[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 94 (Monday, June 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6680-S6718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume consideration of S. 
1219, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1219) to reform the financing of Federal 
     elections, and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, the subject of today's debate is 
ostensibly campaign finance reform. It is currently fashionable to say 
that all of our ills as a nation are caused by incompetent 
officeholders--or worse, politicians who have been bought by special 
interests through the process of campaign contributions. So we are 
gathering to debate a bill that is supposed to fix that.
  Who can possibly be in favor of a system like that? To some, this 
should be an easy vote. Destroy the status quo. Anything would be 
better. So I am in favor of destroying the status quo, Mr. President, 
but I reject the idea that anything will be better, and particularly 
the bill that is before us.
  I believe there is at stake here an issue that is far more 
fundamental than campaign finance reform. Perhaps without realizing it, 
we are dealing with the most crucial political questions that any 
society can confront, issues that were confronted and resolved by those 
that we now refer to as the Founding Fathers.
  Accordingly, Mr. President, I wish to deviate from the direct bill in 
front of us long enough to move this debate into a context that goes 
back to the Founding Fathers.
  I begin with the writings of James Madison, commonly called ``the 
father of the Constitution.'' His work, along with that of his fellow 
Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, is now on display in the National 
Archives, America's most hallowed document, our political scriptures, 
if you will: the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the 
Bill of Rights.
  However, today I am not going to be quoting either from the 
Constitution or the Bill of Rights, both of which were products of 
Madison's genius, but rather from what has come to be known as the 
Federalist Papers, a series of political tracts written during the time 
that the Nation was debating the ratification of the Constitution. At 
that time, there were many people who were afraid of the impact the 
Constitution would have on their existing Government, and to allay 
those fears, James Madison, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, 
set forth the clear statement of the intellectual and philosophical 
underpinnings of American Government.
  It has added relevance to the debate on campaign finance reform 
because in the 10th of this series of publications, that which has come 
to be known as the 10th Federalist, Madison addressed the fundamental 
question of what to do about what we now call special interests.
  The 18th century word for ``special interest'' was ``faction,'' so I 
will use the terms ``faction'' and ``special interest'' 
interchangeably.
  Quoting now from the 10th Federalist, I give you Madison's definition 
of what a faction is. Faction:

       . . . a number of citizens . . . who are united and 
     actuated by . . . common impulse of passion or . . . 
     interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens.

  I can think of no better description of a special interest than that 
one.
  Madison then tells us, ``There are two methods of curing the 
mischiefs of faction: * * * removing its causes'' or ``removing its 
effects.''
  He then tells us, ``There are again two methods of removing the 
causes of faction: * * * by destroying * * * liberty'' or ``by giving 
to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions and the same 
interests.''
  Appropriately, Madison then describes the first remedy, that is, the 
destruction of liberty, as ``* * * worse than the disease.'' I think 
all Americans would agree with this. Controlling the mischiefs that 
come from special interests by destroying the basic liberty that 
guarantees each American his or her own right of opinion would destroy 
the very basis of the Nation in which we live.
  Now, referring to the second way of dealing with factions, that is, 
``* * * giving to every citizen the same opinions * * * passions * * * 
and interests,'' Madison says, ``The second * * * is as impractical as 
the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues 
fallible * * * different opinions will be formed.'' He summarizes, 
``The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.''
  Again, Mr. President, no contemporary writer could place the 
situation more precisely than Madison has. Special interests arise 
among us because we are free, and, as long as we are free we will 
disagree to one extent or another.
  Madison continues. He says, ``The inference to which we are brought 
is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed * * * and that relief 
is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.'' He then 
tells us, ``* * * relief is supplied by the republican principle.''
  Now, by using the word ``republican,'' Madison is clearly not 
referring to the modern Republican Party. He is differentiating between 
a democracy and a republic as a governmental form. He says, ``The two 
great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are, 
first, the delegation of the government in the latter, to a small group 
of citizens elected by the rest. Secondly, the greater number of 
citizens * * * over which the latter may be extended.''
  Referring to the greater number of citizens that are governed by a 
republic, he tells us why this will defeat the pressures of special 
interests. Quoting, ``The influence of factious leaders may kindle a 
flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a 
general conflagration throughout the other States.''
  I will say more about this in a moment, but for now it is his point 
of the difference between the democracy and a republic which I wish to 
stress. In a pure democracy, every decision is made by the vote of 
every citizen; in a republic, as Madison says, ``The delegation (goes) 
to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.'' It is this 
republican form of government that the Constitution gives us and under 
which we have lived for well over two centuries.
  Now, since the representatives in our Republic are freely elected, as 
contrasted to those who were chosen by the Communists to serve in the 
Republics of the old Soviet Union of Republics, modern commentators use 
the term ``democracy'' to describe us, and if we interpret the word 
``democracy'' to mean a system where everybody gets to vote, I have no 
objection to that term. However, as a description of governmental 
structure, applying the term ``democracy'' to the United States is a 
misstatement.
  What does all this have to do with campaign finance reform? In my 
view, it has a great deal to do with it. Campaign finance reform is 
about the power of special interest groups--factions--and how to 
control that power, the very subject of the 10th Federalist paper.
  Let us take modern tools of communication and insert them into the 
model that Madison gave us. For instance, is it now possible for a 
modern special interest or faction to create a conflagration 
simultaneously in several States? Given the wide reach of television, 
national publications, the Internet, the answer is clearly yes. A 
special interest group, be it a labor union, an environmentalist group, 
a business alliance or a religious association, now possesses the 
means, if it can raise the money, to reach every citizen in the country 
virtually simultaneously without regard to any political boundaries or 
geographical boundaries that might exist. Examples of this are all 
around us.

  First, various religious organizations calling themselves the 
Christian Coalition have banded together, and by using the outlets of 
communication available to them in both churches and the media, in 1994 
put out a common message to all of those who are adherents to those 
particular denominations. They greatly influenced the outcome of the 
election that year, and

[[Page S6681]]

they have promised to repeat the process in 1996.
  Second, the National Rifle Association sent broad mailings and 
purchased advertising time on the electronic media to make sure that 
everyone who agreed with their views with respect to gun legislation 
would be stimulated to go to the polls and support candidates of the 
same mind.
  Third, the AFL-CIO has publicly announced that by increasing the 
compulsory dues levied on their members, they are going to raise at 
least $35 million, which will be spent in an effort to guarantee that 
candidates who support their political agenda will be elected to the 
House of Representatives in 1996.
  And finally, on an issue perhaps closer to home for me as a Senator 
from Utah, recently groups of environmental supporters concerned about 
a bill relating to land use in Utah, which was introduced by members of 
the Utah delegation, purchased full-page ads in the major newspapers in 
major cities all across the country urging an outpouring of 
communication to Congress seeking defeat of this particular 
legislation. They were successful in creating a filibuster in the 
Senate that saw the bill go down.
  Madison's statement that ``the influence of factious leaders may 
kindle the flame within their particular States but will be unable to 
spread a general conflagration throughout the other States'' is clearly 
no longer true. That means we must return to the other ``great point of 
difference between a democracy and a republic'' of which Madison 
speaks, namely, ``the delegation of the government to a small number of 
citizens elected by the rest.''
  It is through this device primarily that we must now find hope for 
protection against the tyranny of a pure democracy where a faction able 
to temporarily gain a majority position can then ride roughshod over 
the interests and opinions of all the other citizens in society.
  I realize that when he talks about the republican principle, Madison 
is talking about officials after they take office, but the same 
principle applies to campaigns. We do not vote in campaigns as a pure 
democracy, deciding every issue. Instead, we choose among Madison's 
phrase a ``small number of citizens'' who have offered themselves to 
serve in public office. Through a process of conventions or primaries 
or both we winnow this number down to the final choice. It is done 
through a democratic process, but it is an example of the republican 
representative principle nonetheless.
  The rhetoric we are hearing about campaign reform flies in the face 
of this preference for a republican principle. The more we limit the 
amount of money that is available to candidates--those who will be 
representative once they are in office--the more we weaken the 
republican principle and strengthen the hand of special interests. This 
is particularly ironic in view of the calls for this kind of reform in 
the name of weakening the power of special interests.
  Envision the following: Assume a congressional district with 
candidate A and candidate B, under strict spending limitations. This 
means that each has a limit on the amount he or she can tell the voters 
about his or her position on particular issues. The special interests, 
on the other hand--the labor unions, the environmentalists, the 
Christian Coalition or the NRA--have no such limits, which means that 
the voters can and presumably will be bombarded with information coming 
exclusively from those groups and aimed at influencing their vote.
  Exercising their first amendment right of free speech, the special 
interests will never have limitations placed upon them, nor should 
they. The first amendment is too precious. But in the name of campaign 
finance reform, we will create a situation where the voters will 
receive proportionately less and less information from the candidates 
and more and more information from the special interests, so the voters 
will ultimately make their choices on the basis of which special 
interest message is the most persuasive. The candidate's intellect, 
training, character, and talent will all become secondary if not, in 
the end, lost altogether in the elective process. The Republican 
principle of representative government will be weakened and washed 
away. Officeholders will become more and more insignificant.
  We have a clear example of how this can happen in the current 
workings of the electoral college. That is an institution that is so 
arcane that very few of our citizens even know that it exists. But the 
Founding Fathers intended to have the electoral college work this way: 
Voters in the individual States would pick outstanding citizens in 
their States to represent them in the process of choosing a President. 
If the electors were unable to produce a majority for any one 
individual, the choice would then move to the House of Representatives. 
It was anticipated in the time of the ratification of the Constitution 
that the election of a President by Members of the House of 
Representatives would be a frequent occurrence if not, indeed, the 
norm.
  Today, even the names of the electors let alone their opinions or 
qualifications, are virtually unknown to the voters, most of whom think 
they are casting a vote directly for one Presidential candidate or the 
other. The power of the Presidential candidate to reach over the heads 
of the electors and appeal directly to the voters is so strong that the 
electoral college has become virtually a dead letter. Indeed, there are 
now laws on the books in a number of States that prohibit the electors 
from exercising their own judgment as the Founding Fathers had intended 
that they would. I am not here to call for reform of the electoral 
college. But I give this as an example of what can happen when the 
qualifications of the individuals become overwhelmed with advertising 
dollars that go to the point on which the individual is supposed to 
vote.
  If, in the name of campaign reform, we set up a circumstance that 
limits the ability of a candidate to raise and spend his or her own 
money, therefore limiting that candidate's ability to put forth his or 
her own positions, we weaken the ability of the candidate to stand up 
to a special interest. When we say to a candidate, ``If you disagree 
with the position taken by the AFL-CIO, or the Sierra Club, or the 
Christian Coalition, or the trial lawyers, or the NRA, or whatever, you 
have only a limited number of dollars available to make your case; 
while they, on the other hand, can say whatever they want, without 
limitation, about you and your position.'' That is not a fair fight. 
That puts the candidate who would be the constitutional representative 
at a serious disadvantage as opposed to the special interest. That is 
not the position that Madison laid out for the American people as he 
described the Constitution, and it is not the kind of fundamental 
change in our political life that we should be pursuing here.

