[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM AND HEALTH CARE REFORM

  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I rise to discuss two topics that are 
central to the Senate debate in these closing weeks. One is health care 
reform and the other is campaign finance reform.
  I am not the first Senator to address the connection between these 
two issues, but my point of view may differ from that of previous 
speakers. I will begin with the matter that appears to have been at 
least partially concluded this morning, and that is the issue of a 
filibuster on campaign finance reform.
  I have been here not only for the vote but for the arguments made by 
many of my colleagues subsequent to that vote. All of them were, with 
the exception of the Republican leader's arguments, by people on the 
other side of the aisle. One of the first points that was made, of 
course, is that campaign finance reform is a highly partisan issue. My 
colleague from South Carolina just gave us some evidence that goes back 
30-plus years on that subject. The fact that election law reform, 
campaign finance reform, is inevitable has been testified to here on 
the floor of the Senate over the last 2 years by the arguments that 
have been made on behalf of campaign finance reform.
  But the arguments made this morning were largely about who killed 
campaign finance reform, as though it were dead. In my view, it is not 
dead. It died here about 15 months ago on the floor of the Senate. It 
was resurrected by this Senator and by my colleague, the senior Senator 
from Nebraska. We pulled it up out of a filibuster at that time. We got 
a consensus on the floor of the Senate that was bipartisan, and we 
passed it out of the U.S. Senate, sent it to the House of 
Representatives, and it is there that it was killed. It was not killed 
here. This was a ceremony this morning. This was a ceremony this 
morning that was presided over by the Democratic leadership to say that 
they had failed to come to a consensus between the House and the Senate 
within the Democratic leadership on the issue of campaign finance 
reform.
  It is a fact that Republicans almost to the person--not quite; there 
were seven of us in this group--did not like our proposition. In fact, 
I will never forget the fact that the same evening that we got this 
bill out of the Senate, I had a fundraiser. A lot of my colleagues had 
promised to come to my fundraiser. I think two of them showed up, plus 
one Democrat, the first time a Democrat had ever come to one of my 
fundraisers.
  So there were a lot of partisans on this side of the aisle who did 
not want to see the kind of campaign finance reform that we reported 
out of the Senate. Quite a few Members on the other side of the aisle 
did not want to see the kind of campaign finance reform that was 
reported out of the Senate. But there was enough of a consensus to 
revive this thing and to send it to the House. And for 15 months, 
Democrats have been dissecting the body of that amendment, trying to 
put it back together again, never talking to me, and I cannot vouch for 
the other Members of our group of seven Republicans. I know of only one 
who has had any conversations with any Democratic Members. But it was 
the Democratic leadership, going over this body piece by piece, trying 
to put back together something that would look like the independent, 
bipartisan proposal that came out of the Senate, and they could not do 
it. They just could not do it.
  I think our colleague from Oklahoma, who spoke here this morning, who 
provided the leadership to help us put this together, pretty well 
admitted the fact that they just could not do it. I do not agree with 
my colleague from Vermont when he says maybe if they had taken the 
PAC's from $6,000 to $5,000, he might have agreed with it. He might 
have agreed with it. But nobody else in our group would have agreed 
with it. We came to this issue because of PAC's. We came to this issue 
because of special interests. We came to this issue because of the 
money chase. And we were not going to stand around here and compromise 
by asking if you will knock off 1,000 here and 1,000 there. That just 
means you are going to have more parties, more fundraisers, more 
special interests, because the need is still there. And if you cut the 
PAC limit from 10,000 to 6,000, it means you are going to have 40 
percent more fundraisers. That does not end the money chase. And the 
Members of the House of Representatives on the Democratic side of the 
aisle know that. That is the way they survive.

