[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 53 (Thursday, May 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     CONGRESSIONAL GIFTS REFORM ACT

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will now resume consideration 
of S. 1935, the gift ban bill, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1935) to prohibit lobbyists and their clients 
     from providing to legislative branch officials certain gifts, 
     meals, entertainment, reimbursements, or loans, and to place 
     limits on and require disclosure by lobbyists of certain 
     expenditures.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:

       McConnell amendment No. 1674, in the nature of a 
     substitute.

  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I intend to support the McConnell-
Johnston-Inouye substitute. I have given the Wellstone and Levin 
proposals very serious consideration.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Would the Senator allow the Chair to 
interrupt?
  There is a time agreement in effect, and the pending question is 
amendment No. 1674 offered by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. 
McConnell], on which there is up to 3\1/2\ hours for debate, with a 
vote to occur in relation thereto at 1:30 p.m. today.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Is the bill open 
to debate right now under the time limit set?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The bill is open to debate just now.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Will the debate continue until 1 p.m. this afternoon?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Until 1:30, but the time is on the 
amendment by Mr. McConnell.
  Mr. BUMPERS. The time has expired on that?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time limit is 3\1/2\ hours.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Who controls the remaining time, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The offeror of the amendment, Mr. 
McConnell, and the manager of the bill, Mr. Levin, controls the time in 
opposition.
  Mr. BUMPERS. How much time does Mr. McConnell control at this point?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. One-half of the 3\1/2\ hours.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Does Senator Johnston control any time?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. He does not.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The absence of a quorum has been 
suggested. Will the Senator ask that the time not be charged against 
either side?
  Mr. BUMPERS. With the time not to be charged to either side.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator makes that request. Without 
objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kohl). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to proceed for not to exceed 5 minutes, with the time charged 
to the offeror of the amendment, the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. 
McConnell].
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, as I was about to say a moment ago, I 
intend to support the McConnell-Johnston-Inouye amendment. It is a 
rather tough decision from a political point, and I had not made up my 
mind until I heard the Senator from Kentucky make his presentation 
yesterday afternoon, which I thought was excellent.
  The two or three things he said that resonated with me were: First, I 
feel that both the Wellstone and Levin amendments are impossibly 
complex. Second, they lay a minefield, which will almost certainly 
entrap some innocent Senators. And, third, as I say, I think it 
trivializes the Senate to be engaged in a debate, for example, as the 
Senator from Kentucky said, about whether you can have a donut with 
coffee, or is the donut really a bagel. The Ethics Committee, in my 
opinion, because of the tremendous number of unanswered questions about 
these amendments would probably have to hire about 10 more people, as 
the Senator from Kentucky said, and would become a clearinghouse for 
almost supercilious and silly questions.
  Any Senator that is not prepared to read the headlines in tomorrow's 
paper, should the McConnell-Johnston amendment be adopted, that says 
``Senate Refuses to Give up Free Meals,'' should not vote for the 
McConnell amendment. I know precisely how it is going to be reported. I 
have been in the Senate for 19\1/2\ years now, and I did not just fall 
off a turnip truck. I know exactly how the press all over the United 
States will treat this.
  But, Mr. President, what is ``personal hospitality''--it is not 
defined. Then consider that a lobbyist can walk into your office and 
hand you a $5,000 check from a PAC and you say, ``Thank you very much, 
this is a big boost to my campaign,'' and then he says, ``How about 
taking you to lunch?'' And you say, ``That's fine, I'll be glad to go 
to lunch with you, but I'll buy my own lunch.'' It is OK to take 
$5,000, but not a lunch or dinner, the cost of which might exceed $20. 
Even so, he is going to charge off his lunch, and you cannot. There is 
nothing wrong with that. I am just making a couple of points here.
  The catfish farmers of my State, who take great pride in the 
tremendous advances they have made toward providing better nutritious 
meals in this country through catfish aquaculture, come to the Senate 
every year at the invitation of Senator Pryor and myself. We invite the 
staff and Senators to come and have a free catfish lunch.
  This year, about 40 Senators took advantage of our hospitality. That 
catfish lunch probably cost the Arkansas Catfish Farmers Association a 
whopping sum of $5 per person for those who ate there. It is a great 
time. It is a great time to socialize. It is a great time for Arkansas, 
which has had its share of hits recently, to say to the United States 
Senate: ``Here is a product that we produce in great abundance in our 
State. It's a wonderful product.'' Not one single Senator is ever asked 
to do anything for the catfish industry. It is just a happy occasion. 
That will come to an end.

  Senator Pryor sponsors a golf tournament in Texarkana, AR. The 
$100,000 raised, going to a very fine charitable organization there in 
which 1,400 to 1,800 volunteers participate because they love that 
program so much. No longer. It is a principal source of funding for a 
program that does a lot for children in Texarkana, AR. Senator Pryor 
will not be able to do that anymore.
  If the Chamber of Commerce comes to town and they host a dinner, I do 
not know whether I would be permitted to go or not. Possibly I could. 
But if their paid lobbyists were there and the National Chamber of 
Commerce was picking up the tab, I would probably be in violation.
  I went to an embassy for dinner recently.
  Mr. President, is my time about to expire? I ask unanimous consent 
that I be permitted to proceed for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I assume that the Ambassador invited me because they get 
foreign aid from the United States. Nobody mentioned it. But that 
dinner would be permissible under the Wellstone-Levin proposals, and I 
assure you those situations can be much more heavy-handed than dinner 
with a lobbyist. Go to any embassy in town--and I have never been to an 
embassy where a really opulent dinner, the finest wines, the finest 
everything was not served and that is permitted under the Levin and 
Wellstone proposals.
  So, Mr. President, I could go on. The Senator from Kentucky covered 
the whole gamut yesterday of how this does, indeed, trivialize the 
Senate. If you want to abolish all gifts, I could not care less. But 
this does nothing for the Senate. A lot of people in America will find 
themselves rather contemptuous of this feeble effort. But more people 
in the press and probably across the country will say, ``I wonder what 
those guys have been into that they have to devise a bill like this.''
  I hate to say this because it sounds a little self-serving, but my 
secretary keeps the Rules Committee and the Ethics Committee on auto 
dial now. And I suspect that most Senators here could make the same 
statement. Everybody is afraid to breathe. And I can only imagine what 
it would be like if either of these amendments become law.
  Somebody said to me the other day, ``Nobody has come up to me and 
said, `Senator, we are really proud of you all for cutting your office 
budget by about 25 percent.'''
  You do not do that because you expect adulation and praise of your 
constituents. You do it because you really need to do it. If you are 
interested in getting the deficit under control, it is no problem to 
vote for something like that. But when you pass an amendment such as 
this, or something closely akin to it, impossible to comply with, you 
are just laying a mine field. And sheer inadvertence could cost a 
Senator a fine of $200,000.
  All I am saying is I hope Senators will think very long and hard 
about whether they vote for this. I do not have a dog in the fight. If 
a majority of the Members of the Senate decide to pass either one of 
these amendments, I will do my very best to comply.
  I will tell you one thing about it that I do like. It will save me 
from going to those interminable, insufferably dull black tie dinners 
downtown. So far as I know, the Democratic National Committee and the 
Republican National Committee may not be able to have their annual 
fundraisers downtown in the future. In the past, that has been their 
principal source of money. And in the future, when somebody from some 
industry in Arkansas--if it is a lobbyist--says, ``I would like to take 
you and Betty to such and such a dinner and I have paid $3,000 for the 
tickets,'' I can say, ``No, we are going to stay home and watch 
Discovery and A&E tonight,'' which everybody knows is a lot more 
enjoyable, and I will have a perfect excuse.

  And all the people of this country, like the people in Texarkana, who 
depend on the David Pryor Golf Tournament for funding, tell them the 
cause is noble but we are really sorry about this.
  I did not intend to even speak on this because it is not the sort of 
thing I feel comfortable even talking about, but there comes a time 
when the people of the Senate ought to stand up and say enough is 
enough.
  If you want to abolish all gifts, you will run into some clumsy 
affairs, too, but that is better than these amendments.
  And I have never been on a trip abroad when the chairman of the 
delegation did not take a lot of gifts, not worth much, just gestures 
to hand to our host. And yet when people from foreign countries walk in 
my office and hand me something that is made in their country of a 
value of $10 or $15 or whatever it is, you would feel guilty saying, 
``I am going to have to check the value of that before I can accept 
it.'' You would not do that. You might send it back but you would not 
reject it. I do not think anybody would gratuitously insult somebody in 
their office when they were trying to hand them just a token of their 
appreciation.
  Well, I will not belabor the point any further, Mr. President, but I 
intend to vote for the McConnell-Johnston proposal, and I applaud them 
for trying to deal with what is admittedly something of a difficult 
problem, but I think their amendment deals with the problem 10 times 
more sensibly. Senator Levin and Senator Wellstone know that they are 
two people for whom I have great respect. I just happen to have a very 
strong disagreement with them on this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Michigan 
[Mr. Levin].
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, about a year ago this body went on record 
overwhelmingly--I think it was a vote of 98 to 1--as follows:

       It is the sense of the Senate that as soon as possible 
     during this year's session the Senate should limit the 
     acceptance of gifts, meals and travel by Members and staff in 
     a manner substantially similar to the restrictions applicable 
     to executive branch officials.

  Every one of us but one voted to adopt rules that are substantially 
similar to the restrictions applicable to executive branch officials. 
Those rules applicable to those officials, Cabinet officers, staff, all 
are covered by basically a $20 rule for gifts.
  The reason they were established is that the President decided that 
we can no longer do business as usual in Washington; that when 
lobbyists take us out to dinner, when lobbyists give us tickets to the 
Redskins games, and when we go on these so-called charitable golf 
outings, which we see all the time on television, where people, Members 
of Congress, go a couple days playing golf or tennis, half the money 
maybe ends up going to charity and the other half ends up going to pay 
for recreation for Members of Congress, that undermines confidence in 
Congress and in the Government.
  Ninety-eight of us said almost exactly a year ago that we want to do 
something about that. And a little longer than a year ago the President 
said that we have to do something about that and adopted executive 
branch rules.
  Now, we basically have three options, which is whether we want to do 
business as usual, whether we want to continue the situation where you 
have those kinds of outings that are paid for by corporate sponsors and 
where lobbyists attend--they are all over the place lobbying people who 
come there from Congress to have a couple days' recreation, that is the 
so-called charitable trips--or whether we want to change this system. 
And if we want to change it, we have a couple of options. One was just 
mentioned by my dear friend from Arkansas--abolish all gifts. We could 
do that.
  But I think everybody realizes that you are going to eliminate 
certain things which by common sense and most of our constituents would 
agree are acceptable: Gifts from your family, gifts from close personal 
friends that you have known all your life, going to widely attended 
events, gifts of small amounts of food. Those kind of things are in the 
executive branch rule--gifts from back home products. My friend from 
Arkansas talked about a lunch. Here, indeed, in the committee-passed 
bill, there is a committee-passed substitute. There is a provision that 
allows you to accept products from back home and to distribute those to 
your colleagues.
  I think it is a sensible exception. The Governmental Affairs 
Committee thought it was a sensible exception; to have an exception for 
products that you get from back home, and that you distribute to your 
colleagues. Do we want to try to carve out those kind of exceptions? I 
think we do because I think they are reasonable, they are acceptable, 
they are understandable, and I think the public supports them.
  So there are a number of exceptions. But sure, every time you start 
designing exceptions, then the people are going to be able to say how 
do you define this and how do you define that? We do what we think is a 
reasonable job inside the bill of making the kind of distinctions and 
exceptions which are important so that we can function here in a 
reasonable way.
  I had a lot of problems with the bill that was originally introduced 
by Senators Lautenberg, Wellstone, and Feingold. This substitute which 
was adopted by the Governmental Affairs Committee is very different 
from the original bill. I went through some of those differences 
yesterday. Let me tell you where the Governmental Affairs Committee 
ended up.
  The committee-passed substitute, which is tough, rational, and we 
think straightforward, does the following: as far as gifts from 
lobbyists are concerned, these are the people who are required to 
register as paid lobbyists under the bill which passed this Senate. 
Members and staff would be prohibited from accepting gifts from 
registered lobbyists with an exception for gifts from relatives and 
close personal friends.
  What about everybody else other than lobbyists? This is a general 
statement of the Governmental Affairs bill, which is the substitute 
before us. Here is what it provides. Members and staff would be 
permitted to accept gifts of up to $20 from any source other than a 
registered lobbyist. Gifts in excess of $20 could be accepted from 
relatives or close personal friends, and in the form of meals and 
entertainment, and in a Member's home State, subject to higher limits 
to be established by the Rules Committee, and widely attended events 
which the Member believes to be part of his or her duty. That is a 
general description of the kind of gifts which are acceptable.
  Travel: Members and staff would be permitted to accept reimbursement 
for travel expenses from anybody other than a registered lobbyist if 
the travel is related to official business, and is not substantially 
recreational in nature. If a Member of Congress believes that the 
travel is related to official business, is not substantially 
recreational in nature, that travel can be paid for by anyone other 
than a registered lobbyist.
  So if you are invited by an association to come out and make a speech 
to that association, that travel can be paid for, providing it is not a 
recreational trip, providing its purpose in the judgment of the Member 
is related to official business.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield at that point?
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. The actual wording is not that the trip is not 
substantially recreational, but that the activities as part of the trip 
are not substantially recreational, which I think is a significant 
difference because you can have a serious trip that has substantial 
recreational activities connected with it, and it would be prohibited, 
which is simply to point out the difficulty of trying to define these 
things without setting a lot of traps for Senators.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, what surprises me about the point here is 
that it is the same point that the Senator from Louisiana made last 
night; is that in his substitute the same language appears. In his 
amendment, the Johnston amendment, you have the same exception. On page 
6, line 19, exceptions provided in subparagraph (e), the event or 
activities of which are substantially recreational, shall not be 
considered to be directly related to the official duties of a Member, 
officer, or employee.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. A charity is permitted.
  Mr. LEVIN. That is not the point the Senator made last night. It is 
not the point the Senator is making this morning. What the Senator is 
describing is when I describe something which is substantially 
recreational as not being considered to be directly related to the 
official duties of a Member, the Senator said last night, ``Well, my 
gosh. What happens if you go 4 hours here in the morning to seminars, 
what happens if you go to 3 hours to play golf in the afternoon, and 
what happens if you have dinner with a lobbyist in the evening?'' The 
words in the Senator's amendment to this committee bill are exactly 
the same. They are precisely the same.

  I agree that the Senator has a different rule when it comes to the 
charitable trips. I agree with that. But we are not talking about that. 
The Senator last night spent a great deal of time on noncharitable 
travel pointing out, How can you possibly define what is substantially 
recreational? What does that mean? The Senator said, if you go 3 hours 
in the morning to the seminars and so forth, how do you then make that 
distinction as to whether or not it is substantially recreational? To 
which I must respond that is what the amendment provides, his 
amendment. The Senator from Louisiana, and the Senator from Kentucky 
have the same language.
  You talk about problems of definition. Sure there are problems of 
definition. There is risk any time you try to come up with something 
which is common sense and reasonable. The easiest thing in the world is 
just have a flatout ban on all gifts. That is understandable. It does 
not make any sense but it is understandable; that you cannot take a 
gift from your wife if she happens to be a registered lobbyist or your 
best friend back home cannot have you over to dinner next door if that 
person is on a board which has used a lobbyist in the last 6 months. 
That is easy to understand. You cannot go to your friend's house for 
dinner. Does that make sense? Is that the way we want to live? I do not 
think so.
  So the committee substitute provides some commonsense exceptions. You 
can take products from back home. The catfish lunch which we all enjoy 
from our dear, dear friends from Arkansas, we not only love going out 
to have lunch with them, we love them. That should not have to stop, 
and it does not stop under the committee substitute. Those back-home 
products can be distributed by Members to their colleagues and the 
staff.
  But in terms of definition, my gosh, if we look at the amendment of 
the Senator from Louisiana, that amendment has the same definitional 
problem when it comes to trips other than the charitable trips. But to 
the ordinary trips, where you are going to make a speech somewhere, and 
then there is recreation involved in it or you are going to a seminar 
somewhere and there is recreation in the afternoon, the Senator's 
amendment, which is the pending amendment, has the same definition as 
we do in our bill. The same definition that he attacks is present in 
his own amendment.
  Mr. President, I failed to yield myself time. I want to know how much 
time have I used.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used approximately 12 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself an additional 5 minutes, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, as I started to say just about a year ago tomorrow, we 
voted 98 to 1 to support a resolution to amend the Senate gift rules to 
make them ``substantially similar to restrictions applicable to 
executive branch officials.'' That is what this committee-passed bill 
attempts to do. The executive branch has a $20 gift limit. The 
committee-passed bill has a $20 gift limit. The rule is exception for 
personal friendship and relations. The committee-passed bill has 
exceptions for personal friendship and family relations. The executive 
branch rules have an exception for small amounts of food; minimal 
amounts including, yes, coffee and doughnuts as examples of what is 
just minimal amounts of food.
  That was taken from an executive branch rule which has been in effect 
longer than a year. It has not created any problems. Does that 
trivialize us or give us some guidance as to what is going to be 
acceptable or not? What is an exception to a general rule and what is 
not? If we do not want to change the rules, if we want to keep the 
system where lobbyists can give us the tickets, and they can be out on 
those charitable golf outings and so forth, if we do not want to change 
that, if we want to continue to see the shows on Prime Time and 60 
Minutes and so forth, then we should do nothing. But 98 to 1 said we 
want to do this differently; 98 of us said a year ago that we want to 
adopt strict gift rules, and we want some exception. We want some 
commonsense exceptions, and we have tried to follow those in the 
committee-passed bill. Yes. We have an exception for broadly attended 
events just like the executive branch has an exception for broadly 
attended events.
  It was the opinion of the committee that the original bill that was 
introduced by Senators Lautenberg, and others, was unworkable and went 
too far. The original bill for instance would have made it practically 
impossible for you to go to a dinner at your neighbor's house. You 
could not go to a barbecue next door without finding out, first, 
whether the person sponsoring that barbecue back home in your 
neighborhood was on some board which had used a lobbyist in the last 6 
months. In fact, could that person be on more than one board? The 
person might be on 2 or 3 boards; on the Cancer Society board. He might 
be on the board of a bank. You would have to check all the boards that 
neighbor was on. And then all of the entities that had used a lobbyist 
in the last 6 months would have to notify you that they would disclose 
the fact that you went to that barbecue in your neighborhood. That was 
unworkable. There were no distinctions that were adequate, that were 
necessary, in order that we could live a reasonable, reasonably 
sensible life. And so the committee passed a substitute, which has the 
executive branch-type limits in it, as this body voted 98-1 that it 
wanted to do last year. And it is that substitute which is before this 
body, and which the Johnston amendment, in turn, would be a substitute 
for.

  Mr. President, I think we have to change the rules--not just the 
punishment, but change the rules. The substitute purports to have 
stiffer punishment and, in some cases, that may be appropriate. But 
that is not really the issue. The issue is whether we are going to 
toughen the rules on gifts. The committee substitute does it in a way 
which is reasonable, we think, and straightforward. We could have 
adopted a very general standard, as the current rule provides, by the 
way. We talked about definitional problems. The current gifts rule 
provides that the Ethics Committee can waive the rules in unusual 
cases. And so there is now, as my good friend from Arkansas says, a 
hotline going to the Ethics Committee right now, and he is right. Right 
now the Ethics Committee is bombarded with questions as to what is an 
unusual case.
  We could have written a bill which says there is a $20 gift rule, 
except in unusual cases. And then everybody would bombard the Ethics 
Committee to figure out if it is an unusual case to go to a friend's 
home, who is a close personal friend. Is personal friendship an unusual 
case? You talk about bombarding the Ethics Committee. The easy thing to 
do is just write in that you can get waivers in unusual cases. We chose 
not to do that and to do what this Senate said a year ago by 98 votes; 
it said to adopt executive branch rules and exceptions. That is what 
the committee substitute purported to do.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, just a couple of brief observations, 
and then there are a couple of speakers on this side who would like to 
be heard.
  I listened to at least part of the comments of my friend from 
Michigan this morning, suggesting that the Senate and executive branch 
would have the same standards. I gather that the Senator from Michigan 
has changed his opinion, because I have previously heard him say that 
he did not think the Senate and executive branch should have the same 
rules. If I make a mistake here, I will be happy to say that. I thought 
I heard him say in earlier discussions--maybe not on the floor--that 
this same rule would not be workable as applied to the 
Senate. Nevertheless, I gather that is his position now.