  I can hear the question now. ``All right, Senator Bennett, thanks for 
the civics lesson, the political science lecture. If you do not like 
this bill, what proposals do you have to try to clean up the influence 
of special interest money in America?''
  I have a proposal. It is not in the form of legislation, but can be 
reduced to legislation as soon as I feel I have stirred up enough 
support for it. I believe in the power of full disclosure. I would 
support measures that would eliminate all limitations on candidates to 
raise and spend money, as long as those candidates were open and candid 
in disclosing to the voters where that money came from. I would extend 
those disclosure requirements to the special interests. At least with 
the AFL-CIO, we know where the money comes from. It comes from their 
increasing the levy on their members. That very fact has produced an 
issue in itself, as people have complained that their money is going to 
support candidates that they themselves do not support. That kind of 
debate is healthy.
  The more people know where the money comes from, the better off we 
are going to be in our political discourse. We do not know where all of 
the money that supports Common Cause comes from. They are immune from 
the kind of disclosure that candidates have to meet. We do not know the 
exact nature of the contributions that keep open the doors of the 
Christian Coalition. They, too, are immune from the kind of disclosure 
requirements that candidates have to meet. We do not know the extent to 
which

[[Page S6682]]

people on the payrolls of these organizations show up in campaigns to 
perform services on behalf of the campaign, either for or against the 
candidate involved. I do not condemn any of these activities. They are 
free, proper expressions of one's rights under the Constitution. But I 
say the way to limit the power of special interests in our political 
process is to open the door of disclosure upon those special interests, 
to maintain and increase, if necessary, the full disclosure 
requirements on candidates, but leave the candidates free to raise and 
spend whatever money they need to defend themselves against the money 
that is raised and spent against them, directly, by the special 
interests.
  If we are to preserve the principles laid down by Madison and his 
contemporaries, we have the right to know more about the inner workings 
of factions than we do now. As long as modern communications have made 
them major players in the political game, they should be treated as 
such and brought under the appropriate kinds of sunshine requirements 
that we have decided as a Nation that we want our candidates to live 
under. They should not be given a free ride while the candidates, who 
need to protect themselves against the pressures from these special 
interests, are held back with artificial and, in my view, tremendously 
unwise limitations.
  For these reasons, then, I would support an elimination of all 
limitations on candidates' fundraising and candidates' spending, with 
full and solid disclosure requirements, making sure that voters knew 
where that money came from, and then applying the same principle, no 
limitation on spending but full disclosure on those special interests 
that seek now to gain unfair advantage by virtue of the passage of this 
legislation.
  I am sure in the course of this debate I will have plenty of 
opportunity to expound further on this theme, so I will leave it at 
that and yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I paid close attention to Senator 
Bennett's remarks. I must say I agree with him on several of the issues 
that he raised concerning campaign finance reform. Really, what this 
issue is going to be all about, to start with, Mr. President, is not 
about whether we can improve and make better proposals for campaign 
finance reform; the question is, are we going to have it? That is going 
to be embodied in the cloture vote tomorrow. If we cannot cut off 
debate, we know that this issue will be shelved for the near term.
  If we do invoke cloture, then Senator Bennett will propose his 
amendment, which he said he could quickly transform into legislation. I 
will be glad to consider it; I will be glad to debate it, and I hope 
that Senator Bennett, and others who think that this proposal is less 
than perfect, which indeed it is less than perfect, will seize the 
opportunity to vote in favor of cloture, and then we would have 
unlimited amendments to the bill.
  If we do not invoke cloture, then clearly the Senate has to move on 
to other business.
  Mr. President, I am not despondent, but I am not optimistic about our 
chances of getting 60 votes. I am not sure whether we will or will not. 
I continue to hope so. I hope Members and, more important, the American 
public will pay attention to this debate. I talked to several of my 
colleagues on this side of the aisle who are very aware of the 
political ramifications of filibustering campaign finance reform. But I 
also understand that the odds may be against it.
  Let me point out that if the challengers were voting today instead of 
the incumbents, I think the outcome might be very different. Let me 
show you one of the reasons why. In 1995, this is what the FEC 
reported, and I am sure the numbers are the same for 1996: $59.2 
million contributed by political action committees to incumbents; $3.9 
million to challengers.
  We can talk about the Federalist Papers, we can talk about Monroe and 
Madison, and, by the way, we will be talking about constitutional 
scholars, including the Congressional Research Service, who have stated 
unequivocally that this proposal is constitutional.
  But, Mr. President, no one--no one, no one, no one--can allege that 
we have a level playing field today when these kind of contributions 
have been made in favor of incumbents. By the way, that is not for 
Democrat incumbents, it is not for Republican incumbents; it is for 
incumbents, and it is wrong and we know it is wrong. It needs to be 
fixed, and the American people want it fixed, and it should be fixed.
  After being in a 10-year battle on the line-item veto, I know it is 
going to be fixed. It may not be this year, it may not be next year, it 
may not be the year after, but it is going to be fixed, because you 
have to believe the American people will be heard.
  Mr. President, according to two pollsters, most widely respected 
pollsters in America:
  When asked: ``Which of the following do you think really controls the 
Federal Government in Washington?'' registered voters responded:

  The lobbyists and special interests, 49 percent; the Republicans in 
Congress, 25 percent; haven't thought much about this, 14 percent; the 
President, 6 percent; the Democrats in Congress, 6 percent.
  When asked: ``Those who make large campaign contributions get special 
favors from politicians * * *'' respondents said that this is:
  One of the things that worries you most, 34 percent; worries you a 
great deal, 34 percent; worries you some, 20 percent; worries you not 
too much, 5 percent; worries you not at all, 3 percent.
  Sixty-eight percent of the American people, according to this poll, 
said in response to the question, ``Those who make large campaign 
contributions get special favors from politicians * * *.'' Sixty-eight 
percent of the American people said that it is one of the things that 
worries them most or worries them a great deal.

  When asked: ``We need campaign finance reform to make politicians 
accountable to average voters rather than special interests . . .,'' 
voters stated this was:

  Very convincing, 59 percent; somewhat convincing, 31 percent; not 
very convincing, 5 percent; not at all convincing, 4 percent; and don't 
know, 2 percent.
  Later in this debate, I am going to show other polling data which 
shows that the approval rating of Congress is at a very impressive 19 
percent approval, 71 percent disapproval, and I will show other polling 
data that show, despite what some of my colleagues may feel, that this 
is an important issue with the American people, it is something they 
believe needs to be changed, and they do believe that it is a 
corrupting influence in the Congress.
  I am not alleging that it is, Mr. President, but I am alleging that 
the belief is out there and the lack of confidence in our political 
system over time can be devastating to democracy.
  There are a lot of editorials that we will be submitting for the 
Record, 261 editorials from 161 newspapers and publications, urging 
support for campaign finance reform. These editorials have been 
published since January 1, 1995. Some of these are very good, and some 
of them not so good. Some of them, I think, are very illustrative.
  Let me quote one from the East Oregonian. I do not want to talk too 
long in this particular round, because Senator Feingold, Senator 
Wellstone, and others want to talk. This is from the East Oregonian, 
September 31, 1995:

       They're still out there, these folks the press keeps 
     calling the Perot voters. This even though most PV's don't 
     have much use anymore for the eccentric, unpredictable 
     zillionaire who stabbed his followers in the back when he 
     withdrew from the 1992 Presidential campaign and goofily 
     reentered the race. Let's not call them Perot voters anymore, 
     let's call them disgusted voters, DV's.
       Like some of the things Perot addressed, they are still 
     waiting for another politician to pick up the ball, and if 
     that means a third party movement, so be it. DV's are 
     Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, all 
     religious and ethnic groups. What is unique to them is not 
     their views on Federal spending, foreign policy or social and 
     environmental issues. What they all hate is the legal 
     corruption corroding American politics, the corruption that 
     comes from special interest money falling from corporations, 
     unions, associations and coalitions into political action 
     committees and then funneled into campaign coffers. The final 
     results are committee and floor votes that don't have much to 
     do with conscience or constituents' needs. That linkage of 
     votes with money is what disgusts voters more than any single 
     issue.


