voters – Page 7 – Public Policy Institute of California

Video: California’s Voter Turnout Challenge

California has a voter turnout problem with two distinct elements. Registration is falling compared to other states, and turnout among those who are registered in midterm elections is down. A new PPIC report examines the state’s challenge and suggests some solutions. Report author and PPIC research fellow Eric McGhee presented it at a briefing in Sacramento last week. He found that each element of the state’s turnout has a different origin in the state’s demographics:

Registration. The composition of California’s electorate has been changing quickly. Latino and Asian American communities have become eligible to vote at faster rates in California than in other states. But these groups register to vote at lower rates than other Californians, leading to an overall decline in California’s registration rate relative to other states.
Turnout. One group of the state’s registered voters has become less likely to turn out in midterm elections: young people. The issue here is one of consistency, McGhee said. “Young people are showing up for presidential elections—they’re just not voting in the following midterm,” he said.

What are the solutions? McGhee said that while the state has passed a number of laws to ease voter registration, changes to the process will not necessarily solve the problem. He said these reforms will need to be coupled with aggressive outreach targeting each group—Latinos, Asian Americans, and young voters—to inspire them to participate in elections.

Read the report California’s Missing Voters: Who is Not Voting and Why.

Next Steps in Implementing California Marijuana Law

Despite uncertainty at the federal level, California is making steady progress toward creating a system to regulate the legal use of marijuana. In many ways, the most interesting activity in marijuana policy is taking place at the local level, as counties and towns wrestle with how to define the role of the industry in their communities.

This year’s state budget includes a trailer bill designed to address a number of implementation issues raised by the passage of the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act in 2015 and Proposition 64 last fall. The biggest challenge was reconciling the two laws to create a single regulatory framework for both medical and recreational marijuana, a recommendation put forth in a recent PPIC report. The trailer bill also includes other provisions that aim to clarify and fill in details around implementation. For example, the bill:

Enhances environmental protections and specifies organic standards.
Makes it possible for smaller growers to form co-ops to enable them to compete with larger producers.
Allows for the designation of appellations, similar to the wine industry.
Supports a study of driving under the influence and creates a task force to make recommendations about enforcement. It also creates a new “open container” definition for cannabis and driving, making it an offense (with a $100 fine) to have in a car marijuana that is loose or in a container that is open or has a broken seal.
Establishes a method to collect the cultivation and excise taxes imposed by Proposition 64.

Although Californians have supported the legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana, possession of the substance remains illegal under federal law. In past years, Congress has passed legislation that makes enforcement of federal marijuana law a low priority. However, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has opposed relaxing restrictions on marijuana, has reportedly sent a letter to Congress asking that it rescind that directive. Like so many federal-state issues at that moment, it is very difficult to predict future decisions concerning enforcement of federal marijuana law.

The relationship between the state and local jurisdictions is clearer. One section of the trailer bill reaffirmed that the new regulatory structure does not limit the authority of cities, towns, and counties. But the clarity of that relationship doesn’t mean that there isn’t controversy. Conflicts have emerged within communities as they try to balance different local interests.

For example, Proposition 64 allowed for the cultivation of up to six plants per individual. In January, the city of Fontana passed an ordinance requiring any resident who wanted to grow up to six plants purchase a $411 permit. Getting a permit required that the applicant have no prior drug convictions or overdue fines. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and the advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance have joined together to file a lawsuit claiming the ordinance is too restrictive.

Calaveras County also illustrates the challenges of implementing marijuana regulations at the local level. At the same time that Proposition 64 received support statewide, 67% of Calaveras voters approved a county tax on marijuana production. The tax vote appeared to signal the county’s support for the marijuana industry. This past spring, however, after four of the five seats on the county board turned over, that body began considering a ban on commercial cultivation. With more than 1,000 registered growers (who each paid $5,000 in fees to operate) in a county of 45,000 people, the proposed ban is controversial.

