[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 134 (Thursday, September 22, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMIT AND ELECTION REFORM 
                  ACT OF 1993--MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the pending 
business.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to disagree to the amendments of the House to the 
     bill from the Senate S. 3 entitled ``An Act Entitled the 
     `Congressional Spending Limit and Election Reform Act of 
     1993.'''

  The Senated resumed consideration of the message from the House.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will now be 1 hour for debate with time to be equally divided and 
controlled between the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Ford] and the Senator 
from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] or their designees.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum with 
the time equally charged to both sides.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I do not think there is any issue that 
better sums up how out of touch the current Congress is with the 
American people than the question of the version of campaign finance 
reform that the majority is promoting.
  Let us bear in mind what we are talking about, Mr. President. We are 
talking about creating a new entitlement program with tax dollars, the 
tax dollars of our citizens, to pay for our political campaigns. That 
is what we are talking about.
  Now, I believe I am correct that the President appointed an 
entitlement commission chaired by the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. 
Kerrey] and the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Danforth] and the suspicion 
is that at some point between the election and the first of the year 
this entitlement commission will say to the American people that at 
some point in the future their entitlements must be capped in some way 
or another.
  So clearly what is going on is we are going to put off until after 
the election informing the American people that some of their 
entitlements, or maybe all of them--many of them quite popular--need to 
be capped in the name of controlling the Federal deficit. But here at 
the 11th hour we want to sneak just one more entitlement for us--just 
one more entitlement for us right here at the 11th hour.
  This Congress is so hopelessly out of touch it is no wonder that 
members of the majority are even having difficulty winning their own 
primaries, as we saw here just Tuesday of this week--their own 
primaries--much less general elections. The public is literally up in 
arms about business as usual, and what could be more business as usual 
than setting up a new entitlement program funded by their tax dollars 
to benefit us in our political campaigns.
  I have seen some survey data on this subject over the years. A couple 
of years ago, in Kentucky's most liberal House district, the voters 
found it more offensive to vote for taxpayer funding of elections than 
to vote to raise your own pay, and it has only gotten worse in the last 
2 years--only gotten worse.
  What kind of arrogant Congress would consider sticking the taxpayers 
with the tab for our political campaigns at any time, much less in this 
atmosphere? We are not getting the message around here. We are simply 
not getting the message.
  Now, we all know what is going on here. The Senate passed a lousy, 
unconstitutional bill in June 1993, some 15 months ago. The House 
passed an equally awful, unconstitutional bill in November 1993, and 
since that time members of the leadership, majority leadership of the 
two Houses have been conferencing, if you will--not official 
conferences but conferencing throughout the second session of this 
Congress--trying to work out their differences on some of the 
peripheral issues such as how much are PAC's going to be allowed to 
participate in the political process and how you might be able to hide 
the fact that we are really spending taxpayers' money to finance 
political campaigns. Everybody is trying to figure out how to call it 
something else.
  The whole second session of this Congress the majority has been 
conferencing trying to figure out how to resolve their differences.
  Now, my assumption is that as health care goes down, this Congress, 
so totally out of touch with the views of the rest of Americans, has 
decided this is a great issue to bring up here at the end. So they are 
going to resurrect this turkey in the 11th hour after conferencing 
among themselves all of 1994 and try to stick the American taxpayers 
with the bill--one more entitlement program for us on the way out the 
door before this Congress becomes history.
  The only gridlock that has been going on on this issue has been among 
Democrats all of 1994. So we make no apologies for trying to stop bad 
legislation in the 11th hour of this Congress. The American people have 
had enough of this Congress. All indications are they are going to send 
a new crowd up here next year, more in touch with their desires. So 
this crowd wants to sneak through one more thing at the 11th hour, on 
the way out the door, and stick the taxpayers with the tab.
  Well, it will not be done easily, Mr. President. It will not be done 
easily.
  Now, let us talk just a little bit about the history of this issue. 
The Supreme Court has said clearly and unambiguously, 9 to zip, that 
spending is speech in our society, and it said you cannot tell people 
how much they can talk. It is constitutionally impermissible. People 
from Thurgood Marshall to William Rehnquist made that decision 
unanimously. In this society, you get to talk a lot if you want to. 
Nobody can tell you when to shut up.
  But the Court went on to say in the Buckley case that, if for some 
public policy reason the Congress concluded that maybe it was important 
to tell candidates they could not talk too much, they could offer a 
public subsidy--sort of a leveraged buyout, if you will; if you will 
shut up, I will pay you but it has to be truly voluntary. In other 
words, nothing bad can happen to you, if you say you will shut up after 
a certain point.
  So, in the Buckley case in the mid-1970's the Court said that the 
Presidential system was constitutional even though it involved the use 
of taxpayer funding principally because and solely because no candidate 
was required to shut up. And, if a candidate chose not to abide by the 
speech limits, nothing happened to them. Nothing bad happened to them. 
We have had a couple of candidates that have chosen not to, even though 
it is an extraordinarily generous subsidy in the Presidential race, so 
generous that even candidates who philosophically found it abhorrent 
when confronted with the Federal subsidy said, ``I cannot afford not to 
take it.''