  I think it is important to remember, Mr. President, what this issue 
is about. Plain and simply, as vice chairman of the Ethics Committee, I 
can say it is a certainty, an absolute certainty, as surely as the sun 
will rise tomorrow, that if the Levin-Wellstone proposal passes, at 
least one Senator's reputation will be permanently destroyed, and his 
career ended over something as trivial as a $25 gift, within 6 months 
of passage of this bill. Let me repeat that. It is a virtual certainty, 
I can tell you as vice chairman of the Ethics Committee, that if the 
Wellstone-Levin proposal passes, someone in this body will lose his or 
her reputation and career within 6 months over something as trivial as 
a $25 gift.
  That is what this amendment is about. That is the issue before us 
here today. We will keep coming back to that over the next 3 hours, and 
I hope everybody will think that through as they decide how to vote on 
this proposal. At least one Member of this body will have his or her 
career ruined within 6 months if this proposal passes. The Senator from 
Arkansas said that he had his telephone on automatic dial to the Ethics 
Committee now, and he was asking what would he have to do under 
Wellstone-Levin. The answer: A full-time lawyer in everybody's office, 
and a tripling of the size of the current Ethics Committee staff to 
deal with the gift issue.
  That is what we are dealing with here, Mr. President, the 
trivialization and demeaning of the Senate, the ruining of reputations 
over nothing. That is what this is about. That is what we will be 
voting on at 1:30. We have several speakers here.
  I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to compliment Senators Johnston 
and McConnell for their leadership, because this is not an easy issue 
to lead on. It is one that has a lot of people feeling uncomfortable 
and uncertain on what we should be doing.
  I look at their proposal and substitute and I see that they are 
trying to tighten up on existing law. I think that is a step in the 
right direction.
  I might mention that we have done a lot in the area of reform. There 
is a lot of talk about congressional self flagellation, but we have 
made significant improvements in a lot of areas. I have been involved 
in some of those fights. We have tightened down, for example, the 
amount of franked mail. We mail today probably about 25 or 30 percent 
the amount of mail that was going out per Senator and per Congressman 
just 6 or 7 years ago. We did it because we made some reforms and said 
we have to disclose mail costs on an individual basis. We are required 
to disclose mailings on a frequent basis, and that helps get 
congressional mailing costs down.
  Many of us have been working to try and make sure that Congress lives 
under the laws like everybody else in America, like the private sector 
has to do. Hopefully, we will have success in finally making that 
happen. We have made some progress in that area, and legislation was 
recently introduced by Senator Grassley, Senator Lieberman, myself, and 
others, to take further steps in that direction. I compliment those 
Senators for that effort.
  We have made steps in eliminating perks that the public perceived as 
unacceptable. Well, the Senators had a free gym. Now they get to pay 
$40 or $50 a month for that privilege to have a gym. Some people 
complained about the price charged for haircuts. We do not have cheap 
haircuts anymore. I guess that is what some perceive as progress. Now 
we are charged $50 a month for a doctor whether you use the doctor or 
not. Frankly, I discontinued this. I did not think it was worth paying 
$50 a month for a doctor here in the Capitol, in addition to the 
private insurance purchased by Members, whether a Member sees the 
doctor or not. I do not think that is a good deal.
  I think the proposal of my friend and colleague, the Senator from 
Michigan, goes too far. I am not an expert, and I compliment my friend 
from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, and Senator Johnston, and other 
people, who looked at this proposal in greater depth than I have. I see 
things in it that I think are going too far, for example, banning the 
direction of honorariums to different charities. I happen to think that 
is a good idea. What is wrong if you are making a speech or being a 
participant on a panel and everyone on that panel is getting honoraria? 
What is wrong with directing your honoraria to a charity? I think that 
happens to be a good idea.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield at this time?
  Mr. NICKLES. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Did the Senator know that in the last 2 years the 
Senate gave $1.3 million to charity on these direct fees?
  Mr. NICKLES. I was not aware of that. I appreciate the information 
from the Senator from Louisiana. All I know is what I have done, and I 
have done it in several cases I think to good charities. I know from 
the Senator's evidence or his statement of fact that a lot of people 
are doing it. I happen to think that is very positive. I do not think 
it should be banned. I do not think there is any influence peddling in 
the process. In fact, the money does not go to the Senator's bank 
account. You ask someone to send the charity the check. Maybe you get 
credit for it or not. I do not think charity giving of honoraria should 
be banned.
  I will confess. I am going to make a confession. I play golf, which 
is a terrible crime, I understand. And I participate in charity golf 
tournaments. I played in one recently that was raising money for 
Christian Fellowship. I think it is a great charity, a great cause to 
help a lot of people. I participated in other golf tournaments that 
raised money for good charities. People usually just invite you. They 
say, ``We would like you to come.'' Yes, they invite politicians, 
athletes, media people and other people that they think might have the 
draw. But they are encouraging people to come to contribute to the 
American Cancer Society, the Heart Institute, you name it, lots of 
charities.
  As I understand this proposal, those charity events will be banned if 
a lobbyist participates, and who in the world knows whether or not 
lobbyists participate. You get an invitation would you cohost, would 
you join, would you attend a function, and you do not know if lobbyists 
are sponsoring it or not. All you know is that they are good causes. 
You want to help. They want to use you as a drawing card, or whatever. 
And those will be banned.
  My friend from Arkansas, Senator Pryor, who I think very highly of, 
has a charity golf tournament in Texarkana in August when the 
temperature is about 100 degrees. I have not made it yet. I tell him 
every year that I am going to try to make the tournament because he 
raises money for charities in Arkansas.
  I happen to think that is a good cause. If I can join him in helping 
that cause, I am happy to do it. That would be banned, as I understand.
  I keep looking at these other things. For example, I had a group of 
constituents that were in last Monday. I had a group of constituents 
that came in from Shawnee, OK, this week and they come in about once a 
year. The group is made up of the city leaders, the chamber of 
commerce, and other businesses. They want to talk about economic 
development and what can we do for the community, and so on. They ask 
me to go to lunch. I could not work it in my schedule, but they did 
take a staff member to lunch. That is banned.
  The Oklahoma Grocers come up every year, and I have had lunch with 
them. Again, is this some big lobbying group? I guess they are 
registered as a lobbyist. I do not know. I guess they are. But the 
Oklahoma Grocers come in and we might go out and have lunch. I do not 
consider that a criminal activity. Yet it would be banned.
  Again, I am afraid that the Levin proposal that we have before us 
goes too far. I might mention it seems to be very inconsistent, as I 
see it that you cannot have lunch. But if you charge $1,000 a ticket 
the lobbyist can come and you can have lunch. Or you cannot have 
dinner. But if you charge $1,000 a ticket or $500 a ticket you can have 
dinner. I do not think that makes sense.
  I think that the proposal that the Senators from Kentucky and 
Louisiana have come up with has penalties for people who abuse the 
system, and people who are abusing the system should be punished. But I 
do not think that frankly we should be punishing someone for going out 
to lunch with their constituents.
  I might mention, too, the fact that we are trying to make Congress 
live under the laws like everybody else. I came from the private 
sector. I know the Presiding Officer came from the private sector. And 
we took customers out to lunch. I did not see anything corrupt or 
illegal in that activity. Yes, you happened to be together at meal 
time, and so you would have a meal together. And there is nothing 
corrupt in that. To imply that is the case I think is a mistake.
  Mr. McCONNELL. On the point the Senator raises of having lunch with 
the Oklahoma Grocers, the Senator from Oklahoma under the Wellstone-
Levin proposal could have his career and reputation shattered over 
having lunch with the Oklahoma Grocers.
  So the example my friend from Oklahoma has raised here illustrates 
the point that I intend to repeat off and on for the next 3 hours, 
which is that someone in this body within 6 months of passage of Levin-
Wellstone is going to have his or her career and reputation destroyed 
over something like having lunch with the Oklahoma Grocers.
  I commend my friend from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate the statement of my friend from Kentucky, 
and I have said what I have to say, Mr. President. I think we do need 
to use some common sense on this issue.
  I am afraid that the Levin proposal that we have without the 
substitute goes too far. I compliment Senator Johnston and Senator 
McConnell because I think they do have a good proposal that does 
tighten up abuse and restricts the amount of gifts without hurting 
charities.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. If the Senator will yield 10 minutes that will be 
fine.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized for 
10 minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I think I will let Senator Levin, the 
Senator from Michigan, respond to some of what has been said on the 
floor because this is, after all, the Levin amendment. This comes out 
of Governmental Affairs Committee. It is sort of the age-old debate 
tactic, I guess, to sort of attack strawmen.
  Some of what Senators have been saying about what they would not be 
able to do is simply not consistent with what Senator Levin introduced. 
This comes out of the Governmental Affairs Committee.
  Some of us wanted to push for more. Senator Levin has fashioned a 
compromise and, as Senator Levin has said, and I think colleagues need 
to understand this--I mean not that long ago the Senate went on record 
by some 98 votes essentially supporting exactly what the Senator from 
Michigan has brought to the floor today.
  I do not want to focus on the initiative that Senator Levin has 
presented to us but rather I want to focus on the substitute amendment, 
and I just simply want to say to colleagues, since the Senator from 
Kentucky talked about demeaning the process or something like that, 
that I believe that what Senator Levin has presented here is reasonable 
and important. But I think this substitute amendment that has been 
introduced by the Senator from Kentucky and Senator from Louisiana is 
just simply an effort to derail any reform effort.
  Under this amendment, lobbyists and other special interests can pay 
for unlimited and undisclosed meals for Members and staff in 
Washington's most expensive restaurants, period. Let me repeat that. My 
colleagues say that they fear that people around the country will 
wonder what we are up to. Why do not we let go of some of this? We do 
not need it. The only reason people wonder what we are up to is if in 
fact Senators support this amendment which so clearly derails any kind 
of really good reform. Under this amendment lobbyists and other special 
interests can pay for unlimited and undisclosed meals for Members and 
staff in Washington's most expensive restaurants.
  That is what we are going to be voting on. If Senators have concerns 
about what the Senator from Michigan has presented here, they can 
introduce amendments.
  But that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about an 
amendment that Senators have to vote on up or down. This is the 
McConnell-Johnston amendment which would allow lobbyists and other 
special interests to pay for unlimited and undisclosed meals for 
Members and staff in Washington's most expensive restaurants.
  And what people say is, ``Boy, nobody does that for us. Why do they 
need it?''
  Why do we hold on to this? You want to change the public perception, 
or you wonder why people are so concerned, then you certainly do not 
want to vote for this amendment. This amendment would allow lobbyists 
and other special interests to continue to distribute to Members and 
staff free tickets to football, baseball, and other sporting events and 
Broadway shows and other entertainment events.
  And people in Louisiana, and Kentucky and Texas and Minnesota and 
Michigan and Maine say, ``People don't come up to us and give us these 
kinds of free tickets to all these sporting events. Why do they feel 
like they need it?''
  It is just that simple. If we are worried about the perception, why 
do we not let this go? We do not need it. Why do we not pass this Levin 
reform effort that the Senator from Michigan has spoken about, that the 
Senator from Maine has spoken about? Why are we even considering the 
substitute amendment, which so clearly weakens all of this? It just is 
not going to pass the credibility test.
  Among other things, this amendment would give Members and staff an 
unlimited number of gifts, if under $75 per gift. Overall, there is a 
$150 limit, but if it is under $75 someone can give you that over and 
over and over and over again and it does not count toward the $150 
limit. Now, if my colleagues think this passes the credibility test 
with people in the country, they are wrong.
  This is not a reform effort. There are huge loopholes here. And I 
cannot for the life of me understand why we do not let go of this.
  My colleagues say we should be debating more important issues; this 
is not even important; let us get on with our work. If it is not so 
important, what is this opposition to what the Senator from Michigan 
has presented to us, which is such a reasonable compromise? Why the 
substitute amendment, which guts the reform effort, which allows 
lobbyists and other special interests to pay for unlimited and 
undisclosed meals for Members and staff in most expensive restaurants--
we do not need that--which allows them to continue to distribute to 
Members and staff free tickets to baseball and football games and other 
entertainment--we not need that--which allows people to give unlimited 
gifts, if under $75?
  This is not a reform amendment. It is not credible.
  Let us deal with that perception out in the country. Let us pass a 
good reform effort, and let us do something that will make us proud. 
That is what Senator Levin has presented.
  So I certainly hope that colleagues will vote no on the McConnell-
Johnston amendment. It is not a reform. It guts what the Senator from 
Michigan has presented. And I think we will not be doing ourselves well 
with the public, or in terms of what we can do as men and women who 
care about this institution, to vote for such an amendment.

  Finally, I go back to the beginning. We voted, 98 of us voted, for a 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution for exactly what Senator Levin has 
presented today. Talk about trying to dance at two weddings at the same 
time. It is fine to go on record when it is a sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution, then we will not really have to do anything. Now the 
Senator from Michigan presents a credible reform effort, coming right 
out of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and we have the substitute 
amendment which essentially rips it apart. Colleagues, if they are 
serious about reform and respond to the concerns of people in our 
country, will vote no on the McConnell-Johnston amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Texas 10 
minutes, or whatever time she may desire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for up to 
10 minutes.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I would like to talk about something that really has 
not been talked about by very many people in this debate. 
Unfortunately, it is because not very many people in this body have had 
the experience that I have.
  I am very glad that not many people in this body have ever known the 
horrors of malicious prosecution. When I came back from an ordeal that 
was the worst of life's experiences, people said, ``Make a personal 
privilege speech. Talk about it.'' I said, ``No, there is no need to 
talk about it. It is behind me. There is nothing good that can come 
from it.'' So I really did not say much.
  But I am standing here today because the underlying bill, if it 
passes without the McConnell-Johnston substitute, will allow what 
happened to me to happen to others--in fact, it will encourage it. I do 
not want that to happen to a Democrat or a Republican ever again in 
this country.
  I can honestly say that I have been through the worst that our 
political system has to offer, and I stood, and I took it. I stood 
strong for several reasons, because when you are attacked you do it for 
several reasons. You do it for your personal integrity, first. But you 
also do it for a bigger cause. The bigger cause is so that other 
potentially malicious district attorneys around this country will not 
think that they can change the results of an election by harassing 
someone in public service.
  I do not want to encourage the misuse of prosecutorial powers again 
in Texas or anywhere in this country. And that is what this bill will 
do if the substitute is not adopted.
  I can tell you it was the worst experience of my life and I can tell 
you I do not want any of my colleagues--not one--to ever, ever go 
through what I did.
  If the Levin-Wellstone amendment had been in effect, I could not have 
stood for the principle or for my personal integrity because I could 
not have afforded to defend myself.
  The bill effectively prohibits legal defense funds. By limiting all 
gifts to $20, it would render legal defense funds impossible. That 
means that unless you are personally wealthy, unless you can afford 
hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees--which is what it takes 
if you are in the big leagues--political enemies, who happen to be 
prosecutors or aligned with malicious prosecutors, will know that you 
are an easy prey.
  One of the tactics of a corrupt district attorney might be to convict 
someone. But it also might be to drag a person through the mud just to 
bring a series of charges, and then offer a plea bargain: If you will 
not run for office again, I will drop the charges.
  It takes a lot of stamina and a lot of strength to stand firm when 
you know that you are innocent. But it also takes financial resources 
that most regular people cannot afford. Most people in public life 
cannot afford to run for an election and then have a prosecution with 
their personal funds, and it could run into millions of dollars.
  Mr. President, this is my legal defense report that I just filed. It 
has the names of over 6,000 Americans from all 50 States --people 
mostly that I did not know, that knew what was happening to me was 
wrong and they wanted to help me get through it.
  The average contribution was $116. Without the support of my many 
friends and the wonderful public-spirited strangers, the district 
attorney in Texas would have known that he probably could, indeed, 
would have changed the results of my election; that he could have wiped 
out the will of the people by using the legal system and hundreds of 
thousands of taxpayer dollars to persecute a person who could not 
possibly defend herself because she lacked the personal resources to 
fight the system.
  The district attorney in my case spent months using the resources of 
his office. He hired pollsters. He hired jury selection experts. He 
convened mock trials. With a $20 gift limitation, I could not have 
stayed in that hardball game. There is no way.

  But because I did have the supporters and people all over this 
country who did not like what they saw, they stood with me, and I was 
able to stand and bring integrity back into the political system in my 
State.
  If we pass the amendment today, instead of the substitute, you are 
going to ask for prosecutors all over this country to be emboldened to 
use their offices for political purposes because they are going to know 
that Members of Congress are basically defenseless. If this passes, 
rather than the McConnell-Johnston substitute, you could change the 
nature of our political system right here today. You will inject 
criminal prosecution into politics as sure as we are standing here. And 
if a person stands against the establishment, as I did, the price they 
may have to pay is that they will wake up every morning, wondering: 
Could I be bankrupted because I stood against the establishment in my 
State and defended myself against trumped-up charges that threatened 20 
years or more in prison? Is that what you want?
  Do you think that is what Americans want? Do you think Americans want 
the debacle of seeing criminal prosecutions creep into our political 
system? I think the American people are sick of the dirty politics. 
They want to talk about health care. They want to talk about crime. 
They want to talk about what is affecting them in mandates and 
regulations and taxes. They do not want politics to get so dirty that 
we are talking about whether somebody used a telephone to call a 
supporter and is now facing a prison term for doing it.
  This bill has a lot in it that I do not think my distinguished 
colleagues, Mr. Levin and Mr. Wellstone, really meant. Their motives 
are worthy, but I could not let us vote on this bill without giving my 
colleagues the benefit of a viewpoint that not very many people in this 
body have and not very many people could speak to. And I hope that 
remains the case. But if we pass this bill without the McConnell-
Johnston substitute, I shudder to think what you-all, my colleagues 
from all over the country, may face.
  The McConnell-Johnston substitute is reform. It is real reform 
because it puts teeth in our ethics laws, but it will not keep Members 
of Congress from being able to defend themselves against charges like 
every other American has the right to do.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will certainly yield to the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, regarding applicability of the Levin 
substitute to legal expense trust funds. Senate Resolution 508 provides 
for the establishment of and contributions to legal expense trust funds 
by Senators--notwithstanding the provisions of the Senate gift rule.
  Therefore, the sponsor of the substitute is at least partially 
correct in concluding that the legal expense trust fund resolution 
overrides the limits contained in the gift rule. But the substitute 
also contains an amendment to the gift rule which I intended to 
override the legal expense trust fund resolution.
  Since the Ethics Committee is charged with regulating and overseeing 
legal expense trust funds, it will have to determine the total effect 
which this new gift language will have on legal expense trust funds.
  There can be no doubting the breadth and reach of the Levin 
substitute. And at least in one instance, the Levin substitute 
prohibits certain contributions to legal expense trust funds that 
previously were allowed under the resolution.
  What the committee will have to ask itself is whether the true effect 
of the substitute is to override Senate Resolution 508, not only as it 
applies to lobbyists--because of an explicit provision in the bill--but 
also as it applies to everyone else, because of its extremely broad 
reach and its exhaustive and specific list of exemptions.
  The answer to this question, as with so many others raised by this 
language is: we don't know. And if you happen to choose the wrong 
answer, your career is over.
  I am sure the Senator from Michigan will say he altered the Wellstone 
proposal so the Justice Department no longer would be supervising the 
gift rule. But I think it is not much of an alteration in the sense 
that the horror that would come down on Senators would just come from a 
different direction.
  Let me just give the Senator from Texas a hypothetical under the 
Levin proposal, somewhat changed from Wellstone in the sense that the 
Justice Department does not supervise it but the Ethics Committee does. 
Probably what would happen is that reporters would stake out the 
Monocle. And if a Senator is fortunate as to have a $25 lunch, or maybe 
his wife or his children, with constituents--snap a picture of it, send 
it to the Ethics Committee, and you are off to the races with a 
potentially career-ending offense.
  So it would be just another version of the same thing the Senator 
from Texas was subjected to. So I commend her for personalizing this 
issue so Senators may get a sense of what lies ahead.
  I said before the Senator from Texas came over here, and I want to 
repeat throughout the morning, that as vice chairman of the Ethics 
Committee I can say without fear of contradiction that within 6 months 
of passage of the Levin-Wellstone proposal, some Senator will have his 
or her reputation and career permanently damaged.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to respond to my 
distinguished colleague from Kentucky because he has brought up one set 
of circumstances. But my situation is not covered by the Levin-
Wellstone bill. My situation would continue because I was elected to 
the U.S. Senate and faced this harassment by a district attorney in 
Texas, who had the power to do it at the time.
  So I was under Senate rules, and I put myself voluntarily under the 
Senate rules. I was not really totally clear but I went to the Ethics 
Committee and I said, ``Really, where am I?''
  And they said ``We think you should comply with Senate rules.
  I said, ``Great. I just want to do what is right.''
  So I did.
  But under the Levin-Wellstone bill, I could not have raised the money 
to defend myself. So this district attorney could have nullified the 
election with his malicious prosecution because he would have known 
that I could not have the ability to defend myself. And there I would 
have been.
  I must say that other distinguished colleagues will be in that 
position. We see our President right now being charged with something 
that allegedly happened when he was Governor of Arkansas. Do you think 
it would be fair for him not to be able to have the resources to hire 
an attorney and defend himself? I do not think you think so.
  I think every person should have the right, as every American does, 
the right to be able to have the resources--particularly when you are 
being prosecuted because you are in public service. And this bill would 
keep us defenseless in many instances, and make us the prey of 
malicious prosecutors. I will tell you it is going to change the nature 
of politics in this country if it is allowed to stand.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I just want to take a moment to thank the Senator from 
Texas for her very important contribution to this discussion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin] is 
recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  First, as far as the comment of the Senator from Kentucky that in 
fact the committee bill, the substitute before us, has changed the 
Lautenberg-Wellstone bill so there is no prosecution by the Justice 
Department under the committee substitute, it is in the hands of the 
Ethics Committee not in the hands of the Justice Department --the 
Senator from Kentucky said he was sure I was going to stand up and say 
that. In order to correct any impression to the contrary that the 
Senator from Texas may have created, he is exactly right, I am standing 
up to say exactly that. There is no criminal prosecution under this 
substitute that the committee has adopted. It is an Ethics Committee 
enforcement, as our current rules are, unlike the Lautenberg-Wellstone 
bill originally which had Justice Department enforcement. The committee 
bill drops that and instead lodges it into the hands of the Ethics 
Committee which I do not think is going to unfairly pursue any Senator. 
I have enough confidence in the Ethics Committee to think they are fair 
indeed.
  But the main point of my friend from Texas, it seems to me, has to do 
with the question of legal expense funds and that is what I really want 
to comment on. The committee substitute, unlike the original bill that 
Senators Lautenberg and Wellstone introduced, permits contributions to 
a legal defense fund from anybody except registered lobbyists.
  I doubt very much that there are many registered lobbyists on the 
6,000 list of the Senator from Texas. But I just want to make it clear, 
when the Senator said that it would be impossible to have a legal 
defense fund----
  (Mr. CAMPBELL assumed the chair.)
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEVIN. If I can complete the statement. The Senate Governmental 
Affairs Committee substitute specifically says that the only payment or 
the only contribution to a legal defense fund which is established for 
the benefit of a Member that is prohibited is the contribution or other 
payment by a lobbyist or foreign agent.
  That is a very different provision from what existed in the original 
bill. It is just like other gifts. In this bill, in the committee 
substitute, there are certain things you cannot accept from a lobbyist. 
Other people have a much broader range as to what they can give to you. 
In the committee bill, in the substitute which was adopted by the 
Governmental Affairs Committee, which is before this body, there is a 
distinction made between what a registered lobbyist can give to you and 
what the rest of the world can give to you. That is because the public 
senses and feels that there is too close a connection between us and 
paid lobbyists when they take us out to dinners, or when they give us 
tickets to the Redskins games, or whatever.
  So we make the distinction in the bill between registered lobbyists, 
a very narrow, defined group that must register, and everybody else. 
That is a distinction which applies to a whole host of gifts. That same 
distinction is applied relative to legal expense funds. Registered 
lobbyists cannot make that contribution to the legal expense fund that 
the Senator from Texas referred to, but everybody else in the world can 
contribute to the Senator's legal defense fund.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? Does the Senator from 
Michigan yield time for a question?
  Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to answer a question.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to just ask Senator Levin 
if there is not a $20 limitation on all gifts from all the other 
people. I would not argue at all about lobbyists not contributing to a 
legal defense fund. That would be fine. But when you are talking about 
a $20 limitation, and especially if you have a long and extended 
prosecution, you cannot raise the money in $20 increments that are 
needed to go against the vast resources of a Government entity; is that 
correct?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is not correct. The contribution that the 
Senator referred to is to a legal defense fund. That is not covered by 
the $20 rule unless there is a contribution by a registered lobbyist, 
as I have read. It is permitted for others to make a contribution to 
the Senator's legal defense fund. That is what I am trying to describe 
to the Senator. You can receive a $50 or $100 or $200 contribution; the 
legal defense fund can receive that contribution from anyone else other 
than a registered lobbyist.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on the issue that the Senator from 
Texas raises, I think it is not at all clear to me that the Senator 
from Michigan is correct in interpreting his own substitute.
  There is one reference to legal expense trust funds in the Levin 
substitute. It appears on page 36, lines 21 to 24. The provision states 
explicitly that a contribution by a lobbyist or foreign agent to a 
legal expense trust fund of a Senator shall be considered a gift under 
the Senate rules and, therefore, banned completely. Now, that is the 
lobbyist and foreign agent part.
  What does the Levin substitute say about gifts from everybody else, 
which is the question the Senator from Texas raised? It appears to me 
in looking at this, and my staff in looking at this, that everybody 
else is limited to $20 from any person. A gift under the Levin 
substitute is ``any item of monetary value.'' All the exceptions to 
this very broad rule are listed in subparagraphs (d) and (e), beginning 
on page 37 of the substitute.

