To make the ultimate constitutional determinations. Other branches have that responsibility, too. Attorney general, do you have anything to add . I dont think so. You cant top that. Everybodys been very patient, but i do see were coming up on 10 00, and i feel that the red light on the podium is going off. So if you have any closing thoughts, either of you wed love to hear them. Or with that, wed like to thank you for your time and everything. President bill clinton is in New Hampshire today on his First Campaign trip for hillary in 2016. Hell talk about how hillary will make a difference for families in the Granite State and across the country. Thats live today at 5 15 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight on the communicators, Consumer TechnologyAssociation President gary shapiro on the Major Technology issues he expects in 2016 and why the cta changed its name this past fall to Consumer Technology association. Hes joined by tony rohm, politicos technology reporter. Innovation, over 3600 exhibiting companies and over 2. 4 million net square feet of exhibit space. Thats up from 2. 24 million in 2015. So its going to be spectacular. More innovation, more excitement, more different categories than ever before. And its the future. Its a show where the solving problems reallife problems for the world, not just about entertainment, education and information. Its about health care. Its about transportation. Clean food. Clean water. Greater food production. Were solving big problems with technology. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan2. Now well hear from a former police chief and state legislators from communities that recently made news for racial tensions with police. Hosted by the National Black caucus of state legislators, this is an hour, 20 minutes. Thank you all, and its a great honor to be here. Im particularly pleased to be able to be engaged with such a distinguished panel. And i know they are known to all of you, but just for the purposes of the record, id just like to acknowledge who is on the panel. And then we will just proceed by way of posing some questions, asking our panelists to talk about some of the very, very crucial issues of race that we are all facing at this time. First, we have the honorable Katherine Pugh who is the president. Shes been a Public Servant for over 20 years, has been a member of the baltimore, maryland, city council. Before coming to the senate, she is currently the majority leader and has been named the best politician for getting the job done by the city paper. She has been an entrepreneur by trade and is currently also someone who has been received the naacp legislator of the year award. We also have with us the honorable Gilda Cobb Hunter who is mbcsl vice president. Shes with the South Carolina house of representatives. She was the first africanamerican woman in Orangeburg County ever elected to a statewide office. And she became the first freshman appointed to and is now Ranking Member of the house ways and means committee. And she is also of the first ever to lead first person of color ever to lead a legislative caucus as the House Minority leader. She has been dubbed the conscience of the house. Shes also vice chair of the africanamerican history Monument Commission and has led an historic effort to build the first monument to africanamericans on the ground for the new State Capitol. Shes also executive director of casa family systems which is a Family Violence agency serving orangeburg and calhoun countys. We also have with us the honorable carl hasty who is the first africanamerican to serve as speaker of the new york state assembly. He, in his first budget as speaker, he has worked closely with the Assembly Majority to develop a Financial Plan that made an historic 1. 8 billion investment in education. He represents the 83rd district in the northeast bronx. And among his many legislative achievements, he was principal negotiator in securing an increase in the minimum wage which was historic and trend setting, actually, in terms of the fight for minimum wage. He has also been a champion of Public Health and was instrumental in the passage of a law that prohibited the sale of water containing nicotine to children under 18. I think it speaks volumes that you should even have to pass a law that would prevent such a product. But he has also been a very strong proponent of aid for victims of domestic violence. We also have with us the honorable clem smith from the Missouri State house of representatives. He is also cochair of the mbcsl military and Veterans Affairs committee. He received his degree from Columbia College and has been a longstanding member of trade unions, working in the Aircraft Assembly working in the aircraft industry. He serves on the exec tough committee and also on the National Labor caucus of the aflcio. We also have with us senator Donny Trotter who was elected to the illinois General Assembly in 1988. He previously served in the house of representatives and was then elected to the state senate where he served as chair of the joint illinois legislative black caucus. From the beginning, senator trotter has championed Health Care Initiatives for women and children and addressing Environmental Justice issues as well as laws banning assault weapons. I think we can all think about why thats particularly salient thing at this moment, witnessing the Current Events unfold. Currently he is assistant majority leader and