US Senate LP candidates: 2014 State Convention

de I will introduce as soon as I

she Mr John Roland is the founder and president of the Constitution Society

Web Master of its website constitution.org and editor of the definitive online editions of the most

important works for constitutional interpretation he's a computer software developer and a legal historian he's the

lp nominee for Texas Attorney General in 2002 2006 and 2010 he's a former real

estate investor and he's an Air Force officer he spent two years on Capitol Hill working with various members of

Congress on legislative review and competition uh excuse me and composition

so please welcome for US Senate John

Roland and our second candidate is uh her name isca Becca Paddock and she's an

electrical engineer and a comedian she's a datadriven problem solver who works

with uh wealth with people to get results she's a constitutional libertarian a strong advocate of the

second and fourth amendments please welcome for US Senate Rebecca

p and there is a third candidate for US Senate fil her name is tanuja uh peruri

but unfortunately wasn't able to make it to the convention um and she didn't send the statement on her

behalf so without further Ado I would like to go to Mr John

Roland for your three minute opening statement please good evening can you hear

me mic turned on okay I am the founder and president

president of the Constitution society which I founded in

1994 when I founded it I was aone Bo in the wilderness on strict constitutional

compliance I built a website that would be the ultimate reference for everything having to do

with the Constitution how to interpret it how to decide constitutional

question and over the years with more and more more people visiting that side with more and more of

the tools I've developed going out into the world and being used by people to advance because we now have a situation

where constitutional compliance has become an issue in many election

campaigns now I can't take all the credit for that there have been many others along the way but I a lot of

people say that that effort has played a key role now what I'm trying to do in this

race is to provide a set of very detailed solutions to our nation's

problems they're the result of years of analysis and development you will probably not find

anything like them on any other candidates website or in their campaign

literature or anything they've written in fact if you Tred to ask them about

some of these proposals are anything of comparable degree of

specificity they'll probably look like a deer in the headlights because I'm sorry to say most

candidates for national office are not experts on the subjects that they

legislate about they are experts on how to win

elections and when I was spent two years on Capitol Hill developing legisl play

and for members of Congress I I discovered that somewhat to my

horror that all too often there were no real experts in the scene on the

scene not in the staffs not of the lobbying organizations that uh

influenced Congress most members of Congress did not even know enough about

the subjects they were legislating about to know who the experts were so what I'm doing and proposing these

specific proposals is trying to begin a dialogue to show people what Solutions

look like they may not be perfect you may be able to come up with better ones

but they need to look like that thank you very much Mr

R and just P out three minutes for your opening statement please thank you so I am an electrical engineer

I take a you please speak closer okay is that better a little bit

May little better there you go all right so I am electrical engineer so like Mr

Roland I also am a constitutional libertarian I at the Constitution as the boundaries within

which the federal government is working and the Bill of Rights as restraining

order on the federal government so that's that is my position um there are

a few things that I am passionate about one of them is the Second Amendment I am not quite sure exactly what's confusing

about the words shall not be

infringed the other is the Fourth Amendment and we had a question earlier about what was happening in Nevada on

the Bundy Ranch that's a very good example of violation that's happening Fourth Amendment says shall not be

violated that's also a problem most of us know about this with the NSA

surveillance that's going on these are big issues that need to be addressed the last thing that's a big

concern to me that I'm worried about is our war Fighters our war Fighters are being given

mequin which is an antimalaria drug and is causing problems it's causing

problems that look like PTSD problems that look like TV die and it's causing psychological

issues so everybody is aware of the Fort Hood shooting that happened that gentleman was overseas in

2011 chances are in Upper 90s he was given meth the plan so this is a serious

issue that needs to be dealt with with our

military thank you very much m

all right um pretty interesting I'm going to start with a question of my own

and then we'll go to some audience questions that have been um rolling in here thank you very much for that and you can keep them coming

and Mr R and miss patock you both talked a lot about the Constitution Mr Rand you're a constitution expert and Miss

Pak I've heard you speak a couple of different times you always express passion for the second and four

amendments specifically so my question my question for you is I'm wondering if

there are any differences in your views on the Constitution or if there's if there are differences in what you uh

what you both find particularly important so um I'm going to go to Mr

Roland first and just ask you know Miss Paddock um talks a lot about the second and fourth amendment would you agree or

disagree that those are the most important elements of the Constitution that are either under attack or that

need to be protected um not quite those are important fallbacks when

our rights are being actively uh abused but we need to focus more on

prevention of abuses and for example the combination

of the Commerce Clause and unnecessary improper Clause are the basis for many

of the uses that we complain about that started with a court decision mull Maryland in