[[Page S6683]]


  Mr. President, I intend to quote from a number of these editorials as 
this discussion and debate goes on this evening and tomorrow.
  I first want to take a moment to thank my colleague from Wisconsin, 
which I should have done at the beginning of my remarks. My colleague 
from Wisconsin has been dedicated, he has been zealous, and he has been 
totally cooperative. I am proud to not only work with him on a 
professional basis but, as we have worked on other reform issues, I 
consider him a good and dear friend. More important, I am pleased that 
we have in the Senator from Wisconsin a person who is dedicated to true 
reform and one whose entire career has been hallmarked by a forthcoming 
and very honest attitude toward the people of his State and this 
country. I am pleased to be able to work with him on this and other 
issues as I have.
  I repeat, Mr. President, if we had voting challengers today, if 
leading challengers who have won the primary would vote today, I know 
what the vote would be, because I hear too many of them, when they run 
for Congress, say, ``As soon as I get there, we're going to clean this 
up, we're going to give the challengers a chance.''
  I know of no objective observer of the political process today who 
believes that there is a level playing field between incumbent and 
challenger, and this is ample evidence of it. As we go through the 
debate I will provide much more evidence.

  As I said, we can quote from the Federalist Papers. We can quote from 
different ones of our Founding Fathers. I could quote from different 
amendments of the Constitution. There is one part of all these 
important documents that I would cite to my friend from Utah; and that 
is ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal,'' equal, equal. There is no equality in the political system 
today for people who are challenging.
  Everybody talks about the great turnover in 1994, how so many 
incumbents were thrown out, and there were so many new faces. Do you 
know, Mr. President, 91 percent of the incumbents who sought reelection 
were elected in 1994? There is a wonderful editorial here from the 
Philadelphia Inquirer that talks about a tale of two incumbents and 
shows why the campaign finance system must be fixed and how it could 
be. Mr. President, I will go into that later on.
  I am going to go into details of our proposal also later on. We will 
talk about the constitutionality of it. But I do not want us to lose 
focus in this debate about what this debate is all about. It is not 
whether several of the compromises that Senator Feingold and I made in 
order to make this a bipartisan issue are the best or not. It is not 
about whether, frankly, we should limit the contributions to 60 percent 
of contributions or 60 percent of contributors in-State.
  What this debate is all about--and we cannot lose the focus on it--is 
that a lot is at stake here, Mr. President. And what is at stake is the 
credibility, the credibility of the Congress of the United States that, 
one, the best qualified people are elected to office, and, two, once 
they are there, that they act in the interest of the American people. 
If you accept this polling number and polls I have heard all over the 
country, that is not the case, and we have a significant problem.
  I will repeat again, when asked if those who make large campaign 
contributions get special favors from politicians, 34 percent of the 
respondents thinks it worries them most, 34 percent thinks it worries 
them a great deal. And 59 percent of the American people find it 
convincing that we need campaign finance reform to make politicians 
accountable to average voters rather than special interests.
  Mr. President, the average voter in America thinks they are not 
listened to here in Washington, DC. I have to tell you, from my 14 
years experience here, in some cases they are right.
  So, Mr. President, I will yield the floor. I know my friend from 
Wisconsin, and others, including Senator Wellstone from Minnesota, want 
to talk. I appreciate the opportunity. I hope the American people will 
call upon their elected representatives to bring about this much-needed 
and fundamental change so we can restore confidence in our most 
important institutions and perhaps remove the cloud of cynicism that 
pervades America today. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  It is very good to be here on the floor with the Senator from Arizona 
and to finally have a chance to debate S. 1219, the campaign finance 
reform bill.
  I first want to return the compliments from the Senator from Arizona. 
I appreciate the kind words. I think everyone in the Senate and 
everyone in the country knows this would not be happening today, 
whether we win or not, this would not be happening today if there were 
not an independent-minded Senator from Arizona who feels so 
passionately about campaign and other reforms in this country that he 
is willing to take both the compliments and the lumps that go with 
leading a bipartisan effort, which he has done.
  It has been a pleasure and will continue to be a pleasure because we 
intend to win this, hopefully tomorrow, but if not, as the Senator from 
Arizona said, the American people will win this issue when some control 
is finally exerted over the obscene amount of money that is now 
dominating the political process.

  I also want to mention, Mr. President, the new Senator from 
Tennessee, one of our main coauthors, Senator Thompson, whose 
perspective and help has been very helpful and very useful throughout 
this process, and especially, of course, the Senator from Minnesota, 
Senator Wellstone, who, in my mind, is the most focused reformer in 
this entire body. You name the issue, I think he is most likely to be 
the first person in line to say, let us reconnect the political process 
between elected representatives and the people back home, rather than 
the special interests.
  We also have had wonderful help from the Senator from Kansas, Senator 
Kassebaum, and Senator Graham from Florida, Senator Murray from 
Washington, Senator Kerry from Massachusetts, and others.
  We cannot talk about this bipartisan effort without reminding 
everybody it has been a bicameral effort. Even more uncommon in the 
Congress than a bipartisan effort is having the two Houses have 
cooperation. And there the Representative from Washington, Linda Smith, 
and others, have been very helpful in making this an effort that the 
American public has recognized. It did not hurt either that the 
President of the United States took the care in his State of the Union 
address to specifically endorse this effort, this bipartisan effort, as 
the way to go. And all of this has helped us move forward.
  Mr. President, I also want to thank the new majority leader for 
letting this bill come up. It is not the way I wanted it to come up. We 
did not want to have to start off by having 60 votes just to get the 
ball rolling. But it is sure better than not having the chance to 
discuss it at all. I do appreciate that and look forward to the process 
of hopefully ending up with a successful vote tomorrow at about 2 
o'clock.
  But let us set the record straight, Mr. President, about what this 
bill is about. The first statement by the Senator from Utah certainly 
laid out one view of what this is about. But let us clear one thing up 
now. And I know we are going to have to clear it up over and over 
again. This bill has no mandatory spending limits that requires every 
candidate to only spend a certain amount. It has a voluntary incentive 
system.
  You will hear this red herring over and over again because the 
opponents of this bill want you to think that this bill creates 
mandatory spending limits even though we all know that such limits 
would be unconstitutional under the decision in Buckley versus Valeo. 
So let us remember that. The bill does not have a mandatory limit on 
how much a candidate can spend. No matter how many times you are led to 
believe that is what it does, it is just not true. It is not in the 
bill. It is not the McCain-Feingold bill that we have before us.
  Rather, Mr. President, what we are offering today in hopes of 
restoring the lost faith and confidence of the American people is 
something very different.

[[Page S6684]]

 We are hopeful the Democrats and Republicans can come together and 
demonstrate to the American people our willingness to restore some 
element of integrity to the political process. So the proposal we have 
has different goals than that suggested by the Senator from Utah.
  Our goals are as follows. We try to reduce the flow of money in the 
electoral process that has become dominated by dollars and cents rather 
than issues and ideas. We try to end the perpetual money chase on 
Capitol Hill by somehow allowing current office holders to spend less 
time raising the requisite campaign funds and more time fulfilling 
their legislative duties and obligations.
  Mr. President, those are important things but they are not the core 
of our proposal. The core of our proposal, the very heart of this 
legislation, is, for the first time, to provide qualified candidates 
who are not millionaires, and who are not able to amass colossal war 
chests and do not have access to the extensive net worth of well-heeled 
contributors with an opportunity to run a fair and competitive campaign 
for the U.S. Senate. That is what this bill tries to do. It tries to 
give most Americans, which includes those who are not 
multimillionaires, most Americans, a fighting chance to be a part of 
this process, that they were born and taught to believe was their 
right. That is what this effort is about.
  Our current campaign system is heavily tilted in favor of a 
privileged few. If you have access to large amounts of campaign funds, 
then our current system is great for you, it accommodates you. If you 
are a millionaire and are able to contribute your own personal wealth 
to your campaign without having to participate in the endless cycle of 
attending fund raisers and soliciting contributions, then our current 
system is good for you, too.
  But, Mr. President, if you are not an incumbent and you are not worth 
several millions of dollars, and even if you have a wealth of 
experience and ideas, and even a large base of grassroots support, the 
sad truth is that such candidates are automatically labeled long shots 
under the standards set forth under the current election system.
  Why is this, Mr. President? Why is someone who may have served as a 
city council member, who may have been a police officer or a 
schoolteacher, who believes in public service and holds an ambition to 
represent their particular community, why is such a person in America 
automatically labeled a ``long shot,'' making it so very difficult to 
get credibility?
  The answer is very simple, Mr. President. The answer, Mr. President, 
is money. Money has become the defining attribute of congressional 
candidates in this Nation. If you have money, you are considered a 
serious contender; if you do not have money, you get stamped on your 
head the phrase ``automatic long shot.''
  I tell you what happens when someone declares their candidacy for the 
Senate in this country. They are not asked about the issues very much. 
They are not asked that much about what level of support they have in 
their home States. Maybe at some point they will be asked that. Those 
are not the questions that first greets either a real candidacy or a 
planned candidacy. The question that they are greeted with has become 
the determining question in American politics. The determining question 
in American politics, Mr. President, is, ``Hey, where are you going to 
get the money? How are you going to raise all the money? How much time 
will it take? How much do you have to raise every week in order to be a 
viable candidate?'' Most of us have had these questions thrown at us 
when we first ran.
  If you have the money, you are welcomed into our system with open 
arms. You are considered a credible candidate, and your pursuit of 
elected office is considered, right away, to be a tenable goal. But if 
you do not have the money, it is an entirely different reaction. Such 
candidates are usually shunned by the political establishment, labeled 
long shots, and entered into an electoral arena where chances of 
upsetting high finance candidates parallel their odds maybe of being 
struck by a lightning bolt or winning the Powerball lottery.
  Our campaign should be a discourse between candidates of differing 
perspectives. Instead, we have a system that is the equivalent of a 
high-stakes poker game, where only those players with the ability to 
ante up are truly invited to sit at the table and join the game. It 
does not matter what sort of experience you have or what your positions 
are or what ideas you can bring with you. It is all about your ability 
to put up big money on the table and ante up. That is really what this 
bill is about, Mr. President. It is not an effort to prevent people 
from participating in the process. It is just the opposite. There are 
no mandatory spending limits, as is suggested by the opponents of the 
bill.
  But we have another problem. That is, Mr. President, that a lot of 
people think it just cannot happen. I had this experience in talking to 
editorial writers and constituents. They think this can never happen. 
We have seen this before, whether it is partisan or bipartisan. It does 
not matter whether it is after major electoral changes. It does not 
matter that people think they have heard this song before and it just 
cannot happen, that Washington can never clean itself up in this 
regard. I admit this issue has been very difficult to alter. What is 
different this time is that we have a bipartisan effort. Maybe the 
polls in the past have shown the people do not rank this real high on 
their list. However, as the Senator from Arizona says, that is 
changing.
  Maybe the reason it was not so high on the list before was this sense 
that it could not happen. I remember the same attitude about the 
deficit issue. When I first started talking about the deficit in 1990 
and 1991, the consultants would say nobody cares about that. The public 
gets bored, they get glassy eyed on that issue. After a while, people 
realized that was a central issue. The same thing happens here. Maybe 
it has been tough to get this issue going because it is not easy to 
understand. It is not as easy as the effort that Senator McCain, 
Senator Wellstone, and I all made on the gift ban. That was so easy. 
All you had to show was that people could get free golf trips all over 
the country and there was not much more to explain. It is awful hard to 
vote for that. But this is worse. This is even worse than the gift-
giving system that we finally cracked down. I think there is reason to 
believe that we can win tomorrow and reason to believe that we will 
win, whether tomorrow or in the near future.

