Who also tom folley died today. He served for 30 years. House Speaker John Boehner released a statement about tom foley saying he was warmhearted. He would call leaks on both sides of the aisle. She had a solid sense of fairness. He was 84 years old. He had a solid sense of fairness. He was 84 years old. Cspan, wouldnt you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, greetings, conferences, which of the u. S. House, all as a Public Service of private industry. Cable tvreated by the industry and funded by do local cable or satellite provider. You can watch us in hd. Today president obama officially announced former Defense Department attorney jeh johnson as his nominee for department of Homeland Security secretary. He will represent replace janet napolitano. From the white house rose garden, this is about 20 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, the president and Vice President of the United States accompanied by jeh johnson. Good afternoon, everyone. Please have a seat. President , my most solid responsibility is to safety and security of the american people. We have gotten Outstanding Team here. Folks who work every single day to make sure that we are doing everything we can to fulfill that responsibility. That means that our entire government, law enforcement, and Homeland Security professionals, troops, diplomats, intelligence personnel are all working together. It means working with state and local partners to disrupt terrorist attacks and make our borders more secure and respond to national his asters and make our immigration system more affect if and fair. Addressing any one of these challenges is a tall order. Addressing all of them at once is a monumental task. That is what the dedicated men and women of the department of Homeland Security do every day. I am proud to announce my choice to lead them. An astounding Public Servant who i have known and trusted for years, mr. Jeh johnson. Toare enormously grateful secretary janet napolitano. She could not be here today. She has made her move to her new position in sunny california, overseeing the entire Education System in that great state. I know she will do an outstanding job there with that incredible young people that are in our largest state. We all deeply appreciate that perfect job she did over the last four and a half years. Thank you to another for his service and for stepping in as acting secretary after janet left. Things do her leadership and her team, we have done to protect our homeland from those who wish to do us harm. We have strengthened our borders, taken steps to make sure the immigration system that reflects our values, we have helped thousands of americans recover from hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. You were to clean up a Massive Oil Spill in the gulf, as well as address in jeh johnson, we have the right risen to continue this important work. Nationalmember of my security team. He demonstrated again and again the qualities that would make him a strong secretary of Homeland Security. He has a deep understanding of the threats and challenges facing the United States. A pentagon top lawyer. He helped design and apply many policies that have kept our country safe, including dismantling the core of al qaeda. I have directed my team to be open and transparent about how our policies work and how we make decisions, especially when it comes to preventing terrorist attacks. He was one of the leaders who spoke eloquently of how to meet todays threats in a way that is consistent with our values. That you need cooperation across the government. He has been there in the situation room at the table and in moments of decision. He has learned worked with leaders and making sure that everyone is rolling in the same direction. He is a team player. He knows had to get folks who do not always agree to work towards a common goal. He has expense leading large, conflicts organizations. He worked under bob gates and under leon panetta. He helped oversee the work of more than 3 million military and civilian personnel across the country and around the world. It is fair to say that both former secretary gates and panetta will attest to the incredible professionalism that jeh brings to the job and the bipartisan approach he takes when it comes to national security. He has earned every be patient a cool and calm leader. Jeh appreciates that any organization screws assets are the people. They allow our men and women to serve their country openly without weakening our military. Congress use that report that jeh helped to craft to justify and repeal dont ask dont tell. Our military is stronger because we did it. This is in part because of jehs leadership. Youll bring that same commitment to our hardworking folks at dhs. Finally, jeh believes in a deep and personal way that keeping america safe requires us upholding the values and Civil Liberties that make america great. Jeh to the start of his uncle who was a member of the airmen in world war ii. The surfer on her even when their country did not treat them with dignity and respect they served with honor even when the country do not treat them with the dignity and respect they deserved. Be consistent with who we are as americans. Jeh is a pretty good lawyer, so he knows what that means. He understands that this country is worth protect it not because of what we build and what we own, because of who we are all stunned that is what sets us apart. That is why we have to keep adapting to changing threats whether natural or manmade. We have to stay ready when disaster strikes and help americans recover in the aftermath. We have got to fix our broken immigration system in a way that strengthens our borders and harmonizes Legal Immigration and make sure everyone is playing by the same rules. I am confident that i could not have made a better choice in jeh , summit i am confident we will be moving to Agency Forward and the country