  So you had people like Ronald Reagan, for example, who did not like 
it, was confronted with this enormous subsidy saying, ``As a practical 
matter I cannot afford not to take it.'' It is a very generous subsidy.
  The American people over the years, still thinking about the 
Presidential system which is constitutional, have learned more and more 
about what their tax dollars are going for. And every April 15 we have 
a poll, if you will, on the question of taxpayer funding of elections. 
It is the most extensive poll ever held in America on any subject. 
Every American gets to decide whether they want to checkoff $1 of taxes 
they already owe. It does not add to the tax bill. It is diverted away 
from something else, child nutrition, food stamps, you name it. It is 
diverted away from something else to give it to politicians to run for 
President. And as the American public has learned more and more about 
that, the participation has dropped from 29 percent of people 
voluntarily checking off down to 18 percent, so much so that the 
feeling was it was going to run out of money by the 1996 Presidential 
election.
  So last year, against the objections of the minority, the majority 
raised the checkoff from $1 to $3; in other words, so that fewer and 
fewer people could divert greater and greater amounts of money. So now 
this ever-diminishing number of Americans who are willing to use tax 
dollars to publicly finance races can divert even more money away from 
programs that the rest of the population, 82 percent, might like to see 
the money spent on.
  It is a ridiculous program. The people are voting every year. They do 
not like it. But it is constitutional. It is constitutional because 
nothing bad happens to you if you agree to take the subsidy and shut up 
after speaking for a certain amount.
  When John Connally in 1980 said, ``I just cannot as a matter of 
principle accept tax dollars to run my political campaign,'' nothing 
bad happened to him. He just did not get the dough. When Ross Perot, a 
man of apparently unlimited wealth, said, ``I want to go out and speak, 
and I am going to pay for it myself,'' nothing bad happened to him. He 
did not lose the broadcast discount. It did not trigger any dollars for 
his opponent. He did not have to put a disclaimer in his ad. Nothing 
bad happened to him.
  Ah, but alas, Mr. President, that is not what will be before us. This 
Congress senses that the public hates, detests and despises the notion 
of using their tax dollars to create a new entitlement program for us; 
trying to keep that down a little bit. But, of course, if you diminish 
the generous subsidy such as what you have in the Presidential race, 
who would want to shut up? Answer: nobody in their right mind.
  Enter the unconstitutional features and the measures that we have 
debated in the Senate, and that we are likely to get back from the 
conference which has been meeting among Democrats since last November. 
That conference is probably going to give us a measure that will 
bludgeon people into shutting up. If they choose to speak too much, 
their opponents will get tax dollars to counter their excessive speech. 
They will lose their broadcast discount. Their direct mail will cost 
more. They will have to put pejorative disclaimers in their ads.
  In short, Mr. President, there will be nothing voluntary about these 
spending limits. These speech limits will be mandatory because nobody 
in the majority wants to fully fund and make voluntary this measure 
because there is a sense out there, Mr. President, that the public will 
be outraged if they knew what is happening. And, of course, they would 
be. We have seen the surveys.
  I was reading in Roll Call this morning, this very morning, a 
purported memo from the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee 
indicating that their survey data indicated that people would be by a 
70-percent margin more likely to vote against any candidate who 
supported any kind of taxpayer funding for political campaigns. So it 
is a dynamite issue.
  Now that we have health care out of the way and the public has made 
it perfectly clear they do not want to have tax dollars pay for their 
health care, they want to pay for it themselves and have their own 
choices, now this Congress has the idea that they are going to stick 
them with a bill for the campaigns, right before we go out the door 
here at the 11th hour even though we have been in conference on this 
issue for almost a year. I have read article after article after 
article. All this year the majority has been in conference on this 
bill, and have been unable to reach a conclusion.
  Here at the 11th hour, maybe they will get together and try to stuff 
it down the throats of the American people. It is not going to work. 
The American people are going to learn more about this issue in the 
course of the next few days. We want the American people to understand 
what has happened. This is one of those issues that does not stand the 
light of day. Let a little light shine in to know what is going on 
here, Mr. President. Let the American people understand that we want to 
set up a new entitlement program for us at their expense on the way out 
the door this year.
  Oh, they are going to love it. Oh, boy, they are going to love it. 
They are in a bad mood out there already, and they deserve to be. It 
has been one disaster after another from this Congress, and this would 
be the crowning achievement. This would be the crowning achievement of 
this Congress right on the way out the door--a new entitlement program 
for us at their expense on the way out the door at the 11th hour.
  Mr. President, we are simply not going to let that happen. We are not 
going to let that happen. And it is astonishing to me that anybody 
running for office, regardless of political affiliation, would conclude 
that this is the sort of thing the American people are looking for. 
This is the reform agenda.
  When the American people are talking about reform, they would like to 
see the laws that we pass that apply to everybody else apply to us. 
That is their idea of good reform. They would like to see something 
done about lobby disclosure. They do not want some kind of gift 
legislation. All of those things are their idea of reform. But this? I 
have seen the survey data. They hate, detest, and despise this.
