[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 4 (Monday, January 9, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E68-E70]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

                                 ______


                            HON. TIM JOHNSON

                            of south dakota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, January 9, 1995

  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. Speaker, Fred Wertheimer, president 
of Common Cause, recently wrote House Speaker Gingrich a letter in 
which he urged the Speaker to schedule and support early action on 
comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation, as well as strong 
gift ban and lobby reform legislation.
  Attached to Mr. Wertheimer's letter were several statements that 
Speaker Gingrich has made in the last several years on this important 
subject, and I am submitting the text of the two documents into the 
Congressional Record today.


                                                 Common Cause,

                                  Washington, DC, January 4, 1995.
     House Speaker Newt Gingrich,
     U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC.
       Dear Speaker Gingrich: On August 22, 1990, in a speech to 
     The Heritage Foundation, you said: ``The first duty of our 
     generation is to reestablish integrity and a bond of honesty 
     in the political process. We should punish wrongdoers in 
     politics and government and pass reform laws to clean up the 
     election and lobbying systems. We must insure that citizen 
     politics defeats money politics. This is the only way our 
     system can regain its integrity. Every action should be 
     measured against that goal, and every American should be 
     challenged to register and vote to achieve that goal.''
       We agree.
       As you become Speaker of the House of Representatives 
     today, you have a unique moment in history in which to make 
     good on your words. You have a unique opportunity to lead an 
     effort to reform the corrupt system in Congress which you 
     have criticized throughout your House career.
       As you also stated in your speech before The Heritage 
     Foundation: ``Congress is a broken system. It is increasingly 
     a system of corruption in which money politics is defeating 
     and driving out citizen politics. * * * [H]onesty and 
     integrity are at the heart of a free society. Corruption, 
     special favors, dishonesty and deception corrode the very 
     process of freedom and alienate citizens from their 
     country.''
       I am enclosing other examples of statements you have made 
     over the years about the importance of integrity in 
     government and the need for political reform.
       You and the newly elected Republicans in the House have 
     told the country that you are committed to changing the way 
     Washington works.
       But citizens throughout this nation clearly understand that 
     there is no way to change the way Washington works without 
     fundamental reform of the corrupt influence money system. 
     This requires effective campaign finance reform and a tough 
     gift ban for Members of Congress.
       In your words, ``The first duty of our generation is to 
     reestablish integrity and a bond of honesty in the political 
     process.''
       In your words, ``We should punish wrongdoers in politics 
     and government and pass reform laws to clean up the election 
     and lobbying systems.''
       In your words, ``We must insure that citizen politics 
     defeats money politics. This is the only way our system can 
     regain its integrity.''
       In your new position of leadership, you now face a clear 
     choice. You can make good on your words and lead the effort 
     to clean up Congress. Or you can ignore your words and become 
     the chief protector of the corrupt influence money system in 
     Washington.
       Common Cause strongly urges you to make good on your words 
     by supporting and scheduling early action on effective and 
     comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation, a strong 
     gift ban and lobby reform legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Fred Wertheimer,
     President
                                                                    ____


  Quotes From House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Government Integrity and 
                            Political Reform

            [From the Washington Post Op-Ed, Feb. 21, 1979]

       Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams sometime after the 
     nation's founding: ``This I hope will be the age of 
     experiments in government, and that their basis will be 
     founded on principles of honesty, not of mere force. We have 
     seen no instance of this since the days of the Roman 
     Republic, nor do we read of any before that. Either force or 
     corruption has been the principle of every modern 
     government.''
       There's something wrong if we allow the experiment 
     Jefferson helped start sink back to a government based on 
     corruption. And that something is a much greater wrong than 
     the individual sins of one particular congressman.
       The American people deserves laws made by those who respect 
     the law--not those who steal from them. And not those who 
     tolerate such stealing.

             [From the Congressional Record, Aug. 10, 1988]

       [W]e are now moving into a period into which for all 
     practical purposes the House is becoming a House of Lords, 
     and aristocracy of power. House Members increasingly are 
     elected for a lifetime, so you either change them the first 
     time out, or at most possibly change them at the end of their 
     freshman term, but for all practical purposes people have 
     lost the ability to change who they now have loaned power to. 
     * * *
       Now I would just suggest that from the standpoint of the 
     citizen, not the standpoint of an incumbent politician but 
     from the standpoint of the citizens there are fundamental 
     problems with a system in which the incumbent knows that the 
     odds are better than 49 to 1 that they will be reelected if 
     they run. * * *
       I will be proposing in September a package of fairly 
     dramatic reforms but they do not just address PACs They also 
     have to address the question: How do you help the challenger 
     have a fair chance to defeat the incumbent? * * *
       [W]e have to start fundamentally reforming the structure of 
     congressional elections and the structure of incumbency 
     advantage, because in the absence of doing that I think we 
     are in a system which is going to grow steadily sicker, and I 
     think that is a very, very real problem. I do not think this 
     is something to be shrugged off.
       And notice, I did not this afternoon just talk about 
     Republicans or Democrats. I said incumbent advantage.

