Thread by @Robillard

I’m at the “We The People” summit in Washington D.C., sponsored by a host of liberal groups. It’s the biggest cattle call for prez candidates so far.

First up: @JulianCastro.

@JulianCastro Casto says he got the call from Obama offering him the job of HUD Secretary while he was in a drive-thru at a Panda Express.

#WeThePeople19

Castro gets big applause for noting he’s paying his campaign interns $15/hr.

Castro says Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

“We need to shine a light” on relationships between members and donors.

#WeThePeople19

Next up: @CoryBooker, who starts out talking about his work organizing tenants in Newark in his 20s.

A CWA member asks Booker about receiving donations from lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell, which represents Wells Fargo, and asks if he supports public campaign financing system.

Booker doesn’t address those donations, but says he isn’t taking lobbyist or pharma exec $$$.

“You can’t campaign wrong and govern right.”

Booker, who has been making mixed noise on ending the filibuster, says he feels a sense of urgency, but then notes Republicans would’ve been able to de-fund Planned Parenthood in 2017 without it.

Booker also said “Obamacare would have been gone” in 2017 without the filibuster.

That’s not true – the GOP tried to do it through reconciliation, and couldn’t get to 50 votes.

.@amyklobuchar is the first post-lunch speaker. She’s been going after Trump a bit more than Booker or Castro does.

.@amyklobuchar supports DC statehood: “I don’t think that you should have a big group of people with no one to represent them in Congress.”

She adds: “It’s also about Puerto Rico.”

Klobuchar says she would make D.C. statehood a “first 100 days” priority, along with comprehensive immigration reform, taking on big pharma and creating a public option.

Can she do all those things in 100 days? Idk.

Up now at #WeThePeople19: @BetoORourke

“If we need a constitutional amendment to show the corporations are not people and money is not speech, so be it,” Beto says.

Also says every state should have same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration.

Beto says he’d issue an executive order requiring every cabinet secretary to hold a town hall meeting at least once a month.

#WeThePeople19

O’Rourke, like every other Democratic candidate, says he would rejoin the Paris Climate Accords on Day 1, but adds: “They aren’t ambitious enough.”

O’Rourke says he supports ending the Electoral College and calls it “one of those bad compromises we made at the beginning of this country,” adds there are others.

#WeThePeople19

.@BetoORourke gives a shout-out to Rep. Ro Khanna, who has endorsed Bernie Sanders, says they worked together on a bill to limit campaign donations from PACs.

Now up at #WeThePeople19: @ewarren.

“This is a perilous time for our country,” she says. “The Trump administration is a walking, talking, living, breathing threat to national security.”

.@ewarren ignores the #WeThePeople19 organizers’ attempts to end her stump speech early with music, ends up earning a standing ovation.

Warren gets a question about private immigration detention from a high school student whose mother has TPS.

“Private prisons have no place in the American criminal justice system,” she says.

.@ewarren encourages the activists in the crowd to ask candidates in the primary “where their money comes from.”

Then talks about her decision to bypass high-dollar fundraisers and call time.

#wethepeople2019

Warren, who is trailing in fundraising, encourages the crowd to go to her website.

“We have to show them that building a campaign from the grassroots up can work in America in 2020.”

Warren got the biggest ovation of any of the candidates so far at #WeThePeople19.

But @BernieSanders is up now, and the crowd was buzzing as he was introduced.

At #WeThePeople19, Bernie says adding justices to the Supreme Court isn’t the “ultimate solution” because Republicans would just do the same when they win back power.

Says he’s open to rotating judges between the Supreme Court and appeals courts.

.@BernieSanders says he wants to make Election Day a national holiday.

.@JayInslee on stage now at #WeThePeople19, gets applause for noting union employment is up 10 percent in Washington state.