governor and two terms in the statehouse. he is co-owner of puritan back room, a manchester, new hampshire, restaurant, also visited by presidential candidates. is the first openly gay person or elected to congress by new hampshire voters. representative hayes first came to national attention when president obama came to her -- an international teacher of the year. the second african american to represent connecticut, the first was gary franks, a republican who represented the fifth district in 1990s. new congress, new leaders. watch it all in c-span. sherrod brown at a roundtable discussion on jobs and the economy, senator brown is considering seeking the democratic nomination for president.

[inaudible conversations] >> hello, everybody. i am renny cushing, state representative from hampton and moderator of the school district services two nights in a row i have been in this building and i thank everyone who turned up last night. this is what i refer to as the band room. it is now the lecture hall. good to see people i went to high school with. i want to welcome you here tonight for this conversation we are going to have during this week in the legislature. there are hearings from family medical leave insurance which is something we've been talking about in the legislature for the past two sessions and i am

honored to be asked by folks for a family-friendly economy to introduce, to welcome you here. i want to introduce our guest from ohio, senator sherrod brown, who will say a few words and we will have a conversation. [applause] >> a pleasure to be here. this is my first time in new hampshire, in manchester and plymouth state university first with senator shaheen, campaigning with her in 2014 and then with her husband when we went to a couple other sites. i want to introduce my wife, connie shoots. i will not say much. i want to hear from the panelists of course. we are in the midst of

something we call our dignity of work tour. since election day 2018 i was elected to my third term in the senate. i have continually been noticing democrats seem to think you either choose to talk to the progressive base or you talk to working families and listen to issues that matter to them and i don't think it is a choice. we have to do both. we don't win the state in general elections like you have to or ohio, to swing states, unless we talk to workers and progressives. i'm a longtime progressive but i won a state like ohio because i am who i am and what i fight for every day, the dignity of work, you fight for your country and people who make it work, regardless of kind of work they do, whether you shower before or after work, understand whatever challenges people to work like me have in the workplace, people of color

and greater challenges. we fight for higher wages and better benefits. we also fight for better workplace rules, we fight for pro family policies and what this legislature is doing, senator sherman and others and moving this governor from the right place, to do the right thing on family policies like this are so important. i think those in the house and senate, and to advance these issues. in congress and the house and senate. and reelecting and continuing to have the perfect female senators. the only two women in american history, and ohio, still working to have a progressive

woman governor or senator one of these days. thank you for blazing the trail and you start. thanks for what you do for the labor movement. >> thank you. >> i am going to listen. >> welcome to all of you for joining us tonight for our discussion. my name is jan schaffer. i live in warner, new hampshire and recently retired from the staff of the national afl-cio which is a federation of unions. since my retirement, i have been working with the campaign for a family-friendly economy to help pass family and medical leave in new hampshire and i am passionate about this issue both because i have had family medical leave but i've also not had it. when my son was born i did not have it. it was 26 years ago but more recently, i'm fortunate to have a union contract and paid medical leave, i was able to be

with my mother when she died. and credible gift. and it would be more than stressful to have to balance work and taking care of a parent like that. i'm really excited sherrod brown is joining us tonight. is a leader on issues of importance to working families. he spent his time in the us senate, i'm so happy he could be here. the format for this evening's we hear from a panel which you can see appear, who see the critical need for family medical leave and senator sherrod brown will speak a bit more and we have time at the

end for questions from folks here. i am sure that many people in this room have struggled with the issues we are going to talk about and you will hear about tonight. maybe you recently had a baby or adopted, or maybe you are caring for an aging parent or a partner who is ill. most of us face these events in our lives. so far, too many of us face difficult, almost impossible choices when we get into these situations. we are glad new hampshire and many other states are working to find solutions. according to the federal reserve bank, 40% of us cannot face an unexpected $400 expense. this is in part because wages are not keeping up for a lot of working families and there is a big paycheck to paycheck but to

think about that, we know that is our situation and if something unexpected happens, we would not be able to keep our finances together so that we know a problem, a health problem or disability is what can push many of us into poverty and losing income even for a short time can be destabilizing to our families. family and medical leave insurance can provide a temporary financial bridge and help us maintain financial security while meeting the caregiving needs in our family. some of us are single parents, some were holding our families together with one income. with one person or both, and to struggle all the daily joys and daily stresses we face or

