congressman michael gast was a local prosecutor in mississippi for nearly 25 years. the last decade as district attorney before his election to the house. he is also a sunday school teacher at his local baptist church. brother opened a small liquor store in delaware in the early 1990's. itscompany eventually moved headquarters to maryland and has expanded to become the largest independent fine wine retailer in the country. and washington's eighth district elected representative kim , a pediatrician, and the only female doctor in congress. new congress, new leaders. watch it all on c-span. >> ohio senator sherrod brown took part in a roundtable on jobs and the economy. he spoke to voters in new hampshire. this is an hour-long portion of the event.

[chatter] >> hello, everybody. i am the state representative from here in hampton. this is two nights in a row that i have been in this building. everyone whonk turned out for this meeting last night. this is what i refer to as the band room. it is now the lecture hall. it's good to see people i went to high school with here still. i want to welcome you here tonight for this conversation we

are going to have. during this week in the legislature, there are hearings on family medical leave something weich is have been talking about in the legislature for the past two sessions, and i am honored to be asked by the folks for a family-friendly economy to introduce -- to welcome you here. i want to introduce our debts from ohio, senator sherrod brown. ohio, senatorrom sherrod brown. thank you. it is a pleasure to be here. this is my first time in new hampshire since i was at -- i believe, if i remember right -- in manchester at plymouth state university, first with senators shaheen, campaigning with her in 314, and then with her husband. we went on to a couple other sites. thank you.

when i first introduced my wife, connie schultz -- [applause] senator brown: 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. election day, 2018, i was reelected to my third term in the senate. been noticingally that 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. i don't think it is a choice. we have to do both. and general states elections like we do in ohio to swing states unless we talk to workers, and to progressives, and i am a longtime progressive, a statent in like ohio because who i am and what i fight for every day is the didn't your work.

you fight for people to make it work. regardless of the kind of work they do, whether you shower before or after work, understanding that whatever challenges people that look like me have in the workplace, people of color and women have greater challenges. is, you know, we fight for higher wages and better benefits. what this legislature is doing, senator sherman and others, and moving this governor in the right place, getting governors to do the right thing on family policies like this is so important. i thanks those in the house and senate who are working on those issues. i want to be part of this as we work to advance these issues, family issues and congress and the house and senate. congratulations on your letting a new member of congress. twocontinuing to have

terrific female senators. the only two women ever in american history to be governors and senators are serving you right now in this great state. and ohio is still working to have a progressive woman governor or senator one of these days. thank you for blazing the trail. you start. >> thank you. thank you, senator. senator brown: i am going to listen, so go for it. >> welcome to all of you for joining us tonight for our discussion. name is jan schaefer. i live in warner, new hampshire, and i recently retired from the ,taff of the national afl-cio the federation of unions. retirement, i have been working with the campaign for a family-friendly economy to help pass family and medical leave in new hampshire. passionate about this issue both because i have , but iily medical leave

have also not had it. when my son was born, i did not have it, 26 years ago, but more recently, i had the good fortune to have a union contract, and that provided for paid family medical leave, and i was able to be with my mother when she died, which was an incredible gift, and it would have been more than stressful to have to try and balance work and taking care of a parent like that. i am really excited that senator brown is joining us tonight. he is a leader on issues of importance to working families. he spent his time in the u.s. senate relentlessly advocating for us, and i am so happy that he could be here. so welcome again. for this evening is, first, we are going to hear from a panel, which you can see up here, who see the critical need

for family medical leave. and our guest, senator brown, will speak a bit more, and we will have time at the end for questions. from folks here. so i am sure that many people in this room have struggled with the issues we are going to talk about tonight or you are going to hear about tonight. maybe you recently had a baby or you adopted or maybe your an aging parent or someone who was ill. we facedoo many of us, really difficult, almost impossible choices when we get into these situations. and we are glad that new hampshire and many other states in the country are working to find solutions. so according to the federal cannot bank, 40% of us .ace an unexpected $400 expense

this is in part because wages are not keeping up for a lot of working families, and they are living paycheck to paycheck, but to think about that, and you know, for some of us in this in ourobably know that situation, but if something unexpected happens, we would not be able to sort of keep our finances together. so we know that a problem, health problem or disability, is what can push many of us into poverty. and losing income, even for a short period of time, can be really destabilizing to our families, so family and medical aave insurance can provide temporary financial bridge and can help us maintain financial security while meeting the caregiving needs and our families. us are single parents. some of us were holding our