  There are many reasons, but I thought the vote we had in 1995 on the 
floor of the Senate was a little clue. That was when the former 
majority leader, Senator Dole, came to the floor to move to table an 
amendment I had brought up to simply say that campaign finance reform 
ought to be considered. I would have thought we would have lost that 
vote. The majority leader usually won, almost always won on those kind 
of votes. We had 13 or 14 Members from the other side who came over and 
joined us to make sure it got on the agenda. Unfortunately, of course, 
it took us almost a year to actually get out here and have a bill come 
up, but it has finally happened.
  How do I know this issue is stronger than it was in the past? When I 
go to my counties around the State to town meetings for listening 
sessions, I usually make an introductory statement --keep it short, 
because people have been told I will listen to them; I only give myself 
5 minutes like I give everyone else. I found this year when I merely 
said the words to my constituents, I have signed on to a bipartisan 
bill concerning campaign finance reform, even before people knew who I 
signed on with or what the bill did, there was tremendous applause in 
the room. Many times I just get blank stares after I speak. This got 
major applause and response every time, because people are fed up. We 
have reached the time when this bill and this issue will come to 
fruition.
  I want to say--all of us have this same feeling who have cosponsored 
this bill--this is not our perfect bill. It is not the perfect bill for 
the Senator from Arizona or the Senator from Minnesota. I introduced S. 
46 in the first day of the 104th Congress. That was a lot closer to 
what I would prefer, the Feingold bill. It included public financing, 
which I think is the best way to go. That is my preference. I think it 
is the preference of the Senator from Minnesota, who has long been an 
advocate of this issue.

[[Page S6685]]

  One of our responsibilities here in this body is to know when it is 
time to work with the other side and to give up some of the things we 
really want so we can move forward. I remember that is exactly what the 
former majority leader said in his farewell talk. If you cannot get 100 
percent, get 90 percent today and get 10 percent later. I was delighted 
when the Senator from Arizona came to me and initiated this process. 
The bill included some ideas the Democrats had proposed before, some 
the Republicans proposed before. What struck me overall, it was a 
genuine attempt to reach an accord between the parties. You have to do 
that on an issue like this. This is an issue where if either side feels 
the other side has somehow rigged the bill, it is all over. That is why 
I am so proud of the support we have received for this bill.
  One of the problems with reaching a compromise is that you worry some 
how those who have been real strong advocates, especially out among the 
public, will say, ``Wait a minute. This is not good enough.'' That 
could have happened. As the Senator from Arizona knows, just the 
opposite happened. We have received enormous support. We have 60 
sponsors of the two bills in the House and the Senate. It is almost 
evenly divided on bipartisan lines in the House. The lead author of 
this in the Senate is a Republican, although we do have more on the 
Democratic side who have cosponsored it. It has been supported 
vigorously by Common Cause and Public Citizen, AARP, and the United We 
Stand group that has helped on this issue all across the country. These 
are not necessarily political bedfellows, but on this issue they came 
together.
  As the Senator from Arizona indicated, we have had enormous editorial 
support all across the country--east, west, north, south--from major 
newspapers to minor newspapers. As I indicated, we have the support of 
both the President of the United States and Mr. Ross Perot. What I have 
been impressed by with regard to this support, Mr. President, is that 
even though it came out about a year ago, and this bill has been 
delayed and delayed, nonetheless, the support remains, and the people 
who have advocated this bill have kept the heat up.
  Mr. President, why does the public sense we absolutely have to move 
on campaign finance reform at this point? I think it is because people 
have finally realized that the No. 1 issue that we have to deal with in 
this country is getting the big money out of policymaking that goes on 
in Washington.
  For me, the No. 1 substantive issue is we have to balance the budget. 
If I had to pick the one reform issue, the one issue that is underlying 
all of this, it is the issue of campaign finance reform. Mr. President, 
why is it that people are finally sensing what is going on? Just a few 
of the statistics that are very troubling: In a U.S. Senate race now, 
the average winner spent in 1994, $4.5 million. That is what the 
average winner needs. It is not good enough anymore just to be a 
millionaire. You better have a lot more than that. You better have 
about $10 million if you want to finance it yourself.
  What about personal wealth contributions? They have gone up 
dramatically in the last few elections. In 1990, only 4 percent of the 
money that was spent on elections was from personal wealth, from 
individuals putting in their own money. The same in 1992. Suddenly, in 
1994, 18 percent of all the money spent on U.S. Senate elections came 
from a dramatic increase in personal spending.
  Mr. President, what about overall spending? In 1990, it was a lot of 
money--$494 million. In 1992, the spending in House and Senate races 
grew to $702 million. Just 2 years later, it jumped again to $784 
million. The same thing goes with the trend on out-of-State 
contributions. After staying at 16 percent in 1990, in 1992, the 
percentage of money in Senate elections that comes from out of the 
State for a Senator is now 23 percent, and growing. So these are not 
static concerns. These are not trends that have always been there or 
practices that have always been there. These are rapidly increasing 
trends in overall spending, out-of-State spending, and the huge 
infusion of personal money into campaigns.
  I know this from my own campaign. Everyone of us has our own story. 
For me, all three of my opponents--both of the primary candidates and 
the final election candidate, the incumbent--had all spent over what 
this bill suggests as a limit by the time of the primary. That is about 
a $14 million or $15 million Senate race in Wisconsin, which is 
certainly not a small State, but it is not a real large State either. 
It was a staggering sight for the people in my State. Fortunately, for 
me, my primary opponents felt so confident that I was not a factor in 
the race, they decided to turn all that money on each other, causing 
the people to look for an alternative. But we know that type of thing 
is an exception to the rule. That was just in a primary, not the 
general election.
  Mr. President, perhaps most disturbing, though, is not the issue of 
how can somebody finance their campaign, or even the issue of what 
happens when somebody is outgunned in a race, even though one person 
may be more qualified than the other. I think what the American public 
realizes more than anything else, and what really bothers them the 
most, is they know that this story does not end when the votes are 
counted. It is not just a question of who wins and who becomes a 
Senator. They know that the very policies enacted in this Congress are 
altered in some way or another by the presence of all of this money in 
the process.
  How does this happen? Well, one way it happens is that in this town 
there are, apparently, 13,500 people who are lobbyists. They help with 
this process. They are not inactive in connecting the campaign process 
to the policy process. Let me give you one example of what happens 
around here. I will omit the names of those involved, but it is just a 
sample so that nobody is confused or puzzled about how sometimes what 
we decide to do out here is somehow connected to what happens during 
the campaigns.
  Here is an invitation:

       During this year's congressional debate on dairy policy, 
     representative ``blank'' has led the charge for dairy farmers 
     and cooperatives by supporting efforts to maintain the milk 
     marketing order program and expand export markets abroad.
       To honor his leadership, we are hosting a fundraising 
     breakfast for ``blank'' on Wednesday, December 6, 1995. To 
     show your appreciation to ``blank,'' please join us at Le 
     Mistral Restaurant for an enjoyable breakfast with your dairy 
     colleagues.
       PAC's throughout the industry are asked to contribute 
     $1,000. ``Blank'' would prefer that the checks be made to his 
     leadership fund. If your PAC is unable to comply with this 
     request, please make your PAC check to ```blank' for 
     Congress.''
       Thank you for your support of our industry's legislative 
     campaign this year and your recognition of ``blank's'' 
     important role toward achieving our objective.

  Now, this is legal. I am not suggesting anyone here has done anything 
legally wrong. It is just what goes on in this town. A vote is taken, 
and a fundraiser is held. I am not suggesting the opposite, which would 
be wrong. But, boy, it is a tight connection. That is what is going on 
in this town, and that is what the American people have come to 
realize.