1819 and ever since then most Federal Criminal legislation has been built upon

that and one key 1942 decision wicker B filberg which sustained the statute that

made it a crime for a farmer to eat his own

wheat okay on on the basis of that we have almost Federal Criminal legislation

today and I my proposals my proposed amendments would reverse more than 200

wrong Supreme Court decisions that's where the reforms need

to be focused thank you very much

Mr so miss panck the same question to you do you think that the second and fourth amendments are the the Crux of

the issue constitutionally speaking or uh would would you have something else to add so I think they're the biggest

infringements that we're seeing right now um on top of that I will

add the issues that we're seeing with the 10th Amendment which is the federal government getting involved in things

they don't be they don't need to be getting involved with in the first place which takes us back to Article 1 Section

8 of The Constitution which gives Congress their powers Article 1 Section

one says that all legislative Authority belongs in Congress we are seeing

legislation come from both the executive branch and J Mr Ran's point of the

judicial bran and that also needs to

stop thank you very

much okay now let's go to some of these questions from the audience that have been rolling in so um the first question

that I'd like to ask is uh and I'm going to take this to miss Paddock um for the

first answer again these are 92nd answers to their questions what would you do in the

Senate to work to repeal or would you in the Senate work to repeal the Affordable Care Act also known as a b care so if

you take a look at article in Section 8 of The Constitution Healthcare is not in there it is not under the jurisdiction

of the federal government it needs to be repealed in

full and just with the rest of your time what would you do to um what would you do to act actively uh work to repeal

Obama care so sponsor a bill to repealing Obamacare involved and or get

sign on with a another person has already sponsor Bill if one is available

that meets the the full criteria okay and the same question you

Mr Ro would you have a plan to repeal a b here uh on my website I actually have

a bill already written all it needs to be done is be signed and dated and dropped in the hopper course

that would also need a second but uh if any of you have ever asked about

these these uh C candidates who promise not to vote for gun control legislation

why they don't have legislation to actually repeal all federal gun laws

well if you want to know what a bill to repeal all federal gun laws looks like it's on my website all ready to go it

only just need to be signed and dated and dropped in the hoer and

second because the federal government can't tell the states what to do but it

can define a jurisdiction in federal court there's a bill defines

jurisdiction in federal court by expanding the Civil Rights Act to include gun

rights so and it also provides for damages so somebody who was faced with

State gun control could go to federal court and not only have the federal

court overturn the state law but yet his lawyer paid to do

it thank you very much for

that so in Congress um Miss patock what would you say uh let's say in your first

six-year term what would you say that you would want to be your Landmark or

signature legislation that you would either U or it accomplish if I could wave a magic wand

and get whatever I wanted it would be to repeal all gun

legislation and start with that okay if I get more than one wave of

Magic on it would be to repeal all laws that are not within Article 1 Section 8 of

The Constitution that would be a huge

undertaking very good so uh basically repeal unconstitutional laws let's have a

repeal party excellent we got Tex

this perfect um Mr Roland same question to you do you have any signature or Landmark legislation that that you would

like to try to get through when you're in the Senate well besides what I've already mention there's one that does

require special attention uh we are now faced with the

imminent collapse of not only the economy of the United States but the entire world because of policies of

governments everywhere to make theat currency legal

tender legal tender based upon fiat currency was

established in the statutes in 1862 making paper money legal tender

the Supreme Court to sustain that statute and we've been stuck with it with it ever

since we need to repeal federal legal tender statutes or more precisely amend

them so that they apply only to ter Federal territory like the District of

Colombia they do not apply to State territory where only gold and silver may

be legal tender for the payment of debt

okay very good um we have a lot of questions pouring in right now that are all uh very fascinating and and and

theoretical and philosophical type uh type questions but I want to take a

moment um to kind of exercise my

moderatoralternatornon-partisan against um your incumbent that you're facing uh and the and the Democratic Challenger as

well and I'll take that first to miss P so I have a national network that I am

using there's a national network associated with the gun RS advocacy

movement and the people that are working on taking care of our work Fighters that

are committing suicide at the rate of 22 a day that one active duty service

member a day I've been on several National radio

stations talking about these issues talking about the federal government overstepping the bounds of their