families together with one income. a two-person family with one person or both people working and trying to juggle all the daily joys, all the daily stresses that we face or someone in our family may be battling addiction and needs time off to go into rehab. and family and medical be the 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. first, we have former state representative and the ceo of one sky community services, which serves one of 10 regions in new hampshire for individuals with the elemental disabilities, individuals with developmental disabilities. myi'm the only member of

family that did not graduate from that high school. i made up for that by serving on the school board. [laughter] >> prior to moving to new hampshire, i grew up in that state to the north of ohio. both of my kids were born in ann arbor, so i am obligated to say go blue. [laughter] >> don't take that personally. congratulations to the patriots, as a browns fan. congratulations to the patriots. [applause] >> you guys when a lot of stuff -- win a lot of stuff. it's a little much. >> kai riordan. >> never mind -- kyrie irving. >> never mind. >> she did such a good job keeping it on the issues and then you showed up. [laughter] >> i am the ceo of one sky

community services, and we are a private nonprofit organization in new hampshire that supports individuals with developmental disabilities and acquired brain disorders. we are very proud of being the first state in the country to the institutionalized -- de institutionalize care. we were the first state to allow people to live independently in the community. and that is our role. we are responsible for a region that includes most of rockingham we have a contract with the state of new hampshire, and we administered the state-funded and federal funded medicaid programs that support those individuals. a lot ofhire, unlike other states, where the state department would provide those services, new hampshire entered into a private-public nine other with

organizations like us to cover the state. we serve about 1000 people, 1000 families. we have an annual budget of $30 million. across the state, i think this is some support probably around and thennual budget -- annual budget is close to $400 million. most of the people that we work with, we call them our clients. most of our clients continue to live at home. and the primary caregiver for those individuals is their family. and what we do is we supplement that support by making -- by getting funding so they can hire people to come in and help them in the community. we call those folks direct support professionals, who take them out into the community. if one of those people is unable to go come to work, it puts a tremendous stress on the family, because most of the families of the people we work with are struggling themselves.

earners, andincome if the staff that is supposed to take care of a family member with a disability is not able to show up, mom or dad has to stay are an hourlyou employee, that means you are going to lose pay. that is an immediate issue if it lasts for a day. it becomes a much longer issue if it goes on for longer periods of time. and you combine that with the fact that new hampshire is ofing this perfect storm workforce related issues. we have the second oldest average population in the ine.try behind ma we are going for it, though. we have the lowest unemployment rate in new england. i think it is hovering around 2%. 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 incredibly difficult time finding staff, so what that does is it puts the families that we are working with in a lot of situations where they just cannot find people on an ongoing basis. and they face the challenge of doing can for my loved one or do i lose my job? and if they had paid family leave, that would strengthen the safety net that exists and provide them with that extra support. thank you again. thank you. next on our panel is heather carol. heather is the manager of public policy at the association of massachusetts and 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 very much welcome to new hampshire, senator. leader that you are a when it comes to alzheimer's disease and congress currently. we are so appreciative of your support for the bold infrastructure act. that was an excellent bipartisan. it was a bipartisan effort. luckily for us, you have a brain. you can be affected by this disease. we have 24 thousand individuals currently with alzheimer's and a couple thousand more with related brain disorders. 67,000 plus caregivers caring for those individuals, and they millions of hours of free care. the workforce issued here in new hampshire for direct care staff is extremely tough.

issue ofeads to the staff that is trained properly to care for individuals with specific needs, which our disease process is a specific we are unfortunately sometimes competing for people to come to work. and when you have that sort of situation happening, it leaves families without a lot of options other than to care for the loved ones themselves. realize organization that being out of the paid family leave site was just ridiculous for us. it was taking it to the other end of the spectrum. weight, one of -- wait, what about our people? our people are dealing with this situation all the time. when we are talking to families, the thought process of having to

take an early retirement, because there is no workforce out there, so if we want to stay with our loved ones, with alzheimer's or any form of dementia, we are looking at retirement, which we include in the workforce and possibly leaving a really great ,ob that has fantastic benefits and the thought process of losing your job because you are out a lot, because you are currently carrying for a loved loved one,ng for a taking them to doctors appointments are things like that, and the thought of losing your insurance is mind-boggling for our families. i had a gentleman in yesterday who was talking about how if we had paid family leave, he would have job protection, where he felt he is on the spectrum, so , andy be easily dismissed if that happened, his wife's prescription meds would drop dramatically.