  Earlier this year, a report was issued by the Center for Responsive 
Politics. It does show a relationship--at least an arguable 
relationship--between campaign contributions and the congressional 
agenda. The list includes cattle and sheep interests contributing over 
$600,000 during the last election cycle, while fighting to protect 
Federal grazing policies to give them access to Federal lands at below-
market prices. Mining interests spent over $1 million in 1993 and 1994 
on campaign contributions to Members of Congress while trying to 
prevent reform of the 1872 mining law. Oil and gas interests 
contributed over $6.1 million in the last election cycle pushing for 
the alternative minimum tax. That is a change that would cost the U.S. 
Treasury $15 billion.
  So this problem affects everything, including our deficit problem. If 
special interest money can encourage us to spend more money, or create 
more tax loopholes, then it is part of the reason we cannot balance our 
budget.
  Mr. President, there are many other issues that I wish to discuss, 
just as the Senator from Arizona does, and there will be time to do 
that. At some point, we will lay out some of the specific provisions of 
the bill. We will discuss in detail the constitutional issues that I 
know the Senator from Kentucky will tenaciously raise, and we will 
certainly

[[Page S6686]]

point out that, although they are interesting arguments, they are not 
the arguments that the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately follow. But 
I think it will be a spirited debate.
  Finally, I hope to get a chance to stand again and talk about what 
this means. Let me conclude by saying what it means to me from the 
point of view of someone who grew up believing that everybody had a 
chance to run for Congress or the Senate if they really wanted to.
  This summer, I will go to my 25th high school class reunion at 
Janesville Craig High School in Janesville. I am looking forward to it, 
and I am eager to see my former Democratic and Republican friends--
there were more Republicans than Democrats in that town, which taught 
me the value of bipartisan cooperation. Recently, I had a chance, here 
in the Halls of the Capitol, to meet with the political science 
students from the another high school, our crosstown rival, Janesville 
Parker. They asked me what I was working on. As I looked at them, I 
realized something had changed from 1971 when I told people that maybe 
I would go into politics someday. You know, in 1971, nobody said, 
``First, Russ, you have to go out and raise about $5 million, or you 
better become so connected to the political structure in Washington, or 
you are never going to be a Senator or a Congressman.'' Nobody said 
that to me, and I have had the good fortune to be an exception to the 
rule here. But I could not tell those kids 25 years later that anyone 
of them had any reasonable expectation to ever be elected to this body, 
unless they become very, very wealthy, or very, very well connected.
  To me, that is a little bit of a denial of the American dream. It is 
not the same thing as being able to buy a house. It is not the same 
thing as not having health care. I realize it has to be down the list 
as compared to basic necessities. But I still believe that the right of 
every American to fairly participate in this process is part of the 
American dream. That is all our bill is about, making sure, on a 
voluntary basis, that every qualified American has a fair chance to 
participate in the process. That is what we are trying to do.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I will not speak at length, having 
introduced the debate. I want to provide a counterpoint to the 
arguments that we have had now with two speakers in favor of the bill. 
I would like to make several comments, one with respect to the chart 
offered by my friend from Arizona.

  I was in this town when Richard Nixon was President of the United 
States and the loud outcry went up that money was destroying politics; 
that we had to reform politics; that we had to find a way to take the 
corrosive support of money away from politics in the wake of the 
Watergate scandal. The solution that was crafted and debated on this 
floor and ultimately passed was the creation of the political action 
committees [PAC's]. PAC's were touted as the ultimate purifying 
process. What could be better than a PAC?
  I remember the debate very well. It went this way. Instead of one 
individual being able to give Richard Nixon $250,000--or, as Clement 
Stone did at the time, $2.5 million--now you have a circumstance where 
ordinary citizens can get together and pool their money in a political 
action committee, and for efficiency purposes, the managers of that 
committee will issue individual single checks of no more than $5,000.
  What could be better in cleaning up politics than the creation of the 
political action committees? Indeed, Mr. President, I once worked for 
the man who probably created the first political action committee. His 
name was Howard Hughes.
  At the Hughes organizations in California, where people were 
constantly coming to Mr. Hughes for political contributions, he said, 
``Let's get all of the employees together, let them contribute $5, $10, 
whatever is their choice, into a single fund, and then let them 
determine how that money will be spent.''
  The original Hughes political action committee had every politician 
in California coming before it to speak to the employees because the 
candidate who did a great job in front of that PAC meeting would walk 
away with a check for $50,000, $60,000, or $100,000, depending upon how 
the employees voted that their PAC money was to be spent. I believe 
that was the model for the creation of the political action committee.
  Now we see charts being given to us telling us of the corrosive 
damaging influence of PAC's.
  It all comes down to a statement that was made in an editorial in the 
Wall Street Journal on the 4th of April. I quote:

       The bigger point here is that money and politics is like 
     water running downhill. Dam up one avenue, and it will pool 
     and meander until it finds another way to break through. 
     Trying to regulate it is a fool's errand, as even some good 
     government reformers are beginning to understand.

  If I could go back to the theme of my opening statement, we are not 
talking about, in the words of the Senator from Wisconsin, reducing the 
flow of political action money. We are talking about redirecting the 
flow of political action money with the kind of legislation that is 
being offered here.
  Back to the Wall Street Journal, another editorial. This one that 
appeared on the 2d of February 1996, which gives an example of the kind 
of thing I was talking about in my opening statement.

       What the reformers will not advertise is that there is 
     nothing much they can do about the special interests who 
     decide to spend money on their own, as they did to great 
     effect in Oregon. The AFL-CIO says it devoted 35 full-time 
     professionals and sent out 350,000 pieces of partisan mail 
     for the cause. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation 
     Voters spent $200,000 on 30,000 postcards, 100,000 telephone 
     calls, and very tough TV and radio spots accusing Republican 
     Gordon Smith of voting against ground-water protection, clean 
     air, pesticide limits, and recycling.

  The editorial goes on:

       The toughest was a Teamster radio spot run on seven 
     stations in five cities that in effect accused Mr. Smith of 
     being an accomplice to murder because a 14-year-old boy died 
     in an accident at one of his companies.

  Quoting the spot:

       Gordon Smith owns companies where workers get hurt and 
     killed. He has repeatedly violated the law. Those are the 
     facts.

  The Journal goes on:

       In fact, the young worker had died after a fall in a grain 
     elevator while being supervised by his father, who still 
     works for Mr. Smith and does not blame him. An analysis of 
     the ad in the liberal Oregonian newspaper essentially 
     concluded that the whole thing was false. The ad was the work 
     of consultant Henry Sheinkopf, who is part of Bill Clinton's 
     reelection team this year and likes to say he believes in the 
     politics of terror.

  The editorial goes on:

       Even Mr. Wyden felt compelled to criticize the rhetoric of 
     the ad, but since it was not run by his campaign he couldn't 
     be blamed for it even as it cut up his opponent. That is the 
     beauty of these independent expenditures. They work for a 
     candidate without showing his fingerprints. Mr. Wyden took 
     the high road earlier this month and announced that both 
     candidates should stop negative campaigning, while his allies 
     kept dumping garbage on Mr. Smith through the mail and on the 
     airwaves.

  Mr. President, that is the point I made in my opening remark, and 
that is the point I will keep coming back to again and again until we 
recognize that special interest money is more damaging in the hands of 
special interests going directly to the voter than it is in the hands 
of a candidate who must be accountable to the voter. We will be missing 
the point in this whole debate. Setting limitations? Oh, we are told 
they are not mandatory, that they are only driven by a voluntary 
incentive system.
  Ask Bob Dole about the voluntary incentive system he is laboring 
under. He cannot spend any more money now under this voluntary 
incentive system, and President Clinton has $27 million to spend 
because Bob Dole had to run against Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan to 
win his nomination, and Bill Clinton did not have to run against 
anybody. So Bill Clinton has his $27 million raised for the primary 
that he can spend in any way he wants, and Bob Dole is forbidden by 
law. But, no, that is not mandatory. That is a voluntary incentive 
system.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BENNETT. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. The Senator surely knows that has nothing to do with the 
legislation we are considering. That

[[Page S6687]]

