[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 166 (Wednesday, October 25, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15684-S15685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE ISTOOK-McINTOSH AMENDMENT

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I rise to respond to the statement made 
yesterday by the distinguished Senator from Michigan, my old friend 
Senator Carl Levin. We came here to the Senate together. I have the 
greatest admiration and personal regard for him.
  I trust that my colleagues will listen very carefully to what I have 
to say about this issue--the so-called ``Istook-McIntosh'' amendment 
which may be included in the Treasury-Postal appropriations conference 
report.
  I ask for your close attention because I am certain that your offices 
are hearing about this language, just as the Senator from Michigan has 
been hearing about it. And, if the material coming across my desk is 
any guide at all, a clump of what you are hearing about it is plain 
hogwash, or more civilized, rubbish. I would surely include the 
commentary of the New York Times within that description.
  I have been in the negotiations concerning the Istook-McIntosh 
language. I have been working side by side with my colleague from 
Idaho, Senator Larry Craig. One could not ask for a better ally in this 
or any other cause. The Senator from Idaho brings many singular 
qualities to this work--a commitment to genuine reform, great realism 
about what it is possible to achieve in legislating, and unflagging 
consideration for the concerns of his colleagues--especially including 
me.
  We know what this proposed amendment does, and what it does not do. 
And I can certainly assure my colleagues that much of the lobbying on 
this amendment has been hysterical at the worst, misleading at best. It 
is no wonder that my friend, the Senator from Michigan, is agitated 
about it, given the abjectly horrifying portrayal by those lobbying 
this issue.
  It almost tempts me to coin a new aphorism--``hell hath no fury like 
an individual whose access to Federal bucks has been conditioned in any 
way.'' Because that is what this issue is about--access to the Federal 
Treasury. It is not about ``free speech'' or the first amendment, or 
anything of the sort. Those are merely the terms which are being 
applied during the argument by those who wish to continue to ensure 
themselves of continued delivery of Federal money.

  Let me begin my description of this amendment by going back to first 
principles. I have a few views which might be termed eccentric or 
quaint or even naive in this era of behemoth government, and one of 
them is that there are ``responsibilities'' which follow from being a 
custodian of Federal money.
  I know that is a strange and even bizarre thing in this day and age, 
to talk about ``responsibility'' instead purely of ``rights,'' or 
purely of ``victims.'' We are all experts on our own rights, but rarely 
do we acknowledge that these rights confer responsibilities. And that 
is what this issue is about--the responsibilities of those who receive 
Federal money.
  The Senator from Michigan is justly concerned about the influence of 
lobbyists over the public policy process. This concern animates his 
sincere desire to pass lobbying reform legislation--and he is 
proceeding remarkably toward that end.
  I agree with that concern, and I would add to it by saying that the 
American public knows that ``something is wrong'' with the process. 
They know that the process itself interferes with good policy. They 
know that the interests of the public at large are not served well when 
Washington has so contrived matters as to amplify the access and the 
influence of certain special interests, which comes effectively at the 
expense of the interests of the whole.
  The average person on the street would be scandalized to find out 
that we, the Congress, have been blithely engaging for years in the 
practice of favoring political organizations with taxpayer-provided 
money.
  I am not talking about simply the narrow practice of using Federal 
dollars to lobby. That is illegal already, as the Senator from Michigan 
has so ably pointed out.
  But I think we need to agree that it is wrong to be giving Federal 
dollars to political organizations, whether or not we ``mark'' those 
bills they receive and then say that only those dollars can't be used 
for lobbying Congress.
  Can you imagine the outcry, wailing and gnashing of teeth that would 
exist if the Federal Government were found to have channeled millions 
in grant money to the Christian Coalition? Or the Heritage foundation? 
It wouldn't matter whether that money was used to hold seminars or to 
buy stationery. The public would swiftly know that this was wrong, that 
Government should not be in the business of propping up the operations 
of political organizations.

  And yet that is precisely what we in America have been doing. I found 
this year that the AARP received $86 million in Federal grants--this, 
the largest and most powerful lobbying organization in the country--the 
King Kong of lobbying ``gorillas.''
  At the time, I was criticized for ``singling out'' the AARP. I was 
told that 

[[Page S15685]]

the only way ``to be fair'' was to deal with the problem as a whole, to 
put a stop to the practice across the board. That is what Congressmen 
Istook, McIntosh, and Ehrlich are attempting to do.
  Let me repeat that I believe we should all agree on the basic premise 
from which we should be working; we should not be in the practice of 
funding political organizations with Federal money.
  Thus, I have been working with my colleagues on the House side to try 
to develop a reasonable and balanced test for eligibility for public 
funds. Not to restrict anyone's rights of political expression--but 
rather, to specify minimum standards for the non-political, impartial 
distribution of public monies. I believe that our final product will 
try to set reasonable boundaries for the types of organizations which 
should be receiving Federal money.
  Let me remind my colleagues that this is not a novel concept. Already 
in the law there are restrictions on the amount of lobbying which can 
be done by 501-C-3 organizations which take the 501-H election to 
identify themselves as charities. In return for the benefit of tax 
deductible contributions, these organizations agree to limit their 
lobbying expenses. They may spend 20 percent of their first $500,000 on 
lobbying, 15 percent of their next $500,000, 10 percent of their next 
$500,000, and 5 percent after that, on up to a global cap of $1 million 
on lobbying.
  Let me repeat for my colleagues: This formula is already in the law. 
Now. It is accepted by all as a reasonable and balanced limit upon the 
political activities of such organizations. No one construes this as an 
abridgement of first amendment rights. It is a consequence of our 
consensus opinion that predominantly political organizations should not 
receive certain Government benefits.

