[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 113 (Thursday, July 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9938-S9942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      JOYCE FOUNDATION PRESIDENT SPEECH TO LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, a longtime friend of mine, Lawrence 
Hansen, vice president of the Joyce Foundation, sent me a copy of a 
speech made by Deborah Leff, the president of the Joyce Foundation, on 
the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the League of Women Voters of 
the State of Illinois.
  The subject of her address is campaign financing.
  It contains material that would be startling to most citizens though, 
unfortunately, not startling to those of us who serve in the Senate.
  While the bulk of her remarks are about campaign financing, I want to 
quote one item that is not. She says:
       I am saddened by the media's increasing tendency to 
     exploit, entertain and titillate, leaving us less informed 
     about public affairs and more cynical about politics.

  She announces that the Joyce Foundation will make a 3-year, $2.3 
million special study on money and politics.
  While the emphasis of her project will be the State of Illinois, 
clearly she draws lessons from what has happened at the national level, 
and we should draw lessons beyond the State of Illinois.
  For example, she says:

       In 1976, the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. 
     House of Representatives was less than $80,000. Last year, it 
     leveled off at $525,000. Between 1990 and 1992 alone, the 
     cost of winning a House seat jumped by 33 percent. In fact, 
     45 House candidates in 1994 spent over $1 million each.

  On PACs, Ms. Leff says:

       To understand the competitive effects of the current 
     campaign finance system, consider the giving habits of 
     political action committees--PACs. Last year, PACs 
     distributed close to $142 million to House candidates, three-
     quarters of which went to incumbents. To appreciate the 
     enormity of this bias, it's worth noting that the winning 
     candidates last year raised more money from PACs than their 
     challengers generated from all sources, including from PACs, 
     individual contributors, their own donations and loans.

  She is concerned, as we should be concerned, the present system of 
financing campaign makes our political institutions unrepresentative. 
She observes:

       The skewed distribution of political money is not just a 
     problem for challengers. There's another--and some would 
     argue more pernicious--side to this imbalance. The campaign 
     finance system favors wealthy candidates over poor 
     candidates, male candidates over female candidates, and white 
     candidates over African-American and Latino candidates. And 
     this bias continues to be reflected in the composition of 
     many legislative bodies.
       Although less than one-half of one percent of the American 
     people are millionaires, there are today at least 72 
     millionaires in the U.S. House of Representatives and 29 in 
     the U.S. Senate. (And these figures don't include Michael 
     Huffington, who spent $5 million of his own money to win a 
     House seat in 1992 and an additional $28 million last year in 
     his failed bid to become a Senator.) There is something 
     terribly wrong when millionaires are over-represented in the 
     ``People's House'' by a factor of 3,000 percent and in the 
     Senate by a factor of more than 5,000 percent.

  The president of the Joyce Foundation also notes something every one 
of us knows to be the fact:

       Candidates' increased reliance on television ads has led to 
     less informative and more mean-spirited campaigns. We are 
     told that attack ads work; they must, because why else would 
     candidates invest so much money in this stuff? But who really 
     benefits and at what cost to the political system? The public 
     is fed slivers of information, often deceptively presented. 
     Real issues are not discussed. The most obvious victim, of 
     course, is a political tradition that once prided itself in 
     allowing serious candidates to debate serious issues in a 
     serious way.

  Then, she says something that I do not know to be a fact, but, as far 
as I know, it is accurate. She tells her audience:

       The United States is the only major democracy that neither 
     restricts the amount of money candidates can spend on 
     broadcast advertising nor regulates their access to and use 
     of this powerful medium. As a result, the quality of the 
     nation's political discourse has declined sharply. And so, 
     too, has the public's confidence in the veracity and judgment 
     of our leaders.

  A minor correction I would make to her speech is that she refers to 
$100 million being spent to defeat health care. Newsweek magazine uses 
the figure $400 million, and I believe that Newsweek magazine is 
correct.
  She also notes:

       In 1992, half of all the money raised by congressional 
     candidates--$335 million--was provided by one-third of 1 
     percent of the American people.