  Nowhere among these some three dozen exceptions are we able to find 
contributions to legal expense trust funds from persons other than 
lobbyists.
  Clearly, I must tell you, unless we missed something here, the way 
the Ethics Committee would have to interpret and apply this language is 
that there is an explicit ban outright of any legal expense trust funds 
contribution from a lobbyist, but just as clearly, a contribution to a 
legal expense trust fund is an item of monetary value. With regard to 
individuals who are not lobbyists, it appears as if their contribution 
would be limited to $20.
  Somebody has to interpret this. I assume the Ethics Committee will 
have to interpret it. If the Senator from Texas and I are correct here 
and the Senator from Michigan is wrong--I do not know for sure--if he 
is right and we are wrong, effectively, unless you are rich, you are 
out of business, which is what I believe the Senator from Texas was 
stating.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Yes, I appreciate the Senator from Kentucky having 
the bill right before him because that was exactly my interpretation. 
When I looked at it, there were no exceptions for legal defense funds 
to the $20 limitation. As I said, I certainly can approve of and think 
it is fine to limit lobbyists from contributions. But nevertheless, I 
could not find in the bill any exception for other people, except the 
$20 limitation which renders impossible a building of a fund that would 
go against an entire Government entity by a public official of normal 
circumstances.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will say to my friend from Texas, in addition to the 
very important point we are discussing here, which somebody will have 
to decide at some point is correct, the Senator from Michigan did say 
what I knew he would say, which is also correct, that under the Levin 
modification of Wellstone, Justice is no longer prosecuting. But how 
the Ethics Committee could ignore the plain meaning after we have 
wrestled with all the exceptions of a Senator having lunch with a group 
of constituents down at the Monocle, I think the point is clear that 
reputations are going to be destroyed over the most trivial examples of 
perfectly normal intercourse between ourselves and our constituents.
  Nobody has experienced the dire consequences of the trivialization of 
the law more than the Senator from Texas. I think her testimony is 
extremely important as we wrestle with trying to do the right thing in 
dealing with the gift issue. I want to thank her for her very important 
contribution to this debate.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes because the 
Senator is raising an important issue that is worth pursuing. Under the 
current gift rules, which makes no exception for legal defense funds, a 
contribution to the Senator's legal defense fund would have been a 
violation if it were more than $250. That is under the current gift 
rules. Did the Senator from Texas receive a gift in the legal defense 
fund of more than $250?
  Mr. McCONNELL. It is my understanding there is an exception.
  Mr. LEVIN. My understanding is the current gift rules do not make 
exception for legal defense funds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. We will take a look at it.
  Mr. LEVIN. We can check that out. But let me also assure the Senator 
that the reason it does not is because the legal defense fund is a 
different entity. Under the current gift rule and under the committee 
substitute, it is a different entity. If it is not a different entity, 
then the current gift rule would prevent a gift to a legal defense fund 
of more than $250.
  So I want to assure the Senator from Texas that the legal defense 
fund issue that she has raised is not an issue, for two reasons: Under 
the current rules and under the rule as the committee substitute 
provides, it is not a gift to a Member; it is a different entity.
  That is No. 1. And to make sure that is abundantly clear, the bill 
specifically provides that a contribution and other payment by a 
lobbyist or foreign agent to a legal defense fund established for the 
benefit of a Member is from the lobbyist. That is the one that is 
prohibited, not from anyone other than a lobbyist.
  But the principal answer is that not only have we clarified that in 
order for a contribution to a legal defense to be covered, it would 
have to come from a lobbyist. Other persons' contributions are not 
covered by the committee substitute. But the current rule provides that 
you cannot make certain gifts to Members, gifts over $250. That does 
not cover legal defense funds under the current rule because they are 
different entities and the exact same thing is true about the committee 
substitute. It is not a gift to a Member, because it is a gift to a 
different entity, a legal defense fund. That is not a gift to the 
member. However, we explicitly prohibit paid lobbyists from making 
gifts to legal defense funds, explicitly carve out that exception. And 
I do not know that anyone would have any great objection to that.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator from Texas wanted to make a further 
observation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Kentucky yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair.
  I would just like to say to the distinguished Senator from Michigan, 
I do not think it is clear. I think the exceptions have been made under 
present law, but by having one reference to lobbyists being banned from 
these types of contributions and not addressing it on the other side I 
think makes it unclear. And I would ask the Senator from Michigan if he 
would be able to clarify it. I could not possibly support this bill 
when it is as unclear as I think it is now. It is very confusing, and 
the stakes are much too high to take a chance.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield; I am sorry.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield to the Senator from Maine. I think he controls 
half of the time on this side, in any event, so I think as the floor 
manager for the minority he is able to be recognized and yield himself 
time. Is that correct, I ask the Chair?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan controls the time.
  Mr. LEVIN. In that case, I yield whatever time the Senator from Maine 
needs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Mr. COHEN. I think the Senator from Texas has made a valuable 
contribution to this debate.
  As I indicated last evening, the committee's substitute for the 
original Lautenberg-Wellstone amendment is not a perfect product. It 
has certain ambiguities which need to be clarified, and that is the 
purpose of having this debate. I believe the Senator from Texas is 
absolutely correct in suggesting that legal defense funds ought to be 
continued. I also believe that Senator Levin is correct in pointing out 
that the one restriction should be a ban on lobbyists contributing to 
legal defense funds for the reason that it creates a perception that 
lobbyists are trying to gain influence in helping that particular 
individual out of his or her legal difficulties.
  Now, I think it is unclear from the language of the Levin proposal 
whether or not legal defense funds could in fact receive contributions 
from nonlobbyists up to the current amount. That question ought to be 
clarified at some point.
  But I would like to make a broader point here today. I think there is 
a danger attempting to equate ourselves either with the average citizen 
or with the average executive branch member. This is a different 
institution. Those in the executive branch do not have to participate 
in the same types of activities that we do. Our offices are flooded day 
after day with our constituents. I was late in getting here this 
morning because I could not get by an unprecedented 18 buses tied up at 
one intersection, all filled with our constituents coming to 
Washington. Most of them will come to our individual offices. Some of 
them will bring the Senator from Hawaii flowers, while others may 
present others of us with different mementos and gifts of a minor 
nature.
  Most of us are required from time to time to go out with our 
constituents. We have a different type of process. We are an open 
house. The executive branch for the most part is closed. I do not see 
our constituents lining up in droves to go to executive branch 
agencies. They do not have that kind of access. Yet, we have open 
doors.
  The realities, responsibilities, and expectations that apply to the 
legislative branch are significantly different than those of the 
executive branch. We ought not try to equate them identically. They are 
not identical.
  Second, there is a notion that we do not want to be treated 
differently than our average citizen. We do not want to set ourselves 
above those we represent in some sort of elitist society, so that we do 
not have to abide by the same rules and the same pressures and 
tribulations that the average citizen has to endure.
  But we are also held to a different standard because we are public 
figures. The law treats us differently. It holds us to a much higher 
standard.
  We cannot compare it to business practices. Go back and listen to the 
inspiring words of, I think, Justice Cardozo: The duties of a fiduciary 
are high. We are held to something higher than the morals of the 
marketplace. We are held to the punctilio in honor of the most 
sensitive.
  So we are held to a fiduciary's standard. The law treats us 
differently. And because we are held to a higher standard, we are 
subject to higher liabilities in breach of those standards as the 
Senator from Texas pointed out. We are liable to the prosecutorial zeal 
of politically minded individuals. That is the reality.
  So I think it is imperative that we have legal defense funds for 
individuals who might find themselves to be the victims of overzealous 
prosecutors, just as any citizen would be allowed to do. The one 
prohibition we should encourage is on the contributions of lobbyists 
because the public would perceive substantial contributions coming from 
lobbyists as an attempt to influence that individual's judgment.
  I think that this debate is very helpful because this is not a 
perfect product that we are presenting to the Senate. There are, 
indeed, some dangers in all of this, and we must be made aware of 
exactly what we are doing.
  The issue of honoraria was raised earlier. You can give a speech to a 
group and that group can direct the funds that you would receive 
directly to a charity. Most of us do that. As a matter of fact, just 
yesterday I spoke to the Brookings Institute. I speak at Brookings at 
least 10 to 12 times a year, and I will continue to do so. They provide 
a modest honorarium, and that goes to a number of charities back in 
Maine. So $4,000 to $5,000 a year goes to charities for women's 
shelters, abused children, and other worthy causes. Whatever the 
charity is I pick out, that is where the money goes.
  I think, frankly, that ought to be continued. But we then have to 
draw a distinction. You say Brookings is OK, and the University of 
Oklahoma or Louisiana would be fine. Do we have to start drawing a 
distinction between those institutions which do not have issues before 
the Congress, and those institutions likely to be lobbying in a direct 
sense? Maybe we can tailor some amendments to accomplish that.
  We are running the risk now of saying it is the committee substitute, 
all or nothing, or the McConnell-Johnston substitute, all or nothing, 
and yet there are deficiencies in both.
  As I mentioned last night, I do not like the ``three-strikes-and-you-
are-out'' provision as it applies to Congress. To me, that associates 
in the mind of the public that somehow we are associated with the 
criminal class. And frankly, I do not think the American people would 
say you get three strikes. They would say you get one. If you 
egregiously violate an ethical standard then you probably should not be 
in the Senate any longer. Not two strikes or three strikes. One strike, 
in all probability, you are going to be out.
  There are other provisions that I do not like, namely the publication 
of travel itineraries. I am really concerned about what would take 
place if Members of the Senate are required to publish a detailed 
itinerary in the Congressional Record before going on a trip. It may be 
that the world is safe right now and that there are no international 
tensions, so none of us will become targets. But that is subject to the 
fluctuations of the moment. Anytime there is a crisis internationally, 
we can all become targets and we know that. Yet under the substitute, 
we would be required to publish a detailed itinerary of exactly where 
we are going.
  Mr. LEVIN. Under the Johnston substitute.
  Mr. COHEN. Yes, under the Johnston substitute. I have a problem with 
this from a security point of view. I think the public ought to be 
apprised of where we are going, what we are doing, and who we are 
meeting with, however the event may be sponsored.
  But I do not see the benefit of doing it in advance. I have 
objections to that. I think what we are going through now is an 
important process because Members have not focused on these changes. 
There are, as my friend from Kentucky--I think I can call him my friend 
safely without resorting to Webster--pointed out, a number of dangers 
that we have to be apprised of. Most of the Members have not yet 
focused on that. This debate is important for all of us. I take him at 
his word that he and his colleagues on the Ethics Committee are the 
ones who are on the receiving end of all kinds of issues that must be 
resolved.
  So it is not a trivial matter. It is an important matter. I think 
this debate has been extraordinarily helpful in pointing out the 
dangers that exist if we ignore the ambiguities and do not seek to 
clarify them.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 59 minutes and 
15 seconds; the Senator from Michigan has 59 minutes and 46 seconds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me speak briefly to the travel 
issue that Senator Cohen raised. I would be more than happy to modify 
my amendment if that would gain his support. I think he raises a good 
point.
  I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Wallop] is 
recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. President, I speak today as a former chairman, and former vice 
chairman, of the Ethics Committee which sat in judgment on one of the 
most difficult and contentious ethics cases that this Senate has ever 
faced; namely, Abscam.
  Let me begin by saying that the role of the Ethics Committee is 
twofold and very specific, and neither holds priority over the other. 
One is the protection of the reputation of the Senate. The other is the 
protection of the reputation of Senators. Either can be threatened by 
public accusations, be they worthwhile or frivolous. The job of this 
institution and that of the Ethics Committee is to distinguish between 
those which are frivolous and those which are serious.
  Last year, during debate on the lobbying disclosure bill, I was the 
only Senator to vote against this gift ban idea. I did so because I am 
not for sale, and I do not believe others in this body are for sale. If 
they are for sale, rules will not keep them from selling themselves.

  But rules can keep good, competent, ordinary, yeoman Senators who 
have the highest of ethical principles from functioning on behalf of 
their State, their constituency, and their country.
  Like Gulliver, this bill will bind us with inefficient little threads 
of regulatory monstrosities, all premised on the idea that somehow or 
other, if we put enough rules on ourselves, we can make an immoral 
person moral. Mr. President, that is not the way of human life. What we 
are about to do to ourselves is offensive in the extreme. In fact, most 
of this debate is offensive.
  I notice in the ``Dear Colleague'' we received from the gift ban 
sponsors the statement that ``none of us believes that Members are 
selling their votes.'' But that is precisely what this legislation does 
in fact say; it says that we are not to be trusted even for $20.
  Mr. President, if we cannot be trusted for $20, we do not belong 
here. If we cannot be trusted for anything, we do not belong here. We 
should be voted out. But this legislation says that for $20 and 1 penny 
our heads can be irretrievably twisted off our shoulders, and we can no 
longer function responsibly on our own, or on behalf of our obligations 
and duties. What utter nonsense. What an insult to the Senate. What an 
insult to the Congress.
  Inherent in this ban proposal is the view that we would best be put 
in a bottle of formaldehyde and uncorked in the morning into a closed 
Chamber, lest we be sullied on the way in by somebody who might 
actually have knowledge of something we were going to do. Maybe we 
should not even be looked at by a lobbyist, or a constituent. Perhaps 
we should just close and lock the doors of this Chamber and of our 
offices until we go home at night, at which time Common Cause would put 
us back in the bottle of formaldehyde, lest we be sullied on the way 
home.
  Mr. President, that is not the way this institution has or does work. 
During my years on the Ethics Committee as both chairman and vice 
chairman, all kinds of things were brought to the attention of the 
Ethics Committee. Incidentally, the ethics code was the first thing 
that was on the Senate floor when I arrived here in 1977. At that time, 
we passed the ethics code for the most unethical reason in the history 
of the Senate--to get a pay raise.
  One of the things that I saw day after day after day in the Ethics 
Committee were dozens upon dozens of requests from Senators asking for 
counsel. In the first year that the ethics code was passed there were, 
curiously enough, 977 requests of the Ethics Committee. Nobody can tell 
me that 100 Senators elected by their constituents, who were good and 
productive people before they came here, needed to ask almost 10 times 
apiece whether what they were about to do was ethical.
  What they were asking us was whether their actions were permitted. We 
even had a Senator on the Ethics Committee say:

       Senator, we are not here to determine whether what the 
     Senator did was right or wrong. We are here to determine 
     whether it was permitted under the rule.

  Lawyers have taken over the concept of life in the Senate. And it is 
killing the effective creativity of this body. What we do is fully 
disclosed between ourselves and our constituents. Boy, do I know it. In 
my last campaign in 1988, my honoraria was the subject of television 
debates, editorial comment and everything else, and legitimately so.
  I had even given a speech to a group that, unbeknownst to me, had 
been supported by the Reverend Moon. I became the subject of a 
wonderful little television ad with the Reverend Moon looking blessedly 
down on his faithful disciple, Senator Wallop.
  That is why disclosure works. It is there for Senators to make 
judgments, and to be judged accordingly. But this rule will deny 
Senators a judgment. This institution is accepting an accusation 
contrived not by the public, but by the Senate. It is an accusation 
that we are not to be trusted and that, somehow or another, lobbyists 
are able to pull our reason away from any manner of self-control. That 
is nonsense, Mr. President. It is also arrogant.

  What gives any Senator the right to suppose that each of us knows 
enough about the details of legislation that comes before the Senate 
that we can make a judgment without input from the public? What makes 
us think that we know how to run a bank, a small trucking company, an 
oil drilling rig, a school system, a county commission, a ranch, a 
dairy, an export/import business, or a barge line? What makes us think 
we know what the public needs or thinks without hearing from them and 
those who represent them? What is wrong with us that we are so arrogant 
that we cannot understand that we need more exposure to the public, not 
less. The judgments that we make which are so offensive to our 
constituents occur because we are inexperienced, not experienced.
  Why is it that I cannot have a little golf tournament in Jackson 
Hole, WY, on behalf of the Congressional Award--the only award given in 
the name of Congress and which does not use public money? So what if we 
appeal to the generosity of some lobbyists, and business interests, as 
well as some private interests, to raise funds for America's young 
people? This legislation says that if we do just that we are unable to 
come back here and think straight.
  What is wrong with us, Mr. President? It is immoral to accede to a 
view that the public does not hold of us. Oh, yes, Nightline comes 
along and--what is the other dreadful one--Inside Edition, where some 
Members of the Senate see fit to come and disclose the activities of 
other Members of the Senate. But that is not the public's view of us. 
The public's view of us is going to be contrived by a Senate that says 
we cannot trust ourselves, we cannot trust our behavior, we cannot 
trust our constituents to make a judgment on us, if we fully disclose 
everything we do.
  The other thing that will happen because of these proposals is that 
people are going to begin to game the system, and then you will see how 
the public trust falls apart. I cannot give you $20, but I can hold a 
$500 fundraiser. That way a Member can gain $500 for going to a meal 
instead of just having a meal.
  Mr. President, after 17 years, almost 18, here in the Senate, I know 
a number of people who are lobbyists. They are my friends, personal 
friends, good friends--however the quotation goes. Is it anything but 
strange that they can come to my house for dinner, but I cannot go to 
theirs? That they can come to play golf at a course of which I belong, 
but cannot return the favor. All because I am presumed to be 
irretrievably twisted from my sense of reason and responsibility? Mr. 
President, the Senate should ask itself what it is doing to his own 
reputation, not only by this debate, but by the proposal that is in 
front of us.
  Mr. President, when I was here in 1977 I issued a statement then on 
the Official Code of Conduct which was Senate Resolution 110.
  I ask unanimous consent that that statement be reprinted in the 
Record, and for the information of the public watching, in every 
instance where it says Senate Resolution 110, let it read S. 1935. The 
words worked then and they will work again today. This is the wrong 
thing for the Senate to do and it is time to put a stop to this 
insanity.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Congressional Record Mar. 24, 1977]

            Code of Official Conduct--Senate Resolution 110


                           amendment no. 154

       (Ordered to be printed and to lie on the table.)
       Mr. Wallop submitted an amendment intended to be proposed 
     to Senate Resolution 110, to establish a Code of Official 
     Conduct for Members, officers, and employees of the U.S. 
     Senate, and for other purposes.
       Mr. Wallop. Mr. President, I am introducing an amendment in 
     the nature of a substitute to Senate Resolution 110, the 
     Senate Code of Official Conduct. This amendment deals only 
     with title I of Senate Resolution 110, and leaves title II 
     and title III standing as proposed in Senate Resolution 110.
       I do not doubt, and I do not think that any of my 
     colleagues in the Senate doubt, that the Committee on 
     Official Conduct worked long and hard on Senate Resolution 
     110. The committee is to be commended for its dedication and 
     perseverance to a difficult and delicate task.
       But as I have stated before, and I know that I am joined in 
     my sentiments by several other Senators, that this code 
     tackles the laudatory goal of ethical conduct in the U.S. 
     Senate in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and 
     potentially with the wrong results. We have, in our effort to 
     placate the public, the press, and other perceived 
     commitments, lost sight of the objective which should be our 
     guiding light in this matter; that we need and should have a 
     code of conduct for the U.S. Senate because it is right to do 
     so, and because it is correct to aspire toward ethical 
     conduct. We should not have a code of conduct for the mere 
     sake of appearances, or because we are trying to satisfy 
     anyone else.
       Senate Resolution 110 does not approach the subject of 
     ethics by encouraging us to aspire to do the right thing at 
     all. It is rather a shopping list of don'ts a litany of what 
     Senators cannot do rather than a proclamation of what they 
     should do. It reeks with suspicion, and implies that we do 
     not have the moral fortitude to resist temptation, or the 
     wits to recognize it. I think that it debases, rather than 
     inspires, the Senate with its constant implication that 
     Senators are not honest men who know right from wrong. This 
     code leaves us no pride; it gives us no responsibility to 
     decide right from wrong on the individual merits of the case; 
     it negates the trust bestowed on us by our constituents, who 
     demonstrated their belief in our ability to make decisions on 
     their behalf when they elected us in the first place.
       Furthermore, Senate Resolution 110, as we each know in our 
     hearts, is in too much part a reaction to outside forces and 
     pressures. It is a sad tribute to this body that we will 
     allow moral elitists and public polls to prescribe our 
     ethical behavior, rather than determining it ourselves. We 
     have all heard of the Harris poll, the fact that the House 
     has enacted similar measures of ethics, and talk of being 
     committed to this code because Congress quietly voted 
     themselves an inordinate pay raise. Bending to these 
     pressures, we have come up with and will probably adopt a 
     code that is arbitrary and in many instances unenforceable. 
     It is a code loaded with figures that make it advantageous to 
     stay in arbitrary brackets, chock full of loopholes and 
     unenforceable terms that in the end confirm that ethics 
     cannot be legislated by rules and figures. Senator Muskie was 
     absolutely right when he said that this code sends a few easy 
     prey to the wolves, for it does precisely that to ease 
     consciences, and we should be ashamed.
       This code moves the U.S. Senate one step closer to becoming 
     a body of elected bureaucrats, paid and kept by the public, 
     and I question the wisdom of that direction. The foundation 
     of our system of government lies in the British Parliament, 
     which through its two Houses purposely represented various 
     components of the British society such as the clergy, the 
     universities, and so forth. Are we citizen legislators, 
     representing our constituents' interests through our own 
     expertise and experience, or are we political eunuchs in the 
     words of another Senator, separate and apart from the 
     concerns we represent?
       I think that there are too many problems with Senate 
     Resolution 110 for us to continue to try to patch it up with 
     piecemeal amendments. Rather, I propose that we adopt another 
     code, with another approach, which inspires us towards high 
     ethical standards of behavior. For this reason I submit an 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute made up of seven 
     canons of conduct. Such canons have long been used by both 
     the judicial and legal professions, and have proved most 
     successful. The Code of Judicial Conduct has existed since 
     1923, while the lawyers' Code of Professional Responsibility 
     dates back to 1908. Both are enforced by the respective 
     profession through boards of review as prescribed by each 
     separate State. Both are composed of broad, inspirational 
     canons, supplemented by accompanying rules and commentary.
       The Code of Conduct I propose for the Senate would pattern 
     itself after these models. In adopting these seven canons, we 
     would immediately have a code of conduct that is 
     inspirational and noble. As provided by my amendment, the 
     canons would then go to the Ethics Committee for further 
     consideration and elaboration through the creation of 
     accompanying regulations. Such regulations would govern 
     specific situations and infractions and, when adopted by the 
     Senate, carry the full authority of the canons and be 
     enforced likewise. I believe that adoption of such a code 
     would enable the Ethics Committee to implement many of the 
     very fine suggestions that have been made during the debate 
     on Senate Resolution 110. I further believe that every 
     provision in Senate Resolution 110 could conceivably be 
     included in the canon format, through appropriate 
     regulations, although I would hope that with this additional 
     time the committee may wish to modify some of the proposed 
     provisions. If adopted, the amendment would further instruct 
     the Ethics Committee to report back to the Senate by 
     resolution within 40 days with the proposed regulations for 
     Senate approval.
       Mr. President, when our Founding Fathers wrote our 
     Constitution, they wrote a document which would last, and 
     that document has withstood the tests of time. Likewise, a 
     code of ethics must also be designed with the future in mind. 
     What we have here is a capricious and cosmetic response to 
     immediate pressures. What we have here is a document which is 
     designed to appease the public of 1977, with no forethought 
     to 1978, 1980, or beyond. Senate Resolution 110 as written is 
     a sham, a debasement of all that I and many others have 
     aspired to in public life, and you expect me to justify this 
     and rationalize it to my family, my friends, and the people 
     of Wyoming.
       I entered public life proud to represent Wyoming, proud to 
     be an American, and proud to have the confidence of those I 
     represent. This resolution makes me question that pride and 
     even that confidence. I cannot be proud of a resolution which 
     casts suspicion upon all that I have stood for. My amendment, 
     equally strong on ethics, equally harsh on those who break 
     the public confidence, approaches the same problems from 
     what I believe is a more positive, more inspiring 
     perspective. It is a document which will last beyond 1977.
       I would urge my colleagues to support this effort.
       Mr. President, I submit the amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute, No. 154, which I will in all probability not call 
     up. I wish, therefore, to have the amendment printed in the 
     Record.
       There being no objection, the amendment was ordered to be 
     printed in the Record, as follows:

                           Amendment No. 154

       On page 1, beginning with line 1, strike out all through 
     page 40, line 7, and insert in lieu thereof the following:
       ``That this resolution may be cited as the `Official 
     Conduct Amendments of 1977'.

                  ``TITLE I--CODE OF OFFICIAL CONDUCT

       ``Sec. 101. The Standing Rules of the Senate are amended--
       ``(1) by striking out rules XLI, XLII, XLIII, and XLIV; and
       ``(2) by renumbering rule XLV as rule XLI, and by adding 
     after such rule the following new rule which shall be known 
     as the `Senate Code of Official Conduct':


                 ``rule xlii--code of official conduct

                               ``Canon 1

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall uphold the integrity, dignity, and independence of the 
     Senate.

                               ``Canon 2

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall avoid professional impropriety and the appearance of 
     professional impropriety in all activities.

                               ``Canon 3

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall perform the duties of office impartially and 
     diligently.

                               ``Canon 4

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall not receive any compensation, nor permit any 
     compensation to accrue to his beneficial interest from any 
     source, the receipt or accrual of which would occur by virtue 
     of influence improperly exerted from his position as a 
     Senator, officer, or employee.

                               ``Canon 5

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall annually file reports disclosing assets, debts, gifts, 
     and income as required by the Select Committee on Ethics.

                               ``Canon 6

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall recognize at all times that he is a servant of the 
     people of this nation.

