[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]

 
                                  VOTE

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate 
that debate on the motion to disagree to the House amendments to S. 3, 
the campaign finance reform bill, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are required. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. I announce that the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. 
Thurmond] and the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Wallop] are necessarily 
absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
South Carolina [Mr. Thurmond] and the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Wallop] 
would each vote ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 96, nays 2, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 303 Leg.]

                                YEAS--96

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boren
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Danforth
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durenberger
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     Mathews
     McCain
     McConnell
     Metzenbaum
     Mikulski
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Riegle
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Sarbanes
     Sasser
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Specter
     Stevens
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford

                                NAYS--2

     Bond
     Helms
       

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Thurmond
     Wallop
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 96, and the nays 
are 2. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn, having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I yield 1 hour under rule XXII to the 
Republican leader.
  Mr. COHEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. COHEN. I yield my hour under rule XXII to Senator Stevens.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I yield my hour under rule XXII to Senator 
Stevens.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. I yield 3 hours under my control under rule XXII to the 
Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell].
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Under rule XXII I yield my hour to the Republican leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I yield 3 hours to the Senator from 
Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would announce that the Senator from 
Kentucky has 7 hours.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am not going to yield my hour to anybody. 
I am going to keep it and hopefully be able to use it, and use it 
wisely in apparently the next 30 hours. It is obvious here what is 
going on. Everybody is yielding their hour to the floor manager. The 
floor leader will have 30 hours, and then that will delay us from 
getting onto the business of the Senate and what the people would like 
for us to do. Everybody has their mind made up. Everybody now knows how 
they are going to vote one way or the other.
  I think the vote earlier was the imagery that they did not want to be 
known and shown as voting against campaign finance reform, which the 
American people want done. But now they are going to delay the activity 
of the Senate by using hour after hour after hour.
  I would hope that the majority leader would bring out the cots and 
the pillows and the blankets so that we could stay here 30 straight 
hours, and we would not get into all of this delay of the Senate. 
Tonight, while most of us would be home asleep, we could be here 
talking and the clock running.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
  Mr. PACKWOOD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Did I hear the Senator from Kentucky say we would could 
go away for 30 hours and come back? Did he say that?
  Mr. McCONNELL. No way.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Too bad.
  Mr. President, how much time do I get? One hour.
  Mr. President, I was about to say, as we start this debate, that this 
is not a new start. I have been in the Senate 25 years. We have been 
discussing campaign financing or campaign reform for all of those 25 
years in one form or another.
  I served 6 years in the Oregon legislature prior to coming to the 
Senate. We discussed it there during the 6 years in the midsixties in 
Oregon. We had many ballot issues. We did not have one campaign reform 
as I recall. But we did have one on reapportionment, and long before 
the Supreme Court decision in Baker versus Carr requiring basically one 
man one vote. In Oregon the voters had passed a constitutional 
amendment in the early fifties requiring it, and that was a form of 
campaign reform. In this case, it was political reform in the 
allocation of the seats.
  So the issue we are going to talk about is not a new issue. In almost 
all of my experience in dealing go with this issue, it is usually 
approached not on the basis of reform as debaters really mean reform--
it is almost always called that--but approached on the basis of 
partisan advantage or disadvantage.
  This bill is no exception. The Democrats would like to pass a bill 
that will give them an advantage in the elections. The Republicans, 
obviously, would like to stop them from passing a bill that would give 
them an advantage in elections. What the Democrats want to do is no 
different than what any of the special interests--and I will get to 
that subject in a moment--want to do when they come to Congress. Almost 
all of them come and say they want a level playing field, but their 
definition of a level playing field is a legislated advantage over 
their competitors, or whoever it is they think is going to try to do 
them harm or do them in.
  So in this case the Democrats want to pass a campaign finance bill. 
Let us be serious about this. This is campaign finance. Most of the 
other reforms--the soft money reforms, and any other reforms--by and 
large, I think, could be agreed on by 90 out of 100 Senators, and by 
400 out of 435 House Members. But it is finance and how it is going to 
be financed that is the issue. That is why this bill is being hatched 
by the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate. The Republicans 
have had no input into this.
  The issue of the political action committees, that is, PAC's, that 
is, special interests, has been one that is intensely divisive between 
the leaders of the Democratic Party of the House and the Senate. You 
could almost see the division even within the party between the House 
and the Senate. The House Members are more dependent on political 
action committee contributions than the Senate. The Senate could get 
along without them. So the Senate might be willing to forego them. The 
House thinks they cannot get along with them, so they do not want to 
forego them. The reason Senators can probably get along better without 
PAC's than House Members is not because somehow God has endowed us with 
superior qualities. We may think so, but he really has not. We are 
better known. It is nobody's fault. We are just better known. When you 
are one Senator of two in your State, you are better known than your 
House Members, unless you are one of those unusual States that has only 
one House Member. If you are in a State with 5, 10, 15, 20 House 
Members, the voters do not know them as well, and the Nation does not 
know the House Members as well. And for whatever reason, Senators get 
on national television more than House Members. We could probably raise 
money easier without PAC's than House Members. More people know us 
individually.
  (Mr. KERREY assumed the chair.)
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Interestingly, even in this Senate Chamber, it was like 
pulling teeth to get the Democrats to give up on the issue of PAC's. It 
was only at the last in 1990 when we were considering the campaign 
finance bill then that the Democrats knew the Republicans had the votes 
to zero out PAC's--no PAC's, no money, and they finally relented and 
went along. But they did not like it. Then, of course, we get the bill 
to the House in this Congress and it runs into the stumbling blocks in 
the House on PAC's.
  I am not here necessarily to attack political action committees. I 
want to go back in a little bit of history as to what political action 
committees are. They started with unions. Back in the late forties--and 
my good friend, Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, would remember 
this fellow, Jack Kroll, head in those days of the CIO. The AFL and the 
CIO were two separate organizations back then. They had not merged 
after their split in the thirties. Jack Kroll was the head of the CIO's 
political action arm. He formed PAC's. That is where the term political 
action committee came from.
  Unions, per se, had been prohibited from giving their actual union 
treasury money to campaigns, I think, in 1943. So they had to find a 
new device to gather their money together, and the political action 
committee became the device. Corporations had not commonly used 
political action committees. They had been prohibited for decades from 
giving corporate money to campaigns. They had not gotten into the swing 
of PAC's the way the unions had for a good many years. In fact, it was 
not until Sun Oil, back in the early 1970's, and Federal Election 
Commission decisions that really legalized PAC's and attempted to 
regulate and structure them and make them report, to know where the 
money came from and where it went. So it was not until the 1970's that 
businesses got into the business of political action committees.
  I wonder if Members who have come here and have been in the Senate 
for some time remember Lane Kirkland. I used to spend more time with 
him earlier than recently. Part of that may be due to trade, because it 
is interesting how the positions of the parties have changed on trade. 
Thirty years ago when we were doing the Kennedy round on trade, which 
was the equivalent of the Uruguay round now and strongly supported by 
organized labor and, by and large, opposed by lots of business, liberal 
Democrats wanted the open trade. Business had more misgivings about it. 
I did not know Lane then, but he, I assume, was a strong supporter of 
liberalized trade.
  Of late, the positions have switched. Organized labor is, by and 
large, very protectionist and does not like freer trade. Most 
businesses are willing to say that, for better or worse, we are into 
the world community and we are going to have to compete. The barriers 
are coming down and let us get at it. I have a memory of being at Lane 
Kirkland's house for dinner one night. He was serving a wonderful 
dinner with a French wine. I called to his attention that this appeared 
to be an imported wine rather than the variety from the United States, 
and how did that square with labor's now protectionist position on 
trade. And he kind of smiled. He said that there are certain areas in 
which geographical advantages should not be disturbed. That was his 
answer on that particular subject, which I agreed with. I think we 
ought to follow that theory in almost everything.
  The other memory I have of Lane is when we went to see the movie 
``Reds,'' a Warren Beatty movie about John Reed--Reed being the young 
man who had written ``Ten Days That Shook the World,'' about the 
Communist revolution. He was from Portland, Oregon.
  First, there was a wonderful opening scene in the movie where John 
Reed is at a black-tie banquet. I judged from looking at the background 
in the movie--and he came from Portland money--it was a Portland men's 
club annual black-tie dinner, with cigars and brandy. They say, ``What 
is this war in Europe about,'' referring to World War I, and he says, 
``Why, profits.'' That is the only answer. Then the movie goes on about 
John Reed's background. But there is an interesting part of the movie 
where Warren Beatty--who, as I recall, is also the director--is 
interviewing people in the 1980's or late 1970's that knew John Reed 
personally. They are now in their seventies and eighties. I went to the 
movie with Lane Kirkland, and Lane knew these people. He says, ``Look 
at that, that guy was a Communist, and we threw him out of the union 
movement in 1947. He still is and always was a Communist.''
  We owe a great debt of gratitude, and should, to the union movement. 
It was tough going in the mid-40's when the Communists were trying to 
take over the union movement in this country. And we owe a debt of 
gratitude especially to the leaders. They just saw what was happening, 
and they did not allow it. Lane must have known--I would say that maybe 
out of the 10 people that were interviewed that knew John Reed, Lane 
must have known 8 of them. Of course, he was alive then, too.
  Anyway, that is an aside with Jack Kroll, who Lane probably knew 
quite well. Now we get up to the 1970's. We get up to the Sun Oil 
Company, and they have this political action committee. They were one 
of the leaders of the Pugh family from Philadelphia. They were trying 
to get businesses and corporations to do the same thing unions had been 
doing for roughly 30 years. The question was: How do you do it legally? 
We are not allowed to give corporate money, but corporate money funded 
the PAC and paid administrative expenses, and the law was unclear.
  So we finally regularized PAC's. We said businesses can get into it.
  You have to remember when we did this, this was a reform. Up until 
that time, allegedly, you had undercover money and money coming in in 
cash and people awash in cash. Who knows what kind of corruption was 
going on.
  Political party reformers said, and political campaign finance 
reformers said, sunshine is the answer. Make everybody take not more 
than a certain amount. As I recall, we cannot take over $100 in cash. 
It has to be in checks. You have to account for it and file it. Anyone 
is nuts who does not.
  We continue to have to say where it comes from. We have to list, if 
an individual, where they work and what their occupation is. Everybody 
can look at the reports and see where you are getting your money.
  At the time we thought that PAC's were a decent thing, a moral thing, 
even though they represented a special interest.
  I want to now just comment on special interest. What is a special 
interest? A special interest is not what you are interested in. That is 
an interest that is good for the Nation. Those who oppose what you are 
interested in is a special interest.
  I have never met anybody who came here, not anybody from the Oregon 
Education Association, from the Oregon Cattlemen Association, not 
anybody from the AFL-CIO who thought they were a special interest and 
what they wanted was good for America.
  It is not quite what Charlie Wilson said. Those of us old enough to 
remember, will remember he was president of General Motors, and he was 
the first Secretary of Defense for President Eisenhower. During the 
confirmation hearing, he allegedly made the statement ``What is good 
for General Motors is good for the country.'' He did not actually say 
that, if you read the transcript. What he said is ``What is bad for 
General Motors is bad for the country, and vice versa.'' What he meant 
is what is bad for the country is bad for General Motors; what is good 
for the country is good for General Motors. That is not the way it got 
translated.
  At the end of his 4 years as Secretary of Defense, in his farewell 
news conference, he was asked by one reporter what he had learned. He 
said, ``Politics hain't business.'' And he is absolutely right. 
``Politics hain't business.''
  We thought from a business standpoint, an intelligent standpoint, a 
good-government standpoint, we would create the PAC's and represent the 
special interests. Even James Madison understood special interests.
  When you are posing it to a group of high school students or college 
students who say isn't it awful how special interests dominate the 
country, and ask, tell me what you think a special interest is? What 
they picture is a fat-cat in a vest, dollar signs hanging loose here, 
and green bills sticking out of his pocket, purchasing votes. That is 
their idea of special interest.
  I could say, well, let me ask you. What about the National Student 
Association? They might say, what is that? I say, that is an 
association of students, college students all over the country. They 
get together and they have conventions and they lobby Congress on what 
they think is good for the country. And, I say, is that a special 
interest?
  They say, well, that is not a special interest. Clearly what is good 
for college students is good for the country. That presumes they would 
agree with what the National Student Association has lobbied for.
  All right. That is OK. What about lawyers?
  Probably the initial reaction is, bad for the country. And you do not 
even have to get to the special interests. They are bad for the 
country. I am a lawyer. I do not agree with them. But I think they 
would probably say that.
  All right, I say, take it one at a time. Nurses? You do not want to 
say doctors. They might have a misgiving about that, but nurses have a 
good image. What about nurses? Is not what is bad for nurses, bad for 
the country?
  I continue. Let us say that Sally is a nurse. Sally wants to get 
interested in politics and she would like to give $50 to a candidate 
who is running for Congress. She likes this candidate. Is there 
anything wrong with that? No. There is nothing wrong with that.
  Let us say that Jim is also a nurse. Jim would like to give $50. Is 
there anything wrong with that? No. So it is OK for Jim and Sally to 
give $50 apiece. Yes.
  OK; let us say the nurses at the Saint Vincent's Hospital in 
Portland--there are probably hundreds of them--decide they think the 
Oregon Legislature or the national Congress is not doing exactly what 
they regard as good for medicine. Jim and Sally say to their nurses: 
``Listen. Why don't we all pool our money, give $50 apiece, and we give 
it to people whom we think will vote for what is good for medicine and 
good for the country and good for the public?'' And lots of other 
nurses who are not interested in politics say that is a good idea. We 
do not really know which candidates are the ones we ought to give to.
  Jim and Sally are politically astute. They say, listen, why don't we 
do this. Why don't you all write $50 checks and give it to the nurses' 
political action committee and give us authority to spend it on 
candidates that we think are good for what we are concerned with?
  You say to the kids, is there anything wrong with that, if Jim and 
Sally can give individually and Jim and Sally and all our nurses at 
Saint Vincent's Hospital pool their money? They respond, that is OK.
  I say that is a PAC. That is a special interest.
  The answer is nurses are good. The Sierra Club is good. The National 
Wildlife Federation is good. General Motors is bad; they have a 
business attitude.
  Special interests are nothing more than groups who are convinced that 
what they want is good for the country and these people are selfish. 
They simply see the world through their eyes. We all do. How else can 
you see it but through the way you live. Your experience and your 
dealings, and you know problems you have that nobody else has, or 
whatever business or trade or occupation has, and you think things are 
unfair. You want the Government help to fix that.
  That is the way, you see, it works. They lobby business. You are a 
dairy farmer, you cannot farm without dairy supports, you are a 
lobbyist.
  You are a wheat farmer in Oregon, or a coal company in Kentucky. An 
issue comes up about barge user fees. Coal and wheat are heavy. 
Electronic gadgets are usually light in weight. So an issue comes up on 
increasing the barge user fees on the Mississippi River or the Columbia 
River, and for whatever reason the President submits a bill. The 
Congress thinks they want to it on the basis of weight, which hits coal 
and wheat very hard, even though they may not be high-value cargo in 
comparison to 10,000 cartons of electronics goods which may weigh the 
same as a couple hundred bushels of wheat, but they are worth a lot 
more.
  The coal and wheat people, a special interest, say that is not fair. 
The barge user fee ought to be based on value, not on weight.
  Needless to say the electronics people come and say it ought to be 
based on weight that permits how much goes in the ship, how deep it has 
to go, how deep the channel, how big the lock has to be to get the boat 
through. That is a function of size and weight; and, therefore, things 
that weigh more ought to pay more.
  Are either of those groups selfish? Do each of them see the world 
through their eyes? Sure they do. Do each of them do what they think is 
good for the country? Sure they do. Are wheat farmers un-American? No.
  This is where your coal companies and coal unions will be on the same 
side of the issue. Are your coal companies immoral? No. Are the 
electronics companies immoral and unethical? No. They see the world 
differently.
  They all come and they lobby us to adopt what they think is the 
correct position for America, that is, the position that is good for 
them. Again I emphasize it is because they see the world that way.
  It is for us to listen to the electronics people who want a barge 
user fee on weight, and the coal and wheat people who want one based on 
value, and try to decide which is good for America.
  I can assure everyone listening I never met, in a quarter of a 
century in the Senate and previous 15 years in politics before that, I 
have never met a serious issue that did not have special interest on 
all sides of it. I never met a one-sided issue that had any controversy 
at all. Every now and then you get one. There are some.
  There is not too much objection to those bills we introduce for, you 
know, national diet month. Not many people lobby against that other 
than those who say we are making ourselves foolish by passing hundreds 
of bills--Pickle Week, Diet Month, national this and that. It costs 
money to print them. Who cares except the association interested in 
diets or pickles and they are probably right. Anyway they do not lobby 
against you. Those bills probably do not need a great deal of special 
interest money to get introduced and passed and nobody cares about 
them.
  But on anything serious we are not barren of information. We are not 
barren of controversy because the people are on all sides of it.
  Here is what has happened. This is where Senator McConnell is so 
correct.
  In a democracy--we are a republic not a democracy--but in a free 
government, representing the government, how the public perceives 
government is critically important. And if they perceive the government 
as corrupt or the political process as corrupt, then it does not matter 
if it is or is not corrupt. If they see it as corrupt, you have got to 
change in order to get back the support of the citizenry.
  Because if they think you are corrupt, if they think you are 
responsive only to money, if they think you are responsive only to 
special interests--which I emphasize again is not the things they are 
interested in. When you are responsive to what they are interested in, 
you are responsive to what is good for America. But if they no longer 
believe that, then you have to change the system. Because in a free 
country, in a representative government, it is not just important, it 
is imperative, that the public have faith that the Government is fair. 
The public will even accept decisions adverse to their interests if 
they think they have been fairly arrived at.
  So from the mid-1970's, when we basically gave the charter to PAC's 
and said how you can collect money and how much you can give, and we 
limited how much they can give, we said you have to report and you have 
to list your address and where you work. We thought this was a step in 
the right direction, because now not only Sally the nurse and Jim the 
nurse had to list their occupations, but everybody who gave money to 
their political action committee had to list their name, occupation, 
and what offices they worked at. So you could very clearly identify it. 
If somebody got $2,000 from the National Nurses PAC, you knew what it 
was.
  From the mid 1970's on, the political action committees grew and 
grew--more of them, more of them, more of them--although I do not think 
they particularly grew just because we changed the laws.
  What I have discovered is, since I came to the Senate 25 years ago, a 
dramatic fracturing of what you might call special interests.
  When I first came here, the American Medical Association pretty much 
spoke for medicine. And they are still a powerful voice for medicine. 
But in those years, having grown up within the medical fraternity, the 
American College of Surgeons and the American College of Internists and 
all the specialties, ophthalmologists and within ophthalmologists, 
cataract surgeons. And while these colleges of medicine have existed 
for much longer than PAC's, now you will find within the medical 
profession differences of opinion.
  As I recall--I may have the name wrong--I think it is the American 
General Practitioners, but I would not swear to it. There is a 
specialty group within the American Medical Association, that is 
general practitioners, who supported President Clinton's health bill. 
Why did they do that? Why on Earth, when you think the whole medical 
profession is opposed to it, do they support it? Until you realize that 
President Clinton's health bill put an emphasis on general practice; 
had provisions in it that graduate medical schools had to change their 
ratios of graduate students and move toward more general practitioners 
and fewer ophthalmologists and pediatricians. And Medicare 
reimbursements, the money the Government paid, was to be shifted more 
to general practitioners and less to specialists.
  Why on Earth would general practitioners think that was good for 
America? They think that they are good for America, and whatever helps 
them, helps America.
  So you begin to have this fracturing of different interest groups on 
to smaller interest groups. And those smaller interest groups set up 
PAC's. And the smaller ones, American College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, probably their PAC, if they have one, is not like the 
American Medical Association. But I would imagine all the medical 
specialties, like chiropractors or podiatrists, do not have all the 
money the American Medical Association has. Does that mean all have the 
same interests?
  I use chiropractors. They forever wanted to be treated just like 
physicians. They wanted to have the same kind of reimbursement. We do 
not do that at this time. It is a battle that has gone on for years. 
Chiropractors have come a long way in terms of professional respect in 
the last 30 years. I can remember 30 years ago when chiropractors were 
regarded as quacks by a lot of people.
  But when it comes down to a battle of inclusion or exclusion from 
Government payments for health, there is still a battle between 
chiropractors and nonchiropractors. And so, on that particular practice 
of the health industry, you are going to have a split.
  Another example is dentists. And I understand why. As health 
insurance grew in this country, the first thing we covered was what you 
might call general medicine. We did not cover eyeglasses and hearing 
aids and dental. And as health plans grew over the years--this was in 
the late forties, fifties, and sixties--we began to include more 
auxiliary medical services that we might not call primary services, 
although for the life of me it would seem to me dental is a primary 
service, but we did not. Gradually, we did.
  However, the dentists are now afraid that if we start to narrow the 
amount of money that a company can pay for your health premium, if a 
company is now paying $400 a month to a family premium and we were to 
pass a law that says if they contribute more than $250 they will be 
taxed on it, what the dentists fear is that, if that passes, what will 
be cut out is dental care. You have to get down to $250; sort of last 
in, first out. We just got dental coverage in 5 or 10 or 15 years ago. 
Then we have got to go back to $250 instead of $400. Out goes dental 
care.
  So they are opposed to that kind of provision in the bill. 
Understandably.
  Special interest? Sure it is. Un-American? Not a bit.
  What has happened, as these groups have multiplied, the quantity of 
money, quantity that has been given in politics, has increased.
  It is not the only thing that has increased. When I was a kid, I used 
to be able to go to the Saturday movies for a dime--two double 
features, three cartoons, a serial that ran for 15 weeks with Pauline 
on the tracks every Saturday when the serial finished. And you had to 
come back next Saturday to see if Pauline was off the tracks. And 
usually between the movies some barker from the local toy store would 
call out the number from a ticket stub and give away two cartons of 
model airplanes. We got all of this for a dime.
  Then, during the war years, they put on a 10 percent tax and that 
went to 11 cents; almost broke my allowance. Then somehow it got to 16 
cents. And we know what movies cost now, even for kids.
  Do we spend more money now on movies than we used to? Sure we do. Do 
we spend more on campaigns now than we used to? Sure we do. Do we spend 
too much on campaigns? And I will get to that point in a while--do we 
spend too much on campaigns? I do not think so. For the moment I will 
put that aside.
  Everything has gone up in cost. When I first ran for the legislature 
in 1962 in a district that was a Republican district, we elected four 
Republicans. We ran in a field in those days. You did not run Jones 
versus Smith. You ran in a field. And the district elected four. The 
top four Republicans received the Republican nomination and the top 
four Democrats received the Democratic nomination. And in the general 
election, you ran in a field and the top four out of the eight of us 
won.
  I ran for a Republican nomination. There were four Republican 
incumbents, so to win I had to finish in the top four and therefore 
bump out one of the Republican incumbents. I was 30 years old, never 
ran before.
  I ran second in the primary. I ran first in the general election, 
though I had never run before. My primary campaign cost me $700. The 
entire general election campaign, as I recall, cost me about $1,500 to 
$2,000 in a district that was an urban district, about 4 miles in one 
direction about 3 miles in the other if you squared it off, with about 
160,000 people in it, so it was not a small district.
  Today that district has been carved up into four little districts and 
the cost of running, if the district is contested--if the district is a 
piece of cake it does not cost as much--but in a contested district 
today in Oregon it would not be unusual to spend $25,000; in California 
you would spend $250,000 to run for the State legislature; in the 
Senate district you would spend half a million or a million. So has it 
gone up? Yes. As movies have gone up, as everything else has gone up. I 
bought my first new car in mid-1965. It cost me $2,200: A Chrysler 
product. Today to buy roughly the same--equivalent product would cost 
me about $18,000. Everything has gone up. And these so-called special 
interests have arisen and helped finance our campaigns.
  Is there anything wrong with Sally and Jim and their nursing friends 
aggregating their money and, instead of Jim giving you $50 and Sally 
giving you $50, Jim and Sally and their nursing friends get together 
and they give you a check for $2,000? Is there something laudable about 
a person giving you the $50 that becomes immoral, unethical, corrupt, 
when the person giving you $50 joins with his or her friends, gathers 
their $50's and gives you $2,000?
  The public has apparently come to the conclusion that is wrong. I am 
not going to quarrel with that. Republicans have said, fine. Much more 
than the Democrats, the Republicans have said, fine, let us get rid of 
that kind of contribution. That does not mean get rid of special 
interests. People who are in the dairy business will still have a 
special interest in cows. We see that now, with this new hormone that 
makes cows give more milk. There is a split in the dairy industry as to 
whether we should produce more milk or not. There is a split among 
people who think the hormone is dangerous and if any grocery store 
carries the milk they will picket the store. This splits even the dairy 
industry; a special interest but not a unit.
  But the public somehow thinks the aggregation of this money is evil. 
And the analogy you could think of in terms of business might be this: 
A service station is fine; 100 service stations are fine; but when all 
of the service stations are bought up by Mr. Rockefeller and he 
controls the oil and the pipeline and the refinery and the service 
stations, that is not fine. That is an aggregation that is dangerous 
because it allows one person to have too much power over the oil 
business. So, because of Mr. Rockefeller and others who, very frankly, 
moved this country rapidly from 1850 to 1900, the Hills and Harrimans 
in the railroad industry, the Carnegies in the steel industry--we 
passed the antitrust laws. We said individualism is good, little 
business is good, but at some stage little businesses become so big--
but more important, so dominant--that they strangle opportunity for 
others to come along.
  So we break them up. We broke up the tobacco combines, we broke up 
the oil combines. It does not necessarily have to be nationwide. These 
antitrust laws can apply to a local area. You can have a local business 
that can dominate the particular business in that area, and it can be 
broken up. And that is the only analogy I can think of that justifies 
this, other than the public thinks this is corrupt and that is a good 
enough reason to break them up; that perhaps if Jim and Sally give you 
their $50 individually they are giving it because they believe you. 
They do not think you are going to be bought for $50. They believe you 
because you have been supporting the nurses and you believe in the 
nurses. But, somehow, when Jim and Sally become the equivalent of 
political action committee Rockefellers, that is dangerous.
  OK, let us take it as a given. The aggregation, the concentration of 
power in the hands of directors of political action committees can be 
dangerous. I am not arguing that it is. I am saying it can be perceived 
as dangerous when you have a political action committee that has 
$500,000 and their Washington lobbyist is pretty much the sole voice 
who is deciding how this $500,000 is going to be given out--he gives 
$5,000 to you and $5,000 to me and $1,000 to somebody else--does that 
buy access? Does that buy influence? Is it not terrible? This is Jim 
and Sally, now, 5,000 times over. We must stop that, it is said.
  Fine, the Republicans say. OK, let us stop it. And on this floor we 
had to drag the Democrats, kicking and screaming, to stopping that. 
They accused us of being beholden to big business, and we said, ``Fine, 
get rid of big business PAC's.''
  ``Well, we did not mean that, actually. We did not mean that kind of 
reform.'' But they had no choice in the Senate because we had the votes 
and there were enough Democrats who were going to vote with us that if 
they did not do it, we would have won it. As I say, the Senate is not 
as dependent on PAC money as are the House Members.
  I will give you an example. In the last election--I am able to raise 
a fair amount of money in elections--but in the last election I raised 
$8,100,000 for my election in 1992; 16 percent of it came from 
political action committees. I could get rid of the 16 percent and I 
would still have a perfectly adequate amount of money to fund my 
campaign. So it is easy for me to say get rid of PAC's. In the House, 
as I recall the figures, of the average Members, over half depend on 
the PAC's and if you say to that average Member get rid of PAC's, it 
terrifies them. ``Where am I going to get enough money to run?''
  Well, we now come down to the partisan advantage. Do not ask me why, 
I do not know why: Republicans are able to raise a lot more money in 
small amounts than are Democrats. Small amounts: Direct mail, $10, $15, 
$20. It has worked for us. It does not work for the Democrats. I do not 
know why it does not work for the Democrats. The Democratic National 
Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic 
Congressional Campaign Committee all send out mail, and they make some 
money. They do not hold a candle to us. I do not mean big money, I do 
not mean money that is trying to buy access. I mean hundreds of 
thousands--millions of contributors who will give us $10, $20, $30.
  So we say to the Democrats, ``OK, let us get rid of the political 
action committees. We will go just with small money.'' Terrify the 
Democrats? You bet it does. They cannot raise small money. They are 
dependent on the PAC's.
  You think to yourself, I wonder why? Until you realize something. 
Most of the PAC's do want something from government and the Democrats 
like government. Republicans really do not like it. We tolerate it, we 
suffer it, but we really do not like it very well and we sort of wish 
it would go away. But it is not going to go away so we have to live 
with it also. But the Democrats really love it. They love regulation. 
The more regulation the better.
  I am generalizing now. This is not true of the Chair. But I am 
generalizing. I would say this as a rule of thumb, Democrats do not 
like capitalistic acts between consenting adults.
  They have misgivings about it and it ought to be regulated because 
these consenting adults are not able to take care of themselves and 
most special interests want the Government to legislate something that 
will favor them.
  I want to emphasize again, they do not think this is bad for America. 
They think favoring them is good for America, and the Republicans are 
more inclined to say, ``Go away, don't ask Government to do anything 
for you.'' They say, ``I want Government to do something.'' Democrats 
say, ``Government will do something.''
  So these special interests give more money proportionally to 
Democrats than they do to Republicans. Much of our money comes from 
these smaller donors who really are not asking much, except they do not 
like Government. They give it to us. It is understandable when you are 
drawing a campaign finance bill that each party wants to draw a bill 
that will favor their strength.
  Democratic strengths is PAC's, special interest money. Republican 
Party strengths is small money, scores--hundreds of thousands of small 
contributors. Do we have big contributors? Sure. We are less dependent 
than the Democrats and it is more easy to give up. The public thinks 
they ought to be given up anyway, because they think they are an evil 
influence.
  So that is the background of the bill we are on. There are lots of 
other things in these bills I think both parties can agree to. Soft 
money. How can I best describe the way this works? Here is an example.
  The law says that an individual can only give me $1,000 in an 
election--$1,000 for the primary and $1,000 for the general election, 
$2,000. A political action committee can give $5,000 in the primary and 
$5,000 in the general, $10,000, although the average political action 
contribution is about $2,500, not $10,000. But in the campaign in which 
I raised over $8 million, all but 16 percent of it came from 
individuals, whether or not a political action committee gives me 
$2,500 or $5,000, never mind one way or the other, I can get along 
without it. Frankly, when you are in the midst of a campaign, you do 
not have time to keep track of who is giving. You do not know who is 
giving anyway. But I can get along without it.
  In that same $8 million that I raised, I had about 152,000 
contributions. Every contribution was $49.36. So can you raise money in 
small amounts? Yes, you can raise it in small amounts. People actually 
want to give to politics, but they do not voluntarily do so. It is sort 
of like giving to church. They know they ought to. Until the reverend 
comes to the door and says, ``Bob, you weren't in church the last two 
Sundays, you haven't contributed''--you maybe just do not voluntarily 
do it, but when the reverend asked, you do it.
  I discovered this years ago, it is sort of like selling insurance. If 
a candidate will go out and rap on doors, ``Hi, I'm Bob Packwood, I'm 
running for the State legislature, here is what I stand for, will you 
contribute $10 for my campaign,'' one voter in five will. If you ask 
them to and spend 5 or 10 minutes with them, they give you money.
  Do you know what I discovered? They give you money. You write down 
their name, address and telephone number once they give $10, and they 
are giving you $10 because they heard your campaign coffee, or heard 
you on a radio debate--someplace--and they believe in you. Once they 
have given you the $10, they will probably come out on Thursday night 
and work on the telephone bank for a couple of hours, probably help you 
on Saturday morning putting up lawn signs because they believe in you. 
And the Democrats have less confidence than the Republicans that we can 
raise that kind of money. So they want to keep the PAC's. And this bill 
may or may not founder between the Democratic leadership in the House 
and the Senate on that issue.
  Let me get off PAC's for a little. You can see the difference and you 
can understand the partisan difference why.
  The second thing the Democrats really want to do is fund our 
campaigns with taxpayer money--public financing of campaigns. They like 
the way we finance the general election for the President now, 
partially matching funds--Federal campaigns get public money--one 
reason is it builds greater confidence in the country.
  Take a look at the confidence level, the President's approval ratings 
and how the ratings have been for 10 years. Gee, if this is what we get 
for the Presidential races, we ought to get out of those races. They 
like taxpayer financing of campaigns. This is an issue I would not mind 
going to the public with in this campaign.
  Taxpayer financing of campaigns would be what we call an entitlement. 
An entitlement is a Government program that gives you money without any 
continual passage of laws. Social Security is one; Medicare is another.
  The Presiding Officer is the chairman of the Entitlements Commission, 