  I urge my colleagues to go out in the land and talk to various 
individuals about the 501-H spending formula. Not the ones ``beating 
the drum'' about this legislation. But most others would agree that the 
formula is extremely lenient, very generous--some would say it is so 
generous as not to constitute a significant restriction at all.
  I have been working with my House colleagues to develop reforms of 
these boundaries to make certain that they work in practice in a way 
that they have not always worked before this time.
  The Senator from Michigan highlighted one particular feature of the 
originally proposed Istook language, singling it out for criticism. 
This concerns the application of the spending formula to non-Federal 
money. I listened carefully to that commentary, and I wonder whether or 
not my old friend from Michigan and the rest of the Senate are aware of 
the way in which the law already works in this area.
  I have been distressed to see the howls and shrieks of outrage from 
Government grantees when we suggest that they should no longer be able 
to ``count'' the amount of their Federal grants in computing their 
lobbying expenses under the formula which I just outlined. This has 
even been a rallying cry against the principles in the grant reform 
amendment--how outrageous, it is said, that there should be any 
restriction on the use of private funds.
  Let me try to calm the heaving bosoms out there by asking my 
colleagues to think about this substantively for just a moment. First 
of all, the existing formula--already in the law--already applies to 
all 501-H groups even if they don't receive Federal money. So this 
supposed restriction on the use of private funds already exists.
  Furthermore, consider the paradox that results if we continue to 
``count'' the Federal money when computing allowed lobbying expenses. 
If you have two organizations--each with the same amount of private 
support--then, under current law, the one that pulls down a Government 
grant can spend more on lobbying than the one which doesn't. That is 
the very essence of taxpayer-subsidized lobbying, which we all agree is 
wrong. It only makes sense for an organization's lobbying expenses to 
be based on their degree of private support, not on the amount given to 
them in Federal money.

  I expect that this debate will heat up still further, and I expect 
that hysteria and distortion will abound. I can see some of it already. 
I have read articles saying that somehow this legislation will stop 
organizations from being able to write editorials and to even make 
their opinions known. That is nonsense, unless somewhere in this 
country it costs you $1 million to write a letter to the editor.
  I personally will have my old bald dome battered because I have 
stated all along that I would seek to protect the ``true'' charities 
from the scope of any legislation--the 501-C-3 organizations which we 
all care so much about--and should.
  Well, the amendment which hopefully will shortly be presented as an 
Istook-Simpson compromise will indeed protect them. We will protect 
them not by creating a blanket exemption for all charitable groups, but 
by leaving ``in place'' the spending restriction formulas that already 
apply to charitable organizations.
  I have also heard various muted and sometimes raucous imputations 
that this amendment is somehow discriminatory, that it singles out a 
particular ``type'' of recipient for restriction. It has been implied--
although not overtly stated--that somehow we are working to exclude 
for-profit lobbyists from this legislation, targeting the legislation 
only against ``nonprofits.''
  That is simply untrue. The Istook-McIntosh-Ehrlich amendment does not 
distinguish between for-profit and nonprofit entities. If a grant is 
given to a for-profit taxpaying organization, they are subject to the 
same lobbying caps.
  The language does not exclude ``contractors'' in any general way, 
although the language does not apply specifically to ``contracts.'' 
There is a very good reason for this, and this is the ambiguity as to 
what constitutes a ``contract'' with the Federal Government. The 
inclusion of ``contracts'' in this legislation would mean that every 
HMO around the country which contracts to provide services under 
Medicare would be covered. That and similar consequences are the 
reasons that ``contracts'' are not included; it is not some sinister 
conspiracy to exclude or target any particular group. If opponents of 
the legislation can figure out a way for us to responsibly include 
``contracts'' in the scope of this legislation without creating serious 
ambiguities and contradictions, we would be most happy to work with 
those suggestions.

  Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks, because there will be time 
to debate this later at length. But for the record today, I do not want 
to let the current characterization of this legislative language go 
unchallenged.
  I want first and foremost to repeat my response to a central point 
made by the opposition. Somehow the Istook language is said to be 
sinister because it applies the spending formula to the nonfederal, 
private money.
  Of course it does. Which money is the existing 501-H spending cap 
formula supposed to apply to? The Federal money? That is supposed to be 
illegal, to use Federal money for lobbying. No, it has always been 
understood that those restrictions applied to the private support; 
there is nothing novel or sinister of evil about that. The Proposed 
language would simply make this explicit.
  We are still working with House negotiators to try to craft a package 
which we believe will be worthy of Senate support. I trust that my 
colleagues will study the details about the finished product rather 
than to listen to the characterizations that have been made by those 
who are lobbying against it.
  This could be our best chance to effect true lobbying reform--and the 
best measure of that is the degree to which this has agitated those 
lobbyists suckling at the Federal breast. We should be equally vigilant 
about gifts from lobbyists, and gifts to lobbyists. This measure 
attempts to deal with the latter.
  I thank my colleagues and I yield the floor.

                          ____________________