                               ``Canon 7

       ``A Senator, and an officer or employee of the Senate, 
     shall avoid expenditures of public funds that are wasteful or 
     designed to obtain political advantage.''
       ``Sec. 102. The Select Committee on Ethics shall report to 
     the Senate by resolution specific regulations as to the 
     application of each Canon of the Senate Code of Official 
     Conduct. After adoption of such regulations by the Senate, 
     such regulations shall carry full effect as part of such 
     Code.''


                           amendment no. 155

       (Ordered to be printed and to lie on the table.)
       Mr. Baker submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 
     him to Senate Resolution 110, supra.


                           amendment no. 156

       (Ordered to be printed and to lie on the table.)
       Mr. Cranston submitted an amendment intended to be proposed 
     by him to Senate Resolution 110, supra.


                           amendment no. 157

       (Ordered to be printed and to lie on the table.)
       Mr. Dole submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 
     him to Senate Resolution 110, supra.


                           amendment no. 158

       (Ordered to be printed and to lie on the table.)
       Mr. Helms submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 
     him to Senate Resolution 110, supra.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank the former chairman of the 
Ethics Committee for his fine statement.
  I yield 10 minutes to Senator Pryor from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I first compliment the Senator from 
Michigan. I think this debate is a meaningful debate, a constructive 
debate. I do think that in the Senator's proposal, as adopted by the 
Governmental Affairs Committee and sent to the floor of the Senate, 
there are some areas that actually go too far.
  I want to talk about one of those areas for a few moments, and that 
is the area of charities. I want to tell you a little story, Mr. 
President and my colleagues.
  About 25 years ago, I became a freshman Member of the other body, the 
House of Representatives, and before long, after serving in that 
capacity for a few months, I began hearing from two wonderful 
individuals in Texarkana, AR. Texarkana is on the border of Texas and 
Arkansas. In fact, one side of the main street is in Arkansas, and the 
other side is in Texas. In fact, half of the post office is in 
Arkansas, half of the post office is in Texas.
  Texarkana, U.S.A., is a special place. I started hearing from two 
special people about a project that they were beginning at that time to 
deal with developmentally disabled children and adults. They created 
something known as Opportunities, Inc. Today, Opportunities, Inc., then 
created to serve only a very few individuals, serves over 700 people 
each week, 5 days a week, from 8 until 5, with vans and busing going 
throughout the county, going to Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, even 
sometimes into Oklahoma, to bring individuals, young people and older 
people, into this tremendous resource that has been created.
  One of these fine ladies who was involved in the creation of this is 
Francis Holcomb. The other is Patty Fulbright Smith. Patty Fulbright 
Smith, incidentally, is the niece of a former colleague of ours in this 
institution--a very illustrious colleague, I might say--Senator J. 
William Fulbright. Francis Holcomb is known as the ``Mother Teresa'' of 
Texarkana, because it was Francis Holcomb's leadership and Patty 
Fulbright Smith's joining in this effort, that has truly made this 
concept of Opportunities, Inc., become a reality. That was 25 years 
ago.
  But today, Mr. President, there is a tremendous need to treat and 
deal with and serve the developmentally disabled, from children to 
adults, from housing to special projects, group homes and independent 
departments, for people with disabilities, intermediate care facilities 
for developmentally disabled people of all walks of life, regardless of 
their ability to pay. These are the low-income individuals and citizens 
that Opportunities, Inc., each day, truly in a labor of love, with 125 
full-time staff, go out throughout the countryside and bring into this 
haven of rest and to this place where they are treated as someone 
important and treated by people who truly care.
  Medicaid pays some of this. The States of Texas and Arkansas pay a 
little bit of this. Sometimes there is SSI helping to defray some of 
the expenses of some of the individuals being served by this facility. 
But most of the money, Mr. President, comes from the private sources.
  About 6 years ago, because of the tremendous need and the tremendous 
overload and burden of Opportunities, Inc., we decided that it might be 
a win-win situation if we could have a charity event which would raise 
money for Opportunities, Inc., bringing in our colleagues from 
Washington, and bringing association officials from Washington into 
Texarkana, having a 1-day golf tournament, and then coming back. Well, 
it became so popular that it is no longer just a golf tournament. Now 
Wal-Mart is sponsoring, in addition to it, with the cooperation of some 
of the best bass fishermen in America, a bass tournament in conjunction 
with it. We now have a tennis tournament in conjunction with it. And we 
are very proud to say that each year we have raised over $100,000 for 
Opportunities, Inc. This, I might say, Mr. President, is also seed 
money, in order to get grants from foundations to keep Opportunities, 
Inc., alive.
  Mr. President, I know full well the practicalities of what we are 
dealing with. I know full well what some of the concerns are of our 
colleagues like Senator Levin. Yes, they have seen things on the 
nightly news, or they have seen things on some television show exposing 
perhaps some abuses--and I do not know whether they were; I have not 
seen any of those shows in particular. If I did, I do not recall what I 
did see. But, Mr. President, I want to say this: For our golf 
tournament, which is held in August, and it is usually about 110 
degrees, we stay at the Best Western Motel right there in Texarkana. It 
is not very fancy; it is clean, but it is not very fancy in relation to 
many other facilities we have in our country, but we have in 
conjunction prior to the tournament. In fact, in late May we have a 
press day. We invite the press. We encourage the press not only to come 
and participate and cover this event, we invite the press to play in 
this event.

  We have 1,100 volunteers in the Texarkana area that help make this 
tournament popular, who really go out and do the work, put up the 
tents, cook the food, house the guests, and really it becomes an event 
in Texarkana, U.S.A., where the entire community--the entire 
community--the banks, the businesses, the labor unions, the minorities, 
the majorities, everyone involved, participates and coalesces around 
this one event.
  In fact, I might say to my friend from Kentucky, this event has 
become so popular that Dean Beeman, who directs the Professional 
Golfers Association, the PGA, has now become a player each year because 
he says this is what it is all about.
  Also, the Nike and the Hogan people have become so enamored with the 
public support that it is now on the Nike golf tour, which gives the 
younger professionals an opportunity before they go into the major 
tournaments which will come later.
  One of those participants in our first tournament was a young golfer 
that no one had ever heard of. He was from Dartnel, AR. His name is 
John Daly. He came in second. He got beat out on the 18th hole in that 
particular tournament.
  Mr. President, what I am saying is this: I know what the Senator from 
Michigan, the Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from Wisconsin, the 
Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Maine are concerned with, 
and I, too, want to be concerned about what people and constituents and 
citizens think of this institution. But I can say without reservation 
that in these 6 years of dealing with this particular charity I do not 
feel contaminated, I do not feel compromised. But this substitute is 
going to have the effect--not explicitly, but it will have the effect--
Mr. President, of basically destroying events such as this.
  It is not going to hurt me. I am not going to lose anything. It is 
not going to hurt the so-called lobbyists that enjoy going to Texarkana 
and having 1 day of golf. But it is, Mr. President, going to be a very 
serious adverse impact on Opportunities Inc., and many other like 
charitable organizations and concerns around this country.
  I would like to say, in closing, that I would like to invite Sam 
Donaldson. A lot of people say we do not want the press. We want press. 
I would love to have Sam Donaldson come and either play in our 
tournament or film every bit of it. There is nothing to hide. All of 
it. We want it exposed. We want to tell people about Opportunities 
Incorporated and what a community can do.
  We have had our present President, who has played in this tournament. 
We have had our present Governor, Governor Tucker, who has participated 
in this tournament. We have had Members of the Cabinet; we have had 
Members of the Senate; we have had Members of the House; we have had 
celebrity football coaches and sports figures.
  When it all comes down to it, we think it has been a win-win 
situation. We think it is open, above board, and we only hope that 
charities such as this will not be eliminated when we are trying to 
cure another problem.
  Mr. President, I may have a minute and I am going to yield that back. 
I thank the Chair. I hope we will truly realize that events such as 
this are going to be very necessary for our local communities and, 
hopefully, we can maintain the viability of these types of charity 
events.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mathews). Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn] is 
recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished floor manager of 
the bill. At the outset, I congratulate Senators Levin and Cohen for 
their work in the Governmental Affairs Committee on this issue.
  There is no approach to this issue that is going to satisfy 
everybody. And there is no approach to this that I think really covers 
the whole problem. Everybody gets up and says right off the bat, so we 
do not insult each other, we say that we do not believe anybody here 
can be bought or anybody here is really up for sale. So I add my voice 
to that. I find the idea that someone could come in and buy our vote 
here to be totally repugnant. This discredits our labors and only 
further undermines and demeans this institution.
  But I recognize that in the world of politics sometimes what is fact 
is not the same as what people believe. It is the fancy that comes 
along with some of the perceptions, and that is what we have to deal 
with here. We have to deal with perceptions because our system runs on 
perceptions, and faith in our system also runs on perceptions.
  I think we do have to admit that the perception out there is that 
confidence in Government is not as justified as it used to be. There 
are more questions about how we do things, which range from maybe a 
healthy cynicism, to an overall questioning, to downright hostility at 
some of the things that people read about in the papers.
  I regret that perceptions out there have required us to come to this 
point where we really do have to make some legislative changes, I feel, 
to get faith in the system restored.
  Are we dealing with the problems with what we are debating here on 
the floor now? No. I say right now up front I do not think we are. We 
are talking about who can accept a donut and all this sort of thing, as 
we were in earlier debate here. But, actually, compared to the real 
problem, what we are talking about here are more donut holes than 
donuts. Because you can eat your donut out there on the plant floor or 
someone's office and turn right around and accept a $5,000 PAC 
contribution from that same person, or a $1,000 personal contribution, 
and that is absolutely legal, and everybody thinks that is fine.
  I think what we have to do is one of these days deal with the real 
root cause of some of this lack of faith, this perception that we are 
somehow not to be trusted here. I think we have to deal with campaign 
reform, and really my own personal preference would be that we go to 
Federal financing. I came to that conclusion after a long time in 
public service, where we really come around then to taking out the root 
cause of why there should be some suspicion in Congress of certain 
people when they accept enormous amounts of PAC money or whatever from 
certain industrial or social groups of one kind or another.
  So what we are doing today here, I believe, is we are sort of 
nibbling around the edges of perception. And we should do that. I do 
not mean to talk down what we are doing here, because I fully support 
what Senator Levin has proposed. He has done a great job on this. He 
did not come here trying to be the world's greatest expert on this 
issue. But I think what he has come up with in our committee and 
brought out to the floor is the most workable of any of these 
solutions. The time for us to face up to this is now.
  If we must act to ban all gifts and amenities to registered lobbyists 
as a first step, so be it. We say as long as you pay for your own bill, 
you can go to the Kennedy Center, ballgames and go out to a meal. But 
let us make it fair so we pay our share, as the constituents do. If 
that helps to change the perception, so be it.
  I do not like it that people might perceive we are doing wrong for 
such a small amount of largess, whatever that might be. But that is the 
way the public perception is these days.
  If we are really talking about doing something on this, we would do 
something about the really big contributions. We would go to something 
like Federal financing of campaigns and deal with the big problem.
  Now, we are quite capable of doing business as Senate officers are 
expected to do, in the old fashioned way. We earn the trust of our 
constituents by seeing those who come in to see us, seeing the leaders 
of a particular group, and we see them in our offices or we see them 
back home. They do not need to buy any access.
  They do not need to make contributions. They do not have to take you 
out to a fancy place to get your ear so they can talk to you about 
certain items that may be coming up on the legislative calendar. They 
do not have to buy access.
  And so, we can do that if we want to. And that to me is the best way 
of doing away with some of these perceptions.
  The proposal Senator Levin has carefully crafted is workable--it is 
workable--and some of the others, I feel, are not.
  I was very pleased that our Committee on Governmental Affairs 
reported this measure out. We seek to apply the same kind of standards 
that have been imposed on the executive branch. If it is good enough 
for them, why not us? I do not know that we should be treated any 
differently. The perception of Government comes from us. It comes from 
the executive branch, too. And if it is working over there, I do not 
know why it will not work just as well over here? I do not think we are 
some sort of exalted royalty that should be under lesser standards than 
they have in the executive branch.
  How many times, for example, have Federal regulators--let us look at 
Federal regulators in the executive branch--how many times have we 
hauled them up before Congress and berated them for being too cozy with 
the industries that they regulate? In recent years, Congress has bashed 
the FDA, the FCC, the NRC, the OTS, and all the other alphabet soup of 
Federal regulatory agencies across Government.
  We love to haul them up here and give them the devil because they are 
too cozy with the people that they are regulating.
  Now, what if those agencies had rules that allowed--what if we passed 
a law here today that said all regulators are permitted to go have 
dinner with the people they regulate? They can accept ball tickets, 
they can accept Redskin tickets, they can do whatever they want to do. 
They can go to dinner, on trips, to the theater, or to ball games. It 
would not be a matter of minutes until we would have congressional 
committees hauling the regulators before us, charging them with 
malfeasance, misfeasance and every other kind of ``feasance'' you could 
get at, because we would think it was wrong that they were being 
treated to all these different things by the people they regulate. I am 
sure we would term it outright ``bribery'' before we were done with it.
  And I can tell you when it would happen. It would happen after any 
controversial decision the regulators made that favored that regulated 
industry, no matter how justified it might be.
  Well, would we say it is OK for a regulator to take all that largess 
from the regulated industry as long as it is disclosed later? That is 
what one of the proposals here would do. They would say, as long as it 
is disclosed it is OK. Would we say that would be OK for the regulators 
to do that? I do not think so.
  Could a regulator argue that his taking a trip or a dinner from a 
regulated entity would not affect his decision as a person of 
integrity? He has honor and integrity; it would not affect him. Of 
course, he could argue that.
  At the same time, no one here is suggesting that we loosen the 
current rules for regulators. Because, to allow regulators to accept 
gifts from those who they regulate, the perception would be that 
regulator could no longer be trusted as fully as he was previously. And 
the same thing applies here.
  If that confidence were shaken in that regulator, it would add to the 
public's distrust of Government in general and weaken the very fabric 
of our Nation, the civic bond that holds this democracy together.
  Now, if we do not think it is right for a regulator to take 
substantial gifts from the industry they regulate, how can we justify 
gifts being given to a person who votes on the laws being carried out 
by the regulators?
  We are the ultimate regulators of this whole Government--right here. 
We are the ones that pass those laws and send them over for the 
regulators to implement and put into place. We are the ones who have 
oversight over regulators' activities. So our positions are even more 
important than theirs. And, in my view, there is very little 
substantive difference between prohibiting a regulator from accepting 
some of these gratuities. I think we should abide by the same rules 
they are required to abide by.

  Having said this, I want to say again that I think this really, truly 
is a diversion from the nub of the issue. We should be starting with 
campaign finance reform.
  Could I have another 2 minutes?
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield 2 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GLENN. I think it is a little hypocritical for a Member to say 
they could be bought for a $21 lunch, yet turn around and pick up a 
phone to a PAC and ask for a contribution over 200 times that amount, a 
$5,000 contribution. What we are talking about here is not the donuts. 
It is more like the hole in the donut that is the real problem, like 
the tail wagging the dog.
  We may not be able to take a sandwich from a lobbyist outside the 
office, but we could still--and will--ask them for a $5,000 PAC 
contribution or a $1,000 personal contribution to go along with it. It 
does not make much sense to do it that way.
  I should add that the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which was already 
passed by our committee--Senator Levin proposed that; he has been a 
leader in this area, also--would probably have more real impact in 
terms of restoring the people's trust, the perception in their own 
Government, by disclosing who is paying what to lobby whom on which 
issue.
  But the problem comes back to where real influence may lie, and that 
is in the far greater sums of the permitted PAC contributions.
  But, be that as it may, if banning lobbyists' gifts will help remove 
these jaundiced perceptions and help to restore this institution's 
integrity, then I say let us get on with it. Let us do it. I do not 
think we can afford not to.
  It also has been said repeatedly on the floor that if this is one 
little nibble, one small start at regaining the trust, by changing some 
of the perceptions people have of our Government, then I think we ought 
to do it.
  So I support the efforts that Senator Levin and Senator Cohen have 
made on behalf of our committee on the floor. I regret I had to be gone 
for a while last evening and could not participate in some of the 
discussions on the floor. But I do want to thank Senator Levin for all 
his hard work in coming up with this substitute and am pleased to stand 
beside him in this effort.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Idaho.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Kentucky for 
yielding briefly to me to discuss what is clearly a very important 
issue for the Senate but also for the American public.
  If I can for just a few moments speak with some experience, both 
having served on the House Ethics Committee and now as a Member of the 
Senate Ethics Committee.
  While I applaud the environment of reform and the intent to reform 
the gift laws as they have been spelled out in the past and as they are 
being spelled out by the Senator from Michigan or the Senator from 
Minnesota or the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. President, my experience 
tells me that there is something here that is very important that we 
must adhere to, and that is that in the reform effort that we are 
about, for the sake of this Senate and for the sake of the American 
public, we must, first of all, be clear in what we do, it must, above 
all else, be understandable, and it must be enforceable. And if those 
three principles are not adhered to, problems will be afoot.
  My colleague from Ohio, a moment ago, spoke of perception and 
reality. My experience says that Members of the House, when I served 
there, and Members of the Senate oftentimes make mistakes because 
already the rules are so complicated that unless they and their staffs 
review them and approach them on a regular basis, they could find 
themselves accidentally in violation. And the hundreds of requests that 
we get before the committee today demonstrate that direct and open 
concern that most of our colleagues have here about failing to meet the 
test of the current rules. That was also true in the House.

  Let me liken it to the public at large who find themselves every year 
having to walk through the very complicated process of filling out a 
tax form and not wanting to be in violation of IRS regulations. Well 
over 75 to 80 percent of the audits that are done by the IRS today are 
found not to have the taxpayer in violation, but they innocently found 
themselves not having followed all the rules because they were so 
complicated.
  It is my opinion that the Wellstone substitute is so complicated that 
it cannot be followed, or that it will result in so much effort to 
interpret that, literally, new employees will have to be brought on 
board the Ethics Committee and it will not make this body a more 
ethical place than it is today.
  Clarity, understanding, simplicity, and enforcement are also how the 
public will see us. Because, if we create a myriad of trip wires that 
have no value in the improvement of the response or the integrity of 
the individual Senators, then we have accomplished no good.
  The substitute that has been offered by Senator McConnell and Senator 
Johnston to S. 1935 accomplishes strict new gift limits, tough new 
penalties for violators, clear and understandable standards for 
disclosure so the American public can look in upon us as public people 
and see by what we report that we are being fair, responsible, and 
honest. That is the reason I support reform and I support the reform 
that has been offered to us in the form of a substitute by my 
colleagues from Kentucky and from Louisiana. Because it meets the test 
of clarity, it meets the test of understandability, and it meets the 
test of enforceability. If you do not meet those tests with any law of 
the land for the average citizen or for the Senators of the United 
States, then you fail to write good law and you fail to provide the 
roadmap necessary to guide us in our performance here so we can be 
effectively and responsibly judged by those who send us here, our 
constituents. That is why we do what we do.
  As my colleague from Wyoming said, what we do is to protect the 
reputation of the Senate and also to protect the reputation of 
Senators, but, most important, to assure that those who observe us can 
observe us in a clear and understandable fashion. I think the only 
proposal that is before us that meets the standard of clarity and 
enforceability and understandability is that substitute offered by my 
colleagues from Kentucky and from Louisiana.
  Let me close by saying I speak from having served on a House Ethics 
Committee and now the Senate Ethics Committee where I have for several 
years screened and looked at Members of both bodies in their efforts to 
be in compliance with current rules of both the House and the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Idaho, 
someone who has served extensively on the Ethics Committees of both 
bodies and understands this issue clearly, for his support on our 
amendment.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 29 minutes 14 
seconds.
  Who yields time?