and he is doing a good job. Entitlements are coming close to wrecking 
this country financially where we promise money to people and we say it 
will come forever unless we change the laws.
  Try to change the laws once people get money and they expect it is 
going to keep coming. If we say we have decided to change policy, you 
are not going to get as much money anymore--that will not work.
  So I would be happy to go to the country and say, ``The Democrats 
have one more new entitlement for you and it is us. You are going to 
give us money. We do not have enough money to fund the School Lunch 
Program. We do not have enough money for the Women, Infants, and 
Children Program. But we have one new entitlement program that is 
critical for the country, and it is us. You are going to fund our 
campaigns and it is an entitlement.'' If you run, get the nomination, 
you are going to get a set amount of money. The Republicans very much 
do not like that.
  The Democrats next say, is there some way we can get out of this 
appearing to be doing what we are doing? We will not give money. We 
will instead give you vouchers which you can give to television 
stations, and the television stations can turn them in for money. It is 
not quite the same as giving us money.
  Or we will give all candidates reduced mail rates. It does not seem 
like money, subsidized mail rates. If it costs the Post Office 25 cents 
to deliver a letter, and we say to candidates, ``You can mail all you 
want for 10 cents a letter,'' who do you think pays the 15 cents? The 
taxpayers do.
  These are all variations of public financing of campaigns. And if the 
Democrats cannot even get that, then the next thing they want to do is 
put on a spending limit. But that is unconstitutional under a Supreme 
Court decision in the midseventies, unless you tie it to public 
financing. The Supreme Court has said you cannot limit the amount of 
money a candidate can spend. It is free speech, and it is 
unconstitutional. Unless we amend the Constitution, you cannot do that.
  But you can say to a candidate, ``We can't limit what you spend, but 
we'll make you a deal. If you will take public financing, if you will 
take some money from the Federal Government, a condition of your taking 
it for the campaign is that you will not spend more than a certain 
amount of money.'' In my mind, it borders on a constitutional 
endorsement. But additionally we say, ``If you don't do that, if you 
think free speech is such you won't take any money from us, we are 
going to say to your opponents, `If you spend all the money you want 
way beyond the limit we think you ought to spend, but you are allowed 
to do it because you don't take any money from us, we will give 
taxpayer money to your opponent the equivalent amount you spend.'''
  Now that is a whale of an inducement to say, ``I finally give up. 
Give me the taxpayer money.''
  If you succeed--I want you to picture what is going to happen--if you 
succeed in passing a bill the Democrats would like, they would finance 
about half of our campaign out of public funds and the other half we 
would collect from private funds. Whether or not we have political 
action committees, I do not know, but there would be a limit on how 
much you could collect.
  Let us say in running for Congress you can spend $500,000 and the 
Government will give you $250,000 and you raise the other $250,000, but 
if you took the first $250,000 from the Government, you could not raise 
or spend any more than $250,000. What is the logical way that you are 
going to go about raising that money?
  You are going to raise it in the least expensive, quickest way 
possible. Is that going knocking on doors and saying, ``I am running 
for Congress. Would you give me $5.'' You knock on 10 doors; you get 
$50. You knock on 50 doors, you get $250.
  Is that the quickest way to do it? Absolutely not. The quickest way 
to do it is go to the organizations under the law that can give you the 
biggest amount you can get from PAC's, special interests. Democrats 
want to keep them in this bill. And if you can raise $250,000 from the 
PAC's, instead of giving you $5,000, giving you $2,500, you are going 
to get a hundred PAC's and get $2,500 apiece and get it as quickly as 
possible, and nobody else can give you any money. Forget Sally and Jim; 
they can only give you $50. We do not want them anymore. They are out.
  I suggest to Democrats, if they want to do something good for this 
country--I have been advocating this for years--pass a bill that does 
nothing more than one thing. Limit campaign contributions to $100. That 
is legal. I do not care if you get it from PAC's or not--$100 is all 
you can get.
  What is going to be the effect of that? One, it is going to 
dramatically reduce campaign spending for at least five elections 
because in getting used to receiving $2,000 or $3,000 or in some cases 
$10,000 and suddenly all you can get is $100, campaign spending is 
going to go down on both sides right away for the first few elections.
  Two, in all likelihood, you would have to collect most of it in your 
own State. And the reason being that now when the Washington lobbyists 
can collect all of this money, this $500 for PAC's, they give it out 
$5,000 here, $2,000 here, $3,000 here, to the candidate in Idaho, North 
Dakota, or Nebraska. They kind of size those people up and say, well, 
these people may not get elected and we will help them. Now, this 
national organization collected this $500 from all of their members in 
Florida, in Maine, Minnesota, gathered it here, but the people in 
Florida and Maine and Minnesota do not likely know the candidate in 
Nebraska or Idaho, and if you had to collect that money individually, a 
candidate running for Congress in Idaho would not collect much in 
Florida. So you would have to raise most of it in your own State from 
people who knew you.
  Then do you know what the ultimate irony would be? The advantage 
would be not with the incumbent. The advantage would be with the home 
State challenger who is in the State all year long because politics 
still is personal and you can inspire your people if you are there day 
after day. If you are in Congress and you are here 10 months a year--I 
am from Oregon. There is no direct flight to Oregon. It takes me 7 or 8 
hours to get home, 7 or 8 hours to get back, and it is just not 
practical to fly home on a Friday night, be there Saturday, and fly 
back on Sunday. If I am running, and I am running against our Secretary 
of State or the Oregon attorney general or State legislator--that is 
all I was when I ran for the Senate, but you are there all year long. 
You will collect more money in $5, $10, $15, $20 contributions at home 
than the incumbent Senator will 3,000 miles away. You may not have all 
the money you want, but he does not either.
  So I will make you this final bet. Our goal should be to encourage 
people to give small amounts to campaigns, because if they will give, 
they will be interested. They will participate. I will make you this 
bet. Given five campaigns--that is 10 years--you could get 30 million 
people in this country to give an average of $50 apiece to politics, 
and I do not mean give it to their PAC; I mean give it to their 
candidates, that would be $1.5 billion. I am talking about Federal 
campaigns, $1.5 billion for Federal campaigns in an election cycle. We 
spent roughly half that in the last election cycle. I say it would be 
good for this country and good for democracy. If we could get 30 
million people to give $50 apiece--double the spending that we now 
spend on campaigns, but 30 million people who had a commitment to a 
candidate, who believed in a candidate, who gave because they knew the 
candidate and would work for that candidate and would become involved 
in the campaign and involved in politics in a way that you do not 
become involved now when you give your money to the PAC, and you 
certainly do not become involved now when you give your money to the 
Federal Government and they give it to the candidate. You do not have 
any sense of connection. Part of the time, they end up giving to the 
candidate that you never supported in the primary and you do not like 
and you wish they had never gotten the money.
  So could we do it? Yes. Could the Republicans do it better than the 
Democrats? I think so. Which is why the Democrats do not want to do it. 
But which would be better for America? Now, again, the parties believe 
in their side.
  I leave it to you. Which would be better for America, campaigns 
financed by 30 million people of $50 apiece, which, of necessity, would 
probably require, I will take a guess, between 75 and 90 percent of all 
the money you raise you raise in your own State, or a hybrid system 
that the Democrats would like which would keep political action 
committees, which would have partial taxpayer funding of campaigns and 
spending limits. And I think America would conclude: I do not like the 
Government too well. I certainly do not want the Government picking my 
candidates, and I think I kind of like that system where Packwood said 
you cannot give more than a hundred bucks, which the average would be 
about $50. And having given my $50, I will go down Thursday night and 
make phone calls for 4 weeks for a couple hours for my candidate. And I 
will help put up lawn signs, and on election day I will sit at the 
polls and watch as voters come in and check off the ones that have not 
voted, and at 4 o'clock get the list of those who have not voted and 
call them up and see if I can get them interested.
  That is what politics ought to be. If the Democratic bill passes, 
politics will never be that. It will be one more Government 
entitlement, taxpayer funded program which will further cause 
disillusionment in this country.
  So, Mr. President, do I feel strongly about this issue? You bet I do. 
Do I think that our side is good for America? You bet I do. Do the 
Democrats on the other side think theirs is good for America? I think 
so. We each think that the way we see America is the way it ought to be 
governed. But on this issue, I would wager the Democrats would not want 
to put their program, which is my suggestion, to a national referendum.
  I thank the Chair for listening. I thank my good friend from Kentucky 
for giving me this time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's hour has expired.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I wish to briefly thank my friend from Oregon for an 
absolutely great presentation and summary of the issues that divide us. 
I wish to thank him very, very much for coming over.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I thank the Senator and congratulate him on the job he 
is doing.
  Mr. DANFORTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, let me begin by calling the attention of 
the Senate to the fact that always, always, always, when we speak of 
campaign reform, we speak exclusively of campaign finance reform. When 
a bill reaches the Senate floor, it is a bill which purports to reform 
campaign financing, not campaigns. When the media talks about campaign 
reform, the media speaks exclusively about campaign financing. When 
various citizens groups address themselves to the questions of campaign 
reform, they address themselves exclusively to the question of campaign 
finance reform. And so within the deliberations of the Congress and 
within the discussions in the public at large, campaign finance reform 
has become confused with campaign reform.
  (Mr. CAMPBELL assumed the chair.)
  Mr. DANFORTH. All we do is talk about campaign finance. I believe 
that this is a mistake. I believe that is unfortunate because it is the 
opinion of this Senator that a lot can be done to reform campaigns in 
the United States, not necessarily by acts of Congress. But a lot could 
be done to reform political campaigns. Yet, our attention has been 
diverted almost exclusively to campaign financing. That seems to me to 
be a mistake. It seems to me to be a diversion from where our attention 
should actually be.
  When people talk about campaign finance reform they generally talk 
about two different subjects. They say first of all, ``Well, campaigns 
cost too much,'' and then they say, ``Well, the problem with campaign 
financing is that those who contribute to campaigns are buying access 
to politicians.'' With respect to the second of those assumptions--that 
is, to contribute to a campaign is to buy access--that is an issue that 
has already been addressed by Congress, and it has already been 
addressed in a way that has been incorporated into our laws because we 
already have placed in the laws limitations of what individuals or 
political action committees can contribute to a campaign. That has been 
done. So now an individual can contribute $1,000 to a primary election 
and $1,000 to a general election, and that is it.
  Some people say, ``Well, people who contribute to campaigns are 
buying access.'' Well, in a State like mine the cost of a Senate 
campaign is approximately $5 million and a limited contribution of say 
$2,000, which would be the most an individual could contribute, would 
be pretty much lost in a $5 million campaign. So I have never believed 
that this accusation that people are buying access is true. It 
certainly is not true under today's circumstances that are of very 
limited campaign contributions.
  The first assertion that people are making is campaigns cost too 
much. That is a just a very bald assertion. People say there is a 
problem with modern campaigns. They are too expensive. Everybody nods, 
oh, yes, that is true. But it is an argument that is never 
substantiated. There is no further analysis. It is simply an assertion. 
We all know that campaigns cost too much money. ``Don't we?'' ``Oh. 
Yes. Right. Yes. They do. They cost too much. Sure do.'' And that is 
the end of the discussion.
  If you really probe people and say, ``Well, what do you mean by that? 
Please explain. You say that they cost too much. What is the problem? 
What problem exactly is it that you are trying to get at when you say 
that campaigns cost too much?'' This is said by politicians often, 
Members of Congress: ``Well, I have to spend too much time raising 
money. I have to go to fundraisers.''
  Mr. President, consider that complaint. ``I have to go to too many 
fundraisers. That is an inconvenience. I have other things I would the 
rather do than go to fundraisers.'' That is true. I would rather go 
fishing any day than go to a fundraiser. I would rather be home with my 
wife eating dinner than go to a fundraiser. But to say that is hardly 
to place around your shoulders the mantle of reform in saying campaigns 
cost too much. Inconvenience to Members of Congress or to a candidate 
for Congress is not the stuff of a reform movement. Staying out of 
rooms in the Hyatt Regency Hotel where nice little hors d'oeuvre are 
served is not the stuff of reform. So the assertion that it is 
inconvenient for us as politicians to raise money does not make us 
reformers. It simply makes us fishermen or family people. But it does 
not make us reformers.
  Then I suppose people could say, ``Well, it takes so much time 
raising money that it interferes with our ability to do our job.'' Mr. 
President, where is the evidence for that? Where is the evidence for 
that? What political scientist has given us a study that our hours are 
too few because we are raising too much money over too much time? Where 
is the evidence that the country is suffering because of that? What 
does it matter to the average citizen of Colorado, or Missouri if every 
night in the week I am going to a fundraiser? How does the Government 
suffer? What is the argument for that? Does it reduce the total amount 
of hours that we are spending governing? I do not think it does. It 
might mean that we are in later at night. But I do not think it reduces 
the total number of hours that we are in that we are working. But if 
you ask the average citizen, ``Well, do you believe that it is the 
essence of political reform to increase the number of hours that 
Members of Congress are doing something?'' I think most people would 
say ``No. We think reform would be to send Congress home.'' I believe 
that is what most people would say. And therefore it seems to me 
difficult to argue that the assertion that campaigns cost too much is 
anything more than a bald rhetorical statement without any substance 
whatsoever. As a matter of fact, if we were to restrict the total 
amount that is spent on a political campaign, obviously the influence 
of those who are contributing per dollar is increased.
  So if we look at campaign finance reform in the original sense of 
trying to make politics cleaner, preserve politicians from corruption 
from contributions, then obviously to the extent that the total amount 
that is spent on a campaign is reduced, the value of each individual 
contribution is increased. The cost of a Senate campaign in Missouri 
now is roughly $5 million. Under this legislation, it would go from $5 
to $2.5 million, to half of the total amount of spending. Therefore, 
each dollar that would be contributed would be twice as valuable to a 
candidate, as a proportion of the whole.
  So one could argue that this bill works against the goal of trying to 
contain individual contributions. Some say, well, at least it would be 
a reform if candidates had the same amount of money to spend. Would 
that not be a reform? Maybe that is the purpose of this legislation. If 
we reduce the amount that candidates could spend, then there would be 
greater equality.
  Well, now, is that a reformer's principle, or is not that another way 
of saying that one candidate has more support than another candidate 
and we do not think that is fair; we do not think it is fair for 
candidate A to have more support than candidate B? We in Congress have 
decided that. It is not fair. It is not fair for candidate A to have 
more money to spend, and we might also add that it is not fair for 
candidate A to have more campaign workers, more enthusiastic campaign 
workers, more people manning phone banks, or more newspaper editorial 
support; it is not fair.
  So I think that what has happened is that we have identified campaign 
reform with campaign finance reform. But if we look at campaign finance 
reform, the substance is not there. It is merely an untested 
assertion--conventional wisdom that somehow we are going to reform 
politics by limiting the amount of money that is spent on campaigns.
  When we speak of reform, that very word has a nice ring to it. 
Reformers are good people. Reform is a good thing. Therefore, campaign 
finance reform must be idealistic. It must be good. This must be a 
battle between idealists and politicians. This must be a defining issue 
between people who believe in reform and people who are against 
reform--good and evil. That is what this debate has to be. I want to be 
a reformer. And if I am in the public, I want to support reformers, not 
antireformers.
  But, Mr. President, we look at this debate, and it turns out that 
there is a dividing line in the U.S. Senate, indeed in the Congress, 
and where is the dividing line? I am standing on it. I am standing on 
it. It is right down the center of the center aisle of the U.S. Senate. 
It is a dividing between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats, by and 
large, almost all--maybe all, I do not know--are for this legislation, 
and Republicans, almost all of them are against this legislation.
  Does that strike us as strange? Do we really believe that Democrats 
are idealists and Republicans are a bunch of sleazy politicians? Do we 
really believe that the Democrats are the good guys and the Republicans 
are the bad guys? How can it be that on a campaign finance reform bill 
Democrats are for it and Republicans are against it? Democrats are on 
one side and Republicans are on the other side. How can that be? What 
is the explanation? Is it that they are good people and we are bad 
people? Is it that they really are reform-minded and we are not reform-
minded? No. That is not the explanation. It is not the explanation.
  The explanation of the party division on this legislation is that 
campaign finance reform is a quagmire of politics. The very issue is a 
quagmire of politics. The very issue of campaign finance reform departs 
rapidly from generalized principles of good government to an unseemly 
scramble by two political parties to obtain an advantage over each 
other through the writing of the rules of campaign finance reform.
  Therefore, how does this work out? Well, the Democrats believe that 
Republicans can raise more cash than they can raise. Therefore, the 
Democrats are for capping the amount of cash that can be raised by a 
campaign. The Democrats believe that they can get more in-kind so-
called soft money contributions than Republicans can get. Therefore, 
Democrats are against capping soft money contributions to a campaign.
  What is the Republican position on this weighty issue of campaign 
finance reform? Well, believe it or not, the position of Republicans is 
that we as a party believe that we can raise more money and, therefore, 
we are against capping cash contributions. But we are not as good at 
getting the soft money contributions, so we want to control, to cap, to 
restrain soft money contributions.
  So much for idealism. This is a scramble for political advantage. It 
is a scramble among politicians. It is a scramble between political 
parties for an advantage.
  All of us are proceeding, of course, under banners waving proclaiming 
that we are reformers. We are not reformers. We are politicians. And we 
are seeking a leg up.
  Some businessman of the 19th century--I do not know who it was--I 
think it may have been Mr. Vanderbilt who said, ``All I want and all I 
ask for is an unfair advantage over my competitor.''
  That is all we asked for, and we will call it reform.
  It is unseemly. It is politics. It is hardly reform.
  Now, Mr. President, I said that, in my opinion, there is a lot of 
room for reforming political campaigns, but I do not equate campaign 
finance reform with campaign reform. I think that the emphasis on 
campaign finance reform is totally misplaced and that it diverts 
attention from the real problem.
  And what is the real problem? What is the real problem in political 
campaigns? Is it how money is raised? No. The real problem is not the 
funding of political campaigns. It is the format of political 
campaigns. That is the problem. The problem with political campaigns is 
that they have become almost exclusively 20-second sound bites and 30-
second commercials. That is the problem. It is not how the commercials 
are paid for or who pays for them, it is the fact that that is all 
there is. I do not argue that we can abolish the 30-second commercial 
or the 20-second sound bite. We cannot constitutionally.
  But the problem is that that is virtually all there is in political 
campaigns. Nobody talks in longer allotments of time. Everybody is 
getting off one-liner zingers. The 30-second commercial is good for 
almost nothing but to trash your opponent. And what we need if we are 
really serious about reforming political campaigns is probably nothing 
that can be brought about by law but it can be brought about by 
candidates and it can be brought about by the media if it wanted to do 
it. It can be brought about by the editorial writers. And it can be 
brought about by public pressure. And that is to create an atmosphere 
in this country where candidates are forced to face the public in 
longer time allotments.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. DANFORTH. Of course.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It is this Senator's impression that the marketplace 
is producing a kind of revulsion to those ads and moving candidates at 
least in the direction of launching unsubstantiated negative attacks at 
their own risk.
  So I want to agree with what the Senator is saying. I think the 
public is beginning to get sick of what they view is unsubstantiated 
charges. I think it is a very good point, and I just wanted to commend 
the Senator.
  Mr. DANFORTH. I thank my friend from Kentucky and I hope that is 
right. But I am not sure. I mean, this is the campaign season and we 
have seen the commercials. They have not struck me as being 
particularly elevating.
  But back in April 1992, Mr. President, six Members of the Senate, 
three Democrats and three Republicans, appeared on Ted Koppel's evening 
program ``Nightline''. We appeared on that program for the purpose of 
turning the heat up under the three Presidential candidates in the 1992 
election, President Bush, then Governor Clinton, and Mr. Perot.
  What we wanted was for those candidates, individually, individually 
to appear for 1 hour on ``Nightline'' and be grilled on the subject of 
what you intend to do about the budget deficit for 1 hour.
  We even proposed who the grillers would be. We said that Senator 
Rudman and Senator Tsongas should do it, people with expertise on the 
budget and strong feelings about it. We wanted each candidate to be 
there, one on two, and be questioned on the single subject of what do 
you intend to do about the budget, and why did we suggest that? It was 
because we believed that the budget deficit was the cancer in this 
country and the time had come to do something about it. And we believed 
that candidates should have to face up to it and they were not facing 
up to it. They were ducking it and any candidate can duck anything in a 
half-minute.
  And anybody can duck anything in the standard political debate format 
where you have 2 or 3 minutes or whatever it is to respond to a 
question. Mr. President, in our line of work, every politician can 
speak for 2 or 3 minutes without saying a thing. We are trained to do 
it, but try sitting someone in a chair for an hour and being peppered 
by knowledgeable questions on the subject of exactly what do you intend 
to do, and that would do more to transform the public debate than 
anything else. That was one format idea on Nightline, and I am sure 
there are countless others, but the fact of the matter is that somehow 
we have to reform campaigns so that they are something more than merely 
20-second sound bites and 30-second commercials.
  Senator Bob Kerrey and I are the Chairman and the vice chairman of 
the President's Commission on Entitlements. Talk about a pending 
national calamity. This is it. Because, Mr. President, if nothing is 
done to control the growth of entitlements by the year 2012, not that 
far away, 18 years, in our lifetimes by the year 2012 all of the tax 
revenues of our country, all of them, will be taken up by four 
entitlement programs plus interest on the national debt and there will 
be nothing left for anything else.
  And yet candidates in 30 seconds get away with saying, ``Oh, I will 
tell you what to do about the budget deficit, pass a balanced budget 
amendment.'' I will tell you what to do about the budget deficit. Cut 
congressional pay. Cut foreign aid. But by the year 2012 you could 
abolish Congress, close down the buildings, turn the Capitol Building 
into a pigeon roost, shut down the Pentagon, close down the Armed 
Forces, close the Justice Department, shut down the prisons, shut down 
the courts, nothing for highways, nothing for bridges, nothing for 
airports, nothing for anything, and all of our tax revenues would go to 
entitlements plus interest on the debt. That is where we are leading. 
And candidates get away with saying, ``Oh, we will cut the 
congressional pay.'' It is baloney. And they win elections and they run 
their 30-second commercials against anybody suggesting we should do 
something about the entitlements.
  Joe Doaks is for cutting Social Security, Joe Doaks is for cutting 
Medicare. And they win elections that way. And that is the way it is 
going to be unless candidates are smoked out. And the way to smoke them 
out is to compel them to speak to the American people and to their 
constituents in longer allotments of time. That is real campaign reform 
and that is what we should be talking about, not this grotesque 
scrambling for political advantage between two parties both of whom are 
proceeding under the banner of reform.
  Turning to the bill before us, what is the heart of this bill? The 
heart of this bill is that it would restrict the amount that a 
candidate can spend on a campaign. That is the heart of the bill --to 
restrict spending by candidates.
  Mr. President, to restrict spending is to restrict speech. It is to 
restrict political speech. And all of us who serve here know that. We 
know it. We know that the reason for going to fundraisers, for raising 
money, for bringing in money for political campaigns, is to go on 
television with our message. That is the reason for doing it.
  When we send out our fundraising letters, we say we have to go on the 
air with our message. That is how it is done now. It is not done in 
whistle-stop campaigns. It is done on television. That is where the 
money goes in political campaigns.
  Now there is sort of a first dollar or the first dollars that are 
raised in a political campaign that have to go for certain things--the 
travel of the candidate; keeping the candidate lodged and fed; hiring a 
certain number of staff people; paying rent. But over and above that 
amount, everything--everything--is for communicating with constituents.
  So if there is a lid put on how much is spent, if the amount that is 
spent is collapsed, is pressed downward, the amount for the basic 
overhead would be, probably, approximately the same. And virtually all 
that we would be doing by reducing the aggregate amount to be spent on 
a campaign would be to reduce the quantity of political speech.
  All of us know that. All of us who have campaigned know that. We know 
that the point of raising money is to communicate with our voters. We 
know that from our experience. That is what the Supreme Court held in 
the case of Buckley versus Valeo. The Supreme Court held that political 
contributions, political funds, are the equivalent of political speech. 
That is what they are. That is the premise of Buckley versus Valeo; 
that to control or restrict the spending of political funds in a 
campaign is a restriction on political speech.
  And I might say that if we are to be in the business of restricting 
political speech, if there were some constitutional way to do that, 
then it seems to me that it is inherently unfair that those who are 
making decisions about how to restrict political speech are people who 
are holding office in Congress. There are 535 of us who are going to 
make this decision and we have all kinds of differences--male/female; 
old/not so old; Democrat/Republican; liberal/conservative, and 
everything in between. All these different people here and we only have 
one thing in common, only one--all of us are incumbents.
  So 535 incumbents are making decisions about restricting political 
speech in campaigns. We are not against restricting all speech. No. We 
are only interested in restricting pesky speech. I mean where it comes 
to other kinds of speech, we want that.
  We want television in the Senate. And if we want to get on television 
and not be on the floor of the Senate, we have several options:
  We can go upstairs, one floor up, and we can go to the press gallery, 
which is right here. I could be there in 2 minutes flat, before the 
cameras.
  Or, if we want, we can go down to the Senate recording studio. Now 
that is in the basement. That may be 2\1/2\ minutes away.
  Or--and I do not know what situation the Democrats have, but we 
Republicans have our Republican conference facilities, radio and 
television facilities. That is great.
  And then of course, we have our news secretaries, helping us put out 
the word. Oh, we are into political speech in a big way: Newsletters; 
the works--communicate with the voters. But there is but one kind of 
speech is that we are talking about restricting --pesky speech; the 
speech that occurs right before elections.
  Why would we want to restrict that? Because we have a monopoly on the 
other kind of speech, but the other guy has a chance in campaign 
speech, so let us restrict it. And that is exactly why this has been 
called the incumbents protection act. Clearly, it is of benefit to us.
  Well, that is an aside.
  But more important, of course, is the constitutional point. And this 
really is important, because this bill is not even close to passing 
constitutional muster--not even close.
  The Supreme Court has held in Buckley versus Valeo that spending 
limits restrict the quantity of political speech, and therefore 
spending limits are unconstitutional.
  Now, we have arguments and say, ``Wait a second. That does not seem 
right. I mean we have decided that what candidates spend should be 
equalized.''
  Well, the Supreme Court expressly dealt with that argument and said, 
no, that is not an excuse for infringing on the constitutional rights 
to communicate.
  Or we say, ``Wait a second. The cost of campaigns is growing too 
fast.'' Well, the Supreme Court was faced with that argument too, 
expressly faced it, and decided that issue. No; no excuse. That is not 
an argument. The Supreme Court held that spending limits restrict the 
quantity of political speech and therefore spending limits are 
unconstitutional.
  However, there is a footnote in Buckley versus Valeo, a footnote; 
footnote 65. It is not only a footnote, it is what lawyers call dictum. 
It is not essential to the holding of the case. It suggests that if 
there were voluntary limits on campaign spending--voluntary--that might 
be all right.
  So, there has been a scramble to try to figure out voluntary limits. 
And one form of voluntary limits, said to be voluntary, believed to be 
voluntary, held to be voluntary, is: If a candidate says I will not 
spend more than x amount, then the candidate can get public funds, 
public funding for campaigns. That is how Presidential campaigns work. 
A Presidential candidate may elect to limit the total amount of money 
and draw support furnished by the tax checkoff from the Treasury of the 
United States for the candidate's campaign. That is said to be 
voluntary. The practical problem is it may be voluntary, but it is 
expensive and we have a budget problem and everybody knows it. So we 
cannot do it that way. We cannot just say here is more money from the 
Treasury for candidates.
  Senator McConnell has called this proposal an entitlement program for 
candidates. That is what it would be. If you are a candidate, you get 
money from the Treasury; you are entitled to it. We do not have that 
money.
  So in this legislation there is a different scheme, and here is the 
scheme. The scheme is you, the candidate, make the decision on whether 
or not you want to comply with the limited amount of campaign spending. 
You make the decision. But if you decide you do not want to comply, 
there are certain consequences of that decision. One consequence is 
that, if you are not going to abide by the limits, then everything that 
your campaign raises, all the contributions, are taxed at the highest 
corporate rate, 35 percent. We will punish you, we will tax you at the 
maximum corporate rate. I will not belabor this point, but to say to 
somebody, ``You are free to decide any way you want but, if you decide 
it the wrong way, we will take 35 percent of your money,'' is not a 
voluntary decision. It is a coerced decision.
  The American Civil Liberties Union has a memo on this subject. Mr. 
President, I ask unanimous consent this memorandum by Robert S. Peck, 
the legislative counsel of the ACLU, be printed in the Record at this 
point.
  There being no objection, the memorandum was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       The ACLU opposes the proposal of Senator Durenberger to tax 
     the campaign receipts of candidates who do not agree to 
     voluntary spending limits as an unconstitutional infringement 
     of First Amendment rights. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 
     (1976), held that the imposition of spending limits on 
     electoral campaigns violate the First Amendment by limiting 
     the quantity, depth and reach of political speech. To be 
     constitutional, the Court held, limits must be voluntary--
     hence, S. 3's rhetorical adhesion to ``voluntary'' spending 
     limits. Any formulation that coerces compliance with a 
     statute's suggested spending limits would fail the Buckley 
     Court's criteria for voluntariness. Thus, a candidate must 
     ``remain[] free to engage in unlimited private funding and 
     spending instead of limited public funding.'' Republican 
     National Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 487 F. 
     Supp. 280, 284 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd mem., 445 U.S. 955 (1980).
       Senator Durenberger's amendment would tax only those who 
     choose unlimited private funding and spending, as they are 
     constitutionally entitled to do, and thus runs afoul of the 
     Constitution. The Supreme Court has long held that the 
     government cannot require people ``to pay a tax for the 
     exercise of that which the First Amendment has made a high 
     constitutional privilege.'' Follett v. McCormick, 321 U.S. 
     573, 578 (1944). In doing so, the Court was not writing on a 
     blank slate but reflecting some of the historical forces that 
     led to the writing of the First Amendment.
       The Framers of the Bill of Rights were intimately familiar 
     with the history of taxes imposed to discourage or suppress 
     disfavored speech. The system of licenses that limited press 
     freedom in England during the 17th century was succeeded in 
     1712 by a parliamentary tax on newspapers and advertisements. 
     Known derisively as ``taxes on knowledge,'' the levy had the 
     effect of curtailing circulation and thus the reach of 
     publications that commented and criticized the policies of 
     the Crown. In 1785, Massachusetts traveled down that same 
     road and imposed a similar tax. This approach was soundly 
     rejected by those who proposed and saw enactment of the First 
     Amendment. The father of the Bill of Rights, James Madison, 
     called the English view that allowed people to punish as long 
     as they paid penalties for what was deemed improper or 
     mischievous to make a ``mockery'' of expressive freedom. 
     Elliot's Debates 569 (1937 ed.).
       Relying on this history in 1936, the Supreme Court struck 
     down a Louisiana tax on publications that printed 
     advertisements and had a circulation above 20,000. Grosjean 
     v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. (1936).
       The Durenberger amendment similarly taxes the exercise of a 
     First Amendment right. The Court has said that the ``power to 
     tax the exercise of a privilege is the power to control or 
     suppress its enjoyment. Those who can tax the exercise of [a] 
     practice can make its exercise so costly as to deprive it of 
     the resources necessary for its maintenance.'' Murdock v. 
     Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 112 (1943) (citations 
     omitted). Such a tax cannot stand, for the power to impose 
     a tax on the exercise of a First Amendment right ``is 
     indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this 
     Court has repeatedly struck down.'' Id. at 113. In the 
     Murdock case, where a tax on the distribution of religious 
     literature was struck, the Court found that the use of a 
     tax to suppress the dissemination of views because they or 
     the method by which they were propagated were not in favor 
     amounted to ``a complete repudiation of the philosophy of 
     the Bill of Rights.'' Id. at 116.
       Approval of the Durenberger amendment would be a similar 
     repudiation. It penalizes and inhibits a candidate for 
     exercising his or her constitutionally protected rights. As 
     the Supreme Court has observed repeatedly, giving sanction to 
     such a system ``would allow the government to `produce a 
     result which [it] could not command directly.' Such 
     interference with constitutional rights is impermissible.'' 
     Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597 (1972) (quoting 
     Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 526 (1958)).
       Moreover, any system of taxation that burdens the exercise 
     of First Amendment protected rights bears ``a heavy burden on 
     the State to justify its action.'' Minneapolis Star v. 
     Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575, 592-93 
     (1983). ``In order to justify such differential taxation, the 
     State must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a 
     compelling state interest and is narrowly drawn to achieve 
     that end.'' Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 
     U.S. 221, 231 (1987). No such compelling interest can support 
     the proposed taxation of political committee revenues.
       First, the Supreme Court has already rejected all proffered 
     rationales to impose spending limits or burden the 
     candidates' rights to spend freely from their own private 
     funds. Second, because the Court has recognized that spending 
     is an indispensable condition to effective political speech, 
     the decision to spend is the exercise of speech. To 
     discriminate between candidates on the basis of that decision 
     amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint-discrimination. The 
     Court has observed that ``the First Amendment forbids the 
     government to regulate speech in ways that favor some 
     viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others.'' City Council 
     of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 804 
     (1984). The proposed tax squarely violates this bedrock 
     principle by picking and choosing between the candidates who 
     will suffer this penalty. It once again proves the maxim 
     articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall observed on behalf 
     of the Supreme Court early in its existence that the power to 
     tax is the power to destroy. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 
     (4 Wheat.) 316, 427 (1819).
       The Durenberger amendment should be rejected. Like the tax 
     struck down in Grosjean, it is ``a deliberate and calculated 
     device in the guise of a tax to limit the circulation of 
     information to which the public is entitled in virtue of the 
     constitutional guaranties.'' 297 U.S. at 250.