  I have had three elections, two of them against megamillion dollar 
candidates who were financing their own elections out of their own 
pockets. I had to raise PAC money, and I became a defender of the PAC's 
because I could not have been elected without them. But I only raised 
25 percent of my total from political action committees. I raised 75 
percent from ordinary people. By the time of my last race, I had 50,000 
people contributing to my campaign. I defy anybody in this body to find 
50,000 people--other than maybe in a large State like California--who 
are individual contributors. So I took 25 percent from PAC's, and I am 
going to tell you in a minute what I paid for that.
  My colleagues in the House on the Democratic side in Minnesota take 
in an average of around 75 percent of their money from political action 
committees. Do you think they want to part with that? Of course not. Of 
course not.
  That is where campaign finance reform ``died'', if in fact it is 
dead. But it is not dead. The Democratic leadership, which so 
excoriated the alleged filibuster conducted by my colleagues on this 
side of the aisle can get back together again. They have a chart. They 
have had it for 15 months. They have had a set of principles. They have 
had a bipartisan consensus proposal built by Democrats and Republicans 
here 15 months ago they can work with.
  It is all there. They know it. So during the debate about is it dead, 
who killed it, all the rest of that sort of thing, you could tell by 
each of these successive votes that it was not being killed in this 
Chamber.
  This last vote in effect was 52 to 48--technically it was 52 to 46, 
but two of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, Nickles 
and Bennett, were not here today to vote. They have consistently voted 
against cloture. So I say it is a 52-to-48 vote. The message keeps 
coming down, and it is to the Democratic leadership: Decide whether you 
are going to do bipartisan, nonpartisan campaign finance reform or, if 
you just cannot do it, then why not admit to everybody in the country 
why you cannot.
  I do not think it is the fault of the Senate Democratic leadership. I 
think Senator Mitchell has been patient beyond belief. We all know he 
has been patient with Republicans. But I think he has been even more 
patient with his counterparts on the House side on the Democratic side 
of the aisle. I think he has tried and tried and tried as his last 
stand on the Democratic side of the aisle to come up with something 
that might be this miraculous bipartisan, nonpartisan reform.
  But as his friend, the Republican leader, Senator Dole, said an hour 
or two ago, that is probably trying the impossible. Only if someone 
takes this whole issue outside of this body and the other body and 
gives it to people who are not paid to be Democrats or paid to be 
Republicans or paid to be Senators or paid to be Congressmen and ask 
them how this Nation is going to restore confidence in the election 
process are you ever going to resolve this issue.
  My colleague from Oklahoma talked about buzzword politics, and I wish 
to talk to my colleagues about buzzword politics. Last week, an 
organization that calls itself Citizens Action released a report that 
if I were not in the Senate and you were not in the Senate and others 
were not in the Senate would be libelous. It, in essence, accused 
Members of this body of taking bribes. Some Members have picked up on 
that theme on the floor of the Senate and said that health care reform 
failed because Members of Congress are so greedy and so craven that our 
will to pass health reform was overwhelmed by millions of dollars of 
campaign contributions, some of which many of us have accepted over 
many years.
  Mr. President, the popular chorus is that there is a lot of 
Washington that does not work well, that does not work the way people 
expect it to work. That is the chorus, it is true. But I am not going 
to let these preposterous allegations stand unchallenged.
  Citizens Action and their spokespersons in and outside the Senate are 
proponents of a single-payer health care system. That is their goal.
  Their approach was rejected by most Members of this body, most 
Members of the House, by the White House, and by the American public. 
If ever there was a clear message on health reform from the American 
people, it is their absolute opposition to turning the health care 
system of this country over to the Government.
  Yet the supporters of single payer would have America believe they 
are the only true proponents of health care reform. Once they declare--
and this is just to give you one example of how this system of 
political action committees and special interest financing works--once 
this outside group declares that they have a monopoly on virtue, then 
they denounce the rest of the proposals--the mainstream plan, Dole 
plan, and all the others--as sellouts to special interest groups.
