 Thirty years ago, the party of No New Ideas was promoting their trickle-down fairy tale. It's come back around the plate, and it hasn't succeeded much at all. For all the tax cuts of the 1980s, we haven't seen any change for the better for the working class. If anything, things have gotten demonstrably worse. So they've resorted to things like hate, to divide us. But we're not going to talk about hate. One of my childhood heroes was a man who said that hate does not drive out hate. Only love can do that. And so last night at the event with Representative Ellison, I spoke to several of the UVM Democrats. And I said, what is it that you'd like for me to address this morning? And they said, we want to hear about how we can get involved. Well, you've already done the first part. You've showed up here today. And for that, I thank you enormously. The next thing is that same man that told us that we cannot resort to hate. That love is the answer told us that it's reasonable to expect a man or a woman to pull themselves up by their boots. But it's a cruel jest, a cruel jest to expect a man or a woman to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots. So what I'm here today to do is to ask you to join with me in ensuring that all Vermonters have boots. And I don't think, you know, it dawned on me many years later after my service that I had to sign up to sacrifice, be willing to sacrifice my life to get a college education as have millions of other of Americans. And to me, that is absolutely unacceptable. For me, it was my only way out. And we still live in an economy that preys upon that notion that unless you're born on third base, you're going to have to sign up for the U.S. military to get an education. Not acceptable, totally unacceptable. We need to be ensuring that all people, first here in Vermont, have boots. And that means access to health care. That means access to quality education, both prior to grade school and beyond high school. And it means ensuring people have a safe and clean environment to work in rather than the current economy that depends upon poisoning the environment so it can profit. But no one person is going to do this by themselves, certainly not me. Being a governor is about bringing together a team of shared values. And if you share these values with me in ensuring that all people have an opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, by first ensuring they have boots, then we win. Because government is of the people, by the people, for the people. We are the people. Don't ever forget that. Show up. Be the change that you want to see in this world. That's why I'm running because I couldn't sit by any longer after that election as someone who served my country once to sit on the sidelines to watch with that philosophy. That philosophy of exploitation is doing to America. And it's happening here in Vermont as well. So I ask you, if you haven't, get yourself a copy of the Vermont Democratic Party platform. Read it. If you're not a Democrat after you've read this, we have problems. There's not a single person who reads this that should not want to be a proud Vermont Democrat. So thank you. Thank you for showing up. We're going to need your help on the campaign. My campaign manager is here, Theo Fedder. My last name is kind of hard to spell. E-H-L-E-R-S. Find us on Facebook. And together we'll be the change together. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ellers. My name is Karina Filiucci. I'm the treasurer for the UVM College Democrats. And I'm excited to be introducing to you four of Vermont's elected officials who work every day to protect and empower Vermonters. First, we're going to hear from Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman. He began his political career right here at UVM while still a student and went on to serve 14 years in Vermont's state house before becoming Lieutenant Governor where he focuses on youth initiatives, supporting our rural economy, protecting the environment, boosting wages, improving working conditions, and easing property taxes. Please help me welcome Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman. Thank you for coming out today. The weather seems to have suddenly changed. Apparently there's no such thing as climate change and we're all going to be okay. Right? Let me tell you, that's not true, obviously. As a farmer who experiences the weather we've had this year from the nonstop rain of June and July, then the fairly nonstop drive from August, September, and October that were quite abnormally warm, the impacts are now fully in effect. The ability to grow food is changing. If people don't think climate change is real, you've got another thing coming. If you think having a safe, reliable food supply is important, if you think having water is important, if you think living in places that suffer the consequences of hurricanes where they still have no power, six and eight weeks after hurricanes, Irma and Maria and the like is important, then you have to be involved. You have to be involved beyond just elections. Voting is critically important. A recent survey that just came out said 1% of the folks that voted for Hillary regretted, 2% of the folks that voted for Donald Trump regretted, and 18% of the people that didn't vote regretted. So voting is critically important and hopefully those people that haven't voted or weren't able to vote yet will participate and will vote moving forward. But more importantly, more importantly is to continue to be involved between the elections. Coming out to events like this is a part of that. Learning information that you can use to talk with your colleagues and friends and folks that you disagree with in a civil, respectful manner to talk about what has happened in our democracy is important between the elections. Calling your legislator. How many people here know who their local Vermont legislator is? Raise your hand. Brian's right here. But the point is knowing who he is and giving him your thoughts, whether you support some things or you're opposed to some things or you just have information that he doesn't have is important. The same is true with me as your lieutenant governor, our governor Phil Scott, who's the president governor, all of the folks who represent you in the other offices in the state. Participating by reading newspaper stories or online and participating in the comments. You know, the media pays attention to what's liked and not liked. That shapes the discussion that is being had by politicians. So I ask you, who here has a hobby that you do two or three times a week for half an hour an hour? Something you do regularly. You might read a book. You might go jogging. You might hang out with friends at certain times. Pretty much everybody, you've got a few hours to do that every week, right? So I ask you, how many people here spend 15 minutes a week participating in democracy? Please raise your hand. Thank you. I want to thank those people. I don't want to say to the rest who are here today, yes, this is your 15 minutes. In fact, it's an hour or so. So you might even call this four weeks' worth of your participation. But can you commit to 15 minutes a week? We are incredibly privileged in this room. We're sitting in a university setting. Many of you are either here at the university studying or have had the opportunity to get an education through higher education and are here today. Some certainly may not have. But I would hazard safely, I think, that the vast majority have. We are phenomenally privileged. And when we're looking at what's happening in Washington right now with the discussion about repealing the estate tax and the discussion about meritocracy, who knows what meritocracy means? Okay. So meritocracy is everybody can get to wherever they can get based on how hard they work and how hard they work to get there. That's the Republican meme right now. And in repealing the estate tax, what they're saying is, by the way, those folks that have a lot of wealth, they all earned every penny of it. Just like everybody here who's going to get everywhere you get the life all based on your own work. And that's a beautiful image, but it's not reality. It is not reality. Most people are where you're at based on decisions that were completely out of your control. The family you were born into, the household you grew up in, the educational opportunity you have is certainly partly from your hard work in high school and the grades you got. But also, if you're in a stable home, do you know that 70% of white Americans own their homes but only about 50% of people of color? Why is that? Because government policy in the 50s and 60s subsidized home ownership loans, but they were not granted equally. And those folks that come from places where you own the home, that's part of the wealth and the wealth gap that exists. And the opportunity to go to college is greater. The opportunity to get a job out of college is greater when you can do internships because you don't have to work while you're in college to pay your bills. Or if you come out of college with much less debt and some people are coming out with $100,000 of debt, your circumstances are very different if you have to work 20 hours a week while you're in college than if you don't have to work 20 hours a week while you're in college. All of these things flow from the wealth circumstances often that each of us are born into. And it's different for everybody. And there's no reason to feel guilty for it, but it's important to recognize it. And the question is, as government, what are we doing? We, all of us here, not just those of us elected, what are we doing to make sure everybody has the same opportunity that some people have had in our culture and others have not? And when they repeal the estate tax and don't put funding into educational opportunities and don't put funding into making it possible for people to heat their homes enough that they're not shivering while trying to do their homework, they even have parents that are encouraging to do the homework in the first place. If we don't have resources to extend broadband into rural areas where a lot of working-class people don't have access to the Internet, then we are cutting short those economic opportunities and we are not actually starting at a level playing field the way the Republicans would like us to think. So your involvement and your privilege of being here and my privilege to serve also bears with it responsibility and that responsibility is to make sure everybody has an equal opportunity. So I just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your Lieutenant Governor. Thank you for each of you anytime you want to call my office and share with me information and knowledge, share with me your opinion or your position, and share with your legislators your support for the ideas that you think are important. I want to thank you for that. So thank you for being here today. I look forward to hearing from the other speakers Alison who I did support to be chair of the Democratic National Committee and that's what we needed and we still need to move in that direction. Thank you. Thank you Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman. Up next I'm excited to introduce Vermont's Secretary of State Jim Kondos. Jim Kondos is a UVM alum with over 30 years of business experience gained working in a variety of diverse companies from a Global Fortune 100 to a Vermont-based family-owned grocery distribution company, Mr. Kondos has a unique and comprehensive understanding of Vermont's business needs. Since he was elected in 2010, Secretary Kondos has worked tirelessly to bring greater transparency to all levels of government. Please help me introduce Secretary of State Jim Kondos. Thank you and I want to say that it is great to see you all here. It is great to see you getting politically engaged and involved. I think David and others have spoken about getting involved and it is important. Unfortunately, not a lot of young people are as motivated to get involved politically across the country right now which makes the work you're doing even more important. As excuse me, I was first elected as Secretary of State in 2010 serving eight years after serving eight years in the State Senate and I served 18 years on the South Burlington City Council. During my time as an elected official and since I've been interested in politics starting with my time here at UVM, I've always believed that the right to vote is fundamental and a constitutionally protected right. The truth is, today our voting rights are under attack. In the last seven years, we have seen a national movement to suppress the vote, unprecedented in U.S. history. If you go back to when this country was founded when the only people that could vote then were white male landowners and since that time we've had at least 10 instances where constitutional amendments or acts of law have been passed it's