  Deborah Leff has a number of illustrations of the abuses. They 
include references to my friend, the former speaker of the Illinois 
House, Michael Madigan, and the current speaker of the Illinois House, 
Lee Daniels. What Michael Madigan and Lee Daniels are doing is using 
the present system. I do not fault them for that. But what Ms. Leff is 
saying is that the system should be changed, and I agree with her.
  She does not call for any specific program of change.
  My own belief is that at the Federal level, we have to have dramatic 
change, and it will not come about without the President of the United 
States really pushing for change. The system I would like to have is a 
check-off contribution of $3 or $5 on our income tax that would go to 
major candidates for the Senate and the House, and no other money could 
be spent. Then, in a State like Illinois, instead of spending $8 
million or $10 million on a campaign, the candidates could spend $2 
million, and have some required free time made available by radio and 
televisions, not for 30-second spots, but for statements of up to five 
minutes by the candidates in which there is a serious discussion of the 
issues.
  I ask that the full Deborah Leff speech be printed in the Record, and 
I urge my colleagues of both parties and their staffs to read the 
Deborah Leff speech.
  The material follows:
  Speech of Deborah Leff, President, the Joyce Foundation at the 75th 
Anniversary Convention of the League of Women Voters of Illinois--June 
                                2, 1995


                              introduction

       I am delighted to be here this evening and to play a small 
     role in celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of 
     the League of Women Voters. No organization in this century 
     has contributed more to expanding informed citizen 
     participation in the political process and can legitimately 
     claim more victories for democracy than the league. Yours is 
     a proud legacy, and I salute you.
       Through the years the Joyce Foundation has frequently 
     partnered with the league. We have labored together to 
     simplify the Nation's voter registration laws--and despite 
     some unseemly footdragging here in the land of Lincoln and 
     several other States, we have made real progress. I read in 
     the newspaper a few weeks ago that in the few months since 
     the Motor Voter Act was put into effect early this year, two 
     million new voters have been registered. Two million. It's a 
     wonderful number. And you should be very proud.
       Joyce also stood with the league in its efforts to 
     institutionalize presidential debates, and happily that has 
     occurred.
       Two years ago, we supported the ``wired for democracy'' 
     project. This collaborative effort, involving the national 
     league and a number of State and local chapters, has been 
     exploring ways of making greater use of communication 
     technologies to meet the informational needs of citizens.
       And last year we joined forces with you in an ambitious 
     experiment to make the Illinois gubernatorial race more 
     issue-oriented. The goal was to enable the people of Illinois 
     to identify their major policy concerns, frame an issues 
     agenda, and engage the candidates for Governor in a 
     conversation about their visions and plans for the State's 
     future. That the candidates took less notice of these 
     citizens' messages than they should have only confirms how 
     desperately we need new and inventive ways for reconnecting 
     people and their elected representatives. The ``Illinois 
     voter project'' was a valiant and useful attempt to bridge 
     that gulf, and Joyce was glad to play a part.


                         a crisis of confidence

       Will Rogers once wrote, ``I don't make jokes, I just watch 
     the government and report the facts.'' And although we have 
     much to celebrate tonight, there are a lot of facts to 
     report. And, unfortunately, they're not funny. A terrible 
     malaise has settled over our democracy. The fact is millions 
     of our fellow citizens are fed up with politics. They feel 
     left out, disconnected, unheard, unappreciated and powerless. 
     And in frustration and anger, they are abandoning the system 
     in droves. The signs of discontent are myriad. I'll mention 
     only a few:
       Three our of four Americans today say they ``trust 
     government in Washington'' only ``some of the time'' or 
     ``almost never.'' In the mid-1960s, only 30 percent--rather 
     than 75 percent--of Americans felt that way. (Roper 
     Organization) 

[[Page S 9939]]

