[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 124 (Friday, July 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7986-H7989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE PROBLEM OF ELECTION FRAUD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Ehrlich] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. EHRLICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about two issues. One 
concerns the integrity of the electoral process, and in that respect, 
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the Maryland gubernatorial election, 
November 8, 1994.
  After my brief comments on that, I am going to engage my fine 
colleague from Indiana, Mr. McIntosh, concerning the issue of grant 
reform.
  But, Mr. Speaker, before I get to that, I wanted to talk about the 
hearings this past week that the Committee on Government Reform and 
Oversight conducted with respect to vote fraud in America, geared 
primarily to the Federal motor-voter law.
  Officials and advocates from around the country speak of abuses and 
misconduct that occurred during the balloting process. In California, 
Mr. Speaker, witnesses testified that noncitizens regularly voted, as 
did a 5-year-old child and a dog.
  In Alabama, witnesses reported three briefcases containing 1,100 
completed absentee ballots where hand-carried to an election board on 
election day. These, and similar incidents, Mr. Speaker, impugn the 
integrity of this country's electoral process.
  This issue is particularly important to me in light of allegations of 
election abuse and official misconduct in Maryland during the general 
election of November 1994. That election, the gubernatorial election, 
Mr. Speaker, was decided by a very slim margin of several thousands 
vote. Concerned citizens from around the State began to investigate 
widespread reports of irregularities in the days following the 
election.
  Besides problems with extremely lax voting security, Mr. Speaker, 
these investigations determined that 34,000 voters were not purged in 
Baltimore City in 1994 prior to the election as required by State law.
  The Baltimore City elections supervisor was reminded by a deputy 7 
months prior to the election that the purge had not been conducted. It 
was never done and that fact appears, at least at this point in time, 
to have been concealed from city and State election officials. The 
enormous implications of this
 official problem, I will characterize it, is apparent from the 
following sample facts about the November election in Maryland.

  Mr. Speaker, a computer analysis done of total vote counts for each 
of the 408 precincts in Baltimore City using the Baltimore City 
Election Board electronic tape of registered voters and the certified 
list of votes cast on election day forwarded to the State Board of 
Elections revealed, Mr. Speaker, 5,929 more votes were cast in the 
election than individuals recorded as having appeared to have voted at 
the polls or by absentee ballot; 5929, Mr. Speaker.
  Another analysis was done comparing the same electronic tape of 
registered voters in Baltimore City with thousands of abandoned housed 
provided by the city housing commission. This revealed a total of 667 
votes cast in the election.
  Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, 1,881 votes were cast from houses owned 
either by the mayor and city council of Baltimore or the city housing 
authority. There is compelling evidence, Mr. Speaker, that a total of 
potentially as many as 2,548 votes were cast from abandoned or 
unoccupied buildings in that election.
  Where did these voters live, Mr. Speaker? Was there a direct 
correlation between the failure to purge and these terrible statistics? 
I think that there was. So did State Election Board officials. After 
these facts, and others, Mr. Speaker, were discovered the State 
election board made a bipartisan call for the purge to be conducted 
after the fact to prove that mistakes had been made.
  Let me reiterate, the State Board of Elections, consisting of three 
Democrats and three Republicans, wanted the purge to be done to prevent 
similar problems from occurring in the future.
  Instead, the State Attorney General's office represented the city 
election board against the State Election Board and convinced the court 
to retroactively apply the Federal motor-voter law in order to prevent 
any purges from being conducted. This is not the original purpose of 
the Federal motor-voter law, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, we in Congress are, 
and should be, concerned that similar problems are not repeated in 
other States.
  Problems such as those encountered in Maryland should be corrected 
immediately. Vigorous investigation must be conducted to determine if 
there was any fraud or official misconduct or simple negligence in that 
election that affected the outcome, Mr. Speaker.
  If there is evidence of such behavior, it should be prosecuted to the 
fullest extent possible. It should not and must not be condoned or 
ignored using the cloak of law applied retroactively.
  Mr. Speaker, In conclusion, in an election there is no such thing as 
a little fraud or a little problem. Such behavior attacks the very 
foundation of our society, because it destroys the fundamental trust 
between the voters, our constituents, and their government. This during 
a time, Mr. Speaker, when we are attempting to get more people to vote 
and we are having problems, as you well know.
  To tolerate such abuse or circumvent the laws of the land designated 
to protect the sanctity of the citizen's right to vote by any means 
possible, will only make Americans more cynical and more disinterested 
in this process. In Maryland, we must not let this situation happen 
again.
  Mr. Speaker, those are my comments with respect to the integrity of 
the voting process. You very well know I feel very strongly about this, 
because of in my view some of the substantiated allegations concerning 
events surrounding the general election in Maryland in November.