always been about expanding the right to vote. Today what we're seeing is going the other way. In the last seven years, almost 40 states have had laws introduced in their legislatures that will in some way impact Americans' right to vote. What we've seen, partisan gerrymandering of electoral districts to ensure that certain people are elected. Discriminatory voter ID laws, aggressive voter roll purging, removal of same-day voter registration and early voting. In fact, a lot of the conservatives these days are even going after absentee voting, saying that that should be eliminated. But let's remember one point. The right to vote. The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. The real voter fraud that's occurring around this country today, the real voter fraud is preventing otherwise eligible Americans from casting a ballot. Today, our fight for voter rights is far from over. At this very moment, the president continues to use his baseless claim that he lost the popular vote last November because three to five million illegal votes were cast in that election. A claim he makes, by the way, with no evidence. And a claim which both Republican and Democratic election officials across the country have denied, have said did not exist. Folks, we have a hard enough time getting people to vote once, never mind twice. Yet today, he uses this claim to justify the work of his so-called election integrity commission, which he put a co-chair in, one of my former, or one of my colleagues, the Kansas Secretary of State, Chris Kobach, who's known for voter suppression. From the very beginning, I said this commission was a sham, and that its true purpose is to champion the president's false and baseless claims of voter fraud in order to aggressively pursue an agenda of suppressing the vote. Just yesterday, a member of that commission, the Democratic member of that commission, there are only four, I think, Democrats out of 12 positions on that committee. Main Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a friend of mine, filed a lawsuit against the commission that he sits on. He filed a lawsuit because there's a lack of transparency from that commission, the presidential commission. Today, I'm also proud to say that here in Vermont, we've moved completely in the opposite direction. Over the last 10 years, we've expanded access to the ballot box for eligible voters. We added online voter registration. Same-day voter registration was enacted just this year. Automatic voter registration, where we take your information from the DMV and automatically register you to vote. Expanded early vote. In 2009, when the overseas and military vote was cast, we actually had a 30-day early vote period. We extended it to 45 at that time. And in 2010, we had a constitutional amendment that overwhelmingly passed here in Vermont that allows 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 by the general election. Why shouldn't a 17-year-old who's going to get the vote on election day have a right to help elect the people that they will see on their ballot? Expanding access to our democratic process without widespread voter fraud, what a concept. As the incoming president-elect, and I will take over as the president next July of the National Association of Secretaries of State, I will continue to push back against voter suppression and encourage other states to look at Vermont as an example of democracy. But we need your help. How we move on voting rights and end the direction of this country over the next few years will impact every single one of us. We need you to get involved, to register to vote. And there's folks out front that are registering people. Show up to vote. You can actually, by the way, you can actually register to vote on this now. We need you to work on campaigns. We need you to work for candidates and for issues. And we need you to run for office. Yes, we need you to run for office. The first step you can take to protect our right to vote is to exercise that right. So thank you for being here. Thank you for helping us take a stand to protect our democracy. I appreciate it. Thank you, Secretary Kondo. Next, I'm excited to introduce Vermont State Treasurer, Beth Pierce. Treasurer Pierce has over 40 years of experience in government finance at both the state and local levels. She's an advocate for conservative, affordable debt prices, prudent management of the pension systems, and responsible use of reserves. Treasurer Pierce serves as the Senior Vice President of the National Association of State Treasurers, and she was elected this October to serve as their president. Please help me welcome Secretary Pierce. Let's give Karina a hand. She's doing a great job, right? Come on. It takes a lot of work to get this done, and I really want to thank the people who did that, and thank you very much for being here on a nice, crisp fall day, and I love it. So hey, I'm not a real fan of those hot, humid days. This is why we're here in Vermont. It's just great, and hopefully the ski season will be just as good. First, I want to say thank you to my fellow constitutional officers. I want to say thank you very much for standing up for people for doing the right thing. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Governor, for what you do to stand up for people every single day. Let's give him a hand as well. And Jim is talking about voting rights, and it's fundamental the right to vote. We take it for granted sometimes, but when we see the assault on basic rights for all of us, it's a tragedy. And I just want to say thank you very much for Jim for standing up and doing the right thing there, and it's tough. The folks that are Secretary of State across the country do not all share his view, and it's a tough fight, but I'm glad he's there to take that fight. So thank you very much, Jim. And TJ is going to talk. TJ Donovan is going to talk after me about social justice and what we've done there, and it's so important. And I look at things. I'm a treasurer, so I'm a little bit of a geek. I'm a treasurer, and I talk a lot about economic justice and the right for every single citizen, every single Vermont or every single person in this country should have an opportunity for a lifetime of financial well-being. That is fundamental, and we need to take the policies at the state level and the national level to make that happen for every single citizen. And Vermont, you know, I've been doing finance work. I'm not much of a politician. I've been doing finance work for 40-some-odd years. That's showing me my age, too. But the bottom line for me is the bottom line. You know, I look at it, I look at it every day, and I look at the finances of the state, and I see a bottom line that, and I'm worried about it, to be very honest, we need to take a look at our fundamental expenditures and our revenues and how we manage that for the sake of all of our citizens. But the biggest question for me is how does that bottom line serve every single Vermont? Not just a few elite, but every single Vermont needs a share in that bottom line. And we do that by making sure that we protect every single Vermont through social justice, through economic justice, by making sure that everyone has the right to vote, to work together through financial literacy programs so that people understand how to save for the future. Right now in this state, there are 104,000 Vermonters who are working who do not have access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. And you say, well, I'm not thinking about that right now, I'm in school, but you will be working. And some of you are working now, and some of you are working to get through school, and I commend you for all that. The bottom line is with the end of their life, after hard years of work, after participating in the economy, after being good citizens, they should have adequate and reliable income in retirement. And when you don't have vehicles to let them have a retirement program, you don't have that. Every single person should have dignity in retirement, and it's also good for the state. It's good for the individual, but when the person has adequate and reliable income, they buy goods and services, that helps create jobs. So in partnership, we should see a broader view that what we do to help individuals is good for the economy, it's good for Vermont, instead of this narrow view and cut, cut, cut, it has to be a balanced approach that says every citizen should share in that economic prosperity. Working with the legislature, we came up with a plan on that 104,000, and I do appreciate the work that they've done, and we're going to be doing something about that. The other area that the Treasury gets to work on is retirement systems for state employees, municipal employees, your teachers, all of you folks in Vermont, your teachers on our retirement plan, and they too, after a long period of public service, should have a right to dignity in retirement, not being on public assistance to manage your bills. I was at a teacher seminar a few years ago, and the speaker before me was explaining to elderly teachers how to apply for food stamps. They taught you, they spent their life educating citizens, and it is an absolute travesty that we put people in that position. It's an absolute travesty that we put any person in that position. But the bottom line for me is that we need to continue to have our retirement programs, need to manage those responsibly for the taxpayer, but also make sure that every single person is entitled to a life of dignity. I see across the country all these efforts to cut plans, these efforts to say that we can't afford these plans, and that is just plain wrong. We're not going to let that happen in Vermont, right? Okay. The last part of how we serve this is in local investment. You know, I'm a treasurer, and I work with financial people across the country, and I do work with banks. I do work with investment folks, but what we said is let's put some of this money here. Let's take the money out of Wall Street, and let's put 10% of our dollars into Vermont and do good things with that to earn a good income and interest for the state. And we were able to do that. We had a lot of help doing that. A representative Batso in the Commerce and Economic Committee, a lot of folks helped us along the way, and I was so grateful for the help, you know, from Senator Polina on this. We got this done, and now we put 10% in, and basically it's in housing and energy, helping lower the cost of education. We worked with VSAC to lower the rates on the interest rates that they have for loans. I don't like loans at all. You probably don't like them either, but the bottom line is lowering the interest rate was a good thing, and transportation as well. And other things, working landscape. We've done a program to help farmers. We've done a program to help with daycare centers. You know, I was up in a parade a few years ago, and in front of me was a float with a daycare center, and the kids were hopping all over the place, and frankly I was glad somebody else was watching them instead of me, okay? But we gave them the loan through the Vermont Community Loan Fund to have that, and we can all do what we do. I'm a geek. I like economics. I like finance, but we can take that and turn it into helping people. And as you go in your careers, whatever you do, whether you're an engineer, whether you're a finance person, whether you're a political science major, you can be part of that solution, and I encourage you, and I challenge you to continue to do that and work through your careers. I also want to say, by the way, we're in the Ira Allen, what are we calling this? The Ira Allen Chapel. Thank you. I should have picked up Chapel. Ira Allen, by the way, was the first treasurer of Vermont, so I just wanted to put a little history on that. Bottom line is every single person can be a part of the solution. I challenge you to do that. I thank you for being here because being here means that you already want to be part of that. And thank you very much for what you're doing. I want to thank my fellow elective officers for what they're doing to help Vermont move forward in a way that says every single person is involved in the solution and every single person shares in the gains that we make in terms of our environment, in terms of our economics, and in terms of social justice. Thank you very much. Thank you, Treasurer Pierce. Up next, I'm excited to introduce Vermont's Attorney General, T.J. Donovan. T.J. Donovan was elected Attorney General of the State of Vermont in November 2016 after serving as Chittenden County State Attorney. Mr. Donovan started the award-winning criminal justice program, Rapid Intervention Community Courage, which is available to nonviolent offenders whose crimes have been driven by addiction or mental illness. He was co-chair for a government, Peter Shumlin's Criminal Justice and Substance Abuse Cabinet. Please help me welcome Vermont's Attorney General, T.J. Donovan. Good morning. I want to first acknowledge on this day before we recognize Veterans Day all veterans who have and their families who have served our country, who have made the ultimate sacrifice to those that are members of families who have had those who have served, I say thank you, to those who perhaps are currently serving our country. I thank you for your service. But we have an obligation as Vermonters and as Americans to take care of those veterans when they come home. And you talk about these issues of mental illness, you talk about the issues of trauma, you talk about the issues of homelessness. No veteran who has served our country should be homeless. No veteran who has served our country should not have access to care and certainly no veteran who has served our country should end up in a jail cell because of the trauma they suffered in service to this country. And when we talk about taking care of our veterans, we should be talking about taking care of all Americans and all Vermonters. And in this country where we're engaged in a debate with a very fundamental basis of the founding of our country, respect, civility, diversity is at stake. We have an obligation to speak up and for those who are being oppressed. As Attorney General in this state, I can tell you quite simply this. It does not matter who you love. It does not matter whom you worship. It does not matter who you're from, where you're from. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. It doesn't matter how you identify. The state of Vermont respects you and more importantly, the state of Vermont will protect you and your civil rights. And we've done it, whether it's been taking legal action to protect folks that have tried to come to this country. We talk about what's going on in this country. We have to talk about the history of this country. This is a country based on immigration. This is a city and a state built on immigration. Immigrants are good for our country. Immigrants are good for our economy. And we cannot forget our history. And we can't forget our own personal history. And we have to stand in solidarity of all those that seek to come to this country for one simple reason. To seek a better life. That is the American dream. That's what's at stake and that's what we're fighting to preserve. We also have to speak up in order to protect our environment. Everybody has a fundamental right to clean air and to clean water. And pollution doesn't know any state borders. And as Attorney General we have fought vigorously to make sure that in the proudest of Vermont traditions we can protect our water, our air, our landscape because that is the protection of our people, of our state and our country. That climate change is real and that we have to speak out against it and make sure that we stand up against the dismantling of these protections at the federal level because it's going to impact here us at the local level. We should talk about this issue of poverty. You know, as Karina said in her introduction my previous job was as state's attorney. Criminal prosecutor. And while the criminal justice system should reflect the general population, we know that it does not. Because if you went into any court or you went into any jail in this state what you would see are two types of people. The poor and increasingly people of color in Vermont and across this nation. People of color perhaps make up 1 to 2% of our general population in this state, but they represent 10% of our incarcerated population. And when you talk about the issue of poverty, I don't know, the poor don't have a monopoly on committing crime, but we have to ask ourselves, why is it the overwhelming represent the incarcerated population? We have to talk about the issues of mental illness. We have to talk about the issues of addiction. We have to talk about the issues of racism. They're real and we have to confront them head on. And when we have events like these, and it's great to see so many people here, we talk about building the Democratic Party and being more engaged and being engaged in the political process. Really, I think, at one of the most challenging times in our nation's history. We have to be inclusive. We have to be welcoming to everybody the people that wouldn't dare to walk into this chapel today. That's who we're fighting for. The people who've been left behind. The people that they don't feel that they belong. The people that wouldn't dare to open these doors and sit next to us for fear that they're different or not worthy. That's the challenge. How we do that is to believe in one another. To understand what the challenges are and to actually have the courage to make change. And when you talk about what a safe and vibrant community is, for me it leaves nobody behind. And it starts with access to affordable health care. Because if you don't have absolutely, it may be one thing but it's certainly another thing to have health care that you can't afford. And when we talk about one of the greatest issues in our state, the opioid epidemic, what it starts with for me is universal prenatal care for every woman in this state. And it means having a robust early education system for children so they can get a healthy start in this community and in this state. And it means having good public schools with robust and accessible mental health services for children and their entire families understanding that trauma can be passed on from generations and that those that grow up in impoverished homes with domestic violence, with addiction have lifelong impacts on people. And when we talk about the issue of public safety we need prosecutors to be willing to say that a mental health counselor is just as important as a police officer, is just as important as a prosecutor, a school counselor is just as important as anybody in this system of public safety. But it doesn't stop at just good public schools. It's also about affordable higher education so people can actually achieve the American dream to go to college and get out of college not stuck with a boatload of debt. And it's about jobs. It's about good jobs for everybody and understanding we have this debate in this state and in this country about who gets what who gets paid what and who shouldn't get paid. I've always believed in a rising tide lifts all boats. It's very simple. Give people the opportunity. Give them the tools and then get out of their way and let them create, let them innovate let them develop based on their individual talent based on their skill, based on their desire we should be holding nobody back. And finally when we talk about a safe and vibrant community we should be talking about affordable housing and we should be talking about diversity and we should be talking about economic diversity. You know I grew up right down the street from here great neighborhood middle class. I probably couldn't I could tell you I couldn't afford to live in the neighborhood in which I grew up. In a community a state, a country is only as strong as the people who are in it. We have to find a place for everybody we can't push people to the margins anymore and say that you don't belong. This is about opportunity because it truly is about that American dream. It doesn't matter if you've been here it doesn't matter if you're coming here everybody gets a fair shot at it that is what this country has always been about it's been about respect it's been about opportunity and it's about believing in each other. And when we talk about respect and we talk about civility we've lost that in our political discourse in this country in my opinion. We've absolutely lost it where we've divided people based on their gender we've divided people based on their sexual orientation we've divided people based on their religion this is un-American this is un-American you know it really is not my generation it's your generation that it's going to prove the difference even looking out at this audience today incredibly different than when I grew up and you guys have to lead us we need your help and we need your help and we need your leadership in that respect in being inclusive in that civility and even when we disagree with people we respect their difference of opinion it's okay to have a debate it's not okay to demean it's not okay to berate even when people who show up on this campus and take a knee during that national anthem in my opinion they are expressing their freedom of expression and it's not a question it's not a question of if you agree or disagree it is a question do you respect the freedom of this country we have to elevate the discourse in this state we have to elevate the discourse in our nation political debates and political differences is what the political process is all about I don't have a problem with that but what is happening today is entirely different where there is absolute fear and intimidation you are that's what's at stake right now and do we believe and the question for us is do we believe enough in each other to stand up and to speak out to speak out against injustice to speak out against hatred to speak out against bigotry that's the question that's confronting us we need your help it comes in a lot of forms whether it's based on the color of your skin whether it's based on your gender whether it's based on your religion how you look who you love it's also based on your economic status and we have marginalized so many people in this country often times in the name of public safety through criminal convictions that have not made us more safe but have just impoverished people the generationally poor increasingly people of color and when you take that and you wrap that in to this issue as I said about heroin yes we have to have treatment yes we need prevention yes we need intervention but we also need to have corporate accountability about who started this crisis in this country as well so the challenge is for all of us but my ask of you is to lead us to lead people in leadership to demonstrate that diversity works to demonstrate that being inclusive matters to demonstrate that you can disagree without being disagreeable to respect differences to respect difference of opinions but always to respect the constitution and the rights afforded to every single American regardless of who you are or where you're from so I wish I could end on a high note today but the challenges they're daily they are daily but we cannot give up hope we have to maintain we have to be willing to stand together and to fight and to fight not only through our political process but through our courts and most importantly with you and your generation being engaged in the political process you know the best thing I've seen in terms of politics these last couple of months was this hashtag run for something I think it's the best advice ever run for something get involved make a difference show us that your generation is different show us that we should be following your leadership into the future to truly make this country an opportunity a land of opportunity to maintain its status as a beacon of hope for everybody around this world to come to this country and to seek a better life not just for themselves but for their children that's the American dream that's what we're fighting for I thank you for your help Hi everyone my name is Sam Donnelly I'm the president of the UVM Democrats and a sophomore here at UVM I'm going to be brief with the president of UVM who has to leave in just a few minutes Peter Welch has done some great things for UVM so here's congressman Welch what a day this is kind of exciting for me because one of the last times I was here standing here was in 2006 when I was running for my first term in congress at that time was not only Bernie Sanders who was Bernie Sanders that we know and love but was not then the Bernie Sanders that everyone knows and everyone loves but we also had another person here who was then an obscure senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama and you know it was exciting I was in the state senate then and I'm running for congress I'm pretty nervous about how I'm going to do I had a very good opponent and by the way this is only in Vermont she was the adjutant general for the National Guard the only female adjutant general in the entire country and widely respected in Vermont and it was at the height of the Iraq war and she was our face leaving the soldiers coming home and getting the bad news about the soldiers we lost in Vermont by the way just so you know the kind of sense of service here we lost more soldiers per capita among our citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other state and in the civil war it was Vermont who made the biggest sacrifice among all the northern states but Martha Rainville was her name she and I made an agreement no negative ads none and we kept it they were the only contested race in