We are proud to offer a platform for their new ideas and left of the work of trailblazers spearheading the resistance in every corner of our nation. In the past few months, we have seen the American People respond with unmistakable resolve. Millions have flooded our streets, airports, and town. Alls in solidarity and protest more people are taking Political Action than at any point in my lifetime. Yet while we celebrate that Political Action, we also ,ecognize an undeniable truths that we are gathered here today at an extraordinary moment in our nations history. A time when foreign actors seek to disrupt our political system and even the free elections, which serve as the basic foundation of our government. When the president openly interferes with an investigation to uncover his ties with these same foreign actors. With the leader of the free world fires those who hold him accountable, and even provides intelligence to our adversaries. Our founders established a system of checks and balances to safeguard the integrity of our democracy. But the truth is those checks and balances are only as strong as the leaders who have the character and courage to implement them. Partynow, too many in one are putting their party over our country. It turns out that the founders prediction that each generation would have to renew our democracy is true. So the extraordinary threats facing our country, foreign and a fierce andand unrelenting opposition. Citizenship confers responsibility. Responsibility to get and stay involved, to speak out, and to resist when our constitution and democratic norms are threatened. In short, the resistance is about defending our democracy. So resist we must. We also need to build. We need to look past the cable news cycles and set forth Real Solutions to the problems confronting families everywhere. We are convinced these values are values all americans share. They are ones that pull us together rather than pull us apart. Thats because at the end of the day, we all want the same basic things. To earn a decent living, support and raise our kids, and leave our families a little farther along than where we started. Totoday we are proud introduce a bold new plan for creating jobs in america, one based on the idea of a new deal but modernized. We would talk about that more and our Economics Panel later today. Focus is on ensuring jobs for all americans, particularly those who have been left behind, those who have not gone to college. In everything we do today, we do want to reaffirm a simple truth. That as the party of opposition, we must demand Economic Opportunity for the struggling without giving one single inch on civil rights. That means fighting Voter Suppression in courtrooms and polling stations across the nation, protecting immigrants, muslims, the disabled, and all who have felt the shameful ire of donald trump. We believe we have the chance to forge a new Progressive Coalition once envisioned by Bobby Kennedy that unites working families of every color and background by advancing fairness and Economic Opportunity for all. That Coalition Must be broad enough to welcome each and every one of our fellow americans. It needs to be based on the principles of equality and inclusion, on opportunity and justice. These are essential values that lie at the heart of the progressive movement, and they are the same values that drive the work of all the leaders gathered here today. That brings me to our opening keynote speaker, Los Angeles Mayor eric garcetti. As the head of americas secondlargest city, he has spearheaded efforts to raise las minimum wage, expand housing for veterans, and make Major Investments in transportation and clean energy. He has also stood as a fierce opponent against Donald Trumps cruel plan to tear apart families through his deportation force. I know he will continue to champion progressive causes for many years to come. We are honored to have mayor garcetti kickoff our conference. Please help me get a warm welcome to mayor of Los Angeles Eric garcetti. [applause] mayor garcetti thank you so much. Good morning everybody. Thank you to the entire cap team for putting together this conference. Thank you to the staff of the four seasons here for looking after us so well. Im glad we could bring a little eather for a. W couple days to washington. Thanks to all of you for coming here and being a part of this most urgent and important conversation. For the last few months, commentators have been calling this a big moment for the democratic party. They are right. But i believe this is an even bigger moment for the American People. A bigger moment for our country. For practically my entire lifetime, and maybe yours, we have heard politicians and events like this talking about how we are on the cusp of a technological revolution, one that will forever alter we work, learn, communicate. Flying cars, solar energy, robots that will make us breakfast. But that revolution isnt coming anymore. That revolution is here. 25 years ago, our country imported half of its oil that we needed to meet our energy needs. Today, foreign oil accounts for just about 1 4 of our energy uses. 25 years from now, we may not be using fossil fuels at all. 25 years ago, aids was the number one killer of men five to of men 25 to 44. Today that diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. The five years from now, we may be able to say the same thing about lung cancer or alzheimers. It is amazing. A generation ago, the only place you could see Something Like this was in a scifi movie. 