Welcome to the Democratic NationalCommittee Chair form. Im amy allison and we are so thrilled that youre here. Along with our partners me to an inclusive we want to welcome you here today. Take you for joining us at George Washington university for this historic and important conversation about the future of the Democratic Party. We want to welcome our viewers on live stream who are joining us across the country from ohio, to nevada. We look forward to your comments and perspectives and if you dont mind using hashtags we can follow along in the conversations, and another note, we we have some voting members of the Democratic National committee thank you for being here for this conversation we want to thank you for your service were talk about the elected and reelected presiden oba, they frame our nversation today. To get us started i want to want to bring to the stage former Nevada State Assembly met in Vice President of public affairs. Please give a round of applause. [applause] hello. How is everybody feeling tonight . This is fantastic. Look at this turnout. I know we are reaching hundreds of thousands of people on our live stream. That is really exciting. Thank you for being here this evening. Me too is a very proud because as a Digital Media company that strives to give voice to the 200 percent, those who are 100 american and 100 latino, we know how important it is to provide access to communities of color. We produce contact from a latino point of view. At a time when multicultural use of user on their way of becoming a majority in this country conversations like this and to access to conversations like these are more important than ever. In that spirit, mitu is the bay on trout to bring to a young man who has a powerful words to say about the power of words. [applause] [applause] in 19 oh six and earthquake ruptures the San Andreas Fault killing an estimated 3000 people. Vibrations can break boulders and devastate lives, then our work can split open minds in the geographical shape of its content because sound is vibration. Our verb starts earthquake. Lets break that ground. Leaders from being slaves, and 2010 and earthquake takes the lives of 300,000. Do not underestimate the hercules behind your tongue. Your voices are the reason that access is tilted. True silence is the reason its dying. So if earthquake can destroy lives, our voices can rebuild them. In 2011 and earthquake devastate fukushima japan. I have been to the mountainside. And i looked over and ive seen the promised land. The only thing in our way is a mute mountain. So we crumble mountains. We crack rock without needing a pipe. Give me one word, one sentence can make the ground move like a tsunami. A tsunami. You can hear their words crack in the concrete, cracking the blast, believing that earthquake would cause repercussions. The future, the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. So today, i have a dream. In my dream wasnt heard. Today i have a dream. But my dream was deferred. Today i had a dream about a king but the king wasnt her. The legends are angry, the world is violent while we stay. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The opposite reaction of division is multiplication. Problems rectus solutions. Solutions. Oppression reacts to revolution. The death of Trayvon Martin reacts to the execution. Voices react to vibration. Vibrations react to earthquakes so sound is vibration. Our verbs are as earthquakes. Thats break the ground our Fallen Heroes are trapped beneath him. Lets react, leaders from slave react. Lets speak and talk like an earthquake. Be like a rock and watch. Its granite, planets shake. [applause] give him another round of applause. [applause] i can honestly say have never come to a political event where it open so powerfully. We have such gratitude to our partners for bringing you to this audience. Again, our live our live audience, please let us know youre there. And shout out from when you are joining the lifestream. Given the outcome of the most recent election. It is clearly a critical moment for the Democratic Party and our country. Who lisa says chair at the dnc . The strategy of the party is going to be central to the success of getting back power. So the road to tonights form began in earnest from appointment analysis articulated in democracy and colors founder the book, brown is the new white. Said, among other other things and it challenged us to look at the power and the potential of the new american majority to leave the Democratic Party forward. The current president made raw appeals to White Nationalism and steve has rightly stated unequivocally that the democrats lost because they did not know how to directly address race. [applause] the fact is people of color 46 of the Democratic Party and those numbers will continue to go up. The reality calls for a new type of leadership and a new type of understanding of who the voters are and what they want and political leadership. Steve and his wife have been working on this nonstop calling for solutions in this racially polarized climate. So tonight, we have a unique opportunity to have an open conversation about how rice impacts the paths forward like the great dr. Says, our task is to build a new language that pulls people together and explores new avenues to political strengths to save the hearts of democracy. To hold race and class, together not to cut across race but to cut through it as we find the solution that perplex in challenger nation. We have a deep belief that the next chair of the dnc must have the skills to leave and to organize a National Dialogue on race, on Racial Justice and are not made multiracial unity. This form will help us assess the readiness of each of the candidates youll meet tonight to participate and advance that