the country where there was no negative ads now I've been listening to a lot of the speakers there have been tremendous and I just listened to TJ and he talked about a lot of the issues so I don't want to talk about that too much and unfortunately you know Vermont edition so it's like a hard time and I've got to go but let me tell you how I got involved in politics when I was basically your age it was the height of the civil rights movement and I was at Holy Cross College and it was between my sophomore and junior year and some of my friends were going to be working in a community organization out in Chicago I lived in Springfield Mass and I wanted to go but I had to deal with my father that I'd make the money for my spending money at school but he'd pay the tuition but I wanted to go out there but I had to finish making money so on the 4th of July weekend it was a four day weekend I got up from the dinner table my brother gave me a ride down to the interstate and I hitchhiked to Chicago right and I got out there in this community organization was on the west side and the whole theory of it I don't know if any of you have studied Saul Linsky was that you would engage with people in the neighborhood ask them what was on their mind and the thing that was on their mind at that point was the city of Chicago was not picking up the garbage in that neighborhood so the community organizers got a couple of pickup trucks and brought the garbage down to city hall and you know what happened the next day there was like a caravan of city sanitation trucks coming in the Laundale taking that garbage out and the whole point here was to try to show people and work with people to see what power they had if they took effective action together and as I stayed in I was there and I hitchhiked back on that Monday but later on after I made the money I had to I returned for a total of two years and I was a Robert Kennedy fellow right after he was assassinated but it was appalling to me what I came to learn in that west side neighborhood where families were trying to get going where it was all African-American families families when they wanted to buy a house could only buy it on contract they couldn't get a mortgage the federal housing administration wouldn't insure a mortgage they wouldn't line the area and they wouldn't give people the mortgage so anybody who wanted to buy a house instead of buying it on a mortgage they had to get it on quote a contract in real estate speculators stuck it to them they charged them twice the going rate for the house they charged almost twice the going rate on interest and then the contract provision said that if you missed a payment for four or five years you lost your house you lost your house now that is outrageous but what I came to see in that neighborhood is these incredibly hard working families some of them had two jobs trying to make ends meet but if somebody got sick and they missed a payment they could be evicted and would be evicted from their home that did not happen by accident the laws of this country made it legal for those real estate speculators to rip off good hard working people and it was all based then on an acceptance of discrimination what got me then involved in politics is I saw and I became a lawyer I saw that these injustices that are around us and if you're a sensitive person you become aware of it not just how a person is treated by the color of their skin but how the institutions and the laws reinforce a system that grinds people into the dust who are hard working and decent people so laws make a difference politics makes a difference and the big decision that you make we talk about all of the issues prescription drug prices access to healthcare but the decision that you have to make each of us has to make and it's not just when you're a young person about to get out of college it's when you're an older person and you have to reinforce your commitment to the existential decision you made are you going to live a life where you promote inclusion in opportunity or are you going to live a life where you're trying to seek privilege and protection and I'm telling you Washington right now is an absolute mess okay but there's good people there engaged in this battle what we've seen with that healthcare bill which was not a healthcare bill it was a tax cut bill we were going to take healthcare away from 24 million people to give a tax cut of like 900,000 dollars which those of us who oppose that were for inclusion we were for opportunity the ones who were against it were for reinforcing privilege and protection this tax bill that we're talking about now all written in secret by the way among other things it would mean that when you are starting to pay your student loans under the current situation you can lower and your parents can deduct the interest they pay that's gone by the way the money is going to go to a really good place millionaires and billionaires so feel good that if you're paying more they're paying even less but the real issue here there's always going to be an issue that requires our attention whether it's a fair tax system expanding healthcare standing up for people who are discriminated against but the big decision that you have to make that I have to make every single day is whether to engage in that struggle together and fight for opportunity and fight for inclusion it's its own reward but there are forces that are constantly pulling you away sometimes they're legal sometimes you're having to make a tough choice about your own career sometimes you face the limitations of your own moral imagination that's life but the steady and the true course that you want to follow I know because you're here is when the moment comes and you have to act you're going to act on the side of inclusion in opportunity single person in your life so I thank you for being here that's the battle you face but let me tell you something it's fun to do it there's no guarantee of victory I'm in congress now I lost two races I've been dumped by girlfriends I still wonder why but you know when you do something and you decide to do it together you're going to feel better about yourself and you're going to be able to pick yourself up dust yourself off and start all over again when you have to face that new day thanks so much for letting me be here with you take care how's everybody doing my name is Carter Newbezer I'm a sophomore at UVM and the president of UVM Progressives and like a lot of people who are student activists involved in politics and activism because of Bernie's campaign he ran a historic campaign in 2016 when he kind of proved that we do not need corporate money and we don't need big lobbyists and big business in order to achieve the goals of equity, sustainability and justice that's why I'm really proud and I'm introducing someone so I'll get to that real quick but I'm really proud to announce that UVM Progressives are going to be running candidates for local government here in office we're taking we're taking the political revolution that Bernie started in 2016 to campus and if we just get 200 kids to vote, which is literally less than half this room, we win elections so we need your involvement we need you to come out the announcement event is on Thursday the 16th at 12 noon outside of the Bailey Howe Library so it's important that we get as many students there as possible so thank you for allowing me to plug that but even though I do disagree with the mayor on a number of issues like KBTL Keep Burlington Local right now we're fighting to make sure that Burlington Telecom is sold to a co-op versus a private outside investor I still think and I want to echo the comments already made that civility and respect in our political discourse is paramount, especially now with the man that we have in the White House unfortunately and so we can't get too depressed about Donald Trump and his rhetoric and his style of politics and as students as progressives we have to make sure that we are honoring that tradition of respectful and civil discourse so with that being said I'd like to introduce Mayor Murrow of Burlington thank you good morning everyone, thank you for coming out I guess it's almost good afternoon thank you for sitting through a lot I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you and share just a few thoughts about the future of Burlington, I won't go on too long because Congressman Ellison has arrived and it's exciting to have him here and I know hearing about his vision for the country is a big part of why you're here that said I didn't want to miss this opportunity just to speak to you about the importance of local elections we all know that young people can have a huge impact on the direction of our country you saw that with President Obama's two campaigns you certainly saw that with Senator Sanders run for president but you can have a big impact on what happens here locally as well and as you consider whether you should vote in Vermont, vote in Burlington come out on Town Meeting Day in March, I want you to know two things about maybe three things about your local government we want you to work for the local government, we have a big City Hall internship program that I started just after I got elected six years ago and I did it because I got my start in government as a intern almost, it's a great I can't believe this, it's approaching 30 years ago now I was an intern in Senator Leahy's office in Washington DC and it was really a remarkable experience I was there for eight months and I got to just see how a government office works some people go to DC and they leave totally jaded, I left inspired by how even when people didn't disagree they were working to make their communities better and certainly Senator Leahy has been at that for a long time so when I got to City Hall we started that and if you're interested in such an internship we have about 30 interns over the course of the year go to the City Hall, BTV BurlingtonVermont.gov website and you can find information on how to apply and we've had many UVM students start as interns and then go on to jobs in local government including in the Mayor's Office I think of the four of us in the Mayor's Office we've had a couple UVM graduates two other things I'd like you to know about your local government right now is that one my administration the City Council is fighting for opportunity as a city and we are fighting for opportunity for you and I'll talk a little bit more about what I mean about that and we are also fighting very hard for the environment let me expand on both of those just a little bit when I took office again it was five and a half years ago we had just come through a 12 year period where we had built only 18 new homes open to the general public in a 12 year period where we had built only 18 new homes and the whole downtown this is a dozen years that included a huge housing boom that changed downtown's authentic great downtown's like Burlington throughout the rest of the company but didn't happen in Burlington why is that is it because people don't want to live in downtown Burlington I don't believe that and I think there's a lot of indication that's not the case it happened we had policies been way too focused on the automobile we lost our way with local zoning and land use policies that made it almost impossible to build anything new in the downtown and as you know we um I don't think ever thought of it this way but the effect of that is we had what we had been building is we've been building walls around Burlington we had been making it harder and harder for people to come they wanted to start a career or an opportunity in Burlington and we made it harder for people to stay and you could see that in the stats back in the 2012 we did a study and we found that over that 12 year period when we were building almost no new homes the number of young people living in the downtown had shifted dramatically there had been about 30% of the people living in the downtown had been young households at the beginning of the 12 year period it was down to under 20% at the end of that period the average Burlingtonian had gone from back in the 80s paying about 30% of their income for rent to in 2012 paying 44% of their income in rent one of the highest ratios anywhere in the company in the country and we had also seen and I bet some of you in this room have seen this Burlington housing stock as landlords realized they could charge these very high rents without keeping up their homes investing in them because there was no new competition being built and they could charge more and more without making appropriate investments this kind of mistake had been made across the country and one of the last things President Obama did is he issued a report saying that these local land use decisions together have been building up and they have become a major driver in dragging down our economy and President Obama said you got