[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15513-S15515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE ISTOOK AMENDMENT

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Saturday New York Times over the 
weekend reported that a group of freshman Republicans in the House were 
threatening to basically bring the Federal Government to a halt unless 
a provision that they support is adopted in the conference report on 
the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. The provision at issue is 
commonly referred to as the Istook amendment after its author, 
Congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma. It would put massive new 
restrictions on all Federal grant recipients with respect to their 
participation in matters of public policy. This is how the New York 
Times described it: ``As this week began, the freshmen were threatening 
an even wider uprising, with nearly half vowing to hold up all the 
upcoming spending bills and the reconciliation bill unless the 
leadership holds fast'' on the Istook amendment.
  Congressman Roger Wicker of Mississippi is quoted in the article as 
saying, ``It is something the conferees will ignore at their peril.''
  One headline recently referred to the amendment here, as ``lobby 
reform.'' Proponents of the amendment say it will ``end welfare for 
lobbyists.'' Well, I have been working on lobbying reform for over 5 
years, now, and I can tell you, this is not lobbying reform. It is 
repression of the rights of people to lobby.
  The Istook amendment is a rather blatant attempt to silence dissent 
and to muffle the diversity of opinion in the forum of public policy 
debate. The amendment is one of the most poorly thought out I have ever 
come across. Senate conferees have been holding fast against it, 
although there is supposed to be a meeting of the conferees sometime 
tomorrow and we will have to see what happens. But again, the Senate 
has served as a firewall against an extreme proposal emanating from the 
House. The Istook amendment provides that any Federal grant recipient 
is not allowed to use more than a small percentage of their own money--
non-Federal dollars--for political advocacy and still receive a Federal 
grant for totally unrelated activities.

  There is already a longstanding law on the books that prohibits the 
use of appropriated funds for lobbying--no ifs, and, or buts. 
Appropriated funds under current law cannot be used for lobbying and 
there are provisions that ensure that even indirect costs of an 
organization cannot be used to subsidize lobbying activities. Current 
law applies to all appropriated funds regardless of who the recipient 
is--for profit contractors as well as nonprofit grant recipients. The 
penalties for violating this provision are severe, including debarment 
from all future Federal funding. So this is not restriction that is 
easily overlooked or dismissed.
  The argument that current law allows welfare for lobbyists is 
factually incorrect. Under current law, no federally appropriated 
money, no Federal tax dollars can be spent by any recipient to lobby, 
period.
  Well, then, what is the Istook amendment getting at? It is getting at 
the non-Federal money. It is trying to control what private 
organizations can do with the money they raise solely from private 
sources.
  What does the amendment say? First, it applies to all grant 
recipients. Any entity that receives a Federal grant, either directly 
or indirectly would be subject to the provisions and requirements of 
the Istook amendment. So, yes it covers organizations like AARP which 
receives grants to conduct various programs for senior citizens, a 
favorite target of the Istook supporters. But it also covers grants to 
persons who do research in small laboratories for the NIH. It covers 
grants to major medical centers that may be studying the effects of 
chemotherapy for cancer treatment. It covers grants to religious 
organizations that may be conducting latchkey programs for the 
forgotten kids in neighborhoods across this country, and it covers 
groups like the Red Cross. It applies to any organization or entity 
that receives, directly or indirectly, Federal grant money or, indeed, 
that may apply for Federal grant money.