  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I know former President Bush used to 
criticize what he called card-carrying members of the ACLU. I confess I 
used to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU. But I think this 
memorandum is exactly right. It begins by saying, ``The ACLU opposes 
the proposal of Senator Durenberger to tax the campaign receipts of 
candidates who do not agree to voluntary spending limits as an 
unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights.'' And then the 
memo goes on to explain why. Basically the reason is it is coercive.
  In fact, it is very much like the typical criminal statute. The 
typical criminal statute does not say you are forbidden from doing this 
or that. It simply states the elements of an offense and says there are 
certain penalties that attach to that offense. That is precisely what 
this legislation would do. It spells out what the offense is, spending 
more than a given amount of money, and it imposes a penalty if that 
amount is exceeded. It is very much like a criminal fine.
  Then the legislation goes on and says, furthermore, not only are you 
taxed, if you do not comply, 35 percent while your opponent is not 
taxed, but if you spend any amount over the maximum amount that we say 
you should spend, the Treasury of the United States is going to start 
writing checks to your opponent. And the first check is going to be a 
third of the amount that your opponent is allowed to spend.
  Consider this basic structure. If you are a candidate and you do not 
comply with the congressionally determined spending limits, First you 
are going to be taxed, and second, your opponent is going to receive a 
very large check. Ask yourself if that is a voluntary system. Ask 
yourself if it could possibly be constitutional.
  Consider the following analogy. Let us suppose that in a city there 
are two newspapers and that we in the Congress decide that we as 
politicians know how much political commentary there should be in the 
newspapers and that some newspapers are spending too much of their 
resources on political commentary. We would rather them spend their 
money on the sports page and funny page. So we are going to create a 
situation where newspapers that print too much political news are going 
to be taxed and those that do not spend more than a given amount, a set 
amount, will be paid money. So in the hypothetical city, paper A is 
taxed and paper B receives a check from the Government based on how 
much they are talking about politics. Could anybody argue that such a 
scheme would be constitutional? Clearly it would not be. It would be 
laughed out of court.
  And I believe that is the situation we are in right now. I think this 
constitutionally is a laughable proposition. I might say that Roll 
Call, which is, of course, the Capitol Hill publication--I would not 
call it exactly a bastion of conservatism--Roll Call wrote an editorial 
on June 21, 1993. Roll Call concludes, ``The version of campaign 
finance reform passed by the Senate is a miserable piece of 
legislation. Its key provision--the compromise that made cloture 
possible on Wednesday--is outrageously unconstitutional.''
  And it goes on to say that it taxes speech and that it is a ``cynical 
abomination.'' That is what Roll Call says about this legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the editorial from Roll Call 
be printed at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    [From Roll Call, June 21, 1993]

                          Senate Security Act

       The version of the campaign finance reform bill passed by 
     the Senate last week is a miserable piece of legislation. Its 
     key provision--the compromise that made cloture possible on 
     Wednesday--is outrageously unconstitutional. Why would 
     Senators pass a bill that so blatantly restricts the right of 
     free political speech, as the Supreme Court clearly defined 
     the right in Buckley v. Valeo? Partly, to rescue themselves 
     from the political liability of failing to pass a campaign 
     bill but, more importantly, to keep their own seats warm and 
     secure.
       The amendment that broke the logjam, sponsored by Sens. 
     James Exon (D-Neb) and David Durenberger (R-Minn), replaces 
     the public financing provisions of the original Democratic 
     bill with a tax on contributions. In the Buckley decision, 
     the High Court ruled that the government cannot limit what a 
     candidate may spend on a race because to do so would violate 
     First Amendment free-speech guarantees. So the original bill 
     set up a scheme to entice candidates to accept spending 
     limits ``voluntarily.'' The deal was this: If you agree not 
     to spend more than $600,000, then the taxpayers will provide 
     you with $200,000 of that, gratis.
       Senators understood, however, that public financing (which 
     some opponents were calling ``food stamps for politicians'') 
     could be poison at the ballot box. So the Exon-Durenberger 
     measure got rid of direct public financing and instead made 
     this deal: If you accept the spending limits and your 
     opponent does not, then your opponent's donation will be 
     taxed at the top corporate rate (34 percent now, and rising) 
     and the proceeds go to you.
       This cute maneuver is doubly unconsitutional--not only does 
     it limit campaign spending (i.e., political free speech, 
     according to Buckley) through coercion, it actually taxes 
     that speech--forces candidates who, in effect, speak too much 
     to pay the government (and ultimately their opponents!) for 
     the privilege.
       The Senate bill also removes the last pretense that this 
     ``reform'' legislation is anything more than an incumbent-
     protection bill. Under Exon-Durenberger, if both the 
     incumbent and the challenger agree to accept spending limits, 
     then neither gets a boost in fundraising through public 
     financing. So incumbents get to have their cake and eat it 
     too. First, challengers are coerced into not spending more 
     than incumbents (and they need to spend more just to get 
     even!), and, second, challengers have to fend for themselves 
     in raising money to get to the limit.
       This newspaper did not think all that highly of the 
     original Democratic campaign reform bill, but the cynical 
     abomination the Senate passed last week is far worse. We 
     admire those, like Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who stood 
     on principle, continued to back true public financing, and 
     voted ``no'' on Exon-Durenberger. We still believe that the 
     simple, elegant solution to the campaign finance conundrum is 
     free broadcast time for all candidates--a system in place in 
     every other democracy in the world. This idea should have 
     broad, bipartisan appeal, except for one little problem: It 
     puts challengers on an equal footing with incumbents.

  Mr. DANFORTH. Of course, when you start getting into the business of 
penalizing people for spending too much, there are all kinds of ways to 
penalize them. One is a disclaimer that would be required in the 
campaign commercials of nonconforming candidates. Nonconforming 
candidates would have to put in their commercials the following 
language: ``This candidate has not agreed to voluntary campaign 
spending limits.'' So you are buying a commercial, and the commercial 
is 30 seconds long, and you have to consume 3 or 4 seconds of the 
commercial with this added language.
  It is compulsory political speech, incidentally. And, furthermore, it 
is compulsory political speech which could be construed as being self-
critical of the candidate. That is not a voluntary system. This is 
coercion. It is in there for the purpose of coercing candidates.
  There is a mail discount. There is a special broadcast discount for 
complying candidates. If you comply with the congressional mandated 
limitation, you will be able to send your mail out at a cheaper rate 
than your opponent. If you comply, you will be able to run your 
political broadcasts at a lower rate than your opponent.
  Viewed from the standpoint of the complying candidate, that might be 
viewed as a reward, similar to what was apparently approved in a 
footnote in Buckley versus Valeo. However, let us not view it simply 
from the standpoint of the complying candidate. Let us view it from the 
standpoint of the candidate who is not complying. From the standpoint 
of the candidate who is not complying, the new postal rate and the new 
broadcast rate established for the opponent becomes the standard 
rate. And to the extent that the noncomplying candidate has to pay 
more, it is, again, in the nature of a fine, it is a financial penalty, 
over and above the standard rate imposed on the noncomplying candidate.