  Anybody that votes for this turkey deserves to lose. This is the most 
out-of-touch suggestion for reform imaginable. Where do these ideas 
come from? Who could be this out of touch? This is some ivory tower 
here in Washington. These little ideas just sort of filter out of this 
ivory tower. You know what the attitude is. The people do not 
understand it. Let us do what is best.
  I remember back during the health care debate one Member of the 
Senate said we need to do this anyway whether the American people are 
for it or against it; we need to do it anyway; they do not know best. I 
sense a little bit of that here. Let us do it for them anyway. They do 
not understand. And people on the other side will stand up and say, 
well, the Congress is for sale. Congress is for sale. And they will 
rail about the special interests.
  You know the definition of a special interest, Mr. President. That is 
somebody or a group of somebody who is against what I am trying to do. 
That is, a group of people who is against what I am trying to do.
  The groups that are on my side of a given issue are the great 
Americans exercising their right to support or oppose whomever they 
choose in political campaigns, exercising their right to petition the 
Congress and have their voices heard here in this great democracy. 
Those are the good guys. So you will hear people standing up saying: 
Let us cut off the special interests. Well, the special interests are 
groups of Americans who ban together to promote a particular point of 
view and who have a right to do it under the Constitution. They have a 
right to do it in campaigns. They have a right to sit out in front of 
our doors, and they have a right to raise hell if they want to.

  The liberals do not like that. They want them to shut up--shut up and 
sit down; we know best. What is in your interest is for the Government 
to grow. We are going to take your tax dollars--on which you do not 
have a choice, and you will go to jail if you do not pay them--and we 
are going to spend your tax dollars the way we want to, and our last 
terrific idea, as this Congress limps out of town and goes home to face 
the music, is that we are going to let your tax dollars pay for our 
campaigns. Wow, they are going to love it; they are just going to love 
it. And we are going to take the opportunity to make sure that 
everybody understands exactly what is on the drawing board here, 
exactly what is being perpetrated, what is being dumped on the American 
public here at the last moments of this session.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 10 minutes remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. BOREN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Boren] is 
recognized.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
  Mr. President, I have listened with great interest to my colleague 
from the other side of the aisle describe what this debate is all 
about. Once again, I must admit that had I not known in advance the 
subject we were discussing, I would not have recognized that we were 
debating a bill for campaign finance reform that will finally give 
power back to the American people by limiting the amount of money that 
can be spent on campaigns and allow broader participation, because to 
hear the remarks of my friend and colleague from the other side of the 
aisle, I simply would not have recognized the issue as it is now being 
described.
  It is true that the confidence of the American people in this 
institution is at an all-time low. As I said yesterday, I have pondered 
many times why people have lost confidence in this institution and what 
I could do as an individual Member, because we are all trustees of this 
great institution, through which the American people are meant to have 
an opportunity to be represented and to express their views about 
important matters impacting our future.
  I have reflected with great intensity, particularly because in a very 
few weeks I will walk out of this Chamber for the last time, not to 
return to it as a voting Member of the Senate. It has been a great 
privilege to serve here. These desks and these offices do not belong to 
us; they belong to the people. And the relationship of trust between 
the American people and their own Government has been strained and 
frayed as never before in this century. The latest polling data 
indicates that only 14 percent of the American people have confidence 
in this institution. I will leave it with great sadness. We, as 
trustees of this institution, have not done what we should do to 
restore public confidence.
  One of the reasons why people have lost confidence in this 
institution is that they have come to feel that it no longer represents 
people like them--the average American at the grassroots. The same 
polling data that I quoted a moment ago showing only a 14 percent 
approval rating also found that 79 percent of the American people said, 
``I do not believe that Congress represents or cares about people like 
me.''
  Why would the American people feel that way? One of the major reasons 
they feel that way is that they look at the way campaigns are financed 
in this country and they see that the average American has very little 
ability to participate. In 1992, the amount of money spent on campaigns 
increased by 52 percent, up to $678 million. The average winning 
candidate for the U.S. Senate--and let us never forget that in over 90 
percent of the cases the candidate that raises and spends the most 
money wins the election because they can buy the television time, they 
can buy the radio time, they can buy the direct mail, and they can buy 
the advertisements in the newspapers, without any limit whatsoever. And 
so the most money translates usually, and sadly, into the most votes. 
And more and more effort and energy is spent by sitting Members trying 
to figure out how they can raise that $4 million. That is just in an 
average-size State. In larger States, it has gone as high as $20 
million, perhaps even more. The records continue to be broken. That 
means that if you average it out per week over a 6-year period, the 
average Senator has to figure out how to raise $13,000 every week for 6 
years to raise the amount of money, on the average, it takes to get 
reelected.
  Mr. President, far from fooling the people, the people are way ahead 
of the politicians. I must say that I think the people can analyze the 
opposition to spending limits, and they understand what it means.