the thought of putting her into a nursing home is -- families are dealing with alzheimer's disease and should not have to think about possibly losing their jobs or should i -- can i keep my job and have time transition? we have other families who want to move the loved one's 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 is moving her mom, who lived in her home in bedfordshire 52 years. and now, she has to transition into a more -- a little bit more structured care environment, and she does not have the time off from work to help her mom with that transition. we hear stories of kids caring trying toparents and make things work, especially, you know, when the hospital calls and says your dad has broken his hip and we need you

to come in. is very, you know, over stimulated in the hospital, but he has to stay here. families are having these tough, and having to balance everything seems to be very complicated. and i think our folks would benefit just as much from having a very strong paid family leave here in new hampshire and federally would be fantastic as well. because then we could draw from that model. and wouldn't it be great if new forshire could pave the way a very strong way of keeping our loved ones home? the new hampshire way, to be able to make our own choices no matter what happens in life. >> thank you. >> thank you, heather. kathleen murphy, who is next on

our panel, is the superintendent. it's this district. >> kathleen is a leader in early childhood and stem initiatives. she was named superintendent of the year. she has been both a classroom teacher and a principal, and now, she is a superintendent. kathleen. >> thank you. welcome to hampton, a fabulous community. this is your first stop. it is a great first stop. i am a proud public school educator. public school educator. 47 years. i had lots of experiences that

one given me a focus understanding the impact that families undergo every day. most of our families recently are working. it's interesting to change instead of that recession, and we see a lot of families working, but what we discovered was those families are working with very low paid jobs. , hourly service jobs jobs, with very few benefits, without any coverage of insurance, so that we have had situations where we have 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 did not 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 that having surgery, she was going to be out

of the workforce, and she had no backup, and what was she to do? again, i talk about hampton. it rallies. it supports families. but she was frantic because she knew that she did not have the income to be able to support her. she knew she was going to be out for six weeks with surgery and recuperation. us as educators, you know, we don't work with just the students. we look at our work as families and students, and so, when things happen in the family, it has a direct impact on the work do everyday. we know that when families are in crises, there are stresses at home or anxieties, and we know that have a significant impact on student learning. we have learned when kids are stressed because of situations, their brain responds differently , and they are not the same student that we see every day in the classroom, and so, we are always looking for ways in which

way we families in any can, whether it is providing extra food. we have a program called 68 hours for hunger. we provide food for families on friday. that is enough food. 68 hours represents the time from lunch to breakfast on monday morning so that they have food, extra food. again, that's a real community effort, but we know that those critical pieces of housing and food and clothing are critical for our kids, and when we cannot do that and we cannot provide that support for families, it is andly the kids that suffer, i don't think we often think about that when we think about paid family leave. we think of adults. is a significant impact on children. we have seen that in a number of our small in community. we have a community of about 1100 students. k-8.

and then students come to high school for their high school experience, so we are always reaching out, trying to assist families, because we know how it will help kids. >> thank you, kathleen. thank you so much. our final panelist, who will speak, and then introduce the senator again, is state senator and dr. tom sherman. senator sherman represents this senate district, senate district 24, which includes hampton, and he is a gastroenterologist who has been a very, very active advocate of expanding medicaid in new hampshire. he is also serving currently on the state's task force investigating the cancer cluster. sen. sherman: thank you. hi, everybody. after this summer, with so much bike riding through your neighborhoods, this field like my second home. , as many of you

know, i am a g.i. dr. over at exeter. and when i was first elected to the house back in 2012, we started looking at expanding moreaid, and as i learn and more about expanding medicaid, one of the most interesting factoids was a study that came out of the oregon experience, and when they expanded medicaid, which i won't go into the details of how they did it, but it was randomized. half the population who was eligible got it, and half did not, so harvard did an incredible amount of studying of that experience. and guess what the number one earliest benefit was? anybody know? sort of. mental health. mental health. the first two years, mental health, which is related to the classroom, it's getting people

back to school. that havingtability health coverage brought, the immediate benefit in the first two years was a benefit and depression, mental health, and financial stability. medicaidassed expansion in new hampshire, we saw that. of yearsa couple before hypertension, diabetes, and in my world, ulcerative colitis and crohn's disease, catch up, but the immediate benefit is mental health, and if you listen to the panelists tonight, that is what they are talking about. leave is allfamily about financial security. reliableabout a backstop. it's all about having a safety on, sot you can depend last week, our majority leader