                              grant reform

  Mr. Speaker, there is another issue that is coming to this floor next 
week, and I rise to engage my friend and colleague and chairman, Mr. 
McIntosh from Indiana, in a colloquy about grant reform. Before I get 
into grant reform, Mr. Speaker, I would like the country to know of Mr. 
McIntosh's leadership on this issue.
  I truly appreciate the leadership you have shown, Mr. McIntosh, my 
colleague and friend, concerning this very important issue and I know 
you have introductory comments to make.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Thank you very much, Mr. Ehrlich. I appreciate those 
kind remarks. Your leadership on this issue has been equally important 
for us. When I came here last January as a freshman, I did not have any 
idea that there was some vicious little cycle that was going on. It is 
one of Washington's best-kept secrets: That we give out billions of 
dollars in grants to entities that are supposed to be helping the poor, 
helping us clean up the environment, providing a solution to many of 
our social problems, but those entities take this Federal money and use 
it to help subsidize an incredibly extensive lobbying and political 
network. That political network comes back and lobbies for more 
spending, and so you get this vicious cycle here in Washington.
  As I say, it is one of those secrets that they have tried to keep 
from the American people.
  When I go home to my district in Indiana and I tell people what we 
have uncovered here in the subcommittee, and we have had two hearings 
on it already and plan to have more hearings in the future, they are 
shocked. They say, I do not believe that is happening. And when you 
show them the documented evidence, they are outraged that their 
taxpayer dollars are being used to subsidize this type of lobbying and 
political activity.

[[Page H 7987]]

  I would like to work with you, Mr. Ehrlich, because you have helped 
us write a bill to put an end to this and this is a great opportunity 
to tell the American public about the things we have discovered in our 
hearings and the way we are going to solve this problem next week with 
the Istook-McIntosh-Ehrlich amendment.
  Mr. EHRLICH. I am glad you brought up our friend Mr. Istook. He is 
not here today. I believe his son is returning from a 2-year mission 
and family obligations come first with Mr. Istook, and we love him for 
that. He has also been a wonderful member of this team, this true team 
effort; not just the three of us, but our staffs and the leadership as 
well.
  I think we would be remiss if we did not give credit where credit is 
due, and that is to the leadership in this House who came through for 
us when the chips were down to get this rider out of the Committee on 
Appropriations, so that next week on this floor the American people can 
really take advantage of a full and fair debate about an important 
issue.

                              {time}  1700

  Now, Mr. Chairman, I have a question for you: During our hearing 
today we had had a number of witnesses come forward, and those 
witnesses were not happy. Those witnesses, in my view, had either 
misread the bill or not read the bill. If they have not read the bill, 
I have very little sympathy for them. If they misread the bill, I think 
it is up to us on our side of the aisle, I mean our side of the aisle, 
not Republicans-Democrats, but all Republicans and all Democrats who 
support us in this reform effort, to explain not just to these 
advocates but to the American people what precisely we are doing. I 
understand you have some graphs with you, and I know you want to talk 
about those graphs.
  I see a pig.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Yes. Let me explain this graph here. It is titled 
``Welfare for Lobbyists.'' That is, in fact, what we have going on 
here. This graph represents the cycle of what happens: The taxpayer 
pays in taxes due to the Federal Government; they go to these grant 
recipients, approximately $39 billion worth of grants each year; and 
the grant recipients end up turning around and lobbying the Government 
to spend more of the taxpayer dollars.
  Mr. EHRLICH. I think we need to, at this point, get it very straight 
for the American people. These are grant recipients, recipients of 
Federal dollars who are not using the grant money for the money's 
intended purpose. Is that correct?
  Mr. McINTOSH. That is correct. In fact, let me make a distinction 
here, because there are a lot of grant recipients who work very hard to 
provide services. They set up Meals on Wheels for the elderly, they 
have programs to help clean up the environment, they set up programs to 
fight drug addiction in their communities. They use these moneys for a 
very good purpose. But there are other groups who take these moneys and 
then also have more private donations, set up a lobbying campaign.
  I was, quite frankly, shocked at the hearing today to hear people who 
were representing some of our charitable organizations say that really 
what they wanted to do would be lobbyists. They were less concerned 
about providing the programs to help those who are unfortunate in our 
society and wanted to be able to come in and lobby Congress, and they 
wanted to be able to do that while maintaining all of these taxpayer 
grants.
  The second chart I have there shows you the breakdown, and this 
statistic comes from the group themselves. This is a coalition of very 
large, very rich, very well-endowed nonprofit groups called the 
Independent Sector, and it shows where they get their funding. If you 
can see the chart there, you notice that they estimate just under $160 
billion ends up coming from government sources. Now, that is not all of 
their funding. A larger portion of it comes from the private money. But 
$160 billion comes from the government taxpayer funding, and yet they 
today were out walking the halls of Congress lobbying against our 
proposal to say we are going to end welfare for lobbyists.
  I should take a few minutes at this point to explain to the public 
how our proposal works. It basically says we are going to give you a 
choice. You can either be a grant recipient, in which case we want you 
to engage in social, helpful activities, helping the poor, helping the 
disadvantaged, helping clean the environment, helping do research; or 
you can be a lobbyist organization. In that case we are not going
 to give you taxpayer-funded grants.