25 years from now, the only place you will find one will be in a museum. We are living in this exciting future that we have all heard about at so many ted talks over the years, and yet for a lot of americans, this doesnt feel like an exciting moment. It doesnt feel like a moment of incredible progress. It feels like a time of great anxiety and uncertainty. Over the next 20 years, automation and Artificial Intelligence are going to wipe out millions of jobs. If you think one of those jobs might belong to you, youre not impressed by how innovative the technology is. You are wondering how youre going to get by, let alone get ahead in this new economy. You are wondering whether any of those leaders who keep talking about this brave new future actually think theres a place in that future for you. I hear these anxieties every day. For 16 years as a local elected official, i have been knocking doors, holding open office hours for people of all walks of life to come talk to me about anything they want. Listening is at the heart of what i do. It may surprise some people here in washington to hear that the concerns that i hear about in los angeles are similar to the ones we hear throughout this country in places like lansing or louisville. Four Million People live in my city. Some of them are movie stars, even if a few of them are kardashians, but most are Small Business owners, factory workers, firefighters and nurses and bookkeepers and bus drivers not much different from people in coal country. In the San Fernando Valley where i grew up, we had car factories that shut down. They know what it is like to watch an Assembly Line grinds to a halt and a company pack up and leave town. Time and time again we have had to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and face an uncertain future. What is happening in my city is in many ways a microcosm of what is happening around the country. For folks at the top, there has never been a more exciting time to live in los angeles. We have a diverse and thriving Creative Class innovating and collaborating and having a great time doing it. And why not . You can go on your smartphone and find any kind of food you want, have it delivered to your home. You dont want to find parking, you can go ahead and get rideshare. You can have somebody pick up your dry cleaning with the cap with the cap of a finger. We also have a Ballooning Service class, the people who are cooking food and doing the dry cleaning. They are just barely hanging on, scrapping to stay afloat and hoping one day to get ahead. Meanwhile, our middle class is getting squeezed out. The paycheck for years staying the same. The Health Care Bills going up. The cost of college for their kids skyrocketing. Secure retirement a hope and a dream. These folks arent just anxious and insecure. They are angry and impatient. They hear us talk, but regardless of whether or not they agree with what we are saying, they dont see anybody taking real action to improve their lives. So they dont trust their leaders. Any of them. This isnt just about honesty or ethics. People dont trust that we have it in us to actually solve our problems, their problems. This lack of trust isnt just a problem for progressives who believe that some challenges are so big that only government is capable of addressing them. It is not just a problem for democrats who watch donald trump capitalize on that frustration to win the white house. This is a problem for our country because this distrust robs us of our ability to take the kind of big action we need to embrace the future instead of fear it. The kind of action we can only take together. So how do we win back this trust . I always tell the young people who come to work for me that in order to make an impact in public service, you have to show people you can pass three tests tests of the heart, the head, and the guts. First your heart. Do people feel you can connect with them around the challenges they fear . Do you get it . Do you feel it . Second, your head. If you can connect with them, do people believe you have smart ideas to address those challenges . Third, your guts. This is the most important of the three. Even if you show you can care and have thought of good solutions, do people believe you will do whatever it takes to deliver the results that you promised . Even if it cuts against your own personal or political interests . You need all three to lead. Mayors who are directly accountable, who here who hear from our constituents not just at town halls, but at the Grocery Store and the diner, we tend to understand that. It all goes back to listening. If you really listen, and mayors have to, americans actually agree on a lot. They want a decent job with reliable benefits, including Quality Health care. They want Affordable Housing in a safe neighborhood with good schools for their kids. Theyre worried about how they are going to get these things in an economy that is rapidly changing and leaving so many people behind. They want their leaders to worry less about winning arguments and more about delivering results. I guess that is why mayors tend to be a little bit less doctrinaire. I will tell you a secret. When mayors are by themselves, democratic mayors tend to admit that regulations often do more harm than good, and republican mayors often know that they can raise taxes to invest in critical things without the whole world imploding. Mayors are in the business of getting things done. While washington is stuck or even worse, we see washington moving backwards cities are moving forward. In los angeles we raised the minimum wage to 15 an hour. People already have more money in their pockets. They are spending it on main street, and it is helping local businesses. Were not just raising the floor. We are raising the ceiling. We dont want just 15 an hour jobs. We want 40 and 50 an hour jobs. We are making unprecedented