They answered questions on expanding the committees reach and boosting effectiveness in the 2020 elections. Congressman Keith Ellison of minnesota and former labor secretary tom perez are among the speakers. Good evening. Good evening. Come on, lets clap. We made it through the storm. [ applause ] welcome to democracy in colors, Democratic NationalCommittee Chair forum. Im amy allison. Were so thrilled that youre here and along with our partners and inclusive we want to welcome you warmly here today. Thanks so much for joining us here 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 from across the country everywhere from ohio to florida to california to nevada and we look forward to your comments, your photos and your perspective, we can follow along the conversation. We also want to thank our partners jessica byrd and the raven group for making tonight happen. [ applause ] and another note we have some voting members of the Democratic National committee in the audience and we want to thank you for being here today for this conversation. [ applause ] we want to also thank you for your service. The words, the music and the message of the new america majority thats the multiracial progressives that located and reelected barack obama frame our conversation today, so to get us started id like to bring to the stage former Nevada State Assembly member and Vice President of Public Affairs for me too lucy flor res. Hello, hello. How is everyone feeling tonight . Yes this is fantastic. Look at this turnout and i know we are reaching hundreds of thousands of people on our live stream not only tonight but afterwards as well and thats really exciting. So thank you all for being here this evening. Me too is a proud, very proud media partner with democracy in color and inclusive because as a Digital Media company that strives to give voice to the 200 those who are 100 american and 100 latino we know how important it is to provide access to conversations that effect communities of color. We produce dont from a latino point of view that resonates across cultures, across jenders and across communities. And at a time when multicultural youth are on their way to becoming a majority in this country, conversations like these thats right numbers are numbers folks, we are on our way to becoming a majority. Conversations like these and access to conversations like these are more important than ever. In that spirit, me too is also very proud to bring to you raul a young man who has some powerful words to say about the power of words. [ applause ] in 1906 an earthquake ruptures the san ann dress fault killing an estimated 3,000 people. If vibrations can can break boulders and devastate lives then our words can split open minds and alter the geographical shape of its content because sound is vibration. Our verbs are its earthquakes, so lets break the ground our fallen heros are trapped underneath it. Leaders from being slaves. In 2010 an earthquake takes the lives of 300 thousands haitians. Do not underestimate the herk uleeion. But your silence is the reason this planet is dying. So lets cause a roucus. If earthquakes can destroy lives, our voices can rebuild them. In 2011, an earthquake devastates duke sheema japan. I have been to the mountain top and i looked over and i seen the promised land. But the only thing in our way is a mute mountain so we crumble mountains, we crack rock without need aig pipe, just give me one word, one sentence can make the ground move like a tsunami. You can hear the words crack in the concrete, cracking like the blacks of rebels from the past, cracking like the blast that malcolm x. s wrk. Believing earthquake will would cause prekugs, the future, the future belonged to those who prepare for it today. So today i have a dream but 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 heard, the legends are angry, the world is violent while we stay for every action theres an equal opposite reaction. If the action is division then the reaction is multiple i have indication. Now this is just law. Voices react to vibrations. Vibrations react to earthquake so if sound is vibration, our verbs are its earthquakes so lets break the grounds our fallen heros are trapped underneath. Leaders from being slaves, react. Lets speak with talk like an earthquake, be like a rock and watch this Granite Planet shake. [ applause ] give him another round of applause. [ applause ] i can honestly say ive never come to a political event a forum like this opened so powerfully. We have such gratitude to our partners for bringing raul to this audience and again, our live audience, please, let us know youre there and shoutout from when youre joining the live stream. Now, given the outcome of the most recent election, its clearly a critical moment for the Democratic Party and our country and who leads us as chair of the dnc and the strategy of the party is going to be central to the success of gaining back power. So the road to tonights forum began in earnest from the poignant analysis articulated in democracy in colors founder Steve Phillips book, brown is the new white. It said among other things and it challenged us to look at the power and the potential of the new american majority to lead the Democratic Party forward. The current president made raw appeals to White Nationalism and steve is rightly stated unekwif caably the democrats lost because they did not know how to directly relate race. [ applause [ applause ] the fact is