Its still far foo high. We know they work. Tell e we know theyve made huge differences in peoples lives. Theyve taken people from extreme poverty and brought them up. Theyve taken people only the edge and brought them out of poverty. They are some of the best partnerships in many ways, that people have ever known. Despite this some of the people in this town so many people in this town that dress well, that get good titles that have good salaries, good benefits, including hemtcare paid by the taxpayers of the united states, so many people want to cut and undermine and emasculate these programs that clearly work. They want to do that, in large part, because of their view of government. That government can never work. That government should never be on the side of people in the mid lt class or government should never be on the side of people that aspire to the middle class of low income workers. This fight has been going on for a long time. Ralph Waldo Emmerson spoke about the innovators and the con verve xxs. He said hisz ri is an on going battle between the innovatorst and the conservators. Fundamentally fundamentally, the conservators want to preserve usually, their privilege and protect their wealth. The innovators i would call in 2015 progressives people that believe in providing opportunity for everybody not dependent on your zip code, believe in moving forward and have better Life Expectancy and better lifestyles. We know how hard this fight is. I scape across a letter that im going to share with you. Its dated december 24th, 1936. To me, it ill strats the difficulty of selling the public getting the public to buy into the most important things that the public later figures out. This is a letter that a woman in my office, her father found it and his fathers her 90yearold father found this in his fathers paper somewhere. In eastern pae pa. Its a letter from the pennsylvania gas and electric company, december 1936. The company is required to dedukt 1 pnt of your wage beginning and it goes on. These doe ductions are designed to provide for your retirement at age 65. So youre this worker and you get this letter. Youve probably never heard of Social Security. It had passed congress. Im sure it got attention in the Philadelphia Inquirer and whatever. But you probably dont know anything about this. He looks around and says noble in my family has ever lived to 65. Why is this going to work . So when you think about anything that we, as progressives and i mean we, you and i and all of us that care about this anything we do is always difficult. Its always easier to be the innovators, to be the conservators conservators, hold on, dont change. It eetsz always easier to be the conservators to fight progress to fight what progressives need to do for this country. 1965, people arent sure. The same opponents of the Affordable Care act, they called it the john burj society. Same people, same group, same strain of sort of misintloeps of people thats unfair, of people that sometimes had okay. You get it. But in 1967565, think about this. When this law passed in 1965, president johnson dispatched Vice President humphrey to begin to call may rs and governors in montgomery and charles ton and charleston south carolina, and atlanta and charlotte and jackson and tupelow and all over the country all over the south and said this was 1965. Three months a few months after selma. The same year as Voting Rights passed, the year after civil rights passed. Called these mayors, called these governors and said if you want medicare, youre going to integrate your hospitals. Imagine how controversial that was in 1965. So when Social Security passed it was difficult to itch leaptment of it was difficult to get the country to buy in. Thats why its so important. For a moment, refleblgt on what weve done. Look at what you eve done with the Affordable Care act. You know what its meant e meant. These tables noe what its meant to ohio. 700,0 0 people have shurnls . Ohio, many, many of them children that didnt have it five years ago. A hundred thousand kids under 26 are on their parents plan. Thats just one mediumsized to large state. A million seniors in ohio have gotten free, without copay, without deductibles, free screening for osteoporosis and diabetes and other kind of physicals and all. We know that. Thats while your work in this made such a difference. Thats why your let me tell you a story. Every thursday, i have coffee in my office for anyone in ohio thats in town that i dont always get a chance to talk to oneonone because of Committee Hearings and floor sessions. And i was, one morning, my staff is always there one morning, a woman and her husband and her two teenaged kids come to see me. They were from ohios most conservative corner, soit west ohio. And she was lobbying on the issue of home schooling, which tells you she was politically, fairly conservative. She says to me, were talking a while and she says see my son over there, thank you for the Affordable Care act. I said sure. She said see my son over there, hes 15. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 8 or 9, if i recall. And then she said, you know, i tried to get insurance for our family. And she said i counted the number of times i was turned down. I was turned down 34 times for insurance because of sons ill nlsz because he had a preexisting condition. And then she smiled and said you know what, two weeks ago, i signed up for health care and i have Health Insurance because of the aforpdble care act. [ applause ] and, again, thats why what this does is so important. 