Findings from the PPIC Statewide Survey support the idea that cannabis becomes divisive when the issue moves closer to home. When asked about the federal role, 60% of California adults and 66% of likely voters in our May survey said that the federal government should not enforce federal marijuana law in states that have decided to allow marijuana use. And though a majority of California adults (56%) say marijuana should be legal, state residents are divided when it comes to retail sales of marijuana in their communities. While 48% favor retail sales of recreational marijuana in their city or community, a similar proportion (47%) are opposed. Regionally, opposition to retail sales is highest in Orange/San Diego Counties (53% oppose). As cities across the state determine the regulatory standards for marijuana sales, they may find divergent views within their communities.

Federal, state, and local governments all have a say in marijuana regulation. It is clear from the issues yet to be resolved that the statewide election was just the beginning of a complex process to build the regulated, legal market for cannabis that California voters supported.

Video: Attorney General Becerra on the Issues

The Trump administration has clashed with California on a range of issues, and the state’s new attorney general, Xavier Becerra, is at the forefront of the legal battles with Washington. Before a large crowd in Sacramento, Becerra talked about his views and what he has done so far on a range of issues. He spoke with Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO.

Some key highlights:

Environment: Becerra said he has been most active so far on this issue and vowed to continue to be aggressive, whether it is initiating lawsuits, joining other suits, or moving forward with the Paris climate agreement, to the extent the state can do so. “I’ve got the governor’s back on anything he wants to do on the environment,” he said.
Immigration: Becerra said he favors legislation to make California a sanctuary state as long as it does not undermine the ability of local law enforcement to protect public safety by, for example, combating drug and sex trafficking.
Health care: Becerra said that single-payer health care is ultimately the right approach to coverage. “I hope California gets further along in recognizing that affordability only comes when you have universality,” he said.

Video: Villaraigosa on His Priorities

When Antonio Villaraigosa was asked to name the top issues most important to the state’s future, he started with the economy. His key concerns are poverty and the state’s business climate, its “byzantine and bureaucratic regulatory framework.”

Villaraigosa, candidate for governor and former mayor of Los Angeles, spoke at the Speaker Series on California’s Future sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). As part of the series, PPIC is inviting all major candidates for governor to participate in a public event. Other highlights of his remarks:

Health care: He believes in universal health care but is skeptical about how to pay for the current plan before the legislature: “You’re selling snake oil when you say that single payer is something that’s going to happen any time soon.”
Infrastructure: He emphasized his long-term support for high-speed rail. He sees it as an economic development strategy to transform the Central Valley by connecting it to the two big centers of the economy, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Higher education: He said the state needs to look at how community colleges are funded and marshal its resources to make sure students get through the system and transfer to four-year colleges. But he’s not an advocate for making community college free to all: “It’s already free for poor people, and that’s who it should be free for.

Watch all candidate videos.

Video: Pessimism about Nation’s Direction

Californians have grown more pessimistic about the direction of the nation and the US economy since the beginning of the year, the May PPIC Statewide Survey shows. Underscoring that sentiment: just 27 percent of residents approve of the way President Trump is doing his job. Only 26 percent approve of Congress—a 10 point decline from March.

Researcher David Kordus presented these and other key findings at a survey briefing in Sacramento last week. On other federal issues, the survey found that most Californians disapprove of the House health care bill, and half expect negative effects from increased immigration enforcement.

Californians are feeling better about the state of their state by some measures: a solid majority favor Governor Brown’s budget plan, and fewer adults than in past years see the state budget situation as a big problem. But the state faces important challenges. Housing is one of them, with 59 percent of all adults saying affordability is a big problem in their part of the state. And solid majorities of Californians say the gap between rich and poor is getting larger. Majorities support state action to address these issues.

Learn more

Read the PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government
Find out more about the PPIC Statewide Survey

Testimony: Who Votes, Who Doesn’t, and Why

Eric McGhee, PPIC research fellow, testified before the Little Hoover Commission in Sacramento today (May 25, 2017). Here are his prepared remarks.

Good morning Chairman Nava, Vice Chairman Varner, and distinguished committee members. My name is Eric McGhee, and I am a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where I study voter turnout and electoral and political reform more generally.