leader in the senate introduced sb one. and that's me tell you a few things about sp1, because this is really important. when i was on the campaign trail, i had multiple people talking to me about what a stress it was to not know what they would ever do if they got sick or if their family member got sick or their child got sick and they had to take time off. the bulk of the people could not take time off, and if they did, they lost their job. awarethink all of us are of that spiral. you lose your job, you've been as your health care, you lose your health care, you lose your health. and all of a sudden, you are declaring a pepsi, losing your home or apartment, so that downward spiral is what sp1 is trying to help with. insurance. it is no different from

unemployment insurance. it is not a tax. by the way, the other point is that pregnancy is not a vacation. how many people here feel like ordnance he is a vacation? i have not been pregnant, but my wife will tell you it is not a vacation. tax.is not a you will hear that this is an income taxed. this is insurance. we have some really amazing examples of insurance where it and ad with the state, really good one is medical malpractice insurance. if any of you are in health care and know what it was, we could not get independent practitioners insured, so the state said we will step in. they stepped in until commercial insurers thought this is actually viable. it is financially doable. so now, those practitioners are insured through commercial products. for thisis a role state. we do that with unemployment

insurance right now. so it is insurance. it is universal. one of the concerns of the governor is that it did not involve state employees. sp1 is everybody. -- sb1 is everybody. they are exempted. for thebottom line people of hampton and the people of new hampshire is that 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 what is probably the most critical component in our workforce. right? if people cannot 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 cannot be there, that has a huge impact on workforce and wellness. so this is probably the medicaid expansion of this session. this is the single most critical on, that we will be working and i am so excited that we are talking about it today. , i went town northwestern, so i don't know. that is another big ten school. talking about michigan, but the good news is that michigan and ohio state used to just clobber us, so you have nothing to worry about. i have a full bio here. has done ann amazing job in ohio, and one of in most amazing part is that a state where president trump brown 10 points, senator

prevailed by seven points in 2018. what that means is that he is in touch with his people. thathat that also means is he is a really good listener, so i am glad this is a listening session, but there are a couple of problems with his bio. he is a cleveland indians fan. my sorry, but my email -- email address is -- >> my email address is damnyan kee. this red sox nation stuff is little much. a little much. we spent three miserable hours when he hit a grand slam are in the first inning, and you all remember that. it basically ruined my life for a couple years. our. -- sorry. sen. sherman: we're glad you

came back. there are a couple points i really want to bring out, because this was -- these were critical points for the seacoast when i was going through the campaign process. a champion of a woman's right to choose. a woman's right to determine her own health choices. [applause] sen. sherman: second of all, and this is something that i really admire, when he was elected to the senate, he did not go and use that platinum insurance plan. he waited until the affordable care act was plastic and he gets his insurance through the exchange. so i think that deserves a round of applause. [applause] sen. sherman: and as some of you chair of health and human services in the senate. i am vice chair of election law, so i really appreciate the work you have done on voting rights, so that is it for your bio. i'm sorry. i am not going to read through the wall thing.

thank you some much for coming and helping us bring this incredibly important topic to the floor. >> thank you. we have lots of time for question and comments because i want to hear from people. let me say a word about each panelist and what i just learned from you in many ways, the importance of medicaid expansion. republican governor in ohio who expanded medicaid against the wishes of his party, and i was grateful for that. i have many disagreements with him, but i know what medicaid ralansion means to ru hospitals, care generally, and mental health services and the opioid issue probably -- the opioid public health crisis is almost as bad per capita in ohio as it is in new hampshire, and i know you worked on that issue and how tragic it is for many families. we have 11 people a day die of

opioid overdose in ohio. i remember a day in cincinnati with a similar roundtable as this where a gentleman whose daughter was sitting next to him who had been in and out of treatment said she would be dead without medicaid. and that is so important for mental health. thank you for that. what you said, about $400, a huge part of the american public cannot survive cancer. cannot deal with are going to a payday lender if their car breaks down and they need to get to work, and what that says. the most poignant example recently is we already during the trump shut down that 800,000 federal employees either worked without pay and had to still arrange childcare and still arrange care sometimes of an older, of someone with dementia, or had to pay their transportation, all that. pay ast we got them back we should have for all the stress that caused them.