someone in our family may be battling addiction and needs time off to go into rehab and family and medical leave insurance should be there for all of us, to relieve some of the financial strain of taking time off from work. we are grateful tonight to be joined by a panel of people from this community who will start this discussion for us. former state representative and ceo of one sky community services which serves one of 10 regions in new hampshire for individuals with developmental disabilities. chris muns. >> thank you, welcome, sherrod brown. i am the only member of my family who did not graduate from when a cut high school. i made up for that by serving on the school board for three years. prior to moving to new hampshire i grew up in that

mitten shaped to the north of ohio and while i did not attend the university of michigan, both of my kids were born in ann arbor so i'm obligated to say go to. >> sorry. >> i don't take that personally. congratulations on patriotism as a browns fan. >> you win a lot of stuff. go ahead. we also saw i read irving. this is supposed to be a substantive discussion, keeping it on the issues. >> i am the ceo of one sky community services, we are a private nonprofit organization in new hampshire that supports individuals with develop mental disabilities and brain disorders, we are proud in new hampshire of being the first state in the country to be

institutionalized, can it was provided with develop mental disabilities, the first state to allow people with those disabilities to live independently in the community and that is our role. we are responsible for the region that includes most of rocking ham county and we have a contract with the state of new hampshire and we administer the state-funded and federal funded medicaid programs that support those individuals. new hampshire like a lot of other states where the state department provide services in new hampshire to enter into a public-private partnership and 9 other organizations like us to cover the state. serve about 1000 people, 1000 families, annual budget of $30 million across the state.

the system supports 12,000, most of the support the people we work with, most of the people we work with, we call them our clients, continue to live at home. the primary caregiver for those individuals, we supplement support for making, getting funding so they can hire people to come in and help them in the community. if one of those people is unable to come to work and takes the stress off the family, most of the people we work with are struggling themselves. two income earners. if the staff that is supposed to take care of the disability isn't able to show up, mom or

dad has to stay home and if you are an hourly employee that means you will lose pay. that is an immediate issue if it lasts for a day, becomes a much longer issue that goes on for a longer period of time. you combine that with the fact that new hampshire is facing this perfect storm of workforce related issues. we have the second oldest average population in the country. we are going for it though. we have the lowest unemployment rate in new england covering around 2%. we have the highest cost of an in-state college education in the country which leads to the highest average student debt in the country and we have an incredible a difficult time finding staff so what that does is puts the families we are working with in a lot of

situations where they just can't find people on an ongoing basis and they face the challenge of do i care for my loved one lose my job? and if they had paid family leave, that would strengthen the safety net that exists and provide them with extra support. thank you again. >> next on our panel is heather carroll. heather is the manager of public policy in massachusetts, new hampshire chapter. she is a social worker and has been working in the field with elders for over 15 years and has a very good understanding of the importance and the challenges of caregiving. >> thank you and welcome to new hampshire.

we know that you are a leader when it comes to alzheimer's disease in congress currently. we are so appreciative of your support for the bold infrastructure act, that was excellent and bipartisan. believe it or not it was a bipartisan effort. luckily for us, if you have a brain, you can be affected by this disease. we have 24,000 individuals with alzheimer's and a couple thousand more with related brain disorders. 67,000 caregivers caring for those individuals, they are giving 76 million hours of free care per year. the workforce issue in new hampshire for direct care staff is extremely tough. it also leads to the issue of staff that is trained properly to care for individuals with specific needs which process specific needs.

we are sometimes competing for people to come to work. when you have that situation happening, families are left without a lot of options open to care for their loved ones themselves. we as an organization realized being out of the paid family leave, taking it to the of the end of the spectrum, we heard about adoption and things, what about our people, people are dealing with this type of issue all the time. two out of three family members, the thought process of having to take an early retirement because there is no workforce, with any form of dementia, looking at possible

retirement which means leaving the workforce and possibly leaving a great job but had fantastic benefits and the thought process of losing your job because you are out a lot, because you are currently caring for a loved one or have doctors appointments or things like that, losing your insurance, is mind-boggling. i had a gentleman yesterday talking about he would have job protection and is on the older end of the spectrum so he may be easily dismissed and if that happens, his wife's prescription would jump dramatically if he lost insurance. the thought of putting her in a nursing home, is the farthest thing from her thoughts. families deal with alzheimer's disease should not have to