  They will not entertain the notion that anyone can disagree with them 
on principle. They flatter themselves into believing that anyone who 
disagrees with them must be a crook engaged in a bidding process with 
special interest fat cats.
  Mr. President, I heard the majority leader say something about 
integrity in this body and his belief about the Members of this body. 
That comes from experience. Mine is the same. The allegation of crooks 
doing bidding to special interest fat cats is false. It is 
irresponsible. And as you have heard throughout the debate on campaign 
finance reform, and lobby reform, it is destructive of this 
institution.
  One way to deal with these allegations is to have a public hearing on 
them. Frankly, I would challenge Citizens Action or anybody else who 
thinks that health care reform was killed by campaign contributions to 
present that case in some kind of an open hearing. Again, let us get it 
outside the body in a public forum and let us debate that issue. But I 
do not think that is going to happen.
  It will not happen because the easy way is to present evidence of the 
contributions--as though they are a study--at a time when there is a 
failure in the system to meet the goals of the virtuous proponents of a 
particular proposal and then let the public draw their conclusions.
  The public has had this presentation made to them so consistently, so 
often in the 16 years I have been in the Senate, that they buy it. Of 
course they buy it. They presume that there is a link between 
contributions and the failure of the system to respond to their needs.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURENBERGER. I would be pleased to.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the Senator is a distinguished and 
revered member of the Finance Committee. We would concede happily that 
no one on the Finance Committee has studied the health care questions 
more than he has done nor has brought more knowledge and concern for 
the subject. He and I and the other 18 Senators spent much of this year 
on this subject--31 hearings, and endless discussions. The mainstream 
grew out of our bipartisan committee. I do not recall a single word 
spoken in this year that could in any way be associated with some 
economic interest that had influenced a member of the committee.
  Does he recall such position being put forward, such implication 
being suggested? Does he think that contributions or even local 
interests were the subject of our discussions to any degree that would 
be significant in terms of the outcome?
  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I would say no and quite to the 
contrary. As my colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee, knows 
only too well, those of us who have had the experience of having to 
take on these difficult battles in which special interests are involved 
are very grateful to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for 
beginning the process with a whole year solid of hearings, sometimes 
two or three hearings a week on all of the interests, all of the 
principles, all of the plans, all of the proposals, all of the great 
ideas in health care. We are grateful for that approach because one 
knows in advance that there will be allegations by winners and losers 
of ideas or principles or plans that somehow or other some money or 
some other influence may have come to bear.
  So he has not said it, but I think the fact of the matter is, to 
those of us who have been on the Finance Committee and who know our 
colleague well, who know the ways in which the Finance Committee 
operates, there may have been a purpose in preceding the decisionmaking 
process the way we did on a subject dear to the hearts of everyone in 
this country and difficult to understand. We had all these hearings so 
we could cover all of the interests involved, all of the different 
approaches, all of the different ideas.
  It is amazing to me that as the hearing process went on, people 
learned. They began to ask different kinds of questions. They began to 
reshape their own views on the process, but it came out of the open 
process. It did not come out of the back door. It did not come out of 
Gucci Gulch. It did not come out of the fundraisers. It was happening 
in a public hearing. Senators were being educated. People were 
learning. Experts were having an influence, not with their checkbooks 
but with their ideas, and with their own experience. It is amazing, is 
it not, that this could happen in the U.S. Senate? Mr. President, I 
will say that in 16 years this has happened many times --not 
necessarily with the visibility that was given this particular effort 
by the people, the elections, the President and the chairman of the 
committee--but this happened time and time and time again. The larger 
influence on any of my thinking comes from my constituents and my 
judgment. But that is enhanced by the process we all go through in this 
body of debating, hearing, listening to experts, having public 
testimony and hearings, and all the rest of that sort of thing. That is 
the essence of this process.

  It is not the fundraisers, of which there are many. It is not Gucci 
Gulch, which does exist. There is no question about that.