  If you are under pressure to raise $4 million--let us take a 
hypothetical situation--and you have four or five people, in the midst 
of a very busy day, come to see you in your office, and you have 15 
minutes, and of the people competing for your time, one is a PAC 
manager who can perhaps hold a fundraiser for you in Washington, DC, 
and raise $200,000 for your campaign fund in one night; and also 
waiting to see you is a college student, who may be working on a term 
paper, or who may be interested in getting involved in politics himself 
or herself; there might be a teacher, or a factory worker, or a farmer, 
or a small town business person--and they certainly get overlooked here 
often enough, those from the small business community--they are waiting 
to see you, but they cannot write out a big check or host a big 
fundraiser; and desperate as you are to raise the amount of money 
necessary to win the next election if you are going to stay here and 
represent your people, as you want to do, you say to yourself: How will 
I use that 15 minutes?
  Are you going to see the college student, or the factory worker, or 
the teacher, or the small business person? No. If you are desperate to 
raise that money, you are going to see the person that can raise the 
$200,000. Do the American people understand that? Seventy-nine percent 
of them say money has too much influence in politics and it takes too 
much time of our elected representatives, who ought to be spending 
their time serving the needs of the people, working on the problems 
that this country faces instead of figuring out how to raise more and 
more and more money. They understand it, and that is why 79 percent of 
them say that Congress does not have time for people like us.
  Is it good for the political process that more and more of the 
outcome of elections depends on who makes the most money instead of who 
makes the best arguments to the people? By the way, you cannot only 
raise that money in the home State; you can run around the country to 
the money centers, whether it be Los Angeles, New York, or Miami, on 
those weekends when you ought to be back home walking up and down the 
main streets and in the neighborhoods in your own State, with the 
people you represent, listening to them, hearing their needs, and you 
are off raising the money, involved in the money chase.
  The American people understand that thoroughly. And no number of 
speeches on the Senate floor can fool the American people about what 
that is doing to the political process. They also know where the money 
is flowing. Does it go to that new challenger, that young person in 
either political party, Democrat or Republican, who wants to run for 
office for the first time and bring new ideas and bring their idealism 
to this process? No, it does not go to them; it goes to the incumbent. 
House incumbents have outspent challengers by a margin of 6 to 1, and 
incumbent Senators have outspent challengers by 3 to 1. Incumbents are 
here and they can raise the money because those who have interest in 
particular pieces of legislation want to be on their good side and they 
want to be able to get in that door when you have only 15 minutes to 
give out.
  To whom do the political action committees give their money? The 
groups that are formed to look after a certain set of narrow interests, 
generally, and rate members based upon whether or not they vote with 
them three or four times out of five, for example. And they are issues 
that affect only their particular economic interests.
  The political action committees in the last election gave $10 to 
incumbent House Members for every $1 they gave to challengers--$10 to 
those already here--because they want access to those already in power, 
$6 to every sitting Senator for every $1 for a challenger.
  The American people see that. The American people understand that. 
And the American people say: ``I do not believe the Congress is working 
as it should. I do not believe it represents the people like me 
anymore.''
  Mr. President, how long are we going to sit here and allow this 
cancer to continue? How long are we going to allow the money chase to 
blot the American political process? How long are we going to allow a 
system in which over half the elected Members of Congress are getting 
well over half their contributions not from the people back home at the 
grassroots but from people located outside their States who have very, 
very little, if any, connection to the people of that State and that 
location? How long are we going to wait, Mr. President?
  We have waited until the confidence level of this Congress dropped 
from 60 percent to 50 percent to 40 percent to 30 percent to 20 percent 
to 14 percent. Are we going to wait until only 1 percent of the people 
in this country still believe in this body? How long are we going to 
wait, Mr. President? How long are we going to wait before we do 
something about it?
  Yes, we are running out of time in this Congress. We have debated 
this issue for 12 years. Senator Goldwater and I, when he was still in 
the Senate, introduced the first bipartisan effort to do something 
about this 12 years ago.
  Now we are told, oh, we must not rush something through at the last 
minute. Rush something through? We acted on it in the last Congress 
only to have it vetoed.
  It has been well over a year since this body adopted cloture on this 
proposal by a vote of 62 to 38 and then passed this measure with a 
bipartisan majority of 60 votes, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I yield myself 10 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mathews). The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized for 10 additional minutes.
  Mr. BOREN. In addition to being concerned about what has happened to 
the political process in terms of the way campaigns are funded, the 
American people are also losing faith in this institution because they 
are sick and tired of partisan politics.
  When I go home, what do I hear people say to me more than anything 
else? It is: ``Why can you people not forget whether you are Democrats 
or Republicans? Why can you not be Americans? Why can you not get 
together and solve your problems like adults and work on our behalf?''
  Let me tell you why we have waited months now and we are still 
struggling. Let me say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
there is at this moment no agreement on this bill. We are still talking 
to colleagues on the other side. I can tell you why this Senator, the 
majority leader, and Senator Ford of Kentucky, the chairman of the 
Rules Committee, who have been involved in these negotiations, have not 
yet reached an agreement. It is because there were several Republican 
Senators who proposed amendments to our original bill on the floor 
which were adopted.
  Senator McCain of Arizona said he wanted to make sure that campaign 
money was not spent for personal use. That is a good amendment.
  Senator Jeffords from Vermont said we want to close the soft money 
loophole so we can learn how different organizations are spending 
supposedly internal money to influence the outcome of elections. That 
is a basically good amendment.