has to do campaign financing within campaigns, which is not in this 
legislation.
  I sympathize with the frustration of the Senator from Utah. I was 
going to talk about it later on. I understand, according to some folks, 
that now you can sleep in the Lincoln bedroom for $130,000, but that 
has nothing to do with the legislation that is being proposed here, 
which those limitations impose because of candidates taking taxpayers' 
money.
  Mr. BENNETT. I agree completely that the Senator from Arizona is 
correct, that this bill does not include public financing. But may I 
get clarification? The voluntary incentive system does, in fact, if 
entered into by a candidate for local office, produce a limitation.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a 
colloquy with the Senator from Utah.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Stevens). Is there objection? Without 
objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNETT. Is there, in fact, a limitation if someone enters into 
the voluntary incentive system?
  Mr. McCAIN. There is no limitation. What happens is that then the 
challenger who is running, who is not in violation of the voluntary 
spending limits, then receives extra incentives.
  That is all there is to it. There is no prohibition for anyone, and 
it allows them to spend however much money they want to spend. In the 
case of a millionaire or a multimillionaire, say from a small State, 
who wanted to spend millions of dollars of his or her own money, we 
would not allow that person, as is the habit of these millionaires, to 
raise all that money back. We only allow them to raise $250,000 back, 
and the rest of it he or she would have to write off.
  But there is no limit on the spending that a person can make. They 
just lose the incentives that are in the bill, and the opponent who may 
not be nearly as well funded has some extra incentive to go along with 
it, the details of which I will be glad to explain to the Senator from 
Utah.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from Kentucky be allowed to enter the colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I do not believe that that is according to 
the rules of the Senate. I do not believe that three--I do not believe 
that more than two can engage in a colloquy. I ask the Parliamentarian.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the Senate can engage in 
such colloquy, Senators may engage in such colloquy as they seek.
  Mr. McCAIN. Then I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from 
Wisconsin be included in this colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from 
Minnesota be in this colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Very well, gentlemen. The 
Chair will still ask that Senators seek recognition through the Chair 
if there is a dispute.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I understand that my friend and colleague from 
Minnesota is supposed to be at an event. I will try to keep this short. 
But I would say to my friend from Utah, I think the answer to the 
question that was raised, the whole issue of whether there is spending 
in this bill, of course, there is. It is referred to, Mr. President, as 
``voluntary'' when, in fact, it is voluntary such as the following 
situation: You are being held up and a fellow puts a gun to your 
temple, and he says, ``You don't have to give me your billfold, but if 
you don't, I am going to shoot you.''
  So what happens to you in this situation, I say to my friend from 
Utah, is that if you do not agree to the Government-imposed speech 
limit on the campaign, the following things happen to you: You lose 
free broadcast time, 30 minutes; you lose the 50 percent broadcast 
discount; you lose a discounted postage rate; your opponent gets a 
higher contribution, individual contribution limit.
  As you can see, this is not terribly voluntary. In fact, it is the 
part of the bill that makes it unconstitutional.
  Now, I did not stand up here to make my major comments on this, but I 
did want to just follow up on this PAC discussion because I know my 
friend from Arizona had the PAC chart up. I used to advocate, as a part 
of an overall compromise back years ago when our side was trying to put 
together an alternative, going along with the PAC ban even though I 
knew it was unconstitutional. I think that it was a bad decision then 
and it would be a bad decision now to eliminate political action 
committees, because, in fact, the vast majority of them are organized 
just as my friend from Utah has suggested.
  An awful lot of American citizens, Mr. President, are really offended 
by the likelihood that they would be pushed out of the political 
process altogether. Having been involved in this debate for some 10 
years now and having watched the flow of this issue, I would say what 
is different about the debate this year is that an awful lot of people 
who are aggrieved by it are willing to say something.
  For example, the National Education Association, with which I am very 
seldom allied, just wrote me a letter indicating they are opposed to 
this bill. I know that EMILY's List is opposed to this bill. I know 
that the National Taxpayers Union, the National Right to Life 
Committee, the National Rifle Association, the Christian Coalition, the 
National Association of Broadcasters, the National Association of 
Business PAC's are all against this bill.

  Now, in the case of the broadcasters and the direct marketing people, 
you could argue that one of the reasons they do not like this bill is 
because they are going to be called upon to pay for it. I guess you 
could argue technically that there is not taxpayer funding in here, but 
spending limits are not free. So the question is, who picks up the tab? 
Under this proposal, the broadcasting industry and the direct marketing 
industry have the opportunity to pass these costs along to their 
customers. And that is, in effect, how it is paid for.
  The NEA----
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me just say, Mr. President, I am going to yield 
the floor because I know my friend from Minnesota is anxious to get his 
remarks in and go to something else. But I mentioned the NEA in 
connection with the PAC discussion because I would say to my friend 
from Utah, in the letter they sent just today indicating their 
opposition to this bill, they said that the average contribution to the 
NEA PAC is $6.
  Now, Republicans know they are a very big PAC because we rarely get 
any contribution from it, but I would say that it is a step forward for 
democracy to have that many people involved participating together on 
behalf of a cause in which they believe. So we should not be banning 
PAC's. I do not think the courts would let us do it, but we should not 
be doing it. Something as unconstitutional, as the ACLU candidly says, 
should not pass in the Senate.
  But specifically in connection with the PAC discussion, most PAC's 
include an awful lot of Americans banding together to support the 
candidates of their choice. It is very, very hard for me to see how 
that is a bad thing for democracy.
  Finally, before yielding the floor, let me say there is always a lot 
of discussion anytime we bring this issue up about leveling the playing 
field. Well, in order to level the playing field in Kentucky, you would 
have to get about half the Democrats to change their registration. You 
would have to sell about half the newspapers to different owners so 
they would occasionally support Republicans. And you would have to 
rewrite the political history of the State.
  So if we are really going to be serious about leveling the playing 
field here, money is not the only factor in these elections--voting 
behavior, registration, newspaper endorsements, what kind of year it 
is. If the Government is really going to try to create a level playing 
field, let us really get into this thing now and figure out how to 
really do it.
  In short, Mr. President, you cannot create a level playing field; it 
is impossible. It is impossible because every political year is 
different, every State is different, the strength of the parties is 
different. All you can do through this

[[Page S6688]]

kind of proposal is, as my friend from Utah pointed out, redirect money 
in a different direction. Spending limits are, in short, like putting a 
rock on Jello. It sort of oozes out to the side in a different 
direction.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will be happy to yield the floor, and we will 
continue the debate later.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the past unanimous consent, the Members 
who sought recognition as part of a colloquy may yield to one another 
until this colloquy is over.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator from Kentucky yield?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD and Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator yielded. The Chair will recognize 
the Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona and the 
Senator from Wisconsin want to respond.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would like a very brief response.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Very well. And I would like to get the floor. Could I 
ask unanimous consent that after they respond I might have the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is part of the colloquy by 
unanimous consent.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will defer to my two colleagues, and then I would 
like to follow.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair is just going to issue an edict that 
when the three speakers have spoken, there be no action under this 
colloquy; it is too hard to maintain.
  The Senator has yielded. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, that was the reason why I raised the 
concern to start with.
  Mr. President, as far as PAC's are concerned, I just make two 
responses. I have heard the comment that a lot of people have felt that 
if political action committees were not allowed, they would somehow be 
deprived of their part in the political process. In fact, most 
constituents of mine feel that making campaign contributions directly 
to the candidate is the most effective and beneficial way. In fact, I 
do not know many of my constituents who come here to Washington to give 
me that PAC check. In fact, the person that gives out those $5,000 PAC 
checks is the lobbyist here in Washington. So that is a strange 
description of the political process.

  Mr. President, I do not want to get too harsh, but let us talk what 
this is really all about. Let me give two examples of the Palm Beach 
Post editorial of last October:

       In his diaries, Mr. Packwood describes his relationship 
     with a lobbyist. Shell Oil and many other clients hired him 
     because they knew he had access to Senator Packwood. In 
     return, this lobbyist raised money for the Senator so the 
     lobbyist collected fees, the Senator collected campaign 
     contributions and the company got legislative favors. As 
     Senator Packwood told his diary: ``That's a happy 
     relationship for all of us.''

  I do not think that is exactly along the lines of the process that 
the Senator from Kentucky just described.
  Let me just quote again from this editorial.

       The lawmaker's claim to be above board has collapsed 
     lately. Wyche Fowler, a former Senator and Representative 
     from Georgia, said, ``On many occasions--I am not proud of 
     it--I made the choice I needed this big corporate client, and 
     therefore I voted for or sponsored this provision even though 
     I did not think it was in the best interests of the country 
     or the economy.''

  Mr. President, there are two examples from both sides of the aisle of 
what the problem is here. The problem is that this money exerts undue 
influence on the process.
  Mr. President, there will be more. I yield.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota yielded.
  Does the Senator now yield to the Senator from Wisconsin?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I now yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Minnesota has 
been waiting for a long time. I will yield in a moment.
  Mr. President, I thought this was a colloquy on the issue of whether 
there were spending limits in this bill. The Senator from Kentucky and 
the Senator from Utah have come out here today and said, time and 
again, that there are mandatory spending limits or that there are 
spending limits that force you to lose something that you have now. We 
have to clear this up. I am going to stay out here as long as this bill 
is up to clear it up.
  The example the Senator from Kentucky used suggested that if somebody 
started to spend what they used to spend, they would lose something 
they used to have. It is not true. Our bill does not cause a person who 
wants to spend money to lose anything. If they want to go over the 
limit, they still get the lowest commercial rate. They never had the 
benefits of the bill in the first place. So let us be very clear about 
this, there is no gun to anyone's head. That is just false. In a State 
where the limit is $1 million, a person can spend $10 million, just as 
they can today, and they lose nothing. There is no gun to anyone's head 
in this bill. It only provides benefits to those who are willing to 
comply with it.
  I challenge the Senator from Kentucky at any point in this process to 
suggest where anyone is forced to give up what they have now. People 
can spend themselves into oblivion on this bill still. But at least 
those who are opposing them will have a chance.
  I think it is very important that the record show what this bill 
actually provides, not the parade of horribles that have been suggested 
that do not actually exist in the text of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, just following up on what my colleague 
from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, has had to say, I think what this 
bill will do, however, is it will set a higher standard. You do not 
have to comply with it. But once we, as a U.S. Senate, and then 
hopefully the House of Representatives, respond to what I think people 
are telling us in the country about what they yearn for in our 
political process, it sets a higher standard. I think the focus will be 
on how to make this political process more accountable and more open 
and more credible and more believable for people.
  I want to get to my more formal remarks. But I want first to respond 
to a little bit of what I have heard said. My colleague from Kentucky--
we have debated other issues on the floor of the Senate--talked about 
how in Kentucky a whole lot of other things would have to be done in 
order to have a level playing field: You would have to change part of 
the history, you would have to change who owns some of the newspapers, 
et cetera.
  This is a bit of a strawperson argument. We are not making the 
argument that this piece of legislation will create a political heaven 
on Earth. We are just trying to talk about how to make this a little 
better, to improve people's confidence in it and in elected officials. 
We are talking about how to try to make this system work better for 
people.
  I suppose the argument can be made that you can never have a 100 
percent completely level playing field. But this piece of legislation 
is a significant step toward dealing with some of the disparity that 
now exists and toward making this system less wired for people who are 
incumbents, less wired for people who are wealthy, less wired for 
people who are connected to the well-connected.
  Some of the arguments made by this bill's opponents this afternoon 
kind of miss the point. I do not want right now to get into a long 
discussion with my colleague from Utah. Maybe we will later on. I plan 
on staying on the floor for the duration of this debate, or for a good, 
long period of time. But if we want to go back to the Federalist 
Papers, let me also just suggest to my colleague that part of the 
intention of those who wrote Federalist Paper No. 10 was to figure out 
how, in fact, you could check majority rule. There was a big concern 
about the tempestuous masses.