there are literally hundreds of thousands of contract workers who work for 12 and 13 and $14 per hour, but they don't work for the government. they were for earmark orthodox r another company. they clean the offices and grounds and provide security, and they are not getting back pay. is five weeks without pay for people making $14 and $15. what happens in their lives, you can sort of predict. they go to payday lenders. they go to the payday lender again and again. they have a downwards spiral that can lead to eviction and all sorts of horrible things. we have an obligation to them. thanks for pointing that out. your comments about disability and aging population and safety net, so does the legislation that you are all working on here coupled with the highest student debt. it is a pretty explosive

situation, so thank you for bringing that out. heather, i was lucky enough, maybe, to i think that's the right word, i was with both my parents when they were in their late 80's several years apart in home care. they were home care at they are home in mansfield, ohio. a town about half the size of manchester. a little smaller than national. a town of about 50,000. hit hard by globalization. just like you along the merrimack river from lowell to lawrence to nash with a to manchester where it hit so hard in the meltdowns we were hit the same way in a town like mansfield. i know what all that meant in how important the safety net is and how important the work that 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. they didn't suffer from dementia. so it wasn't a two, five, or 10-year process. one of the best friends connie

and i have, her mother, father had dementia and her mother, who seemed healthy and strong, got weaker and less healthy as she cared for her father. and his problems got greater and she actually, even though you never would have predicted it, her life ended before the father's life. you see that all time with caregivers. with the additional stress of income and all that means. thank you for pointing that out. superintendent murphy, thank you for 47 years, is that what you said? starting in middle school. you started teaching. superintendent murphy: i was 10 when i got the first job. [applause] [laughter] sen. brown: cincinnati is one of the leading communities in the country that does something called communities -- that have community schools. it's the wrap around services that you explained so perfectly. it's not just taking care of

students. it's taking care of sometimes they need food pantries at the school or serving the school. and need mental health services and all that -- in this day and age, maybe it's always been that way and we ignored those needs, how important that is. i love your 68 -- i never heard that. your 68 hours program. last, tom, thanks for making this s.b.1. i think that's symbolism, way more than that, it's a priority. but the symbolism of making it s.b. 1 tells cynics or skeptics, i'll be kinder, skeptics like the governor, i can't believe he said that about pregnancy. >> he said that about family leave. taking a vacation. sen. brown: i'll just let you-all concentrate on that. not my place to weigh in. the symbolism and setting number one priority s.b.1 that in a legislative body says something and means something. that's our number one priority

as the majority party. that's really smart and impressive and makes the chances of success that much greater. i'll stop there and love to hear comments or questions. especially comments. just thoughts and ideas. jan: cody has the microphone. if you want to ask a question or-- sen. brown: tell us about yourself. whatever you are willing to. name, community, where you grew up. whether you care about northwestern and ohio state -- no. anything you want to tell us. i don't care. >> my name is robin. my husband and i retired here from new york state. midwesterners to begin with. sen. brown: new york state is in the midwest? >> no. illinois, indiana. had a daughter that lived in ohio for several years. i'm an aclu voter.

my big interest is in criminal justice reform and prison reform. i have three questions for you related. first of all all the states have different laws regarding restoration of voting rights for 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're in prison. two, what would you do to alleviate mass incarceration? and three, how would you help the formerly incarcerated to find living wage employment which is a big reason why people recidivate. they can't earn enough money to keep themselves alive. what's a person to do? sen. brown: i'll take them in reverse order. living wage for formerly incarcerated people.

my wife is a -- you should look at her on facebook if you haven't or on twitter. she's a pulitzer prize winner. before she won the pulitzer she was a pulitzer finalist writing about a gentleman by the name of michael green who had been wrongfully incarcerated for rape. committed at the cleveland clinic but not by him. she followed him around for -- in prison 12 years? he was in prison 13 years. she followed him around for his first year out of prison. wrote a 19, 20, 21-page installment. before i knew her. when that happened. 20 years ago. about his challenges as trying to find a job with a dozen year gap in his resume, if you will. how hard that is for someone to find employment during that t just means we need to focus more.