effort. We invite federal democrats to take real ownership of the party and to contribute to its future direction. We invite a new era of transparency and democracy the Democratic Party. We invite an opportunity to openly discuss the structural and strategics changes we need to make to start weeding. We invite open discussion on reform agendas put forth by these candidates to bring us powerfully into our political future. Now, it is my honor to introduce the first woman, first black woman, ceo of the Democratic National committee who had some historic winds and diversity in terms of staffing and contracting. I want want 12 comes to the state juliet. [applause] good evening. It is my pleasure to be with you this evening with my good friend donna. And thank you allison for your introduction and thank you to democracy and color for presenting this gathering to us. In a month from now the members of the dnc, and i come itself among them will come together to elect our next chair. It is an exciting and pivotal time for us, for our party, for country. We just witness the inauguration of a president to most americans did not vote for. We also just witnessed the powerful gathering of millions of women from around the world, and men come together in solidarity and common purpose to send a message that the hard won rights of women and girls must be protected and advanced. These two events one on the heels of the other, one filled with sorrow and anger and regrets for us as democrats, and and the other was full of hope and possibility, give our party an important opportunity to regroup, retool, and remind ourselves of who we are as democrats. That we have a mission, a a mandate, and a moral obligation to work, fight, and speak on behalf of those who cannot work, fight, or speak for themselves. To be successful we must reach out to every segment of the electorate. We need our next chair to understand that is the mission, the mandate and the moral obligation that it is. I dont like to talk about diversity because it seems to me that it is hard to quantify. Its like taking a teaspoon of pepper and putting it in a powder salt and thinking he made a difference. But, we really havent change the quality of the salt. I prefer to talk about the come star party, representation. [applause] i believe that our parties apparatus must be representative of a community of the communities who made her pretty strong and vibrant as well as the community that were trying to reach. Top to bottom and bottom to top. Staffing, appointments, consultants, pollsters, candidate recruitment and fundraising. [applause] in every area, at every level, we need, we must must have a way to demand to be represented in the party to which we have been loyal and which has relied upon our votes year in and year out. [applause] it is a challenge, but it is not impossible. And i know because ceo of the 2016 and 2008 Democratic National convention i achieved this i achieved this goal. In 2016 my staff was 60 female and 54 people of color. [applause] and not only that, we set a goal of one third of minority spending and we exceeded that reaching owes 50 minority spending. [applause] so in front of the camera and behind the scene our staff it was not the best in spite of diversity, but because of diversity. Because we because we brought every voice, every community to the table. Our diversity is not our problem, it is our promise. [applause] this commitment, this leadership and with intentional direction, we can achieve these results up and down the ballot, up and down our party, just by having the right tools. So, tonight will hear from seven of the now 11 candidates who are running for chair of the dnc. We want to know tonight, and we look forward to answering the questions, what are the steps and strategies they will take to engage the new american majority. I consultants, who drives the strategy determines the outcome. How will they choose consultants and strategists for the party . On recruitment of new candidates, how will they build the bench so its reflected of the electorate . What is the plan to recruit the next generation of progressive leaders . On fundraising, how do we raise and spend dollars for minority communities . We look forward to hearing the answers. We are thrilled to have seven tonight or qualify, each, each of them to leave the Democratic Party into its next future. We look forward to pointed questions that get to the heart of the matter, no pussyfooting around. We want real answers about how our party will move forward under their leadership. Thank you, god bless you. [applause] without further ado we have an opportunity to invite our moderator to the stage. Joy n reed is host of a emjoi on msnbc on the weekend. [applause] she is also a columnist to the daily beast and editor of we are the change we speak. Speeches of barack obama that recently came out. We are thrilled and thankful that youre here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. This is excited. Thank you amy. Good evening everyone. Thats in d. C. Good evening. So i would think George Washington university for hosting and also democracy and color for the invitation to be here. My friend jessica and jamaal and of course steve philip. This is an important debate. I think this is the central debate that the Democratic Party has to deal coming forward. Im glad you are here. Let me introduce those candidates for dnc chair who are with us tonight that will debate. Lets start with congressman keith ellison. [applause] lets bring on mayor keith [applause] i did okay . I said i was going to say quickly so he would not know i got it wrong. Raymond buckley. [applause] lets bring in jamie carrington. [applause] and now cream. Lets bring on the honorable tom perez, last but not least, sally brown. Thank you all for being here. You can ever see. Tonights what im going to do, my plan is to break this up into a few sections. I want to start off with the elephant in the room, the obvious. We just we just had an election in which democrats won the popular vote but did not win the white house. One of the core questions that came out of this election is, who should democrats be targeting Going Forward . I pulled up statistics here we had africanamericans vote for the Democratic Party at a rate of 80 percent. 