California’s voter turnout in 2014 hit record lows in both the primary and the general elections. Turnout recovered some in 2016, but languishing participation remains a concern moving forward. I was invited to your panel to help put California’s turnout in broader context and to give some thoughts on potential solutions. In doing so, I will address three questions:

Who votes, and who doesn’t?
What does California’s turnout look like over time and compared to the rest of the country?
What should we expect from recent reforms, and what else should be tried to improve turnout?

Question #1: Who votes and who doesn’t?
California’s registered voters do not look like the population of all adults in the state. They are older, whiter, better educated, and a little wealthier; they are less mobile, more rooted in their communities, and more likely to own their own home; and they are more likely to identify with one of the two major parties and less likely to identify as independents.

Given California’s large immigrant population, citizenship is also an important factor for voting here. A substantial portion of the Latino and Asian-American populations are not citizens, and many are undocumented and so ineligible to ever become citizens. Historically that has meant significantly lower participation rates among these communities.

Yet the role of citizenship in California’s turnout is changing rapidly. Most of the growth in both the Latino and Asian-American communities now comes from children who are citizens because they are born in the United States. That means a growing share of these communities is eligible to vote, which in turn diversifies the state’s voting-eligible population.

These changes are happening faster here than in other states. Figure 1 shows the share of California’s Latino and Asian-American populations that are eligible to vote, compared with the same eligibility rates in other states. In the early 1990s, California Latinos were less likely to be eligible than were Latinos in other states. Since then, California Latino eligibility has steadily increased and now slightly exceeds Latino eligibility rates elsewhere. Roughly the same is true for Asian-Americans.

In addition to these demographic factors, PPIC research by Mark Baldassare has shown that voters differ from nonvoters in their opinions on policy issues (Baldassare 2016). Likely voters are about evenly split in their approval of a larger, more activist government that spends more money. Nonvoters, by contrast, are clearly in favor of government involvement across a number of issues. For example, 7 in 10 nonvoters want more government action on income inequality; just half of likely voters feel the same.

Question #2: What does California’s turnout look like over time and compared to the rest of the country?
California’s turnout has dropped about 20 points in the last 30 years. To understand the causes and implications of this trend, it is important to break the problem into two separate parts: 1) registration among those who are eligible; and 2) turnout among those who are registered.

Figure 2 shows that California has a registration problem compared with other states. The state’s flat registration rate—always holding steady between about 70 and 80 percent of total eligible residents—masks a relative decline that started in the late 1990s. California registered at higher rates than the rest of the country in the 1990s, but by 2016 had fallen about five percentage points behind.

In addition to the relative registration problem, turnout in California’s midterm elections—when the state votes for governor and other statewide offices—has been falling, while turnout in presidential elections has largely remained flat (Figure 3). This has created a widening divide between the two types of elections. In contrast to registration, this problem is not unique to California. Other states have experienced similar midterm turnout declines. But that does not excuse the problem so much as tell us that it is part of a larger national pattern.

A deeper analysis of these trends suggests different explanations for each one. The first trend—the decline in the relative registration rate—can mostly be explained by the growing Latino and Asian-American populations. No other combination of demographic characteristics, nor the state’s declining competition in statewide elections, comes close to explaining as much as this single change. Latinos and Asian Americans register at the same rates in California and other states. But in any given election, they register at lower rates than non-Hispanic whites or African Americans. Thus, as they become a larger share of the eligible voter population, their lower registration patterns pull down the overall registration rate more in California than in states that are not diversifying as quickly.

In contrast to the registration trend, the decline in midterm turnout is largely a function of the changing behavior of young people. Young people continue to vote in presidential elections, but they are increasingly likely to skip midterms. California’s expanding Latino and Asian-American populations play almost no role here: once registered, these groups have been voting at consistent rates over time. And unlike registration, it is the changing turnout rate of young people that has had the largest effect, not any change in their share of the registered population.

Question #3: What should we expect from recent reforms, and what else should be tried to improve turnout?
California has recently passed a wide range of reforms meant to increase voter turnout. Most of these are meant to ease the registration process, while at least one is meant to make it easier to vote.