real briefly on -- on the cleveland clinic, partially i don't take even most credit for this, i make it a practice of calling large institutions in my state and encourage them to adopt a $15 minimum wage. we do things legislatively. mitch mcconnell is not going to do a minimum wage. i encourage large inks constitutions banks, hospitals, to adopt that. cleveland clinic did recently. i take a bit of the credit. i have been pushing on that. more to the point, they contract food service, custodial, security. and many companies don't. they don't think of that as part of their company's employees. if you go to an airport, people that push the wheelchairs work for subminimum wage and defend on tips, if you can believe that. our department of labor doesn't seem to care. that's part of this whole picture. second question, mass incarceration.

my colleague, corey booker from new jersey, and senator durbin from illinois, pushed the first -- the first step act. it was just that. the first step act. but it's important. aclu would say that much. i would say it's a little bigger than that. i have also worked on ban the box, part of their reintegration back into society that they can't ask about prior convictions as they go into the workplace. i worked with president obama first doing it by executive order, later by statute. and voting rights, i was secretary of state and served with bill gardner who i think has been secretary of state since the spanish american war, and -- not quite. he -- i have been working on voting rights issues my whole life. when i was secretary of state election officials and even republican elected officials, those election officials in those days if they didn't really

believe in expanding the franchise, they sure didn't. they didn't fight to restrict it like the republican party game plan seems to be too often now. we did all kinds of innovative things. my proudest was probably getting government agencies like the unemployment bureau to offer registration at the agency. but my most fun accomplishment, if you will, was i asked corporations all over ohio that did business in ohio to help us. and the mcdonald's corporation printed one million tray liners, the piece of paper on the plastic trays, so you would go through and you could actually sign up to register to vote. for years at the cuyahoga county board of elections you could see registration forms with ketchup stains, but they still counted. that's my history of voting rights. ohio's actually a pretty good -- in spite of a secretary of state that cares little about expanding the franchise and is

sometimes aggressive, was aggressively done voter purges, we have had generally good laws. if you -- you can actually vote in prison if you are -- if you committed -- i'm not a lawyer, bear with me. felons can't vote in prison. misdemeanorants 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 on that. not so good on some other issues. on voting. generally probably better than the average state. not what it should be. can somebody do an easier question? [laughter] >> senator, thank you for coming. thank you for the family friendly economy folks for organizing this. my name is kevin fleming i teach at this school. i'm a member of the national education association in new hampshire. i want to echo the educators' comment here, the perspective, while we would like family

friendly policies for us as employers -- or employees, we do appreciate it. you have seen things across the country where teachers have become more active. and been demonstrative in their own maybe labor concerns. we have concerns for all of our support staff people, bus drivers, lunch ladies, all the folks in our school buildings. we have it as superintendent murphy said, our students, when our family friendly policies, there can be better learning. that's what we appreciate you folks underscoring. sen. brown: thanks for bringing that up. >> andy morris, teacher at one of the community colleges in the area. what can you do -- sen. brown: what do you teach? >> history and government. sen. brown: which community college? >> northern he section, it's in massachusetts but we got a lot of students from new hampshire. what can you do about the

problem of student debt? sen. brown: connie teaches at kent state, her alma mater. she graduated if i can say this. she's a working class kid. first in her family to go to college. all three of her siblings followed her going to college. she had virtually no dollar help from her parents. and tells the story as so many first generation kids do, when they call back home, when they are facing a problem as a new student at plymouth state or university of new hampshire or dartmouth, they call home and their parents so often don't have answers because they have not had that experience. connie graduated with not much more than $1,000 in student debt. that was years ago. it's important that we recognize that. you know what your question suggests, certainly what we have done to this generation of students who put off, maybe put off marriage, put off having

children partly because of the cost of childcare in addition to the -- paying the student debt who are less likely to start a business, buy a house. too many state governments, my own included, would rather cut tax force rich people than they would invest in bowling green and university of toledo and akron u and ohio state and o.u. and miami. that's the first problem. second is we -- congress hasn't nearly kept up on pell grants with what we should being doing. not even close. third, we're working on a match for the federal, but you this will take money and president trump and mitch mcconnell and paul ryan have decided that a tax cut of $1.5 trillion, 70% going to the richest people in the country is more important than investing in the next generation. you know all that. you are here. we have got to figure out how to

assist in funding of state universities at a minimum. not that that takes care of all the problems. last, we need -- i work with senator kennedy my first year in the senate, first or second year, on allowing forgiveness of loans for people who did public service. that could be anything from americorps, to nursing, to police officers, to teaching at community college. or public school teaching or being a superintendent, or whatever. accelerate after 10 years, debt is canceled. whatever debt you haven't paid. this administration looks unkindly on that whole program. and has done all they can to squeeze it. you should be able to renegotiate your loan. that's, again, the banks have far too much power in making those decisions. and keeping people under that economic duress, if you will. >> my name is keegan.