  We want to make sure, they said, that the same rules on political 
action committees to try to reduced the amount of money coming from 
political actions committees into this process, apply to the House 
Members as apply to the Senate Members. And we want to get the amount 
of money, the proportion coming from PAC's--political action 
committees--reduced. That is a good principle, and we have supported 
that principle.
  The reason we have not yet reached an agreement is not because we are 
trying to pull a fast one on the other party. It is because we have 
been upholding some of the arguments and many of the good amendments 
which they offered to our bill here on the floor, and we said we will 
not try to come back with a partisan bill, we want to come back with a 
bill that will be good and fair and evenhanded to both parties.
  We want bipartisanship. I know it is an election year; I know we are 
not very far away from the congressional elections. But in the name of 
God, Mr. President, on something this important can we not forget for a 
minute that the election is coming up? Can we not forget what party we 
belong to? Can we not do something good for this country and the people 
who sent us here? Let us try to do it.
  If you want to rebuild the trust and confidence of the American 
people in this institution, let us show that at the end of this 
century, in this institution, we are for once still capable to act, to 
use an old-fashioned term, in a statesmanlike fashion. Statesmanship 
should not be out of date.
  Mr. President, what is happening here, and the other thing the 
American people get fed up with us about, is having a set of rules that 
are incomprehensible and can be misused to block actions and decisions 
on important matters to get to conference.
  I want to lay this out so the American people will understand. We are 
not talking about passing a bill here. That is not what we are arguing 
about. We are not talking about preparing or proposing what will come 
out of a conference committee. The House passed a bill different in its 
version than the Senate. By the way, I say to my colleagues, and having 
debated with my good friend from Kentucky many times on this issue, he 
says he wants less money coming from PAC's or no money coming from 
PAC's, our bill has no money coming from PAC's. The House bill keeps 
the $10,000 per PAC which now is allowed under the current law in 
place.
  What we are debating here today is a motion as to whether or not we 
should accept the House amendments to our bill. The House amendments 
allow for the present giving of PAC money just as it is now. We cut it 
down from $10,000 to zero.
  Do you want to accept the House amendments? That is what we are 
debating. The motion before us is not whether or not we are going to 
pass the campaign finance bill, but whether we are going to accept the 
House amendments. We do not want to accept the House amendments. I have 
not heard a single Senator on the other side of the aisle saying he is 
willing to accept that kind of amendment. We want to close the loophole 
on soft money. That is one of the things my colleague from Kentucky and 
I have agreed upon. Our bill did do that.
  The House bill leaves many loopholes. It leaves loopholes in terms of 
party soft money. It leaves loopholes in terms of nonparty soft money. 
In fact, that was the target of an amendment adopted in our bill in the 
Senate--for which we have been fighting--by one of the Senators on the 
other side of the aisle.
  As to bundling, we had a much tighter prohibition on bundling. As to 
lobbying, we had a provision that said a lobbyist who gives money to 
candidates should not be able to lobby for a year after he gave it to 
them. The House had no such provision.
  We have heard many times on both sides of the aisle it is not right 
for candidates to be able to carry over huge campaign war chests from 
one election to the next. We limit that carryover to 20 percent in the 
Senate bill. The house bill has no limit whatsoever.
  When it comes time to vote, how in the world can we not vote to 
reject the weakening House amendments to campaign finance reform? Those 
who want to block a vote on whether or not we reject the House 
amendments, are they in favor of more PAC money? Are they in favor of 
soft money? Are they in favor of carrying over war chest dollars?
  The issue before us today is not a vote about accepting a conference 
report. We have not even gone to conference yet.
  Mr. President, let me say to my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, and I hope they will consider this proposal that I am about to 
make to them, and I have spoken with the majority leader about this, 
under the rules those on the other side of the aisle can oppose our 
motion to reject the House amendments, which are very bad amendments, 
as I just indicated, for those who want real reform. They can 
filibuster that motion and debate it to death. If we cannot get cloture 
on that, we lose. We cannot even talk to the House. We cannot even try 
to come up with a bill. We cannot even make an effort. We are stopped. 
We are logjammed. We say to the American people they will not even let 
us talk.
  Now if we get cloture, they can still debate for 30 more hours after 
they get cloture. Then what do they have to do? Mind you, this is not 
to pass the bill. This is just to talk to the House to see if we can 
bring them around to our way of thinking, the way of thinking that has 
prevailed by the vast majority of Senators in both parties here on 
PAC's, on soft money, on nonparty soft money, on war chests, on 
carryover, and all the rest of it.
  Now, then we have to make the next motion. We have to ask the House 
for a conference, a conference committee to be appointed. They can 
filibuster that matter. They can then, if we get cloture, debate that 
for 30 more hours on the floor. Then, if we prevail, we go to a third 
motion.
  The third motion is that we should appoint conferees to get together 
and visit with the House and see if we can work something out. They can 
filibuster that. We have to wait to file cloture on that. They can 
debate 30 more hours after we get cloture on that.
  We are up to 90 hours, probably 150 hours, of floor debate just to 
get the right to talk to the House to see if we can work out a bill.