  Mr. EHRLICH. I really believe my colleague has hit the very bottom 
line with this issue, and the reason I think, we believe the American 
people support us, and we will get in a few minutes into the groups 
that support us, but the difference between doing in a tradition sense 
what nonprofits are supposed to do, which is help people, and the 
difference between actually performing the service and acting as an 
advocate, those lines have become skewed. That distinction is no more, 
in any respects.
  Is that not correct?
  Mr. McINTOSH. That is correct. In fact, many of them now consider 
themselves primarily advocates or lobbyists and engage in political 
activity. You know, I think we should share with folks some of the 
things we found out at our hearings.
  The record has shown that there are numerous instances where these 
groups who receive grants have come to lobby congress. The most recent 
one that I am aware of was the American Bar Association that received 
$2.5 million last year in Federal grants. They were here in Washington 
when we were debating the flag burning amendment, standing on the steps 
of Capitol Hill, saying that congress should not pass an amendment to 
protect the flag from desecration. Now, if that is their view, I 
disagree with them totally, but if that is their view, they are 
entitled to it. But I do not think we should have a Government subsidy 
going to a group that comes and lobbies us on those types of issues.
  Mr. EHRLICH. The reality of it is, with the law in its current shape, 
we can not prove or disprove where that $2.2 million poison was spent. 
Is that not correct?
  Mr. McINTOSH. That is correct. The reporting by these organizations 
is nonexistent in some cases. In some cases they have one report that 
they turn in to the IRS because they have a tax-exempt status, but it 
is very, very general. It gives no detailed accounting of how the 
Federal moneys are spent, and, frankly, the government agencies do not 
know where all of their grants go. You can have a very difficult time 
finding out exactly how many grants that are given to each of these 
groups.
  So, there is no accountability and money is fungible. They end up 
subsidizing the overhead to groups that end up engaging in this 
lobbying activity.
  Mr. EHRLICH. I know a source of frustration for you, for myself, and 
the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook] has been the apparent 
confusion concerning the difference between laws which cover 
contractors and laws which cover Federal grantees, and I know you want 
to get into this. But I brought one of your favorite props with me 
today, my colleague, and what I have brought with me is laws relating 
to, the actual laws of the land, relating to Federal procurement. These 
are the laws, and these are the regulations that govern Federal 
contractors, and people know this, people know these laws are on the 
books and these regulations have been promulgated.
  Yet today we have people coming before our committee and making the 
charge that we should include contractors in our law because there is 
no difference between contractors who provide a good for consideration 
of the Government and these nonprofit grantees, when everybody knows 
the difference is obvious. There is law on the books concerning 
contractors, but there is no law concerning grantees. That is the 
purpose of this bill.
  Is that not correct, my colleague?
  Mr. McINTOSH. The gentleman is absolutely correct. I think you make a 
very telling point. You have also touched upon something else that is 
occurring. The opponents of this legislation cannot come out and argue 
the merits. They cannot come out and say we need to keep our $39 
billion in grants so we can be an effective, powerful Washington 
lobbying organization.
  So, what they are going to try to do is scare people and they are 
going to come up with a lot of false scenarios.
  Mr. EHRLICH. We have seen that strategy before, have we not?