think about losing their job. or can i keep my job and still have time to do some transition. we have other families that want to move their loved one home because it is not safe for them to be in the community any longer and would love to have a couple weeks to move that transition. we have another woman who lived in her home in bedford for 52 years and has to transition into a little more structured care environment and doesn't have the time off from work to help her mom with that transition. caring for parents, getting things work when the hospital called and says your dad has broken her hip and we need you to come in because he needs to be 1-to-1 because he has alzheimer's disease and he is very overstimulated in the hospital.

families are having tough questions and having to balance everything seems to be complicated. our folks would benefit as much from having a very strong paid family leave bill in new hampshire and federally would be fantastic as well. we could draw from that model and it would be great if new hampshire was best practice and could pave the way for very strong, keeping loved ones along and that is in the new hampshire way. to make our own choices no matter what happens next. >> kathleen murphy who is next in our panel is the superintendent, in this district.

and he/she was named superintendent, in 2016 was named superintendent of the year. she had been a classroom teacher and principal and now she is a superintendent. >> welcome to hampton, a fabulous community, families that are incredibly caring and devoted to their kids, families and extended family. i think you found this is your first stop, great for a stop, it is a terrific community. i'm a proud public school educator, for 47 years. i have lots of experiences that have given me the focus on understanding the impact families undergo every day. most of our families, recently

working, interesting the change, we see a lot of families working. what we discovered is families are working with very low-paying jobs. service jobs, hourly jobs with very few benefits, without any coverage of insurance. we have had situations where we had families come to us just recently, we had a single mom come to us. she was going to have surgery. she came to our office to talk to our social worker because she didn't know what she was going to do because her pay was able to pay the rent and put food on the table and take care of the kids but she knew having surgery, she would be out of the workforce and she had no backup and what was she to do? i talk about hampton. it rallies and supports the families that she was frantic because she knew she didn't

have the income to support her. she knew she would be out for 6 weeks with surgery. for us as educators, we don't work with just students. we look at our work as families and students so when things happen in the family it has a direct impact on the work we do every day. we know when families are in crisis, stresses at home or anxiety, we know that has a significant impact on student learning. we learned because of situations, their brain responds differently and they are not the same student we see every day in the classroom so we are always looking for ways in which to help families in any way we can whether it is providing extra food, we have a problem - a program called 68 hours for hunger, food for

family on friday, that is enough food, 68 hours are present the time for a hot lunch. so they have food, extra food, a real community effort. we know those critical pieces of housing and food and clothing are critical for our kids and when we can't do that and can't provide that support for families, we don't even think about that when we think about paid family leave we think of adults and significant impact on children, we have seen that in a number of cases in our small community. we have community of 1100 students k-8 and our students come for the high school experience. we are always reaching out to those families because we know it will help kids. >> thank you.

our final analyst who will speak and introduce the senator again, state senator tom sherman, senator sherman represents senate district 24. and he is a gastroenterologist who has been very active advocate, expanding medicaid in new hampshire and serving currently on the state's task force investigating the cancer cluster. >> after the summer with so much bike riding through your neighborhoods, feel like my second home. my background as many of you know, i am a g.i. dock at exeter. when i was elected to the house in 2012, we started looking at

expanding medicaid, one of the most interesting factoids was a study that came out of the oregon experience. i won't going to the details but it was randomized, half the population that was eligible and got it and we would did an amazing amount of studying of that experience and guess what the number one earliest benefit was. anybody know? sort of. mental health. in the first two years, getting people back to school. it was the stability that having health coverage brought the immediate benefit in the first two years was a benefit in depression, mental health

and financial stability. when we passed medicaid expansion in new hampshire, we saw that. a couple years before hypertension, diabetes and also rid of colitis and crohn's disease catch up, the immediate benefit his mental health. if you listen to the panelists tonight, that is what they are talking about. paid medical family leave is all about financial security. it is all about a reliable backstop. it is all about having a safety net you can depend on. last week, our majority leader in the senate introduced sb one and let me tell you a few things. this is really important. when i was on the campaign trail i had multiple people