       Nearly 60 percent of us believe that ``the people running 
     the country don't really care what happens to us.'' (Louis 
     Harris)
       Public approval of Congress almost reached rock bottom in 
     1994.
       The Roper organization reports that millions of citizens 
     have withdrawn from community affairs over the last 20 years. 
     In 1973 one in four American adults said they attended a 
     public meeting on community or school business during the 
     year. Two years ago, only 13 percent of us claimed we had 
     attended such forums.
       And from a relatively high point in the early 1960s, voter 
     turnout in national elections has declined by nearly a 
     quarter. In State and local elections, the trends are even
      worse. Only 37 percent of Chicago's voters bothered to 
     participate in February's mayoral and aldermanic primary 
     election; and just over 40 percent went to the polls in 
     April's general election, marketing the lowest turnout in 
     a city election in more than a half century.
       I wish I could report that these discontents were traceable 
     to a single cause, to some easily identified and manageable 
     condition. But clearly, as everybody in this room recognizes, 
     that is not the case.
       We know, for example, that economic anxieties are taking a 
     toll on our civic life. Millions of Americans have grown 
     pessimistic about getting ahead in a rapidly changing 
     economy. Many are struggling just to stay even, and they 
     blame government for their plight.
       We know that the breakdown of traditional institutions, 
     like families and schools, and an accompanying rise in social 
     pathologies have deepened the public's despair about the 
     political system.
       We know that civic education is in a deplorable state and 
     that the ranks of those voluntary organizations that have 
     traditionally and energetically labored over the years to 
     fill this vacuum are today greatly depleted.
       As some of you know, I worked for the news media for years. 
     I respect the news media, and I often admire it. But I am 
     saddened by the media's increasing tendency to exploit, 
     entertain and titillate, leaving us less informed about 
     public affairs and more cynical about politics.
       We know that technology, television, and talk radio can 
     reinforce our isolation and exacerbate social divisions 
     rather than fostering the cooperative, tolerant, and generous 
     spirit which a democracy requires.
       And then there's the issue of money in politics--an old and 
     spirited demon with which both the league and the Joyce 
     Foundation have done battle off and on over the years. As 
     Senator Bill Bradley recently noted,
       ``Make no mistake, money talks in American politics today 
     as never before. No revival of our democratic culture can 
     occur until citizens feel that their participation is more 
     meaningful than the money lavished by pacs and big donors.''
       The fundamental problem, Bradley says, is that ``the rich 
     have a loudspeaker and everyone else gets by with a 
     megaphone.'' And, of course, he's absolutely right. The Joyce 
     Foundation believes that overhauling the campaign finance 
     system is as urgent a piece of unfinished business on the 
     Nation's crowded policy agenda as any other.
       You know, Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, ``I think if the 
     people of this country can be reached with the truth, their 
     judgment will be in favor of the many, instead of the 
     privileged few.'' We want a Government for the many, a 
     Government where the concerns of the citizenry are respected 
     and addressed. And for that reason, the Joyce Foundation 
     decided last year to launch a 3-year, $2.3 million special 
     project on money and politics.
       Campaign finance reform is not a sexy issue. It doesn't get 
     enough attention from the media, and it doesn't get enough 
     attention from foundations. But I want, in my remaining time 
     with you, to talk about why this problem is so critical to 
     the future of America, and why it must be taken on.


                              the problem

       As you know, the financing of political campaigns is 
     governed by a patchwork of laws and regulations. Federal 
     candidates operate under one set of rules; State and local 
     candidates under others. The variations among jurisdictions 
     are endless, but these systems have one thing in common: they 
     don't work very well. Let me briefly discuss their most 
     obvious deficiences, leaving to last what I regard as the 
     most compelling argument for reform.
  Problem 1: The current system has allowed campaign costs to rise to 
                           prohibitive levels

       The cost of running for public office has skyrocketed over 
     the past 20 years, especially at the Federal and State 
     levels. Few campaign finance laws make any effort to restrain 
     spending.
       In 1976, the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. 
     House of Representatives was less than $80,000. Last year, it 
     leveled off at $525,000. Between 1990 and 1992 alone, the 
     cost of winning a House seat jumped by 33 percent. In fact, 
     45 House candidates in 1994 spent over $1 million each.
       The same pattern can be seen here in Illinois. Five State 
     Senate candidates spent more than $500,000 each in their 1992 
     campaigns. The 20 most expensive Senate races that year cost 
     over $5 million.
       These trends have had three effects. First, they have 
     rendered public service unaffordable for a growing number of 
     qualified citizens of ordinary means.
       Second, the escalating costs of campaigns are making it 
     easier for wealthy and well-connected citizens to win public 
     office.
       And third, those willing to pay the price of admission find 
     themselves spending more time begging than meeting voters, 
     doing their policy homework, and governing.

Problem 2: Under the current campaign finance system, money, more than 
       any other factor, determines who wins and loses elections

       As a general rule, candidates who raise and spend the most 
     almost always win. Cash--not the qualifications, character 
     and policy views of candidates--has increasingly become the 
     currency of democracy.
       In last year's election, House incumbents on average 
     outspent their opponents by nearly 3-to-1 ($572,388 vs. 
     $206,663), and despite the public's anger with Congress and a 
     higher than usual turnover in the House, 90 percent of the 
     incumbents survived. In fact, 72 percent of House incumbents 
     running in last fall's election outraised their challengers 
     by $200,000 or more, and 23 percent outdistanced their 
     opponents by at least $500,000. If a challenger did not spend 
     at least $250,000--and fewer than one-third of last year's 
     challengers reached that threshold, his or her chances of 
     winning were only one in a hundred.