  This is not a voluntary system. It is put together for the purpose of 
coercion and, therefore, it could not possibly be constitutional under 
Buckley versus. Valeo.
  Let me raise fairly quickly two other points. One I think raises real 
constitutional questions and the other at least would deserve 
consideration under the Constitution.
  Independent groups, which participate in a campaign, opposing a 
candidate would result in the Federal Government writing checks to the 
opposed candidate so that the candidate could respond dollar for 
dollar.
  I have to admit that I once thought this was a pretty good idea 
because I remember what happened to Senator Percy when he was running 
for reelection and an interloper entered in and piled on and spent a 
lot of money against Senator Percy. I did not think that was fair. But 
consider the constitutional implications of trying to write checks to 
the opponent.
  Let us say that we have an organization in this country that has 
very, very strong feelings on some matter of importance to the 
organization and they want to speak out, and we are saying, ``Well, you 
should know that if you speak out, we, the Government, are going to 
write a check to the person you are trying to defeat.'' Senator 
McConnell has given us an excellent example. He said let us suppose 
David Duke is running for the U.S. Senate. B'nai B'rith is outraged by 
this and threatened by it. B'nai B'rith opposes David Duke, wages a 
campaign against David Duke, and the Treasury of the United States 
writes a check to David Duke. Would not that knowledge have a chilling 
effect on the exercise of a constitutional right to participate in a 
political campaign by the organization that wants to participate? I 
think the answer to that question is clearly yes.
  Then there is the matter of the thwarted would-be contributors. Right 
now there are no maximum limits, so anybody can contribute to a 
campaign. So let us say you want to contribute to a campaign. You 
believe in the candidate, you believe in the cause and you have a job, 
you cannot spend a lot of time, you are working hard, you are trying to 
raise a family, you cannot spend a lot of time out there punching 
doorbells for the candidate. You want to write a check. You go up to 
the candidate and say, ``Here is a check for $50.'' ``Oh, I'm sorry, 
the window has been closed on this campaign. Your support is not 
wanted.'' I do not know if that is sufficient to create a 
constitutional issue, but I think that it should be raised in that 
context because, clearly, it thwarts the ability of individuals to 
participate in political campaigns.
  Mr. President, I think I only have about 5 minutes left--4 minutes 
left. So I would like to conclude very quickly. This is said to be 
political reform. I do not think it is. I believe that it is an 
unseemly scramble for political advantage between two political 
parties.
  I do not believe that abridging the first amendment to the 
Constitution can ever be called political reform, and I do not think it 
is any answer to say, ``Well, we really don't like this kind of speech, 
we really don't like political campaigns, we think that they are slimy, 
we do not like them so we want to stop them.''
  The last great first amendment debate that occurred on the floor of 
this Senate concerned a form of political expression much more volatile 
and controversial than political campaigns, and it was flag burning. I 
was one Senator who came to the floor of the Senate and said, ``We 
cannot impinge on the first amendment to the Constitution simply 
because we do not like what people are doing or saying.'' And exactly 
the same principle exists here. The fact that we do not like political 
campaigns is no license to impinge on the Constitution or to try to 
impinge on the Constitution.
  The fact that we think they are sleazy is no justification for doing 
something that is blatantly unconstitutional.
  There is no justification for doing that and people might say, 
``Well, why not do it and leave it to the courts? Let the courts 
decide. That is what they are for.'' Yes, they are. The courts are for 
deciding the ultimate constitutional issue. However, we have a separate 
oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. We have that oath 
not to pass the buck to the courts. We have that oath to uphold the 
Constitution. And where a bill is clearly unconstitutional, we have an 
obligation to say so and to make that view known through our votes.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Mr. McConnell is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield myself a few moments of my 7 
hours.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Missouri for his outstanding speech, very skillful discourse on the 
first amendment which is, of course, at the heart of this debate. That 
is what this is all about: Speech, our right to speak and frequently. 
As the Senator from Missouri has so skillfully pointed out, we do not 
like some of the speech we hear, and we wish we could make it go away 
or, in the case of this particular bill, kind of dole it out in equal 
amounts; let us quantify this speech and hand it out in equal amounts 
so no one will speak too much.
  But as the Senator has pointed out, the Supreme Court says you cannot 
do that. You cannot wrap up speech in a tight little amount and hand it 
out in equal amounts. Of course, even if one could do that 
constitutionally, which clearly you cannot, what about all that other 
speech in campaigns? Newspaper editorials. Boy, as somebody who 
frequently has newspapers against him, I sure would like to equalize 
their speech. What about an amendment to this bill that says a 
candidate who is not endorsed by a newspaper should get some of those 
public tax dollars to counter that unfortunate speech and, thereby, 
further level the playing field? I say to my friend from Missouri, I 
would be curious if he would respond to how the newspapers of America 
would feel, some of whom support this bill--not all, but some of them, 
including the local major daily here--how they would feel if their 
speech in political campaigns was countered by tax dollars?
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reid). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. DANFORTH. I think that this is exactly correct, and I think that 
when we talk about political speech, it is not possible to start trying 
to distinguish between forms of political speech or content of 
political speech. I think that the nature of political campaigns now is 
pretty bad.
  In part of my remarks, I talked about what I think real campaign 
reform would be about. But I think that to try to pass laws that try to 
impinge on political speech is just wrong and there is no justification 
and cannot conceivably be constitutional.
  I made an analogy. It seems to me to be a good analogy. Maybe 
somebody can criticize it. But I said let us suppose that we were to 
decide that some papers were spending too much of their resource 
commenting on political matters. We did not want that, so we were to 
set a standard for how much political commentary there could be in 
newspapers. And for those newspapers that commented too much on 
politics, we imposed a special tax, and those newspapers that did not 
have that much political comment, we would write them a check equal to 
a third of their revenues.
  Now, if we were to pass such a statute, what would be the editorial 
comment? Would that not be viewed as laughable under the Constitution, 
just outrageous, to start taxing those who spoke too much and writing 
checks to those who did not speak any more than we would like them to. 
It would be obviously unconstitutional.
  What is the difference, I ask the Senator, what is the difference 
between that kind of hypothetical, outrageous newspaper tax and a 
program which says to candidates please spend whatever you want? 
However, if you spend more than we think you should spend communicating 
with voters, then we are going to tax you. And for the other candidate, 
if you spend more than we think you should spend, we are just going to 
write a check for a third of the amount that that candidate is allowed 
to spend.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Missouri, as lawyers 
occasionally are heard to remark, it is a distinction without a 
difference. In fact, the hypothetical that the Senator from Missouri 
lays out is indistinguishable from the actual language in this bill in 
an effort to, in the Senate-passed version, tax excessive speech and 
give it to someone else. And so it is blatantly unconstitutional.
  Just one other point before the Senator leaves, and I really want to 
thank him for his brilliant presentation, absolutely brilliant. There 
is a practical problem with the effort to counter independent 
expenditures, too, beyond the constitutional problem. Let us assume 
that a group comes in and says I want to commend and recommend that you 
vote for the distinguished Senator from Missouri because he always 
votes for tax increases that improve America. I ask my friend from 
Missouri, is that an independent expenditure against or for the 
candidate?
  Mr. DANFORTH. Well, that is a very good question, and I have been in 
that position. Back 3 years ago, when my favorite Supreme Court Justice 
was a nominee, various interest groups thought that they would try to 
help him by running television commercials attacking Members of the 
Senate. Of course, the nominee was outraged by this, and those of us 
who were supporting the nominee concluded that this was a disaster. I 
mean this was--if anything threatened the nomination, this was it. If 
there was ever a case of with friends like this, who needs enemies, 
that was it.
  Well, suppose it was a political campaign and some interloper jumped 
into the campaign, and I am running against you. So the interloper 
jumps in on my behalf without my approval. That is how it becomes an 
independent organization.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Right. Precisely.
  Mr. DANFORTH. I do not know anything about it. And the interloper is 
of the proverbial bull in the China shop doing terrible things that are 
just totally contrary to what I think the campaign should be and 
hurting my campaign. Then I take it the result of all of that would be 
that the Treasury of the United States would cut a check to you so that 
you can campaign against me.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I would say to my friend from Missouri--I see the 
Senator from Texas here to claim his hour, and I am glad to see him.
  Mr. GRAMM. Do not let me stop this.
  Mr. McCONNELL. We are all familiar with the term Rube Goldberg 
proposal. The Senator from Missouri is ending a distinguished 18-year 
career in the Senate. Maybe I am taking a chance asking this question, 
but I am going to ask it anyway. Has the Senator within his experience 
in the Senate ever observed such an absurd, unconstitutional bill 
riddled with the law of unintended consequences? Has there ever been 
anything quite this ridiculous?
  Mr. DANFORTH. I have never heard of a case--maybe I missed something, 
but I have never heard of a case in which there has been a tax on 
political speech. There are a number of problems constitutionally with 
this--all of the various rewards and penalties which in the aggregate 
constitute massive coercion as opposed to a voluntary system. The whole 
thing is unconstitutional.
  But if you had to focus on that part which is the clearest, it is the 
tax on speech, the tax on political speech of selected candidates, the 
tax on candidates who speak too much: Do not speak or we will tax you.
  Now, I have never heard of anything like that. I put in the Record 
the memorandum by the legislative director of the ACLU. In that 
memorandum there is an analysis of the basic point that the power to 
tax is the power to destroy, and so on, how the framers of the 
Constitution and of the Bill of Rights were drawing on their own 
knowledge of history in England where there were efforts to tax 
political speech. But I have never heard of this kind of an attempt to 
end run the Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I wish to thank my friend from Missouri for an 
absolutely spectacular speech and as well thank him--this will not be 
the last one--one of the last times for his distinguished service on 
behalf of the people of Missouri and of the Nation.
  Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague from Texas is here. He 
is rarely passionate about an issue, but I hear he may have some 
passion for this one, and I am happy to yield the floor at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 1 
hour.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking our dear colleague 
from Kentucky. This is a tough issue. I think very few people really 
have spent much time thinking about it. It is obviously an issue where 
you could say a number of superficial things and get a round of 
applause almost everywhere. But our distinguished colleague from 
Kentucky, Senator McConnell, has taken on this issue and I think has 
done great service to the country, and I would just like to say thank 
you to him.
  Mr. President, I wish to talk in the time I have about several 
issues. I would like to first talk about the bill that we are debating, 
and then about the larger issue of campaign reform, if someone really 
wanted to reform the American political system. I am going to come at 
it from a different direction than I think most people have ever heard. 
But as I have thought about it, if I were going to try to deal with the 
problem, real and imagined, that is being discussed under the heading 
of campaign reform, it is the way I would go about it.
  First of all, let me talk about the bill that is before us now.
  As we all know, America is about to have an election. As we also 
know, every public opinion poll, every survey, every political analyst 
in America predicts the same outcome for this election. The prospect is 
that the party in power will dramatically lose power, that there will 
be a substantial number of new Republicans in the Senate and in the 
House, and that we could well have a Republican majority in the Senate. 
In fact, it is now being discussed as being plausible that we could 
have a turnover of both Houses of Congress and have a Republican 
majority for the first time since the early years of the Eisenhower 
administration.
  It is not, therefore, to be unexpected that the party in power that 
is threatened with a loss of power would try to do what any group that 
is losing public support would do; that is, change the rules of the 
game to keep themselves in power?
  In truth, both political parties want campaign reform and they both 
want it for exactly the same reason. They both want to make themselves 
stronger and make their opponents weaker. We are adamantly in favor of 
changing the rules of the political game to benefit people who agree 
with us and to disadvantage people who disagree with us. My colleagues 
on the left-hand side of the aisle are here equally willing and eager 
to change the system to help themselves and to lessen the political 
influence of people on my side of the aisle. Does anyone really expect 
anything different? I should hope not, if people are going to truly 
understand how the system works and, quite frankly, how we should 
expect it to work. The problem is the changes that would benefit 
Republicans and the changes that would benefit Democrats are totally 
different. That is what the debate is all about.
  Let me explain the interests of our two great political parties. 
First of all, if I could write a campaign reform bill, let me tell you 
what I would like to do. The last thing I would ever do is limit the 
ability of people who support political candidates to put up their 
time, their talent and their money. I would always support that because 
I do believe that is the American way, but also it is the interest of 
people who agree with me.
  At the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which I head, we 
routinely have four or five times as many people contribute to our 
campaigns as our Democratic counterparts have. We routinely have an 
average contribution that is roughly one-tenth the size of the average 
contribution that goes to the Democratic Senatorial Committee and yet 
we routinely raise three or four times as much money. Why? Because 
based on what we believe and our political base of support, we can do 
mailings and people will actually read our letters, identify with our 
vision, and support us. In the 3\1/2\ years that I have been chairman 
of the Republican Senatorial Committee, 2 million Americans have 
contributed $96 million in responding to letters that I have written 
talking about balanced budget amendments to the Constitution, talking 
about putting the Federal Government on a budget like everybody else, 
talking about asking people to get out of the wagon and help the rest 
of us pull it. This Democratic campaign bill seeks to stop that 
process.
  When I ran for the Senate the last time, 88,000 people contributed to 
my campaign. My Democrat opponent did not get 8,000 contributions. My 
average contribution was a fraction of his, but I raised much more 
money than he did. That pattern exists all over the country.
  So we should not be surprised that the bill before us says you can 
give big contributions but you cannot have a lot of people contribute. 
So that if somebody in Muleshoe, TX, believes that what I am doing is 
important, they may be prohibited from sending me $10 because that 
would mean that I was getting too much support and our colleagues in 
the Democratic Party would like to deny me the ability to get that 
support. Their number one objective is to set a contribution limit and 
to say that no one can have more support than that. Why do they want to 
do that? Because Democrats do not have the support and Republicans do. 
So, given our ability to get a free people to contribute to our 
campaigns, Democrats want to make it illegal.
  I would like to eliminate political action committees, but I am not 
going to stand up here and pound my chest the way many of my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle do and say political action committees 
are evil. Political action committees are no more evil than people are 
evil. How can it be more special interest for 100 hardware and 
implement dealers in Texas to put up $10 apiece to contribute to my 
campaign than it is for one rich person to give $1,000? How can that be 
more special interest? I do not accept the argument that it is more 
special interest.
  Why would I like, if I were going to ideally rewrite the political 
contribution system of the country, to eliminate PAC's? The reason I 
would like to eliminate PAC's is primarily because I like Republicans 
to win elections. It does not affect me very much. I have never had an 
opponent who has not gotten a larger percentage of their money from 
political action committees than I have. I have always raised more 
money than my opponents have raised.
  But the reason why, if I were writing an ideal bill, I would want to 
ban PAC's is because political action committees that are run by labor 
unions give all their money to Democrats. The political action 
committees that are run by businesses basically split their money so 
Democrats get a lot more money from political action committees than 
Republicans do.
  Guess what? We have these long debates in the Senate. We have these 
editorials written in the paper about how we should eliminate these 
greedy special interests called political action committees. Our 
Democratic colleagues stand up, pound their chests and say, ``Let us 
eliminate political action committees.''
  But guess what? They never do it, and they do not do it because it is 
not in their interest to do it. I would like to do it because it is in 
my interest to do it. I think most business people who contribute to 
PAC's, if they wanted to support me, would give it directly. My guess 
is that two-thirds of the union members in America are checking off 
their union dues involuntarily. If they did not have to do it, they 
would not do it. In fact, we had a Beck decision by the Supreme Court 
where the Court ruled that a worker named Beck had the right to know 
how much of his dues were going into politics, how much of his union 
dues were going to support political candidates that he might not 
support. The Supreme Court, after years of litigation, ruled that 
workers have a right to know and a right to say that if a portion of 
his dues was going to support people for public office whom he opposed, 
he did not have to pay.
  Guess what President Clinton did in his first Executive order, the 
President of the United States?
  And if the Lord ever gives us an opportunity to correct this, it will 
be the first thing we correct.
  President Bill Clinton, in his first Executive order, set aside the 
mandate that the Beck decision be enforced. He set aside a mandate 
through the executive branch of Government that would have required 
that every worker be told their rights about not having to have their 
union dues used for political purposes if they did not support it. By 
an Executive order in his first act as President, President Clinton 
stopped the program to notify workers about their constitutional 
rights. Why? Because the President believed, as I believe, that workers 
would not voluntarily give all of this money if they had a choice.
  So another reason that I favor eliminating political action 
committees is that many people give to political action committees 
because they are pressured to do it. That is not the American way. It 
is not the right thing to do, and it also helps one party at the 
expense of another.
  Another thing I dislike about political action committees is that 
they let people disguise their contributions. As we all know, some 
people would never want the public to know to whom they contribute. I 
have never understood it, but they do it. By having a political action 
committee, they can contribute to a candidate and it never shows up on 
that person's contribution list. It shows up that it came from a 
political action committee and you have to go to the political action 
committee to see who gave, and you cannot quite match it up.
  I like it matched up. I like people to know who supports me. If they 
want to know who supports me, let them go to Main Street, America, walk 
down the street, walk into the McDonald's. I am proud that people who 
work at McDonald's have, through their political action committee, 
contributed to my campaign. I am proud that the Independent Bakers and 
many others support me. If you look at Main Street, America, you know 
who supports me. But I would like their names on the list.
  I would also like political parties, with the support of people, to 
be more involved. The Democrats want exactly the opposite. Because they 
have the support of labor, they are able to get large-dollar donations, 
so they like a system that excludes little people and excludes the 
party, because the truth is that their average contribution is 5 or 10 
times as big as ours.
  The point I am trying to make is that what we have here is a system 
which has evolved over the years, and both political parties would like 
to change the system to benefit themselves. The ideal Republican system 
would eliminate PAC's, basically because PAC's disguise contributions 
and they are a way of forcing people to contribute.
  I would like to see more reporting, not less. I think that when 
people are giving these big-dollar donations that go into races, it 
ought to be reported. I also believe that when people like Ralph Nader 
or officials of these other public interest groups come to Texas and 
routinely denounce me--they have a right to do it and, quite frankly, I 
welcome it because they have helped make me popular in my State--people 
have a right to know who they are speaking for and who is paying their 
way. I think if some group is going to come into Nevada and denounce 
the Presiding Officer, they ought to have to report who finances them. 
That is a reform that I would very much like to make.
  To conclude this part of what I wanted to say about campaign reform, 
we have a debate here not of good versus evil, though I would have to 
say in all immodesty that I think there is a little more good on our 
side of the debate, but that is not the point, but basic political 
advantage we are talking about. We have a bill before us that goes one 
step beyond doing all the things that help Democrats and all the things 
that hurt Republicans, and that is, it brings the taxpayer into it. You 
see, people want to give to Republican campaigns. They do not want to 
give to Democratic campaigns. It is a nuisance going out asking people 
for political support. It really means that some people may have to go 
back home and shake hands with people, and they may have to actually 
talk to people. Many of my colleagues do not want to do it; they do not 
want to be bothered. They would rather force people to pay taxes so 
taxpayer money can be used to finance their campaigns. I reject that. I 
think part of running is getting support for yourself.
  If people are not willing to contribute to your campaign, you 
probably ought not to be running for public office. A lot of candidates 
come to me and ask me for advice as to whether they ought to run. One 
piece of advice I always give them is this: Look, you should feel 
strongly enough about what you are doing and what you believe in to 
look people in the eye and say, ``I want to do something important for 
America and I need your help. Will you write a check for $250?'' If you 
do not feel comfortable doing that, you ought not to be running for 
office.
  What our Democratic colleagues want to do is take that out of the 
process and have the taxpayer fund elections in America. I believe part 
of being free is not being forced, against your will, to contribute to 
candidates that you do not support. There are people in public office 
about whom I feel strongly enough in opposition that I would adamantly 
object to anyone taking my money to give to them. I do not believe in 
taxpayer funding of elections, and the American people do not believe 
in it.
  We have also an indirect tax in here, and that is forcing 
broadcasters to give politicians free time. We even had a proposal 
where the networks would have to give politicians huge blocks of time 
so we could get on television and give our stories to people. I think 
most of us have trouble filling up a 30-second television spot, much 
less an hour of programming. But the point is that we do not own that 
programming, or those television stations, or the television sets 
people are turning on; they paid for them. Should they not have some 
voice in saying what they want to broadcast and what they want to 
watch? And if we force TV stations to give us time free, or at deep 
discounts, we are forcing advertisers to pay more and perhaps even 
driving up the cost of everything from milk and clothing to automobiles 
and housing. That is a tax, as well.
  The final insult that induces me to oppose this bill and guarantee 
that it is not going to become the law of the land--and it is a real 
testament to how greedy this whole process is--is that our Democratic 
colleagues who wrote this bill in the Senate cannot agree with our 
Democratic colleagues who wrote the bill in the House. What is to their 
interest in the Senate is not in their interest in the House. And so 
what has happened in the last couple of years on this bill--and what we 
know is going to happen on this bill, which is why we are opposing it 
today--is that we are going to end up with one set of rules that apply 
to the Senate and another set of rules that apply to the House.
  Mr. President, should we not have one set of campaign laws that apply 
to every Federal candidate? Should we have PAC contributions for House 
Members and not Senate Members?
  Should we have spending limits for the Senate that do not conform to 
spending limits for the House?
  Basically what all this tells me is that our Democrat colleagues in 
the Senate cannot agree with their colleagues in the House as to what 
is in their interest and the reason is simply this: Different things 
promote the interest of Democratic Senate candidates than promote the 
interest of Democratic House candidates which is why we are going to 
end up with a bill with two separate rules, two separate procedures on 
campaign finance reform.
  Let me get to the big issue. Why do we worry about political 
contributions? What is the whole issue about other than political 
advantage for one party or another?
  It seems to me there are two kinds of contributions, and let me just 
make it very simple and set outright two kinds of contributions. One 
kind of contribution occurs when a citizen believes deeply in another 
American, believes that maybe that person could be a Washington or a 
Jefferson or an Adams, believes that he or she could help preserve or 
protect or promote a country that would be worthy of the name America, 
so they contribute to that person's campaign. I do not believe anybody 
wants to stop that contribution. I do not believe anybody wants to 
prevent people from giving contributions in a political campaign 
because they believe in the person who is running.
  Now for partisan reasons I believe my Democratic colleagues would 
like to limit the number of people who could give because they believe 
more people would give to Republicans than Democrats, but I do not 
think anybody disagrees with the basic concept of supporting someone 
you believe in.
  The kind of contributions that apparently they want to limit happens 
when a contributor thinks that they are going to affect a public policy 
decision. And that is the point and I would like to discuss just a 
little bit.
  Let us say you have a commodity producer, someone who grows 
strawberries for a living. And let us say they contribute $1,000 to a 
campaign. If the Government does not set the price of strawberries, we 
might conclude that they gave the money perhaps because they share a 
philosophy and goals with a candidate. But if the Government sets the 
price of strawberries, maybe they gave the money to try to support 
someone who would vote for a higher price for strawberries, or if there 
is a strawberry producer political action committee, maybe that 
political action committee is trying to influence people on the price 
of strawberries.
  Now it is very interesting to me that editorial writer after 
editorial writer will denounce the contributions of the strawberry PAC, 
but they will never suggest that maybe we ought to stop setting the 
price of strawberries. If you do not want people to be influenced in 
discretionary decisions of Government, one solution is to stop making 
the discretionary decisions. If you are worried about people exerting 
undue influence, look at what they are trying to influence and see if 
Government ought to be doing that to begin with.
  If you wanted to do real reform of the political system, you would go 
look at areas where Government was granting special favor, where 
Government was granting noncompetitive contracts, where Government was 
setting the price of some product, where Government was giving special 
privilege. If you looked at those areas and concluded, as I conclude, 
that it would often be better policy for Government to stop doing those 
things, a way to deal with the political special interest is eliminate 
the things they are trying to influence.
  So if we are unhappy about strawberry political action committees 
giving money, let us stop setting the price of strawberries and see if 
they continue to give the money. Then we will know are they trying to 
influence the price of strawberries.
  I also think that if you really wanted to make the system purer, you 
might prohibit Members of Congress from contacting agencies of the 
executive branch of Government. I can tell you from my political career 
that I have seen people contribute to candidates that they actively 
disliked and would never vote for because they thought some Government 
agency was going to try to do something bad to them, and they thought a 
Congressman calling the Government agency saying, ``Hey, maybe that is 
not fair, maybe you ought not to do it,'' would be helpful.
  If we are worried about those kind of contributions maybe we ought to 
say it is illegal for Members of Congress to contact a decisionmaking 
branch of the executive branch of Government on behalf of an individual 
or a group. Then we would not have to worry about those kinds of 
contributions.
  Now, if you really wanted to reform the system, what you would do is 
recognize that political power is a zero-sum game. What I mean by that 
is political power exists because Government spends $1.5 trillion a 
year, so people want to influence it. Government sets the price of 
products throughout our country. Government decides which products 
produced abroad are sold in America and which products we are protected 
from. Government makes millions of discretionary decisions and as a 
result, people want to influence those decisions.
  So people contribute money to try to influence those decisions, but 
they also contribute people power and they engage in endorsements. 
Money is not the only thing, but since Democrats control the 
endorsements of many of the groups, like the labor unions, the 
teachers' unions, and most of the people writing on editorial pages 
would like other people to be less influential so they could be more 
influential, they all want to lessen contributions.
  The cure, however, is to go after the reason people want to give. Let 
the Government replace discretionary contracts with competitive 
bidding. Let us get Government out of protectionism. Let us end these 
discretionary decisions of Government so if someone wants to give a 
contribution, we know they are doing it because they believe in what 
the candidate stands for.
  Nobody has proposed this. I have never seen one editorial about it. 
Critics will endlessly attack special interests and in my little 
example, they might denounce the strawberry producer PAC, but never do 
they ask, ``Hey, why don't we stop setting the price of strawberries?''
  It is miraculous, but they do not even ask that question. Look at who 
supports various kinds of reform in the political system. It is very 
interesting because they are always people who become more powerful if 
someone else is powerful.
  People like Ralph Nader would very much like to limit campaign 
contributions because they become more powerful because when they go 
into Kentucky to campaign and denounce the distinguished junior Senator 
from Kentucky, he would have less ability to go out and get good 
Kentucky citizens to contribute so he can respond.
  So organizations like Public Citizen would love to limit the ability 
of the junior Senator from Kentucky to raise money.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am sure the Senator is going to get to this. But 
particularly enhanced by the limit of our speeches would be speeches of 
the editorial pages in this country.
  Mr. GRAMM. That was the next topic on my speech.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am confident the Senator was going to that.
  Mr. GRAMM. Editorial writers are great and wonderful people. They are 
some of the most knowledgeable and sincere people in our country. Why 
would they want to limit political contributions? You do not eliminate 
political power. We are still granting contracts. We are still setting 
the price of strawberries. We are still fixing things for General 
Motors and for a lot of other big companies, bailing them out here and 
there. So the power is still there.at do the editorial writers get out 
of limiting campaign contributions? An editorial endorsement becomes 
much more valuable if the candidate cannot go out and raise money to 
tell his side of the story. Thus, editorial writers are more powerful 
if candidates are less powerful. It is interesting. There is no doubt 
in my mind where Thomas Jefferson would come down in this debate. There 
is no question about it.
  Jefferson would say, ``Look, eliminate the sources of power.'' That 
would be his No. 1 preference and it is mine, too. ``But,'' he would 
add, ``if you can't eliminate the power, disburse it, get as many 
people as you can to get involved competing for influence.''
  And I can tell you, from my involvement in Congress, when a bunch of 
different people are involved, when people are looking over both your 
right shoulder and left shoulder, sending letters back home telling 
people what you are doing, when the people are involved, we do a good 
job. When you can invoke Gramm's first law of political behavior--if a 
politician knows he is going to catch hell no matter what he does, he 
will normally do the right thing--you can count on getting good 
government.
  If you look at the people who want to limit the ability of Americans 
to put up their time, their talent, and their money to support other 
candidates, if you just scratch the surface a little and look at them, 
you will find in virtually every case they are people who benefit by 
limiting the ability of people to be involved.
  Whether they benefit by tilting the advantage to a political party 
which has less popular support from people who are willing to make 
contributions, or whether they benefit from their editorials having a 
bigger impact on the election, or whether they go around putting on 
displays to make their point, when, if no one could mount a response, 
they would be more powerful; when you look just beneath the surface, 
you will find that these are the people who are primarily pushing for 
campaign reform.
  What should we do on this issue? My own opinion is the following:
  No. 1--and I have talked about what Democrats would like to do and 
that is what we are debating. I have tried to be honest about what I 
would like to do as a Republican. If I could tilt the system in favor 
of Republicans, I would eliminate PAC's. I would want to allow 
unlimited individual contributions of small donations. I think big 
donations help Democrats more than they do us. I would like to get 
labor and business out of the business and get political parties more 
in it.
  I have also talked about what the Democrats would like to do. But if 
you were going to try to do it from a public interest point of view--
and I would not count on politicians doing it--here is how I think you 
would go about it.
  No. 1, go through the whole Federal Government and every place the 
Government is making discretionary decisions, wherever you could change 
the system, change it. Get Government out of the business where 
politicians are having input on who gets a contract and open it to 
competitive bidding, hold the people accountable to the bids, and sue 
them if they have cost overruns. Then you would never have to worry 
about some contractor contributing to politicians thinking that they 
might help them get the contract.
  Get the Government out of the business of setting the price of 
things. Get the Government out of the business of deciding who the 
winners and losers are in society. That reform would be the most 
meaningful campaign finance reform that you could ever make.
  But, second, if you cannot do that totally, then do not exclude 
anybody. Open it up. Let people be involved. But do one thing that is 
critical--make people report it. Make them put it on their financial 
report.
  When you have these huge soft money expenditures, that ought to be 
reported. When some outside group comes in and attacks somebody running 
for public office, the public has a right to know who is paying their 
bills. Let us require much more thorough reporting.
  I am proud of the people who support me. I think everybody ought to 
be. If you are not proud of their support, you ought not to take it.
  In the final part of my discussion about campaign finance reform, I 
just want to tell two stories.
  When I was in the House, I had resigned from Congress as a Democrat 
and ran again as a Republican in a special election. It is a long 
story. I had been elected as a Democrat. My grandmother thought of 
Republicans as those people in blue shirts who burned down their 
grandmother's house.
  I knew by the time I was an adult that there was a difference between 
the two parties, but I thought that parties did not make any 
difference. And so when I was elected to the House, I was elected as a 
Democrat. I quickly found out that I was totally wrong.
  When I authored the Reagan program, I was kicked off the Budget 
Committee by the Democratic leadership. I resigned and I went back home 
and I ran again for reelection.
  As a result, I had more elections to serve fewer years than anybody 
in the 20th century. So when one of these so-called public interest 
groups did a report about contributions from the political action 
committee of the State medical association and the national medical 
association to try to match it up with where people stood on the issue 
of the Federal Trade Commission having jurisdiction over 
anticompetitive practices for doctors, I ended up ranking number one on 
their list.
  Now let me go back and be sure everybody knows what I am talking 
about. When I was in the House, we had an issue come up as to whether, 
if physicians engaged in anticompetitive practices, like saying that a 
physician could not advertise, for example, or saying that a physician 
could not practice under certain parameters to try to promote more 
business, like enter into discounts or enter into group practice. These 
were the early days of the emergence of what has become competition in 
medicine. I felt that competition was important in medicine and 
everything else, and so I opposed exempting doctors from the Federal 
Trade Commission jurisdiction. I thought it was a bad thing.
  It just so happened that, because I had had more elections per year 
served in Congress, I had received more support from doctors than any 
other candidate in the U.S. Congress.
  When this public interest group performed its study, trying to make 
the point that Congressmen who were against having the FTC exercise 
jurisdiction over doctors had sold their votes because doctors had 
contributed to them, what do you think they did with me, a Congressman 
who got more financial support from doctors than any person in the U.S. 
Congress and who also supported competition for doctors?
  Well, they handled it neatly. They left me out of the study. The 
facts did not comport with their theory, so, when they wrote the study 
report, they left me out.
  The second little story is one day--I am not going to mention the 
newspapers because I like newspapers to like me--but I got a call from 
a newspaper. They said, ``We have been doing an analysis of 
contributions and we have concluded that you have received more 
contributions of a specific type than any other Member of the Senate 
except for Bob Dole and he has run for President several times and he 
has been majority leader and minority leader. And before we make a big 
deal of it in this comprehensive study we have done, we spent months 
and months on, we wanted to give you a chance to explain why this is a 
case, or give your reaction.''
  So I said, ``I am outraged and I am embarrassed. I am outraged that, 
given all I have done for America, that people have contributed more to 
Bob Dole than they have to me. And I am embarrassed that I am No. 2 and 
he is No. 1.''
  Where do you think I was in this story? I was not in the story. All 
these poor devils who said I do not know why people gave to me--``Why 
did people contribute to me? I do not know. I do not have the foggiest 
idea why anybody would give to me. It is just an accident. Are you sure 
your numbers are right?''--their pictures were there. There were 
writeups of all these explanations. I was not even mentioned in the 
story.
  I cannot pass this subject without at least stating my own personal 
opinion. Interestingly enough, this is something I read in the 
newspaper the other day. It was written by the chief political analyst 
for the American Enterprise Institute. This was about health care. The 
point he was making was that all these groups that try to say that 
because somebody is supported by some group that is influencing how 
they feel or how they vote, miss much of the big picture in American 
politics.
  My own opinion is, if you have a philosophy and you have values and 
people believe in what you do, they support you. I think that is the 
way the system was meant to work.
  I want to say in my remaining 10 minutes, a few things about several 
other subjects. I guess you could say in a roundabout way, they have 
something to do with this issue. The first subject is health care.
  A year ago today, Bill Clinton introduced his health care bill. We 
were all over on the House side of the Capitol. The President gave a 
great speech. The whole Nation listened. It was a wonderful speech. The 
President promised 37 million people who did not have health insurance 
were going to get it, 120 million people were going to get better 
insurance than they had now, every senior citizen in America was going 
to get free pharmaceuticals, and it was not going to cost anybody 
anything. In fact, so efficient would it be when we tore down the 
greatest health care system in the history of the world to reinvent it 
in the image of the post office, that all of that would be free.
  Here we are a year later, despite all of the political campaigns, 
despite all of the promises, despite all of the efforts of the 
President and those who support him to convince the American people 
that having the Government run the health care system is a good thing, 
despite all of that, the American people overwhelmingly rejected the 
Clinton health care plan. They did not reject that plan because the 
President is not a great salesman. They did not reject that plan 
because the President did not have the Democratic National Committee 
with contributions from political action committees running ads giving 
the President's side of the story. They did not reject it because the 
First Lady was not a great spokesman, a great articulator of their 
view. They rejected the President's health care plan because it was a 
bad plan.
  Quite frankly, while I know that the stories that will be written 
tonight when the proponents of the President's plan finally throw in 
the towel will portray this as a failure, the truth is, it was a great 
success. It was American democracy in action. It showed the innate 
wisdom of the American people. All these promises, all these things 
that could be had for nothing, all these messages appearing in the news 
and being financed by contributions from the Democratic Campaign 
Committee--the American people saw through the whole thing. They 
recognized that when somebody gets something for nothing from the 
Federal Government that means some poor worker and taxpayer gets 
nothing for something. And in overwhelming numbers they stood up and 
said: Stop.
  I was asked today, ``Are we going to have a vote this year on health 
care?'' We are going to have a vote this year on health care. It is not 
going to occur here in the Senate. It is going to occur at polling 
places all over America on November 8. The American people are going to 
go to the polls and if they want the Clinton health care plan they are 
going to vote for it by voting for people who support that plan. If 
they do not support it, they are going to vote for Republicans who 
oppose it.
  So we are going to have a vote. The American people are going to get 
a chance after 16 months to state their opinion. And I believe that 
opinion is going to be overwhelming. We have not changed the 
President's mind. We have not changed the President's heart on health 
care. The President believes in his heart that a Government-run system 
is better. The President believes in his heart that the Government 
knows better than the family does, and that the Government can make 
better decisions for us and for our children than we can make for 
ourselves. And therefore the Government, in his opinion, ought to make 
those decisions.
  I would have to say that, knowing the Government, and knowing the 
family, and knowing the difference, I reach exactly the opposite 
conclusion. But it is a great testament to the wisdom of the American 
people. It is a great testament to the fact that democracy in America 
works, that the American people, despite all the hype, despite all the 
salesmanship, ultimately understood what the issue was about, 
ultimately said no. And their view ultimately prevailed.
  So at a moment when we are debating how to change the political 
system--and I believe the political system in America has many faults, 
many warts, many problems--it is reassuring to me that on the greatest 
issue in terms of overall importance since I have served in public 
office, that the American people were smarter than Bill Clinton thought 
they were. The American people were able to understand a very 
complicated health care bill, 1,342 pages long.
  Whether they could pass a comprehensive test on it or not, I think 
that is open to question. I question how many Members of the Senate 
would pass that test. But they knew that it was the wrong thing to do. 
They sensed that a Government-run system would bankrupt the Government 
and destroy the greatest economy the world has ever known. They knew 
that a Government-run system meant rationing and it meant that the 
destruction of the greatest health care system that had ever been 
known.
  They sensed that when Members of Congress were talking about health 
care perfection and looking to Canada, that it was very interesting 
that when they and the people they love got sick, they never ever went 
to Canada to try to get well. But the American people observed that 
when Canadians who had money or political power got sick, they always 
came to America to try to get well.
  Those observations had no impact on the Clinton administration, but 
they had a profound impact on America because they convinced Americans 
that they did not want a Government-run system. The American people 
understood that a massive payroll tax would put people out of work. And 
they knew from their own practical experience that not having health 
insurance is a bad thing--but that not having a job and not having 
health insurance was a lot worse.
  But the silver bullet--or even a better analogy, the little stone 
that slew Goliath--was not bankrupting the country, not destroying the 
health care system, not putting people out of work. The President's 
bill would have done all those things, but that is not the little stone 
that slew Goliath. The little stone that slew Goliath is that the 
American people understood that Bill Clinton wanted to take away from 
them something more important than the economy, something more 
important than health care, something more important than their jobs. I 
am sure we have people who say, ``What in the world, in 1994, could be 
more important than those things?'' There is something more important.
  The President's plan took away their freedom. It took away their 
right to choose. And on that issue, the American people were not 
willing to countenance. In conclusion----

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold? The Senator now has 
9 minutes left.
  Mr. GRAMM. I am going to--if I am required to speak for 10 more 
minutes, I can certainly go on.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield? He is not required to speak 
for 10 more minutes, but I suggest to my good friend that he not hasten 
to finish.
  Mr. GRAMM. Amen. Let me say, concluding my thoughts on health care, 
and I think health care is related to this issue because we are talking 
about a test of the great American political system.
  In the end, the President's grand design to collectivize medicine in 
America and have the Government take over another seventh of the 
American economy did not fail because of the destructive impact it 
would have had on the economy, or the destructive impact on health 
care, or the destructive impact on job creation.
  In the end, it fell because the American people recognized that it 
took away their freedom, it took away their right to choose. And in the 
end, that is why government fails. In the end, you cannot have 
unlimited government and unlimited opportunity. In the end, you cannot 
have the Government choose and keep the people free.
  And so we passed a resolution the other day commending all sorts of 
people on our policy in Haiti. We failed to thank the American people 
who, in their wisdom, understood that the President did not have a plan 
and that we ought not to be involved in Haiti and they forced the 
President to send in President Carter. We did not commend the American 
people, but we should have.
  There are a lot of people, I am sure, who will take credit for trying 
to pass the President's health care plan. There are some who will take 
credit for trying to kill it. I am happy to count my name in the latter 
number because I think it was the most positive thing we have done in 
many years in the Senate.
  But the real victor here, the person, in a collective sense, who 
killed the President's health care plan was the person in America who 
does the work, pays the taxes, pulls the wagon and makes the country 
work. The Clinton plan died when ordinary working people said no. The 
American Medical Association may have been confused. They were cutting 
deals. They were going to be at the table. They were going to have a 
say. The automakers were bought off. We were going to subsidize their 
retirees and pay health insurance for them and save them $8 billion. 
Corporate America thought they could cut a deal with Government. But 
Dicky Flatt, my friend in Mexia, said no, and when Dicky Flatt speaks, 
America listens. When the people who do the real work in this country 
stand up, everybody else sits down. That is why we beat the President's 
health care plan.
  So when we are trying to reinvent our political system--and it could 
use some improving--let us remember it is a pretty good system. It 
worked. It worked on health care. And I really believe 1 year after the 
debate started--and today I believe it is over--if we had lost that 
debate, if we had adopted the Clinton health care plan, we could have 
never taken those promises back. We could have never paid for them. I 
believe in the end that we would have greatly diminished our freedom, 
our economy, our health care, and America would have been fundamentally 
different. It would have been a poorer country with fewer 
opportunities, with less freedom. I rejoice in the fact that it is none 
of those things today and, God willing, we will get a chance next year 
with a Republican majority to do it right.
  I will conclude and turn the floor over to my dear colleague from 
North Carolina by repeating a blessing I gave the other day at a dinner 
kicking off our campaign in 1994. I had talked before the blessing 
about the fact that the White House said on health care that 
Republicans were going to be held accountable if they defeated his 
health care plan. I am like Brer Rabbit in the briar patch. Hold me 
accountable, but hold accountable the people who were for that plan as 
well when you go to the polls on November 8. But as I said in the 
blessing, ``Dear Lord, if you give us control of our Government again, 
this time we won't waste it.''
  I thank the distinguished Senator from Kentucky for yielding me time 
to give me a chance to talk on this issue. It is easy for people like 
me to come over and speak for an hour and go back to our offices and 
answer all the mail and do all we have to do. It is very hard for 
somebody to stand up on an issue that is so easily demagogued as this 
issue.
  I want my dear colleague from Kentucky to know that I appreciate his 
good work, and today, I am sure, some editorialist somewhere is just at 
this moment putting in the computer the name of the Senator from 
Kentucky, who is here trying to prevent the blessings that would come 
from taxpayers funding politicians to run for public office, who at 
this very moment is writing an editorial that will appear in tomorrow's 
paper that, were it not for Senator McConnell, taxpayers would be 
funding elections and the world would be better off for it; that we do 
not have enough things to do with the taxpayers' money, and giving 
money to politicians to run ads, to tell the world how great we are 
would be wonderful and America would be greater for it.
  I am sure they are going to conclude the Senator from Kentucky is 
wrong and evil as a result. I do not have a newspaper, and I probably 
will not even think about this issue tomorrow, and I certainly am not 
going to read their editorials. But I just would like to say to our 
colleague that he is performing a very important service for America 
today, and I appreciate it.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me thank my friend from Texas for 
his truly outstanding speech and his discourse really on politics in 
America. He is right. There will be some editorial writers--maybe a lot 
of them--who will remember me as the bad guy.
  But the good news is, as a result of airing out what is being 
proposed here, which I think the American people largely do not 
understand, that I anticipate a rallying behind our position of 
opposition to taxpayer funded elections that will be heard resoundingly 
on November 8.
  As I said earlier this morning, I am astonished that the majority 
would think that this issue would be a terrific issue to bring up right 
before the election--astonished at their judgment. I think it probably 
illustrates more than anything else--and the Senator from Texas pointed 
this out--the differences between many on that side of the aisle and 
ourselves. They, I believe, really think it is a terrific idea and most 
Americans would consider it reform: To push individuals out of the 
process and to substitute involuntary taxpayer funds. It is an 
astonishing conclusion but does sort of illustrate the differences 
between us and how we see America and the political system.
  I thank my friend from Texas for coming over. I see the Senator from 
North Carolina is here, and we are looking forward to hearing from him.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, before the Senator from Texas leaves the floor, I 
will take note of the fact that before he came to the Congress, he was 
a college professor. And as I have seen him make speech after speech 
where he laid down his predicate, made his point, and then summarized 
what he was talking about, I can just see him in the classroom, and I 
can also see a bunch of young people loving what he had done for them 
in teaching that lesson.
  But when you stop to think about it, this business of freedom was 
identified rather succinctly by a fellow named Tom Jefferson. Another 
party claims Thomas Jefferson, but Jefferson is my hero. I am about as 
conservative as one can get, and I think Tom Jefferson was 
conservative. He is the guy, after all, who warned us many years ago 
that the least government is the best government.
  That is what the Senator from Texas was saying. And I, too, commend 
Senator McConnell. It is a thankless task that Senator McConnell has 
assumed, but I thank the Senator from Texas and I thank the Senator 
from Kentucky.
  Madam President, another one of my heroes, a North Carolinian named 
Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., used to delight in telling stories about a 
wonderful town character in Senator Ervin's hometown of Morganton, NC, 
Lum Garrison, who was a devotee of Senator Sam Ervin. Lum thought so 
much of Senator Ervin that he took personal offense when anybody 
criticized Senator Ervin in any way to any degree.
  Even back then, Lum did not think much of the Congress of the United 
States. That was way back when there was a bit more responsibility in 
the way the Senate and the House of Representatives operated than is 
visible to a lot of American citizens today.
  In any case, Lum Garrison sold newspapers on a corner in downtown 
Morganton. Everybody knew Lum. A lot of people teased Lum, and he would 
tease right back. In short, Lum was a beloved character pretty much 
like the characters in everybody's hometown.
  I had one in my hometown of Monroe named Bud Hargett, and I will talk 
about him in a minute. But Bud Hargett was like Lum Garrison because he 
was far smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for being.
  Lum Garrison greeted Sam Ervin one October morning just after Senator 
Ervin and Mrs. Ervin had returned to Morganton the night after the 
adjournment of the Senate. Lum saw Sam and said ``Well, Sam, I see you 
done come home where you belong.'' He said, ``You all had a mess up 
there, didn't you?'' And Senator Ervin allowed that that was so. And 
Lum continued, ``What you ought to do up there is pass no more laws and 
repeal half of them what you got.''
  You know, come to think of it, that is a pretty good idea. We ought 
to pass no more bad laws, spend no more of the taxpayers' money, 
apologize for the money we have wasted and then go home and do 
something for the people for a change.
  Now, Lum's advice would be right on target regarding this bill 
presently before the Senate because if there is ever a violation of 
what Thomas Jefferson talked about in terms of limited Government being 
the best Government, this legislation is it.
  Earlier today, as I do every day that the Senate is in session --and 
I have done it for almost 3 years now every day--I made a brief report 
to the Senate which will appear in the Record tomorrow morning. This 
daily report on the irresponsibility of the Congress of the United 
States is one that has been picked up on by people all over the 
country. Untold newspapers are running it. A lot of radio stations are 
including it in their talk shows and other programming. I report the 
exact size of the Federal debt every day, as of the most recent date 
available, down to the penny.
  Now, I reported earlier today, for example, that at the close of 
business yesterday, September 21, the Federal debt stood, down to the 
penny, at $4,685,968,520,515.35. Computed on a per capita basis, this 
means that every man, woman and child in America, thanks to the U.S. 
Congress, owes an average share amounting to $17,973.80.
  Now, I hear all of this poppycock about, well, George Bush ran up the 
debt; Ronald Reagan ran up the debt. It is not so, and anybody who has 
even looked at the U.S. Constitution knows that it is not so. Only the 
Congress can authorize spending. Only the Congress can appropriate 
money to be spent. No President can spend a dime that has not first 
been authorized and appropriated by the Congress of the United States. 
So, the dead cat lies on the doorstep of the Congress of the United 
States, principally, to begin with, the House of Representatives, 
because all spending measures must originate in the House and come over 
here and be approved by the Senate.
  Now, then, with a debt this large, over $4.5 trillion, should 
Congress create a new entitlement program for politicians? I say, of 
course not. But that is precisely what the so-called campaign reform 
bill will do. It will in essence establish a new entitlement program 
for politicians so they can put their hands in the pockets of the 
average guy paying taxes in this country.
  What some of my colleagues say is that, oh, we have an urgent need to 
reform campaign finance laws. Let me tell you something. I do not see 
it as a major concern of the American people. As a matter of fact, this 
legislation is not even a blip on the horizon.
  For example, a CBS/New York Times poll just a few days ago inquired 
of people all over the country: What is the most important issue facing 
the United States? What do you reckon was in first place? Right. 
Twenty-six percent said crime; 15 percent said health care; 8 percent 
cited unemployment; 7 percent indicated the economy; 6 percent said 
drugs; 4 percent cited morals and values.
  I wish the last one had been first because we are not going to get 
this country straight--and we ought to stop kidding ourselves--until we 
get morally and spiritually back in place. This country was born, it 
was created, and in order to have something created you have to have a 
creator. This Nation was created in God's name and with His grace.
  So we inherited something very dear and very obvious, and I fear that 
we are throwing it away.
  But in any event, campaign finance reform did not even come close to 
making the list. Why, then, is the Senate spending its time on this 
legislation? I will tell you why. Pure politics.
  And as Senator Gramm of Texas said, I bet you there are newspaper 
editors all over the country hitting their little old Woodstock 
typewriters and saying, ``Let's give it to Mitch McConnell and Helms 
and all the rest of them who are against this bill because we need the 
Government control of campaigns and we need,'' the editors are saying, 
``to make the taxpayers pay for the campaigns.''
  So that is where it comes in--money from the taxpayers' pockets to 
finance political campaigns for politicians. That is what we are 
talking about.
  Mr. President, the Senate bill will further rig the electoral system 
in favor of the incumbents. Now, I am an incumbent. I have been an 
incumbent for quite a while, just about 22 years, but I do not favor 
any taxpayer money being made available to Jesse Helms to spend on a 
campaign, nor anybody else, nor the distinguished lady occupying the 
Chair, nor any of the other 98 Senators who are not here presently.
  The Senate-passed bill will increase the influence in Congress of 
lobbyists, professional politicians, special interests, and 
particularly big labor. The labor union bosses, oh, they love this 
bill. They love it.
  The Senate bill will also reduce the working American's role in 
political campaigns and, most importantly, it will hand the bill to be 
paid to the American taxpayer.
  The Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, has eloquently detailed 
time and time again the spending limits established by this bill, which 
was S. 3 in the Senate. A candidate who agrees to the applicable 
spending limits is given a variety of taxpayer-financed and other 
subsidies.
  First of all, it will provide matching funds to counteract opponents 
who exceed the ``voluntary'' spending limits; it will provide matching 
taxpayer funds to counteract independent expenditures made on behalf of 
opponents; it will provide discounted postage; it will require 
television and radio stations to sell advertising at rates half the 
price others are charged for advertising. And in the House bill, there 
is something called communications vouchers.
  Well, I think what we are looking at is Robin Hood in reverse. This 
bill will take money from working Americans and give this money to 
politicians, many of whom are very, very rich. I am going to call no 
names, but I am going to point out a few things about that.
  For example, the average household income in North Carolina, 
according to the Census Bureau, is $26,647. On the other hand, look at 
these wealthy Senators. I saw one survey not so long ago saying that 
the average net worth of the 10 richest Senators is $67,800,000. I wish 
to assure the Chair that Jesse Helms is not one of those 10.
  Now, one of our colleagues, according to this study, is worth $250 
million. And yet the taxpayers are going to help him with his campaign. 
Another is estimated to be worth $35 million, and so forth and so on.
  Now, nobody should begrudge anyone for having been born rich. I could 
name Senators who would not be rich at all probably if it had not been 
for their daddies and mommies. But the question is not that.