forward. Someone i am confident in that will help move the Agency Forward and the country forward. I know theyre looking forward to having you there. I urge the senate to confirm jeh as soon as possible. Familyou as well as your to be willing to serve. Your wife and your daughter could not be here because they at visiting jeh jr. Occidental college, which by the way, i went to when i was young. It is a fine college. Sorry i cannot be there to say hi. Your son chose well. Ladies and gentlemen, i would like to invite jeh johnson to say a few words, hopefully our next secretary of department of Homeland Security. [applause] thank you, mr. President. And my twod, my wife kids are not here because it is parents weekend at occidental. Things to the cause of the nonrefundable airline ticket, they cannot be in two places at once. [laughter] they wish they could be here. The tremendous honor of this nomination and the trust you have placed in me to carry out this large and important responsibility as secretary of Homeland Security. I was not looking for this opportunity. I had left government at the end of last year and was settling back into private life and private practice. When i received the call, i could not refuse it. I am in new york go. In manhattan on 9 11. It happens to be my birthday. When a bright and Beautiful Day was shattered by the largest terrorist attack on our homeland in history, i wander the streets of new york and wondered and asked, what can i do . Since then, i have tried to devote myself to answering that question. I love this country. I care about the safety of our people. I believe in Public Service. I remain loyal to you, mr. President. If confirmed by the senate, i promise all my energy and focus and ability toward the task of safeguarding our Nations National and Homeland Security. Thank you again. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] on the next washington er andl jason fichtn discuss annner Government Shutdown and the debt ceiling debate. Director jon kingston looks at the 40th anniversary of the opec oil embargo. And your emails, phone calls, and tweets. Washington journal live at 7 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Who haveys like us been in the game for a long time, we know there are landmines out there. We have to be careful about how you manage your way through these things. Or arabisraeli relations. To have their own red lines that they have to be aware of. Get awayrtoonist can with in separate cisco might be different and what you can get away with in parts of alabama get away with in San Francisco might be different with what you can get away with in parts of alabama. I would think it would be fair to say people are more liberal. They say that bad news is kind of good for cartoonists. It gives us a lot of fodder. Anduld rather work harder have less bad news and know we are going in the right direction. I do not think we are going in the right direction right now. I feel like it is a real calling for me to get my opinions out there. It iss weekend on cspan, not all fun and games for editorial cartoonists. Here why saturday at 10 a. M. Eastern. Tv, saturdayook evening at 7 45 p. M. And on cspan numeral three America History tv, and look at at nixon and the saturday night massacre. Saturday afternoon at 1 p. M. The u. S. Supreme court heard oral arguments on the 2006 Ballot Initiative that thats michigan schools from considering race or gender in the admissions process. Decision for the court of is whether it violates the 14th 14th amendment equal protection law. Next the oral argument of the case. This is an hour. We will hear argument next today in case 12682, schuette v. The coalition to defend affirmative action. Mr. Bursch. Thank you, mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court, the issue in this case is whether a michigan constitutional Provision Requiring equal treatment violates equal protection. And for two reasons, the answer is no. First, unlike the laws at issue in hunter and seattle, section 26 does not repeal an antidiscrimination law. Instead, it repeals preferences and thus, its an impediment to preferential treatment, not equal treatment. Holt had nothing to do with an antidiscrimination law. It had to do with a remedy, defective segregation. Why isnt this identical to seattle . Justice sotomayor, its not identical because of the remedy issue. In seattle, they were trying to create, in the courts words, equal Educational Opportunity by imposing a remedy that would result in equality in the schools. You dont think that the proponents of affirmative action are attempting to do the same thing . One of the bill sponsors here said that this constitutional amendment will bring back desegregation in michigan, and it appears to have done just that. Well, theres two points to that question and ill address them both. First on the merits, under grutter, the point of preferences in University Admissions cannot be solely the benefit of the minority, because under grutter, its supposed to benefit the campus as a whole through diversity, and which we think is a laudable goal. Its a forwardlooking action, not a backwardlooking action, to remedy past discrimination. And we know that because under grutter, you can use preferences whether or not theres de facto or de jure segregation, simply to get the benefit. But with respect to your your point about the university of michigan and what has or has not happened here, two thoughts on that. First, we have the statistics that we discuss in our reply brief where its not clear that that the diversity on michigans campus has gone down. But our main point on that is is not those numbers, but the fact that there are other things that the university of michigan could be doing to achieve diversity in raceneutral ways. For example, we know that i thought that in grutter, all of the social scientists had pointed out to the fact that all of those