to start breaking these barriers down these rules down, these walls down and that's what we've been trying to do over the last five and a half years and it's starting to work and you see it start to work within a few days I know many of you came out last November and voted for this that redevelopment of the 1970s suburban mall in the downtown it's going to start coming down in the next few days and what's going to replace it is a community unit that has jobs and hundreds of homes we went 12 year periods only building 18 homes we're going to build 274 homes in that one project over the next couple of years something similar has happened down on North Avenue where the Cambrian Rise project is starting to emerge as this mixed use community that includes a new 12 acre park and it also includes 600 700 new homes for people of all backgrounds over the next decade we I and others on the city council are working towards a vision of Burlington that remains a place that is open to people of all backgrounds that remains a place that welcomes new Americans from refugee crisis around the world that remains a place that is Burlington is Vermont City where people can come to if they want to start a job, they want to start a career, they want to start a business they want to start a family Burlington should be that place that vision of Burlington is at risk and this administration has tried to make sure that that vision continues we are also fighting for the environment what I mean by this is this one of the great things about being mayor and being part of a city government is we actually get to do things not just talk about things not just debate laws we actually get to build things and operate departments and we can do that in a way that moves the environment forward we're doing that Burlington in 2014 I was lucky to be the mayor when Burlington became the first city in the country to source 100% of our electricity from renewable generation remarkable achievement we went from about 25% to 100% in a little over a decade we're doubling down on that strategy and we are now going to become a net zero energy city across electricity transportation, ground transportation and thermal sectors 10 to 15 years we're going to do that by thank you the way we're going to do that is exciting and it's innovative we are going to create a downtown and a hill that is powered by district energy where we use the waste heat from our McNeil biomass plant to heat the downtown and the hill and we are going to do it through electrification where we move our automobile fleet from being gasoline powered to being electric powered this is happening every month right now in part because of new initiatives new incentives being created by the Burlington Electric Department and it's going to happen by empowering individuals and households to own and direct their energy future through better tools and better awareness of energy consumption that vision of Burlington as a city of opportunity as a city of sustainability will be on the March ballot just a few months from now, town meeting day first week of March 2018 and it will be on the ballot in city council races including city council races that many of you can choose to vote in if you like you have a city councilor in Adam Roof who is a great champion of that opportunity and sustainability and I hope you will come out and support him and it will certainly be debated and very much in front of voters in the mayoral race and I ask for your support as you think about who will come out and support next March and if you are interested in getting involved in the campaign or seeing more about what the Weinberger administration is about you can do that at www.merrowformayor.com thank you it's been a great honor to be here with you this morning my fellow UVM students UVM faculty Vermont state officials and members of the community my name is Asfar Basha I am the president of the college democrats here at the University of Vermont today I have the unique privilege of introducing a man whom I've looked up to for much of my life on November 7th 2006 Keith Ellison was elected to the United States House of Representatives to represent Minnesota's fifth congressional district he is the first African-American to be elected to the United States House from Minnesota and the first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress as a Muslim-American and person of color myself I had a remarkably tough task of finding leaders to emulate and look up to and quite frankly see myself in especially during the post 9-11 era I grew up during a time where a spotlight was being shined on a small group of people who radically misinterpreted my religion for barbarism and carried out heedless acts of violence I grew up during a time where the term terrorism became a synonym for Islam and this crushed me not only as an American who aspires to be a leader but an American who was convinced that anything is possible in this country but with the election of congressman Ellison and the election of our party's chair Fassel Gill I had leaders who looked like me although congressman Ellison was probably a little bit better looking and they shared the same faith as me and most importantly they held the same values that I hold congressman Ellison and party chair Fassel Gill you guys have been my beams of hope hope that change is possible and that change is imminent congressman Ellison has always been a fighter for the people as vice chair of the congressional progressive caucus congressman Ellison I would like to thank all 70 other members of congress advocate and work to enforce stricter campaign finance laws to provide high quality health care that is universally available and affordable to ensure that minority Americans have an equal and fair shot at success to make sure that working Americans are treated justly and are compensated fairly and have the ability to unionize to protect the rights of all Americans and to emphasize diplomacy and the resolution to our global conflicts as to preserve global security and peace congressman Ellison's reputation for making college affordable protecting our civil rights and standing up to corporate juggernauts undeniably demonstrates that he is a representative for and of the people I believe he embodies what it means to be a true progressive Democrat congressman Ellison you have not only been a role model to me but a hero Ellison of Minnesota's 15th Ractal District how you guys doing so let me tell you we're going to do something a little different I'm going to talk for about maybe three minutes, maybe four I need you guys to let me know when four minutes come and then I'm going to ask you if you want to ask me anything and this is going to be like an AMA on Reddit is everybody all ready with that good way to go so I just want to tell you a little story right after the Civil War it was over, the Civil War is over and people had come home from the battle and there were some folks in the north and they were going to have an election and there was basically two contestants in the election and the first one walked up and said in the Civil War I was a general I was a leader of men I led men into battle, I know how to command I know how to give orders vote for me and the next person walked up and says I was a private and I endured the heat and the cold I slept outside or sometimes under tent I saw my friends shot and die and before I was a soldier I was a farmer and if any y'all out there in this big crowd of 5000 people were generals you vote for him all y'all who were privates and sergeants in the real army which everybody was vote for me he got a rousing applause when he said that and when he went to congress they called him private you know John Smith what's my point today is veterans day and I want you all to think a little bit about the people in your life who have laid it all on the line for our country now I don't want to get into debate with you about whether Iraq was right or wrong that's not what this is about this is about devotion this is about commitment this is about sacrifice my son is a specialist in the state's army and he is a combat medic he's assigned to a cavalry scout unit right now he's in Fort Sam Houston getting extra training and he went to the army right out of high school he has only spent a few days in college and I tried to tell him son if you really want to do that why don't you go get in the ROTC why don't you do it another way he's like no this is what I'm going to do and he wouldn't did it even though I wasn't all the way on board because I had another idea of what his future needed to be but the problem is when you raise your kids to be independent thinkers they tend to be independent thinkers even when it comes to you and he did his thing and now I couldn't be more proud of him he helped save people's lives who get hurt in the battlefield he runs into harm's way to help rescue people and for his sake many others I just want to say to any of you who might be vets out there Happy Veterans Day I also want to say I also want to just remind all of us that there's a whole big difference between people men rich men usually who order young men and women nowadays into battle and the people who are actually called to fight those battles there's a mountain of difference between the two they didn't ask my son Elijah whether there should be soldiers in Africa or Ukraine they didn't ask his opinion about whether he should go you know they just said right so he just follows the orders which is what soldiers do so put your arms around the vets even if you think the war was wrong even if you think it wasn't the wrong policy and the wrong thing don't don't blame the vets for that we all do that we all do that okay thank you because vets often they are the teachers they are the firefighters they are the people who fix our roads they're the people who work in the public works they're the working people of this country they're the people who either make this country work or not work an interesting thing about working people if the workers at the McDonald's that you might go to might go to don't show up there ain't going to be no hamburger served that day if the CEO doesn't show up so what he's probably playing golf anyway the bottom I want you all to understand and you probably do understand but I just want to re-emphasize that our country is in a particular unique historic moment wealth and income inequality in America today has never been worse since the gilded age your parents and grandparents and even great grandparents don't remember it being this bad because it hasn't been this bad since about the 8 since about 1910 1890s but in those days because there was such a dramatic gap between the rich and everybody else but folks like F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote books about this and you should read those books you should get familiar with books like The Great Gatsby and other books of that age because what they will do is give you a window into a time when our country had tremendous gaps between the rich and everybody else much like they do now and we do need those windows but we don't see the very rich because if you go to the airport they don't fly commercial, they fly in their own planes seriously and we do need those gaps because unless you are a member of a very elite country club you don't see them recreate even if you do play golf they don't play golf with you these folks make decisions about whether the plant's going to stay here in Vermont or whether it's going to close and open up in Mexico they make decisions about your life whether to take on climate change seriously or not they make big decisions about what happens to you and they're not content just to take their money and make a whole bunch of money they want to take that money and then buy political influence and you better believe they beat a path they wear a hole in my carpet coming to try to get people like me to do what they want right now they want a big old tax cut I call it a tax cut scam you know let me just tell you a little bit about it let me just tell you a little bit about this tax cut this tax cut says we're going to get rid of the estate tax you have to as an individual you have to have an estate worth 5.3 million dollars to even pay it you ought to be glad to be able to pay the estate tax because that means you're rich, very rich and here's the thing about it you want to get rid of the estate tax if you don't have an estate tax you know what you're going to have in America a hereditary aristocracy and you kind of already have one you're going to make it worse and by the way they want to cut the corporate tax rate they want to lower it from about 39% all the way down to about 20% and do corporations not have any money nowadays I think they're doing quite well there's over 3 trillion dollars offshore and if they had to pay taxes on that money they'd have to pay about 900 billion