenforcement and community to have a real conversation came up with a number of recommendations, several of which were just passed in the last legislative session and now i say this folks out there listening because where you are from if you engage your attorney general to convene people around these accountability and the second thing we can do is we convene, many of us because jurisdictions are not all the same that many of us could bring practice, lawsuits, civil claims where we might be able to say look, you have a Police Department which finds all the black votes and gives them exorbitant amounts oe u. S. Attorney general eric holder did this investigation regarding ferguson and found out there was oppressive systems in place and state attorney general has the same and we can do that where we have the jurisdiction to do so but we impress you and right now im prosecuting a group of Police Officers and cant go into the case and i dont want to impact the jury pool so i will not talk about that but i will say we do have jurisdiction in certain situations that vary from state to state and people who prosecute the law even if they are Police Officers and we should do so and should not not let some people be above the law or beneath the law but this is critically important to prosecute violations of lot no matter who it is. Then we can advocate legislatively and very impressed with the work that is still done and javier in california and those guys have done more on use of force and the four of us is just a slice of the talent and we are just four out of 25. Everybody is doing awesome things. We can advocate legislatively in nevada there doing great stuff. In illinois, james in new york right on the forefront of these issues and we have weighed in on a group waving as a group to say this is what Police Accountability looks like this are a few ideas but you need to look at this ag as a source of movement and as a source of change and engaging and get them on the phone and get on the room and the zoom and give your ideas on what you would expect to see them do and i will hand over but those are just a few ideas. The movement. [audio difficulties] why dont we throw this to ag becerra so why is the role of the ag so critical for these issues. Attorney general most states is the only Law Enforcement official, only peoples lawyer that covers, not just the city, not just the county but the entire state and so when the people are looking for protection and defense the one office that can do that for everyone and not just for folks in the city or county is the attorney general. It is critical that we are involved and that is why it is so important we have statewide policies that let us get into these issues and as my colleagues have mentioned the account ability is so important and the transparency, more and more so we are realizing we do have transparency. Transparency needs to be in policing and the way Public Safety is conducted and i would say that what i have found in terms of reform you cant add reform unless you get down to the roots in the way policing is done. That is what is so important. In california we do practice investigations. In 2018 we did counselor practice investigation or excuse me, we were lucky and were invited by the chief of police in sacramento to review a shooting that had occurred of a young man named stefan clark and 2018 and we did not have to go in and do a pattern of practice which is a more independent activity because we were invited or he was a new chief of police, first africanamerican of chief police in sacramento. We did a wholesale review of the sacramento Police Department and also, by the way, were asked to do an independent investigation on the commonality of the shooting on top of it, two separate activities but what i think keith mentioned which is so important is rather than look at one incident and try to get to the bottom of the truth and the justice you need to do a wholesale review and start down at the roots. We came out with a report which was directed at Sacramento CityPolice Department but ended up becoming the basis of legislation in california which is not a law which requires every Police Department to undertake new reforms and those are starting to take form. We are engaged in a pattern and of practice investigation with bakersfield and Police Department and the kern county Commissioners Department and we are right now in charge of the reform oversight for the San FranciscoPolice Departments. We just got involved in doing the same thing for the small town north of San Francisco which just had a number of Police Shootings but really the fruits of much of what came from a lot of what we found out in sacramento and its informed much of what has been done but we have a lot in cap format that allows us to track every single stock by a lawn from an officer so we could find out if there profiling by race or by transgender status. That data now informs us so it is no longer anecdotal but now empirical evidence that will drive our policies so you do have to get down to the roots and that is where being a statewide official and in office is here to protect the people statewide and it helps to have ags involved. Not only helps to have ag involved but a democratic and this is why we will talk about elections later in the conversation and voting for and electing democrats ag. If you care about these issues should be electing democratic ags. I want to make sure we get to you as well. What is your perspective on this and how can ags address it in the state of massachusetts. To come to this summary who is formally a head of the formal Rights Division and the chief Law Enforcement officer for our state and i think my colleagues said so right on. Its about tracing, training and unconscious bias and Better Police practices and about officer standards and training for use of force and deescalation and all of that is important but here in massachusetts we currently are working on new legislation that was statewide ban the use of chokehold and create duties to intervene when an officer oversees another officer and encouraging Law Enforcement use of body worn cameras and the like but all of that it seems to me doesnt get you where you need to go unless there is a true accountability and that is one thing that we have partnered with our chief on because the ability to identify those who engage in bad action are held accountable and it becomes important. Those are something that we as the democratic ags have been supporting. We have also been supporting efforts to make sure our resources are being used appropriately. We have been on the front lines of ags fighting the opiate crisis and going after Major Pharmaceutical Companies for their abuses which has translated to drug activity onto the streets and one of the things we see is that fortunately we have please who may be trained in many coming from battlefields overs