  Then, if we worked out a bill, there is still the right to filibuster 
the conference report and to have additional hours after that.
  Now, Mr. President, are we fooling the American people here? Is this 
the way to conduct the Nation's business? Absolutely not. Absolutely 
not. And we wonder why only 14 percent of the American people have 
confidence in us? If we continue to behave like this, we do not deserve 
a rating that high. We do not deserve 14 percent of the American people 
to have confidence in us. That is too high a figure.
  It is time for us to confront these problems in a bipartisan, 
sensible, logical way, without playing political games with it.
  Now, I can understand that there might be some on the other side of 
the aisle who might wonder: Do those Democrats, House and Senate, have 
some secret agreement, some secret deal that has been cooked up between 
them? I can assure you, Mr. President, they do not. I can assure you I 
will not support bringing a bill back to the Senate which does not have 
bipartisan support.
  I am not going to violate the confidence of those on the other side 
of the aisle who were among the 60 who voted for this bill and among 
the 62 who voted for cloture on this bill. I am not going to do that. I 
am not going to come back here and bring a bill back that says you are 
going to have to accept a plan for killing this. I will not be for 
that. We cannot have that element of partisanship. There are not going 
to be any secrets. That is point No. 1.
  But, point No. 2, if you are sure we do not want to go to conference 
until you know whether or not there has been some framework of 
agreement reached between the House and the Senate to give us a chance 
to come back with a good bill, then we will not bring a motion to 
appoint conferees to the floor until we can show all the Members the 
outlines of where we think we are going to go if we go to conference. 
That seems to me fair.
  So I ask my colleague from Kentucky if he will be willing to consider 
this. I know in his heart of hearts he does not like the House 
provisions. He talked about public funding. The House has far more 
public funding in it than the Senate bill. The House allows the PAC's 
to continue to contribute. And the Senator from Kentucky and I have 
agreed that is not a good thing. Soft money, loopholes, war chest 
carryovers, these things are in the House bill. I think he would have 
to agree he may not like the Senate bill, but I think he likes the 
House bill less.
  Surely, he can let us vote. We are not trying to seek votes on 
cloture at this point.
  And every time I can remember since I have been here, if it happened 
anytime in the last 16 years, it would be only once or twice that it 
has not been automatic to allow us to disagree with the House and to 
seek a conference and then to appoint conferees. But I would be willing 
to wait--I have cleared this with the majority leader--in terms of 
seeking to appoint conferees. But let us at least get some of the 
housekeeping out of the way.
  We should say we disagree with the House bill, and then we should say 
that we seek a conference with them. And then if we have not reached at 
least the outlines of a broad agreement that will satisfy those on the 
other side of the aisle--the side of the aisle of the Senator from 
Kentucky--who have raised different points before us, to be sure we are 
not sold out in conference on the PAC issues, soft money, personal use 
of campaign funds, a whole litany of things that have been said, then 
we just will not be able to appoint conferees. We will not try to go 
forward. In other words, we will allow people on both sides of the 
aisle to have some notification we have not reached an agreement.
  The reason we have not reached an agreement with the House leadership 
is that we have been standing very strongly for amendments that have 
come from the Republican side of the aisle. We have tried to behave as 
Americans on this matter.
  I would just like to ask the Senator from Kentucky, will he not let 
us, by consent or voice vote, disagree with or just go to a vote, 
instead of a cloture vote, disagree with these House amendments and let 
us seek a conference, but then hold the motion to allow the Chair to 
appoint the conferees until we know the likely framework of any 
agreement that might be reached in a conference?
  I address that question, Mr. President, on my time to my 
distinguished colleague from Kentucky, if he might consider that 
request. I offer it in all earnestness and sincerity, and I hope that 
he will.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Well, my good friend from Oklahoma has made, quite 
passionately, I might add, the observation that the American public 
holds us in low esteem, presumably because we have failed to pass 
something like he is suggesting.
  My view is, if you think they do not like us now, wait until you see 
how they feel about us after we pass taxpayer funding of elections.
  So we essentially see the public's reaction to this kind of proposal 
differently.
  But with regard to the specific proposal that my friend from Oklahoma 
raises, I think we need to talk about this issue. I am going to 
encourage everybody to vote for cloture. I think it is important to 
have an adequate airing out, so the public can fully understand what 
has been going on behind closed doors for all of 1994. Really, there 
has been a conference going on in all of 1994 among the majority to try 
to decide what it wanted to do. Now here, at the 11th hour, presumably 
there will be some meeting of the minds. My view is that the public 
needs to fully understand.

  We had an opportunity in health care, for example, over the course of 
a year, to learn a lot about it. We learned a lot ourselves, and the 
public learned a lot about it.
  I think it is very important that we have adequate time for 
discussion of what we may be about to perpetrate here. So I am going to 
encourage everybody to vote for cloture--certainly, I am going to vote 
for cloture--and we will have an opportunity to begin to discuss it.
  Now, with regard to any conversations my friend from Oklahoma and 
myself might have had, we have had none on this issue this year; not a 
one throughout 1994.
  I am happy to have a conversation with him. There will be plenty of 
time during the course of the rest of the day and tonight. I will be 
here. Anytime he wants to talk, I will surely be happy to do that.