dollars which would mean they could help pay for public education public health, you name it but they're like look between me getting even richer than I already am and giving money so that some little kids can go to Head Start giving me the money that's their attitude we cannot allow this kind of thing to take place not as people who live in a democratic society we have to step up and say that the public interest is served if everybody pays their fair share we have to say that the public interest is served if people who benefit from being in this country contribute to the expenses of this country I don't think that's too much to ask I think it's fair I think it's fair to say you know look I get rid of deductions like state and local deductions which is when you have state and local places that raise taxes from their population to pay for expenses of their society now we're going to punish them for that by getting rid of that deduction they want to take deduction away from school from medical expenses college interest alone they want to make that not deductible anymore and yet at the very same time they want to say that if you are a company if you close down your company in Vermont and open it up in another country the taxes that you would have to pay are going to actually be as low as 10 or maybe even 5% or none whereas if you have that same corporation in the United States you're going to have to pay at least 20 under their tax plan many of you may think taxes man I don't pay them I just go down to H&R block I just get a turbo tax thing it's all complicated I'm telling you that I am asking you to lock into this tax debate going on in Congress right now they are getting ready to pick your pocket they are getting ready to take money from working people and middle class people and shift it upward and after they do it there's going to be a whole lot less money to make sure that the water is clean, that the air is clean, that we're invested in public schools and public education if they get away with this we are going to be a poorer society for it and by the way they will tell you stuff like this oh well the reason we're doing this is because if the rich people get more money they're going to invest in plant and equipment and it's going to trickle down to you well I prefer what John F. Kennedy said he said a rising tide lifts all boats and they think that tax cuts to the rich trickles down to the rest of y'all it's a difference between bottom up top down which one do you prefer you don't know so my point is as college students you have a lot more riding than any of us folks who are in the 40 and above crowd because we'll all be dead by time this climate crisis is really really awful and even people in Vermont and Minnesota can't even escape it if we don't do something now we don't want you to live in this kind of society in the Gilded Age there was a movement that cropped up called the progressive era whoever heard of it we need some progressives around here right now and these people took on big big concentrated markets where there was two and three and four companies that dominated the whole market they took on the steel barons, they took on the railroad barons they took on all these folks and then they got a president who was willing to help bust up these trusts we need to we need to bust up some of these trusts right now let me just tell you this and I'm going to wrap up and we're going to do a little bit of Q&A right now with all the money that has been accumulating at the top of our economy yes they do stock buy backs yes they buy political influence you know what else they do mergers there's something called merger Monday you know what that is where these big companies just buy each other off I mean just this week merger I mean about a few weeks ago you had Amazon talking about buying whole foods but then you have mergers being announced almost every day that's what happens when you got these massive monopoly profits that are just accumulating they don't go into planting equipment to extend jobs they go into mergers they go into buying political influence they go into buying stock options so they can boost up their share price and you may think oh that's some economic stuff let me tell you this stuff matters for you because if you're a worker and you got 80 different companies in the same industry and you say look you're not paying me right I'm going to go to the other guy then the other company will say okay yeah we'll pay you a little bit better because we want to compete for labor but if there's only two or three makers you don't have any options these people golf together they're going to decide what your pay is going to be and that's what it's going to be or if you're an innovator but they're doing only better and cheaper why don't they just buy you out and keep doing it the way that makes them all that money cuts down on innovation our country has had a drop in the number of start-up businesses did you know that who knew that why it's not because of job killing regulations it's because of monopoly that's why it is so if you love this country and the people in it we need you to step up big time create a brand new progressive movement for this day and in this time and fight for all kinds of things like first democracy fight for democracy make sure that we eliminate this thing where you have 90 million people who don't vote in the last presidential election reach out to every Vermonter to make sure that they know that they can participate in this democracy and they have a choice to make make sure you go to the farms make sure you go to the city make sure you go to the suburbs and make sure you go to the LGBTQ community make sure you go to people of all colors make sure you go to the people who were born here and the people who came here make sure you go to everybody and engage them and tell them that if we are involved things will get better then what you do is you tell them is you go out there and you tell them that if we fight for things that are going to help our lives like free college tuition not too much to ask for people say oh we can't afford that okay fine how come Germany Norway and Sweden can afford it and by the way in all of them countries you can go to the doctor too and don't have to worry about bankruptcy if you do and by the way they're investing in child care they're investing in all these things and guess what they have more startups per capita than we do so you think oh that socialism that'll kill the market economy oh how come that's not happening in Sweden they got more startups than we do per capita what I'm telling you is a better America is right in front of you but you got to grab it and it's not falling in your lap because the people who have it going their way like it like that but if you're willing to stand up and to organize and to fight for what you believe in and to run the risk that somebody's not going to like what you're saying when you argue for democracy then you can get a better America we used to have in America where 33% of all workers were in unions now we're down to single digits because these big companies bust unions and attack unions and fire people who try to organize them most workers will say that I would like a union if I could get one but you want a union but you need a job and so if they threaten somebody or fire them they might just say well I'd like to have a union but I can't run the risk so let me just say this as I close and then we're going to do some Q&A America has always had social problems that it had to confront that's not new but America has always seen young people at the forefront of solving those social problems it might be climate change and mass incarceration and police violence today but it was civil rights yesterday and it was all kinds of stuff that young people have always been at the cutting edge of your country needs you to step up and demand a greater more democratic society a more inclusive society a fairer economy you can deliver these things but it won't be easy but I have so much faith in you so let me just say to you guys have a happy veterans day thank the people you know in your family and you thank them for demonstrating commitment and sacrifice and love for this nation and then you go out there and demonstrate sacrifice whether you're in the military or not by fighting for this society that we live in so let's do some Q&A alright I may have exceeded my four minutes sorry about that but I'll call on whoever's hand I see first right there you got to use your outside voice I can't hear you I'm sorry you have to stand up and you're going to have to really come from the dive okay so it's still very hard to hear but I think you asked me what the intent of the GOP tax plan is to not allow deduction of interest on student loans is that right right okay what do I think the intent is well there's a few levels of intent did everybody hear what she said so on a tuition waiver you can there's deductibility there so if they get rid of that then you're going to have to pay up more and it's going to reduce your award right it is multi-layered the first one is they want to give a lot of money to rich people and in order to do what they're happy to take it from students that's one number one because if you know obviously if you have less revenue coming in then that's going to create a debt or deficit and they say they don't like that in deficit so they got to try to find some pay for it that's so they're taking it out of you they're taking that out of your pocket with the holy jeans on it because you're a barista as you're going through college right and they're putting it into the monopoly man's pocket you know on the game monopoly you know the guy with the mustache you know they're putting it into his pocket that's one thing the other thing is that you asked me what I believe the intent is what I really believe is that a lot of republicans believe that college students are too liberal and that in order to make them more conservative you've got to pinch them and and if they feel desperate then they might feel then they might look out be more inclined to look out after only themselves which is a good setup to make somebody more conservative because the basic conservative idea is to conserve privileges for the people who already have it and so I think that it's an idea to you know that's that you know I think it's about that I think you know there are always some of how college campuses are too liberal and so you know you get students who are desperate and got a lot of money that they got to come up with to get an education and I think they think that's going to shift the political sensibilities of college students so I think there's not just a not just a monetary goal but also a political one so fight it you know what draft up what you said to me on a card and hand them out so students know what's going on the biggest problem and I'll say this to all of y'all is that when we were fighting to stop the repeal of health care people get health care you know what I mean they get it like I got I'm sick I go to the doctor they're going to make it harder for me to do that I get that the tax thing is a little bit harder for people to grasp but that just means we got to work a little harder to make them help them grasp it and if you will you ask me that question which is a very important thing for you to do you just made a contribution to fighting this tax bill just by asking me that you want to do a little more draft it up on a postcard to hand them out so the students know what's happening to them they think this is something happening to their parents they're like I don't make no money I'm a you know I work at Starbucks no no they're trying to come after your dough too so thank you for asking that that was a great question I want to give her a hand I want to um oh we got a microphone now right there in the back and the guy in the black hoodie that's him yeah my question is similar okay it's also can you can everyone hear me yeah you sound good it's also about the um proposed health care plan um the what health care plan the proposed health care by the Republicans yeah my question is like I did a lot of research on it for class and great what exactly is the intention period of the health care plan because it doesn't seem to give health care to be the intention doesn't seem to be to give health care to as many people as possible so I don't want to believe that these people are dumb or they're not you are right to eliminate that as a possibility they're not dumb well then if they're not dumb then what's the alternative then what do you got left well I don't want to think that they're evil I just well put it like this sometimes not all the time but sometimes evil is an objective thing and sometimes it's a matter of perspective from their perspective it's like look I don't believe the government should help people except people like me and why are