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Jon Roland, Libertarian for Attorney General, speaks at the Candidate Forum held at the Del Valle HS Community Center south of Austin, Texas, on Oct. 15, 2010.
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my name is John Roland and I am the
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Libertarian nominee for Texas Attorney
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General with website at
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johnoland.org i add a little to my label
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here so you can see
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it u in Texas the executive branch is
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divided among several independent
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officials
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the attorney general does not report to
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the governor the governor has no power
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over any of the other agencies except
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the office of the
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governor the job of the attorney general
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in his office is to serve as the lawyer
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of the state
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we go to court to represent the
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state and we give advice to other state
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agencies in the form of attorney general
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opinions which have come over time
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although they have no constitutional
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status to have the effect of court
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rulings with that are treated as binding
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by the eight various
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agencies now by my background is not
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that of a lawyer i'm a legal
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historian which is better than a
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lawyer my professional career has been
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that of a computer professional my
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degree is in
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mathematics from the University of
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Chicago
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i served as an Air Force
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officer honorably
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discharged then I spent a couple of
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years in
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Washington working for various causes
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and getting to know Congress
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intimately i volunteered as a kind of
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independent lobbyist and learned how the
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Congress works from the inside
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and one of the things that I did while I
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was there is review
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legislation the members of Congress even
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then had to spend most of their time
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raising money to win the next
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election most of their staff members
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didn't understand the legislation that
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he was supposed to vote on and so the
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lobbyist became the
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principal expert advisor to members of
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Congress and often in subjects quite
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different from what they're paid to be
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there to
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do they get access by helping members on
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their favorite subjects
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now in my campaign I have several key
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issues the main one that I've been
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emphasizing is local public
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corruption it is far more serious and
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more pervasive and more entrenched than
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most people realize
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in fact it has become so entrenched that
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many people simply take it for granted
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it's the normal way of doing
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things you consider it normal for
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example that
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uh contracts when they're sent out for
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proposals are written so that only
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somebody's brother-in-law can
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qualify this is the kind of thing that
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goes on all the time but now we have a
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new kind of caress or it's not really
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completely new it's been going on for
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decades but now it's becoming especially
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serious what's happening in Mexico is
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spreading to the United
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States plat
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Oklahoma the drug cartels are trying not
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just to make money selling drugs but to
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assert sovereignty over that country
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they're shutting down government and
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assuming the functions of government at
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least the ones that benefit them
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and that is spreading in the United
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States along our the counties of our
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southern border along trans shshipment
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corridors across and into the United
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States and in our inner
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cities the organized criminals are
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asserting de facto sovereignty
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they're squeezing out the normal court
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processes of government and that becomes
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a critical area of for attention by the
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Texas Attorney
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General and I can tell you that my
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opponents the Republic Republican and
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Democrat alike are mostly blindly
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unaware of the seriousness of this
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problem they even contribute to it
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one of the functions of the attorney
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general is to engage in such cases as
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uh the termination of parental
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rights juvenile
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detention and restraining
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orders why did they do that why has it
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left the local government well that's
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because the federal government provides
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money for those things
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when there when a child is removed from
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his
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parents there's about 35 to $50,000
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that's being split up between
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lawyers social workers medical workers
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and even the judge
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and the Texas Attorney General's office
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is dumping a lot of those cases
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preferentially in one county Williamson
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County just to the north of Austin where
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they rubber stamp
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them what typically happens is that a
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the state or the county will get a big
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hunk of money at the beginning of the
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fiscal year they'll spend the money and
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by the end of the fiscal year they're
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starting to look for cases that they can
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take on to justify the
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expenditures so they go out looking for
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kids to take away from their parents
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whether the parents are bad or not
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i've had people tell me that they are
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afraid to run especially for judicial
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positions at the local level because
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they're afraid of
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retaliation and a couple of them even
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said they're concerned that their kids
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will be taken away from them if they run
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against the
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incumbent that's how bad it's gotten
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so as attorney general what I would be
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doing is
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opening grand
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juries to complaints from private
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citizens right now in almost every
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jurisdiction if you as an ordinary
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citizen want to go to your grand
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jury how do you do
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it first of all you're going to have
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trouble finding out who the grand jury
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is
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if you try to bring a complaint to them
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the chances are the DA is going to say
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"Wait wait a minute you can't just go in
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and talk directly to the grand jury you
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have to send put the file your complaint
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with us and we'll take it to the grand
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jury." Of course lots of love for that
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there's also the problem that in many
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especially urban jurisdictions the grand
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jury gets less than 10 minutes to decide
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each case generally criminal cases they
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dump a whole bunch of indictments on
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them and they wind up just rubber
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stamping them because that's all they
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had time to
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do grand juries are supposed to be able
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to investigate public problems not just
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handle indictments
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and they're supposed to be open to the
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general public well the attorney general
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I would open grand juries to the general
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public i would make sure that grand
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juries are selected at random and aren't
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just cronies of the judge or the sheriff
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and I would make sure that if the DA did
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not do his job as response to what the
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grand jury found that a special
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prosecutor would be appointed to carry
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that
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ball so these are the some of the kinds
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of things that I would be doing as
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attorney general
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i would one of the things I would not be
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doing is what was done in the last round
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of redistricting where the attorney
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general defended the Republican plan for
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re redistricting of
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Congress i appeared as an
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intervenor that is an a third party to
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litigation was not associated with one
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of the other parties
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there were a bunch of Republicans
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appoint a bunch of Democrat parties each
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of them jockeying to get his favorite
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map then I came in as an intervenor to
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propose an independent statesmanlike
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solution which is to turn over
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redistricting to the computers and keep
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the people out of
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it so this gives you some idea of what
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I've been up to one last thing in my 30
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seconds i've been appearing as a witness
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before the state board of
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education as a result for of that one of
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the things that happened is that a
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textbook American government textbooks
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used since 1950 that have been teaching
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throughout that time that it's okay to
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have informal amendments to the
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Constitution i got that textbook changed
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it no longer teaches that thank you
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[Applause]
#Government
#Legislative Branch
#Public Policy