  It does not apply to Federal contractors. Federal contractors receive 
hundreds of billions of Federal tax dollars, and they have a tremendous 
incentive to lobby. Continuation of the B-2 bomber readily comes to 
mind as a program that producers of the B-2 might have an interest in 
lobbying on, but the Istook amendment does not try to limit the amount 
of lobbying that contractors can conduct with their private money, even 
when they are lobbying for Federal funds. The amendment does not try to 
limit the volume of lobbying these companies can conduct despite the 
hundreds of millions, and in some cases the billions of dollars, they 
receive from the Federal Government and the Federal taxpayers. And if 
the Istook supporters can call private money used by Federal grant 
recipients welfare for lobbyists, the same would have to hold true for 
private moneys used by Federal contractors. There is no difference.
  The whole approach is based on a disturbing and a flimsy distinction. 
You can buy B-2's from a company that makes a profit and not worry 
about how it lobbies with its own money, but if you buy research into a 
cure for cancer from a nonprofit university, then you need to restrict 
that university's lobbying efforts with its own money.
  The B-2 contractor can lobby all it wants with its own money, but the 
university working on a cure for cancer cannot.
  So the amendment at the outset targets only one type of recipient of 
Federal funds, and that is the grant recipients that are largely 
nonprofit organizations, leaving the contract recipients that are 
largely for-profit companies completely untouched.
  What are the restrictions that the amendment then places on all 
Federal grant recipients? An organization cannot get a Federal grant if 
it spent more than--and I am shorthanding the formula here--if it spent 
more than 5 percent of its total expenditures on political advocacy in 
any one of the preceding 5 years. So let me repeat that. An 
organization cannot get a Federal grant if it spent more than 5 percent 
of its total expenditures on political advocacy--that is the term the 
amendment uses--in any one of the preceding 5 years. And then, of 
course, once an organization is a grantee, it is held to that same 5-
percent limit as a condition of continuing to receive the grant.
  So first of all, this is not a limitation on what a grant applicant 
must be 

[[Page S 15514]]
bound by once it gets a grant. This is much more than that. This is a 
limitation on what an applicant for a grant can do in the 5 years prior 
to applying for a grant.
  An organization may not even know that it wants to apply for a grant, 
let us say, in 1995, but should it this year spend more than 5 percent 
of its money on what the Istook amendment calls political advocacy, 
then it is precluded 5 years from now from applying for a grant, even 
though it engaged in no political advocacy this year, next year, the 
year after, or the year after that.
  This amendment is not only applicable to the period of time during 
which the grantee is carrying out a grant, it applies for all practical 
purposes for all years whether or not an organization has a grant if it 
thinks that it might some year, 5 years down the road, want to apply 
for a grant.
  What is ``political advocacy''? The definition is so extreme that it 
is almost laughable if the stakes, namely, basic democratic principles, 
were not so high. Political advocacy includes carrying on 
``propaganda''--that is the term that is used in the amendment--or 
otherwise attempting to influence legislation or agency action. This, 
the amendment says, includes but is not limited to contributions, 
endorsements, publicity, or similar activities.
  So if the Food and Drug Administration were considering restricting 
the availability of cigarettes for young people, the American Medical 
Association, which may have a grant or may even want to apply for a 
grant in the next 5 years, could be precluded from using non-Government 
funds, its own funds, to endorse that agency action. At a minimum, if 
it thought it might want to apply for grant in the next 5 years, if it 
did not have one at the time, it would have to keep records of how much 
it spent if it made such endorsements and then regularly measure that 
amount against its other political advocacy activity, assuming you 
could figure out what political advocacy meant, and it would have to do 
that to make sure its total expenditures do not go over the 5-percent 
limit.
  Political advocacy also includes participating in any judicial 
litigation-- I do not know what litigation is other than in a judicial 
setting, but that is the term the amendment uses--in any judicial 
litigation or agency proceeding including as a friend of the court in 
which any Federal, State, or local government is involved. The 
exceptions to this sweeping provision are if the grantee is a 
defendant, so you are allowed to defend yourself, or if the grantee is 
challenging a Government decision or action directed specifically at 
the powers, rights, or duties of the grantee or grant recipient.
  OK, so now let us say you are the Mayo Clinic, and you receive a 
large Federal grant to conduct cancer or diabetes research. The city of 
Rochester has developed a new master plan to rezone the entire city 
including the area around the clinic. You as the clinic are affected by 
that plan and you want to challenge it, but it is not directed 
specifically at the powers, rights, or duties of the Mayo Clinic. It is 
a plan for the entire city of Rochester, so now you would be forced to 
choose between continuing with the research grant or participating in 
the debate over the master plan.
  Political advocacy also includes--and this is where the amendment 
takes another major leap in its extremism and its absurdity--
allocating, disbursing, or contributing any money or in-kind support to 
any person or entity whose expenditure for political advocacy in the 
previous fiscal year exceeded 15 percent of its total expenditures for 
that year.
  What does that mean? Presumably that every Federal grant recipient or 
potential applicant has to determine whether or not the business from 
which its purchasing services or products meets the 15-percent test.
  So now if a Federal grantee or a potential grantee purchases a 
computer from IBM, that Federal grantee had better be sure that IBM is 
within the 15-percent limit, because otherwise that is an expenditure 
for political advocacy and the grantee has to count the amount of the 
purchase toward its 5-percent limit.
  Let us take another example. A child care facility which receives a 
Federal grant for a breakfast program uses its own non-Federal private 
funds and hires an individual to do graphics for a campaign to promote 
healthy breakfasts. The person they happen to pick is a part-time 
lobbyist at the State legislature for other persons and other 
interests. The child care facility did not pick that person for that 
skill. They picked him for his ability to put together an attractive 
presentation for little children and for families. Under the Istook 
amendment, we are going to hold that child care facility responsible 
for determining whether or not that graphics person spends more than 15 
percent of his expenditures on political advocacy. And if it does, the 
child-care center has to include in its total of its expenditures that 
amount of money.