Problem 3: The current campaign finance system has made elections less 
                              competitive

       The current rules tilt so heavily in favor of incumbent 
     officeholders that most challengers cannot hope to win. As a 
     result, large numbers of elections that should be competitive 
     rarely are.
       In 1994, less than one in three congressional races were 
     financially competitive. In fact, four out of five House 
     incumbents faced challengers with so little money--typically 
     less than 50 percent of the amount available to the 
     incumbent--that they did not pose a serious threat.
       To understand the competitive effects of the current 
     campaign finance system, consider the giving habits of 
     political action committees--PAC's. Last year, PAC's 
     distributed close to $142 million to House candidates, three-
     quarters of which went to incumbents. To appreciate the 
     enormity of this bias, it's worth noting that the winning 
     candidates last year raised more money from PAC's than their 
     challengers generated from all sources, including from PAC's, 
     individual contributors, their own donations and loans.
       The real losers, of course, are voters. As elections become 
     less competitive and as the range of candidate and policy 
     decisions voters must make narrows, there is less and less 
     reason to go to the polls. Under the circumstances people 
     cannot be entirely blamed for staying away.
 Problem 4: Because of the campaign finance system's inherent biases, 
        many of our representative institutions remain terribly 
                           unrepresentative.

       The skewed distribution of political money is not just a 
     problem for challengers. There's another--and some would 
     argue more pernicious--side to this imbalance. The campaign 
     finance system favors wealthy candidates over poor 
     candidates, male candidates over female candidates, and white 
     candidates over African-American and Latino candidates. And 
     this bias continues to be reflected in the composition of 
     many legislative bodies.
       Although less than one-half of one percent of the American 
     people are millionaires, there are today at least 72 
     millionaires in the U.S. House of Representatives and 29 in 
     the U.S. Senate. (And these figures don't include Michael 
     Huffington, who spent $5 million of his own money to win a 
     House seat in 1992 and an additional $28 million last year in 
     his failed bid to become a Senator.) There is something 
     terribly wrong when millionaires are over-represented in the 
     ``people's house'' by a factor of 3,000 percent and in the 
     Senate by a factor of more than 5,000 percent.
       When 64 House and Senate candidates can reach into their 
     own pockets and give their campaigns a $100,000 shot in the 
     arm, as occurred last year, it takes your breath away. Twelve 
     of these candidates, let me add, invested more than $1 
     million each in their campaigns.
       These financial disparities are not limited to just rich 
     and poor candidates. In 1991, white candidates for the 
     Chicago city council raised five times more money than 
     African-American candidates and one and a half times more 
     than Latino condidates. If African-Americans had to run 
     regularly against white or Latino candidates in racially and 
     ethnically mixed wards, they would likely operate at a severe 
     financial disadvantage. And given the importance of money, 
     their chances of being elected from such wards would at best 
     be problematic.
       As I am sure you know, never in the long history of this 
     city has an African-American represented a predominantly 
     white ward. And were it not for the voting rights act which 
     has helped to mitigate the financial disadvantages 
     experienced by minority candidates, the city council would 
     almost certainly be less representative of Chicago's 
     diversity than it is today.

Problem 5: The current campaign finance system has made legislators and 
 candidates too financially dependent on a small number of legislative 
                                leaders.

       The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of political 
     action committees established and controlled by Federal and 
     State legislative leaders. These entities, which attract 
     enormous amounts of special interest money, provide an 
     alternative way of getting 

[[Page S 9940]]
     money to favored candidates. However, these conduits--which are 
     perfectly legal--also allow leaders to solidify their 
     positions within their party caucuses, exercise greater 
     control over members and increase their influence over a 
     range of legislative matters.
       This trend has not only accelerated the decline of 
     political parties but has led to an unhealthy financial 
     dependence by many rank and file legislators on their leaders 
     and, according to some experts, to a dimunition of their 
     independence. There was a time, of course, when leaders 
     earned the loyalty of their followers; today, loyalty is 
     increasingly a purchasable commodity. That is not a good 
     development.
       In 1994, Federal leadership PACS distributed more than $3.6 
     million to congressional candidates. But what has occurred in 
     Illinois makes the growth and reach of Federal leadership 
     PACS look trivial in comparison. Last year, Michael Madigan, 
     then the speaker of the Illinois house, controlled a $5.3 
     million war chest, and his Republican counterpart, Lee 
     Daniels, the current speaker, had $2.5 million at his 
     disposal. Much of this nearly $8 million was directed to 
     candidates in
      23 pivotal legislative races in which the candidates on 
     their own had already raised $4.5 million
       Although I have not seen a detailed analysis of how these 
     leadership funds were distributed last year, I can tell you 
     what occurred in 1992. The Democratic House candidates 
     running in 21 targeted races that year received on average 
     $81,000 from the Madigan fund. Of all the money spent by 
     those candidates, nearly 60 percent came from this single 
     source. It is not hard to believe that those Democrats who 
     won feel a special debt of gratitude for the speakers 
     generosity.