                      Unanimous-Consent Agreement

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for 
debate be extended by 15 minutes and that the vote on this Johnston 
amendment be at 1:45 instead of at 1:30. I believe the leadership on 
each side supports that unanimous-consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Wisconsin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The additional 15 minutes will be divided 
equally for each side. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to get back to some of the 
concerns that have been mentioned about the Levin substitute and the 
Johnston amendment that would replace it.
  I have to say I certainly enjoy being in the U.S. Senate. It is the 
greatest honor of my life. I hope to be here for quite a while, at 
least 5 more years. But I am a little surprised to see such great 
passion in this body for the defense of this system. I have heard some 
of the greatest expressions of concern that I have heard in the last 
year and a half about this issue. I just do not understand how it can 
be such a big concern.
  The Senator from Maine suggested that this is a different 
institution, and it is. It is a different institution from the 
executive. And, yes, it is a different institution from a State 
legislature, but I suggest only by degree. It is grander. We are 
involved in more issues.
  But I have to return to my own experience. Maybe I am one of the only 
Members in this body--maybe the only Member--who has actually worked in 
a system for 10 years that had an even tougher rule than this. In the 
Wisconsin legislature you cannot do anything--pure and simple. You just 
cannot do it. You know that coming in. I do not think the functions we 
perform here are really different in the sense of contact with 
constituents than that of a State legislator, where you have to meet 
with constituents. They are always asking you to join them in events 
where you are confronted with a question whether you can accept a 
football ticket or not. It is the same kind of system. I feel this 
debate has been distorted by trying to exaggerate the consequences of 
the Levin substitute.
  I think that has been done in two ways. First of all, the idea this 
is going to be so hard to enforce, as the last speaker was suggesting, 
it is just not the case. We have had this rule for 20 years in the 
State of Wisconsin, since 1973. All the members of the body--of the 
assembly and the senate--know you cannot do this. If they go somewhere, 
they have to pay their own way: Separate check. Sometimes you have to 
ask somebody, ``You are not a lobbyist, are you?'' if it relates to the 
lobbying issue. If there is any doubt in your mind, you just ask for 
your own check. It is extremely simple.
  I understand there is a different culture here. I understand what has 
been done is totally legal, and that is what bothers me about this 
debate. It is not very fair to any Member of this body who has had the 
opportunity to participate in any of these events to say they have done 
anything wrong because they have not. It is legal, and that is why it 
is painful to talk about it, because in a way it suggests these people 
have done something wrong. They have not.
  But this is our opportunity to reform the system. All I can tell you 
is the State of Wisconsin has performed very well in those 20 years. We 
have members of both parties in power. We have a Republican Governor, 
and a Democratic assembly. The economy has done very well during these 
years when the rest of the country has had some problems. We have taken 
the lead on welfare reform, on long-term care for the elderly. And the 
ship of state has done just fine with this rule. Members have not been 
forced to be embarrassed or dragged through lengthy legal proceedings.
  Yes, there have been a couple of violations in 20 years, but they 
were at a brief time in the 1980's when there was some laxness in this 
and it had to be toughened up. So it is very hard for me to understand 
how this institution can be so different from a State legislature that 
we cannot just change the way we do business. You can forget about the 
past because what was being done was legal, but we can look to the 
future by saying we are not very different from the other people in our 
society in being able to do this.
  So I really feel no one in this body has addressed the point that 
this has worked just fine in Wisconsin for 20 years. Why has it not 
been a problem there if it is such a tough thing to do?
  It is simple, and you will not even notice it after a brief time, 
after the rule is enacted, because you will simply say to people, ``I 
am happy to spend some time with you, but I am just going to have to 
pay my own way.''
  The other distortion here is the attempt to say this involves trivial 
matters, as with the comments about fruit baskets, lunches, and donuts. 
Well, I am sorry. People in my State consider a $75 meal, for example, 
which the substitute would allow, to be a lot of money. And still under 
this substitute, as I understand it, a person in the Senate or the 
House could have a $75 meal every single night of the year, which I 
think roughly comes out to $27,000, just on the meals portion. It is 
perfectly legal if we adopt this substitute.
  That is a hard thing for me to tell people back home that that should 
be OK. It is not.
  I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will be happy to yield whatever time the 
Senator from Wisconsin needs. I do have a question if he will yield for 
one.
  The substitute he is now referring to is the Johnston substitute.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. When I refer to the $75 example, it is under the 
Johnston substitute. The Levin substitute would only allow $20.
  Since there is a double strategy going on here, at one point people 
want to say this is a big deal, it is going to be hard to deal with and 
involves very substantial change. On the other hand, the argument is 
made this is a trivial matter dealing with donuts and coffee cups. It 
cannot be very trivial when various restauranteurs in Washington are 
begging for an opportunity to meet with me because this change, the 
change that the Levin substitute proposes, apparently would destroy 
their base.
  You cannot have it both ways. It cannot be both trivial and 
destructive of businesses in Washington. The fact is that there must be 
enough of this kind of activity that these people who run these 
restaurants feel that their businesses would be threatened.
  So I just simply conclude by saying it is unfortunate we even have to 
have this debate. What is unfortunate is that the Members who are 
expressing concerns about this have not done anything wrong. I do not 
think that has been said enough.
  But there is an opportunity to turn the page, to realize that most 
people in this country cannot afford these kinds of things and that 
they think it is wrong for us to receive a salary and then, on top of 
that, be able to get expensive trips and lunches and so on. I think we 
would all be better off and happier if we just eliminated this practice 
and adopted, at least at a minimum, the provisions of the Levin 
substitute.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am happy to yield 25 minutes or whatever 
time the Senator from Minnesota needs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I think I can do this in 5 minutes.
  I would like to build on the comments of my colleague from Wisconsin 
and say that I do think there has been a lot of harping on the 
complexity of all this to the point where that has become the ultimate 
simplification. The Levin proposal is very straightforward, but I will 
not engage in a debate on that.
  I want to talk about another tactic that I think is being used on the 
floor, and I hope that all of our colleagues who are going to vote on 
this really pay careful attention to it. It is quite one thing for 
colleagues to come to the floor and in very good faith--everybody 
involved in this debate is involved in good faith--say we have a real 
concern here or there in relation to charities, or whatever, in which 
case later on there will be an opportunity to offer amendments.
  Colleagues that have problems of that kind can offer amendments. It 
is quite another thing to vote for the McConnell-Johnston substitute 
because what the McConnell-Johnston substitute--I want to repeat this 
one more time for my colleagues--allows is for lobbyists and other 
special interests to, (a) pay for unlimited and undisclosed meals for 
Members and staff in Washington's most expensive restaurants, no limit, 
(b) continue to distribute to Members and staff free tickets to 
football, baseball, and other sporting events, to Broadway shows and 
other entertainment events, (c) give Members and staff an unlimited 
number of gifts if under $75--and, by the way, that does not count 
toward an aggregate, that can be given over and over and over again--
(d) finance congressional retreats at posh vacation resorts.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. If I can finish, then I will be pleased to. I just 
have to say to my colleagues that this substitute amendment does not 
represent a step forward, it represents a great leap backward. People 
who are following this debate and people who care about our having a 
process that is open and accountable will understand that.
  The Levin proposal, the Governmental Affairs Committee proposal, that 
amendment is a reasonable compromise which shows that we are serious 
about reform. Later on, colleagues can come to the floor and offer 
amendments, but right now, we are debating this amendment. I think it 
would not be a step forward but a great leap backward from the point of 
view of any reform.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. The Senator just mentioned our bill allows for 
unlimited and undisclosed meals, et cetera, and listed four things 
dealing with meals, tickets and gifts.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. That is correct.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Is it not a fact that the Levin-Wellstone amendment 
allows the same thing, only while ours would be limited to $75, yours 
is unlimited, provided it is motivated by personal friendship, to be 
decided by the Member?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. First of all, I will respond, but I want--one thing I 
want to do in this debate to clear this up is say I am proud to support 
this. This is the Levin initiative. This comes out of the Governmental 
Affairs Committee, so I will, first of all, defer to the Senator from 
Michigan and then I will respond.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Does the Senator know the answer to the question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I know the answer, but I want my colleagues to 
understand whose amendment this is, so I will first defer to the 
Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator will yield, I will be happy to.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will.
  Mr. LEVIN. It is in the judgment of the Member if it is a close 
personal friend, as we have outlined it in this substitute which the 
Governmental Affairs Committee has approved. The answer is correct, and 
that is an exception which I think most people believe in.
  I think the Senator from Louisiana probably believes in the close 
personal friendship exception that we ought to be able--as a matter of 
fact, I think he has spoken to me about close personal friendships--we 
ought to be able to accept gifts from persons we believe are close 
personal friends.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. All I am saying, I think that is entirely correct, and 
ours allows that. The difference is ours is limited to $75, yours is 
unlimited, except yours is close personal friend. All I am saying is 
that the Senator from Minnesota, in quavering voice and stentorian 
tones, says this will allow this. Well, so does the pending amendment. 
So does your amendment.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. If the Senator will yield for a moment, the 
distinction, of course, since the Senator originally put the question 
to me, the distinction--if the Senator wants to go with the ridicule 
about quavering voice, he can do so. Ridicule has a way of backfiring. 
People are serious about this on the floor and in the country.
  The distinction is in the Levin proposal, there is an exemption for 
friends, and the Senator might want to add to this, with a fairly tight 
and rigorous definition of ``friend.'' In this substitute amendment, it 
is across the board. It is for anybody.
  Now, I think anyone who is following this debate can follow that 
distinction. So if the Senator wants to go with ridicule, he can, but 
that is no substitute for honest disagreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, if that was ridicule--and perhaps it 
was--I apologize.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield whatever time the Senator from Kentucky may need.
  Mr. FORD. Three minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, throughout this debate, I have heard many of 
my colleagues tell us that public confidence of the Congress is at an 
all time low. I think it is important for all us to recognize that 
there is no magic wand to restore public confidence in this 
institution. Restoring confidence requires a step by step change in the 
way we are perceived by our constituents.
  We have already initiated some reforms. For example, Members are now 
required to pay a fee to use the services of the attending physician 
and a fee to use the Senate gym.
  We recognize that there is an intense perception problem--and it is 
this perception which must be corrected if we seek to restore public 
confidence. But it is not an individual Member issue. It is the 
institution, the Congress, which is the issue.
  The public believes that while we seek their vote in our campaigns 
for the common interest, we respond to special interests after the 
election.
  And actions speak louder than words when we are being wined and 
dined, entertained, or accepting campaign contributions by lobbyists 
and special interest groups. Believe me, those actions reinforce the 
public's belief.
  When the public sees Members on golf links or tennis courts with 
these groups, their respect for the stature of the Member is diminished 
despite the justifiable reasons for such an event.
  Mr. President, if the issue was related to the individual alone, that 
problem could be corrected by disclosure. But disclosure alone is not 
going to change the perception of the Congress. And that is the 
fundamental issue. This is not an issue about us as individual Members. 
This is an issue about the Congress as an institution.
  This is the fundamental question: How can we protect and enhance the 
way we are perceived by the American people as the United States 
Senate?
  If a Member wishes to attend events for recreation or entertainment, 
he or she can always pay their way. This applies to balls, operas and 
the symphony, and, I might add, the Super Bowl, World Series, and 
Kentucky Derby, et cetera. Our constituents pay their way and expect us 
to do so. Let us be honest. Special interests entertain for benefit. 
They expect to receive influence, knowledge, and contact.
  This bill does have some problems. Any reform will offer new 
challenges, but this bill is a sincere effort to address public 
concerns. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Levin] and the Senator from 
Maine [Mr. Cohen] should be commended for taking on this difficult 
issue. I believe that they have done a good job. The substitute 
amendment to S. 1935 is a step in the right direction--toward improving 
the public perception of this institution. I urge my colleagues to lay 
aside the impact on us as individuals and choose the higher principle. 
Let us vote to restore confidence in the institution and support a 
reform of the Senate gift rule.
  Mr. President, I have listened to the great debate we have had the 
last couple of days. I am impressed by the sincerity of those who have 
made their statements, even though they may be on opposing sides.
  I wonder how many understand how easy it might be to just not take 
any gifts. I wonder if anyone really understands how easy it might be 
just not to go to all these meetings.
  We talk about perception. Let me give you a place that I went to 
where the perception, I think, was bad.
  Kentucky is the No. 1 coal-producing State in the Nation, or No. 2. 
Coal is a vital--vital--economic impact to my State.
  The National Coal Association was having their national meeting. The 
National Coal Association asked me to come and give the keynote address 
at that convention. Coal, important; all the coal operators, National 
Coal Association Convention.
  Then they asked me, in addition to that, to participate in a forum 
following that as it relates to energy and energy prospects in the 
future. I readily agreed because it was very important to my State, and 
a constituency request. I went. Transportation was furnished, and a 
room. That is what I got. But the perception was: White Sulphur 
Springs, a plush resort. So Ford goes to White Sulfur Springs to visit 
with coal operators. That was the perception.
  I went late one night from here, made my keynote address, 
participated in the forum, and left. I did not participate in golf or 
tennis, any of these things, which I probably would not have done if I 
had been there anyhow. But I went to White Sulfur Springs. Perception 
is something that we need to worry about.
  Last year, I made up my mind that I would not receive any gifts. I 
sent a letter to every person who sent me any kind of an item the year 
before. I wish to tell you, Mr. President, I had more pocket calendars 
than you can imagine, little bitty pocket calendars. I had enough to 
start a bookstore. Well, I did not want all of those and did not need 
to use them. But the perception was that they sent me something of 
value, maybe $1.95, $1.99, whatever it was. So I just stopped that.
  We had a Lieutenant Governor in Kentucky named Doc Beecham. He was 
the politician's politician. He was from Logan County. They call it the 
``Free State of Logan.'' When I was chief administrative assistant to 
the Governor of Kentucky, Bert Combs, he put out an edict that none in 
government--employees, elected officials or anyone else--could receive 
anything above $25 in value. The only complaint Doc Beecham had was 
would that keep him from taking a ham, a good cured country ham. And he 
explained in his letter to the Governor there was nothing finer, 
nothing better than a Kentucky cured ham.
  There will be other States like Virginia and Tennessee that might say 
that their ham is probably finer. About the only thing that bothered me 
from that letter I wrote last year as it relates to this Christmas, I 
did not get the Farm Bureau country ham. That was the only down side, 
in my opinion, from what I did last year.
  We are going to get some kind of restriction here. It is regrettable, 
in my opinion, that we are doing it. But it may be good that we are out 
here explaining to each other and the constituency is viewing it, and 
we are trying to explain why we are for or against, or where we should 
go. And venting our spleen, as we would say down in West Kentucky, may 
be good for this institution. But I wish to say, Mr. President, I 
cannot take the substitute amendment. What it does, it loosens up the 
rules but tightens up the penalties. If you loosen the rules, there are 
not going to be any penalties.
  So I think, as someone said, we are almost back where we are now in 
what we are trying to correct. I do not like to be against some of my 
friends on the Senate floor who are for the substitute. It is 
uncomfortable for me, very uncomfortable. But I am going to have to do 
what is right, Mr. President, and support the Levin substitute, even 
though, as my friend from Maine, Senator Cohen, has said, it is not 
perfect.
  Well, we are not perfect. We strive to be perfect. There is only one 
perfect person. We strive to be perfect, and we understand that we are 
not perfect. Therefore, whatever we do, we can find that it will be 
flawed, whether greatly or not very much at all.
  I hope in the spirit of camaraderie here we make an effort to come 
forward with some rules and regulations, some limits that will be 
perceived anyhow as a step in the right direction.
  So I am going to oppose the Johnston-McConnell substitute, and I am 
going to support the Levin substitute. I hope that when it goes to 
conference we can come back with a piece of legislation with which my 
colleagues will be generally comfortable. And so I urge, with the vote 
now at 1:45, I understand, that this amendment would be rejected and 
that the substitute of Senator Levin be sustained.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. I just want to thank my friend from Kentucky, chairman of 
the Rules Committee, for that very important statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, what is the time situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan has 33 minutes; the 
Senator from Kentucky has 36 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, controlling the time for the Senator 
from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell], I will yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. President, it is said that hard cases make bad law. That is a 
legal expression for the fact that when you have some tough 
circumstances, sometimes it leads to a rule of law, or a case, or 
precedent, which does a tremendous amount of damage.
  I believe that is the situation we are facing here on the floor 
today. What we have, Mr. President, is a couple of TV programs that 
caught some Senators having a good time at a golf or tennis tournament, 
which held the institution up to ridicule. And as a result of those 
television programs, we would put a straitjacket around the activities 
of Senators, which I believe does more harm to the institution than the 
correction of whatever problem it is.
  In the first place, I believe that the problem of purely recreational 
charity events that are not real charities is a thing of the past 
anyway. I am willing to concede that Senators will not go to those 
because they do hold the Senate up to ridicule. But, if you listen to 
David Pryor from Arkansas tell about his kind of charity, I would say 
that that not only would go on but should go on. It should not be 
stopped.
  Nevertheless, Mr. President, none of the permissive rules of the 
Senate require any Senator to do anything. I remember our dear friend 
Lawton Chiles, now Governor of Florida, had a rule about fundraising. 
And in one campaign I think he limited contributions to $25 per person. 
No person could contribute more than that. He got a lot of credit for 
it down in Florida. I do not think he has ever been beaten for office.
  There is nothing at all that prohibits any Senator from saying, I 
will not take a T-shirt, calendar, bagel or anything else, announce it, 
and get whatever credit his particular State would give to him.
  So, Mr. President, I think the problem is a relatively small one 
compared to the remedy which is being talked about.
  Now, what is this remedy and why is it bad? First of all, Mr. 
President, it impinges in a very real way upon activities that have 
traditionally been, and in my view ought to be, part of the political 
process. That is, when groups come from your home State to Washington 
and want you to go to what, in effect, are working lunches--most of 
them here in the Capitol--or working dinners, you would not be able to 
do so. We have talked about, in my own case, the Jewish Federation, the 
seafood lunch, sheriffs, black elected officials, Secretary of Energy, 
the Chamber of Commerce of Shreveport, the Chamber of Commerce of New 
Orleans, the group for an empowerment zone in Monroe, and the list goes 
on and on, in my case.
  I think every other Senator can say the same thing. Those kind of 
things would be prohibited, first, if they had a lobbyist connected 
with them or if they exceeded $20. As I mentioned in the caucus the 
other day, if there are only three entree items which are served in the 
Capitol by a group, it would fit under the $20 rule, and then if you 
did not have coffee or dessert.
  So, effectively, those kinds of things would be prohibited. Where is 
the case made against those things? In my view, Mr. President, there is 
no case made or to be made. That is particularly true in my State of 
Louisiana where food is part of the way of life. It is part of the joie 
de vivre in Louisiana. It is part of what we do. People say, ``Why 
don't you act like ordinary citizens?'' That is what ordinary citizens 
do in Louisiana. We have crawfish boils. We have shrimp boils. We have 
gumbo, sauce picante--a proliferation of dishes of which we are very 
proud and which are the essence of politics, the real essence of 
politics. That kind of thing is not going to be prohibited. It is done 
up here. And believe me, we have people who come up are here all the 
time with alligator and crawfish. The only problem is they do not come 
up with enough.
  The second thing which would be prohibited would be charitable 
activity. What is wrong with a Senator working on behalf of a charity 
or lending your name to a charity organization or having a charitable 
event, as Senator Pryor talks about, or attending these other events 
which raise money for important things for our country or for our 
States or for our communities?
  There is no case made against that, Mr. President. Just because on 
``Inside Edition'' or some other television show once or twice or three 
times they have exposed Senators out playing golf looking like they are 
having a good time, most of that coverage made is unfair. Just because 
they have done that two or three times should not mean that you ought 
to separate Senators from charitable activities. That is what this bill 
does. It makes that an ethical violation.
  Finally, Mr. President, probably the worst thing that the bill does, 
in my judgment, is the endless complication that this would give to the 
lives of Senators. I believe that every Senator would have to clear 
virtually every event before he went to it. I do not know whether 
Senators have read this bill, but there are so many whys and 
wherefores. We saw an illustration of that this morning.
  Is it permissible to have contributions to one of these political 
expense funds? It appears to me that would not be permitted. The 
Senator from Michigan says he believes it would be permitted. But you 
would certainly have to get a ruling on that kind of thing. I think you 
would have to get a ruling on virtually every event you went to, not 
only every event you went to but the exception here which allows you to 
go out to have dinner with someone motivated by personal friendship.
  I think you would have to clear your friends by name and list your 
history. How else could you safely go out? Let us say you have known 
somebody 22 years, and they have been close personal friends. What 
constitutes a close personal friend? I think you would have to list all 
that information. I wonder whether Senators would dare go out with 
close personal friends to a public place if they happen to be lobbyists 
because people look around and say, ``Well, the lobbyist is picking up 
the check and he is violating the ethics code.'' And there they would 
be. There would be some complaint. You would have to come in and show 
proof you paid or these are close personal friends or whatever--endless 
complications without achieving any real reform, without there being a 
case made that that is a great evil.
  The assumption is, Mr. President, that if we pass this bill, somehow 
it will satisfy the American public, who, as someone said, unjustly 
believe we can be bought by a sack of fruit. Mr. President, that will 
never happen. But for those people who believe that, passing this bill 
will only reinforce that judgment, and it will only bring more and more 
incidents to the Ethics Committee to make the headlines.
  Mr. President, the sad fact is that there are cottage industries 
created in this country dedicated to the proposition of bringing 
Senators down and putting them in a bad light. There is everything from 
term limits to these perk groups that want to expose the Congress. They 
raise money on that. This new phenomenon, relatively, of direct mail 
where you send out direct mail pieces saying Congress can be bought, 
contribute money to our group and we will help reform the Congress. 
They are really more interested, some of them, in collecting the money 
and getting the membership than in passing the law or passing the bill 
or curing the reform. And that is an unfortunate fact of life.

  As one head of a particular Congress-bashing group told another 
committee chairman on another issue--it is not on this issue--but he 
wanted to be able to testify on an issue. The committee chairman told 
him, ``You will be glad to know that we have won. We have the votes. 
Everything is all set.'' And the particular--I will call him lobbyist 
because he really is a lobbyist--said then to the committee chairman, 
``But you don't understand. We can do constituent building. There is a 
good opportunity for constituent building.'' The chairman said, 
``Thanks, but my constituents are very happy with me on this issue.'' 
He said, ``No. You don't understand. We, my group, can build 
constituents.'' I mean, that is the name of the game, constituent 
building for these Congress-bashing groups.
  So, if you think that passage of this is going to solve the problem, 
it will not. They will point out that the Levin amendment is full of 
loopholes, exceptions, and exemptions and that it needs to be further 
tightened up, and that, by the way, you need to have term limits and 
you need to do away with retirement, reduce the pay, stop the parking. 
The list is endless, and the appetite is insatiable.
  What we need to do, Mr. President, in my view, is get some rules that 
do not assume the dishonesty of Senators but assume that Senators are 
responsible people of integrity who ought to have a clear path as to 
what they can do and what they cannot do.
  This, unfortunately, does not give you that path. I have heard it 
said that it is clear--let me give you one illustration of how 
complicated this bill is.
  The distinguished Senator from Michigan, who has really tried and 
worked hard on this, good staff work and all that, has one amendment 
that hits the bill in 39 different places. I do not know. He sent me a 
copy of it yesterday. He said this is going to solve these problems.
  I wish you would take a look at the 39 different places. I do not 
have the time to take each of the 39 different places and insert it and 
read it in context and tell what it does. I do not know whether he can 
tell completely or not. But I am telling you this is the most 
complicated, difficult bill. And it is not that they have not done a 
good job with the time that they had. It is that when you try to deal 
with what is permitted and what should be permitted and what should not 
be and try to make exemptions and exceptions, they lead to such 
ambiguities. What is friendship? What is motivated by friendship? What 
is substantial activity? What are all of these things which are very 
vague and will call for a ruling from the Ethics Committee every time 
you walk out the door of your office?
  Mr. President, this is my 22d year here. And I have not seen a great 
change in the makeup of the Senate in terms of quality of integrity. We 
have had one or two scoundrels in that time but, generally, the 
Senators are the most honest group I have ever been associated with, 
and that includes church groups, hospitals, eleemosynary institutions, 
and all the rest. I think the level of integrity of this group, by and 
large, through the years, has been very high. That integrity has not 
been noticeably changed, in my judgment, by the set of rules which we 
put on us. And I think most of those rules that have been put on have 
been relatively good, with one or two rules I may disagree with as to 
the way it is drawn.

  But there is a point at which we go too far. I believe the Levin-
Wellstone bill is that kind of bill. I think it goes way too far. I 
think it will not solve the problem; it will create the problem, will 
make life more difficult, will prevent us from doing the political job 
we are supposed to do, expected to do, will deprive charities of 
millions of dollars that they are now getting, and for no good reason.
  Mr. President, the final irony is that we are going to have this bill 
that is going to restrict all of this activity and has as its basic 
assumption that spending over $20 on a luncheon that somebody buys; 
yet, you will still be able to make a $5,000 PAC contribution or a 
$1,000 individual contribution. Moreover, you will be able to organize 
a fundraiser and raise $50,000 or more, if you are a lobbyist, for a 
Senator, and what about that?
  I say that anybody who votes for this amendment ought to be totally 
for Federal financing and prohibiting private contributions to 
Senators, because a private contribution to a Senator is the same 
thing, only much bigger than buying a lunch--much, much bigger than 
buying a lunch.
  If you ask me am I for Federal financing of campaigns, I am not, and 
I will tell you why. Principally, it is because the people of my State 
think, by and large, that it is poison. A few of them are for it, but 
most of them think financing of campaigns, spending taxpayers' money 
for somebody to run for office should not be so. It is another one of 
those ironies of public office. The public wants, on the one hand, 
clean campaigns and to reduce the effect of money; yet, they do not 
want Federal financing.
  So I hope that those who vote for this Levin amendment and vote 
against our amendment recognize that they ought, therefore, to be 
consistent to vote for full Federal financing, because it is simply not 
consistent to do the other.
  So, Mr. President, I appeal to my colleagues to, first of all, read 
this amendment, read our amendment, which drops the gift limits, which 
prohibits travel for recreation, and less for charities, which requires 
greater disclosure, which creates stiff penalties for abuse, and which 
streamlines the process, compared to the Levin-Wellstone bill in its 
complication. I think my colleagues will understand that our amendment 
creates a much better ethical climate for this body.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
  First, Mr. President, let me say that I concur with the Senator from 
Louisiana on at least one thing--that it is important that our 
colleagues read these bills and understand them.
  The Governmental Affairs Committee has come up with a substitute, 
which is the principal substitute before us. It is true gift reform. It 
will end the current situation, where we are being taken out by 
lobbyists for meals, where lobbyists are giving us tickets to the 
Redskins games, where we are flying off to what are called ``charitable 
events,'' many of which turn out to be more for the recreation of 
Members than for charity, in terms of the division of the proceeds.
  It is important that each of us read these bills, because indeed the 
atmosphere around here will change if we adopt the Governmental Affairs 
substitute. But I think we have to change that atmosphere. I think it 
is important that we change what both exists in this town, where--if 
you can believe it--we have restaurants who are saying that if 
lobbyists cannot take Members out to lunch and dinner, the restaurants 
are going to close. What a terrible indictment that would be if true. 
What a terrible indictment that would be, that restaurants would close 
in this town if lobbyists could not buy us lunch.
  The issue here is not whether or not people can go out to lunch with 
lobbyists. The question is who is paying for the dinners, who is paying 
for the tickets, who is paying for the trips to the so-called charity 
event? It is not whether you can go to them or not; it is who is paying 
for them.
  We heard the other day that the Kennedy Center would be put out of 
business if we could not be given tickets by lobbyists. I do not 
believe that is true. But what a terrible statement that would be and 
is to the American people, that restaurants or places of entertainment 
here depend on lobbyists giving us tickets and buying us meals. Is that 
what this is all about? Is that what we want to be? Is that what we 
want to appear to be or really be? No, neither one.
  My good friend from Louisiana said that if this Governmental Affairs 
substitute passes, you are not going to be able to lend your name to a 
charity. That is not so; you can lend your name to a charity. He says 
you cannot attend charitable events. That is not so; you can attend 
charitable events.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEVIN. If I can finish with this thought, and then I will be 
happy to yield.
  You can participate in charitable events, tournaments, tennis 
tournaments, golf tournaments, and ski events. Charities can waive a 
participation fee. You can participate in a charitable event.
  Where we draw the line with respect to travel and lodging for those 
so-called charitable events, because if the charitable event is at a 
location for which travel and lodging is required, the staff member or 
the Member is going to have to pay for it in order to avoid what we 
have seen over and over and over again in our living rooms, where 
Members of Congress and staff of Members of Congress have their ways 
paid and their family's ways paid to so-called ``charitable events,'' 
where they are inundated by lobbyists while they are playing golf or 
skiing, where the corporate interests or special interests in this 
country are funding that kind of travel for clearly recreational 
purposes, which, yes, benefit a charity, at least partly, but also 
significantly benefit us; that is the problem.
  I want to just read, for instance, from one of these. This is just 
one of the comments from Inside Edition: ``Imagine you and your family 
spending 3 days and nights at a charming''--and this is a TV show in 
our living rooms, one of the many.