The registration changes consist of four main reforms. First, California has allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to “pre-register” with a placeholder record that will only become official when they turn 18. Second, California has established an entirely electronic online registration system that makes it easy to find out how to register and to fill out an application, saving even the trouble of finding a stamp. Third, the state has adopted a “conditional” registration system that permits voters to register and vote in a single trip to the county registrar after the normal registration deadline has passed. And finally, the state has committed to an automated registration system that has the potential to register voters by default when they visit the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The evidence for the efficacy of these reforms varies. Pre-registration is meant to facilitate registration, but research suggests it also helps increase turnout among those who pre-register because it engages them at an impressionable time in their lives (and often in a group setting in their high school or community) (Holbein and Hillygus 2015). Online registration offers significant administrative benefits, but it has not necessarily increased registration or turnout by much (McGhee 2014). For its part, conditional registration is likely to pick up some number of people who miss the registration deadline but decide to vote at the last minute as they get swept up in the excitement of the election. But evidence of its effect on turnout is mixed: some studies have shown a substantial effect, while others have shown something smaller (McGhee 2014).

The final registration reform, automated voter registration, carries perhaps the largest potential to increase registration rates. If implemented properly, the law could increase registration rates by as much as 14 percent in the first year (McGhee and Romero 2016). This may go a long way toward undoing the underrepresentation of Latinos and Asian Americans in the registration rolls. It may also help alleviate some of the need for conditional registration, as more people will be registered throughout the year and do not need to sign up at the eleventh hour. But as I will discuss below, these new registrants need to be mobilized to vote or they may stay home anyway.

In addition to these registration reforms, California is moving toward broad vote-by-mail implementation by enacting a reform first adopted by Colorado in 2012. All voters will get vote-by-mail ballots by default. They can either mail in those ballots or drop them off at any of several drop boxes or “vote centers” that replace neighborhood precincts. If voters lose their vote-by-mail ballot they can have a new one printed at a vote center, and the vote centers will be open for early voting several weeks before Election Day. In short, the new law gives all voters the chance to vote by mail if they want to.

Studies of the effect of this system suggest it saves a great deal of money by limiting the staff and equipment required to operate lightly trafficked polling places (Gronke and Miller 2012; Hall et al. 2012; Folz 2014). The reform may also increase turnout somewhat, though the findings there are mixed (Stein and Vonnahme 2008; Hall et al. 2012; Folz 2014). That said, there is some suggestive evidence that vote-by-mail registrants are more likely to be repeat voters, returning to vote in future elections after showing up in the first one. This pattern is especially notable for young people, meaning it might help alleviate the midterm turnout decline discussed earlier.

Taken together, these reforms place California at the national vanguard for voting access. But we should be wary of complacency. There remain significant issues of implementation and follow-through if these reforms are to increase turnout to the maximum extent.

For example, the ultimate impact of California’s automated voter registration system is dependent on the number of DMV customers who agree to be registered. The new system will certainly be an improvement because it will register any eligible customer who does not actively decline. But it will also require customers to affirm their eligibility to vote before they can be defaulted into registration. While a sensible failsafe measure, this extra step also risks reverting the process back to something like the current system, where DMV customers who skip the section on registration remain unregistered. True default registration would require everyone to answer the eligibility question. In the absence of such a requirement, the success of the new system will hinge in part on how aggressively the eligibility question is pressed upon potential registrants (McGhee and Romero 2016).

There are also a number of implementation challenges for the new Colorado model of voting. One complicated issue concerns how many vote centers to make available for a given population. Since the goal is generally to open fewer vote centers than precincts, it is possible that too few will be opened and voters will have trouble finding a convenient one. Research on the effect of distance on voting has found turnout declines up to 5 percent for distances up to 10 miles from the precinct (Dyck and Gimpel 2005). But since vote centers are more flexible than precincts—they will accept all potential voters no matter where in the county they reside and will be open for weeks rather than just one day—voters may more often find themselves in close proximity to a voting location at a moment when they have some free time to cast a vote.

There are important reasons to be careful about a wholesale switch to the Colorado model of voting. Young people currently choose vote-by-mail less often than older voters because of confusion about what address to use and other issues. If they do choose to vote by mail, they are less likely to send in their ballots on time (Romero 2014). And many people of color are wary of the vote center model because they do not trust the reasons behind it (Romero 2016a, 2016b). That raises the potential for problems with some of the very communities the reform is trying to reach.