  I must say, I think part of what is going on here on the floor is 
trying to figure out how to check majority rule, because this system 
right now does not meet the standard of real representative democracy, 
because the standard of a representative democracy in our country, or 
any other country, is that

[[Page S6689]]

each person counts as one and no more than one. I dare any of my 
colleagues to, in this debate, come out here on the floor and say, 
given the system we have right now and the reliance on huge 
contributions--whether it be soft money, PAC money or individual 
contributions--that, as a matter of fact, each and every citizen has 
the same influence over our political process. It is simply not true. 
And it is certainly not the perception that many have of our system.
  This current system does very severe damage to the very essence of 
what representative democracy is supposed to be all about. I think this 
vote is going to be the reform vote of the 104th Congress. That is what 
this is all about. This is going to be the reform vote of the 104th 
Congress. I want people to understand exactly what is at stake here 
over the next day or so.
  We will have a vote on this, to bring to a close the Senate 
filibuster. We have been able to bring this bill to the floor but we've 
been blocked from amending it or otherwise moving forward on it by this 
filibuster. We will have a vote to try to break the filibuster at 2:15 
p.m. tomorrow. In the meantime, we do not have the opportunity to amend 
the bill. Senators do not have the opportunity to improve the bill. 
Senators should have that opportunity. And then we should have a chance 
to vote on it, up or down.
  Last Congress we debated campaign finance reform--that is to say, 
ways in which we could begin to get some of the big money out of 
politics, ways in which we could bring the spending limits down, and 
make the system work better for people--for several weeks. What is 
going on here is an effort to filibuster this bill, motivated by a hope 
that tomorrow at 2:15 we will not get the required 60 votes to end the 
filibuster and then it will all go away. Then I suppose the sort of 
political cover position will be: Let us appoint a commission. But 
that's not going to fly, either here or with the American people. And 
if we are unable to break the filibuster tomorrow, we will be back 
again on this issue until we get it done.
  I want to remind my colleagues one more time: this is the reform vote 
of the 104th Congress, and people will hold us accountable. Our 
constituents in our States, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents 
alike, will hold us accountable. Nobody should believe this is going to 
be an easy vote: Vote against cloture, block this legislation, and then 
duck for political cover by saying you want to appoint some commission.
  I want to talk about this piece of legislation, not in a technical 
way--though we can have that debate as well--but, rather, just in terms 
of some simple human realities. First of all, I will start with 
Senators and Representatives. I do not know, my colleague from 
Wisconsin talked about this, but I think I am speaking for almost 
everybody here. I think most of us dislike the current system. Most of 
the people in Congress, on both sides of the political aisle, with whom 
I talk in private say it is a rotten system. People spend too much time 
fundraising and they do not spend enough time legislating. People hate 
to have to call and ask for money. We all know that what my colleague 
from Wisconsin said is true, which is that the very definition of why 
you are a viable candidate, unfortunately, has nothing to do with 
content of character, with leadership, with vision, with your sense of 
right or wrong for your country; it has to do with whether or not you 
are independently wealthy or you have raised or will raise millions of 
dollars.
  I think all of us should want to change this system because I think, 
when we are involved in the fundraising, the perception--and I do not 
accuse one colleague here of any individual corruption--but the 
perception of people is often that we are out there raising money from 
this person or that person or this PAC or that PAC, and people just 
simply lose confidence in the political process. All of us who care 
fiercely about public service, all of us who care fiercely about good 
politics, all of us who are proud to serve in the U.S. Senate ought to 
be concerned about the fact that people have lost confidence in this 
process.
  So I argue the human realities are this: We need to pass this reform 
bill to restore some trust in this political process. That is what this 
is all about. I would say there is an A and a B part to this. The A 
part is this. I am wearing a political science hat, I am wearing a 
U.S.-Senator-from-Minnesota hat, and I am also wearing a citizen hat. 
People are not going to believe in the outcomes of this process unless 
they believe in the process itself. And as long as people believe that 
too few people, with so much wealth, power and say, dominate the 
political process and the vast majority of people feel left out, ripped 
off, underrepresented, not listened to, then I would say to everybody 
here we are not going to do well with the public.
  People want to believe in this political process. They do not like 
the fact that big money dominates too much of politics in America. 
Regular people do not feel well-represented within the current system.
  Mr. President, I have worked with Senator McCain and Senator 
Feingold, I worked with Senator Simon on many, many, many issues. If it 
does not get him in trouble, I will say he is my best friend in the 
U.S. Senate. You can only have one best friend. I wish he would not 
leave. I think it is a huge loss for our country. We have worked on 
other things. We worked on the gift ban, and we worked on lobbying 
disclosure. Senator Levin from Michigan played a major role as a leader 
on lobbying disclosure.
  In some ways, this has a sense of deja vu to me. For many months, 
many of our colleagues said they were opposed to the gift ban and 
opposed to lobbying disclosure legislation. In fact, they were both 
filibustered and stopped at the end of the last Congress. But we came 
back in this Congress, and we won.
  What were we saying there? We were saying, ``Look, we're not bashing 
people here, we're proud to serve. But if you want the bashing to stop, 
if you want the denigration of public service to stop, if you want 
people in our country to be more engaged in public affairs, if you want 
citizens to be more active, then, for gosh sake, give up this practice 
of having this interest or these folks or those folks pay for you to 
go, take trips, wherever, give it up, let it go. We don't need it.'' 
And we passed that.
  Then we came to the floor and we said, in the spirit of sunshine and 
full disclosure, if somebody lobbies here, Americans should know what 
they're up to. People lobby for different interests. That is not the 
problem, but there are two problems.
  One problem is we wanted to deal with an outdated bill passed in the 
late 1940's and have full disclosure so we would have accountability, 
as to who was doing the lobbying, who was working for whom and what 
were the scope of their efforts. And the other problem, by the way, is 
lobbyists, by and large, those people who march on Washington every 
day, tend to represent a very narrow segment of the American 
population. That is the problem. Many other people are not well 
represented.
  Now we come to the ethical issue of politics, I think, of our time, 
which is the way in which money has come to dominate politics: Who gets 
to run for office? Who is likely to win the election? Who is the best 
connected? Who are the heavy hitters? Which people have the most 
influence? What issues are on the agenda? What issues are off the 
agenda? How many people are out there in the anteroom, and whom do they 
represent? How do they secure access? what are their patterns of 
political giving? Political scientists and reformers have been asking 
these questions for years, and they've come up with some very telling 
answers.
  And we see it here everyday. We don't need anybody to point out 
what's going on. When it is a telecommunications bill or it is a health 
insurance reform bill, that anteroom is packed wall to wall with 
people. They represent the most powerful in America.
  But when it comes to children's issues--Head Start, title I, support 
for kids with disadvantaged backgrounds--I never see it wall to wall 
lobbyists.
  This is the ethical issue of politics in our time. And, Mr. 
President, we are talking about a systemic problem, but not about the 
corruption of an individual officeholder. I do not believe that is the 
case. We are talking about systemic corruption when what happens is too 
few people have way too much power and say, and those are the people

[[Page S6690]]

who can most affect our tenure in office and, unfortunately, in this 
system, those are the people who have the financial resources. We are 
trying to, through this legislation, take a significant step toward 
beginning to end that.
  Mr. President, I want to say to my colleague from Wisconsin, if I can 
get his attention for one moment, that when he was talking, I was very 
moved by what he said when he was talking about meeting with students.
  He said, ``I just feel like this isn't the American dream. Money is 
so important in terms of who can run, who can get elected.''