  The question is, Should hardworking North Carolinians and people in 
every other State be forced to subsidize the campaigns of 
multimillionaires? This Senator says no.
  Should the American people be forced to subsidize the campaigns of 
any Senator? I do not think so.
  A few moments ago I mentioned a CBS-New York Times poll. It also 
included a question regarding campaign finance. That is, ``Do you favor 
public finance campaigning for congressional elections in order to 
reduce congressional campaign contributions from special interests?'' 
More than half of those responding to this question--54 percent--
opposed using taxpayer's money to finance political campaigns. And only 
38 percent supported the idea of dipping into the taxpayer's pocket for 
money to give to political candidates.
  There is even a better measure, I think, of how little enamored 
taxpayers are of this idea of subsidizing the campaigns of millionaires 
and others in politics. Every year, without exception, the American 
taxpayers are given an opportunity on their tax returns to designate $1 
of their taxes to support public financing of Presidential campaigns. 
During the past 20 years the vast majority of the American people chose 
not to approve that. Yet, the funding goes on. In fact, the checkoff 
rate was so anemic that the fund was nearly bankrupt after the 1992 
elections; not enough people checked the blank saying they want $1 of 
their taxes to go to candidate A or candidate B or C or D running for 
President.
  Seeing that not many people wanted to contribute to that checkoff, 
President Clinton tripled the checkoff figure from $1 to $3.
  Now, despite the fact that it is opposed by the vast majority of 
Americans, subsidizing the reelection campaigns of rich Senators and 
rich Members of the House of Representatives is exactly what the so-
called ``campaign finance reform bill'' will do.
  The editors may not tell you about this. The commentators may not 
tell you about it. They may not even mention it. If they do mention it, 
they will crawl all over Mitch McConnell because he has led the fight 
against this very bad bill that would have made Thomas Jefferson throw 
up. I guarantee that Thomas Jefferson would not have tolerated such 
legislation as this.
  Mitch McConnell has called this bill ``food stamps for politicians.'' 
How much will all of this cost the taxpayers; this bill, if it becomes 
law? As with any entitlement program--in fairness that is what it is 
going to be if or when it becomes law -- one can only speculate. One 
can only guess what the ultimate cost to the taxpayer will be. The sky 
will be the limit. I can tell you that.
  The estimates have varied thus far. But all agree that we are talking 
about a large chunk of the taxpayers' money which will be added to that 
$4.6 trillion-plus Federal debt that has been run up by the Congress of 
the United States.
  The Democrats who are pushing this bill admit and acknowledge, that 
it will cost at least $90 million every election cycle to provide 
matching funds to House candidates alone. That is only a partial cost 
of the bill--$200,000 per candidate in the general election, coming 
from the pockets of everybody in this country. There is no checkoff 
about it. It will be taken from your tax funds, including those of the 
young people who are just entering the work force.
  The Republican Policy Committee has estimated a Government cost per 
2-year election cycle ranging from a low of $207 million to a high of 
$296 million depending on several variables. An additional $50 million 
is expected to be incurred by broadcasters due to the fact that they 
are going to be required under this bill to cut by 50 percent the price 
of advertising by candidates.
  The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that it will cost 
$189 million in 1996 alone, if both the House and the Senate bills 
provide matching funds. And CBO estimates it will increase to $203 
million in 1998, and so forth and so on. And after the turn of the 
century, the Lord only knows how much it will cost the taxpayers.
  As Senators think about these vast sums of money taken from the 
pockets of the American taxpayers who are already overtaxed, let us 
have a little pop quiz about millions of dollars, billions of dollars, 
and trillions of dollars. I am tempted to ask one of the young pages 
how many millions are in a trillion. How many million dollars are there 
in a trillion dollars? I asked that in the Cloakroom a few weeks ago. 
Senators who are erudite, smart, well educated, said ``I do not know.'' 
But I will tell you, there are a million, million in a trillion 
dollars.
  Mr. President, since there are a million, million dollars in a 
trillion dollars, there of necessity must come the realization and the 
reflection upon the fact that the U.S. Government owes more than $4.6 
trillion.
  I fear for the survival of this country, just where we are now. I 
invite anybody watching on C-SPAN or anywhere else to get out a pencil 
and figure how we can handle a debt burden that large. And it is 
growing. Every day when I walk on the Senate floor and make my report, 
it is higher than it was yesterday. It is $4.6 trillion-plus. That is 
what the Congress of the United States--the House of Representatives 
and the U.S. Senate--has run up in terms of debt, to be shouldered by 
the young people of this country.
  Most of my days are behind me, by any actuarial accounting. But these 
young people have all of their lives ahead of them, as have my children 
and my grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. Figure out 
how long it is going to take them to pay off the debt that this 
Congress has run up--the dead cats that have been left on the doorstep 
of the House of Representatives and the Senate as they say, well, let 
us spend this billion dollars here and that trillion dollars here, and 
so forth and so on. And they go home happy that they have done so much 
for their constituents.
  Baloney. They have done nothing for their constituents except run up 
a debt. That is a shameful assessment of what has gone on for 50 years 
or more in this country. I want somebody to tell me how we can handle 
this debt load. One million, millions are in a trillion, and we owe 4.6 
of those trillions.
  The Founding Fathers at their meeting in Philadelphia a little over 
200 years ago--and if I could pick a time other than the time the Lord 
picked for me to be on this Earth, I believe I would like to have been 
there, even as a fly on the wall, just so I could watch them talk about 
the fundamental principles of this country--they were fussing and 
fighting, as the school boys and girls know. And there was great danger 
that they were not going to complete the job of creating this country.
  There was an old man sitting there; his name was Benjamin Franklin, 
and he was an old pious fellow. He had been around in his day, as 
Ambassador of France, and all. But he sat there and listened.
  As the story goes, Benjamin Franklin rose and sought recognition and 
he said something like this: We are much in dispute. Have we forgotten 
that a God who lets no sparrow fall without His notice is unlikely to 
let a nation be born not in His name. In effect, he said: I am an old 
man and we have an opportunity here to create a wonderful country, 
unsurpassed in this world, unsurpassed in history. And he suggested: 
Let us close the windows and the doors and get down on our knees and 
pray for guidance because we need it. And they did, as the story goes. 
And not many days elapsed until they worked out all of their disputes.
  What do you know, the United States of America came into being. They 
adjourned, and Benjamin Franklin, as the story goes, walked out on the 
sidewalks of Philadelphia, and the sun was shining, and he was smiling, 
and a lady rushed up and grabbed him by the jacket and said, ``Tell me, 
Dr. Franklin, what do we have, a monarchy or a republic? He said, ``My 
dear lady, you have a republic, if you can keep it.''
  That is the challenge that we are facing today. That is the reason I 
come on this floor every day and report the total Federal debt, down to 
the penny, as of the previous day. I have done that every day since 
February 1992.
  The Founding Fathers, you see, gave us no escape hatch--``us" being 
the Congress of the United States. We must take the responsibility for 
running up the debt and for unwisely or foolishly spending the 
taxpayers' money. And believe you me, they are waking up. They know 
what is foolish and they know what is unwise. But do not be misled by 
these phony declarations that you hear from politicians, or the phony 
editorials printed charging this President or that President with 
running up the debt. Not so.
  I will repeat: No President can spend a thin dime that has not first 
been authorized and appropriated by the Congress of the United States.
  Madam President, I do not profess to be an expert in anything, 
really, certainly not in the operation of political campaigns. I have 
been in a few--most of them I was so glad when I had lived through 
them. But those who are experts tell me that much more is involved in 
this legislation than the use of tax dollars to subsidize politicians. 
They have explained the spending limits in this bill to me, and they 
tell me persuasively that these limits are intended to rig the system 
to make it much tougher for challengers to mount a campaign against an 
incumbent. I say again that I have been an incumbent for about 22 
years.
  The first problem with the spending limits is that they are set at 
identical levels for an incumbent and the challenger. And this locks in 
an unfair advantage for the incumbent who has had years and years of 
experience, exposure, and all the rest of the things, as a political 
figure running for office or trying to stay in office.
  For example, an incumbent Senator--any one of us--may use for 
political purposes, if he or she desires to do so--and most do--may use 
taxpayer-financed free mail. A Senate office for the State of North 
Carolina receives over $300,000 a year for postage. I do not 
participate in this free mailing business. I use my postage allowance 
only--only--to respond to correspondence and never for unsolicited mass 
mailings that show up in post office boxes all over the country. I 
return 90 percent, at least, of the $300,000 allotted to me because I 
am not going to send out handbills, political handbills for Jesse Helms 
at the taxpayers, expense; never have, never will.
  The point is that a Senator who uses taxpayer paid political benefits 
starts off with a huge advantage over his or her challenger. A 
challenger does not have all of that, as anyone elected to the Senate 
will have had 6 years of free mail valued at $300,000 a year--as I say, 
$1.8 million--and 6 years of press agents, and so forth.
  I do not have a press agent. I came from a news business, and I 
figured that the newspaper people and the radio and television people 
can get the news without my having a fax sitting around grinding out 
publicity releases about what goes on in the Senate.
  In addition, the spending limits in this bill are mighty low for 
someone who is not a professional politician to make himself or herself 
known to the public, and inform the voters of how he or she feels about 
specific issues and compare his or her positions with those of his or 
her opponent.
  This is yet another advantage for an incumbent Senator or 
Congressman, since she or he, unlike the challenger, does not have to 
spend money to become known to the voters. That is the basic 
fundamental unfairness at the outset of this bill.
  Now then, it costs money to raise money. With the spending limits, 
candidates will spend as little money as possible to raise money so 
they have as much as possible remaining for television and radio 
advertising.
  The least expensive way to raise money, and pretty effectively, is 
for a Congressman or a Senator to use the telephone and call up people 
for sizable contributions--lobbyists, special interests, political 
action committees, big labor union bosses. This costs the Congressman's 
or Senator's campaign the nominal cost of the phone call.
  The most expensive way to raise money is from working people, people 
with lesser incomes who want to help in a political campaign. And 
millions do because they are concerned about the future of this 
country, and they would like to be a part of trying to solve some of 
the problems. By the way, Madam President, the average campaign 
contribution in my 1990 campaign was $27.
  But raising money, I am here to tell you, when you are raising money 
from working Americans who do not have big incomes, costs a lot of 
money. It requires either the use of direct mail, which entails the 
cost of production and postage for solicitations or the use of large 
barbecues or other low-dollar fundraisers, which brings in the cost of 
advertising the event, and providing food and beverages, et cetera.
  So the spending limits will force candidates to seek contributions in 
the least expensive way possible. From whom? You got it. From the big 
contributors.
  And does that not contribute to the influence of the big 
contributors? I thought these guys over there across the aisle were 
against that; they wanted the little people to participate in the 
political campaign. No, no. They are pushing this bill so they can call 
up the labor union boss down the street and say ``Slip me a little bit 
of money.'' That is what this bill is all about. Yes, sir. Some of us 
are determined that it shall not pass.
  I do not care what any editor says with his little Woodstock 
typewriter. He is wrong if he says that this is anything like it might 
have been envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. This is Government control of 
the political process, and it is soaking the small taxpayer by making 
him pay for it.
  A little over a year ago, George Will wrote a very, very fine column 
on the question of spending limits. I have always had a personal 
interest in George. When I first came to Washington, George Will was a 
young man who agreed to serve on my staff for a few weeks. I enjoyed 
having George around. And then all of sudden, he became the token 
conservative columnist for the Washington Post, and he did not need his 
small Senate salary. I have been glad to see the meteoric rise of 
George Will in the journalism profession. He has a good head on his 
shoulders, and he is a thoroughly honest young man, and he deserves all 
the success he has had.
  Maybe some Senators will remember the column that George wrote which 
was published in the Washington Post on May 27, 1993. Let me share part 
of what he said and, as I read it, ask yourself whether you agree with 
what George Will said. I agree with him. He said:

       Truck scales will be needed to weigh the printed words 
     spoken in coming weeks on campaign finance reform. Yet the 
     only campaign law appropriate for a free society would 
     contain just four words: ``No cash; full disclosure.''

  That is what I felt from the word go as a candidate for the Senate. 
Report every dime and the donor, every dime contributed and every dime 
spent. That is what George said.
  But let me continue. He said:

       One reason ``reform'' is being pushed is to defuse the 
     drive for term limitations for Senators and Congressmen. But 
     the reform bill being debated in the Senate is fresh evidence 
     of the need for term limits. It proves that the political 
     class in its quest for protected incumbency would trample the 
     Constitution.

  Well said, George Will. But let me continue.

       The bill would create an at least $200 million -- and 
     indexed to rise -- entitlement for politicians in order to 
     empower the Government to stipulate the permissible amount of 
     political speech. The bill offers ``incentives'' for 
     candidates to accept public taxpayer financing in exchange 
     for spending limits. But the incentives are blatantly 
     coercive.

  He is right about that.

       The consensus of professional politicians and professional 
     reformers is that political spending is ``too high.'' But 
     when congressional campaign spending in 1992 was 52 percent 
     higher than in 1990, that was a sign of civic health--

  The point George is making here is that more and more people than 
ever before, are participating in the political process, and I thought 
that was the name of the game: To get more people participating in the 
political process.
  There was a 68 percent increase in the number of candidates in 1992 
over 1990, and George says:

       The 470 House and Senate elections in 1992 cost $678 
     million, about 40 percent of the sum Americans spent on 
     yogurt.

  He continues:

       Spending limits generally handicap challengers' abilities 
     to compensate for incumbents' advantages: name recognition, 
     access to media, franked mail, the use of modern government's 
     myriad favor-buying activities. A ban on contributions by 
     political action committees would simply cause more money 
     to come into the process from individual contributors, or 
     as ``soft'' money spent on behalf of candidates by non-
     party organizations like--

  Get this.

     labor unions. (The bill bans ``soft'' money for parties, a 
     traditional Republican advantage. Democrats benefit 
     disproportionately from nonparty soft money, so the bill 
     leaves that unrestricted.)

  So you begin to see what this legislation is all about. It is very, 
very partisan one way.
  George Will continues:

       Fortunately, the Supreme Court has held that the First 
     Amendment requires solicitousness ``for the indispensable 
     conditions of meaningful communication.''

  Then he goes on:

       Because soap boxes and stumps are inadequate venues for the 
     dissemination of opinions to a complex continental nation, 
     the court has given constitutional status to the thought that 
     ``money talks.'' Spending is indispensable for effective free 
     political speech. To limit the former is to limit the latter. 
     The court has held that mandatory spending limits are 
     unconstitutional; it almost certainly would hold the new 
     bill's provision unconstitutionally coercive.

  I pause simply to reflect that George has lost none of his acumen. He 
is still a bright young man.
  Then he goes on:

       Under its provisions, a candidate who refused to take tax 
     dollars in exchange for spending limits would be denied the 
     broadcasting and postal discounts given to government-funded 
     candidates. And if the privately funded candidate exceeded 
     the speech limits--that's what spending limits are--that the 
     government-funded candidate is held to, the government-funded 
     candidate would get a much more than merely compensating 
     infusion of additional tax dollars. The penalties for a 
     privately funded candidate exceeding the government speech 
     ration also include clearly punitive bookkeeping 
     requirements.
       Furthermore, with amazing crudeness the bill would require 
     all privately funded candidates to include in their broadcast 
     advertisements the statement that ``the candidate has not 
     agreed to voluntary campaign limits.'' An American Civil 
     Liberties Union dissection of the bill tartly notes that the 
     bill's sponsors would not consider the following an 
     acceptable alternative statements: ``The candidate has chosen 
     not to sell his First Amendment rights to the government in 
     order to be permitted to spend tax dollars.'' Fortunately, 
     the court has held that the First Amendment protects the 
     freedom to choose ``both what to say and what not to say.''
       Because money is fungible, attempts to regulate it in order 
     to ration speech must beget a huge speech-policing 
     bureaucracy and mare's nest of rules. Suppose candidate Smith 
     favors, and candidate Jones opposes, intervention in Bosnia. 
     Suppose citizen Green runs a substantial advertising campaign 
     opposing intervention. Is that a ``soft money'' contribution 
     to Jones? If Smith is taxpayer-financed and Jones is not, 
     would Green's expenditure trigger a ``compensating'' taxpayer 
     subsidy to Smith? Imagine how gargantuan the Federal 
     Elections Commission will be when it is policing permissible 
     speech in upwards of a thousand Senate and House primary and 
     general elections every two years.
       The court has held that ``it is not the government, but the 
     people--individually as citizens and candidates and 
     collectively as associations and political committees--who 
     must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on 
     public issues in a political campaign.'' Were the political 
     class serious about opening the political process and 
     leveling the field for challengers and incumbents, the 
     political class would turn not to public financing, which the 
     public opposes, but to term limits, which 75 percent of the 
     public favors.
       True, public financing would eliminate fundraising, the 
     most tiresome aspect of careers devoted to politics. But 
     there should not be such careers. And until the political 
     class will accede to term limits--or, what is much the same 
     thing, until it will allow a constitutional amendment 
     limiting terms to be considered by the states--nothing should 
     be done to make the life of the political class less 
     disagreeable.

  Now, Madam President, for those who may have tuned in to C-SPAN in 
the last 2 or 3 minutes, let me summarize just in closing what this so-
called campaign finance reform bill is all about.
  The campaign finance bill will help close off the political process 
to middle-class, working Americans and make it even more the domain of 
incumbents--and I reiterate, I am a 22-year incumbent--it will make it 
more the domain of professional politicians, lobbyists, big companies, 
and wealthy people--paid for by the same people who always do get it in 
the neck from Uncle Sugar, the working taxpayers who are struggling to 
educate their children and raise their families.
  Specifically, this legislation will make it easier for incumbents to 
get reelected and make it tougher for nonpoliticians to run for office. 
It will effectively remove from the campaign fundraising process those 
working Americans who can afford to give only small dollar 
contributions to candidates. It will require Senators to spend more 
time raising money, not less. It will make even more important 
contributions from the wealthy big givers, professional political money 
managers, and large corporations.
  Is that the way we want to go?
  It will further empower special interests and lobbyists. And, of 
course, it will send the bill to be paid by the very people being 
further excluded from the process, and that is to say the middle-class, 
working American citizen.
  The so-called public interest groups believe that spending money on 
campaigns is inherently bad. They have it backwards. They are wrong. As 
George Will writes, Government-set limits on campaign spending 
entrenches incumbents and special interests.
  And I say again, I wish Thomas Jefferson could come in that door and 
walk around here. I do not know how much Thomas Jefferson engaged in 
profanity, but I suspect he would have some choice words about it. 
Because he is the guy, as I said at the outset, who said you are better 
to have a small government because the least government is the best 
government.
  Well, I am going to stop at this point with just this comment, Madam 
President. I referred to Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia 200-and-some 
years ago and what Ben Franklin said to that lady who rushed up to him 
after these people whom we today call our Founding Fathers had 
adjourned, after they had created, with guidance, this form of 
government.
  That lady rushed up and tugged him on the jacket and said, ``Tell me, 
Dr. Franklin, what do we have, a monarchy or a republic?''
  He said: ``You have, my dear lady, a republic, if you can keep it. 
You do not have a monarchy.''
  Well, keeping it is what we are supposed to be engaged in. But this 
legislation is 180 degrees the wrong direction in keeping the Republic.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If my friend, the Senator from North Carolina, would 
remain just a few more minutes. Because I know he has some additional 
time, I would like to, on his time, just have a brief discussion here. 
We have a couple more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Hearing none, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. My friend from North Carolina, I thought, very 
skillfully pointed out the difference in the way the two sides look at 
this issue.
  The majority, I guess, with all good intentions, although I have a 
hard time really understanding the logic of it, wants to, in effect, 
stipulate how many people can participate in politics.
  I wonder if my friend from North Carolina could share with me, 
because I am having a hard time grasping it, just what their rationale 
could possibly be for wanting to quantify the number of voters who 
could participate in a political process?
  Mr. HELMS. I hate to give my friend a short answer, but, it beats me.
  I have discussed it with many friends--and both of us have many 
friends on the other side of the aisle with whom we discuss issues--and 
I have been unable to have any of them discuss the concept of limited 
Government.
  You know, every time we expand Government, ``Well, this is good,'' 
they say. But, the trouble is that when you expand Government, you are 
diminishing what Thomas Jefferson talked about.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I have often heard my friend from 
North Carolina's 1984 campaign cited as an example of how too much 
money is spent in campaigns. And I have often grappled with what kind 
of thinking brought any rational human being to that conclusion. 
Because I believe I am correct that if the Senator from North 
Carolina--and his opponent, for that matter--were able to raise in 
excess of $20 million, or maybe my friend can tell me what it was, 
would not that require the participation of enormous numbers of people?
  Mr. HELMS. Exactly. I will say to my friend--and I have not mentioned 
it--but we set a new record in the number of contributors that year. My 
best recollection is that we had 210,000 people contribute to our 
campaign an average of about $17.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Could I just go further there with my friend? In what 
conceivable way could any rational human being reach the conclusion 
that the Senator from North Carolina was corrupted by the participation 
of--how many did he say? 200,000?
  Mr. HELMS. It was 210,000.
  Mr. McCONNELL. In what conceivable way would any rational human being 
conclude that the Senator from North Carolina was corrupted by the 
participation of over 200,000 people?
  Mr. HELMS. I do not think there is a rational--when you throw in that 
word ``rational'' you defy any possibility I can answer your question, 
because I think it is irrational.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Is it not true our goal in politics is to try to 
encourage the participation of people? We want large numbers of people 
to participate, do we not?
  Mr. HELMS. That is my understanding. I do not think the Senator from 
Kentucky would be in the Senate today--and I would not have been--if I 
had to depend on the labor unions, if I had to depend on the special 
interests who contributed, in each case that I have run, to my opponent 
and not to me. I will say to the Senator, I had the little people with 
me. And I was proud to be on the same team with them.
  Indeed, in 1990, there were more than 458,000 of them--meaning 
contributors to my campaign that year.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 400,000 American citizens participated 
in the Helms campaigns.
  Mr. HELMS. One of them; the most recent one.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Just one of them. I defy any of my colleagues who 
support this legislation to come to the floor of the Senate right now 
and tell us in what way the participation of 400,000 Americans in the 
campaign of Senator Helms was inappropriate in any way--in any way.
  Mr. HELMS. I have to say, I agree with my friend from Kentucky. I 
have always been proud the people have supported me.
  I did not mean to get into a boastful observation about my own 
experience. But I would not have had a chance ever, including the first 
campaign, if I had to depend on the politicians, the labor 
uAB) 6olina, this is the most appalling, 
unconstitutional, ill-advised legislation that I have seen before the 
Senate in my 10 years here. I know we have had a lot of bad bills 
around here. I have opposed a bunch of them. The Senator has opposed 
most of them. I must say this is the worst monstrosity I have ever 
observed.
  How anybody could support this thing with a straight face is beyond 
the mind of man. And Thomas Jefferson would be appalled at what had 
happened.
  Mr. HELMS. I believe he would. All I can say to the Senator is, Amen.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Senator from North Carolina. He has made a 
wonderful presentation. I think his own personal experience with vast 
numbers of small donors is a classic example of what is good about the 
American political system, what is right about the American political 
system, and should never, ever be restricted by some kind of Government 
fiat that only so much participation will be allowed in American 
politics. So I thank my friend from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank my friend from Kentucky, and I congratulate him on 
the marvelous leadership he has provided, not only on this occasion but 
during all the previous weeks before that he stood at that desk and 
provided the leadership on this bill. I thank the Senator, and I want 
him to know I admire him.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank my friend. I see Senator McCain is here. I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wofford). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, while my friend from Kentucky is here, I 
would like to just ask him a couple of questions. Because, apparently, 
we are going to have a deal on campaign finance reform. According to 
media reports, there has been an agreement, an agreement amongst the 
members of the other party. I ask my friend from Kentucky, has he been 
consulted by any Members from the other side of the aisle on this 
issue?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I would say to my friend from Arizona I am unaware a 
deal has been struck. I understood there was some meeting today. Maybe 
he could enlighten me as to what might be the parameters of such an 
agreement?
  Mr. McCAIN. I would say to my friend from Kentucky, first of all, I 
am sort of astounded that he has not been contacted. It is well known 
that the Senator from Kentucky has been designated by all Members on 
this side of the aisle to be our leader on this issue. He has been so 
for several years. He has probably more expertise than anyone that I 
know on this issue. Yet I am sort of surprised--although maybe I should 
not be surprised--that he has not been consulted. I would say to my 
friend that I, also, was one of the few Members on this side of the 
aisle who actually voted for the bill. I felt it should move forward.
  I think it might be of some interest to my friend from Kentucky that 
I have not been consulted either. I have not been talked to--one of I 
believe seven Members from this side of the aisle who vote in favor of 
the bill originally--I have not been consulted.
  Mr. President, it gets a little tiresome. It gets a little tiresome 
that we are supposed to be working on a nonpartisan issue, an issue 
that is important to the American people, that is important because of 
the view that the American people have that Congress is corrupted by 
the campaign financing that exists in America today, and we want a bill 
all of us can support. Yet neither I nor the Senator from Kentucky, and 
frankly no one that I know of on this side of the aisle, has been 
contacted. So, therefore, the distinguished majority leader and my dear 
and good friend from Oklahoma, Senator Boren, are astounded that people 
on this side of the aisle should be resistant to taking up a bill which 
we have yet to see--which we have yet to see.
  I ask the Senator from Kentucky again, if I could have his attention, 
has he seen any legislation?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will say to my friend from Arizona, this is since 
last November. Almost a year ago, when the House passed a bill, this 
has been a Democratic conference, if you will, kind of an unofficial 
Democratic conference. I think it continues this afternoon.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I do not know of any Republicans who are privy to 
these discussions.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Kentucky. I guess the first point 
I want to make is, it is a bipartisan bill without Members on one side 
of the aisle being consulted.
  I would like to take this opportunity to thank especially the Senator 
from Oklahoma, Senator Boren, who has worked extremely hard on this 
issue in a dedicated, nonpartisan fashion. I wish I could say that were 
the case with everybody that has been involved in this issue.
  Mr. President, if we are not going to have at least consultation, 
much nvolved. But do one thing that is critical--make people report it. 
Make them put it on their financial report.
  When you have these huge soft money expenditures, that ought to be 
reported. When some outside group comes in and attacks somebody running 
for public office, the public has a right to know who is paying their 
bills. Let us require much more thorough reporting.
  I am proud of the people who support me. I think everybody ought to 
be. If you are not proud of their support, you ought not to take it.
  In the final part of my discussion about campaign finance reform, I 
just want to tell two stories.
  When I was in the House, I had resigned from Congress as a Democrat 
and ran again as a Republican in a special election. It is a long 
story. I had been elected as a Democrat. My grandmother thought of 
Republicans as those people in blue shirts who burned down their 
grandmother's house.
  I knew by the time I was an adult that there was a difference between 
the two parties, but I thought that parties did not make any 
difference. And so when I was elected to the House, I was elected as a 
Democrat. I quickly found out that I was totally wrong.
  When I authored the Reagan program, I was kicked off the Budget 
Committee by the Democratic leadership. I resigned and I went back home 
and I ran again for reelection.
  As a result, I had more elections to serve fewer years than 
anybodyless input, with those on this side of the aisle, then no one 
should be surprised that we would be resistant to taking up this 
legislation. If there are deals cut and legislation done before 
conferees are appointed, which would mean that there would have to be 
Republican conferees as well as Democrats, if the deal is done before 
Republican conferees are appointed, then, frankly, I certainly 
understand the opposition of the Senator from Kentucky to having 
conferees appointed, if there is no sense or there is no reason to do 
so because there is no participation from Members on this side of the 
aisle.
  Here we are now, 2 weeks remaining in this session. The leadership 
has made a deal, so I am understanding, and they are ready to move. I 
do not believe that is the way we should pass such important 
legislation, and we know what will occur next: They will convene a 
conference behind closed doors, the legislation will be doctored to 
their liking, and they will bring the bill back and blame this side of 
the aisle for stopping the bill. We have seen this before.
  I believe that a good campaign finance bill should be passed. That is 
why I voted for the first version and I will vote again in the future 
for a good campaign bill. It is very hard to support legislation about 
which you are not consulted. A fundamental change in the way that 
elections are conducted in this country is going to be presented to me, 
an original supporter of the legislation, with significant changes 
associated with it. I do not think that is the way to do business. I 
can only assume that those who are proposing this legislation either do 
not care about or believe my view on this issue, or others who might 
vote for it, or they just figure they can just roll us. Neither of 
those, I think, is an accurate depiction of the situation.
  One of the issues that has arisen and remained constant throughout 
this debate is that of political action committees, which is a major 
one. The legislation that passed this body banned political action 
committee participation. Period. Zero. End of story.
  Now, of course, we know or have heard that the legislation will 
return with, instead of $5,000, $2,500. So if political action 
committees are evil, as is viewed by many Members--and I think the 
Record will show that was the depiction of them when we went through 
this bill the first time--we are just going to have about half as much 
evil as we had before. We are not going to eliminate the evil, we are 
going to have just half the evil, when, in fact, Mr. President, the 
effect of cutting the maximum contribution from $5,000 to $2,500 per 
cycle would really have no effect. You would just have more political 
action committees who would be giving $2,500 each instead of less who 
would be giving $5,000 each. I think we know that.
  Let us not kid ourselves about whether we are going to eliminate PAC 
money or we are going to have PAC money. It is one of the two. Let us 
not try and kid the American people that a $2,500 limit is anything but 
a continuation of the PACs.
  I think it is interesting that there was a New York Times editorial 
back in May 1994, and it talks about:

       The House and Senate have an opportunity to overhaul a 
     discredited system of campaign financing that puts Congress 
     in hock to special interests, favors incumbents and 
     discriminates against challengers. But House Democrats are 
     playing a cynical game of chicken with the Senate that could 
     doom reform.