Caution is therefore in order. Fortunately, the law is structured to provide it. Under California’s version of the Colorado voting model, each county decides whether to switch to the new system, and even the counties allowed to make the change will be phased in over time. This offers numerous opportunities to assess the rollout and make any necessary adjustments. Given both the promise and potential risks of the Colorado model, it is important to manage the phase-in to ensure the reform is going as expected.

Even if the reforms work as intended, they must still be coupled with aggressive mobilization. While it always makes sense to mobilize as many people as possible in every election, Latinos, Asian Americans, and young people clearly need special attention. Simply placing eligible residents on the voter rolls, or making voting easier, will not solve the whole problem. Outreach will be an important ongoing part of any solution. Research suggests such outreach will be more successful if it is embedded in the communities it is trying to mobilize, with communication by members of the community in ways others in the community understand and relate to (García Bedolla and Michelson 2012). This is especially important because Latino and Asian-American immigrants and their children are least likely to register and may be more culturally and linguistically distinct.

In any case, such mobilization work is hard and must be sustained over many election cycles. Yet it is the effort in many ways best suited to the source of the problem. Many of the biggest legal obstacles to voting in California are now gone or are in the process of being removed. This offers a fresh opportunity to get Californians to engage with the process and make their voices heard.

REFERENCES
Baldassare, Mark. 2016. “California’s Exclusive Electorate: Who Votes and Why It Matters.” San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.
Dyck, Joshua J., and James G. Gimpel. 2005. “Distance, Turnout, and the Convenience of Voting.” Social Science Quarterly 86 (3):531-48.
Folz, David H. 2014. “Vote Centers as a Strategy to Control Election Administration Costs.” SAGE Open 4 (1):1-10.
García Bedolla, Lisa, and Melissa R. Michelson. 2012. Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gronke, Paul, and Peter Miller. 2012. “Voting by Mail and Turnout in Oregon: Revisiting Southwell and Burchett.” American Politics Research 40 (6):976-97.
Hall, Steven R., Joseph Losco, and Raymond Scheele. 2012. “Convenient Turnout: A Case Study of the Indiana Vote Center Pilot Program.” International Journal of Business and Social Science 3 (8):304-12.
Holbein, John B., and D. Sunshine Hillygus. 2015. “Making Young Voters: The Impact of Preregistration on Youth Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2):364-82.
McGhee, Eric. 2014. “Expanding California’s Electorate: Will Recent Reforms Increase Voter Turnout? Technical Appendix.” San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.
McGhee, Eric, and Mindy Romero. 2016. “What to Expect from California’s New Motor Voter Law.” San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California. Romero, Mindy. 2014. “Disparities in California’s Uncounted Vote-by-Mail Ballots: Youth, Language Preference, and Military Status.” UC Davis: The California Civic Engagement Project.
———. 2016a. “The California Voter Experience: Vote-by-Mail vs. the Polls.” Davis: UC Davis California Civic Engagement Project.
———. 2016b. “The California Voter Experience: Why African-American Voters Choose to Vote at the Polls or Vote-by-Mail, and How They Perceive Proposed Changes to California’s Voting System.” Davis: UC Davis California Civic Engagement Project.
Stein, Robert M., and Greg Vonnahme. 2008. “Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Vote Centers and Voter Turnout.” The Journal of Politics 70 (02):487-97.

Video: Tom Steyer on the Issues

Tom Steyer—business leader, philanthropist, and possible Democratic candidate for governor—has invested his money and time in activism since leaving the private sector. Moving beyond his initial environmental advocacy, Steyer supported candidates and causes across the state and nation in both the 2014 and 2016 elections.

He sat down to talk to Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO, about his views on policies that will affect the future of California. Steyer would not say whether or not he’s running for governor. But he had a lot to say about the current political climate.