700,000 people in my state. Maybe they all dont have a story quite as good as that womans. But a whole lot of people do. When you think about what it means in your life another story real quick. I was in youngstown one day. The woman before the affordable affordablecare act passed. She was actually on health care and she said i have two jobs. She said i dont have insurance. Im not making much money. Both jobs are just slightly over the minimum wage. She said im 63 and i need to stay alive a year and a half longer so i can get medicare. Not stay alive so i can see my grand kids. But to stay alive Margaret Meade said that knowledge and wisdom are passed from grandparent to grandchild. And you know how important thats one of the really important things of medicare. It allows a lot more grand kids to have the joy of their grandchildren and to have the impact on their grandchildren that make for a better world. We know what chip has done. If we want to tackle inequality and health care we need to extend the childrens Health Insurance fund. 130,0 0 children in ohio have access to health care because of c. H. I. P. It means that a mother has the opportunity to take her child with an ear ache into a doctor instead of waiting until its much worse and much more ebs e expensive and cause the child hearing loss. It means vaccines and shots it means dental coverage it means belter treatment when children get sick and it means something we dont talk about enough. It means better attendance at school and a more alert child who can learn better at school. C. H. I. I. P. Means all of that. Its not just the number of children that are insured. Its the flejsblety of states, quality of care children receive. I know the secretary of hss was here today or yesterday . Today. I know she addressed those and she is terrific. She comes from west virginia. She probably talked a little bit about her upbringing and is doing a terrific job. She also one of her first exposures to Public Policy was jay rock feller, senator rock feller who retired at the end of the year. I made a floor speech about jay who was one of my dearest friends in the senate. And i actually sit in the spot on the senate floor now where he sat. And he really nobody did more on c. H. I. P. Than he did. And he had asked me and senator widen to sort of take up that mantle and it will be hard to do. He was out listening to people about it and i would one of the things that jay did that not nearly enough politicians did do is he used to go meet with i know he did this with childrens act viss, too. He would go meet with veterans, no media no staff and sit with ten veterans for two or three hours. Imagine this guy was a multigazilionaire and had every privilege in life and he would sit there and devote so much of his career to children and to veterans and would sit for a couple of hours. Pope francis in one of my favorite quotes from any religious leader said he exhorted his parish priests a couple of months ago. He said go out and smell like the flock and how important it is for all of us to really listen to people who have problems. Listen to their needs. Listen to their concerns. Thats what jay did with children and with veterans. Thats whats so important. Again, its not just the right thing to do to fund c. H. I. P. And, at adequate levels, its also the smart Public Policy thing to do. It does matter in schools. It does matter in these children growing up. The young adults who have contributed to society. Its always been a bipartisan effort. We need to continue to make sure its a bipartisan effort. I know that probably many of you in this room consider yourselves democrats, some of you consider yourselves republicans. Regardless of where you are and what you think about whos elected to office in this country thats so important that you work to make this bipartisan to help us so we can do this right. Let me close with a story from john lewis, a congressman from georgia. How many of you have seen selma . The movie so far . Okay. John lewis was beaten up in a Civil Rights Movement more than any other single personal thats believed. John was in that movie a number of times. John was born in 1940. And then e let the record reflected to congress in the 1980s. He was the youngest person to speak at the 1963 march in washington. A number of people in history tells us other civil rights leaders told us to tone down his speech. He was speaking at a graduation i believe, at emery last spring. And he told this story about his childhood. He said i saw those signs that said white men, colored men white women, colored women. Id come home and ask my father and my grand parents why is that . They would say john, thats the way it is. Dont get in the way. Dont get in trouble. In 1957, he wrote, i metro sa parks. Those two individuals inspired me to get in the way to make trouble. So i encourage you, he told these graduates, to find a way to get in the way. Find a way to get in trouble. Make good, necessary trouble. And thats the calling of all of you to make good, necessary trouble in your communities and sometimes, challenging peoples conscience and sometimes challenging the power of some people and sometimes challenging and pushing and talking to your elected officials. Whatever you need to do, continue to do that. And some day in this country our zip codes, our Life Expectancy wont be so connected to our zip codes and you all continue to make a huge difference for our country. I thank you very much. [ applause ] youll hear argument next in case 13499. Mr. Pincus. Thank you, mr. Chief justice and may it please the court. We submit that strict skrooutny applies by the court below for several reasons. First of all this was obviously a contentbased restriction. It turns on the content of the speech. Does it solicit a Campaign Contribution . My friend relies on this courts decision in mcconnell to justify applying the closelydrawn skrooutny standard that has sometimes been applied to Campaign Contribution limitations. That standard does not apply for several reasons. Mr. Pincus, whatever the standing, suppose the florida rule was simply no facetoface solicitations. Thats it. Would you concede that that would be a valid regulation . Or would that fall under the First Amendment as well . Well, my client didnt engage in any facetoface solicitation. I want to understand review of the scope of the First Amendment in relation to this selection election of judges. I think a state could adopt a prophylactic