  There is a clear impression by people who have not come to these 
hearings, who have not lived through this experience, who are 
constituents of mine, that leaves only 12 percent of them trusting this 
process. They may think the decision making process I have just 
described may occasionally happen, but the fundraiser at night is where 
the real action takes place.
  I just want to say that is a lie. I have not seen it happen that way. 
I understand people can have different views on where you come out on 
health care reform. I think people can have different views on a whole 
lot of things. But I would suggest, and I would even use my colleague 
from Minnesota as an example, that many of these views come from 
experience and judgment. They do not come from the so-called grubby 
interests. If I have it right, I can take the so-called million dollars 
that I have raised over 16 years from health-related interests--this is 
what I was charged with by Citizens Action--and put that against about 
$200,000 that my colleague, Paul Wellstone, got from labor unions. 
Given the time we have been here, that means he has received about as 
much proportionately from labor unions as I received from health 
interests.
  So someone could say Paul voted for S. 55, Paul voted on Davis-Bacon, 
Paul Wellstone voted on all these labor union issues, and was 
influenced by $200,000. But I know better. I know that his influence 
comes from his life experience. It comes from his belief system. It 
comes from his judgment about what is the common good, all of which 
differs from mine on those particular issues.
  But I believe that is where it comes from. It is his view of the role 
of Government in our society which is different from mine. But it is 
his view, not the unions' view imposed on him with a contribution.
  It is his view of the role of markets in our lives. It is not the 
unions' view. So my view, the view of the Senator from New York, other 
people's view of the health care system, health care generally, health 
care financing, health care reform, that comes in the largest part from 
a set of life experiences, a belief system, a judgment about the common 
good, a view of the role of Government, and a view of the role of the 
market.
  That is the reality. But that is not the judgment of Citizens Action. 
That is not the judgment of liberal editorials. That is not the 
judgment of cynical journalists in this country.
  The connection between all of that activity in the last week or two 
blaming the insurance industry, the doctors, the hospitals, the health 
plans, for the destruction of Citizens Action and campaign finance 
reform is simple. It is called the blaming game. You do not get your 
way, and you blame somebody else. That is basically the way it works 
around here. The blame game is as destructive an exercise as we engage 
in this body. The blame carries the implicit allegations that the 
majority of Members of this body are taking bribes. I think it is 
particularly destructive.
  I know as I leave the Senate, as we leave this subject, the blame 
game will go on. It is the nature of modern politics.
  Today, right now, while we speak, up there in the gallery behind the 
doors the blame game for campaign finance reform is going to get played 
out, and it will be partisan and it will be bitter. And, if history is 
any indication, it will consist mainly of half-truths on both sides.
  My vote this morning against cloture on the campaign finance reform 
bill is going to be misrepresented by all kinds of people, and each of 
them has some ax to grind. I need to make the record clear today, in 
spite of what is probably going to be said about me in the days to 
come.
  As I said earlier, 15 months ago I worked for hours with Senator 
Boren, Senator Mitchell, and finally Senator Exon to craft the 
compromise that allowed campaign finance reform to pass the Senate. We 
worked hard. We worked in good faith.
  The product was a bitter pill for some partisans. But it was a better 
bill than we started with. And I could support it with enthusiasm.
  From the day that bill passed until yesterday morning, the Democrats 
in the House and Democrats in the Senate have been meeting to craft a 
Democrat-only compromise. I have not been invited to a single meeting. 
I have not been asked my view on a single item at a single time. There 
has been no effort to work together.
  Yesterday morning I was presented with a bill, and was told it was a 
done deal. I was told it was the best that the Democrats had to offer 
and there could be no changes.
  In short, for whatever reasons, the Democrats decided to have a 
conference committee of their own. No Republicans were invited. And now 
we have the results of that one-party conference, and we are told a 
formal conference will effectively be a rubberstamp of the deal.
  I can see no reason to cast a vote to send a bill to conference when 
the majority has already decreed what the final conference report would 
be.
