Enforcement priorities would result in only moderate reductions in overall removals. Would that make any difference if the president extended the guidance to cdp . Yeah, you know, and modest is so modest is not a very precise word, i think its not hard to describe a scenario where you could see removals go down by 10 or 15 or maybe 20 , or some of the scenarios that we described. But, certainly you know, cdp has as we described in our last report, theres been a sea change in how cdp does enforcement, just over the last less than 10 years, from mostly voluntary returns to overwhelmingly formal removals. So if what youre talking about specifically is reducing formal removals. You could reduce that substantially if you decided well go back to an era where youre going to violence tearily return most people. Which you may or may not tie to enforcement priorities, but having said that, the data do suggest that the great majority of people that cdp and prehengds, they apprehend within three days and especially between two weeks of entry. If people who are apprehended within two weeks of entry is a top priority, thats mostly what cdp does. And the second question is for mark, and when you were saying that congressional spending and appropriations is a primary driver of the deportation system and doris, i was wonderering if you could comment on that given your years as former ins commissioner, whether or not the actual, you know, high congressional appropriations really has made the exercise of prosecutorial discretion much more limited in what this i want to push one more premise, i want us to question whether a certain amount of congressional spending necessarily means that that has to be 400,000 removals per year, because that has certainly been the way the administration has at the same time internally we know that many are trying to push for qualitative removals, as opposed to quantitative removals. Its definitely a debate and its definitely a discussion. Both externally and i think within the executive branch. The you know, an executive any agency that gets money from congress has a certain degree of flexibility, in how that spending takes place, that is very, i mean you know as an agency when the congress is trying to give you money generally for carrying out a mission and when it is very specifically targeted. And its really youre at your peril when, with appropriators, having the discussions that go on between appropriators and administrators, an administrator acts differently from what the congress intends. Now it is certainly true that the has intercepted the funding for deportation is quantitative, but also because thats been very clear that thats what the appropriate fors are asking for. So i dont think that i mean, i think that the executive branch has some and i. C. E. In particular here, has some interest in what you see in the numbers. Last year the deportation numbers fell to 300,000, or Something Like that. Now theyre back up to some 430,000, so there certainly is that degree of fluctuation which has not caused, you know, a huge problem for the executive branch, but at the same time, congress expects that money to be used for detention and deportation and administrators within i. C. E. And dhs probably have a little bit of moving room with that, but they would not in a wholesale fashion ignore what it is thats in that appropriations language, i think. So the funding is a very important driver. Anybody want to make final comments . I was just going to get to that, are there any other final questions from the audience . Okay, any final comments anybody would like to make . Thank you, again. Rebecca, how about you . I wasnt queuing you because i didnt have enough to say. Youve had enough air time . I have had enough air time. Thank you all for coming, we somewhat apologize for the density of this information, but not truly because this is very Important Research and the numbers tell us a great deal and so were thankful for your attention. I do want to turn i do want to make an announcement about a future event which is next tuesday, we have the annual Immigration Law and policy conference, which mpi does in collaboration with center for migration studies in new york and clinic as well as georgetown law centers. Its on tuesday at georgetown law center. We have a very, very substantive lineup of panels for this year, very, very good speakers, very, very topical, so the subject is on your chairs, registration closes on friday, so we hope to see you all there next week, with that let me close this and invite people to come forward for any further conversation if you would like to carry on the dialogue, thank you very much. In maryland republican dan bongino conceded the race. He was called the winner thursday night. In a statement to supporters, he said, quote, its now time to move on and allow the citizens of maryland to be heard. We begin at 8 00 p. M. Eastern with three medal of honor recipients who served in world ward ii, vietnam and afghanistan. They spoke at the naval academy. Then at 9 40 on American History tv, former nbc nightly news anchor tom brokaw on his coverage of the fall of the berlin wall. On tomorrows washington journal, Washington Post pollster Peyton Craighill will talk about what exit polls tell us about the demographics and attitudes of voters. And jims thurbar to talk about dividing government now that republicans pulled control of congress. And peter of Georgetown University looks back at the fall of the berlin wall 25 years ago and the sis kans today. Your phone calls and Facebook Comments every day on cspan starting at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. This weekend on the cspan