Authority and I've also been on radio stations here in Texas discussing the same subjects so my plan is to continue

working those Avenues continue getting the message out and as the previous

people were talking talking about people know people so I may be talking to somebody that's living in Pennsylvania

that knows somebody in Texas and says hey have you heard of this Rebecca parck chick you ought to check her out which

has actually happened so it's a matter of getting the message out talking to

people getting them on board and then having them bring other people on board for you even when they happen to be in a

different state that's my point

okay same question to you Mr R what's your plan well actually winning is probably

unlike is unlikely however one can do a lot to advance the

ball I have very good relations with the Tea Party Movement in Texas who are very

dissatisfied with John corett and I've been speaking at a lot of their events and getting General

feedback that they intend to vote for me even if it risks electing a

Democrat so all those people who didn't vote for John Corin in the primary are

prospective voters for me and they already know my name

um beyond that the key is going to be to get into a debate with them Corin is

probably not going to be willing to engage in the debate you'll probably just ignore this

invitations so it's most likely if Alam becomes the Democratic nominee that will

be having a debate between him and me uh God help the Democratic party if

Kesha Rogers Becomes Her nominee but she's a Lou

disciple so uh in whatever that develops I've I have plenty of experience being

on television debates with state level

candidates and I know how to hold my own in that

situation okay very we got a question from the audience

here and I'm just going to go ahead and read it for btim it's it's pretty interesting um and I think it's relevant

so it's easy to think of ways to solve problems however the real change making real change when you're in the senate in

government will require working with current Representatives and making adjustments to the working elements so

how do you propose to work with uh with the existing Senate with the existing

Congress which of course are not all Libertarians or you know likely be the first libertarian how do you propose to

work with them and how do you propose to make those adjustments um to the existing system um I'll go back to you

Mr R for the first well one of the first things I would do if the lightning struck and I

actually got elected would be to call it the Cru and I call Mike Lee Mike Rand Paul

and a couple of others in the Senate because for the first first of all I would need a second for my

legislation so I would try to create agreement from them to the second it the

next thing I would need to be able to do is to assemble a good team of

staffers the administrative staff needs to be those with experience on the hill

legislative staff can be uh newcomers to some degree but you really want to try

to pick the amount people you can who have experience on the hill but who also

will work for you and not for their handlers and I've observed too many cases where uh conventional staffers

really didn't work with their members so I have to be very careful about doing that then it would be a matter of

assembling uh co-sponsors for as much as my legislation as I could and of course

also trying to get on the right committees the problem with that because the Committees I want to be on are the

same ones that Ted Cruz are on is on and there's going to be reluctance to point

senator from the same state to the same

committee excellent and Miss P so how would you go about working with the existing uh Senate and Congress and how

would you make those incremental adjustments that in the questioner mind at least would be would be the required

way to approach it so I believe that there are parts of the libertarian platform that are

congruent with the Democrat platform and there are parts of the libertarian

platform that are congruent with the Republican part platform we don't agree on everything but we do agree on some

things so it's a matter of finding areas of agreement regardless of what letter

comes after your name and moving forward from a place of

strength so it's it's talking to people it's listening it's understanding why

people are trying to do their things that they're doing and seeing if we can go about it a different way there's more

than one way to get to Seattle you can drive you can go by plane you can go by train you can walk there right so if

your goal is to get to Seattle let's be real clear that your goal is to get to Seattle now let's talk about different

ways of getting there many times in discussions you'll see people go across

purposes they're so focused on the how they don't pay attention to the what I

want to focus on the what and the why and then come up with a how that we can all work

with we've got a lot of constitutional questions rolling in and and a lot of them are actually really interesting so