chair of the Appropriations Committee overseeing the budget. Hes been working to ensure that economically disadvantaged communities are represented at the table in terms of finding poverty, through legislation, his kid care, family care and senior Care Initiatives have all worked to improve health care for these communities. Use also been a leader in some juvenile justice issues. And finally, last but not least, we have with us chief Chris Burbank who is the director of the Law Enforcement engagement with the center for policing equity, chief burbank is recently retired but has been a part of a very groundbreaking program which is actually affiliated with one of my colleagues at ucla. Its the center for policing equity. My colleague, phil goff, who teaches in the Psychology Department has been a leader in thinking about ways of addressing bias in policing, and chris has been a central part of the center for policing equity since its inception. He was an unwavering advocate of the National Justice database as solutions to waning public trust and confidence in policing, worked with the Salt Lake CityPolice Department from 1991 until his retirement in june of this year. And he was appointed to chief of police in march of 2006. Hes been selected as a member of the enlightened 50 most influential leaders in the state of utah. And selected as one of six Police Chiefs in the nation to meet with president obama to discuss the administrations plan and direction concerning gun violence. I could go on, but i think wed much rather hear from these people than hear about these people. So at this point im going to pose a couple of questions and hopefully get a lively discussion and hear from them about the very Important Information and work that theyve been doing. So in many respects, you all represent baltimore, South Carolina, illinois, new york, missouri. Theres a powerful thread that really connects all these places in a kind of racial geography. These are all places where over the past two years, black men, women and children have been killed by the police and people have paid attention. I put it this way because its clear that the death of black people at the hands of police is not new. Its a longstanding part of our history. Its been something that black people have struggled with for a long time. Indeed going back to 1951, a group of activists including Paul Roberson filed a petition at the United Nations called we charge genocide in which one of the bill of particulars that they brought to the u. N. Was the repeated violence by the police against black people. What seems to be different now is that many people have refused to accept this as normal. Recently i was pleased to be at an event that honored the judge damon keith who is a renowned civil rights lawyer and respected jurist, one of the longest serving black federal judges. And he put it this way. When youre in pain, you have to complain. So interested we are very interested in your perspectives on this, to tell us what is or what is not happening on the ground with regard to policing and the efforts to deal with the racial crisis that its produced and perhaps well just start right now with senator pugh. Well, i think what ive experienced in baltimore, as many people are able to see around the country, the experience of freddie gray i think created an uproar in our communities about Police Brutality or black men specifically dying at the hands of police. And so what that has done is it has spurred this movement not just in baltimore but i believe across the nation, it makes us take a look at what do we expect police to do . I mean, we hire them to protect and serve our communities, and i think a recent report showed that when the Police Encounter in many of our Africanamerican Community what they deem to be a situation of violence that when they go to arrest or take care of one of our individuals in our communities that we often find that theyre being shot or theyre killed. In the case of freddie gray, it was his traveling from the time he was arrested to the Police Station and then later to the hospital where he was killed where he was dead but killed by the police by virtue of his ride to the Police Station. But it also sent an alarm out to the community as to what are we expecting police to do . Why do so many black folks end up dead in these situations . And so i think what has happened now is this whole look at policing in our communities, what do we need to do . How do we reform behavior that has become a part of these individuals who we hire to protect and serve . In maryland what were doing currently is looking at the whole practice of policing in our neighborhoods. Cultural sensitivity, whether or not there needs to be psychological evaluation for police who serve in particular neighborhoods over a period of time. But really just this whole idea of how do you respect a community in which you serve. And so i think thats part of the converasations that were having in baltimore and im sure part of the converasations that being held around the nation. And then the other issue that we found when we began to look at policing in baltimore is that less than less than 20 of our 20 or less have lived in our city. So our police force does not resemble the community that it serves. And so its very difficult for you to understand a community when youre not a part of the community. So were looking at all of those issues and how do we change that in our community . Representative smith . Yes. So what are we doing in missouri . Not much, to be honest. I just have to be truthful. Pretty much everybody here may know about the Mike Brown Killing that happened in ferguson, which is in st. Louis county right outside of the district i represent. And it brought to light a lot of issues that had been going on in the area of Excessive Force used upon black men. And a lot of times ending in long prison sentences or death as we saw in the case of mike brown. And then we had a couple other shootings afterwards dealing with st. Louis city Police Department. And those officers were found nothing went wrong. And it seems like deadly force is the goto before using a taser, before talking with an individual that may be holding a butter knife. Were going to fill them with lead, and then well figure it out and say i feared for my life, and it goes that way. And the legislature, what weve tried to do, a small group of us, was try to get different standards put in place. Some cultural sensitivity things put in place. Weve got a lot of departments that the makeup of the officers does not reflect the community at all. As we saw in ferguson. You had almost 70 black People Living there. But you had two officers i think that were black. And that makes a difference. You have to be relatable to the people that you are supposed to be serving and protecting. So out of all of this, kind of missouris answer was to limit the amount of traffic revenue a city could receive. Weve got kids, men, women getting mishandled by lawsuit, but the response was lets do something about traffic revenue. So the ball was dropped. Theres a group of us that will continue to fight. But if we dont have cooperation there, things are extremely partisan. Nothing will happen. So you mentioned that the move was made to cap the revenue. I take it that that was in response to the department of justice report that one of the things that was discovered and when the ferguson situation was investigated was that the traffic stops and the misdemeanor offenses were being used as a way of raising revenue for the city as opposed to actually ensuring public safety. But i can tell that youre quite skeptical that even this initiative is going to have any meaningful effect on the way in which policing is sort of revenue driven. Right. And with that report, it kind of it brought up an issue that was happening in a lot of different municipalities. St. Louis county has, like, 91 different political subdivisions within it. So weve got a lot of small city, a lot of small different Police Departments. So with senate bill 5 which capped revenue from traffic tickets, it brought the percentage down to 12. 5 in st. Louis county. Well, ferguson was at 13. So it didnt impact ferguson that much. It actually impacted a lot of cities that were ran and led by, you know, africanamerican leadership. So it was they skirted arounm the issue. And there was good bills that were filed that could have addressed some of these murderous practices head on. And they went to the side. Senator trotter, of course, chicago has been very much in the news about the recent disclosure of the video concerning walker. What is your perspective on how this discussion is unfolding in illinois . Well, first and foremost, its nothing new. You know, what makes chicago stand out in this particular instance is that as the rallying cry says, its 16 shots and 400 days. 16 shots and an unarmed man, and its been 400 days before the administration or our government of entities acknowledged the fact that this was over the top. What has happened in chicago and whats happening in the rest of america is as old as america. Certainly since reconstruction. These Police Officers are just those unmasked Ku Klux Klansmen who went to your house, by normally deputy sheriffs in their parttime job during the day. This is nothing new. So we have to get back to the whole thing is what is the mission of our Police Departments . Is their mission to serve and protect the people or serve and protect those individuals that got them their jobs, that inserted their wealth . They are that wall between, in some instances and in a lot of instances, no matter where it is, between those who have and those who have not. And the actions and the force of actions that they take is, in many cases, condoned. I had my ipad, todays tribune headlines. As we know, being out here in california, we had 14 People Killed yesterday. Yes. 14 people. Our headlines is saying that the mayor says we dont need no probe. I dont need no doggone probe, no federal probe. Were taking care of this right here. But this is a universal thing that we have to address. Its just become more knowledgeable because of the internet of those stories being told. But i dont care if youre from birmingham, alabama, if youre from tucson, arizona, or chester, indiana. The thing is, this is whats going on. And we as a Community Must stand united to get the message out. You know, to serve us in some instances to acknowledge us as a people and not as an enemy. And those are the kinds of things were going to be looking at. The culture in illinois right now, one of the biggest things that is going on is that we are finding out the reason why for 400 days this Police Officer who did this who had 17 charges of excessive violence against him and has never been punished, why was he still working collecting his full salary is because we have put in place in illinois, which we have to