   Problem 6: The current campaign finance system has coarsened the 
                   political dialogue in this country

       Costly broadcast advertising has driven up campaign costs. 
     But that is not the only problem. Candidates' increased 
     reliance on television ads has led to less informative and 
     more mean-spirited campaigns. We are told that attack ads 
     work; they must, because why else would candidates invest so 
     much money in this stuff? But who really benefits and at what 
     cost to the political system? The public is fed slivers of 
     information, often deceptively presented. Real issues are not 
     discussed. The most obvious victim, of course, is a political 
     tradition that once prided itself in allowing serious 
     candidates to debate serious issues in a serious way.
       The United States is the only major democracy that neither 
     restricts the amount of money candidates can spend on 
     broadcast advertising nor regulates their access to and use 
     of this powerful medium. As a result, the quality of the 
     Nation's political discourse has declined sharply. And so, 
     too, has the public's confidence in the veracity and judgment 
     of our leaders.

  Problem 7: The campaign finance system has driven people out of the 
   electoral process and reduced their role to voting on election day

       The last 30 years have witnessed what can only be described 
     as a hostile take-over of the election process by highly paid 
     and often unaccountable professional operatives. The campaign 
     finance system has spawned an industry of pollsters, ad 
     producers, time-buyers, professional fundraisers, direct-mail 
     specialists and spin-doctors. Their exorbitant demands on 
     campaign resources require that ever increasing amounts of 
     money be raised. It is a trend that leaves little room in 
     campaigns for the citizen-volunteers who were once the 
     backbone of most campaigns. The ascendancy of political 
     consultants has robbed our politics of the fun, hoopla, and 
     sadly, much of the substance once commonly associated with 
     campaigns.

   Problem 8: The campaign finance system all too often elevates or 
     appears to elevate private interests over the public interest

       Of all the system's shortcomings, this by far is the most 
     serious. When citizens on a large scale harbor suspicions 
     about the fairness and integrity of policymaking and 
     regulatory processes, as is clearly the case today, it casts 
     doubts on the legitimacy of the political system itself.