  Many have urged me to let this go to conference to see what comes 
out. Ordinarily, I would do that but I have been told in this case that 
the conference is a formality. The deal has already been worked out by 
the Democratic leadership. I could vote for cloture this week, let the 
conferencing go through a charade and then vote against the bill next 
week. But next week will be too late to fix the bill.
  So I chose to send my signal to the Democratic leadership and to 
Common Cause today. If they are serious about reform, they ought to get 
back to work. That is the message.
  Mr. President, I want to compliment the Democratic Members who voted 
the same way I did on this issue because I think it is important that 
both Democrats and Republicans send that message to the Democratic 
leadership. They could rethink the $200,000 taxpayer subsidy for the 
House candidates to run their campaigns. The money is structured in 
this bill to virtually guarantee that every incumbent will get it 
before his or her challenger. Some challengers will never qualify for 
it but every incumbent certainly will.
  Two of my Democratic colleagues this morning have said no, there is 
no public financing in this bill. But there is a tax checkoff. In other 
words, you use your tax form to put in the money for campaigns. There 
is a reporting fee on foreign PAC's and there is a registration fee on 
lobbyists and foreign agents, all of which are requirements. If you are 
going to do business, you have to pay this reporting fee or 
registration fee. There is an increase in the marginal rate of tax on 
campaign investment income. And there is a tax from the Senate bill on 
noncomplying candidates. To say that this is not public financing is to 
say, to use a health care analogy, that where States have put 
surcharges on hospital bills it is not a tax on health insurance 
premiums. But it is. It clearly is. You can call it any name you want. 
It comes out the same way. It is a tax, and it is a public fund 
administered by a public agency. I served on the Ethical Practice Board 
in Minnesota. When we went to public financing, a bipartisan group got 
to spend this money, decide how it should be spent. If that is not 
public financing, I do not know what it is.

  Second, every incumbent in the House will be able to roll over an 
unlimited war chest. In our set of principles, we thought it was 
important to address the unfair advantage of incumbents. You should not 
build up a big war chest in one campaign and carry it with your 
incumbency over to the next one and have this big lead on your 
challenger. Add to that your $200,000 in public financing before your 
challenger even has a chance to surface. The House said that they will 
not give up their financial advantage over challengers.
  Those two things alone are enough to make this a bad deal for 
challengers. But they are not the worst thing. Let us return to the 
subject with which I opened--PAC money.
  I have already said that the allegation that special interest money 
caused the demise of health reform is remarkable. I also know that the 
demagogues continue to allege it. I know a lot of the news media will 
promote the idea regardless of the lack of evidence.
  Mr. President, as I said earlier, I ran two of my three campaigns 
against megamillionaires who financed their own campaigns; 25 percent 
of my contributions came from political action committees. I raised a 
lot of PAC money because the only alternative I could see was to allow 
two millionaires to buy a Senate seat.
  Mr. President, I have paid for that with my Senate life, and I am 
still paying for it. Every time I expose myself in a difficult 
leadership role, somebody reports a health contribution or agriculture 
contribution or something like that. That is one of the difficult, if 
you will, suppressants of leadership in a place like this, as I know my 
colleague from New York already knows, and I assume my colleague from 
Colorado will learn as time goes on.
  I will soon conclude, because I know my colleague from New York wants 
to speak.
  This is why we have to get rid of the political action committees. I 
did not always feel that way. I would not be here if it had not been 
for the role they played. I would prefer a system of individual 
contributors. I would prefer that only the people I represent in 
Minnesota actually contribute to my campaign, through private 
contributions. I think that would be terrific. In Minnesota, we have a 
record of going door to door as Republicans and raising a lot more 
money than the Democrats. So gradually the Democratic Party has made it 
more and more difficult for parties to make contributions to political 
campaigns.