  Now, Mr. President, this is getting absolutely absurd. A potential 
grantee, an applicant for a Federal grant, who thinks that it may apply 
even in the next 5 years, has to keep a record of every single purchase 
it makes from every company during that 5 years and make sure that no 
company from which it buys a computer or anything else has exceeded a 
15-percent expenditure limit using its own funds.
  If you buy food for a clinic, you better make sure that the 
wholesaler from which you bought that food did not spend more than 15 
percent of its own funds on political advocacy. This is Government gone 
mad. This is Government gone haywire. Nobody can keep these kinds of 
records and get certification from every person from whom they buy 
anything that that person did not spend more than 15 percent of its 
money on political advocacy.
  This amendment does exactly what the opponents of lobbying and gift 
reform in the last Congress correctly said would be unacceptable: 
interfering with the right of an organization to communicate 
information to its members.
  The Istook amendment would treat as political advocacy, and therefore 
reportable and subject to its limits, all communications between a 
grantee organization and any bona fide member of that organization that 
encourages the member to communicate with any government official on 
legislation or agency action. Let me repeat that. The Istook amendment 
requires grantees to report on an annual basis all of their 
expenditures--again, we are talking about non-Federal funds--incurred 
in communicating to their members to encourage them to contact 
Government officials on legislation or agency policy action. Isn't that 
what killed lobbying reform last Congress and is not that exactly the 
issue the very proponents of this Istook amendment said would be so 
offensive? We struck any reference to grassroots lobbying from the 
lobbying reform bill this year in order to make progress, and here, 
some Congressmen are threatening to shut down the entire Federal 
Government in order to pass a provision that requires organizations to 
publicly account for just how much they spend to do grassroots lobbying 
on their own members, not only on persons outside their organization 
but with their own members. Last year's provision did not go nearly 
that far and many of these same House Members railed against that.
  This is Alice in Wonderland material, made real by the fact that the 
sponsors have threatened to shut down Government, if they don't get 
their way.
  We are talking here about making the Red Cross report each year how 
much it spends of non-Federal funds should it ask its members to urge 
Congress to pass stronger legislation to protect the country's blood 
supply. We are talking about making the Girl Scouts of America report 
each year how much they spend when they ask their members to write to 
the FCC on violence in television shows. We are talking about requiring 
Mothers Against Drunk Driving to keep a record of all the expenses they 
incur in communicating with their members to fight for tougher drinking 
laws in their states. And these organizations would have to keep these 
records and report these amounts even though they do not even meet the 
definition of a lobbying organization under the Senate-passed lobbying 
disclosure bill.
  Promoting and supporting this amendment is, alone, an unfortunate, 
unwise, and I believe deleterious position to take with respect to our 
basic democratic principles. But elevating the passage of this 
amendment to the position of importance that puts the 

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entire Federal Government at risk is incomprehensible.
  One day we will weary of threats to shut Government down--and as a 
body rise up to defeat proposals supported by such threats. This 
proposal should also be defeated despite the threats, Mr. President, 
because the laws are already in place to protect any misuse of taxpayer 
moneys with respect to lobbying by tax-exempt organizations. The Senate 
should not give in to this thoroughly misguided piece of legislation; 
our conferees should hold fast.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] is recognized to speak for up to 30 minutes.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.

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