[[Page H 7988]]

  Mr. McINTOSH. Yes, we have. We see it a lot of times. Frankly, we are 
going to get to the bottom and be truthful with the American people 
about what is going on. What they are saying, for example, is students 
who receive a grant to go to school might be covered by this. Well, no. 
Our legislation says individuals who are getting a study grant, it is 
fine for them to engage in advocating whatever views they want. They 
are going to say that famers who receive price supports would be 
covered by this. Well, no, that is not a grant for research or other 
social activities. They are not covered by this legislation.
  What we are going to do is say to very powerful, rich, well-endowed 
groups that spend a lot of their time walking the halls of Congress 
lobbying us for more Federal spending, they are covered by this law, 
but enough is enough. The American people are going to finally find out 
about this dirty little secret and put an end to it.
  I think you have pointed out one of the fallicies very well, that in 
the case of contractors, there is established law. If that needs to be 
strengthened, that can be addressed by the appropriate committee. But 
what we have here is an entire group of people who are totally 
unregulated in their lobbying activities, totally unfettered, and that 
would be fine with me except that they are getting all of this taxpayer 
money that ends up subsidizing their activities.
  Mr. EHRLICH. Facts are dangerous; facts are dangerous, particularly 
in a debate like this where demagogues can use misinformation or lack 
of information to their advantage.
  Now, speaking of demagoguery on this issue, we have both heard the 
charge, the traditional charge, and I guess it has been thrown around 
this town quite easily over the last few years, of defunding the left, 
they are trying to defund the left, those mean, nasty Republicans are 
trying to defund the political left.
  The fact is, as you know, anyone who has read this legislation would 
know there is defunding those who misuse public money regardless of 
right, left, far right, far left, or the political center. If you are 
the NRA, if you are the Chamber of Commerce, if you are an 
environmental group, it does not make any difference to us. We do not 
care about your philosophical direction. We care how you spend taxpayer 
money. I know you want to comment on this.
  Mr. McINTOSH. That is exactly right. We are getting to the bottom 
line, which is that we are not going to have this abuse of taxpayer 
funds to support lobbying activities. You know, if you step back and 
think about it, the contrast between the groups who want to lobby and 
those who are out there trying to do good in society is enormous.
  In my hometown of Muncie, there is the Muncie Mission, which is, as 
far as I know, supported completely by donations from citizens in the 
town of Muncie. They do not have a big lobbying outfit. They
 do have a building which is kind of run down. They can house up to 20 
homeless people who are down on their luck, need a place to live, and 
they actually have a program where they, kind of like the Salvation 
Army, take old equipment, old household goods and have people work on 
them.

  Mr. EHRLICH. I am not familiar with this group. Do you mean they 
actually help the homeless?
  Mr. McINTOSH. Yes. They actually do. They are very effective. They 
are right in one of the worst areas of town in terms of people who have 
trouble and need help, and they do not come up here and lobby us in 
Washington. They are very quietly out there doing their mission, 
helping the people in my home town of Muncie, and you compare that to 
one of the groups we heard about in the first hearing, the Nature 
Conservancy, that was bragging about in one of its reports a grant that 
they received that was used in the State of Florida to lobby local 
government to successfully defeat an effort by farmers to preserve 
their ability to continue to grow crops on their land.
  Now, to me, those are two completely different types of charitable 
activities, and I think if someone wants to lobby, let them do it with 
their own money. But do not come here to Washington and say we need 
Federal grants to be able to support our operations out in the 
countryside and we are going to lobby against what the people in local 
areas, like this area in Florida, may want, and we are going to use 
taxpayer money to help us in that effort. To me that is wrong and needs 
to be cut out.
  Mr. EHRLICH. You have provided great leadership in securing support 
from a variety of groups around this country, and this is a true 
grassroots effort, and I know because of your efforts, particularly, 
and it has been a team effort, but your efforts particularly, we have 
groups like, and I have the letters right here, the National Taxpayers 
Union, Citizens for a Strong Economy, the Association of Concerned 
Taxpayers, the 60-Plus Association, a seniors group, and that needs to 
be emphasized, I believe, we have the chamber of commerce, who may 
actually feel the sting from this piece of legislation, yet coming 
forward and saying you are doing the right thing, we are with you, and 
that is to be commended, the Seniors Coalition, another group, the 
Association of Concerned Taxpayers, Americans for Tax Reform, the 
National Association of Manufacturers, Chairman Archer, the National 
Restaurant Association, and on and on and on and on and on, and you 
deserve the credit because we have started a grassroots movement. 
People love to talk about lobby reform. They love to talk about getting 
our fiscal house in order in this town. Here we are, with maybe 
arguably one of the more important lobbying reform measures that has 
hit this floor in the last decade, and we are receiving this type of 
support, and it must be gratifying for you.
  Mr. McINTOSH. It is tremendously gratifying to see that kind of 
grassroots response. To be honest, a lot will be told next week when 
Congress comes back into session.
  If voters call up their Congressmen and say, ``Get rid of this 
welfare for lobbyists, we have had enough of taxpayer subsidies for 
lobbying,'' then this body will be able to pass this reform and send it 
over to the Senate.
  I heard that one of the groups, the National Taxpayers Union, is 
actually sending out an alert to its members to call in to Members of 
Congress, and once they find out the facts, tell them about how 
terrible it is that we have been continuing this process and to support 
our amendment to put an end to it.
  Mr. EHRLICH. When you really come down to it, the average taxpayer, 
the person who keeps the lights on in this country, should ask himself 
or herself the following question when it comes to this issue: Do the 
groups that I just read and that we have analyzed here have his or her 
best interest at heart, or is it the groups who are fighting this bill? 
And I know we, as the three cosponsors of this piece of legislation, 
will rest with that individual taxpayer because we believe that 
individual taxpayer and that individual constituent will make the right 
determination when confronted with that issue.
  Mr. McINTOSH. If the gentleman would yield, let me share with you and 
my colleagues and the American people one of the things that happened 
today in our hearing on this issue, and then I must excuse myself. I 
have to go to an appointment.
                              {time}  1715