       Imagine you and your family spending 3 days and nights at a 
     charming world-class ski resort, top-of-the-line lodging in 
     cozy chalets, with a wonderful mountain of skiing at your 
     doorstep and absolutely no worries about the cost of 
     anything, and you will never waste a moment waiting in line 
     for a lift to the top because, like the people you are about 
     to meet, you are the king of the hill, and this is the 
     sweetest deal on the slopes.

  That is a couple of days, and that is for charity. It was a charity 
that was the beneficiary of that. It was a good charity. It was the 
Primary Children's Medical Center. I assume it is a very, very 
desirable, moving charity that we all should try to contribute to. The 
question is whether or not we should make that contribution in a way 
which undermines the public confidence in this body. That is the issue. 
It is not whether or not that charity is worthy. The Children's Medical 
Center--is there any one of us that would not try to support that 
charity?
  The question is: At what price to this institution should we provide 
the support? Is this price acceptable, having that kind of an event 
with us spending days on the slopes, or whatever, and then being wined 
and dined by the lobbyists who are there, and half the money, or 
whatever, goes to the charity and half the money goes to expenses to 
bring us and our families to that recreational site, whether or not 
that is too big a price to pay in terms of public confidence in this 
institution? I believe it is. That is where we draw the line.

  I have no better friend in this body than the Senators from Arkansas 
who have spoken about a charitable event in Arkansas, and I understand 
what they are referring to. I have no doubt in the world but that that 
charity is a noble charity and that they have given much to it, as they 
have to so many other causes. I have no doubt in the world that they 
would welcome television cameras at that event.
  But do we really say we welcome television cameras at these other 
events, these so-called charitable trips that have been funded by 
narrow interest and lobbying groups and then have lobbyists out there 
with us in that kind of a setting? Is that what we are saying is really 
support for charity and that is worth it in terms of the price that 
this institution pays?
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, would the Senator not agree with me that 
when on page 36 it defines ``gift'' as including a charitable 
contribution made on the basis of a designation, recommendation, or 
other specification made to a lobbyist or foreign agent by a Member, 
officer or employee, that effectively prevents a Member from 
recommending, that is, participating, in a charity to the extent that 
you would ask someone to give? For example, Senator Pryor's event, 
which is the David Pryor Invitational, whatever you call it--I have 
been there--he would not be able, under the Senator's amendment, to 
recommend to a lobbyist to give to that, would he?
  Mr. LEVIN. The solicitation which I think my good friend from 
Louisiana is talking about, putting the name on a letterhead, is not a 
specific solicitation. That is a general solicitation. This language is 
specifically saying you cannot solicit a lobbyist or a foreign agent to 
do that. That is a specific solicitation of a lobbyist. You can solicit 
anyone else you want to give to a charity other than a registered 
lobbyist.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. It is a recommendation made to a lobbyist. Did you not 
participate in that?
  Mr. LEVIN. I think the language is very clear, that you cannot to a 
lobbyist or a foreign agent do any of the prohibited practices here. To 
a registered lobbyist or a foreign agent, you cannot do any of these 
things specified.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Is not that my point?
  Mr. LEVIN. No, because the Senator said it was a general 
solicitation.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. What is the general solicitation?
  Mr. LEVIN. One is to the lobbyist and one is to the world. There is a 
big difference.
  Now, as a matter of fact, it is very similar--if I could finish--it 
is similar to what the executive branch did, which we, by vote of 98 to 
1, said a year ago we want to follow. We are on record here.
  This is the same kind of distinction the executive branch made in its 
rules they work under and have worked under longer than a year. Lloyd 
Bentsen lives by these rules over at Treasury. But we cannot? We cannot 
live by rules that say we cannot solicit lobbyists for certain things? 
But Cabinet secretaries can live by these rules? By a vote of 98 to 1 
we said we could.
  These distinctions which are here, which the Senator from Louisiana 
says are difficult, are distinctions which come mainly from executive 
branch rules which have worked. Read these executive branch rules as 
you are reading the bill. Here is what we said a year ago:

       It is the sense of the Senate that as soon as possible 
     during this year's session the Senate should limit the 
     acceptance of gifts, meals, and travel by Members and staff 
     in a manner substantially similar to the restrictions applied 
     to executive branch officials.

  The vote was 98 to 1. Did we mean it? Do we mean to have gift reform? 
Do we really want to end the paid lunches and dinners from lobbyists 
and the free tickets to the Redskins game and the trips to the so-
called charitable events, half of which in terms of receipts by the 
charity go to pay our way to that event and the other half, if they are 
lucky, go to the charity? That is not every case, but that is typical. 
And are we going to say that we are going to continue that to be 
allowed because there are some charitable events which I think all of 
us would like to support--and can; we can go at our own expense. I 
think not. I think that the same rules that we set should apply here 
that apply in the executive branch.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dorgan). The 10 minutes of the Senator 
have expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, may I have 1 minute?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Louisiana 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized for 1 
minute.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, in all honesty, I have very carefully 
read this, and I read it again:

       A gift includes a charitable contribution made on the basis 
     of a designation, recommendation, or other specification made 
     to a lobbyist.

  Now, my friend from Michigan says it is OK to make a designation, 
recommendation or specification as long as it is a general 
recommendation, specification, et cetera, and not specific to a 
lobbyist.
  There are no such words in this amendment, Mr. President, no such 
words, and there is no difference between a general and a specific. I 
mean, could David Pryor on behalf of the David Pryor Golf Tournament 
sign a general letter and say, ``I hope all my friends come to this,'' 
and then have some of those 1,700 volunteers send those out to 
lobbyists and say, well, this is going to lobbyists and nonlobbyists 
alike? You know, the general rain falls on the just and unjust alike.
  It is not here, Mr. President. It is not here. And I believe it is 
going to prohibit any activity to raise money where you recommend or 
designate to a lobbyist. If they are included among the group that is 
being solicited, you are violating the ethics code.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if I could yield myself 3 additional 
minutes, the Senator indeed could not sign a letter soliciting funds 
from a lobbyist. That is exactly the point. We do not want to be 
soliciting funds from a lobbyist. That is the way the bill is specified 
as the Governmental Affairs Committee passed it, and that is what the 
executive branch rules read.
  Let me read you the executive branch rule it is patterned exactly 
after. It is almost verbatim:

       You cannot accept a gift from a prohibited source which is 
     given to any other person including any charitable 
     organization on the basis of designation, recommendation, or 
     other specification by the employee.

  Those are almost exactly the same words that the Senator from 
Louisiana objects to, and yet that is what is in the executive branch 
rules, which have worked, which apply to our former colleague, Senator 
Bentsen. I think we ought to be able to live with a rule if he can as 
Secretary of the Treasury, which is the rule which we said we were 
going to try to pattern some stricter gift rules after, and we all 
voted a year ago to do this.
  So the words which my friend from Louisiana points to as being in the 
committee substitute are the same words which are in the executive 
branch rule and which they have abided by without great difficulty and 
that this body a year ago said we wanted to abide by, and we can do it 
without difficulty just the way the executive branch has done it 
without difficulty.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 16 minutes 45 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from West Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. 
Rockefeller] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I wish to express my support for the 
bipartisan alternative--offered by Senators Johnston and McConnell--to 
the underlying bill.
  I wish we were here debating health care reform, or even taking up 
the health care bill that we have promised this year to the American 
people. Or we could be spending this time talking about welfare reform, 
or what it will take to approve the GATT treaty on world trade.
  Instead, we have been forced to consider the bill before us, the gift 
ban bill. And I want to emphasize how much I appreciate my colleagues 
Senators Levin and Cohen for their painstaking efforts to come up with 
a more reasonable approach to the issues than what we first 
encountered.
  In translation, we are considering legislation designed to cure our 
image problems with the American people. Now, I strongly agree that the 
U.S. Senate should have to meet the highest ethical standards. Where 
laws and rules are necessary to govern our profession, they should be 
on the books and we should comply with them.
  But I am getting increasingly distressed at the way this Congress 
almost promotes the perception that we are being unduly influenced, are 
too easily corrupted, and are impossibly weak.
  I concede the need for further limits and tighter enforcement 
designed to make even more sure that gifts cannot tempt or induce a 
Member of Congress into taking a position for the wrong reason. But I 
object vigorously to turning that into a stampede on ourselves that 
will hurt our ability to communicate with our constituents, consider 
the views of people who represent every segment of this society, and 
participate in the civic life of philanthropy and charity.
  For starters, I think we all do ourselves and our staffs a real 
injustice to accept the suggestion that we are suspect when having a 
meal bought by a lobbyist or advocate. I happen to be someone who likes 
to eat at my desk, so this is pretty irrelevant to me personally. But I 
know for my staff, meals are just another way to spend time with people 
during a busy day to get their work done. Meeting with constituents and 
lobbyists over meals is a vital way to maximum time and keep in touch.
  Running for public office is an honor and a trust. It is a privilege 
to serve in the U.S. Senate and represent the people of our home 
States. I deeply believe in public service and have dedicated most of 
my adult life to serving the people of West Virginia, and our country 
first as a Governor and now as a Senator. It is an enriching, rewarding 
experience for me personally, and an honor for each of us.
  But I also understand the mood of cynicism and mistrust that is 
sweeping the public. It bothers me greatly that the American people do 
not trust us, and I believe that we must address the issue.
  But how?
  Should we beat up on ourselves passing legislation that bans every 
last form of a gift and bars us and our staff from having meals and 
attending events with the lobbyists, advocates, and constituents with 
whom we need to communicate regularly? No.
  Instead, I believe we must honestly describe our work. We must 
explain to the American public why we are in office and what we do, and 
let them be the judge in the voting booth.
  We tell voters why travel is important. For me, I travel to Japan 
regularly to discuss key trade issues, promote a better relationship 
between our countries, and encourage business with my State. The days 
are long with meetings and dinners, but it is necessary work to build 
ties needed to advance our mutual interests. This is no perk. I see 
this as an essential part of my job, and I am willing to explain each 
trip to West Virginia voters.
  As for the issue of meals bought for Members and staff, I think if we 
explain the specifics and get rid of the shroud of secrecy, the public 
will understand.
  Let me share another personal example. As chairman of the Senate 
Steel Caucus, I believe it is essential for me, and members of my 
staff, to meet regularly with leaders of the steel industry and 
steelworkers union. Often it is in my office, but sometimes it is more 
convenient for me or a member of my staff to join a group for a working 
lunch or dinner. That happens to be a vital way to keep in touch, 
candidly share ideas, and maintain open communications. This too is 
part of the job, and it would be ludicrous to extinguish that kind of 
communication.
  And I would personally like to say something about our hard working 
staff. Senate staff work long hard hours here, and I know they would 
often prefer heading home to their families at 7 or 8 in the evening, 
but instead they attend dinners and functions to meet advocates and 
share ideas. I am personally proud of my staff, I trust their 
integrity, and want to speak on their behalf in this debate.

  While my colleagues responsible for this legislation are motivated by 
good intentions, I must respectfully disagree with their approach.
  I support this bipartisan alternative because I believe it is the 
best approach. It does no presume that Members or staff are unethical, 
but it does impose new, harsh penalties on Members or staff if rules 
are violated which is where we should concentrate our efforts.
  Another reason I want to endorse the alternative is because this 
proposal does not limit Members or staff from volunteering time and 
energy to fund-raising for charities.
  My family has a strong tradition of philanthropy, and I have been 
enormously proud to help carry that torch. I am proud of the work that 
I do for charities, and believe such efforts should be commended and 
encouraged, not tainted. It would be a travesty, in my view, to 
prohibit or discourage Members and staff from volunteering time and 
energy to charities in the name of ethics reform. Going into elective 
office should not mean abandoning other forms of civic life.
  I proudly acknowledge that I have spent several years soliciting 
funds for the Children's Health project, a nonprofit organization that 
operates mobile vans in New York City, rural West Virginia and other 
locations to provide health care to poor children.
  I have worked with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in 
charity events ranging from a fundraiser for a scholarship fund in 
memory of a young Senate staff member who passed away, to bipartisan 
groups involved in education efforts on health care reform. Each effort 
is something I am personally proud of. It would be unfair to prohibit 
or discourage such work by Members and staff for charities.
  The Senate does not need a rancorous debate on this issue, which is 
full of innuendoes. We should pass this alternative which toughens 
penalties on any violations of ethics with a bipartisan vote. We should 
candidly explain to the public what we do and why it is important.
  But most importantly, we must move on to the major issues that the 
American people expect us to act on like health care reform. Doing our 
job is best way to restore the public's confidence in Congress.
  So I think that the bill that Senator Johnston and Senator McConnell 
have put before us is important. I hope that it would prevail.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and I thank the distinguished Senator 
from Kentucky.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the minority leader, 
Senator Dole.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, is leaders' time reserved?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Leaders' time is reserved. It would take 
unanimous consent to use it.
  Mr. DOLE. I ask unanimous consent that I may use 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is their objection? The Chair hears none and 
the Senator from Kansas is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I was just meeting with a group of Kansans. 
They said, ``Well, what is going on in the Senate?'' I did not want to 
tell them--I did not think they would believe it--but I did. I said, 
``They are debating whether or not I could go out and have lunch with 
you.'' They thought I was kidding.
  So here we are again. Maybe a few will benefit from this. I cannot 
remember the last time I had lunch or dinner with a lobbyist. I do not 
do that. I cannot remember. It must have been years ago.
  I have not gone to any golf tournaments or tennis tournaments. I do 
not even visit embassies. But some people do.
  I do raise about $1.5 million each year to help Americans with 
disabilities--and that would be precluded under the Levin proposal--
because of the Dole Foundation; lobbyists may contribute to Dole 
Foundation.
  I do not have any family members involved; a staff of five. I think 
we have helped quite a few people around America. It is not just a 
Kansas operation. It is very small, but it is very important.
  I guess the broader question is: What are we trying to do? Certainly 
there must be some reasonable limit. There probably have been some 
abuses, maybe by Members, maybe by staff.
  I am not certain whether I understand the definitions of 
``lobbyists.'' When I solicit money for the Dole Foundation, I do not 
write to the lobbyists, I write to the CEO.
  Now, would a CEO be a lobbyist, I ask the distinguished manager? If I 
have the Dole Foundation to help people with disabilities around 
America, and say, ``Could you please make a contribution,'' and the CEO 
sends a check--not the lobbyist, not a Washington rep--is that 
permissible?
  Mr. LEVIN. If the CEO is not a registered lobbyist, it is 
permissible.
  Mr. DOLE. So I can go to dinner with the CEO, but I cannot go to 
dinner with the Washington representative?
  Mr. LEVIN. You cannot go to the dinner with the CEO if it is more 
than $20 here. Back home, the Rules Committee is going to allow you to 
go to dinner. There is that recognition under this proposal. Because 
there is a whole lot of activity back home, we believe it is very 
different from going out to dinner here or taking a ticket from a 
lobbyist for the Redskins here.
  We think it is important to make this distinction, because--if I 
could take a minute or 2 of my time--we think it is an important 
distinction to be made, and we made them in this bill. And the 
distinction you made, for instance, between a CEO that you want to 
solicit for your foundation and soliciting a registered lobbyist, is a 
distinction we made.
  If I could conclude with one other thought. It is also a distinction 
we made in a bill which we passed here, the lobbying registration bill, 
which passed the Senate, and I believe my good friend from Kansas 
supported that bill. It defined what a registered lobbyist is, and that 
has already passed the Senate and is awaiting conference.
  You could not solicit funds for your foundation from that person we 
defined in that bill, which you supported, but you could from other 
people for your foundation.
  Mr. DOLE. But just to go one step further. Could the CEO then take me 
to dinner to talk about the Dole Foundation, if the dinner cost more 
than $20?
  Mr. LEVIN. Are you paying for the dinner.
  Mr. DOLE. No, he is or she is; I hope.
  Mr. LEVIN. The answer is that, unless that person--there are a number 
of exceptions and I do not want to give a yes or no answer without the 
exceptions.
  But if that person is paying more than $20 for your dinner--unless 
they are a close personal friend or meet one of the other exceptions 
that is set forth, you could not accept a dinner that cost more than 
$20.
  Mr. DOLE. I could take two CEO's to dinner and they each pay half?
  Mr. LEVIN. No.
  But my friend from Kansas could always pay for his own dinner. And I 
know he is the kind of person that almost always does.
  Mr. DOLE. As I said, I cannot recall, maybe there has been a time. 
With the definition of lobbyist, I do not want to say it never 
happened, but it has been a long, long time.
  I have not parked in the parking areas out at the airports, either, 
for 15 years, that I can recall.
  But I guess it is a self-flagellation here that we enjoy so much, and 
I know some of the press enjoys. That is all some of the press cover.
  But I am not certain. I know the distinguished Senator from Michigan 
is certainly sincere in what he proposes to do, and we have a long, 
good, working relationship.
  I am not making any accusations, but it seems to me that there are 
few jobs held in lower public esteem than being a Member of Congress, 
and we keep trying to make it lower. We may not intend to make it 
lower, but by what we do--almost every week or 2, we have some little 
review. I believe last year we were all going to change all the perks, 
do away with all the perks. We now pay $540 to visit the doctor, in 
addition to our own health insurance, which is fine.
  I am not certain that has changed the perception of Congress. I have 
not had a lot of letters coming in saying, boy, am I glad you did all 
those things. And I do not mean by that the American people should not 
be concerned. They are concerned. We ought to be men and women of 
integrity, and I think, certainly in almost every case, we are. We 
should not be motivated by greed or how much we can get out of some 
lobbyist or how many free meals or how many free trips or golf matches, 
tennis matches and all those things and we have an obligation to 
safeguard the integrity of Congress.
  But I thought yesterday the distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr. 
McConnell], did a good job in trying to highlight some of the drawbacks 
of the so-called Levin substitute. There is ambiguous language. We just 
had a good example pointed out by the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. 
Johnston]. There are overly complex standards and standards that have 
little connection to ethics or good government. I think Senator 
McConnell should know. He has done an outstanding job as the vice 
chairman of the Ethics Committee and he has been responsible for 
enforcing the very rules we are now considering. It is going to be a 
nightmare, I think, for any future Members on the Ethics Committee.
  So it just seems to me the substitute gives us a little more 
flexibility. The substitute also tightens up on what some might 
consider to be areas for potential abuse. But I think the larger 
question is whether or not we are able to survive around here without 
almost a yearly assault, an annual assault on the integrity of the 
institution.
  If we abuse the system we have an Ethics Committee to deal with each 
one of us. If we do not conduct ourselves properly we will be before 
the Ethics Committee and we will have to answer in that fashion.
  It seems to me as long as there is disclosure--I make a lot of 
speeches every year. We do not accept honoraria. We changed that law. 
But we said in that law if you want to designate a charity--and most of 
my honoraria goes to either the church or disability groups in my 
State. I have never even thought about the fact that somebody gave a 
donation to somebody, that somehow I was beholden to the person or 
group who invited me to speak. I think over the past several years it 
has amounted to $500,000 or $600,000 that I have been able, by a little 
extra work, to contribute to what I thought were pretty good causes. We 
cannot do that anymore.
  For some reason, by showing up and somebody giving a donation to some 
group, a disability group or local orthopedics group in Wichita, 
mammography groups, whatever, we have somehow compromised ourselves. 
And I do not believe that is the case.
  Maybe I have missed something over the years. Maybe there is 
something I have not discovered. But I never have any conversation with 
anybody about honoraria, except we direct it through my office where it 
should go.
  So there are a lot of things about the Levin substitute that I do not 
care much about. We do lend our names. We all lend our names. As the 
Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Rockefeller], just said, we are all 
asked from time to time, ``Will you put your name on a letter to help 
raise money for what we consider to be a worthy cause?'' Maybe its 
arthritis, maybe it is the Kidney Foundation, maybe it is something 
else. We do that. We do that not expecting political gain but because 
we believe maybe it will help raise some money which might benefit 
someone. And we have to be very careful because some groups out there 
do not have the integrity that other groups have.
  Mr. President, I want to talk briefly about the McConnell-Johnston 
amendment itself, which would move us in the right direction by 
tightening the current rules governing the acceptance of gifts. More 
specifically, it would prohibit Members and staff from receiving gifts 
exceeding $150 from any one source in a calendar year. This represents 
a significant change from the current $250 gift limit. In addition, the 
amendment does not distinguish between lobbyists and other donors. 
Gifts from all sources would fall within the $150 limit. Gifts whose 
value exceeds $75 must also be publicly disclosed.
  For each knowing and willful violation of the new gift limits and 
disclosure requirements, the amendment would impose a penalty of treble 
damages, requiring the violator to pay a monetary penalty equalling 
three times the value of the improper gift.
  For Members and staff who violate the rules on three separate 
occasions, a tough, new policy would go into effect: Three violations 
would result in expulsion from the Senate, subject to a Senate floor 
vote for Members, and a 10-year ban on lobbying anyone in the 
legislative branch.
  Mr. President, the McConnell-Johnston amendment would also place 
restrictions on travel by Members and staff.
  The amendment would permit reimbursement of travel-related expenses 
by lobbyists only for those trips that involve events ``related to our 
official duties'' and so long as information about the trips is 
publicly disclosed in the Congressional Record in advance of the 
travel. The amendment makes explicit that events that are substantially 
recreational in nature are not considered to be ``related to our 
official duties'' and prohibits reimbursement of the cost of 
entertainment expenses, such as theater tickets and tickets to sporting 
events.
  In addition, the amendment builds on the current rules by limiting 
approved domestic travel to 3 days and foreign travel to 7 days.
  Finally, Mr. President, the McConnell-Johnston amendment does not 
prohibit the practice of giving honoraria to charity. I happen to think 
there is nothing wrong with helping institutions like the Foundry 
Methodist Church, the Lakemary Center in Paola, KS, the National 
Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Catholic Charities, the United Negro College 
Fund, and the Horatio Alger Association. These are just some of the 
charities and churches to which I have directed honoraria--and I can 
say that I have never felt ``compromised.'' I have never felt that 
someone was trying to ``buy'' my vote or influence me in some devious 
or unethical way. In fact, I have always believed that earmarking 
honoraria to charity was a good thing--helping charities raise much-
needed funds for their worthy activities and programs.
  And let us remember: Each year, charitable honoraria are publicly 
disclosed--the name of the donor, the amount of the contribution, and 
the charitable recipient.
  So, Mr. President, Senators McConnell and Johnston have crafted an 
amendment that is both fair and tough, one that represents an 
improvement over the current rules. No doubt about it, the American 
people deserve to have confidence that their elected Representatives 
conduct their business untarnished by monetary and other inappropriate 
considerations. The McConnell-Johnston amendment accomplishes this 
important goal, and it deserves our support.
  So I suggest I happen to believe the substitute offers the best hope 
and I hope and trust it will be adopted.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the leader, still on his time, yield?
  Mr. DOLE. I will take 1 more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 1 additional 
minute.
  Mr. McCONNELL. With regard to the CEO discussion under the lobbying 
disclosure bill, the CEO may well be a lobbyist. Nobody will know for 
sure. If he spends some of his time lobbying, he may well become a 
lobbyist. It is hopelessly complicated.
  One thing I can say to you, leader, as vice chairman of the Ethics 
Committee. If this, the Levin-Wellstone measure, passes, somebody in 
this body will have his or her reputation ruined within 6 months, and I 
thank the leader for his statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 10 minutes of the minority leader has 
expired. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. If the manager of the bill will give me 5 or 6 
minutes?
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from New Jersey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized for 
6 minutes.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong opposition 
to the amendment that has been offered by the distinguished Senator 
from Kentucky, [Mr. McConnell]. I want to begin by emphasizing that I 
know this amendment has been offered in good faith and its proponents 
genuinely believe that it represents the best policy in this area.
  But, having said that, I want to express my opposition to the 
amendment in the strongest possible terms. It would, in my view, be a 
major step backward. It is inconsistent with the goals of the pending 
legislation and it is incompatible with real reform.
  I would like to give you just a few examples of the problems I see in 
the McConnell-Johnston substitute.
  First, it would authorize the very kind of recreational trips that 
have created such controversy in the first place. These are trips in 
which large corporations pay substantial sums for the right to spend a 
weekend with Senators and Representatives. They can be playing golf or 
skiing or having dinner together, establishing cozy relationships and 
in a nutshell, acquiring access.
  The kind of access, I would note, that is absolutely unavailable to 
ordinary citizens, to hard-working people who would love to have the 
ear of a Senator or Congressman for some time, and plead their case for 
trying to make a living in these high-cost days; for pleading the case 
to try to provide a college education for their children or for 
pleading the case to have health care put into place so everybody knows 
they have a degree of health care coverage when they get sick. They 
would love to have that kind of access.
  We Senators get thousands of letters each and every week and every 
month--thousands of phone calls from people pleading for access. They 
want to express their view on a particular matter. But they do not get 
it.
  But the people who pay your bills for the restaurants and the 
dinners, they get access. They do not sit there silently. They do not 
take a pledge before they sit you down to a nice bottle of wine and 
relaxed atmosphere and say, ``Hey, listen, I am not going to talk to 
you about any of the problems I have. I just want to talk to you about 
the weather. I just want to talk to you about life in general.''
  No, the unemployed waitress who is trying to raise her kids 
singlehandedly who has a problem, the laborer who struggles to pay his 
bills and keep his head above water, ordinary folks, they will never be 
able to spend a weekend on the beach with their Congressman. They will 
never have a fancy dinner at a restaurant and tell their Senator about 
their problems. They are the kind of people who look at these lavish 
trips and do not understand why it is the person they sent to represent 
them in Washington has to be subject to that kind of a discussion. They 
think the deck is stacked against them.
  I think it is time to do away with these recreational trips. They are 
fun. I know because I have been on them myself. I do not go anymore.
  I also acknowledge these charity events do raise some funds for 
worthy causes, but there are worthier ways to do that than treating 
ourselves to a free weekend of fun and frolic.
  The Levin approach allows us to participate in charity events. It 
does not ban that at all. It just places reasonable restrictions on how 
much charity we get.
  Giving up these kinds of elaborate trips is not really a huge 
sacrifice. I know, having taken them, it is not that hard to give up. 
Yet the McConnell-Johnston substitute explicitly preserves them, 
explicitly encodes them and says this is what you are allowed to do. Go 
take the tennis tournament, go ahead and take the golf tournament, go 
ahead and take the ski trip, go ahead and take the fishing trip. After 
all the controversy about them, I do not think it makes sense.
  Mr. President, I want to mention something else that goes beyond the 
recreational charity trips and tell you something else the amendment 
would allow--free meals and entertainment without any limit to the 
expense therein. I ask you, does that promote a good atmosphere of 
trust and belief in Government? I do not think so. I do not think so. 
When ordinary citizens who cast their votes believing they send someone 
here to represent them full time see that person portrayed at a lavish 
restaurant or having a great time at a fancy ball, they do not think 
that is in their best interests.
  I know, as Senator McConnell has explained, the amendment would 
reduce the current $250 gift limit to $150. But under current rules, 
meals are exempt from that limit and they would remain exempt under 
this amendment.
  There would be no limit--none--on what a lobbyist could pay for a 
Senator's meal. So a lobbyist could continue to take a Senator to any 
fancy restaurant for that filet mignon dinner, $200 bottle of 
champagne, and all the rest, and wine and dine for hours on end and 
then, to top things off, take them to a concert or play.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask the manager if I might have 2 more minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 more minutes.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. This could happen not once, not just twice, but every 
single night of the year. Mr. President, it is not reform. It is not 
acceptable.
  There are other problems in this amendment.
  Mr. President, I just want to make reference to one thing that I 
think escapes the debate here, and that is we are debating among 
ourselves whether it is inconvenient, whether or not we are going to 
have to have additional staff.
  We did away with honoraria, we did away with free gyms, we did away 
with free doctors, we did away with other freebies, and yet life goes 
on here. I do not see any dearth of people who want to have my seat or 
other seats that exist here.
  I urge that this debate take place in town meetings across the 
country. I would like to see people stand in front of a group of 
citizens and say, ``No, it's going to be too complicated; no, we're 
going to have a lineup, we're going to have lots of employees in the 
Ethics Committee; no, no, we can't do that.'' Tell it to the citizens 
you serve and see what kind of answer you get. That is the ultimate 
test. That is the litmus test.
  If you are annoyed by cameras pursuing you, then what you have to do 
is decide whether or not what you are doing is acceptable to the public 
at large who, again, you are obliged to serve.
  Mr. President, I regret this debate has gone on as long as it has and 
that it has gotten a bit angry and acrimonious at times because we are, 
in the final analysis--all of us--committed to serving this country and 
serving our constituents. I do not doubt anybody's sincere interest in 
doing that.
  For goodness sake, recognize that change has taken place. There is a 
different way of life in the U.S. Senate than there used to be 10 or 20 
years ago, and even 5 years ago.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Can I get 1 more minute?
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 1 additional minute.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, under this amendment, gifts under $150 
would be allowed. Everything from free watches to free clothes; you 
name it. Even if the gifts are from lobbyists. Even if those lobbyists 
have legislation pending before the Senate. Even if everyone knows that 
the gifts are designed to buy access.
  I also want to highlight a particular kind of problem that this 
amendment perpetuates. Under the amendment, Members would be allowed to 
solicit lobbyists to pay for Members' legal costs. Now, Mr. President, 
when ordinary Americans run into legal problems, what options do they 
have? Maybe they have to dip into their savings. Maybe they have to 
turn to their families for help. But one thing they certainly cannot do 
is turn to special interests lobbyists to bail them out. And if 
ordinary citizens can't, we shouldn't either. It's just not right.
  Mr. President, there are other problems with this amendment. But let 
me make this point. The Levin substitute has been criticized because it 
might make it more difficult for Senators to engage in certain 
practices which we might all agree are innocent and proper. But the 
McConnell language makes it impossible to prevent Senators from doing 
things that the American people--and hopefully a majority of the 
Senate--believe are wrong. Given these options, the only choice is to 
reject the McConnell alternative.
  Mr. President, this Congress is the subject of a lot of unfair 
criticism. A lot of scapegoating. And a lot of demagoguery.
  I know my colleagues resent that. I do. We all do.
  But let's keep our eye on the ball: we really do need to restore 
trust in Government.
  This amendment, Mr. President, would do just the opposite. It would 
erode public confidence even further, and increase the distance between 
the Congress and the people.
  And, you know what, Mr. President:
  If we approve this amendment, if we refuse to give up the free trips 
and the free meals, if we refuse to change business as usual around 
here--this time, this one time, the cynics will be right.
  Mr. President, life has changed. It is not ``as much fun'' if your 
fun is defined by restaurants and gifts and presents and recreation 
trips. Fun is being here everyday doing the work that is available for 
us to do in this country. That to me is fun. It is fun to walk into 
this place. It is fun for me to sit at the desk at which Harry Truman 
sat.
  That is what I describe as fun, and the rest of it is trappings that 
are unnecessary. I hope that we are going to make a serious attempt to 
defeat the McConnell-Johnston amendment and talk seriously about the 
Levin amendment in the next debate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senate that the Senator 
from Kentucky has 11 minutes 11 seconds remaining, and the Senator from 
Michigan has 8 minutes 4 seconds remaining.
  The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as we wind down to the close of this 
debate, let me repeat a few observations that I made both last night 
and, to some extent, this morning.
  The Ethics Committee, which already has an extraordinarily 
complicated job in dealing with the existing rules and Senators' 
overwhelming desire to stay within those rules and request advice from 
us constantly, has an extremely complicated role today. Under the 
proposal of the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, and the 
Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, it would, in fact, be virtually 
impossible.
  I think it is certain to say every Member of the Senate will have to 
have a full-time ethics lawyer on staff. The Ethics Committee will have 
to triple its staff, and we will be dealing with such fascinating 
questions as I outlined last night as what is a donut. That will be a 
very, very serious question we will wrestle with on the Ethics 
Committee. What is a donut? Is a bagel a donut? Is a croissant a donut?
  We will also have to wrestle with the definition of coffee, as I 
outlined last night. Particularly will we be concerned with defining 
the word friendship? Particularly will that be interesting when it is a 
dating relationship? What is a close relationship? What is not?
  Clearly, under the Wellstone-Levin proposal, the Ethics Committee is 
going to be micromanaging every aspect of Senators' personal lives. We 
do not want that responsibility. We do not think it is necessary, and 
we do not think this further effort to trivialize and demean the Senate 
is in order.
  I gave several examples last night--I will not repeat them, although 
those who were here enjoyed them because they were funny. They were 
funny to a point, to the point of having to interpret the meaning of 
donuts and friendships and coffee.
  Let me give you another hypothetical today so we can end this debate 
on another high point.
  Let us say your daughter is graduating from high school. A proud 
moment, particularly for the parents. But suddenly the joy is 
shattered. It appears that one of your daughter's classmates has given 
her a graduation gift--a Cross pen, Mr. President.
  Now we know it is probably worth more than $20, and you must 
remember, all of you as you vote, that your daughter is covered by this 
bill. But you have no problem. You call your full-time ethics lawyer on 
his beeper from the graduation ceremony and together you pick through 
all the possible legal landmines that could land you before the Ethics 
Committee and destroy your career and reputation.
  The first question you would want to know is: Is the other little 
girl a lobbyist? You cannot be too sure these days. What about her 
father or her mother, are either of them lobbyists?
  We are fairly confident that they must have paid for the pen. If so, 
your daughter may have to give it back because it is prohibited by rule 
35, section 1(A)(1) revised as follows:

       Any gift provided directly or indirectly by a person 
     registered as a lobbyist or a foreign agent.

  By now, your daughter is in tears. But hold on--hold on--your ethics 
lawyer advises you that your daughter's pen might--might--be permitted 
under the ``personal friendship exemption,'' rule 35, section 1(D)(3):

       Anything provided under circumstances that clearly 
     indicate, in accordance with paragraph 2(A) that it is 
     provided for a nonbusiness purpose and is motivated by a 
     family relationship or personal friendship and not by the 
     position of the member, officer or employee.

  Mr. President, this last clause is somewhat troubling. Who knows what 
really motivates other people when they give you something? Is it 
gentle friendship or favor seeking? Would you stake your entire Senate 
career on whether your answer to that question is correct?
  Clearly, in the hypothetical that I have just outlined, the safest 
course is to have your daughter return the Cross pen to her friend: 
``Sorry, dear, give it back. That Cross pen could corrupt the United 
States Senate.''
  Now, Mr. President, that is the kind of trivia that we are dealing 
with here, and with all due respect to the proponents of the Wellstone-
Levin proposal, it trivializes, it demeans and degrades the Senate. It 
says there are a bunch of people here who have been doing something 
improper when they have not. And it is totally and completely 
impossible to administer, both for the Senators seeking to do the right 
thing and for the Ethics Committee seeking to give advice to the 
Senator about what is permissible.
   So let me, in closing the debate, thank my good friend from 
Louisiana, Senator Johnston, for having the courage to step up to this 
issue. This is not an easy issue. It is not easy being on the Ethics 
Committee. But somebody needs to carry out these functions. And when 
efforts are made to demean and degrade the Senate, somebody needs to 
stand up and try to halt it. And remember this, my colleagues, Members 
of the Senate, when you cast your vote in a few moments, if the 
Johnston-McConnell amendment fails and the Wellstone-Levin proposal 
becomes law, within 6 months or less, the career of some Member of the 
Senate will be permanently destroyed by a gift of $25 or $30--
permanently destroyed. It is a certainty. Will it be you? I hope not.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, how much time do we have left on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan has 8 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 2 minutes 45 
seconds remaining.
  The Senator from Michigan is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. First, a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. If the 
Johnston-McConnell substitute is adopted, is that substitute itself 
amendable?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator that the 
committee substitute would not be amendable at that point.
  Mr. LEVIN. If the Johnston-McConnell substitute is defeated, is the 
committee substitute then amendable?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct; the committee 
substitute would then be open to amendment at that time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, 1 year ago this week, the Senate voted 98 
to 1 that we should be bound by the gift rules similar to the executive 
branch. Every one of us but one, Senator Wallop, voted ``yea'' when the 
roll was called that it was the sense of the Senate that, as soon as 
possible, the Senate should limit the acceptance of gifts, meals, and 
travel by Members or staff in a manner substantially similar to the 
restrictions applicable to executive branch officials.
  Now, those restrictions are restrictions which we have written into 
the substitute in many, many cases, including the one which my friend 
from Kentucky likes to talk about, the doughnut. That is not something 
which was made up by the Governmental Affairs Committee for this 
substitute. That is an executive branch rule which we said we wanted to 
follow a year ago, which my friend from Kentucky voted for, my friend 
from Louisiana voted for, we all voted for, and which has worked. And 
it reads in the executive branch that modest items of food and 
refreshments such as soft drinks, coffee, doughnuts, are permitted. 
They are not prohibited in the executive branch rules, nor would they 
be prohibited here.
  If Cabinet Secretaries can live with executive branch rules, if 
former Senator Lloyd Bentsen can live with executive branch rules, can 
we not? If they are understandable to the entire executive branch and 
we follow them, as we said we would a year ago, with some tougher rules 
patterned after theirs, if they can follow them, as they have been able 
to, can we not? Are we going to adopt a double standard here today 
which says we are going to continue to accept meals paid for by 
lobbyists, tickets paid for by lobbyists, recreational trips that are 
paid for by lobbyists, where we take our families on recreational 
trips, where, yes, a charity also benefits, not just us? Are we going 
to continue to use that excuse for accepting that kind of a benefit 
from lobbyists when the executive branch has said ``no more'' I think 
not.

  I think that we must not do that, that we have to continue to seek to 
improve our own activities and the public impression about those 
activities. And none of this ever comes easy. None of it ever comes 
easy. It represents change.
  What the Johnston-McConnell amendment does is say that business as 
usual is OK. It is going to continue to be OK for lobbyists to buy our 
meals. It is going to continue to be OK, written right into their 
substitute, for lobbyists to be giving us the tickets. It is going to 
continue to be OK for the kinds of recreational trips which have been 
highlighted over and over again on our nightly television as an 
embarrassment to us, so embarrassing that most of us, when filmed on 
those trips, try to hide or run away. That is still going to be 
permitted. And the argument there is, well, if it is disclosed, it is 
OK. Well, when it is exposed, it sure is embarrassing. All those trips 
which have been the subject of those exposes have been disclosed in our 
disclosure forms. And maybe the persons who went on them felt 
comfortable. I am sure they did. And maybe those persons can get 
reelected. I hope they can. At least in many cases I hope they can.
  But I will tell this, Mr. President. Those kinds of trips, where we 
and our families are the beneficiaries of the largess of lobbyists and 
the corporations which pay their bills, when we are the beneficiaries 
of such trips, we contribute to a lack of public confidence in this 
institution, even if individually we are able to become reelected.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I would yield myself 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 1 additional 
minute.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. It has been said we have not changed the perception of 
the Congress through all the things we have done, and I think that is 
true. But we must continue to try. I think it is our obligation to keep 
trying, when public opinion polls come back, as this most recent one, 
which in response to the question: Which of the following do you think 
really controls the Federal Government in Washington, 7 percent say the 
President, 22 percent say the Congress, 50 percent--50 percent--say it 
is the lobbyists and the special interests.
  In a democracy, that is not acceptable as a perception of this body. 
We must act to change it in a reasonable way. Yes, we have to make some 
distinctions, and this committee bill does make distinctions. The 
substitute is business as usual. Unless we defeat it, it means that we 
consider business as usual the acceptable mean for this body.
  Mr. President, I yield the last minute or two that I have to my 
friend from Maine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes remaining. The Senator 
from Maine [Mr. Cohen] is recognized for 2 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I was momentarily absent from the Chamber a 
short time ago. I had to attend a function in the Russell caucus room, 
as did my friend from Maine, the majority leader. The function was put 
on by the American Jewish Committee. Each of us received an award. I 
chose to skip the meal. I was fairly confident it did not amount to $20 
in value, although I am not so sure about the plaque that I received. 
Nonetheless, it brought to mind exactly what we are debating here 
today-- an event entirely proper in its proceedings with the best of 
intentions to recognize the people who are supportive of issues of 
concern to that particular group.

  But I must say what we are really trying to deal with here is what 
Senator Levin has just talked about, the public's perception that we 
are selling out the Nation's business, be it for a lunch, or a dinner, 
or a trophy, or a memento, or a trip. Everyone here, as I have said 
before, understands and knows that is a false perception. But 
nonetheless, it is real, and it is deep.
  So the question is: Do we have an obligation to try and rectify the 
situation? I do not believe, as I said earlier, that the Levin 
substitute, if it passes will change public opinion per se. I believe 
we will not change public opinion until we measure up to the high 
quality of debate we are capable of, and until we deal with health 
care, crime, and the host of other legislation that is on the 
President's agenda and on our agenda.
  Until we deal effectively with these issues, the public's opinion 
will not change about Congress. Nonetheless, we have a duty to remove 
as much of the cynicism as possible. It is deep-seated. It has been 
that way for many, many years. We will not change it by this 
legislation alone as we have not been able to change it through the 
reforms made in regard to gym privileges, haircuts, and the stationery 
store. None of that has changed it. In spite of that, we have an 
obligation to do what we think is best for the institution.
  I believe the Levin approach is superior to that of the McConnell-
Johnston substitute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 2 minutes and 42 
seconds remaining.
  Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, is my time all that is left between now 
and the votes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the time.
  Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the majority leader.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I would like to use my leader time to 
make a brief comment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I invite Senator Cohen, if he has not finished, to 
accept some of my time.
  Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky yielded his time. He may not 
have been aware that I will use my leader time. I ask unanimous consent 
that he have the opportunity to get his time back, if he wishes to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank my friend.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, Members of the Senate, this has been a 
debate at times painful, but I think also constructive and useful. I 
begin my brief remarks by commending all of those involved in the 
process: Senators Lautenberg, Wellstone, and Feingold; Senator Levin 
for being the principal author of the bill now before the Senate; 
Senator Cohen as the ranking member. He participated actively with 
Senator Levin in that effort; and Senators McConnell and Johnston who 
drafted the substitute which is now before the Senate.
  There is no appropriate basis for any criticism of any of them for 
the efforts that they are making to bring clarity and reasonableness to 
a circumstance that is inherently unclear and very difficult to be 
reasonable.
  There has been a lot of sarcasm, a lot of cynicism, a lot of sneering 
and snideness by some about the debate that is under way, and about 
some of the practice that has followed. I believe that most of the 
criticism is unjustified and offensive. And I commend all of those who 
are trying to move toward a more clear and more fair, a more reasonable 
standard of conduct.
  I support the legislation proposed by Senator Levin and Senator Cohen 
and others who have been involved in this process. I believe of the 
alternatives before us that it represents that which is most clear, 
which is most reasonable, which is most fair to all concerned, and 
which also will enable us to restore the perception of integrity to 
which so many Senators have spoken during the debate here.
  As Senator Cohen rightly said, no one action will do that. There will 
be required many other actions on substantive legislation, and on rules 
and procedures which govern our actions. But this is one very important 
step. I believe that the Senate and the American people will be well 
served and best served if the Senate rejects the substitute and votes 
to enact the pending bill, the Levin bill.
  I think it is reasonable. I think it is fair. I think it gives as 
much certainty in a very uncertain area as is possible under the 
circumstances. I believe in the main those of our constituents who are 
aware of the details would in the debate agree.
  I hope very much that the Senate will vote not to accept the 
substitute and that it will vote for the Levin bill.
  I thank my colleagues.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Kentucky, who has 2 minutes and 42 seconds remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I think enough has been said on this.
  Let me just simply close by saying what I said before; that if the 
Levin-Wellstone proposal is passed, someone's career would be 
inadvertently destroyed within the next year.
  I hope the Senate will not take that step.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the 
McConnell-Johnston substitute to S. 1935. I do this because I am 
convinced that the well-intentioned attempts by my colleagues to 
micromanage the Senate rules to cover every contingency of friendship 
and gift-giving will lead the Senate Ethics Committee, the Senate Rules 
Committee, and each Senate office to an unworkable system based on 
fear, uncertainty, and distinctions so fine that they defy resolution.
  The McConnell-Johnston substitute is a rational and important reform 
of a system which currently creates the impression that special 
interests run the Congress. It reduces the limit on gifts. More 
important, it requires the disclosure of gifts so that voters who are 
concerned with undue influence can know who is receiving what and from 
whom. In the infancy of the campaign reform movement we used to say 
that, ``Sunshine is a great disinfectant,'' and that is still true.
  Are you concerned about improper influence arising out of a gift 
limited to a value of $150? If it is fully and publicly disclosed, you 
can decide.
  Most important of all, for me, is that the McConnell-Johnston 
substitute creates some bright and unmistakable lines which every 
Senator can follow. We will know with certainty and clarity what we can 
take and what we cannot. We will know with certainty and clarity that 
our activity will be fully disclosed and available to anyone who wants 
to know the truth.
  The alternative proposals do not create bright lines, they create 
gray areas. They create ifs, ands, and buts, which will result in 
locking each Senator into a guessing game with the Ethics Committee 
about the interpretation of relationships and the distinctions between 
constituents and lobbyists, which are often not at all clear.
  I know that my friends who support the Levin bill believe that their 
approach is better because they believe it bans more, restricts more, 
and tightens more. But I must warn them that their approach will not go 
further to ease the public's mind. The effect will be just the 
opposite. The gray areas, the doubts, the flexibility, and the 
uncertainties in the Levin bill will create more public suspicion, not 
less.
  Public suspicion will be allayed by clear, sensible rules which are 
applied uniformly across all Members. This is the course that the 
McConnell-Johnston substitute puts us on, and it is the course I will 
support.
  Mr. STEVENS. I seek clarification regarding one of the provisions in 
the McConnell amendment. Under current rules travel time for necessary 
expenses is limited to 3 days exclusive of travel time within the 
United States and 7 days exclusive of travel time outside of the United 
States. The Ethics Committee has interpreted the term ``United States'' 
to include only the lower 48 States. Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. 
possessions and territories fall within the 7-day travel limit. It is 
my understanding that it was the intent of the author of this amendment 
to keep the current interpretation. I ask for confirmation of this 
because it is not clear from the amendment.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It was my intent to keep the current interpretation of 
the rule. Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. possessions and territories 
would continue to fall under the 7-day travel limit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from Kentucky. On this question, the yeas and nays have 
been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Shelby] is 
absent because of illness.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I announce that the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Packwood] 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 39, nays 59, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 101 Leg.]

                                YEAS--39

     Bennett
     Bond
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Campbell
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Danforth
     DeConcini
     Dodd
     Dole
     Durenberger
     Faircloth
     Gramm
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Lott
     Mack
     Mathews
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Rockefeller
     Simpson
     Smith
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Wallop

                                NAYS--59

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boren
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Burns
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     McCain
     Metzenbaum
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Pressler
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Sasser
     Simon
     Specter
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Packwood
     Shelby
       
  So the amendment (No. 1674) was rejected.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. ROBB. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Oklahoma.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, the bill is now subject to further 
amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.


                           Amendment No. 1675

         (Purpose: To modify the post-employment restrictions)

  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and the Senator from 
Arizona, Senator McCain, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Boren], for himself and Mr. 
     McCain, proposes an amendment numbered 1675.