I'm going to take you back a little bit toward the uh sort of theoretical um because you are both subject matter

experts on a constitution the first question I'd like to ask is um if there was any amendment to the Constitution

that you would like to see repealed um which one would it be and I I'll take

that to Mr ran first well it was not so much to be a

repeal because it was never ratified but the income tax

amendment and all that would take would be simply be a congressional finding that it was

never actually ratified so uh if that finding were

announced then uh it would be strucken stricken from the books it would no longer be a

factor now uh as for that the other uh uh

things that I would do in the way of amendments would not be so much repealing existing amendments as

modifying them to clarify them because there are some language in some of them

is sufficiently vague for modern readers that it is a hole through which clever

lawyers can drive serious departures from original understanding so I would

focus on clarifications for example of Commerce of regulate of necessary proper and so

forth what do they those terms mean originally what is due

process

okay kind the same question to you is there a particular uh Amendment you got your s so there are two okay so one of

one of them is the 16th Amendment which Mr Roland has already talked about which is the income tax the other is the 17th

Amendment 17th amendment allows the Senators to be voted on by

the public instead of by the representation of the state and what

that do what that does is it has taken the power away from

States the 17th amendment was a balance of power

issue um it it took power away from the states so now it has undermined the 10th

am I would like to have that power structure back where the house

represents the people and the Senate represents the entire State Legislature

and they can be recalled if they are not doing the right

things Okay so there's a lot of questions rolling in where people want to know the candidates positions on real

specific um issues you know single issues so uh I'm going to try something

here let's let's do kind of a lightning round here just for a second uh because we if we G 90 seconds for each and every

one of these issues you know we would fil the rest of our time so well what I'm going to try and do is

maybe um I'll just say could you give me your position on three things with one 19 second answer if you can and I know

this is you know not very fair but use the time however you feel is best but you know what are your we've had several

questions that all we hitting on drug laws or the drug war mandatory minimums and things of that nature so the drugs

kind of issue oh I've lost my mind oh there it is again uh there's been

several questions that have come in around education the department of No Child Left Behind would you eliminate

the department of education education generally and then there uh there have

been several questions that have rolled in um regarding borders and immigration uh and those set of issues

so going back to um Miss Paddock first could you just give us a quick punch list on your viewpoint on U educa excuse

me drug laws and Drug War education and the department of and forers integration

okay on drugs um article one section 8 does not contain anything related to

drugs but is none of the federal business inal government I

do as far as um education goes if you take a look at article in Section 8 of

The Constitution it is not there the Department of Education is unconstitutional and needs to be shut

down as far as borders go um the borders themselves are a state issue citizenship

is a federal issue so there is a difference so I'm not sure whether the

question had to do with Borders or citizenship it's up to the states to determine who comes in and who goes out

who they give vises to Etc um the citizenship is a federal issue having

said that I take a look at the libertarian platform and what we are looking at as far as personal

boundaries right we don't let other don't let other people don't just get to walk into your house house right you're

allowed to have personal boundaries I'm not allowed to just push John over here right there's a personal boundary around

him the federal government needs to be taking care of our citizenship

boundary okay thank you very so Mr Roland drugs education and

immigration all right there is no Authority in the Constitution for drug

laws that we have them outside of federal onades in other words the existing

statutes apply if they apply anywhere only within the District of Colombia and

certain military bases and a few of the situations like that as for Education

the only Authority in the constitution is for militia training now conceivably militia

training could be extended to include the reading and writing in arithmetic but unless there's an Nexus to defense

it's not constitutional as far as the border and

immigration issues concerned those are two distinct issues and they tend to get lump gather

which muddles the water on and debates on the subject uh on the one hand we need to

protect our nation from criminals and terrorists on the other hand we want to

be able to let honest people in who just want to work and but further the ones who do

come in Legally on a limited for a limited period of time you want to make sure they leave when their time is

expired so to do all these things require a complex tradeoffs using

limited resources and we're going to need to look at new ideas for solving the the

Striking the right balance than

you okay um we're back to a very purely practical question and I I I like it I'd

like to take it to um each debator can you tell us what level of fundraising you've accomplished so far uh Mr

