themselves and others. recently outrage over the school exploded when the public for the first time saw video of a student being repeatedly shocked. his name is andre mccollins. the video showed him being shocked 31 times over the course of seven hours. it is difficult to watch. this was in 2002. mccollins was 18. he's no longer at this center. the video is part of a trial. those disturbing images also caught the attention of the u.n. central raptor juan mendez. he told a paper, the use of electricity on anyone's body raises the question of whether this is therapeutic or whether it is suffering tantamount to torture in violation of international law. he's looking for answers from the department of justice who launched this investigation two years ago. we asked the justice department for an update on the investigation, they told us it's ongoing and they wouldn't comment. the school says that no one else will take their students and that the electric shocks are better than huge amounts of prescription drugs. to be sure, the school has many supporters. parents who swear their kids are alive because of these shocks. but the national council on disabilities and many other critics said that the electric shocks that are used are contrary to federal policy and at odds with mental health research. an investigation by new york state officials found that students were being shocked for a wide range of behaviors that weren't by any measure aggressive, destructive or dangerous. for instance, nagging, swearing and, quote, failing to maintain a neat appearance. they were shocked for not being neat enough. recently a former teacher's aide told us pretty much the same thing. >> a kid drinks out of a paper cup and finishes his water and then carries the paper cup. you have to shock the student for tearing that paper cup the same as if they tore something off the wall. it's not necessary. it's being abused. this is torture. >> remember, these are autistic kids in some cases who can't communicate, can't express what they're feeling. the justice department isn't the only federal agency that's looking into this place. in 2010 the fda withdrew the clearance of the device that they use to shock the students. it's called a ged. it looks like this. the device they originally cleared was much less severe than the one they use. it was souped up to give students a stronger shock. even though the fda pulled their clearance, the school still uses it. the fda has been investigating it. if they are, it's taking them more than two years to take action. tom foreman has been investigating. what did the fda actually tell you? >> well, anderson, the fda has been very closed-mouth about this. they said the same thing you heard from the justice department. this is an ongoing investigation. they said they're not standing by letting horrible things happen but they just can't talk about this case. they told us at one point that they would consider coming on to talk to us on camera about at least the general principles involved here. we even went up to their campus on the north side of d.c. to see if they wanted to come out and talk. we exchanged notes with them and everything else, but ultimately they backed off from that. they simply will not come on and talk about the general principles about whether or not this is good or bad even though they admit they are the ones who have to approve these devices. >> what reason do they give for not giving an interview? >> just that notion that it has to be a private matter. this is something that's ongoing. they sort of give a little bit of a wink and a nod to the notion of we are definitely on this, we are definitely moving forward. we can't tell you about it right now. as you know, it's been quite a number of months since the last kind of any action on this. that begs the question when, if at any time, will they take action. >> it's been almost over two years. is there any sense of timetable. >> no. none at all. just the sense that they're moving forward with it. they did say at one point you have to give a company time to make the changes that we request. that's a quote there which would suggest that they're in some process of saying you must change this now. change it. the argument being that these people at the center actually manufactured this device so for them to make all the changes and get them properly cleared as the official language is might take a period of time, but there's no sense of time how much we're talking about, whether that will be six more months or six more years. >> the school is standing by publicly their use. they're the only ones we've found in the country, if not in the world, that actually shocks students like this. thanks. >> thank you very much, anderson. one of those vocal critics is massachusetts senator. brian joyce. he's tried repeatedly to shut down the center. recently the massachusetts senate passed a bill banning the use of electric shocks on students. its fate in the house is unclear. according to senator joyce, the center has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on lawyers, lobbyists, powerful friends in the state capital. he also told us that the center has brought students to testify at a past hearing that state lawmakers held and that the students, some of them were actually wearing their electric shock devices while they testified. joyce contends that that testimony could have been coerced by the fear of being shocked. we asked the judge rotenberg center about those claims. in a statement they told us, and i quote, senator joyce is once again making false statements when faced with compelling evidence of the efficacy of aversive procedures. the army of people descending on the massachusetts statehouse that he refers to are not, quote, lobbyists and lawyers, they are dozens of parents of jrc students who visit the statehouse to inform the legislators about how aversive therapy saved their child's life when no other treatment would work. similarly, the statement went on, senator joyce is making false statements about the current and former jrc students who courageously testified at hearings conducted by the massachusetts legislature about their life of pain, anguish and hopelessness caused by their untreatable behavior disorder and how the jrc treatment program saved their life. senator joyce joins me and another from rush university r university medical center in chicago. they're saying you're lying about the students who testified and about the large number of lobbyists and lawyers who you say are involved in keeping this center open. your response. >> well, every single statement