  Mr. BOREN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as may be required 
for me to respond.
  Let me ask the Chair how much time remains.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would indicate the Senator from 
Oklahoma has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I think the Senator 
from Minnesota wished to say a word, but I do not see him on the floor 
right now.
  Let me say, I regret that we cannot just proceed ahead to vote on the 
proposal. This is not going to keep anyone from talking. And, as I 
explained the procedure before, what we are really talking about--and 
let us not fool ourselves--when you add up 30 hours and 30 hours and 30 
hours, and filibuster and filibuster and filibuster, to even get to 
talk to the House, for permission to even have a conference, for trying 
to bring a bill back, we know how long we are going to be in session.
  What is really sad is we are not going to be allowed to vote on 
something because of the procedures to vote on something or other.
  The reason I have not had any discussion with the Senator from 
Kentucky about any agreement is, as of this moment, we still have not 
reached an agreement. I am not really as sanguine as he is that we 
will.
  So nothing is being hidden here. We simply have not reached an 
agreement. And the reason we have not reached an agreement is that 
those of us on this side of the aisle who have been involved in the 
process of talking to some people on the House side have been insisting 
upon several of the amendments specifically proposed from the other 
side of the aisle so we can have a nonpartisan American solution to 
this problem.
  So I appeal to my colleagues. No one is trying to pull a fast one 
here. But, on the other hand, the American people will understand if 
you are simply going to make us pile cloture vote on cloture vote, so 
there can be 30 more hours of debate. Just add that out. Just add 90 
hours of floor time here. That is before we even get to have a 
conference with the House. That is before we even begin to debate the 
bill. Then we have to move to take up the conference report. That is 
debatable. Then we could debate the conference report. Even if you have 
cloture for 30 more hours and receive that, this body is scheduled to 
go out of session by sometime around the 7th or 8th of October. That 
would be impossible.
  So we are not talking about debate. We are talking about killing 
something. We are talking about killing something that passed with a 
bipartisan majority in this Senate 60 votes to 38; 62 votes for 
cloture.
  Not being allowed to have an opportunity to even look at something 
that is so important to look at, an issue that is absolutely a cancer, 
as I said, eating away at the heart of the American political process, 
I regret. I hope people will reconsider this decision. And, I must say, 
I think the American people do understand the situation in which we are 
involved.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 10 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as I suggested earlier, I think this is 
an issue the American people need to fully understand.
  We have watched, over the course of the last year, the American 
people begin to understand what the health care reform proposal was 
about. I do not think the American people are mad at us for failing to 
act on health care. As a matter of fact, by about a 3-to-1 majority, 
they are saying, ``Please don't do that this year. Give it up. Go home. 
Leave us alone. Don't do it.''
  I think it is extremely important that the American people have an 
opportunity to fully understand--exactly. This issue has not been on 
the front burner. It has been off to the side for about a year. The 
Senator from Oklahoma, with all good intentions, has been involved in 
discussions that basically have been among the majority about how to 
work out their differences. Here we are in the closing hours of this 
session and they are accusing us of gridlock?
  For one thing, I make no apologies for that. Gridlock is making a big 
comeback in this country. The American public is crying out for us not 
to do some of these things. They said please do not do health care, and 
I do not have any doubt, based upon the survey numbers I have seen, 
some of which I am going to share with my colleagues right now, that 
they are not clamoring for taxpayer funding of elections. This is 
really not high on their agenda. This is not what they had in mind when 
they talk about reform of Congress.
  Just recently in my State, just to give an example, we found that 68 
percent of voters would be less likely to support a candidate who voted 
for taxpayer financing of elections--68 percent. On the national level, 
independent surveys confirm this attitude across the country. A 
nationwide poll taken by the New York Times and CBS--interestingly 
enough, they asked the question in the most favorable kind of way for 
those who prefer taxpayer funding of elections. This is the way they 
asked it. They said, ``Do you favor public campaign financing for 
congressional elections in order to reduce congressional campaign 
contributions from special interests?'' That is about as favorable to 
the proponents as you could frame the question. It does not even say 
taxpayer funding, it says ``public.'' ``Do you favor public campaign 
financing for congressional elections in order to reduce campaign 
contributions from special interests?'' We all know everybody thinks 
the special interests are awful unless it is the one they belong to, in 
which they think they are doing the Lord's work.
  That question framed in a way that was the most favorable way for 
those who hold the view of my colleague from Oklahoma, 38 percent in 
favor, 54 percent against public campaign financing; the most favorable 
way you could possibly state the issue for those who favor the position 
of my friend from Oklahoma and the public opposes it 54 to 38. If you 
state it more candidly and make sure they understand it is their tax 
dollars that are going to pay for our campaigns, 68 to 70 percent.
  In fact, I think this is a killer issue for the majority. I am 
astonished that they think this is a great idea to bring this up right 
before the election, thinking they are going to get some credit from 
the voters for this? No wonder people are getting creamed in elections 
all across the country.