                               vignettes

       Hardly a week passes without some news report about how 
     special interest money is being used to skew policy 
     priorities, shape legislation and influence regulatory 
     decisions. Elected officials may find the suggestion 
     offensive, but a growing number of Americans are convinced 
     that those who pay the piper also call the tune. Let me give 
     you some examples.
       Tort Reform. When Illinois State legislators on one side of 
     the tort reform debate accept nearly $2 million in campaign 
     contributions as well as business contracts from the Illinois 
     State Medical Society, and lawmakers on the other side accept 
     nearly half a million dollars from the Illinois Trial Lawyers 
     Association and tens of thousands of dollars from individual 
     members, what are we to think? Would it be unfair
      to conclude that the public interest may not have been the 
     paramount consideration in this debate? I don't think so.
       Clean Water. In 1994, 273 PACs associated with industries 
     bent on weakening the Clean Water Act contributed nearly $8 
     million to Members of the U.S. House Representatives. Those 
     serving on the committee with jurisdiction over the bill 
     alone received $1.2 million. So far, the industries' efforts 
     appear to be paying off. Water quality standards have been 
     rolled back. As a foundation committed to cleaning up the 
     Great Lakes, we are all too aware that money talks . . . and 
     it may speak loudly enough to drown out 25 years of progress 
     on environmental issues.
       Pesticides. The environmental working group--one of our 
     foundation's grantees--issued a report late last year showing 
     that sponsors of legislation designed to weaken Federal 
     pesticide laws received $3.1 million in contributions from 44 
     industry-supported PACs. This represented nearly a 100-
     percent increase over donations made during a comparable 
     period two years earlier. What accounted for this sudden 
     spurt of generosity? Industry was reacting to a Federal court 
     decision that threatened to ban dozens of cancer-causing 
     pesticides. In the end the pesticide industry got largely 
     what it wanted. Whether the Americans people won is another 
     matter altogether, money talks.
       Guns. Last year the National Rifle Association poured $3 
     million into the campaigns of Congressional candidates who 
     support that organization's agenda--an agenda, I might add, 
     which is at odds with the majority of the American people. 
     The NRA targeted for defeat four Members who had voted in 
     favor of last year's assault weapons ban. Three, including 
     Speaker Tom Foley, lost.
       More recently Speaker Gingrich appointed a task force to 
     review current Federal laws pertaining to guns, including the 
     Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. All six Members 
     appointed by the speaker are outspoken opponents of gun 
     control, and four received significant NRA financial support 
     during the last election. Will this panel give people who 
     want to quell the epidemic of gun violence a chance to be 
     heard? And if it does, will it listen to what they, and so 
     many others have to say? Or will they be--if you'll excuse 
     the expression--shot down by the influence of money?
       State Contracts. In fiscal year 1992, the State of Illinois 
     contracted with businesses and individuals for $4.6 billion 
     worth of goods and services. A third of those contracts--$1.6 
     billion--were awarded to campaign contributors of statewide 
     candidates. And about $437 million in State business went to 
     contributors on a non-bid basis. According to the Illinois 
     State-Journal, the dollar amount of the non-bid contracts 
     awarded contributors was six times greater than the value of 
     the contracts awarded non-contributors. For the more 
     enterprising among us, I think there's a message here. Money 
     talks.
       Health Care. Despite solemn promises from nearly all 
     quarters, the American people didn't get health care reform 
     last year. In the end, reform was swallowed up in a sea of 
     dollars.
       I doubt we will never know how much money was at play. It 
     is conservatively estimated that in 1993 and 1994 the medical 
     professions, insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies and 
     an assortment of business interests spent $100 million to 
     influence the outcome of the health care debate.
       There are some things, thanks to disclosure, that we do 
     know. For example, we know that during the last election 
     cycle health care-related industries poured at least $25 
     million into the campaign coffers of Members of Congress. 
     One-third of that largesse was directed to Members serving on 
     the five House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over 
     health care issues.
       We know that in 1992 and 1993 at least 85 Members availed 
     themselves of 181 all-expense paid trips sponsored by health 
     care industries--trips designed to help Members learn about 
     health care in out-of-the-way places where distractions
      could be kept to a minimum. Places like Paris, Montego Bay, 
     and Puerto Rico.
       We also know that health care interests hired nearly 100 
     law, public relations and lobbying firms to do their bidding 
     at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue--and that these firms in 
     turn brought 80 or so former high-ranking Federal officials 
     on board, including recently retired Members of Congress, to 
     give their efforts greater authority.
       We know that the health insurance association of America 
     spent millions to produce and air its ``Harry and Louise'' 
     ads--a strategy that almost single-handedly led to a 20-point 
     drop in public approval of the Clinton proposal.
       We know that the tobacco industry spent millions more to 
     scuttle a proposed $2 tax on cigarettes, the revenue from 
     which would have helped finance a new health care system.
       We know that the national federation of independent 
     businesses spent even more to kill a mandatory employer tax 
     designed to help pay for universal health care coverage.
       We are told that all the pushing and shoving by competing 
     interests around health care reform was a textbook 
     demonstration of democracy at work. We may not like the 
     results, we are told, but this is how a democracy functions 
     and should function.
       This is not how a democracy functions. The analysis 
     overlooks one critically important fact. The interests of 
     those with the largest stake in reform--the 39 million 
     Americans without health insurance, the 80 million with pre-
     existing medical conditions, and the 120 million with 
     lifetime limits on their health insurance policies--were 
     grossly underrepresented. Those most in need of help didn't 
     have an army of lobbyists on capitol hill, couldn't afford 
     television ads, and were in no position to contribute 
     millions of dollars to Members of Congress. On every front, 
     they were heavily outgunned.
       When the definitive history of this episode is written, one 
     conclusion will be impossible 

[[Page S 9941]]
     to avoid: in the great debate over health care reform, money didn't 
     just talk, it roared.


                           cash constituents

       Defenders of the current system are quick to point out that 
     suspected overreaching is not proof of official wrongdoing. 
     They are right. But the absence of indictable offenses is a 
     flimsy defense for practices that bring about widespread 
     distrust of the political system.
       In the final analysis, what counts is what people believe, 
     and most people believe they are being shortchanged by a 
     system which puts them into one of two classes: cash 
     constituents or non-cash constituents. Cash constituents have 
     regular access to elected officials; non-cash constituents 
     don't. Cash constituents are willing to pay to play; non-cash 
     constituents can't afford to.
       If you remember no other statistic I cite tonight, let me 
     offer one that's worth storing away for future reference. In 
     1992, half of all the money raised by congressional 
     candidates--$335 million--was provided by one-third of 1 
     percent of the American people.
       Unbelievably, things could get worse. For example, in the 
     name of deficit reduction, Senate Republicans recently tried 
     to scrap the public finance system for presidential 
     candidates--arguably, the most important and durable reform 
     coming out of the Watergate era. The effort was narrowly 
     beaten back.
       Congress has already passed legislation that would 
     significantly reduce the budget of the Federal Election 
     Commission. Unless President Clinton vetoes this bill, the 
     agency's ability to ensure financial disclosure by political 
     candidates and committees will be severely crippled. In an 
     unusually blunt letter to Members of Congress, the
      commission's chairman recently warned that a deep cut could 
     lead ``the public, fairly or not, to suspect that Congress 
     is punishing the agency for doing its job.''
       Now, if these developments were not enough for one season, 
     G. Gordon Liddy, the former Nixon aide and mastermind of the 
     Watergate break-in 23 years ago, has just been honored with 
     the freedom of speech award by the national association of 
     talk show hosts. It's enough to make you question the Bible's 
     assurances about the meek inheriting the earth.