R well my policy is not to accept funds until I the

nominated so if I accept funds it will be hopefully after

tomorrow uh after that um well I'll have a

designated way place for funds to go I do plan to accept those

points uh but beyond that I think the

most likely uh tool for that purpose will be to set up a patch which is not limited

to my own Campaign which can support my campaign but can also support other

people's campaigns so that we have we can consolidate our scarce

resources and use the money where it can do the most good because when we're

hovering at between 2 and A2 and 3% support as we had in the last few

elections uh money has to be spent differently than it would be if one were

a candidate who is pushing 50% of public support So resources have to be very

carefully husbanded in that situation thank

you same question is p how is your fundraising going so I have fundraising that is set

up on my website that's been going fairly well I'm getting a lot of $5 $10 donations every little bit helps the

other thing that has been very very useful to me is my contacts in the gun

rights advocacy movement hunting movement those types of things um I have

several donations for rifles to be raffled away um hunting blinds knives

that type of a thing that will be coming out that will help raise money for the

campaign perfect thank you all right well

you know we've got a little extra time and we got an really interesting question I can't I just can't kind of

can't resist um going down this uh this this train of thought here because it's

something I'm personally familiar with um from just a few years back and I know that joh uh Mr Roland is uh is familiar

with it because he participated in it and I'd like to hear Miss P St on this as well and the question is from the

audience do we need another Continental Congress and of course I recall that we

just had one um was it four years ago or five five years AG either 2009 or 2010

um 2009 2009 thank you so I you know I want to get your thoughts on that I

think it's I think it's an interesting question you know I guess the the first part of the question would be so how did that work out for us and the second

question would be do we need to do we need to do that again would there would there be a good reason or a good purpose

to and and uh Mr Rand if you wouldn't mind maybe um just take a few seconds to

plain uh please yeah I was one of the three delegates from Texas to the

Continental Congress 2009 was very interesting

experience uh I think we accomplished a few useful things but there are a few

things we failed to accomplish which I pointed out at the time but I my work was not eating first

we didn't form a permanent organization to follow through second of all amendments were

taken off the table so we couldn't even discuss them and that's where the real action

is and third it was the delegates were did not really represent

most of the states that they were from Texas is about the only state where we

actually conducted real elections in most of the states they were self-appointed

so we that did not produce delegations that were a particularly

high level they were Earnest patriotic Americans but what I advocate is a

series of working conventions to hammer out solutions that are going to need to

be composed of extremely skilled and knowledgeable

professionals these need to be the guys who actually draft The Proposal for the rest of us to pick up on as cour

and of course I try to start that process with my proposals thank you Mr

Roland so so same question um to miss Paddock do we need to uh have another

Continental Congress like we had in the 1770s and and 1780s that created the

government and the Constitution that we had now is is that it need to go to that

extent and would you support it so I think if we're going to have U

that type of a convention we need to have the right people there and we need to be serious about it this is not t

time for funing games this isn't time for self-appointment and we need to have a very serious

agenda and on that agenda I would put re repeal of the 16th Amendment Ral with

the 17th Amendment taking a look at I

from top to bottom taking a look at people that have broken their own of office and removing them and this is a

serious business when you get down to this if you're going to have this type of a convention a congress going on you

need to have serious issues on the table otherwise you are wasting everybody's

time all right well I want to thank the audience

for the really good questions and and I want to thank um our panelists are candidates for the answers we are out of

time for the question and answer period so we're now going to move to the closing statements and we'll begin in

reverse order um to how we started and we'll begin with Miss P for two minutes clote

Miss well I am very excited to be one of the nominees for this position and um no

matter who you choose Mr all I it looks like you're going to get somebody that is very focused on the Constitution and

making sure that the federal government is not overstepping their bounds which is

excellent I hope that we can all come together as a group and work for all of the candidates

as was stated earlier if we can get people focused on the executive candidates it will trickle down it will

help everybody and I'm hoping that everybody will line up behind Liberty

and move this forward thank

you thank you Mr Rolland you're close I find

the nominee honored to do so uh the first thing I would do is to start lining up public events

at which the candidates of all parties can be can

appear like I said I don't think corin will will attend but I'm going to start

lining it up with a democratic nominee we who we won't know until

May but uh I can at least start talking to them before then to both of

them uh and lining up sponsoring organizations to conduct as many

speaking events for our candidates as we can now these are mostly te party groups

but not entirely legal women legal Women Voters or another one there are quite a few

others uh the aim will be to try to have at least one one public speaking event

every week from now until the election and for course hopefully even more so we

have a continuing uh uh program of events to

appear at of course get those televised to the extent possible that we need to

take advantage of free media uh we probably can't afford to buy

tv ads or to send out mailers to every voter in

but we can try to do is to get just as much free coverage as we can and that's

the way to do very good thank you both of our

candidates I just want to just one more big round of applause to both of our candidates thank you very much for

participating and with that we will move on to the uh to the

next the next