  In my colleague's own State of Oklahoma just 2 days ago--my good 
friend is convinced that in every case the fellow who spends the most 
money is going to win. We know that is not true. We know that is not 
true. The guy who beat Congressman Synar Tuesday in the State of 
Oklahoma spent $17,000. We are not even sure he ever showed up to make 
a speech. He worked around the district a lot and just basically made 
the point he was not an incumbent. I do not know how much Congressman 
Synar spent. I hear it was $300,000 to $400,000. His opponent spent 
$17,000 and won the election. And his opponent, the fellow who is now 
the Democrat nominee in the home State of my friend from Oklahoma, 
said: Money does not vote, people vote.
  Money does not vote, people vote. I have been a challenger. I have 
been outspent and I have won. It is not automatic that the candidate 
who spends the most money is going to win. The key thing is whether any 
candidate is able to get enough resources to get his message across.
  This stuff about the money chase, we have disproved that for 6 years 
now. I guess I will have to say it again: 80 percent of the money 
raised in Senate races is raised in the last 2 years of the 6-year 
cycle. Senators are not raising money every day, year in and year out, 
for their reelections. It is just not true. They keep saying it over 
and over again. It is obviously not true. It is not going on. But I 
have to keep rebutting it every time.
  Sure, sometimes people get frantic about raising money for their 
campaigns. Do you know why? Because they may have a contest; my 
goodness. They might have a contest. They might think, ``Gee, I might 
be able to lose this thing. Maybe I better get my act together here and 
see if I cannot raise a little money and get my point of view across 
through the only way we can do it today, through the mass means of 
communication.'' There has to be money in politics. You can only get it 
from two places: You can get it from individuals, voluntarily 
contributed to the candidate of their choice, fully disclosed and on 
our FEC reports. Or you can take it out of the Treasury.
  That is it, the only way you can do it. But there must be money in 
politics, otherwise there is no communication and the best known 
candidate wins every race without exception. So there must be money in 
politics.
  So the question is, is it better for that money to come from 
individuals voluntarily given to the candidates of their choice--which 
is all on everybody's FEC report so if your opponent thinks you got a 
contribution from X, you can make X the central issue in your campaign? 
Or do you want to get it out of the Treasury? That is it; the only 
choice unless you want no communication at all, shut it all down and 
let the best known candidate win every time--some celebrity, sports 
figure, Hollywood actor. Anybody who is well known is the only person 
who is going to have a chance if you grind and squeeze all the money 
out of the process. It is nonsense. That is why virtually every 
academic in America is against what they are trying to do.
  David Broder, not exactly known to be a conservative, but an 
independent commentator on the political scene, opined against every 
version of this monstrosity that has been produced. He thinks it is 
real bad for political parties. We ought to be encouraging the growth 
of political parties. This measure greatly hampers political parties.
  So this is a measure without merit. It is a measure without merit. 
Having been discussed on one side only throughout 1994, the thought is 
that in the name of reform we pass this in the 11th hour. My view is 
that this should be adequately discussed. I encourage all Senators, 
certainly those on my side, to vote cloture so we can begin to educate 
the American people as to what is being suggested.
  I think it is perfectly clear the American people once educated are 
going to say, ``Please save us from this. You-all wrap up your business 
and come on home but do not stick us with the tab for political 
campaigns. We do not want any new entitlements for you.'' I expect they 
would like to keep the ones they have. And we all know that Senator 
Kerrey and Senator Danforth in the Entitlement Commission may well--I 
do not know for sure, I am not on the Entitlement Commission--suggest, 
sometime between the election and the first of the year, that we are 
going to get a handle on the Federal deficit. ``Everybody else's 
entitlements may have to be adjusted in some way or another in the 
coming years. Yet let us sneak this one in right before the curtain 
falls.''
  Mr. President, I for one, and I think there are many others who feel 
the same way I do, am going to do everything I can to make sure that 
does not happen, and give the American people an opportunity to fully 
understand what we are trying to do to them on the way out the door.
  Mr. President, I believe we are about ready for the vote?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Oklahoma has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, let me say, if you do not want to argue the 
main case and you do not want to argue what the case is really about, 
you set up a straw man. This is not a debate about public financing. 
The incentive from our bill is instituted from the Treasury to lower 
broadcast costs for candidates who agree to accept overall spending 
limits. It is not a tax on the general taxpayers of this country to pay 
for anything, in the Senate bill as we passed the Senate bill. I think 
it is right to allow discounted broadcast time to those who say we will 
not spend unlimited amounts of money. This debate is about one issue: 
Shall we put limits on the amount of money that people can spend in 
campaigns?
  When I first ran for office it took $600,000 on the average to mount 
a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. Then it went to $1.5 
million, then it went to $3 million, now it is at $4 million. Do we 
want it to go to $8 million, $10 million, $12 million? Do we really 
believe has been good for the political process, for the American 
people to see that it takes more and more and more, millions and 
millions and millions of dollars, to run for election in this country? 
Is it a really good thing that more and more of those millions of 
dollars are coming, not from the people back home, not from people who 
even live in the States where the elections are held, but by PAC's, 
political interest groups, that are headquartered mainly in Washington, 
DC. That is not good, and we need to have a change.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If my time has expired, then I will, obviously, not 
say anything any further.

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