that i've made is documented and sourced. the statement that you just read actually came from not the center itself but a very high priced public relations firm. the money they spent on lawyers and lobbyists is actually public information. they spent over $2 million in lobbyists and lawyers last year, over a million dollars in lobbying. over $15 million in lawyers in the past ten years. you know, what other school for disabled children is spending tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and lobbyists and public relations specialists to defend the indefensible, barbaric treatment of innocent, disabled children. >> doctor, it's always interesting to me when you ask anybody for a statement and they don't respond directly to some of the direct questions. what they didn't respond to in that statement was whether or not their students were wearing electric shock devices while testifying. when you hear the allegations, some of them were wearing these electric devices, does that seem appropriate to you? >> i can't fathom the concept of having electrical devices on kids. they already know what the impact is of these electrical devices. they've already apparently been used on these particular kids. why would they have the electrical devices on them? if it was so effective, you would think they wouldn't need them. the concept of having them on them almost seems like a torturous process for these kids that's unfathomable. >> the center makes a lot of money. when i first began looking into this, i didn't realize it. they're making about $52 million every year by one account that i read. is that taxpayers who are paying for these kids to be shocked? >> it is. it's taxpayer money. an awful lot of taxpayer money from the state of new york and several other states. going back to the statement with respect to wearing the painful electronic device, 2006 the board of regents of the state of new york in their report gave evidence of students actually wearing these electric painful devices while they were being showered and bathed. reports of burning flesh in the hallway. you know, the smell of burning flesh, of having to have so-called ged holidays, ged being the device, that there was so much burning of the skin that they had to stop it for a while while the skin healed. >> dr. krause, the fact that the u.n. point person on torture is now pressing for an investigation, do you describe this as torture? that's not a word that we have used. is that a word that you would use? >> well, if you look, in 1990 the u.n. passed the convention on the rights of children. article 19 on there talks about torturous, hurtful, painful behavior to children. for us essentially violating an eighth amendment right of the child. there's a reason why schools don't use corporal punishment. it's against the law. it's child abuse. >> doctor, i'm no expert certainly and i'm sympathetic to the parents i've talked to had support this center and say, look, my child would be dead if it wasn't for this center. my child had behavior that was so hurtful to themselves that they might have taken their own life, banging their head against the wall until they died. the school keeps coming back and saying, look this therapy has saved the lives of children when no other treatment would have worked. what do you say to these parents who say, this may be unusual. this may be the only place that does this but, you know, shocking these kids seems to work in some cases? >> you know, there could be isolated examples of many different types of treatment appearing to work. the problem is not having peer reviewed research really limits any validity to this. people fall out of airplanes and survive on the rarest of occasions. that doesn't make it safe. this is something that there's a reason why there aren't other programs using this type of aversive treatment. >> it is interesting, senator joyce, because if somebody proposed, you know, strapping electric devices to prisoners to keep them in line in prisons and shocking them, you know, as often as necessary to control their behavior, there would be a lot of people standing up and saying, well, look, you can't do that to people. and yet this is allowed. how is it that this has continued to go on? because you've been pushing legislation over and over again over the years to ban this practice. >> somehow in 49 other states and, indeed, on every other nation on earth we're able to treat disabled children increasingly with positive behavioral treatment. the statement you read earlier suggested i had not visited the center. certainly i've visited the center. i've spoken with dozens of parents and i've spoken with dozens of former employees often who are fearful of speaking to me. i was with one former parent on saturday, cheryl mccollins, whose son andre was the poor boy shown in the video in court, tortured for over seven hours while tied to a board with a helmet on. i think his violation was not taking his jacket off in a timely manner. i think it turned out it might not even have been his jacket. it's important, sometimes these children are not even verbal, can't even communicate. cheryl mccollins, that mother said she never, ever, ever would have allowed this to happen to her son had she known, had the center shown her when she dropped her son off what they do to these poor children. >> she settled out of court with the center but continues to speak out now to try to close it down. we've had her on the program as well. thank you both. >> thanks to you. raw politics, raw emotion. wisconsin voters decided to keep republican scott walker. he survived the recall votes. he cut union rights and benefits. now the outcome of the vote didn't sit well with supporters of the democratic opponent, tom barrett. a barrett volunteer slapped the democratic candidate for conceding before she felt all the votes were in. d@ a lot of discussion today over what happened in wisconsin last night. what it may mean, if anything, to the presidential race. wisconsin voters decided to keep republican scott walker. he survived tuesday's recalled sparked by his move last year he cut union rights and benefits in the midst of a state budget crisis. the outcome didn't sit well the with tom barrett supporters. mike was a barrett volunteer clearly upset. >> every single one of you out there in the nation if you're watching, democracy died tonight. >> very emotional. >> i'm very emotional. we all had a lot invested in this. this was it. if we didn't win tonight, the end of the usa just happened. this is it. we just got outspent 34 million to $4 million. we don't have any other resource