Your thoughts be known and your ideas for fixing congress. Weigh in. You can here are the phone lines. For republicans, 202 5853881. For democrats, 202 5853880. For independents, 202 58538 2 2. Respond onweet, facebook or send us an email. The gallup poll looks at confidence in the congress. If you look at the pole and go back to the mid80s, you can see that Congress Congressional an uptake bys at 2003 at 30 . Leading to the current day in 2014 with 7 percent of respondents saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in congress. Have confidence in congress, you can let us know. You may want to share your ideas for fixing congress. 202 phone lines, 5853881 for republicans. 202 5853880 for democrats. 202 5853882 for independents. And onal media, cspanwj facebook. About 90 people responding on facebook. Com cspan. Send in enough to journal cspan. Org. Lets find out about activities in congress this week with Cristina Marcos of the hill, she joins us on the phone. Guest good morning, thank you for having me. Host as far as Senate Floor Action this week, what should we expect . Takingthe house will be up three bills to boost domestic energy. One is offered by cory gardner of colorado, in a Competitive Senate race against senator udall. That is also something that can boost his campaign. Meanwhile, in the senate, they will be taking up a rare electionyear Bipartisan Legislation that would boost jobtraining programs. Host telephone but more about that, why is that rare . Tell us a little bit more about that, why is that rare . Year, is an election legislation has slowed to a crawl. Last year they were going to last week they were going to take a pay measure that would fund the government until 2016. It fell apart because i could not agree to whether or not it should be subject to a 60 vote threshold. Is a hot environment topic with issues like pollution. Does that it considered as well, especially when energy is debated on the house floor . Guest yes, it is a big deal, especially with the recent epa nule limiting carbo omissions. Host carbon emissions. Host what is of note with the v. A. Hearing, what is being considered . Guest this is the third primetime hearing i the department of Veterans Affairs. We will be hearing from officials overseeing the department about why veterans have had to wait for so long to see doctors as well as to collect benefits they have applied for. As politics goes, is it still charged as far as democrats and publicans and the issues they bring or is this . Ore bipartisan in nature it is bipartisan with the department of Veterans Affairs. Last week, the house and senate hasd, the house so far voted to set up conference negotiations with the senate on chambers Veterans Affairs reform bill. Negotiators from house and senate will sit down and hammer out differences between the two goals its chamber has passed. That is on its way to becoming legislation to reform the department on president obamas desk this year. Host we listed a couple hearings coming for this week. Medicare fraud, sexual files, autism. What should people be watching for as far as hearings are concerned . Guest another big hearing happening tonight is in the house of his a committee, House Oversight committee. They will be hearing from the john koskinener about the missing emails from lois lerner. They said they were not able to recover many of the emails. Of herwo years worth emails, from january 2009 to april 2011 due to a religion due to an alleged computer crash. Republicans say that is conveniently a critical period in their investigation. Democratstion year, are accusing them of engaging in hunt. Ition whicitch host especially when you have paul ryan expressing disbelief in what has and said. You expect more of the same. Guest absolutely, and therell rightubpoenaed koskinen out of the gate. He testified in front of the house and Means Committee last week. Rest assure this will be a very partisan hearing. The abilitypressed as the summer goes on, especially as Elections Come forward in november. The worked out perfect the work out put of congress, will that slow down . Guest in the senate and has slowed down a lot in the last couple weeks. Democrats and republicans cannot come to an agreement on amendments. That had of things been relatively bipartisan like the tax extenders cap package and the appropriations bill, there is a lot of bipartisan agreement underneath it all. To because they cannot come an agreement on amendments, republicans are very upset they have not been able to amend any legislation in this congress. A lot ofen blowing up major legislation in the last few weeks. In the house, they have actually been passing a lot of legislation. Fiscal 2015ve appropriations bills. The senate is going to take up and sent to the president. Host Cristina Marcos, we are asking folks to comment on how to fix congress. This comes from a gallup poll saying that only 7 Show Confidence in the institution. Do you know if republicans and democrats are selfaware of this kind of opinion of the body . Guest and a lot of them will knowledge themselves, who are the 7 that still think we are, sent . Are competent . Whosee a lot of members have decided to retire or step down. A lot of them say this is not a productive place anymore. They do not feel like it is worth tracking down to washington every weekend and having to be away from their families if they are not getting a lot done. With thetina marcos hill, congressional reporter. Thank you. Guest thank you. Host again, the lines, 202 5853881 for republicans. 202 5853880 for democrats. 202 5853882 for independents. The topic is your ideas for fixing congress. Toof confidence according the latest gallup poll. Ralph, michigan, democrats line. Go ahead. Caller i have three recommendations, quickly. Try to limit the gerrymandering of the Congressional Districts. It does not affect the senate because the senate is determined by the state. The gerrymandering of the Congressional Districts makes all the difference. All the districts are safe. The incumbents are guaranteed reelection. I would recommend a limit to the lobbying in congress. I think there is too much money and campaigning. G money,y bi billionaires, corporations. In my stay, i live in the third Congressional District in michigan. 