networks, tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan, more e reaction to the midterm elections. On saturday night at 8 00, a debate on the future of the internet and sunday evening at 8 00 on q a, tavis smiley on his latest book. And tonight at 8 00 on cspan 2, German Occupying paris, saturday night at 10 00 on book tvs afterwards, jeff chang on the idea of racial progress in america. And sunday night at 10 00, Edward Wilson on what makes us human and different from other species. Tonight on cspan 3, they reflect on their service of world war ii, vietnam and afghanistan. And saturday at 8 00 on lectures in history, the social prejudice immigrants faced during the 1800s. And sunday night at 8 00, the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. Find your Television Schedule at cspan right lane. Coming up sunday Senate VeteransAffair CommitteeBernie Sanders will answer questions about efforts to revamp medical care and what to expect in the lame duck skponk his expectations for the republican majority in the senate. Senator sanders is the guest on newsmakers at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern. The 2015 cspan student cam video competition is underway open to all middle and High School Students to create a fiveseven minute documentary showing how a policy, law or action by the executive, legislative or Judicial Branch in the federal government has affected you or your community. Theres 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totaling 100,000. For a list of rules, go to studentcam. Org. A report found the process for ethics investigations in the house of representatives has improved since the creation of the office of ethics back in 2008, but the report found that the senate has not taken any disciplinary action in years. Up next on cspan 3 a discussion on that report from the Campaign Legal center. This is about 50 minutes. Im the policy director of the Campaign Legal center. I want to welcome everyone. This is supposed to be and what we hope will be a roundtable discussion not just Panel Presentations about potential reforms to the congressional ethics process. We are pleased to have a very wide range of groups that have been a part of discussing what the reforms would look like. Let me just first off give some of the list of the groups who have been participating in the effort to try and really push for reforms in the congressional eth ethics process. In addition to the Campaign Legal center theres the citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington, common cause, democracy 21, Judicial Watch, thomas man, the league of women voters, norm ornstein, the project on governmental oversight, Public Citizen, the sun like foundation, taxpayers for common sense. Its a pretty Diverse Group from the right, the left, the middle and every place in between. What we want to do today is give some information about a study that and be able to have a discussion among ourselves and with any of the staffer folks here to talk about congressional ethics and why they are important and what needs to be do done, what changes should be discussed. At the panel we will go through and let me just have everyone introduce themselves as the folks up here very quickly. Im jim thurber. We cannot lobby, but as an individual, im very supportive of this and have been for years. Citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. Im craig hohmann, Government Affairs lobbyist and i want to note one of the very few lobbyists who calls himself a lobbyist. Im aaron shesh, the director of legislative affairs at common cause. And im norm ornstein with the American Enterprise institute but also here as an individual. Im going to turn it over to craig who has written a report looking at the Office Congressional ethics and well have him talk about that a little bit and open it up after hes had a chance. First, i want to take a minute or so providing some background about what created the office of congressional ethics. This came in the wake of the jack a bram scandals back in 20 20062007 when our organization saw the organizations here work on drafting and promoting the honest leadership and open Government Act that set up a whole series of new congressional ethics rules along with ethics rules for lobbyists. And one of the key problems that we all noted of the was enforcement. Enforcement has historically as always until oce. The responsibility of members of the congress overseeing members of congress. And both the congressional Ethics Committee, both in the house and the senate side are run by members of congress and they used to, the senate still does operate largely in secrecy. It has always claimed that they are doing a great job. They do it all confidently. Even though the public doesnt know what they are doing, that is the basis of their effectiveness. Well, that was ridiculous. Following in the wake of the Jack Abram Hof scandal where they did nothing at all and enforcement is the major problem. Then we started promoting an institution called the office of congressional ethics. This office of congressional ethics is staffed and run by outsiders. They cannot be members of congress and not be registered lob gists. Even though they dont actually have any Enforcement Authority or subpoena authority, what they do is conduct an investigation and make recommendations to the House Ethics Committee either to dismiss the case or to proceed with further investigation. We have none of that on the senate side. Let me explain quickly the findings on the report. The report is the case for independent ethics agencies, the officer of congressional ethics, six years later and a history of failed senate accountability. What