              [Forward to ``The Imperial Congress'', 1989]

       Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton tried to ensure against the 
     rise of an imperial Congress. Yet, as the separation of 
     powers continues to erode, the present-day Congress has 
     become the most unrepresentative and corrupt of the modern 
     era. It is a Congress that lusts for power but evades 
     responsibility for its actions.

             [From the National Press Club, Apr. 27, 1989]

       And in 1974, in the middle of Watergate, I ran for office 
     for the first time. I announced for Congress in Georgia, 
     against a 20-year veteran who had never been successfully 
     challenged. * * * I said, in my kickoff speech, ``The 
     American people are angry, an anger built up due to 
     continuing frustration from a government which says one thing 
     and does another; and they become increasingly dissatisfied 
     when the men and they have chosen are apparently corrupt, 
     condoning corruption, or totally indifferent to their 
     feelings.'' And I would suggest to you that is a long 
     tradition. * * *

           [From the Christian Science Monitor, June 6, 1989]

       [To produce more competitive congressional races] it's my 
     very strong view that we want to shift the balance of 
     resources toward the challenger.

              [From the Congressional Record Feb. 6, 1990]

       I am very committed to campaign reform. I am particularly 
     committed to campaign reform which expands the number of 
     people who are participating in American politics, and which 
     allows the over and the challenger a reasonable chances to 
     effect their will.

      [From the Speech to the Heritage Foundation, Aug. 22, 1990]

       Congress is a broke system. It is increasingly a system of 
     corruption in which money politics is defeating and driving 
     out citizen politics. * * *
       [H]onesty and integrity are at the heart of a free society. 
     Corruption, special favors, dishonesty and deception corrode 
     the very process of freedom and alienate citizens from their 
     country. * * *
       We must reestablish as the first principle of self-
     government that politics must be an inherently moral 
     business. The first duty of our generation is to reestablish 
     integrity and a bond of honesty in the political process. We 
     should punish wrongdoers in politics and government and pass 
     reform laws to clean up the election and lobbying systems. We 
     must insure that citizen politics defeats money politics. 
     This is the only way our system can regain its integrity. 
     Every action should be measured against that goal, and every 
     American should be challenged to register and vote to achieve 
     that goal.
     [[Page E69]]
     
              [From the States News Service, Nov. 1, 1991]

       Congress is now in as great a crisis as the executive 
     branch was in Watergate.
       The American public has correctly perceived a decaying, 
     corrupt system dominated by Democrats. * * * We are prepared 
     to draw the distinction between a Congress you can be proud 
     of and the decay the Democrats have brought to the 
     institution.

          [From This Week With David Brinkley, Mar. 15, 1992]

       [Y]ou're familiar with a 19th-century statement by Lord 
     Acton that power tends to corrupt--absolute power corrupts 
     absolutely. [Congress] is a 19th-century institution which 
     has been protected and hidden from the public and each 
     successive onion layer that's peeled off, the country gets 
     madder at the Congress. It sooner or later has to have a 
     reform administration that cleans the whole place up.

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 18, 1992]

       Those of us who are fighting for change and fighting for 
     reform are going to survive, and we're going to have to work 
     pretty hard at it. * * *
       I have a very clear tradition of trying to clean up the 
     House. I think the average voter's more mature after they get 
     through the first wave of anger than to say let's throw 
     everybody out.

               [From States News Service, Oct. 19, 1993]

       [The ability of millionaires to spend large amounts of 
     personal funds on their campaigns has become] a dagger in the 
     heart of a free society.

               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 20, 1993]

       [PACs are a] grotesque distortion of the popular will.

              [From National Public Radio, Oct. 20, 1993]

       What you have today is a system where very powerful 
     chairmen and very powerful Members basically call PAC 
     lobbyists and say, ``If you every want to get your boss in to 
     see me, you better give five grand to my candidate in 
     District X.'' And you end up with a spectacle of a grotesque 
     distortion of the popular will as the Washington lobbyists 
     take back-home money and use it to buy Washington access.

           [Letter to the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 1993]

       [L]et me simply state my policies: I believe the speaker of 
     the House should be honest. * * * The House should be open 
     and accountable. It is a place of honor for our country and 
     the men and women who serve within it.