88 voted for the democrats. Among white voters it was 37 percent. Among latinos in . Among latinos and this number is in dispute, 65 . Some talk that it was more than that. And and among Asian American voters, 65 . One other piece of data about the election as you had white voters with a College Degree, white voters with a College Degree still favor the republican party. And only white women with a College Degree only favorite Hillary Clinton, but just barely. Despite the fact the fact that Hillary Clinton improved on her numbers with white voters with a College Degree and spent time courting those waters and focusing on the, she did not manage to in that group. You still have white voters without a College Degree overwhelmingly for donald trump. Celeste talk about the debate of whether not democrats spent much time trying to win over particularly white women voters and failing to do that at the end of the day. And whether the Democratic Party would have been wiser to focus more time and attention courting voters of color. Ill go in reverse order. I think its really part that we have a conversation with all of the people. The idea of talking to specific groups of people doesnt seem to be working for us. The times to accept that we have one thing in common, were human. If we focus on giving power back to peoples a great equalizer. Powers what will bring us forward. The Democratic Party needs to realize this more than anything else. There people out there who are not being heard. We need to make sure bringing all of those voices together we stop filing our conversations into specific groups of people. The folks in our country dont feel like their kids are going to have a better life than they had. Thats an issue we have to sell. If we dont solve it nobody else is going to. Tom perez. I think its a false choice have to say that were going to go to one community or another. What we need to do and what we did a poor job of his making house calls. We didnt get out there and persuade. You cant show up at a church every fourth of october call that an organizing strategy. And thats what we did is democrats. When we are there, ted kennedy, 1980 at Democratic Convention talked about the most important civil rights for any person is a job for over talk about jobs, we talk about opportunity the second pillar of the Democratic Party is that we voice taken care of folks in the shadows making sure they get into the sunshine. When we Pay Attention to those two pillars that is how we succeed. We are organizing, whether it is in milwaukee or rural wisconsin, in talking about that message of hope and opportunity thats when the Democratic Party is at its best. When hope is on the ballot we win and what appears on the ballot we dont to say hi. Thats i think we need in every zip code strategy that is around that basic message of Economic Opportunity and a party that is about everyone. Inclusion is our strength. Diversity is our greatest asset is a country. We could talk about that everywhere. When you talk about opportunity we need to talk about our you lifting people up for dragon them down. We sometimes get bent out of shape are you in the center of the party left of the party, you lifted people up or bringing him down. When we get people with jobs we give people that opportunity. When we make sure communities have safe and constitutional please were expanding opportunity. When we make sure immigrants have access to the American Dream were expanding opportunity. I think that works everywhere. [applause] i absolutely agree with sally and secretary perez. You have to do a job is democrats engaging americans of all hues, genders, generations and generations and backgrounds. Ill be very blunt. The dnc did a piss poor pathetic job of engaging young people of color in the 2016 election. We have to oh nine. We also did it very bad job of communicating inter sexuality. Racism, classism, homophobia, and we did not make a better way of communicating to all of these communities that are affected by these issues. If we had, we would have turned out the white to voters that are now getting the focus of the media attention. One of the things that compelled me to get into this race, the possibility of overcompensating for these mistakes. We cannot do that as a party. [applause] i have to agree. Something we do quite often is with the question we say i just dont understand how these people vote against their best interest . It goes one thing. Its about trust. Voters in this country to not vote here most of the time, they votes here and here. The problem we have is that were always trying to focus on the we dont folks on this. Its a question of trust. Do working class people trust that the Democratic Party is fighting for them. Two latinas feel like we actually are fighting for them . You can go on and on with all the various groups. Used to be a teacher. I taught ninth grade social studies. The one thing i taught was was the most powerful way to persuade anybodys to show and not tell. The problem that we have had for the past decade in this party is that we do a lot of telling and not enough showing. So if we really want to talk about how to we talk to millennials, wes, we have to show not tell. How do we tell to the Africanamerican Community . D