i'm a student, and soon i'll be majoring next year in education. sen. brown: what are you doing next year? >> looking at king state college for music education. sen. brown: you want to be a teacher? >> a high school music teacher. [applause] sen. brown: superintendent murphy just promised you a job. if she's still superintendent, 4 ½, five years? superintendent murphy: you're pushing it. sen. brown: not that there were any witnesses. >> i want to ask you your thoughts on young vote earns your plan to empower and motivate my generation and generations around me to vote for people they believe in and cause these believe in.

sen. brown: thank you. i appreciate that. i like that as the last question. that's a good question. to say it's the future is obviously a cliche and not particularly meaningful. i saw this year what happened. 50% more, percentage 50% turnout increase in votes under the age of 35 or 30, not sure. 50% increase in turnout. this generation, you are younger than a millennial, but people from your age, you turned 18 yet or soon will. you changed the world by voting. that's not really overstated. and this year when -- your generation, people under 35, seem to be more public minded, more interested in being full-fledged citizens than generations preceding.

more 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 that this government seems in too many cases hostile to. what you stand for and what you do really matters. we saw 50% increase in turnout. we know people that are under 30 might not be as partisan as -- they are not really democrats. but they are progressive. and it's, frankly, if i could talk in political terms, it's malpractice on my party's part. and my part if we can't connect the dots you care about climate change. you understand it's the great moral issue of our generation. understand climate change. you care about women's rights. you care about your lgbtq friends. if we can't help you connect the dot, one you should vote, and

two vote for people that will go a different direction from this president. and so thank you for that question. and i'll tell you real quick closing story that could have happened in new hampshire because of the fix of -- sophistication of new hampshire voters similar to ohio voters. this story came from barack obama. i called the president about a month ago and just talked to him about the thoughts about candidacy and all that. he told me interesting things. here's one story real quick. his first trip -- president obama was launched not -- wasn't new hampshire. his success was launched in iowa. that's where he did very, very well. in 2008 and the iowa caucuses and not quite as well here. but as a nominee. he's flying back to iowa for his first visit a month after he was president in this really nice big airplane. had he with him his secretary of agriculture, tom vilsack, who

had been governor of iowa. vilsack and obama were flying into iowa first trip back. his press secretary in those games was robert gibbs. and gibbs turns to the president, mr. president, tell the new secretary of agriculture about that phone call you made in iowa that day after a full day of campaign. obama laughed and said here's what happened. he said, obama said, i just put in a day eight or nine stops, all over eastern iowa. i was dead tired. i was done. and my young staff person pulls out -- pulls out a cell phone and said senator obama you need to make five more calls. he said i'm done. i'm tired. not making any phone calls. he said no, you got to call five people. obama said, labor leaders? new hampshire county chairs? or new hampshire state senators? whatever? state representatives? his staff said, no. you have to call five high school students. he said high school students? i'm exhausted. no, these five students, these

are all 18 years old. and they are all going to bring their friends to the iowa caucuses next week. president obama takes the phone. calls. he says, the woman answers, barbara, this is senator obama, i want to talk to you about the caucuses next week. and she says, barack, i'm busy, i'm in a yearbook meeting, i'll call you tomorrow. [laughter] sen. brown: all you new hampshire people, that story could have happened here and probably has. the only i have only met him three times i have to meet her a fourth time before i decide. thank you. jan: thank you. [applause] jan: thank you, everyone. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017]

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join the discussion. announcer: life tuesday on the c-span networks at 11:00 a.m. eastern, we are live from dearborn, michigan, where the funeral of former michigan congressman john dingell, a longest-serving member of the u.s. house who died last thursday at 92 years of age. at 3:45 p.m., his congress arrives at the u.s. capitol. on c-span2, the senate continues work on legislation regarding public lands and natural resources management. a final passage vote on the bill expected in the afternoon. the chamber also votes on whether to advance william barr's nomination as attorney general. a.m., thepan3 at 9:30 senate armed services committee looks at operations in the u.s. indo pacific command and u.s. forces korea. announcer: iranian president hassan rouhani spoke on the 40th anniversary of the iranian revolution. in the speech delivered in

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