we spending money to help all these people who can't afford health care to get health care you can have health care if you can afford it and if you can't afford it that just means you're not a very worthy person and I know you don't want to buy that but I urge all of you guys to look up the term social Darwinism look up social Darwinism there are people now Charles Darwin never said the survival of the fittest did you know that you guys are college students you know about Darwin he never said survival of the fittest it was the social Darwinists who invented this term and if you just think about the idea that which species survive well those are the the heartiest strongest ones survive the truth is that's not true the species that survives are the ones that make the most babies which you know you know evolution belongs to the lovers not the fighters it's true believe me and so the social Darwinist says it is the cleverest greediest most aggressive most avaricious who will survive and those who aren't they don't have and why give why give things to people who history has not favored who evolution has not favored they're weak they're dumb garbage garbage out why putting good money after bad you understand what I'm saying they believe that and the fact that that philosophy really helps line their pockets is a side benefit they say but I mean if you've ever studied Fountainhead anybody ever read Atlas Strug or Fountainhead anybody and Ayn Rand she this is basically just what she says society should favor the strongest the smartest the individual and everybody else can just you know do the best they can with what they got and so the basis I mean let me tell you Paul Ryan who's the speaker of the house requires everybody who works in his congressional office to read Ayn Rand did you know that and if you don't know who Ayn Rand is you need to learn about who Ayn Rand is but she is a Russia immigrant to the United States who came up with a philosophy that that the individual knows nothing to society and that the highest moral good is pleasing oneself that's what she believes now if that kind of code of philosophy is animating that person's action in their mind helping poor giving money to poor people is wasting money because they're not they're just going to waste it give it to the give it to the people who already made some money because those are the ones who have been smart enough and clever enough and lucky enough to get some money does that I mean I'm not asking you to agree but do you understand what I'm saying the main point is why do they want to strip healthcare from people who need it because they don't think people are worth it and when you talk when you hear people say cut food stamps cut meals on wheels cut head start it's all that's all a version of social Darwinism and I really hope y'all look up what is social Darwinism what is it who is Ayn Rand look these things up there's not going to be too many more times in your life when you can just seek out knowledge this is one of them do not waste it go after it and I don't care what you're studying you should know something about social Darwinism because it is informing the decisions of a lot of people who are making decisions over here the district team of electric lines is a state level is there anything that can be done in congress thank you is there anything that can be done in congress for them to address this issue because it's been around for a long time and you've got three years before these lines are going to be drawn again right so the question has to do with gerrymandering who does not know what gerrymandering is please raise your hand don't know what it is don't be shy I mean we're in a college campus if you don't know what it is I am more than happy to explain it to you I just want to waste your time so I'm assuming that everyone knows what it is am I right okay who knows what it is put your hand up okay good so there's racial gerrymandering there is partisan gerrymandering is there anything congress can do this congress is a product of gerrymandering they're not going to change gerrymandering but one thing I will tell you this and I come here and I'm saying this is a democrat this is kind of sacrilegious for me to say as a democrat but I'm going to say it anyway I don't believe in any kind of partisan gerrymandering I think that we should fight for the seats and convince the people to vote for us I'm not asking for any advantages I just want a fair chance to talk to the people and I believe we will win most of the time so that's what I believe about gerrymandering I think we need to have some national legislation that you know says that if you're going to gerrymander we're going to we'll give you incentives around having a fair system setting up a nonpartisan gerrymandering board like they have in Arizona you know we need to create an incentive system to make sure that states who have prerogative over election stuff will not gerrymander I also am a very strong proponent of a constitutional amendment for the right to vote now you all might be surprised to know that there is no explicit right to vote in the constitution now some people will argue there's an implicit right to vote in the constitution but there is no, we all agree there is no explicit right to vote now are there any law students in the house today okay well let me tell you okay there you go so you know that when congress or a state body passes a law that impinges upon a fundamental right then the court is supposed to apply strict scrutiny right you know about this stuff and when they pass a law on economic stuff then it's just is it rational right have you had con law yet okay so alright so foreshadowing of things to come strict scrutiny means that if you're going to pass a law that's going to impinge upon a fundamental right you have to have narrowly tailored means for for compelling state interests right and what that would mean is that if you pass a law that undermines the right to vote if there is an explicit right to a vote then it would be analyzed by courts under strict scrutiny that this sounds kind of legalistic but my point is nowadays if the state says we're going to require a D and there because we believe there's imposter voting and by the way folks there is no imposter voting okay then it's just looked at under like is it rational I think it's irrational because some courts will say it's rational to prevent fraud although there's no fraud but if it was a constitutional thing where there was an explicit right to vote then is it narrowly tailored what is it because it hits a lot of people who can provably vote and have been voting for years is there a compelling state interest well there might be to make sure to prevent fraud but this is not doing that because there's literally out of the billions of votes that are cast over the last 10 years there's like the numbers of imposter voting are literally under 100 there's literally there's functionally no voter fraud but there's a lot of people who don't have an ID right like over 200,000 people in the state of Wisconsin alone so I think one thing we can do and answer your question is pass a constitutional amendment all this requires that we've got to have a live movement which will put a power majority in congress and which will support a constitutional amendment which is well within our grasp to do but not immediately let's keep going where's my friend with the microphone I want to talk about since the 2016 election within the left side there's been a lot of divide I think that obviously with you it's a little personal what is your advice or do you have any insight on how the Democratic party can unite and go forward so that way we can kind of put a lot of the stuff that's happened in the past behind us and understand a way to move forward so that way we can come forward great question let me answer the question this way first of all organized on the local level as much as you can get out there and engage the grassroots and invite people in second of all do not let cynicism come in just because somebody did something that they shouldn't have done don't let that impact you because in the city council race in Burlington maybe that thing that happened doesn't really matter you know what I mean here's the third thing the third thing demand that there's true accountability and acknowledgement of the unfairness in my opinion no the DNC should not have signed a document between one party two who was running for the nomination and the party saying that that person in exchange for money gets to appoint the communication staff and other staff everybody following me everybody read about Dona Brazil in my opinion it wasn't fair and it wasn't fair to Bernie it wasn't fair to millions of Americans there needs to be an acknowledgement I'm saying that I don't care who doesn't like it but I also want to tell you that unfairness does not give you an excuse to check out or to quit what it means is that the party should and I will personally fight for acknowledgement and reform and not only do we want to make sure there's no inside tracks in the future we want to make sure that we complete we revolutionize the super delegate situation there shouldn't be 715 people who basically get to we shouldn't be spotting any candidate a number of votes from the front end we need to open up these primaries so like in New York if you don't register for the Democratic primary like 6 months in advance you can't even vote what if your birthday is in September and the primary is also later in September then you're 18 but you can't vote in the Democratic primary because you haven't registered 6 months ago which would have been impossible for you to do this needs to be reformed we need to figure out how to open it up included the caucus system now some states like mine in Minnesota we have a caucus system but I believe we ought to contemplate either a primary that goes along with it or a system where you can come in vote and go and it needs to be all day so that if you work in the second shift how are you going to go to caucus you can't go so we need to be able to reform that but if we will embrace reform we will we will earn the trust of the people and if we have the trust of the people we will win not just one election but into the future that answer your question thank you it's working I'm wondering what y'all in congress are doing to reform financial aid because I know that at least in my situation my family cannot pay for college out of pocket however we also were not eligible for financial aid you're right in that middle group working class family you guys can meet your bills but paying some big tuition is just too much you're too rich to get the financial aid but you're not rich enough to just pay for everything millions of families are in that situation and I just want to say to you guys I'm 54 years old when I graduated from law school at the age of 25 my total debt was $12,000 and that's because I borrowed money because I got married at the age of 23 and had two kids by the time I graduated from law school I don't recommend that what's my point I graduated from law school in 1990 I didn't owe much debt at all I was able to walk into a pretty good job I was able to buy a house within three years of getting out of law school when my wife got pregnant I was able to pay all the families bills while she was taking care of that part of our family and to me that just seems impossible for young people today and yet you're better educated than my generation you've done, you've got more education you're more tech savvy you're smarter you're more creative, you're less racist I'm serious you are I mean you're like better than us if you look at it and yet you are more debt burden your wages are lower if you adjust for inflation when I tell you that you guys got as much on the line as anybody in this society I am not lying to you what do we do about it well Bernie Sanders did all the country a great favor by saying what about free tuition seriously some of y'all have been told oh this cannot happen well wait a minute if you got a hedge fund manager making 28 million a year couldn't they get by with 20 million a year if you got a McDonald's CEO making $9,000 an hour couldn't they make it on $4,000 an hour you understand what I'm saying this is the richest country in the history of the world this country allowed for these people to become this rich why shouldn't folks pay their fair share so that other people can have a chance let me be honest with you I don't have a problem with people being rich I wish I was rich I really don't have a problem with it but I'll tell you what I have a problem with you getting up that ladder or being born at the top of the ladder and then you want to pull up the ladder it's wrong you don't have to worry about going to the doctor or getting their education or getting around we should have a strong transportation system we should have