Asked to name three issues that will affect California’s future, Steyer listed priorities that he said are inextricably linked and cut across traditional policy areas:

Addressing income inequality: The state has rebounded economically since 2008, Steyer noted, but it is the top 1% of residents who have benefited. While income inequality is a critical issue across the nation, its impact is heightened in California, Steyer said, affecting housing, transportation, education, and incarceration.
Investing in our state to rebuild the way we live together: California needs to create a more sustainable way of living that preserves the beauty of the state. “We’ve build the state around the internal combustion engine,” Steyer said. “We have to rebuild the way we live.”
Protecting and strengthening our democracy: “California citizens are basically losing a silent fight with special interests,” he said, noting his support for ballot measures that were “direct contests” with special interests, including oil and tobacco companies. “I think the threat to democracy that we’re seeing coming out of Washington, DC, is as profound as I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Video: Californians’ Views of Trump and Key Proposals

Californians show their partisan colors when asked how they feel about the job performance of President Trump and a number of his proposals—building a wall on the Mexican border, reducing regulation of business, and banning travel to the US by people from six majority Muslim countries. The March PPIC Statewide Survey shows majority approval by Republicans and majority disapproval by Democrats of the president and these policies.

But there is one significant exception. As associate survey director Dean Bonner points out in a briefing on the survey, majorities of Democrats and Republicans say that undocumented immigrants living in the US should be able to stay legally rather than required to leave.

Learn more

Read the March PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government
Learn more about the PPIC Statewide Survey

Republican Optimism Spikes after Election

Following the November election, Californians’ views on the state of the nation changed only slightly overall—but the opinions of partisans diverged greatly. In our January 2017 survey, only 36% of Californians said that things in the United States were generally going in the right direction. This was a slight decline from October 2016, when 43% were optimistic. In addition, in January, about half (52%) thought that good economic times could be expected in the next year—a slight increase from October (46%).

The mood of partisans changed dramatically after the election of President Donald Trump, with Republicans becoming much more optimistic and Democrats much more pessimistic. Republicans’ optimism about the direction of the nation went up 44 percentage points (17% in October, 61% in January), and their optimism about the country’s economic outlook rose 56 points (27% in October, 83% in January). On the other hand, Democrats became much more pessimistic, with a 37 point drop in optimism about the direction of the nation (57% in October, 20% in January) and a 20 point decline in economic optimism (58% in October, 38% in January). On both measures, independents were more optimistic in January (up 10 points on direction of the nation, up 13 points on economic outlook).

While the partisan differences were the most evident, there were also changes across racial/ethnic groups. Notably, there was a drop in optimism about the direction of the nation among Latinos (down 22 points, from 53% in October to 31% in January) and Asian Americans (down 21 points, from 55% in October to 34% in January). Latinos were also less optimistic about the economic outlook of the nation (down 12 points, from 58% in October to 46% in January), while there was a sharp increase in economic optimism among whites (up 24 points, from 36% in October to 60% in January).

As President Trump works to implement his policies, we will continue to periodically track Californians’ views of the state of the nation as well as monitor partisan and demographic differences.

Learn more

Read the January PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government
Find out more about the PPIC Statewide Survey

Video: Feinstein on Her Role in a New World

Senator Dianne Feinstein was clear about the challenges ahead for a California Democrat in contentious times.

“Here we are: outnumbered, outvoted, in the West, fairly liberal,” she said.

Speaking before an energetic capacity crowd in San Francisco, Feinstein said her office had received more than a million phone calls about Trump’s cabinet nominees. She described her approach to them: careful evaluation, rather than blanket opposition—an approach too conciliatory for some sign-carrying audience members. Feinstein said that in her role on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she needed to work with the administration officials in charge of national security and felt she could work with Trump appointees James Mattis, defense secretary; John Kelley, secretary of homeland security; and Mike Pompeo, CIA director. But she opposed other nominees because they lacked credentials for the job or they aren’t right for the county, she said. Nevertheless, they went on to win approval.

“The key for me is to figure out how we can begin to win some of these battles.”

Asked about Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Feinstein wouldn’t say how she would vote. She said she will be particularly interested in his views on gun laws and on women’s reproductive rights.

Feinstein’s visit was greeted by dozens of protesters who marched outside, upset that she had not hosted a traditional town hall. Inside, Feinstein touched on a range of issues from climate change to immigration to health care, in a wide-ranging conversation with Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. His questions included a number that PPIC solicited online in advance of the event.