       ``House Democrats are playing a cynical game of chicken 
     with the Senate that could doom reform.

  This is from the New York Times lead editorial of May 4, 1994:

       President Clinton, who thundered about reform during his 
     campaign, should tell Speaker Thomas Foley and House majority 
     leader, Richard Gephardt, to stop the shenanigans. It is the 
     least he can do, given his earlier pledges. Continued 
     Presidential silence also undermines Mr. Clinton's friend and 
     ally, George Mitchell, the Senate majority leader, who has 
     done so much to help the President on other issues and who 
     hopes to see campaign reform enacted before he retires the 
     end of this year.
       This is the way the game is being played. Last year both 
     chambers passed reform bills; Democratic leaders are now 
     meeting to reconcile differences. One crucial difference 
     involves the amount of money a Member may accept from a 
     single political action committee.
       The House bill preserves the current law's excessively 
     generous ceilings--$5,000 in a primary campaign, another 
     $5,000 in a general election. The Senate bill contains a flat 
     ban on PAC's. In the likely event the ban is ruled 
     unconstitutional, the Senate bill would impose a $1,000 limit 
     in both primary and general elections.
       Mr. Foley and his colleagues know that any final bill faces 
     a threat of a filibuster in the Senate. They also know that 
     the key to avoiding a filibuster lies with seven Republicans 
     who went way out on a limb last year, defied their own 
     leadership and provided the votes that ended a filibuster of 
     the original Senate bill.
       These seven Senators cannot realistically be expected to 
     accept the greedy House PAC limits. Apparently, however, it 
     is the hope of Mr. Foley's negotiating team to persuade the 
     Senate negotiators to accept the House version--its 
     unacceptably high PAC limits intact-- and take it back to the 
     Senate for a vote.
       At which point the bill will probably die, giving House 
     Democrats the result they seem to want--preservation of the 
     current system and their cushy PAC contributions--without 
     getting the blame they will deserve.
       That would be consistent with past behavior; foot-dragging 
     by House Democrats last year, when the momentum for change 
     generated by the Presidential election was still strong, is 
     the main reason there is no reform on the books now.
       For the public record, Mr. Foley and Mr. Gephardt say they 
     really do want reform. Their approach suggests otherwise, and 
     it is clearly time for President Clinton to join the fight. 
     Beyond sporadic rhetoric, he has put little effort into 
     campaign finance reform. The public would have every right to 
     suspect his leadership if his own party helps scuttle a 
     central promise of his campaign.

  Mr. President, the information I have is that PAC's will be cut from 
a $5,000 maximum contribution to $2,500. There was a study done 
sometime ago that showed that would have about a 1 percent difference 
in my State in political action committee contributions. I have that 
information available. The fact is, if you have one PAC that supports 
those who are in favor of preserving our great natural resources and 
that political action committee, which is accustomed to giving $5,000 
per cycle, would now become two political action committees, each of 
them providing $2,500 per cycle. The end result would be fundamentally 
the same.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield on his time just for an 
observation?
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe the study to which the Senator is referring, 
which I think he now has, was interestingly enough done by Common 
Cause.
  Mr. McCAIN. That is exactly right.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The arbiter of morality in this town.
  Mr. McCAIN. That is exactly right. It is interesting because Common 
Cause on June 29 said:

       Common Cause urged House Democrats to agree to cut 
     individual PAC limit in half and act quickly on meaningful 
     campaign finance reform legislation.
       Common Cause today strongly urged House Democratic leaders 
     to end their opposition to cutting the individual PAC limit, 
     which threatens to kill campaign finance reform, and to agree 
     with Senate Democratic leaders to cut the limit in half.
       House Democrats have voted for an aggregate PAC limit in 
     the House-passed bill.

  ``Adding a cut in the individual PAC limit to the bill would not have 
a significant impact on House Members,'' Wertheimer wrote. ``But a 
failure to cut the individual PAC limit will ensure that the campaign 
finance reform legislation is killed in the Senate.''
  You know what is interesting about this, I say to my friend from 
Kentucky, is that, on the one hand, Common Cause says that they should 
agree to the cut and, on the other hand, they say it would have no 
effect.
  So what has Common Cause done? As has been their habit time after 
time in the past, they have sold out. They have sold out, Mr. 
President, so that they can claim that they caused campaign finance 
reform, which really has no impact, when we are talking about what they 
are agreeing to on cutting the PAC limit, and then they can send out 
more letters and get more money in contributions to Common Cause.
  By the way, common cause is an organization which is steadfastly, 
zealously pursuant of openness in records, and yet I would like to ask 
any of my colleagues if they have ever received a list of those who 
contribute to Common Cause. I do not think so. And there have been 
several times when Common Cause has been asked to reveal their list of 
contributors.
  Guess what, Mr. President? They will not. I have dealt with some 
organizations in my time in Washington which are guilty of hypocrisy. 
Common Cause is the worst. They have more gall than any organization 
that I have ever dealt with--agreeing to cutting political action 
committee contributions in half, knowing full well that it has almost 
no impact.
  Mr. President, Common Cause should change their name: Uncommon 
Washington-Inside-the-Beltway Publicity-Seeking Cause is a better name 
for that organization. And, frankly, they have set back the cause of 
true campaign finance reform rather than advance it. But, Mr. 
President, even though we will not be able to know what their 
contributions are, I will bet you that their contributions are way up. 
I have seen some of their fundraising letters. They are really artfully 
and cleverly done. So I urge my colleagues to give Common Cause the 
attention and consideration they deserve, which is zero. They are part 
of the problem, not part of the solution.
  Mr. President, the next area that is of interest that was a major 
issue was the House and Senate playing by the same rules. Now, here are 
two bodies, bicameral in nature, as we know is the makeup of our 
Government, and yet there has been attempt after attempt to have the 
House and Senate have different rules for a long time. If the Senate 
refuses to back down on the PAC thing, well, then, we will just do it 
differently. I do not think the American people expect us to do that.
  The third area is that all soft money must be disclosed, including 
nonparty soft money. Mr. President, one of the biggest sources of 
funding of both parties today is the so-called soft money that goes 
into these various parties and campaigns, and much of it is not 
disclosed. I am not sure what we do about soft money because of the 
constitutional prohibitions on prohibiting someone or some organization 
from being involved in a political campaign. But at least the American 
people deserve the right to know where this money came from and who 
gave it.
  In-State contributions should be favored over out-of-State 
contributions. I think clearly it is the mark of a candidate's support 
when the contributions come from his or her State. And obviously, I 
think we have tried and will continue to try to give some favorability 
in that direction.
  Severability. If any part of this package is struck down, the rest of 
the reforms will survive intact.
  And then, of course, taxpayer financing of campaigns.
  You know, Mr. President, the answer, when the American people are 
asked, ``Do you support campaign finance reform?'' is overwhelmingly 
yes. And then you ask the American people, ``Do you think that 
taxpayers should finance political campaigns?'' Some say yes. Then you 
ask an additional question. ``Should we finance the campaign of Lyndon 
La Rouche? Should we finance the campaign of" --I am not sure I 
pronounce the name right; maybe my friend from Kentucky can help me--
``LenoAB) vt I have yet to hear of a viable proposal 
that I think would meet the test, that would gain the support of the 
taxpayers of America.
  As far as the war chest rollovers, one thing we know--and it is 
common throughout campaigns, but it has been particularly true amongst 
long-time incumbents--is, of course, the campaign war chest. I know of 
campaigns, and I will not mention the State, where the individual 
incumbent has over $1 million in his campaign war chest. I ask my 
colleagues, especially if it were a House race, how would you feel 
about challenging an incumbent that you know has a $1 million advantage 
the day of filing? Clearly, that would be a daunting challenge. And 
what it does, as we all know, is that it just stifles opposition. 
People are very reluctant to engage in a campaign where they know that 
the incumbent can outspend them by millions, literally millions.
  I think it is clear that there has been times where extremely wealthy 
candidates have made personal loans and then have paid them back from 
the campaign funds after they have won the election. That also is a 
clear disadvantage for challengers.
  For Senators, maybe we should ban all campaign activities except 
within the 2 years immediately preceding a campaign. Maybe we should 
not be raising moneys the day after we are elected to a 6-year term. I 
think that Senators can, but I think it is wrong.
  Now, the personal use of campaign funds must be immediately banned. 
Mr. President, I want to talk about that point at a little length 
because I think that when the average citizen gives money to a person's 
political campaign, he has the right to expect that those funds would 
be spent on what we know of as normal campaign activities--the 
purchasing of TV or radio ads, printing of brochures, bumper stickers, 
paying for phone banks, all of the normal things that we see in a 
political campaign.
  Let me tell you some of the things that these campaign funds have 
been used for. An individual enjoyed a leisurely 8-day stay at South 
Seas Plantation in Captiva, FL. Their accommodations during the first 3 
days were picked up by one of the industry organizations; the next 5 
days were paid by the campaign. A vacation in Florida.
  Some Members of Congress appear to use their campaign treasuries as 
little more than giant slush funds for purchasing whatever items they 
cannot buy with the stipend they receive from the Flan as well when you 
go to the polls on November 8. But as I said in the blessing, ``Dear 
Lord, if you give us control of our Government again, this time we 
won't waste it.''
  I thank the distinguished Senator from Kentucky for yielding me time 
to give me a chance to talk on this issue. It is easy for people like 
me to come over and speak for an hour and go back to our offices and 
answer all the mail and do all we have to do. It is very hard for 
somebody to stand up on an issue that is so easily demagogued as this 
issue.
  I want my dear colleague from Kentucky to know that I appreciate his 
good work, and today, I am sure, some editorialist somewhere is just at 
this moment putting in the computer the name of the Senator from 
Kentucky, who is here trying to prevent the blessings that would come 
from taxpayers funding politicians to run for public office, who at 
this very moment is writing an editorial that will appear in tomorrow's 
paper that, were it not for Senator McConnell, taxpayers would be 
funding elections and the world would be better off for it; that we do 
not have enough things to do with the taxpayers' money, and giving 
money to politicians to run ads, to tell the world how great we are 
would be wonderful and America would be greater for it.
  I am sure they are going to conclude the Senator from Kentucky is 
wrong and evil as a result. I do not have a newspaper, and I ederal 
Government to run their congressional offices or with their own money.
  I also remind my colleagues that Senators and Members of Congress 
currently earn $139,000 a year. We are in the top 1 percent of wage 
earners in the country. Let there be no mistake; Members of Congress 
earn a good wage, and we are not poor.
  There were people who bought themselves expensive new cars. There 
were people who chartered airplanes. There were people who rented 
apartments with campaign funds. Campaign money was used to pay for 
country club memberships. In fact, in a couple of cases they paid for 
tuxedos. Two Members used campaign money to endow academic chairs in 
their names. One individual used campaign money to commission an artist 
to paint a $3,000 portrait of his father. Others paid relatives to do 
work on their campaigns. One individual used thousands of dollars from 
his campaign funds to decorate his Senate office. He spent more than 
$6,000 on furniture and picture framing; afterwards $15,480 for Indian 
art; $4,490 for a jumbo illuminated globe, and $522 on a lamp.
  Most of these expenditures were not even remotely improper under 
congressional ethics rules. While many of them appear to be personal 
expenditures, most have a plausible political justification. A campaign 
car for example is usually viewed as the cheapest way for a candidate 
to travel around the district. Chartered airplanes are sometimes 
rationalized as the only logical alternative for those incumbents who 
represent big States or districts. Country club memberships are 
defended as necessities for incumbents who need to entertain political 
supporters and throw fundraisers. But some expenditures are more 
difficult to justify such as a resort vacation and meals in Washington, 
DC, area restaurants.
  Beginning in 1990 Members of Congress were no longer permitted to 
accept any trip from a corporation or lobbying group that exceeded 3 
days. Thus, some Members have taken 3 days from a corporation or 
lobbying group and then paid for the additional days with campaign 
money.
  Many of the FEC reports filed by congressional candidates contain 
items that strain any commonsense standard for political spending. When 
a Member of Congress picks up the tab for an expensive dinner in 
London, Jerusalem, or Timbuktu, what possible relationship could this 
have to a reelection campaign? When a Member of Congress reports buying 
a $100 constituent gift at a gift shop in Florida it seems likely that 
the constituent was really a friend or relative. When Members of 
Congress report spending about $900 a week on political meetings, any 
reasonable person might suspect that it may not be the truth.
  The rules of Congress are not silent on this matter. Expenditures 
such as these were addressed most recently by the House Ethics 
Committee in the 1986 ruling in a case involving a former 
Representative. In that case, the committee ruled that campaign funds 
should not be spent for any purpose that is not ``exclusively and 
solely'' for the benefit of the campaign.
  Moreover, the committee added a bona fide campaign purpose is not 
established merely because the use of campaign money might result in a 
campaign benefit in an instance where the benefits are personally 
realized by the recipient of such funds where the individual has the 
discretion of whether to share benefits he might receive from the use 
of campaign money.
  There was $7,000 which one Member spent on an ``image consultation'' 
and a new wardrobe. An individual spent $325 at a gem store in Bangkok. 
Another bought Cotton Bowl tickets that were given to his brother. 
Another paid for hunting and resort fees in Arkansas. And another spent 
$327 at a restaurant in Paris.
  A very important issue--to me anyway, and I know to my constituents--
is the personal use of campaign funds. It is my understanding that it 
will not be included in the so-called deal that has been already 
consummated behind closed doors in a back room somewhere here in the 
Capitol--I doubt if it is smoke filled anymore--without the 
consultation of the Members of this body, nor of this individual 
Senator, who voted in favor of the original legislation.
  I would like to continue this depiction of the uses of some of the 
campaign money for purposes that I am sure exceeded the wildest 
imagination of the contributors.
  As I mentioned, one Member of Congress spent $7,000 on image 
consultation and a new wardrobe. Another spent $325 at a general store 
Bangkok, Thailand. Another bought Cotton Bowl tickets that were given 
to his brother. Another paid $1,095 for hunting and resort fees. 
Another spent $327 at a restaurant in Paris. I would like to find out 
the name of that restaurant. It is not easy to get out of a restaurant 
in Paris for $327. But it is hard to escape the obvious conclusion 
that, in many instances, campaign funds are being used by Members of 
Congress for purposes of ``primary and personal,'' under the definition 
that was laid down by the House and Senate Ethics Committee.
  Similarly, when Members of Congress report thousands of dollars of 
unitemized expenses, they leave the impression they are dipping into 
their campaign treasuries for pocket money.
  Under the rules, Members are not required to itemize expenditures of 
less than $200. Using that loophole, one individual failed to itemize 
$89,202 of his spending in reports to the FEC. Another failed to 
itemize $84,741. Another failed to itemize $78,250.
  Mr. President, you have to be pretty creative to come up with 
$70,000, $80,000, $90,000 worth of expenditures of less than $200 each.
  In addition, many Members submitted reports that mask the true nature 
of their expenditures by using vaguely worded descriptions. Senators 
are strictly prohibited from pocketing their campaign money when they 
retire. Senior House Members can take advantage of the so-called 
grandfather clause that, until 1993, could convert excess campaign 
funds to personal use upon retirement. In the case of a Member's death, 
campaign funds become the property of the Member's estate. When a 
Member died in 1991, his campaign funds were used to pay for the 
funeral, burial, and a $35,000 tombstone.
  Campaign spending by Members of Congress is a highly individual 
matter reflecting a candidate's personality and approach to the job. 
Many are frugal; some are freewheeling.
  Whenever a Member of Congress spends $500 in campaign funds for 
dinner at a fancy restaurant, or $3,000 for a painting, contributors 
are unknowingly footing the bill. It takes many small contributions 
from loyal supporters back home to pay for such extravagances. If small 
contributors were aware their money was being spent on unnecessary 
purchases, perhaps they would be less likely to contribute in the 
future.
  A retiree in California wrote a check for $250 to one of the 
Congressmen and said, ``I am not happy about the money that he feels he 
has to raise when he has no opposition, but, unfortunately, that is the 
way the system works.''
  What I am talking about here, Mr. President, is personal use of 
campaign dollars. We make $139,000. We are in the top 1 percent of 
income in America, and the overwhelming majority of contributions that 
I receive come from constituents who make less money than I do. Yet, 
these campaign contributions are being spent for some of the most 
bizarre and unusual purposes, from memberships in country clubs to 
tombstones.
  The use of automobiles and apartments is another interesting facet of 
this problem. Campaign funds have been used for luxury automobiles, 
often equipped with cellular phones, which have become a common 
campaign expenditure for many incumbents.
  Mr. President, when a candidate is campaigning, I understand the 
leasing of a car to be an important part of a campaign. But bringing 
that automobile to Washington, DC, is something that I am not clear on. 
I do not know how that could be part of a campaign, unless someone is 
campaigning for votes from tourists from his or her State who are 
visiting our Nation's Capital; and even then I am not sure it would 
justify leasing or purchasing an automobile. One individual spent 
$56,782 on campaign cars over a 6-year period, including the cost of 
insurance, license plates, registration, and maintenance.
  In one case, another Member maintained two cars and a van with the 
use of campaign funds, at a cost of $66,811. Another campaign paid more 
than $26,000 during a 2-year period to lease two new cars, one of them 
a convertible that the individual described as a ``parade car.'' He 
later returned the parade car to the leasing company. While most 
Members reported having only one campaign car, it was often an 
expensive, late-model automobile. One individual used his campaign 
funds to lease a $799-a-month automobile for his use in Washington, DC.
  Another individual paid $30,000 for his powder blue Lincoln 
Continental. Another bought an $18,000 Ford LTD. Another purchased a 
$23,000 Lincoln Town Car that he kept when he retired.
  Of those who maintained campaign vehicles, one seemed to have bad 
luck. During the 1990 cycle, he paid nearly $30,000 to purchase a new 
1994 LTD and purchased a 1985 Ford van. Once in the campaign, the van 
was destroyed when it burst into flames and had to be replaced.
  Members of Congress find it easy to purchase campaign cars with 
political funds. But, they had sometimes difficulty explaining to 
hometown journalists why they needed such luxurious automobiles.
  One, asked by a local reporter to justify his new Lincoln, replied he 
chose it because it is big and could haul several passengers. He went 
on to say there is a very legitimate need for transportation. I do not 
think this is the kind of campaign expenditure the people are concerned 
about. This is all up front. It is a pure provision of transportation 
for political purposes. There is nothing hidden here. There is nothing 
improper about it at all.
  But it raises questions.
  Someone during one of the campaigns rented a $900-a-month apartment 
in his hometown about 40 miles from his permanent home. The reasoning 
was that although he did not go back to Arkansas every weekend, and the 
rent was less than the cost of a hotel room.
  Another individual's $500-a-month apartment served as an office for 
the staff and a place for the person to sleep.
  Traveling and entertainment: Travel is one of the necessities of life 
for the Members of Congress, and no one can blame them for wanting to 
go in comfort. But the availability of millions of dollars of campaign 
contributions from special interest groups has allowed many incumbents 
to adopt a style of travel normally reserved for top corporate 
executives and the rich. Reports submitted to the FEC by Members of 
Congress contain page after page of expenditures for such things as 
chartered airplanes, expensive restaurant meals, and luxury hotels, and 
many of them appear to be for purposes that are more personal than 
political.
  One Member of Congress reported spending large numbers for traveling 
between hometown and Washington, DC. Over 2 years, one individual spent 
nearly $13,000 of his campaign funds to fly his family around for 
holidays and attend fundraising events. Another one used $4,686 from 
his campaign funds to pay for air fare so his wife could accompany him 
on a trade mission to Australia.
  Whenever Members of Congress are traveling, they frequently charge 
some of the meals to the campaign, whether or not the trip had an 
explicit campaign purpose. One person's campaign, for example, picked 
up a tab for $332 at a restaurant in East Hawthorne, Australia.
  Another used campaign funds to pay a $788 hotel bill at the King 
David Hotel in Jerusalem. Another spent $7,400 on 130 meals in 
Washington, DC; New Jersey; New York; Florida; Thailand; Taiwan, and 
Italy. All of those were campaign funds.
  Many Members of Congress said that their travel-related expenses were 
entirely for campaign business. Yet, when one Member and staff spent 
$107,000, or about 4 times more than any other campaign for meals, 
$107,000, that explanation seems impossible.
  Country club memberships are often purchased with campaign funds. One 
individual said he used his two campaign-funded country club 
memberships to entertain constituents. An aide to one of the Members 
said he saw country club dues as a legitimate expense because it is a 
matter of keeping in touch with old friends and, of course, he does 
take visitors to the country club.
  Another one said membership in a club is justified to be paid for by 
campaign funds because it is a gathering place for political leaders. 
To improve his appearance at political events, one individual spent 
$333 on a new tuxedo; another paid a tuxedo shop $299 for bow ties.
  Members of Congress cited political reasons to justify an array of 
other travel and entertainment expenses that were not entirely 
political. Seven House Members dipped into campaign funds to pay for 
dues at the House gym. To boost office morale, campaign funds paid for 
a beer party for one Senate staff, and also bought Washington Redskins 
tickets which were given to the winner of a weekly office drawing.
  One individual's wife received an unusual birthday gift from her 
husband's campaign committee. The unusual birthday gift from the 
husband's campaign committee was a fancy fundraising party held on her 
birthday, and payments totaling $5,659 for organizing the event 
herself. That must have been a wonderful birthday.
  When a relative's name shows up on the campaign payroll, it is bound 
to raise some suspicions that the job may be a sinecure. Before the 
days of multimillion dollar congressional campaigns, relatives more 
often were expected to work as unpaid volunteers, and there are a 
number of wives and husbands who serve without pay. There are many 
others that do not.
  There is a Member's wife who lived back in the State who received 
more than $25,000 in consultant fees and expenses for reimbursement 
from her father's campaign.
  Spouses often receive expenses but no salary from the campaigns. One 
took nearly $22,000 for what was reported to the FEC as office travel, 
mileage, and unspecified other reimbursement. At the end of the 1990 
cycle, the campaign still owed $705 for mileage.
  Another wife of a Member received $15,655 for her campaign related 
expenses.
  One wife ran her husband's campaign while overseeing the family 
business. She charged her husband's campaign $2,860 to purchase and 
maintain a car phone and $30,979 for travel even though she earned no 
salary.
  Another relied on a firm owned by his daughter. Her fees in the 1990 
election cycle came to nearly $60,000.
  Likewise, a Member employed his daughter as a primary consultant, and 
this person has been deeply involved, whose principal function was 
fundraising services. She also provides for other nonprofit groups for 
her fundraising expertise. She received $53,242 from the campaign 
during the 1989-1990 cycle.
  One of the Members paid his father $250 for each speech he made on 
behalf of his son, for a total of $6,250.
  There are also legal bills, Mr. President, that are paid for with 
campaign funds, sometimes a very, very great deal of money.
  One spent $143,122 battling allegations relating to his relationship 
with a male prostitute. Another battled longstanding charges of bank, 
mail, and tax fraud stemming from an alleged influence buying scheme, 
in addition to spending $183,000 in campaign coffers in legal and 
accounting fees, and also collecting donations from separate legal 
defense and raising nearly $450,000 since the charges were first 
bought.
  One of the largest legal bills reported in the 1990 cycle was 
$100,000 paid to settle a libel suit by an individual who was a 
previous opponent.
  Another bill, before resigning, this individual piled up $1,000 in 
legal fees even though he consistently denied recurring rumors. Aides 
insisted payments were made for audit of his finances. In the 1990 
cycle, $208,000 from his campaign coffers were spent on lawyers and 
accountants.
  It goes on and on.
  Older Members of Congress look to their campaign funds as a way for 
preparing for retirement or their posterity. In the 1990 cycle, senior 
House Members were still eligible to convert campaign funds to personal 
use upon retirement, and all Members of Congress were free to make 
large charitable donations to make sure they would be remembered fondly 
after death. At least five Members of Congress who retired or died 
during the 1990 cycle, their campaigns funds were either converted 
immediately to personal use or turned over to their estates. Even death 
could not legally separate veteran Members from their campaign funds.
  In 1989, a year after one individual's death, his son inherited his 
father's House seat and got a $99,000 share of the leftover campaign 
funds.
  FEC records show that the widow and four children divided the 
$605,000 campaign Treasury. Likewise, the estates of two House Members 
who died during the 1990 cycle received their campaign funds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I guess I would say to my friend from Arizona, I am 
not really requesting specific names, but I have been listening 
intently to his recitation of expenditures of campaign funds that 
certainly this Senator would find inappropriate. Now, maybe the FEC has 
not ruled on this, but I believe I heard the Senator say that some 
Members have had portraits done and paid for out of campaign accounts. 
Was I correct in hearing that?
  Mr. McCAIN. That, indeed, is the case, I say to my friend from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I guess my question of the Senator from Arizona is, 
are some of the Members of the House or Senate, who have been spending 
their campaign funds in the ways that the Senator from Arizona has been 
outlining, advocates of taxpayer funding of elections; supporters of 
the S. 3?
  Mr. McCAIN. I would say to my friend from Kentucky, first of all, I 
have refrained from mentioning anyone's name.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am not asking for any specific names.
  Mr. McCAIN. I do not think it would be fair to do so, because I am 
sure that many of these reports are defensible and that person should 
be able to defend those expenditures without having their names 
specifically mentioned.
  But I would say to my friend from Kentucky, as far as I can see, it 
is not divided along party lines. I would say many Members who are in 
favor of taxpayer financing, I see in this report, and Members who are 
opposed to taxpayer financing are on this list as well, as far as I can 
ascertain.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me ask the Senator, would it be possible, then, 
that tax dollars could actually be used after the passage of this 
legislation?
  Mr. McCAIN. I would have to say to my friend from Kentucky, unless 
there is significant--significant--restrictions placed on the personal 
expenditure of campaign dollars, I do not see why individuals would not 
be able to use taxpayers' dollars as well as contributors' dollars. I 
do not, frankly, see anything, or I hear nothing in the proposed 
legislation.
  Let me put it this way: I hear nothing because, as the Senator from 
Kentucky knows, we have not been privileged to see the final 
legislation. But I have been told that there is nothing in the proposed 
legislation that addresses the personal use of campaign funds. 
Therefore, if taxpayers' dollars go into the campaign funds and there 
are no restrictions--the amendment that was passed on this side by the 
U.S. Senate, which has been dropped out of this agreement--then clearly 
taxpayers' dollars would be used for these very interesting purposes 
which I have described.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator from Kentucky be correct then to 
conclude that a supporter of the underlying legislation running in this 
November's election might well have to defend to his constituents, 
maybe even with an attack from a challenger in a television commercial, 
that he or she voted for a bill under which it was possible to spend 
taxpayer funds to have a portrait done of one's self?
  Mr. McCAIN. Or a tombstone.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Or a tombstone.
  I thank my friend from Arizona. He very skillfully outlined many 
additional reasons why this underlying bill is hopelessly flawed. I 
really want to thank him for his contribution to this debate.
  (Mrs. MURRAY assumed the chair.)
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend from Kentucky. And if I understand my 
friend from Kentucky, we will be talking about this and other issues 
perhaps to a much larger degree.
  But I would like to repeat something that is very important about 
this situation. A bill is going to be presented to this body which has 
no input from this side of the aisle. We have only heard the outlines 
of it. A bill is going to be presented which will fundamentally 
restructure campaigns in America as we know them today, without the 
slightest input that I know of from any Republican Member of this body. 
A bill is being attempted to be forced down our throats, with the help 
of Common Cause, in the last 2 or 3 weeks of this session of Congress, 
one that has passed the Senate well over a year ago. I believe my 
friend from Kentucky knows exactly when, well over a year ago. It has 
been sitting in limbo all these months and is now going to come back in 
a fashion which is in violation, in my view, significantly, of the 
principles that were embodied in the legislation that I voted for and 
other Members on this side of the aisle voted for.
  I say to my friend from Kentucky--and I see my friend from Georgia 
who is waiting--maybe next year, perhaps next year--there will be more 
Members on this side of the aisle, all of us know that--maybe next year 
on issues like health care, campaign finance reform, other pressing 
issues that the American people want us to address, maybe we might try 
something different, and that is to sit down with Republicans and 
Democrats alike and try to work out something.
  Now, it is well known that the Senator from Kentucky has been a 
leader on this issue. Why is it that the Senator from Kentucky was not 
brought into the process? I do not know the answer.
  But I think it is a little much for anyone to attack the Senator from 
Kentucky for any parliamentary maneuvers that he may employ--legitimate 
parliamentary maneuvers he may employ--in order to seek to stop the 
passage of legislation for which he and no Member of this side of the 
aisle was ever consulted.
  So I know that the Senator from Kentucky shares my view that next 
year we express a willingness to sit down--Republican, Democrat, 
libertarian, vegetarian, all of us together--all of us together, and 
seek to come up with a bipartisan consensus.
  This railroad has been run too long in a partisan fashion. And I 
commit, as I know my friend from Kentucky and my friend from Georgia 
does, that we would be more than happy to sit down from the beginning 
and come up with what cries out for reform, and that is campaign 
financing in this country. And we would be eager--not willing, but 
eager--to do it on a bipartisan basis so, one, we can come up with a 
better piece of legislation; and, two, we can have the confidence of 
the American people that this legislation was not rammed through at the 
11th hour of the session of the Congress faced with an upcoming 
election in a very short time.
  I thank my friend. I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, let me just thank the Senator from 
Arizona for his very important contribution to this debate. It was 
really an extremely effective presentation. I just want to thank him 
for his contribution.
  I see now that my friend from Georgia is here to take his hour.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky for 
his long, long, extended commitment to appropriate campaign management 
reform, whatever we want to call it. It has been a very dedicated 
effort. I think he is recognized nationally by those who follow these 
discussions as one of the preeminent experts and minds on the intricate 
issues that deal with the management of campaign law.
  I am going to digress from my regular remarks just to comment on the 
Senator from Arizona's anguish over the fact that something that is 
this critical and this pertinent could be negotiated and brokered in 
some unknown place by unknown people doing unknown things. He was 
admonishing the process and was disconcerted that our side of the aisle 
was not included in the meetings. Senator McConnell from Kentucky was 
absent. What is even worse, if I might just finish the sentence, what 
is even worse is the fundamental missing ingredient is the American 
people were not there either.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for an observation with regard 
to what he said?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I will certainly yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If the Senator recalls--I am sure he does--we passed 
an unfortunate piece of legislation, which both of us opposed, in June 
1993 in the Senate; November 1993 in the House. And there has been a 
conference going on all right, all year long, in every real sense of 
the word. But it has only been the between the Democratic leaders of 
the House and Democratic leaders of the Senate. That goes on, we 
believe, up through and to today.
  So the Senator from Georgia raises a very important point. Of course 
they are free to meet. The significance of that, of course, is the game 
plan is to craft a set of rules for them to advantage them and to 
disadvantage us. That is what is going on.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I think the American people--I brought them into the 
equation. I think they are somewhat pertinent to all this, although 
sometimes this city forgets that. If there was anything which they 
would want to have an eagle eye on, I believe it would be the conduct 
of elections in a democracy. So I want to take it beyond this Chamber, 
beyond the meeting rooms in the Capitol, beyond the city--and I think 
it is not a healthy process.
  If I might, I would add I think it is this system which has corrupted 
the debate on health care reform and many other important issues we 
have been discussing. As the Senator from Kentucky knows, I served an 
extended period of time as a citizen legislator in the Georgia General 
Assembly. And I thought I had seen some pretty rough things. But I have 
to say I had seen nothing comparable to the process that has occurred 
here over issues like health care reform and campaign finance reform. 
It would not be acceptable under the rules that operate in the Georgia 
General Assembly. In fact, I think many of the things I have seen here 
we would be before ethics committees, reform and rules committees, and 
you would be subject to indictment. As overwhelmingly managed by one 
party as we have been in the State of Georgia, there was more of an 
effort to embrace and include the leadership of both parties, seeing 
them as representatives of the varying views among the public, than I 
have seen here in the hallowed Halls of the Nation's Capitol and here 
in the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I think the debate--and I am nowhere near the expert 
as is our Senator from Kentucky--but I do have some thoughts I would 
like to contribute to the discussion. I am going to step back for a 
moment and talk about what seems to me to be at the heart of almost 
every confrontation we have had in my limited period here in the 103d 
Congress. It almost seems that, without fail, these debates come down 
to two very different and fundamentally separate ideas about how to 
govern this country. In the Nation's Capital today, there is a camp--
frankly, too large a camp in my judgment--of people who believe, and 
they are true believers. I wish they were not. I wish that they were 
politicians. I believe they would be easier to deal with. These are 
true believers. They believe that America cannot be governed, cannot do 
anything, unless they write the rules, unless some Washington wonk sets 
the priorities, determines the relationships. Frankly, I think it 
embodies an arrogance that has turned America against this Capital.
  They do not believe that an employer and employee can figure out 
their relationship unless every line of that relationship is written 
here in Washington. They do not even believe that a local mayor or 
school superintendent or a county commissioner can determine what the 
priorities are of that local community unless it is written here. The 
only thing they believe these local policymakers are for is to carry 
out, to be implementers of what is dictated to them from here. They 
believe that in this city we have embraced the fulfillment of all 
knowledge that is vacant and absent in the hinterland, on Main Street 
America. It has to be done here. This is where we get the right 
answers. This is how we know how to best run Hahira, GA. We know here 
better than they know there.
  We have been engaged in a 2-year debate on this piece of legislation 
and a 2-year debate on health care reform. These two that I mention are 
classic--I mean classic examples of the idea that everything has to be 
done here, written here, for these unknowing people in America. They 
cannot figure these things out for themselves. We have to tell them 
when they can see a doctor, when they cannot see a doctor, what the 
benefits will be, what they will not be; do it for every company, do it 
for every family, do it for every individual, do it for every city, do 
it for every school board. Any group that happens to meet in the middle 
of the night, we are going to dictate how they are going to manage 
their health care benefits.
  The same principles are embodied in this piece of legislation. I am 
going to allude to that in a moment as we run through the analysis of 
the legislation. But here again, we are gathered here in the Capitol, a 
handful of people, who can figure out how an election ought to be 
conducted, whether it is in Hahira, GA, or East Dade County, FL, 
Louisville, KY, or Anchorage, AK.
  There is another group of people here, though, fortunately. I think 
their numbers are going to grow and grow and grow. This group of people 
feels the forefathers had it right when they invested enormous power in 
the individual citizen, in the American family, and local community 
leadership. I think they must have had it in their minds that decisions 
are best made by people who the next day have to look in the eye those 
affected. It is awfully easy to make decisions that affect people to 
whom you will never be held accountable.
  So we have these two very, very different thoughts about how to 
govern the country. I see these two ideas conflicting, having this 
major confrontation whether it is on campaign finance reform or health 
care reform or many other subjects. So I want to set that out as a 
premise. I think that falls right into this arena because, you see, the 
two ideas take the country in very different places as we approach the 
new century.
  With regard to the management of campaigns--and I have been in a lot 
of them--the principal overriding theory in my judgment that should 
govern and guide us in terms of understanding how to manage a campaign 
is disclosure. That should be the preeminent guide that concerns us. 
That we have done those things that make it possible for the American 
citizen to know what the campaign is doing, that should be the 
underlying premise of what we are doing. That goes back to the 
forefathers, you know. If the American people are educated and 
understand and know what is happening, they make good decisions--and 
they do and have. Believe it or not, they can still do it. They do not 
need us to tell them how to do everything; they really do not. Every 
now and then they even do it better than these folks up here.
  But they do need to know the data, that is our principal 
responsibility: Who is contributing, how much are they contributing, 
and how is it being appropriated?
  I know my folks in Georgia can decide whether they like those 
expenditures or not, or like who made the contributions or not. I am 
comfortable that they can make that decision better than whoever these 
folks are who are meeting, wherever they are meeting.
  We should not be engaged in micromanaging the way campaigns are 
conducted, trying to determine every piece that is important or not, 
whether you are running in a primary in Alaska or general election 
runoff in Georgia, very decidedly different circumstances.
  And absolutely verboten is that we should not be involved in 
subjugation. That is the most offensive element of this legislation. It 
was the most offensive element of all these health care proposals: 
Subjugation; subjugation. That is something right at the root of who we 
are as Americans. We do not like to be ordered how to do things.
  We should not be engaged in the practice of telling people how they 
are going to do something. I will come back to it in a minute, but the 
very essence of public funding is an extension of subjugation. You see 
today in American elections, if an American wants to volunteer to 
contribute to a candidate, he or she may, they may throughout the whole 
process. They do not even have to vote. But public financing says, 
``You're going to contribute. We are going to reappropriate your money 
and we are going to give it to candidates that you may or may not 
support, that you may hold in contempt. You will no longer have this 
fundamental right as an American to participate or not participate. 
You're going to participate.''
  We talk about the sum of public financing. It is really not so 
important what the sum of it is. It is the subjugation that it 
represents.
  I suppose everybody who has been in public office gets a letter from 
time to time that says, ``Hey, I don't want my money spent on foreign 
aid.'' ``I don't want my money spent over here.'' There is obviously no 
way you can manage that. That is always a hard letter to answer. But 
whether or not to participate in the support or not of a candidate for 
office is a fundamental right, and it is abrogated by the idea we are 
going to take your money and we are going to give it to all these 
candidates. Subjugation. We should not be engaged in subjugation.
  We should not be engaged in mandates. We should not be engaged in 
mandates. This bill is loaded with mandates--mandates on citizens, 
mandates on candidates, mandates on States, mandates on any form of 
participation. Mandate, mandate, mandate. My heavens, if I have heard 
anything in the last 2 years, it has been stop doing that. Stop 
mandating. Stop ordering. Stop preempting States. Stop preempting my 
rights. Stop telling my company what to do. Stop mandating.
  There must be four dozen bills in this Capitol as expressions of our 
concern, trying to respond to this electorate, saying you cannot 
mandate, you cannot mandate a local government. Mandates become part of 
every debate on this Senate floor. This is a $1 billion mandate, so we 
exempt it. Or it is a sense-of-the-Senate that we should not do this 
anymore.
  Make the American people aware and they will make a proper decision. 
We do not have to micromanage this. We ought not to subjugate in the 
legislation, and we should not be extending the Federal mandates.
  I heard part of it but I did not hear all of it so I asked to read, 
Madam President, the opening statement by the Senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry]. It is interesting. He starts off:

       Pick up any newspaper in America today and you can read 
     about the disrepute of this institution.

  ``This institution'' means in this case, I think, the U.S. Congress, 
not just the U.S. Senate.

       I think anybody who understands what is happening in 
     America must hear the roar of the oncoming tidal wave of 
     dissatisfaction--

  On that point, the Senator from Massachusetts and I are in total 
agreement. There is a roar, a thundering of dissatisfaction.

     that will hit the Congress if we do not respond to the felt 
     need of citizens of this country to separate their public 
     servants from money.

  Mr. President, I suggest that what was causing the roar is our 
propensity to separate the money from our own citizens and try to 
manage it here. Money. Money is always a good question. The statement 
goes on to say:

       Money is polluting the entire trust, whatever is left of 
     it, of the American people for the political process. After 
     all, the first amendment is very clear about the rights of 
     people to express their views.

  And, indeed, Madam President, it is. It is absolutely clear about the 
rights of any citizen to express themselves and their views. It could 
not be more clear.
  But he goes on to say:

       But this money should not be inserted directly into 
     campaign after campaign.

  Well, now, wait a minute. I did not see an addendum in the 
Constitution on that. I did not see an asterisk that dropped down and 
said, ``But in the course of electing public servants, you are 
prohibited from expressing yourself.''
  Madam President, money is an expression of individual citizens, 
whether it is a 15-year-old who sends a campaign quarter or an 
individual business person who sends a Senate candidate $1,000. That is 
not what has alienated America.
  We had a very interesting event that occurred just a couple of days 
ago. We had a 16-year incumbent in the House of Representatives who 
spent a quarter of a million dollars that had been donated to him, and 
he was defeated by a gentleman named Mr. Cooper who spent $19,000. We 
have a 16-year incumbent, a high profile Member of Congress, spends a 
quarter of a million dollars--that is a lot of money--and he was 
defeated by a man who spent $19,000. He is 71 years old, a retired 
school principal.
  In my race, my opponent spent three times what I spent. But I got 
elected, he did not. Why is it the money--it says here that ``* * * 
this money going into campaigns, and money is polluting the entire 
process.''
  The point I am making here, Madam President, is that the American 
people, given the facts, will know what to do. And you could have 3 
times, or in this case 10 times, the money and you cannot thwart the 
knowledge and intelligence of the American people. They know what they 
are doing, in most cases. They make mistakes. Do not we all?
  Why did not money pollute this process in Oklahoma, or why did it not 
happen in Georgia? This underlying premise that the American people do 
not know what they are doing and have to be told what to do is pretty 
arrogant. They do know what they are doing.
  Disclosure. I opened with disclosure. You know, far more important 
than the money is just the knowledge of what is happening. We have a 
current event right here in Washington I wish to read. When you do not 
have disclosure, you have secrecy.

       The Clinton administration agreed last week to make--

  This is from Tony Snow, a well-known syndicated columnist.

     public the full records of Hillary Rodham Clinton's health 
     care task force, files it has tried to conceal for 15 months.

  This is the kind of thing that bothers people. It is secrecy. It is 
lack of disclosure, something being held back from them so that they 
cannot make their own judgments. It is not campaign contributions. It 
is if something is being done that they do not know about. They want to 
know the facts.

       The White House said originally that about 500 people 
     participated in the discussion sessions.

  This is on another bill a lot like this one. But that was not right. 
There were 1,000 to 1,200 people there.

       The administration claimed that its consultants had been 
     cleared as Government employees which meant that they had 
     filed financial disclosure forms and conflict of interest 
     documents and thus could talk in secret. But at least 357 
     participants never appeared on Federal payrolls. And only a 
     handful completed the required financial documents.

  This is the kind of thing that causes distrust. It is not people 
openly contributing, declaring what they have done, and filing what has 
been done. It is not the amount. It is whether something is fully 
disclosed or not.
  I go back to my point. Disclosure is important. Management 
subjugation and the like, mandates are not.
  Madam President, current analysis of this bill, I believe, if every 
American had a chance to review it, would be a revelation. As you go 
through it, you see the very thing that has been so upsetting to so 
many Americans. Let me just give you some examples. This attempts to 
set limits on spending because, as I said, it goes to the false premise 
that somehow the system has been polluted by the fact that people have 
been contributing to it.
  Just as an aside, I had 11,000 contributors to my campaign--11,000. I 
thought they were honorable and honored citizens because everything I 
ever heard since I was about that high was you were supposed to 
participate; you were supposed to be active; you were supposed to be 
engaged; you were supposed to volunteer; you were supposed to work. 
That is the way I was trained. I was doing my duty. I remember walking 
up and down an alley as a 7-year-old kid carrying a sign for a 
political candidate.
  This sets limits that would range, it says here--this is on the 
Senate side. Of course, since we do not have any idea what this secret 
document is, we do not know whether it is the Senate side or the House 
side or a third side. But it says as it left the Senate we had an $8.5 
million level for a candidate from California which would range 
downward to $2 million, which would be a minimum for a small State. You 
do not have to be a rocket scientist. That means that per population in 
California the candidates could spend a quarter per average citizen but 
whereas in a small State you could spend $4.
  Now, that is logical. That is the kind of thing that happens when you 
start trying to manage something that is too complicated and too 
diverse. But it goes on to say----
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator just yield for a quick observation on 
that point?
  Mr. COVERDELL. I certainly will.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As a matter of fact, on a per capita basis, campaigns 
in California are rather inexpensive--on a per capita basis, as the 
Senator is pointing out.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Well, this would put in cement an incongruous 
conclusion. Now, my guess is, Mr. President--the Senator probably knows 
better than I--the reason they capped it at this $8 million figure was 
it would look bad. It would not look good, the figure would not look 
good if they made it the same as in the small States. I guess it would 
end up being something like $90 million or $60 million. So they could 
not do that. So they came up with this ratio that is totally illogical.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If the Senator will yield, some pointy-headed campaign 
financial wonk--the Senator referred to a wonk a while ago--up here in 
Washington just decided what the level ought to be in California even 
though there are 30 million people to reach there. It is an arbitrary 
decision about, as the Senator indicated, what sounded like too much, 
which, of course, is patent nonsense.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I am only on the first line. It goes on to say:

       Within those parameters, spending levels would be set by 
     the following formula: 30 cents multiplied by the voting age 
     population up to 4 million, and 25 cents multiplied by the 
     voting age over 4 million.

  Madam President, if this were not serious, this would be comical. I 
mean how in the world does one decide on a financial ratio that somehow 
says if you have over 4 million, you figure in 25 cents but for those 
under it is 30 cents.
  It goes on, though:

       In New Jersey or any other State that has no more than 1 
     VHF television station, the formula would be 80 cents 
     multiplied by the voting age population up to 4 million, 70 
     cents for each voting age person above that.

  That must have come from MIT. I cannot imagine the intricacy that 
would have been necessary to conclude where you broke 30 cents to 25 
cents, to 80 cents to 70 cents, if you are in New Jersey. If you are in 
New Jersey. I do not know if that means there are going to be more 
candidates running in New Jersey or not.
  But it goes on:

       A primary election. The primary spending limit would be 67 
     percent of the general election limit or no more than $2.75 
     million. And in States that require a runoff--

  I am familiar with that.

     where no candidate receives an absolute majority, the limit 
     for the runoff would be 20 percent of the general election 
     limit.

  Whoever the wonk was that came up with this has never lived in a 
State where the primary election is the preeminent election, where you 
would reverse all these numbers, Madam President, and the substantial 
investment for the campaign ought to have occurred in the primary 
because that is where the real contest was going to occur.
  Having been a product of a runoff, virtually just under half of our 
expenditures occurred in the runoff. Why is that? Because that is when 
the decision was going to be finally made. In the primaries there were 
five or seven candidates. And in the general election there were three. 
But in the runoff it was for keeps, and it was two. That is where the 
money was supposed to be.
  According to this, the runoff was the least important. The primary in 
which I was almost defeated was the second least important. And the 
general election was the most important. How does anybody here know 
that? How in the world could anybody, any policymaker in this city, 
have determined that? We were right there.
  We had three candidates that ended up in the primary that we had 
never known before. One of them got 25 percent of the vote. That was a 
big problem for us. Then a libertarian got in who no one thought would 
get in. And to my predecessor's surprise, that meant there was going to 
be a runoff. I am sure it surprised him, too. Then we were in the real 
contest. I mean the big one. But according to this, it would be the 
little one.
  Independent expenditures. I am still trying to figure out under 
current law how these operate. But this says that if an eligible 
candidate faced an adversarial independent campaign that spent $10,000 
or more, his or her spending limit would rise dollar for dollar. I 
guess what they are trying to say here--I might have a question, if the 
Senator will yield, in just a moment--they are saying the limit, say, 
was $1 million and $1 million, and if somebody over here comes in from 
the side expressing themselves, as they have a right to do, then the 
campaign limit would change in order to allow the candidate room to 
respond to that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Not only the legislature, I say to my friend from 
Georgia, but the taxpayers would supply the money to the candidate to 
reply to the independent expenditure. The dilemma, of course, is 
determining whether the independent expenditure is for or against you. 
Let us assume that somebody came in as an independent expenditure and 
said, ``We are here to thank Senator so and so for voting to increase 
taxes 10 times because it was in the best interest of the people of the 
State of Georgia.'' Is that an expenditure for or against that 
candidate? Somebody in Washington will have to decide who gets the 
dough to reply to this citizen's independent expression. Was it for or 
against the candidate? Somebody in Washington will have to determine.
  Mr. COVERDELL. If the Senator will yield for a question, let us say a 
group of farmers in the southern part of my State suddenly got 
interested in something that a candidate was saying, and they decided 
they were going to run an ad. They were upset about it. In this case, 
it would probably be pretty clear whether it was for or against.
  I agree with the Senator. Anything can happen in our country, and it 
will. And I cannot even imagine the process of deciding whether it was 
for or against with both candidates arguing both pro and con. But in 
this case it is clear. Are these farmers supposed to know that, if they 
participate in a campaign by running this ad, they have to get approval 
from Washington, that they have to file papers and bureaucratic 
apparatus in order to do what every American has been doing for the 
last 200 years?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Georgia, he is absolutely 
right. Under this bill they would have to, in effect, file a 
notification up here in advance, the net effect of which would be to 
ask the Government for permission to express themselves. After they 
expressed themselves, of course, they would be triggering tax dollars, 
certainly against their desire, for the candidate whom they spoke out 
against.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Will the Senator yield? Let me see if the Senator from 
Kentucky will not agree. We are seeing this. I cannot tell the number 
of business people I meet that feel they are in an adversarial 
relationship with the Government. They cannot even keep up. There is no 
way for them to know. There is no way to know rules and regulations 
that we have been thrashing out of this city. The expectation that 
millions of Americans could understand that, to be a participant, they 
have suddenly fallen into this web of management and subjugation is 
almost beyond comprehension. Has the Senator from Kentucky seen in his 
discussions any proposed plan to give forewarning to the citizens of 
this country and the millions it would take to do that?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say, in response to the question, that I do not know 
how it could be possible to inform citizens that their free expression 
now can be exercised only after permission from Washington, and I think 
they would be astonished to know that the Government is going to 
subsidize the opponent of their views. The good news that I could give 
the Senator from Georgia is that this is blatantly unconstitutional.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I have been trying to make the point.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I have been listening very carefully to the Senator's 
speech, and I believe his principal point here is the arrogance of 
bureaucracy, the view that we know best.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Absolutely.
  Mr. McCONNELL. ``Now, you people get out there and shut up, or if you 
insist on speaking, we are going to subsidize the person you are 
against.'' The arrogance of that is the point I believe the Senator 
from Georgia has been raising. I commend him for it. It is a truly 
outrageous and mercilessly unconstitutional proposal.
  Mr. COVERDELL. It is the ultimate leading astray.
  But there is a paragraph right behind this that I think is a clue to 
the thinking here.
  Legal and accounting guidance. Spending for legal and accounting 
services to comply with Federal campaign laws would be exempt from 
Federal limits. In other words, there is already, even by the framers 
of this document, an understanding that you are going to have to have 
lawyers and accountants to defend you, to defend the citizen who is 
expressing himself, to unravel the reams of regulations that follow 
this that are already in existence. This is going to lead to an 
interesting premise because it is not going to be long before American 
business is up here saying that legal and accounting expenditures 
should be tax-exempt because they are fundamentally being forced upon 
them by the Federal Government. The acknowledgment is right here in 
black and white. You are going to have a whole lot of legal fees, and 
you are going to have a whole lot of accounting fees to unravel what we 
are doing to you.
  This is interesting in the analysis. This is an interesting one, 
personal funds.
  Personal funds. A complying candidate--that means a candidate who has 
been subjugated into this. Talk about if you want to be a noncomplying 
candidate, you are in for a real shock. But a complying candidate could 
contribute or lend his or her campaign no more than $25,000; contribute 
or lend no more than $25,000 during an election cycle. Contributions 
from family members would count against the limit, and candidates would 
be prohibited from raising money to pay off a personal loan after the 
election.
  Madam President, I do not want to make a list, but there are a whole 
lot of people here that would not be here if there had been a 
curtailment of freedom of expression on an individual's decision on 
their own and their family to pursue public office.
  Talk about a constitutional violation in terms of freedom of 
expression. We are now going to tell the individual--we are going to 
make up their minds for them on what they can and cannot contribute to 
their own campaign, the underlying premise here being --it is a pretty 
onerous thing here, because it suggests that somebody who has some 
means is probably evil in the first place, and they should be denied 
the ability to use their resources to express themselves as a candidate 
for public office.
  I am reminded that years ago there was a dispute over zoning of an 
area in our State around a view of a river. All of the people that 
already lived there did not want anybody else to live there. So they 
wanted to zone it out so the only people that could live there were the 
ones who were already there. Here we go. A group of people here--
dozens--who have contributed this or more, are now telling future 
candidates you cannot do that. We are going to change the rules. 
Lobbyists--we all know that is an evil word--would be prohibited--and 
who is a lobbyist? That gets into a long convoluted expression. A 
lobbyist would be prohibited from making contributions to or soliciting 
them from a candidate for a 1-year period from the date of contact with 
the Federal office holder.
  Oh, my heavens, can you imagine trying to determine what that means? 
Does that mean they were on the same bus? Does it mean they had a 
discussion about a pertinent issue that affected their State or 
business? You could not contribute to that candidate if there had been 
contact with the candidate for the last year, or with an official, or 
staff assistant. You would now have to know of every contact that had 
been made almost between everybody, every person, and your staff--
formal, professional, or social. We are going to have to have an army 
to police this.
  Here is the important line, Madam President: ``Contributors would be 
prohibited from lobbying the recipient of their contributions for 1 
year after making the contribution.'' Contributors would be prohibited 
from lobbying the recipient of their contribution for 1 year after 
making the contribution.
  So that means that a citizen who has contributed to the process--
which we have all asked them to do--is then disenfranchised as a 
citizen for a year. They are no longer a citizen and they no longer 
have access. They are a citizen from Georgia, they are registered to 
vote and are told to participate in the campaign. They see good 
Government posters from the front to back of the State--public service 
announcements--that you need to participate and be engaged and 
contribute; but if you do, you are disenfranchised. You may no longer 
talk to that person for a year.
  This is utter nonsense. It is reprehensible to disenfranchise 
somebody for participating, after we have fought and fought to cause 
them to be participants, trained them from the day they went into the 
first grade that it was their duty and honor to do so. But if you do, 
you have somehow become a vilified person.
  We have made all these people who participate something less than 
good, and they ought not to be contacting their Government. I have 
never heard of such logic. I will read it one more time: ``Contributors 
would be prohibited from lobbying''--now lobbying has become a vilified 
word, but it means discussing a matter-- ``the recipient of the 
contribution for a year* * *.''
  We have lost our bearings. A moment ago I was talking about the 
complying candidate and I said there is a real shocker if you are not a 
complying candidate. ``Campaigns that do not agree to comply with 
spending limits and other Federal mandates''--mandates, subjugation--
``will be required to pay the highest Federal corporate tax on all 
receipts.''
  Now the campaign poster will have bandit belts and bullets in the 
machine gun: You will comply, or else.
  Does the Senator have a question? I would be pleased to yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Yes, I have a question. Would the Senator not agree 
with the Senator from Kentucky that that is a tax on excess speech? If 
you speak too much, you have to pay the Government for permission, in 
effect, to speak too much, because spending is speech in this case. If 
you speak too much, you have to pay the Government--does the Senator 
agree--to speak beyond the Government-prescribed amount of speech?
  Mr. COVERDELL. That is absolutely correct. Then they will take the 
money you paid them and use it against you. Mr. President, broadcast 
discounts. Television broadcasters will be required--not can, they are 
required, and we are back to the machine gun here--to sell advertising 
time to eligible candidates at 50 percent of the lowest rate for 
comparable time.
  Madam President, this is unbelievable. Broadcasters will sell time to 
these candidates at half the rate for comparable time. Where are the 
printers? If I print the campaign brochures, should we not order them 
to do it for me for half price? What about the newspaper ads? Should 
they not be half price? What about the campaign buttons? The bumper 
stickers? The phone company? I do not know if any of you have been in 
one of these large Senate campaigns, but those phone bills are really 
big. There are hundreds of phones, and that is lots and lots of money. 
I think telephone companies should cut those rates in half. But, no, 
just the broadcasters. We can only think of this here. That is the 
thing we seem to see the most. So let us go after them. The 
broadcasters will sell it for half price, and we will ignore 
newspapers, printers, or any other vehicle of campaigns.
  I talked about mandates and subjugation. This is both. They are 
mandating free enterprise to participate in the process whether they 
choose to or not. They are mandating the price at which it will be 
sold. And they are subjugating these institutions and the people they 
represent and their employees to a form whether they choose to 
participate or not.
  This particular section goes against everything we know to be correct 
and right for our country. We do not order businesses what to do or 
when to do it or how to do it. We do not tell them what the prices 
ought to be. This is illogical.
  In first grade, students would know this is not right if this were 
explained to them, that you could not pick one business out and leave 
the others alone. You pick broadcasters out but do not bother 
newspapers. You pick broadcasters out but not printers or telephone 
companies. Or what about the rent of the headquarters that you have 
across the State? Should you not get that at half price?
  This is insanity and totally illogical, totally illogical.
  Prohibitions read like something that ought to have been in the crime 
bill, Madam President. Prohibitions: The measure would specifically 
prohibit independent expenditures by the following--we have been 
talking a lot about constitutional protections and freedom of 
expressions. This measure would specifically prohibit an independent 
expenditure. That means an expression, a statement by an individual or 
group that made a contribution to a candidate for the same office.
  In other words, if you had contributed to a candidate, if you had 
been part of the process, going back to what we have been trained to 
do, you forfeit outright, forfeit your constitutional right to express 
yourself if you chose to do so. It is gone. You are prohibited from 
doing that.
  I do not believe this would stand up under constitutional law if this 
were ever to become law. Hopefully, it will not.
  But what boggles my mind is that anybody in this Capital City would 
even write such language that would punish someone for having 
contributed, and because they contributed, you would deny them the 
constitutional right to express themselves. I cannot believe that 
language like that would be written into this Capitol.
  You also lose your constitutional right to express yourself if you 
advised a candidate. I assume that would just include discussing or 
talking. I do not know what the definition of advise is, or how many 
bureaucrats or agents we have to have to determine what it is or how 
many court cases. That goes back to exempting lawyers and accountants. 
But if you advised a candidate or an agent of the candidate, what is 
that? Is that the family of the candidate? Is that Sunday church? Is 
that a staff member?
  They met each other at a restaurant, sat down and had dinner, and 
talked about the campaign. They are an agent. They talked about the 
campaign. There goes your constitutional right; not his, but mine.
  You then could not participate as an independent expression in that 
campaign.
  You know, we have seen a number of charts about the health care 
bureaucracy. I believe when someone finally does a chart of a 
management of advice and consent, as embraced in this bill, they are 
going to have to outdo Senator Specter's charts.
  I cannot imagine the process by which we would manage all these 
conversations. You know, in a campaign, in the heat of it, you are 
constantly in the presence of people advising you. In fact, one of the 
big tasks is to decide whose advice to take or whose to reject, because 
everybody knows how you ought to be doing it. Sorting it out is a major 
task.
  You would have to carry a sign on your chest that says: Do not talk 
to me; you will lose your constitutional right.
  Reporting requirements: Independent campaigns would be required to 
notify Federal and State officials within 48 hours of obligating to 
make expenditures aggregating more than $1,000 within 24 hours in the 
final 20 days.
  Now, get this: First of all, you have to remember whether or not you 
had a conversation with the candidate, because if you did, you could 
not do this. But if you did not have a conversation with the candidate 
and you did do this, you would have to know that you have 48 hours to 
notify both State and Federal employees if it was over $1,000 and that 
occurred within 24 hours in the last 20 days of the campaign.
  This is exactly what has caused revulsion across our land. We have 
done this to business. We have done this to counties. We have done it 
to cities. And now we are doing it to the election process.
  You know what the bottom line is: People are going to say they cannot 
do anything in a campaign. They are going to be frightened by all this. 
They are going to say they cannot understand this. They could get in 
trouble just for participating, just for expressing themselves.
  You will see some average citizens, before they get a campaign call, 
have to go talk to their lawyer to find out whether they can answer 
their phone.
  Broadcasters--now this is an interesting one. An independent 
campaigner who has not talked to a candidate--or you could not be 
independent campaigner--would have to notify a broadcaster of an intent 
to purchase advertising time. The station in turn would have to inform 
the other candidate, who would be permitted to purchase time to respond 
immediately afterwards.
  So now the broadcaster is a referee. Not only does he have to sell 
the advertising for half what he thinks it is worth, but he has to have 
a monitoring device to find out whether he got a call from an 
independent candidate to assure the other candidate that he had the 
call to make sure that the other candidate could respond. This is a 
nightmare.
  These are independent businesses; these are not extensions of Federal 
bureaucrats. These people, believe it or not, do not work for the 
Federal Government. They do not work for the Federal Government. They 
do not want to be referees of our campaigns, and ought not to be. The 
campaign has to determine what is happening out there.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Mikulski). The time of the Senator from 
Georgia has expired.
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I want to commend the Senator.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator for the opportunity.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I commend the Senator from Georgia for bringing a 
whole new perspective to this debate. It has been interesting today and 
instructive.
  I doubt many colleagues on the other side of the aisle paid any 
attention. It would be instructive to them to have heard a number of 
speeches, particularly I think the speech of the Senator from Georgia 
outlining the obligation we are placing on the broadcasting industry 
to, in a sense, referee what is going on out there, in addition to 
helping pay for it by providing a deep discount, whether or not they 
are losing money. The station might well be losing money.
  So I commend the Senator from Georgia for his speech. It was really 
outstanding, and I thank him again for his contribution.
  Madam President, I see that the Senator from Montana is here, and I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. Thank you, Madam President.
  I appreciate the leadership and also the mentioning by our friend 
from Georgia about the radio and television broadcasters with regard to 
this issue. I come out of that business and it is tough enough making a 
living without the Government coming out and telling you what you can 
charge, the rates, or that you have to do certain things with regard to 
political campaigns.
  Madam President, I welcome the opportunity to speak today on this 
issue of campaign finance reform. It seems like when we wind up in 
campaigns, everything is brought to light.
  The last couple of months have been revealing to Americans, giving 
them a closeup look of how legislation is handled here. I think we tend 
to underestimate the American people when they start looking at the 
activity of Congress and how we handle legislation here. What they are 
seeing on C-SPAN today is very educational to America, and there are a 
lot more viewers of that than we tend to think there are. They have 
seen how Congress takes up 1,000-page bills that few have seen until 
they have been plopped on their desk and they say, ``OK, we are going 
to start working on this legislation right now.'' One that comes to 
mind is the health care bill.
  We have been through weekend marathon conferences trying to produce 
huge multibillion-dollar bills that Members then vote on with little or 
no time to consider what they are doing.
  These last several weeks have driven home the saying that one really 
does not know how sausages or laws are made. Sometimes we are victims. 
Maybe we are standing too close to the sausage machine, because it has 
been said making laws is just like making sausage. Maybe the process is 
not too pretty, but the result sometimes is very good.
  The health care bill that was forced upon the Senate this last August 
is a perfect example of how the system works. The bill that would have 
cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, increased an 
already bloated bureaucracy, and let the Government choose your doctor, 
was thrown on my desk only after the Senate began debating it. I have 
been part of that task force for almost 3 years, studying this very 
issue of health care reform. It is not a very good way to do business, 
and one in which Congress has too often operated, in fact.
  We have been challenged by those big bills from time to time. They 
say, ``OK, we are going to vote right now.'' And, basically, that is 
what we do here.
  The crime bill is another example of how we take responsible 
legislation and turn it into a Christmas tree adorned with ornaments, 
filled with huge sums of pork, a few goodies so we can get a few votes 
up and down the line.
  I voted for the crime bill in the Senate, but opposed the conference 
report after the House conference added a little more, and we thought 
Christmas had come early. So, after all those provisions in the crime 
bill that we would have liked was stripped from the bill, it just made 
it so that it was impossible to support when the country really needed 
to address this business of crime.
  Now, with little time left, Congress is taking up a bill that would 
have a dramatic impact on this country--more than you might guess--
campaign finance.
  Let me say from the beginning, Madam President, that this Senator 
wants to fix the system, but not on the backs of the taxpayer. For the 
nearly 6 years I have been in the Senate, I have been guided by a 
couple of principles. One, I have worked hard to fight against more 
repressive big Government, with its rules and regulations that stifle 
hard-working small businesses to provide jobs and economic 
opportunities for this country, because 98 percent of the businesses in 
this country are small businesses wanting to grow. And, two, I have 
worked very hard against Government spending and have opposed any and 
all tax increases because I think we are overly taxed--we just spend 
too much money--not because the people pay too little taxes, but 
because the Government really does spend it on some different things or 
different things as far as my priority list is concerned.
  Madam President, the process has been flawed and the bills upon which 
the conference report has been modeled on are themselves flawed with 
shortcomings. The major components of this particular piece of 
legislation--spending limits and taxpayer financing--are flawed ideas 
with a proven record of failure in the Presidential system and, yes, 
even on the State level. Spending limits limit neither the total of 
spending or the special interests. They do not take those folks out of 
the political arena.
  I would like to quote a study by the Rockefeller Institute of 
Government.