                       the foundation's approach

       In the face of all these problems, what is the Joyce 
     Foundation's strategy? Our goal is to make the issue of 
     campaign finance a more prominent part of the public policy 
     agenda. And we are seeking to do that through projects 
     emphasizing expanded news media coverage, public education, 
     fresh analyses of campaign finance practices and improved 
     disclosure and regulation. Through the work of our grantees, 
     we hope to create incentives that will help persuade 
     lawmakers to face up to and finally meet their 
     responsibilities.
       I should quickly add that the foundation is not promoting 
     any particular reform approach. But we believe that reform, 
     if it is worthy of that name, must at a minimum control the 
     costs of campaigns, increase political competition, encourage 
     voting and restore the public's confidence in the fairness of 
     elections and in the integrity of the policymaking process. 
     Two foundation-supported projects designed to move us in 
     these directions deserve mention tonight.
       The Illinois Project. Twenty years have elapsed since 
     Illinois last overhauled its campaign finance system. It is 
     time to do it again. Here is a system in which the only 
     limits are the sky itself. In Illinois, there are: no limits 
     on the amount of campaign money candidates can raise; no 
     limits on the sources of campaign contributions; no limits on 
     the amount of money candidates can spend; no limits on the 
     size of contributions individual and institutional donors can 
     make; no limits on the vast war chests candidates can 
     accumulate and carry over from one election to the next; no 
     limits on candidates' use of campaign funds for personal and 
     non-campaign related expenses; and no limits on leadership 
     PACs.
       The only restrictions worth noting are those intended to 
     inhibit public access to and understanding of the financial 
     disclosure reports that candidates and committees are 
     required to file periodically with the State board of 
     elections. And, if perchance, you even rummage through these 
     records, you'll quickly discover that it's virtually 
     impossible to figure out, beyond names and addresses, who the 
     State's political high rollers really are. Illinois has the 
     distinction of being one of a handful of States that still 
     does not require candidates to list the occupation of their 
     contributors.
       Illinois' campaign finance system makes the federal system 
     look relatively tame, if not pristine. And that is why the 
     Joyce Foundation is supporting a 2-year, $200,000 examination 
     of this system by the State's leading public affairs 
     magazine, Illinois Issues.
       By this fall, the magazine's project staff will have put 
     the finishing touches on a vast computerized database that 
     will include all contributions of $25 or more made to 
     legislative and statewide candidates since 1990. And as much 
     occupational information about donors as can be independently 
     obtained will also be incorporated into the database.
       This reservoir of information will enable Illinois Issues 
     to begin answering a question that should intrigue us all: 
     Who is giving how much to whom for what purposes and with 
     what effects? Detailed and customized profiles of individual
      candidates, interest groups, regions and districts will be 
     developed. These reports, which will be made available to 
     the States news media, are certain to shed light on the 
     often murky financial behavior of candidates and donors 
     alike. Citizens wishing direct access to the database will 
     be able to get it at relatively low cost through an on-
     line information network.
       In addition, the magazine has assembled a distinguished 
     panel of citizens who over the next year and a half will 
     examine various alternatives for reforming the State's 
     campaign finance rules. This task force which is comprised of 
     scholars, journalists, political practitioners, and civic 
     leaders--including Senator Paul Simon, two university 
     presidents and your own Cindy Canary--is expected to 
     formulate and advance a set of reform recommendations late 
     next year. But before doing so, the panel will consult with 
     and collect testimony from a diverse cross-section of 
     interested Illinoisans as well as carefully weigh the reform 
     experiences of other jurisdictions across the country.
       Money, Politics and the Public Voice. As angry as people 
     are about the influence private money exerts on our politics, 
     there is no groundswell of popular support for one reform 
     approach or another. Indeed, there is no clear and loud 
     public demand for change--at least not the kind of impatient 
     outcry elected officials are inclined to take notice of and 
     heed.
       The foundation is convinced that reform will come more 
     quickly if the public is brought into this debate in a much 
     bigger way. But this is not small challenge. After all, just 
     how do you clear a space at the policymaking table and pull 
     up a chair for the American people? Well, that's the riddle 
     the League of Women Voters education fund, in partnership 
     with the Benton Foundation and the Hardwood group, have set 
     out to answer over the next 2 years. And the Joyce Foundation 
     is betting nearly half a million dollars that this unusual 
     consortium will help solve that mystery.
       About a year from now thousands of citizens, armed with 
     background and discussion materials, will meet in 
     neighborhoods and communities across America to learn about 
     the campaign finance problem, to debate various reform 
     options, and to clarify and make known to their elected 
     Representatives the changes they want and are willing to 
     support. These will not be undisciplined rap and complaint 
     sessions but instead structured and expertly facilitated 
     conversations that we hope and believe will yield the kind of 
     reasoned and considered policy judgments that the political 
     community will find difficult to dismiss.
       It is our hope that other groups--like the American 
     association of retired persons, the American association of 
     community colleges and the university extension system--will 
     eventually join the campaign, adding to the league's 
     considerable organizational reach and enabling the project to 
     host at least one forum in each of the country's 435 
     congressional districts.
       To ensure that every step of this process is fully 
     amplified, including the final results and public 
     interactions between project participants and elected 
     officials, the project is developing an aggressive public 
     information and media outreach strategy. In addition, video, 
     teleconferences, computers and other communication 
     technologies will be used to connect the project's 
     participants with each other, the news media and 
     policymakers.
       To date, the league-led project team has hired a staff of 
     seasoned organizers, engaged the services of a professional 
     communications firm, assembled an advisory panel of campaign 
     finance experts and completed an exhaustive review of the 
     vast literature on this subject. In the coming days, it will 
     launch a series of focus groups in order to get a better fix 
     on what people know and don't know about the campaign finance 
     problem, how they talk about it, and how they would fix it, 
     were it in their power to do so. These insights will aid in 
     the development of the project's
      educational materials and a deliberative process designed to 
     assist non-experts work through a complex policy problem 
     like campaign finance.
       The two projects I've briefly sketched out are ambitious, 
     complex, expensive and labor intensive. If they are to 
     succeed, the sponsors will need all the help they can garner. 
     I know the ED fund and Illinois Issues would warmly welcome 
     your participation and assistance, and I hope you will be 
     able to offer some of each in the coming months.
       Although this organization's plate is always full and this 
     year is no exception, I would strongly encourage you to leave 
     a little room for campaign finance reform. Your reputation 
     for raising public consciousness on important issues, for 
     educating and mobilizing citizens and for talking sense to 
     lawmakers could make a huge difference in ending those 
     campaign finance practices that often make the realization of 
     the league's own policy goals needlessly difficult. So I hope 
     you will join us; the water's fine and sure to get a lot 
     warmer in the next year.