efforts had failed. Thats one of the reasons why the i think it was a law school claim in michigan was upheld. Well, theres social Science Evidence that goes both ways. But i want to focus on the university of michigan because theres two things that they could be doing right now that would get them closer to the raceneutral goal. The first thing is that they could eliminate alumnae preferences. Other schools have done that. They have not. Thats certainly one way that tilts the Playing Field away from underrepresented minorities. The other one, and this is really important, is the focus on socioeconomic its always wonderful for minorities that they finally get in, they finally have children and now youre going to do away for that preference for them. It seems that the game posts keeps changing every few years for minorities. Given the makeup of michigans alumnae right now, certainly that Playing Field would be tilted the other way. The other thing that we practice is socioeconomic diversity. And at the university of michigan, there was a stat in the wall street journal just two days ago that if you measure that by pell grants, the number of students who are eligible for those, at the university, the number of students who have pell grants is half what it is at more progressive institutions like berkeley and the university of texas at austin. So the university of michigan could be trying harder. But our point isnt to get into a debate about whether preferences are a good or bad thing, because thats not what this case is about. The question is whether the people of michigan have the choice through the democratic process to accept this courts invitation in grutter to try raceneutral means. Mr. Bursch, could you go back well, while youre on seattle, can you i have difficulty distinguishing seattle. One factual difference is that there was a school board there, a directlyelected school board elected for a short term of years. Here theres a board of trustees. Is that is that the distinguish a distinguishing factor in the case in which a principal distinction could be made . I think its a distinguishing factor. You know, kind of sticking with how hard is it under the new political process. And i think the chart that we have on page 17 of our reply brief explains that its really easier to change racebased admissions policies now than it was before section 26. And thats one basis. But i think the more fundamental basis is to say, you know, what seattle is about. And and if you indulge me, im going to suggest that seattle could mean one of three things. One of those i think you should clearly reject, and then the other two i think are are possible interpretations that you could adopt. When seattle talks about racial classifications, it focuses on laws that have a racial focus. Now, right out of the box, equal protection is about people, not about laws, but even more fundamentally, that cannot be the right test. At a minimum, that part of seattle has to go because if you had a raceneutral law, like michigans equal protection clause, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race or sex you know, it mirrors the concept of the federal clause that itself would be subject to strict scrutiny because it has a racial focus. So we know that cant be right and thats respondents position. So that leaves you two other choices. And one would be an incremental change to this political restructuring doctrine; the other would be a more aggressive change. The incremental change would be to interpret racial classification in seattle as meaning a law that, one, repeals an antidiscrimination provision, as it did in hunter and seattle; and two, removes that issue to a higher level of the Decision Making process. And because michigans law requires equal treatment, it eliminates preferences, not an antidiscrimination law. That would be a way that you could keep seattle and hunter as a viable doctrine, and still rule in our favor on this case. I dont see the distinction. Bussing could be viewed, and was viewed, to benefit only one group. It was a preference for blacks to get into better schools. Thats the way the case was pitched, that was its justification, and to integrate the society. Affirmative action has the same gain. Weve said that in fisher; it should be to diversify the population, so it favors diversity as opposed to desegregation. Right. But theres a difference between favoring diversity as an abstract concept on campus, which grutter clearly allows, and remedying past discrimination, which was the point of the bussing in seattle. And thats why were really in a postseattle world now, because under but there there was no proof that there was any de jure segregation in seattle. Thats correct because, at the time of seattles decision, we didnt yet have parents involved, and so there wasnt a strict scrutiny test that was being applied to that bussing program. And so you didnt have to go as far as you would today if you wanted to uphold that same bussing program. But what really what ties this case up but youre saying there are three things. One, the first you reject. Yes. The law was a racial focus. It cant be because of racial focus. Ok. And the second was an incremental improvement in the in the democratic process or democratic responsibility . That, plus responsiveness, i guess. Right. That, plus repealing an antidiscrimination law. I think thats a narrow way and was there a third, did you say . Well, the third way is really to to look at racial focus and say thats wrong, and maybe this whole doctrine needs to be reexamined. And the way that you could do that is to look at what seattle and hunter are really doing, which is falling right into the washington v. Davis line of cases. Both of those cases could have been resolved by saying, one, theres a disparate impact; and two, given the facts and circumstances in 1969, akron, ohio and 1982, seattle, washington, that there was discr