a strong educational system and we should have a strong healthcare system and then what you want to do after that that's up to you there's more that society should do but there should be some basic things so if you want to go unless you're a college kid you might be coming up with some cool new way to make energy it's going to revolutionize everything well how are you going to go pursue that dream if you don't have any healthcare and you owe 80 grand it's killing innovation in our society the United States if there was one word that would describe us at our best at our best now one word what would that word be audience participation I said at our best at our best at our best somebody said innovative I would say possibility I am telling you that if you go to a white farmer in Vermont or a black hospital janitor in Chicago and you ask them both of them will say my son is going to be a doctor my daughter is going to be an engineer my baby is going to be something they both will say that you may think oh they're very different you know only in superficial ways in the most important ways they care about their family and their kids and they would do anything for them both of them would feel that way don't you doubt that I've talked to lots of folks I'm telling you making sure that college tuition is affordable that kids can graduate without any student debt and or even free college is within our ability to do it's a matter of political will and it's a matter of political imagination one of the saddest things is when you see college kids lower their imagination about what might be possible in our society oh I've been told that can't happen you've been listening to the wrong people you got to believe that this society has better days ahead that this society a society of possibility that the wealth that this country has generated should be used to help people who are trying to climb that ladder and just because somebody is at the top of that ladder doesn't mean they get to just get more and get more at the expense of other people I want you to believe that if you've done really well in this economy bless you now help the folks who haven't hit the bell like you have some of you might be from very wealthy families I don't want we don't need your guilt it doesn't help us but what we need you to do is to say you know what we've done well and I'm glad I'm doing well other people should be able to do well that's all we need from you because if you're making $400,000 a year which is not actually it's not it's a lot of money but it's not tons there's people way richer than you I mean but why wouldn't you want to get a little more so some poor kid could go to kindergarten I mean really you're not going to be in the free cheese line you're not going on food stamps you're fine but we live in a society where it's like I don't want to do nothing for nobody except myself and my family and they do drop the ladder some time for people who they know the people they want to hook up I'm saying that a generous society doesn't give everything to everyone it's a waste but a generous society makes sure that everybody has basic needs met and can climb that ladder part of it is helping people like you who is smart, who wants to study who has a goal who believes that better days are ahead but just needs a society to just get your back a little bit and I don't think it's too much to ask so I just want you guys to know that I'm getting the high sign over here so let's wrap it up so let's take one more and then I probably got to hit the door yep in the pink hoodie yep you got to talk loud oh two more we'll do this one and that one and them guys can wait for a second yeah let's get the mic person and then we'll bring the mic to you then we'll be done hi sorry I am a youth organizer and I plan on devoting my career to grassroots organizing I love that my biggest issue is dealing with even after the election while there was a big influx of people wanting to work in this field there's still just a considerable amount of apathy a lot of people feel it's a big issue there's so much where do you start how do I as an organizer reach out to these people and say your help matters what is the most effective I tell you apathy means people don't care and I think you would agree with me people care desperately they care so much they won't allow themselves to care because they don't want to be set up for disappointment you understand what I just said they care so much that they won't allow themselves to feel or to hope because if they hope then what happens if it doesn't happen I'd rather just say it's a lot more emotionally easy to say it's all corrupt it's going to change and I'm just going to have to deal with that you understand what I'm saying to you so having acknowledged that your job is to give people a sense that things can be better how do you do that you got to talk to them you got to be present in their lives you're already doing that you got to build relationships you got to build trust you got to put them first so while you got an excellent rap that you want to drop you got to get that lady who has been serving coffee at that denny's for 20 years but she needs she needs to do something about her rent going up and paying half her income in rent so even though she's not confident about speaking in front of people you who are really articulate you got to figure out how to help her speak her truth because that is empowering to her if you're willing to put yourself behind her and let her do her talking but you're the one saying okay we're going to write it out you're going to say it, we're going to practice it it's going to go great then she's going to stand up and she's going to do her little thing and just the fact that she did it is going to make her feel really good and all of her girlfriends who she plays bridge with are going to be like you did what girl wow that's awesome I'm so proud of you enthusiasm is contagious enthusiasm is contagious so is being a downer but what I want to let you know is that if you want to organize people you got to be the kind of person who's going to knock on 100 doors and if you only get 3 people to come to the meeting you're ready to knock on another 100 doors you understand because I guarantee you these things have a snowball effect first you get 3 then you get another 3 next thing you know you're at a meeting and there's 5000 people there but you will remember when it was just 3 you understand what I'm saying you got to be kicking butt and fighting back when it's 32 below in Burlington and when it's 90 in Burlington because it gets to be both doesn't it I know because I'm from Minnesota and so what I'm saying to you is that is what we got to do you got to be one of those folks who believe in folks and in the meantime you got to do self care self care is really critical I don't know what religion you are but if you're a praying person then you should pray if you go to services then go to them don't start thinking that's a waste of time think of that as a recharge for yourself if you're not religious then go to the green mountains and just look at majesty of nature you understand what I mean back out there and do it thank you last one so my question is really similar to the last question in that it's a small scale personal action question sure so Thanksgiving is coming up and I don't know if everybody's family is like my family but I've got those like one or two uncles that hold these like conservative social journalists and every year we get into a political debate at the dinner table and every year they're too stubborn to give it up or even listen to what I have to say so I agree profoundly with everything you've been saying but how do you go about talking to people who don't is there a way to change their mind and if so how do you do that well I think it's important to know that sometimes family time is just going to be family time really seriously and I know if you like to engage them in political discussion by all means you do that but if you think that they're not going to ever change then just be a great niece you know what I mean because I'm a funny thing about conservative people they could be very compassionate they just don't want to give they want to give the donation themselves they just don't want to give it through the government that's what they'll say and I'm going to tell you the seeds that you drop at that Thanksgiving dinner they might be on the job three weeks later just like my niece said everybody ought to be able to go to the doctor when they're sick but they might not say that to you why because they remember you as a baby they remember you were in a stroller down here you gotta tell them what's going on some of them don't want to hear that from you you know what I mean but just because they don't acknowledge that you're right in front of you on the spot does not mean they're not listening to you so be a great niece you know uncle do you want some more turkey now back on this healthcare thing you know what I mean but just remember that you don't have they're not necessarily going to agree right then right there but they may they're listening to you and here's another thing they're proud of you they're proud of you they're like man she's a spark plug she just don't she remind you oh it's you know really I'm talking about real business here because here's the thing about folks like you know conservative folks and we all got them in our family everybody's conservative when they don't need something when they need something they get real liberal fast you know what I mean how many conservatives sitting up in the nursing home when their long term care policy runs out and they gotta spend down on Medicaid who knows what I'm talking about Niles oh you on Medicaid huh uncle a Republican a Republican on Medicaid interesting when I was in the state legislature I had a bill to try to have a earlier medical intervention if a kid tested positive for lead it was like 15 deciliters per you know per something I don't know and it had to get down to five and even five does damage but it does less damage than it has as high as 15 I was I gotta had a bunch of dims on there but I couldn't get any Republicans on there and then was one guy who's a friend of mine he's a Republican he's a good dude you know he says man you know this happened to my nephew put me on that bill and I didn't say anything cause I thought you know it ain't gonna help me get more people on the bill if I'm gonna be a smarty pants about it but I thought to myself man does your compassion only run to your own family and the answer is yes but it does run to his family though so if you can relate it to something that they care about often times you can help them see that the government does matter it is important but at the same time let me just tell you you know we got Republicans in Congress right now you know after that shooting that happened on the baseball field and they're still like oh no we can't we can't regulate guns I mean what about just background checks just background checks what about bump stocks can we regulate bump stocks nope I'm like wow man y'all just got shot up on your you mean nothing nothing so I believe that that once we really organize and really get out there we're gonna see a lot more people coming our way even conservatives because to tell you the truth you'll talk to these guys in the gym and in the lunch line and all this and they'll sound like they will agree with you but then when it comes down to signing the name on the bill and voting they don't want to do it I mean honestly I'm looking for the day when I don't need Republicans to become Democrats I just need them to become responsive to their own constituents you know just do what your constituents need you can still say lower taxes and all that but the taxes shouldn't be so low that if there's a hurricane we don't even have the money to help people out of that right I mean so I would just say that about it you know what I mean just and let me just say this about it most of the Republicans I work with nice people if they tell you that we don't like each other that's actually not true there's a lot of Republicans I'm friends with think our great people it's just that like I think I don't need somebody to be related to me to want to help them and they kind of do you know so they'll give they'll give a lot of money but they don't want to give it to the government because they oh the government's gonna waste my money so you know it's it's they're not we're not all the way after all we're talking about our family members here right so I would say have a little patience and compassion play the long game with them look for points of view that you can agree on and then remember this 90 million people did not vote in the 2016 presidential election if they don't want to vote with us there's a whole lot of people who do well let's go get them thanks a lot everybody