7 do not like congress. I can say that the chances of the incumbent being reelected 80 . Robably it goes with all the other incumbents. The districts are so well drawn that all the democrats are reelected, all the republicans are reelected. Even though we are a blue state, michigan, we have nine republicans eight or nine in the house and only five democrats. They gerrymandered it so that even though this is a 5050 or a democrat leaning state, the republicans have way more representation in the house of representatives. Host from virginia on our independent line, this is roger. Caller good morning. I think there are six things that can be done. First, restore the power of the people to the people. Remove the cap on the house of representatives, which causes a lot of gerrymandering. The constitution originally mandated that the district should be 30,000 to 50,000, that was never amended as proposed among the first 12 amendments to the constitution. That would be one thing. Also put a cap on the size of the states at one million. This would increase the representation in the senate. Put in place a legislative negligent act, if you do not pass a budget you do not deserve an office and you are removed and do not get paid. You cannot serve in any appointed position. You need to get rid of the independentonal in regulatory agencies. Congress is supposed to have the power to oversee what goes on at write regulations. They are imposing a burden on the American People. Let that tax forms indicate where you want tax dollars to go. Host interesting ideas, where do you get these ideas from . Caller the cap on the house was imposed by a statute and was never ratified as an amendment by the state. Host roger from virginia. A littleur next caller ways up, just outside of d. C. Announce andrea. John, independent line. Caller a couple comments. I like what some of your callers have to say. One of the things i think we are seeing too much of our the special Interest Groups and lobbyists. And the money that is backing them. People who are down there representing their interests and what these folks were elected to represent. It was down there promoting what we stand for . The other thing i think we all have had enough of hearing is. Lander good grief, name calling. The entire time, anytime excuse me, it gets frustrating at a time someone disagrees with someone else or you are not doing something that i want you becomeyou automatically the race card is always pulled. Or you hate people, the hate crimes come out. Or some other sort of demeaning slander. They need to stop that. And work together. Host james with another thought on twitter. Congress is working as good as can be imagined, they are not passing laws restricting our freedom. Good to our facebook page, facebook. Com cspan. Limits on theerm three in the house and two in the senate. People responding to that as well. Including theresa, who says a cap should be put on their pay. Me thoughts this morning on how to fix congress. This as we showed you the gallup , in the mid1980s it was at 40 plus, now it is at 7 , people showing confidence in congress. If you have ideas for fixing congress and want to share, the phonelines are available as well as facebook and twitter. Email, too. Lee, indiana, democrats line. Caller good morning. I know congress is a mess right now. I think republicans take most of the marching orders. They taket a slam, most of the marching orders from limbaugh. Get talk radio off the air and get him off the air so they cannot run everything by him and we will have a better america. Host you turn your direction to radio talk shows and the like . Do not think republicans can do one thing without running it by him or getting his input. Of course, he hates obama. You think that people turn to him or republicans turned to him for advice and counsel . Caller hes got three hours each day on the radio. In my area, anyway. Has those three hours to criticize, to radical, or whatever. He hates the president. It filters through congress. I am a democrat but i have voted both ways. His input means a lot. If he does not and they do not do what he wants done, he spends three hours on the radio and bashing. Have you heard him before . Host i have heard his show before. You think he holds that much sway over congress . Caller in my opinion, yes. N a republican congress, yes if republicans take over the senate, lord help us this year. Theyre going to be passing things. I voted for obama. The president will be he will be vetoing everything. Keep this in mind. If Rush Limbaugh is listening to this, indiana will be bashed. That is my input and my opinion. I appreciate you listening to me. Host charlie from ohio, republican line. Caller yes, i was just thinking about this. Wenged defending changed, the Founding Fathers wanted the senate to be elected by the state legislator. When we changed that, congress changed for good. We should look at going back to what our framers really wanted, for our senators to come right to the people in the strict tenets for our senators to come right from the people and the state senate. Host you think that would help . Caller it would bring it closer to the people. The u. S. Senate is very detached from the rankandfile people. Not sit on high and we do get to know them. If they were coming from states on its, which if they were coming from state senates, which they were supposed to do, that would come a long way. I think there should be a law that every new law you have to put to sleep on a law. We keep putting new laws on the books on the old laws are still there and nobody gets rid of them. For every new law, an old law has to be put to sleep. Host darryl from detroit, michigan, independent line. Caller the morning. I think the solution is more simple