talking to me about what stress it was, how they got sick or if their family member got sick or their child got sick, or take time off. the bulk of the people couldn't take time off. all of us were aware of that spiral, you lose your job, your healthcare, your health. all of us in your declaring bankruptcy, losing your home or apartment. that downward spiral is what sb one is trying to help with. sb one is insurance, no different from unemployment insurance. it is not a tax. the object is pregnancy is not a vacation. how many people feel pregnancy is a vacation? i haven't been pregnant but my wife will tell you it is not a

vacation. the point is this is not a tax. you will hear this is an income tax. it is not. this is insurance. we have some really amazing examples of insurance where it started with the state and a good one is medical malpractice insurance. if any of you are in healthcare and know what the jua was, couldn't get independent practitioners insured so the state said we will step in. they stepped in until commercial insurers thought this is viable. it is financially doable. so now those practitioners

and those people who work for companies that have a similar benefit, they are exempted. the bottom line, the people of the seacoast and people of new hampshire, this is the financial stability that keeps you able to take care of your family and able to keep your job and guess what? that is probably the most critical component in our workforce. right? if people can't show up to work or they show up to work sick or they show up to work stressed out because their child is sick or their parent is in a hospital and they can't be there. that has huge impact on workforce and wellness. the medicaid expansion of this

session, the single most critical bill that we will be working on and i am so excited that we are talking about it today. senator brown, i went to northwestern, that is another big school. you were talking about michigan. the good news is michigan and ohio state used to clobber us. you have nothing to worry about. i have a full bio here but senator brown has done an amazing job in ohio and one of the most amazing parts is in a state where donald trump won by ten points, senator brown prevailed by 27 points in 2018. he is in touch with his people. what that also means is he is a really good listener.

there are a couple problems with his bio. he is a cleveland indians fan. i'm sorry. >> my email address is damn yankees. it really is. >> surprised i didn't get you. >> red sox nation stops a little time from that. >> my wife and i spent 3 hours at fenway park in cleveland, with jd drew who never had a clutch hit, and you all remember that, basically ruined my life for a couple years. >> we are glad you recovered and came back. there are a couple points i want to bring out. these are critical points for the seacoast when i was going to the campaign process. a champion of woman's right to choose, a woman's right to

determine her own health choices. second of all, this is something i really admire. when he was elected to the senate he did not go and use the platinum insurance plan. he waited until the formal care act was passed and he gets his insurance through the exchange. that deserves a round of applause. [applause] >> as some of you know, i am chair of health and human services in the senate advice chair of election law. i really appreciate the work you've done on voting rights. that is it for your bio. thank you so much for coming. bring this incredibly important topic to the forefront. >> i will be brief. lots of time for questions and comments.

let me say a word about each panelist and what i learned from you in many ways, the first importance of medicaid expansion. we have a republican governor in ohio who expanded medicaid against the wishes of his party and i was grateful for that. i had many disagreements with him but i know what medicaid expansion means to rural hospitals and what it means to care generally and the opioid issue, probably, opioid public health crisis is almost as bad per capita in ohio than it is in new hampshire and you like to work with jean especially and maggie on that issue and how tragic it is for so many families. we have 11 people a day die of opioid overdose in ohio and i remember a day in cincinnati, a similar roundtable is this where a gentleman's daughter was sitting next to me, in and out of treatment and he said she would be dead without

medicaid expansion and it is so important for mental health. thank you for that. what you said about $400, the american public can't deal with outgoing to a payday lender if their car breaks down and they need to get to work. the most poignant example is we all read during the trump shutdown that 800,000 federal employees either worked without pay and still had to arrange childcare and care of an elder or someone with dementia and to pay their transportation and all that. at least we got them back pay as we should have, literally hundreds of thousands of contract workers work for 12, 13, $14 an hour but don't work for the government, they work for air mars or people who

prepare food and federal facilities, they clean the offices in the ground, provide security and not getting back pay. and making 14, 15 in their lives. and it is a downward spiral that can lead to other horrible things, and obligation to the families you mentioned hand thanks for pointing that out. your comments about disability and aging population and safety net and medicaid matters and legislation you are working on here, a couple of the highest student that is a pretty explosive situation. bank you for bringing that out. i was lucky enough, that is the right word, with both my parents in their late 80s