investments in infrastructure not just about improving traffic or public safety. They are about creating hundreds and thousands of good paying middleclass union jobs. People without College Degrees who half a century ago were working in south l. A. On building bombers on the Assembly Line today are building railcars on the crenshaw lax line, improving traffic and creating jobs where they live. That is just the start. We passed the nations largest housing initiative. We have the highest Graduation Rate we have had in decades. That only by increasing how . Not only by increasing investments in afterschool tutoring and Wraparound Services for families. We literally show up at the door of dropouts and walked back to school as they reenroll. This fall we are building on that, becoming the largest city in america to make Community College free for every Public School graduate. [applause] we are even taking the lead on health care, which you may think of as a national issue, but mayors know is an intensely local issue. Obamacare ensured more than 1. 5 million angelenos, and it created thousands of jobs. 6 billion added to our gdp, which is why democratic and republican mayors alike are sounding the alarm about trumpcare, and why i am ready to fight like hell to make sure it never becomes the law of the land. [applause] mayors understand that it is not enough to feel peoples pain or have a laundry list of ideas to help. We need to convince people that they can trust us to fight for them and to deliver for them. And when we do, Real Progress is possible. Let me give you an example. Anyone who has ever been to los angeles knows we have the worst traffic in america. Everyone who lives in los angeles knows that it is more than a pain in the ass. Traffic robs us of billions of dollars to our economy and millions of hours we could be spending with our family. So we set out to fix it. An america that can still do things. We proposed the largest local Infrastructure Initiative in this nations history times two. It would produce 455,000 good paying jobs that will stay here at home. To get the initiative passed, we had to go to the voters of Los Angeles County and get 2 3 of them to vote yes to raise their own taxes. For three years i crisscrossed over an area consisting of 3 of 10 Million People. We built coalitions of labor and business, democrats and republicans. On election day, it passed with 71 of the vote. It didnt pass because voters in los angeles love Big Government or because we have the best targeting or ads. It passed because we had listened and because people trusted us to deliver. Los angeles wasnt alone. In november, even on a tough night for our party, cities across this nation passed 200 230 billion in Infrastructure Investment. How long have we heard when trillion dollars in Infrastructure Investment being talked about in washington . In one night, American Cities delivered nearly 1 4 of that. For all of us, this is an important moment because the intransigence here, the emphasis on making sure you win the argument instead of move the progress forward, has reduced washington. In washington, while people are going small, cities are going big. This brings me back to the challenge we face. I know you are pissed off about the political moment we are in. Its why you are here. And make no mistake, our values are under attack and we do need to fight back. In los angeles we set up a 10 million justice fund to make sure no immigrant faces the threat of deportation without legal representation. Because you know what . [applause] im the grandson of a dreamer. If the white house withdraws from the paris climate accord, we are going to adopt it in los angeles. I have got a dozen cities more ready to do it the next day. [applause] we are not just doing this because it is the right thing to do for our earth. It is the right thing to do for our economy, where we build new green jobs. We have got to fight and win. This white house isnt going to succeed and dragging us back into the past because i know we have the constitution and the American People on our side. We are going to win those fights. But every day we spend playing defense is a day we are not making progress. If we define ourselves solely by our opposition to this in this administration, we will sell ourselves and the American People sort. Our country is at a transformational moment that has brought challenges and opportunities unlike anything we have ever faced. The future is here. The American People are waiting for someone to step up, to lead us with the confidence and courage we need. So dont cede the power you have before you exercise it. Dont settle for being pissed off. Dont fall into the trap of being paralyzed. Dont fight pessimism with more pessimism. Most importantly, dont lose faith in america. We have done Amazing Things in our history, but we are doing Amazing Things right now in cities across this country. Take it from me. As a mayor, i see it every single day. Lets refuse to settle for letting the future happen, and lets resolve to make a future in which every american can find their place, achieve their dreams, and reach their godgiven potential. And lets prove we have the heart, the head, and the guts to actually deliver. If we can do that, we can do a lot more than just win an election. We can lead this great country into what i truly believe is a bright and brilliant future. Lets go do it. Thank you. [applause] thanks everybody. Thank you mayor garcetti for setting up this panel perfectly. I will do brief introductions. We will have a discussion and open it up for q a from the audience. I will go down the line here. We have lindsay washington, and emt and washington, d. C. Hutchins is the