       In every Presidential election since public funding, 
     spending has gone up--with more and more of the money going 
     off the books and underground. Off-the-book activities have 
     become more prominent in every election since 1976. More 
     importantly, all of these devices favor the well organized 
     and the more powerful over smaller participants. What the 
     limit seem to be doing, in other words, is encouraging the 
     powerful to engage in subterfuge and legal gamesmanship. It 
     is giving them an incentive to increase their influence in 
     ways that are poorly disclosed. As a cure for cynicism or 
     corruption, this really seems bizarre.

  Those are not my words. Those are from the Rockefeller Institute of 
Government.
  Madam President, majority party leaders in the Senate and House have 
been conferencing the campaign finance bills amongst themselves for the 
last 10 months. Most of the time, according to the reports, they were 
deadlocked among themselves. Over what? PAC limits; political action 
committee limits.
  Evidently, after all its intraparty squabbling over PAC's, taxpayer 
financing, and the rest, majority party leaders have come to or are 
nearing an agreement, and now are ready to have a formal conference to 
ratify this fantastic product. There is no other explanation for 
waiting until the Congress is on the cusp of adjournment to appoint the 
conferees.
  If the majority seriously wanted a bipartisan conference report, 
conferees would have been appointed months ago. These tactics are 
particularly unfortunate because they reinforce the perception that 
this campaign finance effort is not really about reform, but is, in 
fact, a partisan maneuver to rig the election laws to the majority 
party's advantage.
  Not only that, but they want to go home after Congress adjourns and 
tell the American people how they have tried to reform the corrupt 
campaign system and take care of those big, bad special interests in 
Washington, but the Republicans would not let them. They are running 
scared, Madam President, because they know they know that to try and 
mitigate the losses they will occur this November, they have to go home 
with something that sounds good in a 30-second sound bite. They will 
try to tell the American people that the Republicans do not want to 
reform the system, they are beholden to special interest money, and 
they want politics as usual.
  This may come as a shock to a lot of Americans, but if you have gone 
through these political campaigns before, you define special interests 
as those folks who support my opponent. It is on both sides.
  Well, nothing could be further from the truth, as far as not wanting 
some reform. I, along with the rest of my colleagues, want to reform 
the system. But I will not do it at the expense of the taxpayers, the 
people who pull the wagon in my State of Montana. Montana money is 
better spent in Montana and not in Washington. I know my constituents 
do not want to see their hard-earned tax dollars going to elect folks 
that they know nothing about, or they are adamantly opposed to.
  Bill Clinton went coast to coast in 1992 promising to ``change 
welfare as we know it.'' Little did voters know that 2 years later that 
would mean expanding welfare to politicians through a brandnew 
entitlement program.
  The Senate passed campaign finance bill, which I voted against, 
established taxpayer financial welfare for our political campaigns.
  Both the House and Senate bills outline a set of conditions that, if 
met, would result in a host of goodies pouring in to a candidate. Let 
me name just a few: Communications vouchers--50 percent broadcast 
discount rates; mail discounts; matching funds to counteract 
independent expenditures; matching funds to counteract opponents who 
spend over the voluntary spending limit. After a nonparticipating 
candidate spends one penny over the imposed limit, their opponent would 
receive grants equal to one-third of the general election limit. If the 
nonparticipating candidate spent one cent over the limit, his or her 
opponent would receive another grant equal to one-third of the general 
election limit. The taxpayer-funded infusions to the eligible candidate 
would not cease if the nonparticipating candidate had spent twice the 
supposedly voluntary limit.
  When you go through that in this piece of legislation--and the 
manager of this bill knows full well that it takes quite an attorney 
just to dig all this information out. Because if there was ever a bill 
where there is a lot of subterfuge, it is in this piece of legislation. 
It is very hard to understand.
  This bill could be called The Field Of Dreams For Attorneys, when the 
campaign is all over, and we can see the flood of lawsuits that would 
come in with regard to that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BURNS. I will yield for a question.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator was pointing out the new kinds of 
litigation created by this bill. It is almost reminiscent of the health 
care bill. I believe in the Clinton bill--correct me if I am wrong--
were there not 16 causes of action in that bill, 16 new reasons to sue?
  Mr. BURNS. That is correct. Also, I would say to my friend from 
Kentucky that under the penal code, the fines and forfeitures in that 
bill, if they were not dealt with by the patient or the provider, 
extends that much further as far as the legal exposure that one might 
have.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Does it not seem to my friend from Montana that 
everything we are trying to do these days creates tons of new lawsuits 
so we can all go out and sue each other over every conceivable issue?
  Mr. BURNS. I would remind my colleagues the law schools around the 
country are turning out a lot of folks right now. They have to find 
work. I, not being one--which I think at times is a disadvantage but 
most times it is an advantage--nonetheless, I think we are creating one 
of those fields of dreams here for that profession.
  It is going to cost a lot of money. The American taxpayers will again 
have to foot the bill with regard to this piece of legislation. And, of 
course, with the program that Congress passes, the cost varies 
according to those who estimate it, and who do you believe when you are 
told about it? There are certainly a number of variables that need to 
be taken into consideration when trying to determine the cost. It is 
unclear because it depends on how many candidates there are and how 
many would choose to participate in the new entitlement program.
  There are countless scenarios, when you look at it, all of which 
would change the price tag. Just think about a third party. For 
instance, look at what occurred at the Presidential level since 1966. 
Lyndon La Rouche has collected 2 million tax dollars as a Presidential 
candidate in elections since 1976. I just recently read that the 
Federal Election Commission, the FEC, has certified $568,435 in 
matching funds for the 1992 campaign Mr. LaRouche ran from prison. How 
about that? Surprised?
  I have a great idea how to solve the problem of recurring crime in 
this country. Teach all the prisoners how to run for elected office as 
third-party candidates so they can qualify for matching funds. When 
they get out, they can collect their money, take a nice long vacation, 
take a little trip in the sun at the expense of the taxpayers of this 
country.
  In congressional races, qualifying for taxpayer matching funds would 
be even easier, as support would need to be demonstrated in only a 
single State or district, rather than in 20 States as is required under 
the Presidential system. Does anyone doubt there will be an increase in 
third party or independent candidates, running with the aid of new 
taxpayer-funded entitlement programs? I do not think there is any 
question. I do not think that is even a fair question. The cost can and 
would be potentially astronomical.
  It is difficult to predict how many candidates will be running for 
office in 1996 and in years to come. In 1992 there were 1,200 more 
congressional candidates running than there were in 1990, a tremendous 
increase that no one expected. If this trend continues, and it appears 
it might, many of these candidates would accept matching funds. I 
wonder how many of them would? How many independent or third party 
candidates would jump in because of the availability of tax dollars to 
fund campaigns?
  All these are questions that have to be answered before you can go 
back home and look your constituents in the eye. When they say, ``What 
have you done for me lately?'' you can say I have developed another 
entitlement program for politicians.
  The taxpayers are starting to catch on to the abuses and inadequacy 
of a taxpayer-funded Presidential system. That is why over the past two 
decades the vast majority of the American people chose not to say yes 
on their Federal tax return forms to designate $1 from taxes they 
already owe to go to the Presidential election campaign fund. I object 
to using tax dollars for campaigns, period. There is over $4.5 trillion 
in debt looming over this country, debt that our children will no doubt 
participate in paying off if they get the opportunity. It is 
unconscionable that Congress is seriously considering an entitlement 
program for politicians, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to 
prop up a loophole-laden spending limit system that would stifle 
political debate and competition.
  If you do not think that can happen, I think it was 2 years ago--I 
have forgotten on what piece of legislation--but we know only 19 
percent of the people in this country check off the dollar to go to the 
Presidential campaign pool. Only 19 percent. If this was such a good 
deal----
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BURNS. I will.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It used to be 29. It is dropping steadily as people 
conclude they do not want to divert $1 of taxes they already owe to the 
Presidential campaign fund.
  Mr. BURNS. The Senator makes a good point. But I think this continues 
to go down. In my State of Montana it is lower than that, it is under 
15 percent. So I can already see what folks in my State think of the 
checkoff.
  But I think there was some legislation--I have forgotten. I have a 
fantastic memory; it is just short. But a piece of legislation came 
through that would allow the FEC to borrow money --or at least owe 
against future collections--in order to shore up the Presidential pool. 
That sounds like deficit spending to me.
  We see how it works in Government. I doubt it will work any better 
with the FEC, because I find those folks who are caretakers of somebody 
else's money are a little more careless than they would be if it was 
their own.
  I can remember how brazen that was. I thought it was just absolutely 
an act of arrogance, and to think the American people would not 
complain about this and, of course, would never know anything about it.
  Well, anyway, it did not happen. I think it would have been 
unconscionable if this body, if this U.S. Senate, had adopted it.
  Last summer, just about every kind of tax one could imagine was 
floated by the President of the United States in his budget proposal--
Btu tax, gas tax, value-added tax, national sales tax, Social Security 
benefits tax, higher inheritance tax, higher corporate tax, and even a 
health benefits tax. I do not know how many there are, but one of these 
days, they will come up with a new one.
  Mr. BROWN. Will the distinguished Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BURNS. I will yield to my friend from Colorado for a question.
  Mr. BROWN. I appreciate the Senator yielding some of his time for a 
question.
  I just find myself amazed at the fact that this bill was passed, I 
believe, 10 months ago. In those 10 months--actually it is 15 months 
ago, I guess, by the Senate, that they have acted. Now, at the 11th 
hour of this session, it has been dragged out by months of periods when 
we have had no business on Mondays and Fridays, where we have not 
worked weekends, and it is brought forth by the leadership.
  I wonder if my distinguished colleague thinks that after all these 
delays that it makes sense to bring this up at the 11th hour for the 
purpose of having the poor taxpayers subsidize the reelection of this 
Congress.
  Mr. BURNS. I will tell my friend from Colorado that we know how much 
is in the hopper for legislation of every description, right? And that 
big hopper is like a funnel. Now it has to go through this last 2 
weeks, which is the little end of the funnel. Every time we get into 
that--I sort of refer to it as the trading season. Under the passion of 
trying to get out of here, especially on an election year, it has a 
tendency to rush people to make sometimes a judgment that they would 
not ordinarily make under calmer conditions.
  Mr. BROWN. That may be the reason for it. I just find myself amazed 
that we would be spending our time on this issue which the American 
people do not support; that is, subsidizing politicians and their 
campaigns, and we would not be debating the real issues of the day. I 
myself had an amendment with regard to Haiti that I wanted to offer. 
There apparently was no time to be allowed to offer that. I found, for 
example, this afternoon, that the Pentagon confirmed to my office that 
they had only issued 15 bullets to the service men and women from Fort 
Bragg that are stationed now in Haiti that are in harm's way, that are 
in a potential combat zone, they have only given each man and woman 15 
rounds for their guns, some one-twelfth what the normal issue is. I 
find it incredible that at a point we have denied our military 
personnel the ability to defend themselves properly, that we would 
spend our time debating more subsidies to politicians.
  Mr. BURNS. I think I would rather spend my time, Madam President, 
buying ammo for the protection of our fighting men and women in harm's 
way, rather than subsidizing campaigns.
  There is no doubt about it--and given the choices, the American 
people--given the options and given the choices that they might have in 
this piece of legislation--will reject this. I think it is arrogance on 
our part to think they will not.
  At no point in our Nation's history have we seen the level of zeal 
and creativity which this administration has dedicated itself to the 
question of taxing anything that breathes, moves or, yes, is even 
nailed down. Then the Senate put forth the ultimate tax, quite 
literally taxing the sound that came out of a campaign that resulted in 
spending over the campaign or spending over a campaign spending limit.
  Under the speech tax, a campaign would have two choices: Be bound by 
voluntary spending limits or be taxed at the corporate rate, currently 
35 percent, by the way, and everything takes on an all new meaning.
  As always is the case, people will be asking how can you reform the 
system without placing additional burdens on the taxpayer. Last summer, 
I had an opportunity to vote on a number of provisions relating to 
campaign finance reform. Let me go over those, what we voted for.
  I voted for amendments to the bill cutting the maximum amount of 
personal funds to a tenth of the previous limit. What did that do? That 
kept very wealthy people from buying a seat in the U.S. Senate or the 
House of Representatives. I supported applying the provisions of the 
bill to the upcoming election, which I myself am in right now, instead 
of the 1996 election. I supported the requirement that candidates who 
receive subsidies would undergo thorough audits.
  I also supported capping out-of-State contributions tightly and limit 
taxpayer finance subsidies to $1 million, both of which were defeated. 
They were not defeated on this side of the aisle.
  I am in a campaign now where I am sort of proud that I am setting all 
kinds of records with individual people in the State of Montana giving 
to my campaign. There are just a little over 800,000 people in the 
State of Montana; 9,000 of them have chosen to write a check to this 
campaign. There are only 475,000 voters. So it does not take a rocket 
scientist to figure out people will, individuals will, if limited or 
not limited.
  I am one who says full disclosure does more to tell your constituents 
who you are than anything else. I mentioned earlier the Presidential 
system. Since 1976, there has been an increase in the amount of money 
spent that is off the books and goes underground. There, again, I am 
going by memory. I do not know when this system was reformed and the 
establishment of political action committees and the limits they were 
given, but it called for full disclosure. I think that kept some of 
this money in brown paper bags just coming over the transom. It was to 
stop that.
  People wanted to know who was supporting our candidates. If you limit 
the amount the candidate can spend, let us say a total of a million 
dollars for a campaign, that independent expenditures would prove to be 
an even more attractive means for well-organized special interest 
organizations to elect the candidates of their choice. In fact, one 
interest could come into a State like Montana and almost buy themselves 
a seat.
  Instead of letting individuals decide who is best to represent the 
spending limits, it would allow those groups we are trying to curtail 
to become really a predominant player in the election system.
  That is right, under the majority party, spending limits gain while 
private citizens seeking to support candidates of their choice would be 
squeezed out of the process. And candidates would be constrained to 
spending limits. Labor unions and other special interests would be able 
to spend an unlimited amount to influence the outcome of elections.
  It is sort of funny. I spent several years refereeing football. This 
time of the year I miss it. I often thought that some folks would 
challenge anybody for voluntary spending limits, for voluntarily 
raising money, without consideration that upon that agreement we would 
be operating out of two different kinds of rule books. I got to 
thinking about that. It would be just like the reason that 4 or 5 old 
fat guys wearing striped shirts can go on the field of play in football 
among 22 of the most hostile, mobile, heavily armored combatants and 
have very few problems in keeping civility on the field because of a 
rule book, and the rules are the same in every State--every State. That 
is why I can go to Wyoming or Idaho or Utah or Colorado and work that 
great sport and have very few problems, because they are the same 
everywhere.
  So when we talk about just a State having a rule, maybe the outside 
influences do not play by those rules because they are not governed by 
those rules, and I think that is just as important for the challenger 
as it is for the incumbent to understand. That is, if you are going to 
do a good job in representing your constituency. Their activities would 
be the key to the success or failure of a particular candidate. They 
must be based on his personal character and how he represents his 
constituency rather than trying to explain what he had done as far as 
the FEC is concerned.

  Furthermore, if the NAACP spent money to oppose David Duke in a 
campaign for Congress, the former Klansman could qualify under this 
bill for unlimited tax dollars to respond. Certainly better judgment 
could be used in other places.
  Spending limits not only force campaign funds into independent 
expenditures and undisclosed and unregulated soft money--and we have 
heard that referred to sometimes as sewer money--they also impair the 
ability of challengers to successfully compete against incumbents. 
Proponents of spending limits cite statistics showing that incumbents 
usually outspend challengers. No argument there. That is a critical 
point. Thorough studies of election results and campaign spending over 
the last several cycles reveal that it is not necessary for challengers 
to spend more than or even as much as an incumbent in order to win.
  The crucial point is that a challenger be able to spend enough to get 
his or her messages out and convince enough voters that it is time for 
a change. The amount a successful challenger must be able to spend is 
frequently more than the spending limits than the House or the Senate 
bills right now allow.
  In 1992, the FEC-reported spending in congressional races was at $678 
million. That comes out to about $3.63 per eligible voter across the 
country. That was a 52-percent increase in spending over 1990. That 
spending increase corresponded with a 68-percent increase in the number 
of candidates, just more people on the slate and in the field. There 
were 1,759 candidates for Congress in 1990 compared to 2,956 candidates 
in 1992. So some of these figures are kind of skewed because if you 
figure the cost per voter it was about the same.
  So 1992 was an extraordinarily competitive year in politics-- a cause 
and effect of increased campaign spending, a Presidential year. As any 
incumbent will tell you, 1994 is shaping up to be just as competitive 
this time around as any time in our recent history.
  Most people would say that increased competition was a good thing. 
Understandably, many incumbents and the ruling majority may construe 
the same phenomenon as a bad thing especially when you talk about 
legislation such as we are looking at here in the Chamber.
  So the campaign reform debate has focused on campaign spending. As 
has been stated, however, spending is not the problem. The fact is we 
spend far more on advertising yogurt in this country than on elections, 
yet there is a notion perpetuated that we are spending too much.
  Funny, I am not a great fan of yogurt. Obviously, I am not a great 
fan of yogurt.
  Implicit in the position is the assumption that spending is somehow 
corrupt, so we have for some years now seen a misguided drive for 
campaign spending limits.
  Congressional campaign spending skyrocketed in 1992. So did voter 
turnout and congressional turnover. No other time in the history since 
I have been here, not since 1988 have we seen the turnover in the House 
of Representatives that we have seen in the last three cycles. So one 
would say maybe a factor that most people observe is that increased 
spending maybe brought out more voters and more turnover was made 
possible.
  There are a couple of reasons for the opposition to spending limits. 
They limit free speech and they limit political participation and 
competition. Competition, that is what this country is based on, the 
free enterprise system. Should not, when a man or woman decides to run 
for political office, they be afforded the same rules? Because after 
all, it is probably not the person but it is the idea, the philosophy 
that folks are looking at that would best represent themselves and 
their views in their main halls of government, whether it be at the 
local level, State level, or Federal. I say it is pretty important at 
the local level, and if there is anybody in this body who understands 
the impact of local government it is my good friend from Kentucky, who 
is a product of local government. He understands unfunded mandates as 
well as anybody. And if there was one driving force why I got involved 
in national political office, it was because I was saying I was a 
county commissioner first.
  We can stand on this floor of the Senate, television beaming down on 
us, everybody at home looking at you, but what we do here, we do not 
participate in the delivery of the services or what we do in 
legislation. Counties do. That is where the rubber hits the road. They 
administer the welfare. They build the roads. They provide the 
infrastructure of sewer and water and electricity. And yet we pass some 
silly laws we send down there that say you have to do it this way, and 
we do not send a check with it, knowing it costs a lot of money.
  In my State of Montana, in 1986, we had a little initiative on the 
ballot called I.105. It prevented local government from increasing the 
mill levy or increasing taxes in order to cover the spending of local 
government. Of course, schools were affected by that. Schools grow. 
More kids come. The infrastructure of education is still controlled by 
the school board. Yet we could not levy more taxes so something had to 
give.
  So what happens? You lay off people through attrition. You do a lot 
of imaginative things. There is one thing that you do not do. You do 
not go into your reserves. County government understands reserves 
because we only collect taxes--I do not know how it is in Kentucky. I 
would have to ask my friend from Kentucky. He probably only collected 
property taxes twice a year in order to carry through. Well, we 
collected it in Montana twice a year, and you had to have a reserve to 
get you from one to the other. You could only maintain a 30-percent 
reserve in each line item or each department. We did that in 
Yellowstone County, MT--I am proud of that--even under the conditions 
of I.105. But nonetheless, that is just as important there because in 
local government it is not so much a thing of philosophy. It is can you 
manage a fiscal budget of which you are the budgeteer and you are also 
the appropriator and you also sign the checks.
  That is not a bad position. Given some thought, maybe we ought to go 
back to it. I do not know whether we can do that here or not. But when 
you talk about spending limits, particularly in this area that has the 
trappings of something a little undemocratic about it, involuntary or 
coerced spending limits are also unconstitutional because they are a de 
facto limit on free speech.
  The big roadblock in limiting campaign spending is the first 
amendment which protects political speech. And the Supreme Court has 
determined that campaign spending, which is primarily for the purpose 
of communication, is analogous to speech.
  The other roadblock in limiting spending is a reality that all 
Americans have a vested interest in the electoral process. There is 
nothing wrong with private citizens supporting candidates by 
contributing their hard earned dollars in accordance with the law in 
publicly disclosed and limited amounts.
  What happens, Madam President, is that if we limit those things, 
those amounts, very imaginative and innovative folks will find ways to 
contribute to their candidate one way or the other ground or 
underground. This Senator prefers above ground and full disclosure. I 
think just about everybody else does too.
  So a precise cost forecast is impossible because, one, there is no 
final bill; two, the variables--third party independent candidates, 
independent expenditures, and ``excessive'' spending counter 
balancing--are unpredictable.
  The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that it would cost $189 
million in 1996 alone if both the House and Senate bills provided 
matching funds, and would increase to $203 million in 1998.
  Proponents of reform have touted the Presidential Election Campaign 
Fund in place since 1976. However, a review of the presidential system 
certainly does not argue in favor of a similar congressional system. 
The Presidential system has placed two major new burdens on taxpayers: 
FEC auditing enforcement, and fringe candidate proliferation.
  So, Mr. President, the FEC audits of the 1988 campaigns were not 
completed until 1992. Enforcement proceedings rising out of those 
audits continue to this day. Of the 1992 Presidential campaigns, the 
FEC has not completed auditing five of them since 1992--the Bush, 
Clinton, Buchanan, Tsongas, and LaRouche campaigns.
  To cope with the Senate and House-passed bills, FEC staff have 
estimated that the audit division would have to double in strength and 
the office of general counsel would have to increase by greater than 75 
percent. Overall the FEC would need also a 50-percent budget increase.
  I was around when Congress reregulated the cable industry. We thought 
there were some folks saying we have to regulate this thing. The rates 
are too high. Folks are a little arrogant out there. They do not 
service their customers very good. You do not have to take cable. It is 
sort of a voluntary thing. You can go out and buy it. You still have 
free over-the-air television and radio. But the rates were too high. Do 
you know what we did? We reregulated it.
  Then I was here and I switched over and joined a committee called 
Appropriations. I never will forget when we came to the floor, when the 
FEC came to Congress, and said because you reregulated the cable 
industry we need $200 million more to write the rules and regulate it. 
So even the folks who did not want the cable, who did not want to pay 
for cable, the American taxpayer, are going to pay for cable anyway.
  If that makes any common sense to you, then I guess I am riding the 
wrong horse, or something. But it seems like every time Congress tries 
to improve a system it costs more money. It costs more than it is 
worth. There is more work, and you are talking about the FEC, and a 50-
percent increase in their budget. I just want the American people to 
think about that.
  The majority proposals in both the Senate and House sought to model 
congressional elections on the Presidential system. The ultimate goal 
of the taxpayer spending limit proponents is to replicate the 
Presidential system for Congress 535 races; thousands of candidates. 
The only thing I can see out there on the horizon is more lawyers, more 
accountants, and more taxpayer auditors.
  So, it will not require skilled lawyers to discover and exploit ways 
to get around the limits in the Senate or House-passed bill. There will 
be loopholes. They are there. Maybe we have not seen them yet. We have 
not found them. But I will tell you. They are there. They will be built 
in. They will render the limits meaningless for the well organized 
special interests. Just like I said before, special interests are 
defined as those folks who support my opponent.
  The fact is these bills only selectively limit campaign spending. So 
to be fair, the Senate-passed bill is not exactly like the Presidential 
system of limits. Yes. Like that system, the Senate bill would be 
expensive. And, like that system, the Senate bill will not work. It is 
unworkable. It will be a tangled mess of which we ourselves who serve 
in this body would not be able to sort it out on any given time plus 
the fact that it borders on being almost--and I am not real sure--
unconstitutional.
  So with the bill, the taxpayers not only would pay for the system 
that would not function as advertised, but they would pay for an 
assault on the first amendment of the Constitution.
  So after years of pushing campaign finance bills designated as 
seizing the high ground on the reform issue while being secure in the 
knowledge that a Republican President would veto it, the majority party 
is now in the position of formulating a bill that they can live with.
  Clearly, neither the House nor the Senate bills would reform the 
campaign finance system. ``Reform'' suggests improvement. If truth in 
labeling applied to this bill, I will tell you. We would have to take 
another look at it. Both of those bills would dramatically change the 
campaign finance system at a great cost to all taxpayers, even those 
who would choose not to participate in the political or the electoral 
process.
  So, there is a bipartisan desire for campaign finance reform. 
Gridlock has stemmed from the majority party's insistence on roadblocks 
to reforms such as spending limits, taxpayer financing. In fact, the 
majority party itself has caused gridlock on this issue with the delay 
in resolving the PAC differences among its own Members. There is common 
ground on other campaign finance issues which could form as a basis of 
amicable reform, and as a basis of meaningful reform.
  For the sake of the American people, for the restoration of some 
public esteem to this institution, I would hope that we would someday 
dispense with the taxpayer funded spending limits charade, and get on 
with the job of truly reforming campaign financing. Let us not put up a 
sham and call it a show.

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I thank my distinguished friend from 
Montana for his important contribution to our effort to raise the 
public's awareness of what this bill is all about. He has made a 
significant contribution in that regard, and I commend him for taking 
the time to come over and give us his views on this legislation.

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