several years apart in home care, they were in home care, about half the size of manchester, it has been hit hard by globalization just like you along the marymac river to florence to manchester, hit so hard, we were hit the same way in a town like mansfield. i knew what that meant and how important the safety net is and how important the work you all do but i was lucky enough to be with my parents but i had a job where i could be with them the last day of their lives and they didn't suffer from dementia. it was a 2 or 5 or 10 year process but connie and i -- her mother or father had dementia. her mother got weaker and less

healthy as she cared for her father and his problems got greater and even though you never would have predicted her life ended before her father's life. you see that all the time with caregivers and with the additional stress of income, that means thank you for pointing that out. superintendent murphy, thanks -- starting in middle school. >> i was 10 when i got the first job. >> one of the leading communities that does something, community schools, wraparound services you explain, it is not taking care of students but taking care of sometimes, serving the school and need mental health services and all that in this day and

age, it has always been that way and we ignore those leads and how important it is. your 68 hours program. and last, thanks for making this is the one. the symbolism is more than symbolism. it is a priority but the symbolism of making it is the one tells skeptics like the governor, i can't believe he said that about pregnancy. >> you said that about family leave. >> i will let you all college at tate on that. not my place to weigh in but the symbolism and setting is number one priority, that legislative body always says something and means something and that is the number one priority is the majority party and that is smart and impressive and makes the chances of success much greater. i will start there and loved your comments or questions but

especially comments, thoughts and ideas. >> thank you. cody has the microphone. if you want to ask a question. >> would you mind telling us a little about yourself, whatever you are willing to. name and community, whether you care about northwestern or ohio state. i don't care. >> my name is robin. we just retired here from new york state, midwesterners to begin with. >> new york state is the midwest? >> from illinois, indiana. daughter lives in ohio for several years. i am in aclu voter and my big interest is in criminal justice reform, prison reform. i have three questions for you

related. first of all, all the states have different laws regarding restoration of voting rights, formerly incarcerated. would you support restoring voting rights to people who are out of prison? or even in prison? california lets you vote if you are in prison. what would you do to alleviate mass incarceration? and 3, how would you help the formerly incarcerated to find living wage employment which is the reason people can't earn enough money to keep themselves alive? what is a person to do? >> i take them in reverse order, formerly incarcerated people, my wife, is on facebook, or on twitter. she is a pulitzer prize winner but be sure she won the pulitzer she was a pulitzer

finalist writing about a gentleman named michael green who had been wrongfully incarcerated for rape, not committed at the cleveland clinic, she followed him in prison for 12 years. he was in prison 12, 13 years, she followed him around for his first year out of prison, wrote a 1920, 21 page installment. several days, that was okay. before i knew her when that happened so 20 years ago and about his challenges trying to find a job with a dozen year gap in his resume and how hard it is for someone to find employment in that. it means we need to focus real briefly on the cleveland clinic, partially i don't take most credit for this but i make

a practice of calling large institutions in my state and encouraging through adopt $15 minimum wage. we do things legislatively but mitch mcconnell is not going to do $15 minimum wage and i encourage large institutions, insurance committees banks, large hospitals to adopt that. the cleveland clinic did recently. i take a bit of the credit. i've been pushing on that was more to the point they contracted service, custodial, and security. many companies don't think of that as part of their company's employees. if you go to an airport the people that push the wheelchairs work for sub minimum wage and depend on tips if you can believe that. are department of labor doesn't seem to care. that is part of this whole picture. second question, mass incarceration. my colleague cory booker from new jersey, and senator durbin from illinois, the first step

act, it was just that, the first step act but it is important. the aclu would say that much, it was a little bigger than that. i have also worked to ban the box which is part of their reintegration back into society. they can't ask about prior convictions as they go into the workplace. i worked with president obama doing it by executive order, later by statute. voting rights, i was secretary of state and served with bill garner who has been secretary of state since the spanish-american war. i have been working on voting rights issues my whole life. when i was secretary of state, election officials and even republican elected officials and those elected officials in those days if they didn't really believe in expanding the franchise, they didn't fight to restrict it like the republican party game plan seems to be too often now.