than most people are talking about. Collection areas and all that. We the people have the power when we enter the inner sanctum of the ballot box. If we have a 70 approval rate of congress, why do we elect 90 plus at reelection . Can it be done . Yes. Eric cantor, case in point. Thank you very much. American task force on palestine today has an event taking a look at the violence in iraq. See live on cspan2 that live on cspan2. At 9 00 a. M. President obama on a taped interview on face the nation talking about iraq. Here are some of his comments from yesterday. [video clip] going to be a Global Challenge that the u. S. Is going to have to address. We will not be able to address it alone. What we cannot do is think that we are going to play lacrimal and send u. S. Troops play mole and send u. S. Troops to countries wherever these organizations pop up. We will have to partner and trained local Law Enforcement and military to do their jobs as well. Would that vacuum exist had we backed moderate rebel forces in syria. Yes. The notion that somehow there was this readymade moderate syrian force was able to defeat assad is simply not true. The notion that they were in a position suddenly to overturn not only assad but also ruthless, highly trained jihadists if we would send a few arms is a fantasy. Host more on the topic of iraq in 25 minutes with Steven Clemons from the atlantic. Now, fixing congress. From florida, hello. What the the gentleman from ohio was talking about the 17th amendment. If we did make a push to get that off the books, with the 16th amendment and the irs stuff going on. Replacing with a flat tax. Repealed,get that the government collects three people. To to go to washington and one as a backup. If one of the two goes through the chambers of the various states and act like a fool, the government can recall him and put the alternate in. That would help. Like a few other people said, the money, the lobbyists, all that, it messes everything up. You can sit on the floor of the and get away with it. If we did that on the streets, we would be arrested for slander. A look at senate primaries, particularly what is going on in mississippi. This story by robert costa. Host that is in the Washington Post. A related story in the New York Times focusing on the primary raise an outside observer. Senator thad cochran fights for his political life in mississippi by taking the unexpected step of courting black democrats. Host you can read more this morning in the New York Times. Romney from kentucky ronnie from kentucky, independent line. Hello. Caller that talked about talk radio made a very excellent comment. I want to throw in, programs sharptonedge and al and hannity, for sure. These peoplening are so far apart. These congressmen should listen there isprograms no way they can work together. Then you have dick cheney making all his comments he has made in he last year or two since left office. How in the world can anything get done . I would like to see the majority leader in the senate and the house be replaced immediately. [indiscernible] together,not work they get in front of the microphones and want to slam each other. It is just ridiculous. Somebody to get up and speak for an hour on the microphone and then you have someone like bernie sanders. They are so far apart, it will never work for the good of the country. We need people that think about the country instead of their own selves. Host this is a viewer on twitter. Duty type selection for serving in congress. Debra, democrat from richmond, virginia. Caller good morning. Simple. It is very we need to cut their paychecks at least in half. They need to grow up. It is as simple as that. What would cutting paid to . What do you mean by grow up . Caller there are a lot of things that they are discussing that they are uneducated on. Instead of trying to get things straight, they are more into controlling people, ok . They are not worried about it is not money it is about money. They need to do what theyre supposed to do. Host if you watch this number can have, you will see Charles Rangel from new york featured in the wall street journal. A story related about tomorrow as well. A primary election for him. Tuesday, the 84yearold politician will face off in a tough democratic election. Host that is in the wall street journal. Phil, south carolina, democrat line. Caller i should be on the independents line. Ide, that is a little bit of what comes around goes around. He has been a problem up there forever. He just gets elected and stays there because he has a voting block. To is it now it is going bite him because the base has changed. I am shocked by the fact that i ine had two callers get already that think the way to fix this problem is by limiting free speech. Im talking about the guy from kentucky and the guy from indiana. Sorry, im going to slam him before rush gets a chance to. You think we should limit talk radio. People need to get educated. Education can come from a lot of different areas. Talk radio, is Rush Limbaugh always right, far from it . But the idea is to have an idea and Pay Attention what is going on. Rush limbaugh has helped to quash some bad ideas in congress by getting on his soapbox and letting people know what is going on. Amazing when people are educated they can realize that the idea that is coming down from congress is wrong. One more thing before i go, pedro, but i cannot with the thought that every time they pass a law they have to eliminate or shut down another law. I have thought that the longest time. I dont know how you would manipulate it. At the talk about a donothing congress, we are much better off if they dont do anything for the most part. Host the Supreme Court set to end their terminal we from today. Three decision days set for this week when it comes to cases they have heard. Eight major cases is the headline from usa today. That looks at president ial powers. This pits president obama against republicans in congress. While the branch of government s arbiter. Host among them, som