                               conclusion

       If I sound perturbed about the problem of money in 
     politics, it's because I am. It's a problem, after all, that 
     hits very close to home. This year the foundation will award 
     nearly $6 million in grants to scores of organizations that 
     are working tirelessly and in most cases with limited 
     resources to repair and reserve the environment for future 
     generations. These nonprofit organizations are in no position 
     to compete financially with 

[[Page S 9942]]
     those interests whose commitments to environmental protection often 
     take a backseat to other economic considerations.
       It's not a fair fight, when the congressional co-sponsors 
     of amendments to the Safe Water Drinking Act get 60 times 
     more money from businesses supporting the bill than from pro-
     environmental groups. And it's even less fair, when the co-
     sponsors of the private property owners bill of rights get 
     300 times more money from the bill's industry supporters than 
     from pro-environmental groups. For this reason, in addition 
     to all the others I've discussed, the foundation has a keen 
     interest in cleaning up the campaign finance system. If the 
     playing field were more level, I know that our conservation 
     grantees and those working in other areas, like gun violence, 
     could more than hold their own against the forces that oppose 
     them. But as things now stand, every fight involving the good 
     guys is uphill these days, and that's not right.
       In conclusion, let me say this. The continuing debate on 
     campaign finance reform is more than a squabble over how to 
     revise the rules of the road. The debate is really about 
     fundamentals and first principles; it is at bottom a struggle 
     for the soul of the American political system. And that is a 
     struggle which people who yearn for a more open, 
     participatory and accountable politics--people like you and 
     me--dare not take lightly, walk away from or lose.
     

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