we do all kinds of innovative things. my proudest republic -- was getting public agencies like the unemployment bureau to offer registration in the agency but my most fun accomplishment was i asked corporations all over ohio to help us. the mcdonald's corporation printed 1 million trade liners, paper on plastic trays so you would go through and you could actually sign up to register to vote. for years the cuyahoga county board of elections, athens county board of elections you could see registration forms with catchup strains but they still counted. that is my history of voting rights. ohio is pretty good in spite of a secretary of state that cares little about expanding the franchise and is sometimes aggressively done voter purges. we've had generally good laws. you can vote in prison if you

commit a misdemeanor. i'm not a lawyer, bear with me. balance can't vote in prison. misdemeanors can vote in prison. felons as soon as they are out of prison can vote. we have one of the best laws in the country. not so good on other issues on voting. generally better than the average state but not what it should be. can somebody do it to an easier question? >> thank you for coming and thank you for the family-friendly economy folks for organizing this. my name is kevin fleming and i teach at the school and i'm with the national education association in new hampshire. i want to echo the educator's comments, the perspective that while we would like family for the policies for us as employers or employees, we do appreciate it and you see things across the country where teachers have become more

active and demonstrative in their own labor concerns. we have concerns for support staff people, bus drivers, lunch ladies and all the folks in our school buildings but as superintendent murphy said, when family-friendly policies, there can be better learning and that is what we appreciate you underscoring. >> i am a teacher at one of the community colleges in the area. >> what do you teach? >> history and government. >> which community college? >> northern community college and hazel. it is in massachusetts, we get a lot of students from new hampshire. what can you do about the problem of student debt? >> launched a journalism

career, she graduated, all three siblings, virtually no dollar help and tell us the story is so many first-generation to do, when facing a problem as a new student debt at plymouth state or university of new hampshire or dartmouth. they call home and their parents don't have answers because they do not have that experience but connie graduated without much more than $1000 of student debt. you know what your question suggests, what we've done to this generation of students who put off marriage, partly because of the cost of childcare, less likely to start a business.

the we inflicted on them, cause damage to the economy long-term. and cut taxes for rich people than they would invest at bowling green and university of toledo and ohio state and miami. congress hasn't nearly caught up on programs from what we should be doing. and we are working on a match for the federal but this will take money and donald trump and mitch mcconnell and paul ryan have decided a tax cut of $1 trillion, 70% going to the richest people in the country is more important than investing in the next generation. we have got to figure out how to assist in funding of state universities, not to take care of all the problems. i worked with senator kennedy in the first or second year on

allowing forgiveness of loans, public service could be anything from americorps to nursing and police officers to teaching at community college and public school teaching being a superintendent or whatever. the debt is canceled, whatever debt you haven't yet paid, this administration looks unkindly and has done all it can to squeeze it. and the bank so far too much power in making those decisions. thank you for the question. >> my name is keegan, i will

major in education next year. >> what are you doing next year. >> >> you want to be a teacher? >> i want to be article music teacher. >> superintendent murphy promised you a job. >> you are pushing it a little bit, senator. >> i want -- i want to talk about your plan to empower and motivate my generation, believing in cause of they believe in. >> appreciate that. does it is the future is obviously a cliché. not particularly meaningful.

50% more turn out increasing voters under the age of 35 or 40, 50% in turn out. you are younger than a millennial but people from your age. all right. [applause] >> you change the world by voting, that is not really overstated. your generation, people under 35 seem to be more public minded, interested in being full-fledged citizens, or political in the sense of issues and caring about climate change and guns and civil rights and women's rights and

lgbt rights and all the things that are american values this government seems in too many cases hostile to. what you stand for and what you do really matters so we saw 50% increase in turn out. people that are under 30 might not be as partisan, not really democrats but they are progressive. it is frankly if i could talk in political terms, it is now practice on my party's part and my part if we can't connect, help you connect the dots, you care about climate change, it is the great moral issue of our generation, you understand climate change, care about women's rights, care about lgbt q friends. if we can help you connect the dog, you should vote, you should vote for people quote different direction. >> you can see the rest of the that c-span.org. we are live at the cato

institute in washington for a conversation on donald trump's upcoming summit with kim jong un. .. so today we have three speakers, doug bandow is the senior fellow at the cato institute and he recently travel to north korea right before the state department issued the travel suspension in 2017. we have daniel davis, senior fellow and military expert at