rule prohiblting facetoface solicitation. Certainly oneonone, and, promise some states have done in larger groups. There might be some 57ly cases of that rule that were that made that rule invalid, as applied. For example, a facetoface solicitation of ones relatives that have nothing to do with the judicial system. But i think the First Amendment would certainly allow the adopg of that sort of rule. The First Amendment would not allow that for the candidate for Political Office. Exactly. So you are making you are recognizing that theres a difference between Judicial Office, the First Amendment allows the state to do things with respect to the election of judges that it wouldnt allow them to do with respect to members of legislature . Well, i guess i would amend to say that the First Amendment might allow a ban on some solicitations on a coercion theory. Let me step back. There are three governments that have advanced i just ask you, you gave me an answer and now are you telling me that that answer was considered . That is a ban on facetoface solicitation by candidates for Judicial Office good or not . I think that the government could support from a judicial context, one of them doesnt exist in the legislative context. The interest in preventing a bias or preserving impartiality. One, the interest in protecting the coercion of a person solicited applies somewhat differently than it does in the judicial context. So i dont want to say that theres no ban on solicitation that would be permissible. But if you have the statute, then you have all sorts of gradations. What about a personal, oneonone letter . How is that different . Then, if we say well the oneonone letter thats lchl like a personal solicitation. We can ban that. And then what about a letter to five people. It seems to me when you make the initial concession, we have a real problem. Well, which is it . Is it rit e written or oral . I guess i would say in person, your honor. There are three interests. One, the interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. One, this interest in preventing bias and, third, the interest in protecting persons solicited against coercion. Its at least a tra dirgs. Im not sure if its in any ethical rules, but lets assume it was. That judges do not respond in oped pieces to criticisms of their decisions. John marshal did that but he did it anonymously. Would that stand . I think there is such an interest. And i think its executed principally through the acts of judges as judges and maybe is best analyzed under the Government Employee freespeech rubric. So it doesnt necessarily have to reach a compelling interest in order for it to justify some restrictions on the judges speech. No, florida law didnt let them do that. What im trying to find out is if you think you can have different rules for judicial e lerksings, then you can have political elections. I mean,were told by the in re fl judges that filed the brief that they had a horrendous problem with corruption. And they wanted to get a handle on it so they made this small step. To answer your question, yes there can be different rules. Two of the interests that i mention ed mentioned so i do think in your hypothetical hypothetical, could florida prohisht inperson oneonone solicitations to a group of some size of states have done . Yes, i think they could do that. And i dont think that could be done for legislative or executive branch candidates. The states view is we want our judiciary to be above the political frame. So we have this kind of restriction on putting themselves forward as a solicitor. Well, a couple of answers, your honor. I think a problem with the state that puts judges in the political fray. Some state ss and that includes related speech. So i think thats the problem with making that decision. A second problem is the particular scheme which florida has adopted here. Well, there are some states that prohibt. I think thats just unworkable. I think thats a question of how effective it is. But i do think that underlies whats really going on here. That any incremental benefit that is served by a prohibition on solicitation given if reality that the judge knows and, especially, given the fact that a judge can write a thank you note. Soo youre suggesting that there could be a mass mailing but the judge is prevented from 2340eing . That is the rule is some states. Im asking whether or not that is consistent with your theory . Well, i dont i think the court could conclude, as the 8th circuit did in minnesota, in a state like that,where the judge doesnt know, theres even less of a reason to prohiblt solicitations because the judges are going to know whos responded. Can i go back to judicial dignity coercion. Its very, very rare that either by letter or by personal call that i ask a lawyer to do something, whether its serve on a committee, help organize something, do whatever it is that im asking that that lawyer will say no. Isnt it inherent in the lawyerjudge context that people are going to say yes . Well, i dont think so, your honor. In this case, there was no response. Im talking about this prohibition is dealing with an issue that does happen in the vast majority of cases. Heres the contrast, your honor, if i may. I guess the question is whats the difference between that letter and the following letter thats signed by the members of the committee, which is totally permissible under florida law. Dear joe, as an attorney frequently appearing before the county court were sure youre concerned with the quality of the judiciary. Judge jones personally asked us to serve on his Campaign Committee. And were writing to ask you to contribute to his reelection. As you know, florida law per mits judge jones to thank contributors. I think once those things are permissible, who makes the solicitation really doesnt make that much of an incremental difference. Well, thats what you think. I can actually see how receiving a signed letter from the judge saying give and or a telephone call or a personal meeting has an