  But one of the witnesses was Mrs. Arianna Huffington, and she brought 
with her several leaders here in Washington, DC, who had been working 
on their own to try to combat crime, try to help in poor neighborhoods 
to give children a chance, try to really establish hope and good deeds 
in these communities that are falling apart all around us here in the 
Nation's Capital.
  One of them she brought with her was a lady named Mrs. Hawkins. She 
was a black lady, retired. She started contributing her pension to set 
up a program where young black kids who are in danger of joining gangs, 
starting to use drugs, going down a path where their lives would be 
totally ruined, she set up a program with her own retirement money to 
have them come to her house after school to give them a program and an 
opportunity, something to do so they were not turned loose onto the 
streets, so they were not captured by the gangs, they were not captured 
by the drug dealers who wanted to corrupt them and destroy their lives, 
and Mrs. Hawkins is one of the noble heroes in America. She did this 
with her own money. She is not wealthy. It was very clear that she was 
a strong lady of 

[[Page H 7989]]

faith, and she had contributed her retirement to set this up for young 
people in this country. And she said that she is troubled that there 
are these groups that receive all of these taxpayer dollars who claim 
to be helping people, and could they not take that money, and stop 
lobbying, stop coming up here and giving out meals, trying to win and 
influence votes in the Halls of Congress and use a little bit of that 
money to go help the young people in this country, the people who do 
not have an opportunity, who need these programs, who need love, who 
need to be told you are important by people like Mrs. Hawkins.
  So we need to engage her and people like her, and I think one of the 
most telling things about our grant reform proposal is that, if we can 
succeed in cutting off this welfare for lobbyists, we will actually 
have more people like Mrs. Hawkins contributing their own money, 
working with their own time, providing these services that are very 
much needed in our community.
  And so we will see that charitable activity in this country actually 
increases and actually is directed to the people who need help, and so 
I am confident that not only is this the right thing to do for the 
taxpayers, but, based on our hearing today, this is the right thing to 
do to make sure that these activities to promote a good society will 
flourish in our country, and I thank you for giving me an opportunity 
to speak on this today and would welcome you, hope you can continue to 
inform the American people about our efforts on this.
  Mr. EHRLICH. I thank my colleague as well, and your last point is 
really the point to leave the American people to ponder, because no 
longer should there be a distinction between the mission of a group and 
the actual work, and that fine lady we saw today does not distinguish 
between those two concepts, and that is why she is successful, and we 
really appreciate her.
  Mr. McINTOSH. I thank you for your leadership on this as a freshman 
colleague. You have taken the bull by the horns, and I do not think we 
would be here if you had not worked very, very hard to make this 
legislation come to fruition. I know you spent several nights working 
on drafting the actual text of the legislation, something that a lot of 
Congressmen turn over to their staff, and so you are to be commended 
for this hard work on this, Mr. Ehrlich.
  Mr. EHRLICH. It is wonderful to work with such a great colleague, and 
I appreciate the time tonight.


                          ____________________