left but the people you see here behind me. if the people you see here behind me can't get it done tonight, it's done. democracy is dead. >> mike wasn't the only barrett supporter certainly fired up. watch this. mr. barrett just after his concession speech last night, an unidentified woman slaps him across the face. that's life in the big city barrett told reporters today. the milwaukee mayor said she thought he conceded defeat with people still at polls. he didn't make it to the podium until after the voting ended. a slap and even tears. a lot of emotion and raw politics. now let's talk about the money. for more insight let's talk to chief national correspondent, john king. there's been a lot of analysis today about what happened in wisconsin and its significance, if anything, on the presidential race coming in five months. first let's talk about the money. a huge amount of money spent, a i lot of it from out of the state. >> and a lot of people now asking, anderson, was it a fair fight, was it an even fight? even, no. fair? we'll leave it up to you. the outside money is the big flash point. the numbers, as you know, are staggering. more than $66 million spent heading into just the final days. you can be certain that final number will be above $70 million, perhaps approach $80 million. of the $66 million in spending already reported, about half of the money came from outside wisconsin. now republican groups had a bit of an edge in that spending. about 54% of the outside money went to help governor walker fight the recall vote. what is more staggering, if you look at the candidate versus candidate spending, meaning governor walker versus tom barrett. look at these numbers. walker spent more than $30 million to $4 million for barrett. that's more than seven be to one spending advantage and look at that, more than 60% of governor's walker's contributions came from outside of the state. just 25% of mayor barrett's money came from outside of wisconsin. it's interesting to note, anderson, a lot of that money was spent on voter turnout. that's a lesson likely to shape the super pac and other spending decisions later in the race. of the $66 million that we've been able to track so far, a little more than $20 million was spent on tv ads. nearly 2/3 of the ad spending supported republican walker. half of the tv money was spent in the final five weeks. again, in that period you see lopsided spending in favor of governor walker. a big question is whether that late spending made any difference. 86% of voters who took part of the exit polls said they decided before may. so $12 million spent in the final few weeks to influence the hearts and minds, anderson, of 13% of the recall voters. >> i want to bring in cnn political contributor alex and he's a senior strategist for priorities usa -- excuse me priorities usa action which is a pro-obama super pac. bill, let's look at money. do you think it did have a big impact? a lot of democrats are saying it did. you look at some exit polls, people made up their minds long before the election. a lot of people didn't like the idea of a recall unless it was for gross misconduct. >> i think there's no doubt that money made a big difference for that small group of voters that john king identified who decided late. i think going into this everyone knew there was going to be a very small universe of voters who were persuadable. when you have that kind of gross spending differential between the democrats and republicans, it's going to make a difference. democrats had an amazing ground game. what we saw here was that was not enough to overcome all of that money that poured into the state and poured into the republican side for scott walker. >> alex, do you see that, that the democrats were overspent? >> let's look at meg whit man in california. all the money in the world won't win an election when it's not the product that people want to buy. i think we ought to remember that apple computer makes a lot of money not because they make a lot of money but because they're popular. they're doing something people like. i think the people in wisconsin decided, you know what, we'd rather have some fiscal responsibility and an economy that doesn't go bankrupt. besides that, it's not that much money really. $80 million to i think deal president obama a setback here at the beginning of his presidential campaign. having him as president is costing us trillions. this is a deal. >> john, let's look at what the exit polls show us in terms of what was on voter's minds. from my reading, a lot of them did not like the idea of recalling a governor in the middle of a term for something that wasn't misconduct. >> i think that is a huge part of the dynamic here. stopping the game in midstream and saying let's start it over. no, we elected this guy, let's let him finish his term. we'll figure it out at the end of it. that is part of it. anderson, the voters were evenly divided. on o the fundamental question, restricting collective bargaining rights and other actions against the unions that they found to be punitive. you had an evenly divided electorate. then you add in concerns about the recall. what is interesting to me, i think a troubling lesson for democrats, is that a fair amount, about 1/3 of union households supported governor walker. if this was about union rights at the beginning, the union workers decided to support him. was the money well the spent? is there a better way to spend it. if you look at alex's point, there are important lessons and warning signs for democrats. >> alex, they're saying the democratic ground game was good. they were overspent. do you think it was good? >> i think the ground game was good, but this was a test of president obama's philosophy for the coming november election. president obama's lost the middle. he doesn't think he can get it back. the democratic brand under president obama has become spending. >> wait a minute. a lot of folks who voted even for walker are obama supporters and said they would vote for obama. >> yes, you'll notice obama didn't go into wisconsin. he didn't polarize this race around him. he wisely i think stayed away from it. the problem is, the obama philosophy for re-election is we've lost the middle. we're going to intensify our base, union support, intensify our base. we'll get our base out with such intensity that it will compensate for losing the middle. that's what was tested in wisconsin. it didn't work. it augers some problems for the obama campaign. >> i think that's remarkably overstated, anderson. while i agree maybe message definitely counts, there are factors that als