that people of color are 46 of the Democratic Party and those numbers will continue to go up and the reality calls for a new type of leadership and a new type of understanding of who the voters are and what they want in political leadership. Steven his wife have been working on this nonstop calling for solutions in this increasing racially polarized climate. So tonight, we have a very unique opportunity to have an open conversation about how race impacts the path forward, like the great dr. Reverend barber says, our task is to build a new language that pulls people together and explores new avenues to political strength, to save the heart of democracy. To hold race and class together as we not to cut across race but to cut through it as we find the solutions that perplex and challenge our nation. We have a deep belief that the next chair of the dnc must have the skills to lead and to organize a National Dialog on race, on Racial Justice and on a multiracial unity and this forum is going to help us to assess the readiness of each of the candidate youll meet tonight to participate and advance that effort. So, we invite fellow democrats to use this opportunity to take real ownership of the party and to contribute to its future direction. We invite a new era of transpar ren sill and democracy in the Democratic Party. We invite an opportunity to openly discuss the structural and strategic changes we need to make to start winning. And so now its my honor to introduce the first woman, first black woman ceo of the Democratic National committee who had some historical wins diversity in terms of staffing and contracting and i want to welcome to the stage leah dougherty. [ applause ] good evening. Good evening. My sisters and brothers, it is my pleasure to be with you this evening at the beheft of my good friend donna brew zel. And thank you allison for your introduction and thank you for democracy in color for presenting this gathering to us. In a month from now, the members of the dnc and i count myself among them will come together to elect our next chair and it is an exciting and pivotal time for us for our party, for our country. Weve just witnessed the inauguration of a president who 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 won on the heels of the other, one filled with sorrow and anger and regret for us as democrats and the other with full of hope and possibility give our party an important opportunity to regroup, to retool and to remind ourselves of who we are as democrats that we have a mission, a mandate and a moral obligation to work, fight and speak on be half of those who cannot work, fight or speak for themselves. To be successful we must reach out to every segment of the electorate and we need our next chair to understand that as the mission, the mandate and the moral obligation that it is. Now o i dont like to talk about diversity because it seems to me that its hard to quantitify. Thats like taking a tea spoon of pepper and putting in a pound of salt and thinking youve made a difference. But you really havent changed the quality of the salt. I prefer to talk about when it comes to our party, representation. [ applause ] i believe that our partys apparatus must be representative of the communities who made our parties strong and vibrant as well as the communities that we are trying to reach. Top to bottom and bottom to top. Staffing, appointments consultants, pollsters, candidate recruitment and fundraising in every area [ applause ] in every area at every level. We need, we must have and we 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 as ceo of the 2016 and 2008 Democratic National conventions 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 onethird of minority spending and we exceeded that reaching almost 50 my nort spending. [ applause ] so in front of the camera and behind the scenes, our staff was not our convention was not the best in spite of diversity but because of diversity, because we brought every voice, every community to the table. Our diversity is not our problem, it is our promise. [ applause ] and with commitment, with 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 we will hear from seven of the now 11 i think candidates who are running for chair of the dnc and we want to know tonight and we look forward to them answering the questions, what are the steps and the strategies that they will take to engage the new american majority. On consultants, who drives the strategy, determines the outcome . How will they choose consultants and strategyist for the party . On recruitment of new candidates, how will they build the bench so that it is reflective of the electorate and what is the plan to recruit the next generation of progressive leaders and on fundraising how do we raise and spend dollars for minority communities . We look forward to hearing these answers. We are thrilled to have seven tonight who are qualified each of them to lead the Democratic Party into its next iteration, into its future and we look forward to pointed questions that gets to the heart of the matter, no busy footing around. We want real answers about how party will move forward under their leadership. Thank you and god bless you. [ applause ] and so without further ado we want an opportunity, i want an opportunity to invite our moderator to the stage, joy ann reed is host of a. M. Joy thats on nbc on weekends. Give her a round of applause. [ applause ] she is also shes also a columnist of the daily beast, an editor of the we are the change we speak. Speeches of barack obama that recently came out. Were so thrilled and thankful that youre here. Thank you very much for being with us. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. [ applause ] thank you. All right. This is exciting. Thank you amy. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Thats a d. C. Good evening. Its so polite. I want to thank George Washington for hosting this evening. My friend jessica byrd and gentleman malsimmons and steve phil lips this is an important debate. I think this is the central debate that the Democratic Party has to deal with Going Forward. Without further ado let me introduce those candidates for dnc chair who are with us tonight. So lets start with congressman Keith Ellison of minnesota. [ applause ] there he is. All right. Lets bring on mayor pete budachich [ applause ] raymond buckley. [ applause ] thats an easy one. Lets bring on Jamie Harrison [ applause ] and now jamu green. [ applause ] and lets bring on the honorable tom perez. [ applause ] and last but not least Sally Boynton brown. [ applause ] all right. Thank you all for being here. You guys can all have a seat. Youve got some water there. So tonight i think what im going to do my sort of plan here is to break this up into a few sections and i will want to start off with the elephant in the room, the obvious. We just had an election in which democrats won the popular vote but did not win the white house and one of the core questions that came out of this election is, who should democrats be targeting Going Forward . Pulled up some statistics here, we had africanamericans vote for the Democratic Party at a rate of 88 , 88 africanamericans voted for the democrats among white voters it was only 37 . Among latinos and this number is in dispute its 65 , or the trump got not 29 but some where closer to 20 . Asian American Voters 65 . One other piece of data about the election is that you had white voters with a College Degree still favor the republican party. And only white women with a College Degree favored Hillary Clinton but only really just barely. And despite the fact that Hillary Clinton actually improved on her numbers with white voters with a College Degree and spent a lot of time courting those voters and really focusing on them, she still didnt manage to win that group and yet you still have and of course white voters without a College Degree an overwhelming for donald trump more than 70 . Lets talk about this debate of whether or not democrats spents too much time frankly trying to win over particularly white women voters and really failing to do that at the end of the day and whether or not the Democratic Party wouldve done a better job and would have been wiser to focus more time and attention courting voters of color. Ill just go actually ill go in reverse order. Well start with Sally Boynton brown. I think its really point that we have a conversation of all the people. The idea of talking only to a specific group of people doesnt seem to work for us. We have one one thing in common, were human. Power is what will bring all of us forward. The Democratic Party needs to realize this more than anything else is that there are people out there who are not being heard and we need to make sure that were bringing all of those voices together and that we stop sieloing power conversations into specific groups of people. The reality is the folks in our country dont feel like theyre kids are going to have a better life than they had and thats an issue that we had to solve because if we dont solve it, nobody else is going to. Tom perez. Sure. I think its a false choice to have to say that were going to go to one community or another. What we have to do and what we did a poor job of in this election we didnt make house calls, we didnt get out there and persuade. You cant show up at a church every fourth october and call that an organizing strategy. And thats what we did as democrats. When we are there talking ted kennedy in 1980 at the Democratic Convention talked about the most important civil right for any person say job. And when we talk about jobs, when we talk about opportunity and the second pill ar of the Democratic Party has been that weve always taken care of folks who are in the shadows making sure that they get into the sunshine and when we Pay Attention to those two pillars thats how we succeed. And when we are organizing, whether its in milwaukee or whether its in rural wisconsin and 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 when fear is on the ballot we dont do so hot. Thats why we need an every zip code strategy thats married around that basic message of Economic Opportunity and a party that is all about everyone, inclusion is our strength, diversity is our greatest asset as a country and we can talk about that everywhere, because when you talk about opportunity, we need to talk about are you lifting people up, or are you dragging them down . We sometimes get too bent out of shape, are you on the left, the right, the center. Are you lifting people up or bringing them down . When we give people a job we give people that opportunity . When we make sure that communities have safe and constitutional policing, were expanding opportunity. When we make sure that immigrants have access to the American Dream were expanding opportunity. I think that works everywhere. I absolutely agree with sally and secretary perez.