  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place insert the following:

     SEC.  . POST-EMPLOYMENT REFORM ACT OF 1994.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``Post-
     Employment Reform Act of 1994''.
       (b) Former Agency Ban.--
       (1) Executive Branch.--Section 207(c)(1) of title 18, 
     United States Code, is amended by striking ``within 1 year 
     after'' and inserting ``within 2 years after''.
       (2) Congress.--Section 207(e) of title 18, United States 
     Code, is amended in paragraphs (1)(A), (2)(A), (3), (4)(A), 
     and (5)(A), by striking ``within 1 year after'' and inserting 
     ``within 2 years after''.
       (3) Conforming amendment relating to pay levels.--(A) 
     Section 207(c)(2)(ii) of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended by striking ``the rate of basic pay payable for GS-15 
     of the General Schedule''.
       (B) Section 207(e)(6) of title 18, United States Code, is 
     amended--
       (i) in subparagraph (A) by striking ``which is 75 percent 
     of the basic rate of pay payable for a Member of the House of 
     Congress in which such employee was employed'' and inserting 
     ``which is 120 percent of the minimum rate of basic pay 
     payable for GS-15 of the General Schedule''; and
       (ii) in subparagraph (B) by striking ``payable for level V 
     of the Executive Schedule'' and inserting ``which is 120 
     percent of the minimum rate of basic pay payable for GS-15 of 
     the General Schedule''.
       (c) Foreign Entities Ban.--Section 207(f) of title 18, 
     United States Code, is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (1) by striking ``within 1 year'' and 
     inserting ``within 2 years'';
       (2) by striking paragraph (2); and
       (3) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (2) and 
     inserting in such paragraph before the period the following: 
     ``, or a corporation, partnership, or other nongovernment 
     entity which is created or organized under the laws of a 
     foreign country or which has its principal place of business 
     outside the United States''.
       (d) Restrictions on Very Senior Personnel.--Section 
     207(d)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 
     striking ``within 1 year'' and inserting ``within 2 years''.
       (e) Trade and Treaty Negotiation Ban.--Section 207(b)(1) of 
     title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking ``for a 
     period of 1 year'' and inserting ``for a period of 10 
     years''.
       (f) Effective Date.--This section shall be effective after 
     January 1, 1995.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  The amendment which I proposed, along with my colleague from Arizona, 
Senator McCain, is an amendment to the gift ban legislation that will 
help close the revolving door of influence peddling in our Government. 
We have dealt with a variety of issues that will reform the process by 
which our elected officials are lobbied by outside parties. The issues 
which include increased disclosure in the form of gift and travel 
policies are important, but they are only part of the problem which has 
caused Americans to lose faith in their Government.
  We must address the problem of the revolving door by prohibiting 
elected officials and their staffs from enriching themselves by trading 
on the contacts and special knowledge that they gain while in office. 
The prevalence of this situation tarnishes the idea of public service, 
and it decreases the public's faith in the integrity of the political 
process.
  This amendment, which is based upon S. 420, which Senator McCain and 
I introduced earlier, and on which hearings have been held in the 
Governmental Affairs Committee, the Ethics in Government Reform Act, 
would bring the revolving door to an abrupt halt. S. 420 was 
cosponsored originally by Senators McCain, Bryan, Feingold, and 
Campbell. It addresses the problem both in the context of the executive 
branch and the legislative branch.
  Mr. President, some may complain that the restrictions I propose are 
too onerous. I come to the floor today to answer that they are not only 
reasonable, but they are also absolutely necessary. The American people 
are rightly disillusioned when they see their public servants leave 
Government and receive huge salaries as they use their special contacts 
and knowledge to improperly influence the very process they have been 
charged with protecting. We must act quickly and decisively to 
eliminate even the appearance that this improper behavior occurs 
regularly and is condoned by the structure of our government.

  Certainly, I do not believe that lobbying is inherently evil. 
Lobbyists often provide necessary information to public officials, and 
they help citizens and groups present their views to the Government. 
However, the public perception of lobbying, particularly by former 
public servants, does not match the ideal of a professional who merely 
provides accurate and timely information to those who are having to 
make policy decisions. Unfortunately, there are many examples of 
improper behavior that support this perception--it is not merely the 
product of populist rhetoric.
  Since 1974, 47 percent of all former senior trade representatives 
have personally registered, or their firms have registered, with the 
Justice Department as foreign agents. My staff has compiled a list of 
at least 138 Members of Congress who are currently lobbying their 
former colleagues. That means that there is one former Member of 
Congress lobbying for every six Members currently serving. That is a 
surprisingly high ratio.
  Of all the permanent Senate committee staff directors leaving the 
Hill since 1988, 42 percent have left to become lobbyists. In the 
House, that number is 34 percent. Of the most powerful Senate 
committees, the so-called A committees, 48 percent of the staff 
directors who have left since 1988 have become lobbyists, and 50 
percent of the staff directors of the equivalent House committees have 
become lobbyists.
  These figures are not surprising when you understand the long 
tradition of public servants cashing in on their experience and 
contacts as lobbyists. I find a brief excerpt from a chapter in ``The 
Lobbying Handbook'' by John Zorock to be tragically illuminating. For 
those who are not familiar with this publication, it is an extensive 
tome, costing about $125, that has been called the ``Bible'' for those 
who want to lobby or to hire lobbyists. The first step it suggests is 
obvious: Get a college degree or similar education. No one finds 
anything wrong with that. Unfortunately, his second suggestion also 
seems all too obvious in light of the current revolving door. After you 
get your education, get a job in Congress. Mr. Zorock writes:

       Because just any job will not qualify you for the lobbying 
     profession, your second objective should be a position as a 
     legislative or administrative assistant or professional 
     counsel to a member of Congress. * * * A job on the House 
     Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, or 
     the Joint Tax Committee can be translated into big bucks. * * 
     * Even those whose fields are not as potentially lucrative or 
     as omnipresent as taxes will have something to sell when they 
     become lobbyists and leave the public sector and leave public 
     office, either as members or as staffers.

  Mr. President, if that does not show that the public perception is 
absolutely correct, I do not know what does. I continue to believe that 
public service should not be reduced to something to sell to gain money 
and prestige when one enters the private sector. I do not think that it 
is too much to ask that people not pursue public service mainly as an 
opportunity to enhance their own earning power down the road.
  The American people expect us to reform the way we do business. They 
have entrusted the public good to our care, and we must demonstrate 
that we have the courage and the wisdom to act responsibly. Trying to 
close as much as we can the spinning revolving door is absolutely 
necessary for us to live up to that trust.
  Although I favor post-employment bans of greater lengths than the 
ones contained in this amendment, I appreciate very much the 
willingness of the managers of this bill, my good friends Senators 
Levin and Cohen, to work with me to craft a proposal that they are 
prepared to accept. With regard to the executive branch, this amendment 
goes several steps beyond President Clinton's Executive order that he 
issued promptly upon taking office. Perhaps most importantly, this 
amendment guarantees that the post-employment restrictions are set 
forth in law so that they cannot be rescinded by a future President.
  This amendment requires all highly paid staff in the executive 
branch--those making approximately $80,000 or more--to refrain from 
lobbying their former department or agency for 2 years. In addition to 
this restriction, very senior officials, those at the Cabinet level or 
higher, would be prohibited from lobbying political appointees in the 
executive branch for 2 years.

  These are strong ethics requirements for the executive branch, and 
Congress can do no less. This amendment would also ban Members of 
Congress for 2 years from lobbying any other Member of Congress or 
their staffs. Highly paid congressional staff would be required to 
abide by a similar 2-year ban with respect to their contacts with their 
former employer and his or her staff.
  To address the special problem of lobbying by foreign governments or 
other foreign entities, Members of Congress and highly paid executive 
or legislative branch employees would be barred for 2 years from 
lobbying for a foreign entity. A foreign entity is defined as a foreign 
country, a foreign political party, or a foreign corporation or 
business. The amendment also targets the unseemly sight of former U.S. 
trade and treaty negotiators representing the foreign countries with 
whom they had negotiated. In perhaps its strongest provision, it 
lengthens the current 1-year restriction on these public servants so 
that they cannot advise such parties for 10 years.
  Mr. President, my cosponsor, Senator McCain, and I appreciate the 
effort of the manager of this bill, Senator Levin, in reaching this 
compromise. While I can support much longer post-employment 
restrictions to combat this serious problem that undermines the 
legitimacy of our public institutions and their perception of 
legitimacy, I believe this amendment is a very good start and an 
improvement over current law.
  If we take this step, we then will have an opportunity to measure our 
experience under its provisions. If we find in the future that we need 
to go further, additional action can be taken. But for now, this is a 
very important step in the right direction.
  I do not know how many people have mentioned to me how troubled they 
are by the perceptions that people are cashing in on public service, 
and in particular they mention those who have negotiated on behalf of 
our Government, particularly in the trade area, going to work for 
foreign entities and foreign governments. It plants in the minds of the 
American people the suspicion that those people were thinking ahead to 
the next job, already thinking ahead to pleasing the interests of those 
outside our country when they were supposed to be representing our own 
national interests.
  This amendment, together with other reform bills that we will be 
considering over the course of the session, will begin to rebuild the 
public's trust in our institution of Government, and that is of 
critical importance.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor so that comments may be made by my 
friend and colleague, the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Arizona
  Mr. McCAIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I would like to start out by thanking my friend and colleague from 
Oklahoma. It is not inappropriate, I think, to mention, in light of his 
recent announcement that he will be leaving this institution after a 
long and honorable service, how much I appreciated the opportunity of 
working with him on this issue, on campaign finance reform, on many 
other issues that I believe are very important not only to the people 
of Oklahoma and Arizona, but to the people of this country.
  The Senator from Oklahoma has unique qualities which I think will be 
sorely missed. However, we do have the pleasure of his company for 
several more months, so I will reserve my eulogy for nearer to the end 
of the session. But, again, I would like to express my appreciation for 
all that he has done for me, our friendship, and for the country.
  Mr. President, for far too long Members of Congress, senior 
congressional staff, and senior White House staff have served in public 
office and then passed through the revolving door to lobby friends and 
former colleagues on behalf of special interests.
  I believe it is time to put the padlock on this revolving door so 
that Members and senior staff will not trade on their former jobs to 
access the system and influence policy from a privileged, inside 
position. It smacks of abuse and impropriety to the people that we 
represent.
  As the Senator from Oklahoma mentioned, this amendment would ban 
Members of Congress from lobbying the Hill for 2 years and senior 
congressional staff earning 75 percent of a Member's salary, 
approximately $80,000 a year, would be banned from lobbying the 
Congress for 2 years.
  I might add, Mr. President, that represents only a small percentage 
of all Hill staff employees.
  For senior executive branch personnel earning 120 percent of the GS-
15 level, they would be banned from lobbying the agency in which they 
worked for 2 years. For trade and treaty negotiators, they would be 
banned from lobbying on behalf a foreign government or foreign 
political party for 10 years. And for all highly paid individuals in 
either the Congress or the executive branch, they would be banned from 
lobbying on behalf of foreign companies for 2 years, except those 
companies which are incorporated in the United States.
  I think it is important to note that the provisions of the original 
legislation were more severe than this. In a successful effort to 
negotiate a compromise with the managers of the bill, Senator Levin and 
Senator Cohen, some of these numbers were reduced.
  As my colleagues know, current standards in the legislative branch 
ban all staff from lobbying a Member who employed them for 1 year. 
Members are also banned from lobbying the Hill for 1 full year. This 
amendment simply expands upon those existing restrictions.
  It is unfortunate, but the use of the revolving door is not uncommon. 
Month after month yet another story about the revolving door appears in 
the press. Stories in the press about individuals leaving Government 
positions for high-paid Government affairs jobs are the rule, not the 
exception.
  In the course of a hearing on March 4, 1993, Senator Boren stated the 
extent of the problem. He said:

       I want to mention very briefly an indication of the 
     seriousness of the problem. I mention that since 1974, nearly 
     half, 47 percent of all the senior U.S. Trade Representative 
     officials have now personally or their firms registered as 
     foreign agents. My staff has compiled [meaning Senator 
     Boren's staff has compiled] a list of at least 138 former 
     Members of Congress who are currently lobbying their old 
     colleagues. Once lobbying registration requirements are 
     tightened I am confident the number will increase. Still, 
     using just the numbers we have right now we know that one 
     former Member of Congress is now lobbying for every 6 Members 
     currently serving. Of all the permanent Senate committee 
     staff directors leaving since 1988, 42 percent are leaving to 
     become lobbyists. In the House the number is 34 percent. Of 
     the most powerful Senate committees, the so-called A 
     committees, 48 percent of the staff directors who have left 
     since 1988 have become lobbyists and 50 percent of the staff 
     directors of similarly important committees on the House side 
     have also become lobbyists.

  I would note that this legislation does not prevent them from doing 
so. What it does provide, I believe, is a decent period of time to 
elapse before they go back to their old living spaces and perform other 
duties.
  For years, as we know, Members of Congress, their staffs and high-
ranking White House officials have been trading on their insider 
experience and being paid handsomely for it. But just because the 
revolving door has been turning for years is not an excuse not to 
address the issue.
  Let me point out that when the Governmental Affairs Committee held 
hearings on the Ethics in Government Act, this legislation, the 
language of the bill was substantially stronger. Then a lifetime ban 
was placed on lobbying for foreign governments and other provisions 
were stronger. But many at the hearing noted that those provisions may 
have been too harsh, and although I would prefer those tougher 
provisions, Senator Boren and I have taken the remarks of those who 
testified and our colleagues' here in the Senate to heart and lessened 
the restrictions in the bill. The amendment before the Senate now is 
the result of seeking to craft a compromise on this issue, and I think 
it is an important one.
  I know this amendment will not raise our personal popularity with our 
colleagues and congressional staff. These are harsh restrictions. But I 
believe we should all understand a very important fact and that is when 
we look at poll after poll after poll, we find the people of this 
country have an increasing cynicism, skepticism, distrust, and even 
belief that there is corruption in Washington, DC, both in the 
executive and legislative branches.
  We need to take steps to restore that confidence. We need to do away 
with free parking spaces at airports. We need to put ourselves under 
the same laws as the people of this country live under--legislation 
which is being sponsored and efforts being made by many of my 
colleagues. We need to let the American people know the disconnect 
between themselves and us, although certainly real in some cases--that 
there are those of us who are attempting to reconnect ourselves to the 
people we represent: the American people. One way of doing so is to 
live like they do. Another way of doing so is to make sure that service 
to the Nation is not translated into unseemly personal gain.
  I would again like to thank the managers of the bill for allowing us 
to shape what I think is an important and meaningful compromise. I 
appreciate all their help and cooperation and, again, my deep 
appreciation to my friend, Oklahoma Senator Boren. Lastly, let me thank 
his staff for their efforts, especially Beth Garrett, Morris Goff, and 
Darcy Bentley.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I will take no more 
time. I again thank the managers of the bill. I ask unanimous consent 
Senator Feingold be added as an original cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Who seeks recognition? The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma 
and the Senator from Arizona is acceptable to me. It will strengthen 
the postemployment rules that are applicable to senior 
executive branch officials, Members of Congress, and congressional 
staff. These postemployment laws are designed to serve two purposes:
  First, they impose a cooling off period in order to eliminate the 
fact or appearance of favoritism in the former official lobbying his or 
her former office.
  Second, they prevent a former official from financially benefiting 
from the use of confidential information obtained while working for the 
Federal Government.
  The overall goal is to have the highest ethical standards for Federal 
employees without curtailing an individual's rights to free association 
and petitioning the Government and also to protect the taxpayers' 
interests in obtaining the best and brightest public servants.
  That requires a balancing of interests. I, like my good friends from 
Oklahoma and Arizona, have been deeply troubled by the reports of 
abuses of the so-called revolving door by former Government employees. 
We all know the stories and I share their concerns, that our current 
postemployment laws are porous. We have been working with them for over 
a year, since they introduced the bill early in the 103d Congress, to 
try to strike the right balance of tough rules, fairness to 
individuals, and promoting the public's interests in a first-class 
Federal work force. This amendment strikes that balance.
  I commend my good friend from Oklahoma, my good friend from Arizona 
for sticking with this issue. It is a difficult issue inside the 
Federal work force. They are not going to make a whole lot of friends 
here in Washington or the Federal work force outside Washington. But 
the people of the United States I believe are very much in their debt 
for pursuing a revolving door problem which we have, where too many 
people, too quickly leave Government and immediately cash in, in some 
way which is not appropriate, in the private sector.
  This is a balanced approach. Again I commend them for their 
persistence. It has been a long road to get to this point. We have made 
many adjustments, negotiated many compromises in it to reach the 
balance which is now present in this amendment. I think it is the right 
balance and I am happy to accept it.
  Like my friend from Arizona, I would like, if I may, to just say one 
word about the Senator from Oklahoma. I, too, will save most of my 
remarks for a later time. But this is typical of the kind of work which 
the Senator from Oklahoma has done in this Chamber. It is work which is 
aimed at increasing public confidence in Government. There has been no 
greater patriot that I have known than the Senator from Oklahoma. His 
goal has been to increase public confidence in Government. He has done 
it in literally dozens of ways. This effort, along with that of the 
Senator from Arizona, is another example of his patriotism, his 
dedication to country, his loyalty. I commend him for it, and I am 
happy to accept it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, in view of the fact that we have 24 
amendments now pending on this legislation, I will just indicate that I 
join Senator Levin in accepting the compromise that has been reached on 
this amendment. All of us are concerned about not making the 
postemployment restrictions so severe that they would discourage good 
people, talented people from coming into Government service. We are 
also concerned that they not prevent former Federal employees from 
being able to go out and pursue their professions or occupations and 
exercise their constitutional rights of free association. Senator 
McCain and Senator Boren have been very agreeable in working with us on 
this particular measure.
  In addition to restoring a sense of confidence in Government, we can 
all be assured with the passage of this particular amendment that we 
will not be able to hear from our good friend from Oklahoma for at 
least 2 years. He will not be able to call us and urge that we have 
more funding for higher education. That alone will assure its passage 
almost by unanimous consent.
  I join Senator Levin in accepting the compromise amendment that has 
been reached but I should note some reservations.
  The postemployment restrictions are intended to remove the appearance 
of special treatment or using one's former public office for private 
gain. They are designed to both eliminate the appearance of special 
treatment a former official may receive in lobbying his or her former 
office and to prevent a former Federal official from benefiting 
financially from the use of confidential information he or she obtained 
while working for the Government.
  At the same time, however, we want to be fair to those who serve in 
Government and we do not want to deny the Government nor the public 
access to the best talent.
  Postemployment restrictions must not infringe on a former Federal 
employee's constitutional right of free association nor preclude that 
individual from pursuing his or her profession and earning a living. In 
restricting the employment activities of former Federal employees, we 
must do so fairly and without affecting the rights of those individuals 
who are not engaging in improper activities or abusing the public 
trust.
  We also do not want to discourage talented and experienced 
individuals from entering public service. We want to be able to 
continue to attract quality people to serve in Government. Society can 
and does benefit from the mobility between the public and private 
sectors of experienced and skilled individuals.
  It is also important to note that not every Federal employee is in a 
position to improperly trade on past service. Restrictions on political 
and high level career people and Members of Congress may be 
appropriate, but we need to tailor these restrictions so that we are 
not covering those individuals who have neither the status nor the 
political clout to trade improperly on their Government service.
  The current postemployment restrictions have worked well. By 
expanding the current restrictions, the provisions of the Boren-McCain 
amendment may well help to address the public perception that former 
Members of Congress and Federal employees are improperly trading on 
their Government service. I thank Senators McCain and Boren for their 
interest in working with Senator Levin and myself to promote high 
ethical standards within Government and their efforts in working out 
this compromise amendment.
  With that, Mr. President, I indicate the minority accepts the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no further debate, the question is 
on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1675) was agreed to.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Colorado, Senator Brown.


                           Amendment No. 1676

(Purpose: To extend the limits on legal defense funds to the executive 
                         and judicial branches)

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of offering an 
amendment and I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Colorado [Mr. Brown] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1676.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following:

     SEC.   . PROHIBITION ON CONTRIBUTIONS TO LEGAL DEFENSE FUNDS.

       The prohibition relating to contributions to the legal 
     defense of a Member, officer, or employee of the Senate set 
     forth in paragraph 1(c)(2)(D) of rule XXXV as amended by this 
     Act shall apply to officers and employees of the executive 
     branch.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, for many years, some of us have been 
concerned about the phenomenon of the executive branch and the 
legislative branch having different rules in this ethics area. It, from 
time to time, has been the subject of political gamesmanship, 
particularly at a time when Congress found itself with different 
control than the executive did.
  My feeling has been, for a long time, that what was appropriate were 
consistent rules that were evenhanded and applied to the executive as 
well as the legislative.
  This measure that is before us is primarily designed for the 
legislative branch. All of us understand that. I think the people who 
have brought this measure to us, and the underlying amendment of the 
distinguished Senator from Michigan, in a significant way brings some 
of the rules affecting the legislative branch into line with the rules 
that already impact the executive branch.
  Nevertheless, the measure that is before us is primarily related to 
the legislative branch itself. There is one area of the bill, though, 
that proposes new rules for the legislative branch--for the House and 
the Senate--that would be different than the rules that would apply to 
the executive branch, and that is specifically in the restrictions that 
are provided for with regard to legal defense funds.
  I rise not to quarrel with those restrictions, but I do believe that 
they ought to apply to the executive branch of this country, just as 
they will apply to the legislative branch.
  That is why I have offered this amendment. It is offered in the name 
of consistency. It is offered in an effort to help make sure that we 
begin to track, along similar tracks, that fair is fair and that the 
rules are consistent between the executive and the legislative 
branches, at least in those areas where they can and should be 
consistent.
  All of us understand there are different functions, and there may be 
times when you need some diversions, but I do not believe this is one 
of them.
  If it is improper to ask lobbyists to donate to legal defense funds 
for Members of Congress, that prohibition ought to apply to the 
executive branch as well. That is all this amendment does. It is very 
straightforward. It simply suggests that we are going to have the same 
rules for the House and the Senate that we are going to have for the 
executive branch of this country.


                    Amendment No. 1676, As Modified

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the sponsors of the amendment, in reviewing 
the amendment brought forward, have suggested language that differs a 
little bit from what legislative counsel has drafted. I, at this point, 
ask unanimous consent to substitute the language that I send to the 
desk as a clarification of my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The amendment is so modified.
  The amendment, with its modification, is as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following:

     SEC.   . PROHIBITION ON CONTRIBUTIONS TO LEGAL DEFENSE FUNDS.

       No person registered as a lobbyist or a foreign agent may 
     make a contribution or other payment to a legal expense fund 
     established for the benefit of an officer or employee of the 
     executive branch.

  Mr. BROWN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, as modified, the amendment of the Senator 
from Colorado is acceptable to me. I will just leave it at that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, it is acceptable to the minority as well. I 
might at least point out that there appears to be some ambiguity in the 
existing law in terms of who may contribute how much to legal defense 
funds. So whatever ambiguity is in existing law, this would apply with 
equal ambiguity.
  Second, it seems to me we have to raise the issue, at least 
initially, as to whether or not such a provision could possibly be 
applied retroactively. In other words, there are ongoing cases in the 
Senate and the House, and also in the executive branch. If those 
individuals who are currently the subject of lawsuits are in the 
process of raising funds, we clearly have to state whether or not they 
should be allowed to do so, whether it is an ethical violation as 
opposed to a legal prohibition.
  That is something we will need to either clarify in report language 
or conference language, should we conclude a conference on this 
legislation.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that?
  Mr. COHEN. Yes, I will yield.
  Mr. BROWN. It would certainly be my impression and my intent this 
would not have a retroactive effect. Certainly, any funds prior to the 
enactment of this legislation would not come under its purview.
  The question, I guess, has risen with regard to funds raised after 
the effective date of this act. My impression is it should apply to 
funds raised after the effective date of the act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there are no other Senators wishing to 
comment, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1676) was agreed to.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the 
amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Murray). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________