we found is that throughout the history of the during a decade of inaction from 1997 to 2005, which is a long period, there were only five displi nan actions taken by the House Ethics Committee. Then suddenly we created oce and the office of congressional ethics period of 200 92014 we saw a fourfold uncrease in disciplinary actions by then. Oce has taken up 136 cases in preliminary reviews and of those have only referred a third of them to the House Ethics Committee for further investigation. Most of the cases get dismissed, but still youre seeing a healthy workload going to the House Ethics Committee and because it becomes public record, the House Ethics Committee is actually starting to do its job. Compare that to the senate. We were pushing for a similar outside office on the senate side and i remember senator ted stevens sitting up there on a committee saying theres no problem here. Its working beautifully. Thereafter he came under a sharp ethics scandal of which the senate Ethics Committee never did anything. We have charts at the end of the report. E we take a look at compare that to oce. First of all, they are receiving fewer complaints than ever and there were like 99 complaints filed with the Ethics Committee in 2009. In 2013 last year there were only 26. Were seeing a steady drop in this. Part of the reason is almost every single complaint on the Senate Ethics side gets dismissed. All but four have been misdis missed. Much of the reason why that is happening is because the senate Ethics Committee operates in secret. Even though they publish the number of cases they are taking a look at and published the number of dismissals each year, which by the way is almost an identical number every here, we dont get any kind of record as to what they were looking at, who is being investigated or whats going on. And without that type of accountability on the senate side, the senate Ethics Committee is a failure. The same type of failure that we had on the house side prior to oce. Its a similar velgtive Agency Similar to oc toerks make their ethics process begin working and secondly try to ensure that oce and whatever the senate may do is an effective agency. The one thing they are mising is subpoena authority. It can only ask people to come in and testify. Wed like to see it have Real Authority to conduct its investigations. Thats the summary of the reports. So what we have done is an Informal Group have written letters to the house and Senate Leadership recommending changes in their respective ethics processes as krais noted in the house, the First Priority is to make oce a permanent office. We wait to have the black or white smoke come out to determine whether or not the ethics the office of congressional ethics is going to continue. Wed like to find a way to make a permanent situation and not up every time theres a new congress. We have also encouraged the house leadership to support giving subpoena power to the office of congressional ethics and lastly to inkrecrease the transparency over here on the house ethics side to more information about the information they provide to member offices. On the senate side, our letter talks about creating a smar ethics based on a successful oce. We talk about creating timetables for reports and we specifically talk about not only transparency in the ethics process in the senate, but a new problem that has cropped up dealing with group. S that kind of are not well known and dont have a track record looking to fund travel for senators and the senate staffs looks a at these groups and have no track record and its hard to find information. Im going to turn first to norm. If i could talk about why you think these issues matter. Why should anyone care about e ethics in congress. And why you think its so hard to get even with bipartisan agreement to get this done. First, let me say i believe the office of congressional ethics has been a terrific success. Part of the reason is ill give a little credit to Speaker Boehner and leader pe low si. They chose the initial members and picked good people ranging across the spectrum with very good leadership from two former members of colorado and of florida but including a real mix. Ver chully every decision they made to. Push something out has been done unanimously. Its taken it out of an arena and has worked better with real creditable. More often than not, they will say that a complaint brought doesnt have the merit. And it has much more creditability for the members themselves who have the complaints brought against them than it would if they were done by their colleagues. That gets to the root of the problem that meredith was getting at. When congress is given the constitution responsible to police its own, but its in a dammed if you do, damned in you dont situation. Its easy for them to become politicized and we went through a long period with the criminalization of ethics. It cut ace Cross Party Lines says we wont push anything against your members and well push it all under the rug. Thats why many of us have pushed for independent process respecting the constitutional responsibility that congress has which is what resulted in the ethics and have been multiple attempts to do this in the senate which has brushed it aside. The final decisions have to be made by congress and its filtered through the House Ethics Committee. If you dont have an independent accountability process, then you really dont have an ethics process at all. I would just make one other point. Craig talked about the era. There was another element to this, which is when the Ethics Committee in the house pushed and pushed finally did its job against tom delay, the speaker then in effect fired thre