  I also happen to think that if more of the contributions were going 
to the parties, then parties would be a lot stronger. When you cut the 
role the party plays down to almost nothing in a campaign, I hold no 
allegiance to my party. I stand up here as an entrepreneur in health 
care, or whatever it is. I owe no allegiance because they do not have 
enough influence to make a difference. I stand here as a Republican. I 
am elected as a Republican, but we have so tied the hands of political 
parties that we are now facilitating the transfer of power within those 
parties to the extremes.
  I think if there were more power in being a Republican or more power 
in being a Democrat, there would be more Democrats and more 
Republicans, not just left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans. 
There would be more people, because they would carry their commitment, 
their dollars, and their time to a candidate through a political party, 
to a candidate that would be more responsive. That is a hard sell 
today, because most Americans do not feel represented by either party. 
So the idea that we ought to be giving them more authority is difficult 
to swallow.
  I agree that the money chase is the problem. I have no question about 
the fact that the perception among Americans is that money influences 
this process. For that reason, I have felt so strongly that the 
elimination of PAC contributions is the only way to begin the process 
of genuine election law reform.
  The Democratic proposal would not eliminate PAC contributions. It 
reduces them from $10,000 a cycle to $6,000 a cycle. As I said earlier, 
that only increases the money chase. It does not decrease it.
  So, Mr. President, let there be no mistake about where this bill died 
and how it died. It died because the Democrat leadership, particularly 
in the House, did not know how to disconnect their political lifeblood 
from the special interests and political action committees. It did not 
die because the Republicans were unhappy, although they were. They did 
not like this bill, and they did not like any of us who supported it. 
But they did not kill this bill.
  There could have been campaign finance reform. There could have been 
the kind that was bipartisan that came out of this body. But it was 
rejected by the Democratic leadership, not by the votes on the floor of 
the Senate today.
  The thing that the House Democrats are most resisting is precisely 
the thing we must do. We need to put an end to PAC's. If that is not 
constitutionally viable, we need to reduce PAC's to a level no better 
than that of any ordinary constituent.
  Obviously, my attitude on PAC's has changed over the last 5 years. I 
have come to conclude that we need to bring an end to PAC's in order to 
save this institution.
  Senator Mitchell said the other day, in announcing the end of the 
health care reform debate, that one of the obstacles to reform was the 
lack of trust of the American people in their Government in general and 
the Congress in particular. He is correct. The American people do not 
trust us in Congress to act in their best interests. That lack of trust 
arises from many sources.
  But one of the major sources of that lack of trust is the stream of 
demagoguery that comes from this Chamber, from much of the media and 
from all kinds of self appointed and self interested groups who presume 
to speak with a moral monopoly.
  We cannot take away their right to speak, no matter how false their 
words.
  We cannot take away their hard evidence, because they have none.
  So we must take away their flimsy evidence. We need to take away the 
special interest money.
  When we get a PAC check it often carries the name and even the cause 
of the special interest right on the check. It is the committee to stop 
this or the committee to support that. I know that those checks to do 
not buy the results they seek. But they are sent to those whose 
judgment on a particular issue at certain times coincides with theirs. 
That is the poison in the well of politics. And as long as we accept 
the checks we leave ourselves open to the allegation. To end the 
allegation and the damage that it does, we need to stop the checks.
  A PAC ban will not solve the problem completely. Those who are 
unwilling to accept the unpopularity of their policy preferences will 
find another scapegoat for their failure. I have no doubt that they 
have the ingenuity to do so.
  And when they do, the Congress will have to deal with that.
  But today we have PAC contributions. They are not destructive because 
they buy votes--they do not. They are destructive because they allow 
the rhetoric of the demagogues to come between this body and the people 
we represent.
  I do not have much confidence that we will succeed this year. But 
before I leave I want the record to reflect why I think it is vitally 
important that we succeed eventually and that we do it right.
  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
3 minutes on the Metzenbaum amendment to the D.C. appropriations bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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