             [From the Dallas Morning News, Nov. 10. 1994]

       I am the most sincerely committed change agent of the 
     Washington power structure. * * * In a naive way, I actually 
     mean all this stuff. If you are the Washington power 
     structure that has to be horrifying.

    [From the Republican Transition Press Conference, Nov. 14, 1994]

       We wanted to maximize the opportunity for substantial 
     change. Over half the conference is freshmen and sophomores. 
     It's very important to understand this country has sent a 
     very powerful signal for change. * * * This is a city which 
     is like a sponge. It absorbs waves of change, and it slows 
     them down, and it softens them, and then one morning they 
     cease to exist.
       We want to, every way we can, bias the opportunity in favor 
     of the American people actually getting the changes they are 
     asking for, and obviously, every Member is going to play a 
     major role, every Member is going to participate.

       [Address to the House Republican Conference, Dec. 5, 1994]

       [People] want us to be a Congress with integrity. They want 
     us to be a Congress with courage. They want us to be a 
     Congress with dignity. And they wan to be able to look at 
     this building on the Hill once again as the great, shining 
     symbol of free self-government by a free people.

           [From the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Dec. 16, 1994]

       Well, I hope the President will join us, for example, in 
     moving to zero out political action committees. I've always 
     favored--in recent years, it seems to me, that political 
     action committees have grown to be instruments that no longer 
     serve the public interest. They serve special interests. I am 
     very prepared to try to work out something which would zero 
     out political action committees. I think there are other 
     steps we can take. Congressman Bob Michel had a tremendous 
     idea of requiring members to raise half their money in the 
     district they represent. That would dramatically change the 
     balance of campaign fund-raising in America. I would look 
     forward to working with the President on those kinds of 
     things. And I think there's progress that can be made.
  

[[Page E70]]

                       SENATE COMMITTEE MEETINGS

  Title IV of Senate Resolution 4, agreed to by the Senate on February 
4, 1977, calls for establishment of a system for a computerized 
schedule of all meetings and hearings of Senate committees, 
subcommittees, joint committees, and committees of conference. This 
title requires all such committees to notify the Office of the Senate 
Daily Digest--designated by the Rules Committee--of the time, place, 
and purpose of the meetings, when scheduled, and any cancellations or 
changes in the meetings as they occur.
  As an additional procedure along with the computerization of this 
information, the Office of the Senate Daily Digest will prepare this 
information for printing in the Extensions of Remarks section of the 
Congressional Record on Monday and Wednesday of each week.
  Meetings scheduled for Tuesday, January 10, 1995, may be found in the 
Daily Digest of today's Record.

                           MEETINGS SCHEDULED

                               JANUARY 11
     9:00 a.m.
       Labor and Human Resources
         To continue hearings to examine Federal job training 
           programs.
                                                            SD-430
     9:30 a.m.
       Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Organizational meeting 
           to consider committee business.
                                                            SD-538
       Energy and Natural Resources
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                            SD-366
     10:00 a.m.
       Appropriations
         Organizational meeting to consider subcommittee 
           membership, committee rules of procedure, and committee 
           budget for the 104th Congress.
                                                    S-128, Capitol
       Foreign Relations
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                            SD-419
     2:30 p.m.
       Indian Affairs
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                            SR-485
     4:00 p.m.
       Small Business
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                           SR-428A

                               JANUARY 12
     9:00 a.m.
       Labor and Human Resources
         To continue hearings to examine Federal job training 
           programs.
                                                            SD-430
     9:30 a.m.
       Armed Services
         Closed briefing on the current situation in Bosnia.
                                                            SR-222
       Commerce, Science, and Transportation
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                            SR-253
       Rules and Administration
         Organizational meeting to consider committee's rules of 
           procedure for the 104th Congress and pending business.
                                                            SR-301
     10:00 a.m.
       Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
         Organizational meeting to consider committee business.
                                                            SR-332
     10:30 a.m.
       Environment and Public Works
         Organizational meeting to consider committee rules of 
           procedure and committee budget for the 104th Congress.
                                                            SD-406
     2:00 p.m.
       Commerce, Science, and Transportation
         To hold oversight hearings to examine aviation safety 
           issues.
                                                            SR-253

                             CANCELLATIONS

                               JANUARY 11
     10:00 a.m.
       Governmental Affairs
         Business meeting, to mark up the proposed Paperwork 
           Reduction Act.
                                                            SD-342

                             POSTPONEMENTS

                               JANUARY 19
     9:30 a.m.
       Indian Affairs
         To hold oversight hearings to review structure and 
           funding issues of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
                                                            SR-485