  He said, ``Maybe this isn't exactly as important as health care, or 
maybe it's not as important as whether people have a job, maybe it is 
not quite up there.'' I think it is; I think it is. As a matter of 
fact, this is the core issue, the one that's in a way prior to other 
political issues. The first chapter in one of the many books my 
colleague, the Senator from Illinois, has written dealt with the whole 
issue of campaign finance reform. That was not by mistake. This is the 
core issue, I say to my colleague from Wisconsin and my colleague from 
Illinois. This is, in many ways, the most fundamental issue, because 
you know what we are talking about? We are talking about something we 
all must hold dear that is fundamental: whether we are going to have a 
functioning democracy.
  If you believe that each person should count as one and no more than 
one, if you believe there should be some political equality, if you 
believe that citizens should have real input and real say and have the 
same opportunities to participate and be listened to and to be involved 
in public affairs and to run for office and to be elected for office, 
it is simply true--I do not want it to be true--but most of the people 
in the country know it to be true, that this is not what is happening 
in our country today, and big money mixed with politics has severely 
undercut the very ideal of representative democracy.
  That is why people are so disenchanted. That is why people are so 
disengaged. That is why this has become a cafe issue. That is why 
people are talking about this, I say to my colleague from Wisconsin, in 
the same way they are talking about a lot of other issues.
  This is no longer just Common Cause. I honor Common Cause. They have 
done marvelous work as fierce advocates of political reform. But this 
is no longer being pushed just by good government, United We Stand, 
reform parties. More important, this is an issue people are talking 
about in their own homes, and people want change.
  I will just take a couple of more minutes, Mr. President. I have said 
that this is a core issue, and that we must deal with it before we try 
to address other problems. I am going to get some colleagues angry at 
me when I say that, and we will have a good debate on it. I think many 
people have decided that we will never do deficit reduction on the 
basis of some standard of fairness. That is to say, yes, we will target 
a whole lot of deficit reduction on those citizens on the bottom 
economically who have the least political clout, but we do not do 
deficit reduction when it comes to the big military contractors or all 
those oil companies and coal companies, and tobacco companies and 
pharmaceutical companies that get all of their tax breaks.
  I do not think people believe we will do deficit reduction with any 
standard of fairness. I do not think people believe that we are going 
to deal with the fundamental problem of making sure every child has a 
decent educational opportunity in our country; that we are going to 
resolve inner-city poverty; that we are going to make sure we have a 
clean environment, within our current system.
  I do not think people believe that we are going to deal with the 
budget deficit or with the investment deficit, because I think people 
believe that this political process will not work, and the reason they 
think it will not work is because they think it is dominated by big 
money, because the citizens of the United States of America do not 
believe they exercise real power.
  And guess what? In a democracy, the people ought to have the right to 
dominate their political process. They have the right to believe that 
the Capitol belongs to them. But it does not.
  So we are at a critical juncture. Either we are going to go forward 
without a truly representative democracy, what some have called 
checkbook politics, or we are going to have a democratic renewal, and I 
mean democratic renewal not with a large ``D,'' I mean with a small 
``d,'' where people have confidence in this process, where people feel 
like they are being listened to, where people feel like they can 
participate. That is what this is all about.

  Mr. President, my colleague from Wisconsin already recited the 
statistics. And he noted the work of the Center for Responsive 
Politics. I ask unanimous consent that a letter and three short opinion 
pieces written by the director of the center, Ellen Miller, which have 
appeared in newspapers throughout the country, be printed in the Record 
following my statement, because they outline succinctly what I have 
been talking about in terms of the problems with our current system.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, it has only gone from bad to worse 
during the decade of the 1980's and the 1990's. It is just absolutely 
out of control, absolutely out of control, with the new twist being 
soft money. Much of it is just shifting to soft money. I mean, you have 
the individual contributions. And by the way, the people who make the 
large individual contributions represent a tiny slice of the American 
population. You have PAC money.
  In addition, you have soft money that is supposed to be for party 
building or for issue-oriented ads. I know all about those ads in 
Minnesota. The sky is the limit. The parties are awash in this money. 
The attack ads do not add one bit of information to one citizen 
anywhere in the United States of America.
  They do not contribute toward representative democracy. I have to 
smile when I hear the argument made, well, we ought to actually be 
spending more money. There are some people here that want to do that. 
On the House side they are talking about actually raising the limits. 
That is an interesting argument.
  The argument goes like this. ``Well, Senators and Representatives 
wouldn't have to make as many calls and do as much fund raising if you 
could just raise it to larger chunks.'' That goes in exactly the 
opposite direction of having a representative democracy where there is 
some political equality and where citizens really count.
  Or I heard my colleague from Utah make the argument about expanding 
disclosure. I'm all for more disclosure. But that's not enough. Even 
so, that could be an amendment. Give us the cloture vote and then let 
us have amendments. That is the way to deal with this. ``If we make no 
changes, we will do better on disclosure.'' Every 2 years and every 4 
years people will see clearly that even more money is being spent by 
special interests or by people who are wealthy. And people will become 
more disenchanted. And we will be stuck with all the problems we have 
right now. I do not see that as the answer.
  So I will not summarize our bill. I think everybody here is aware of 
what we are doing. We are reducing the spending limits. We have some 
strict disclosure on soft money. We banned bundling. We banned PAC 
money for Federal candidates. If that is declared unconstitutional, 
then we have a fall-back smaller limit on PAC's which would apply. We 
ask that people raise the majority of the money from within their 
States. And we have some incentives which I believe really help when 
people agree to these spending limits.
  We set a standard. We do not have the public financing that I would 
like to have. But this sets a standard for the country. It is a 
significant step forward. I believe it is good for each and every one 
of us here. I certainly think it is good for challengers. I think it 
deals with some of the disparity. I think it gets us closer to a level 
playing field. I think that it is probably the most important step we 
can take in this Congress to pass this legislation.
  So to my colleagues, if you want to debate this, let us debate it. 
But do not block it. Do not think it is going to go away. Give us the 
cloture vote. Bring out your amendments. Try to improve it. Let us have 
the debate that people in this country want us to have. And to each and 
every one of you, this is the

[[Page S6691]]

reform vote of this Congress. The people back in our States will hold 
us accountable. I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1


                               Center for Responsive Politics,

                                                    June 14, 1996.
     Senator Paul Wellstone,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Paul: I want to share with you the enclosed series of 
     five op-ed ads that the Center has placed in The New York 
     Times, The Washington Times, and the Atlanta Journal-
     Constitution. A version of the first ad will also run in the 
     Boston Globe, The Advocate (Stamford, CT), the Seattle Post 
     Intelligencer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Arizona 
     Republic, the Louisville Courier-Journal, The Nation, The New 
     Republic, The Weekly Standard, Roll Call, The Washington 
     Monthly, and Talkers Magazine. The op-ed ads will appear 
     during a two-week period starting Monday, June 17, preceding 
     the upcoming debate in Congress on various campaign finance 
     reform bills.
       The purpose of these ads is not to support or oppose any 
     particular piece of legislation now before Congress, nor is 
     it to put forward a reform proposal of our own. It is simply 
     to help re-frame the debate. What are the real problems? What 
     must real reform accomplish? We see these ads as providing 
     ``guideposts'' for evaluating what is real reform and what is 
     not. In short, we want to use the ads to push the debate onto 
     higher ground by reminding people that democracy carries with 
     it certain fundamental principles--principles that are now 
     violated by our campaign finance system.
       If you would like additional copies of the ads, or would 
     like to talk about the ad series, please give me a call. You 
     are welcome to insert them into the Congressional Record if 
     you so desire.
           With warm regards,
                                                  Ellen S. Miller,
                                               Executive Director.

           Financing Elections . . . As If Democracy Mattered

       Remember when democracy was something you believed in, not 
     something for sale?
       Those days have come . . . and gone.
       Big money from big campaign contributors has put a price 
     tag on our democracy. Our fundamental principles--like a 
     government accountable to the people--are undermined as 
     candidates collect millions of campaign dollars from rich 
     people and organizations with specific and special interests. 
     When the election's over, the donors collect. Fancy dinners. 
     Private briefings. Special favors. Subsidies. Tax breaks.
       No wonder average Americans are angry. Democracy is 
     supposed to be about empowering all the people, not just the 
     people with money. Political equality and government 
     accountability are the values that inspire our faith in 
     democracy. America's history is the history of our progress 
     toward making these goals real for every citizen. These same 
     values should inspire efforts to reform campaign financing.
       Americans want real reform--not empty promises. But not all 
     the proposed reforms in Congress and in state legislatures 
     across the country will solve the problem.
       How will we recognize real campaign finance reform?
       In this series of essays, the Center for Responsive 
     Politics presents four essential ``guideposts'' for reform. 
     Keep these in mind when you hear lawmakers talk about 
     campaign finance reform. Real campaign finance reform will:


                          enhance competition

       Allow qualified Americans of diverse backgrounds and 
     perspectives to seek public office regardless of their 
     personal wealth or their access to wealth.


                       restore public confidence

       Eliminate the inevitable conflicts of interest created when 
     big money buys elections and the special interest replaces 
     the public interest.


                          ensure equal access

       Provide all Americans access to their government and their 
     elected representatives regardless of their ability to make 
     campaign contributions.


                          stop the money chase

       Place the people's business first by freeing elected public 
     servants from the money chase that distracts them from the 
     responsibilities of governing.
       Campaign finance reform . . . as if democracy mattered. 
     Because it does.
                                                                    ____


                      Get Adopted By Steve Forbes

       Get adopted by Steve Forbes or his friends in the 
     multimillionaire club.
       In today's ``cash-ocracy'', that's your only chance to get 
     the cash you need to compete in a major election. Unless 
     you're already a member of the club. Either you have deep 
     pockets to fund your own campaign or you reach into someone 
     else's deep pockets. No wonder Congress has the highest 
     concentration of millionaires outside of Wall Street.
       Of course, money isn't everything in politics--Steve Forbes 
     proved that. But ask yourself; what kind of attention would 
     Forbes have gotten if he didn't have money?
       Consider who isn't running for President: Jack Kemp. Dick 
     Cheney. Dan Quayle. All popular, potentially strong 
     candidates who decided not to run. Money was a major reason. 
     This year, you had to raise $20 million just to be 
     ``viable.'' And consider that in nine out of ten 
     Congressional races, the candidate with the most money wins--
     even in the ``revolutionary'' elections of 1994.
       Good people don't run for office because they can't raise 
     the money they need to be taken seriously. Anyone you know 
     able to quickly raise $5 million? $500,000? These are the 
     average prices of a U.S. Senate or House campaign.
       Democracy is cheated and weakened when the first test of a 
     candidate's strength is the size of their bank account or the 
     wealth of their friends. Elections should be decided on the 
     power of ideas openly debated, the strength of character, a 
     record of accomplishments and a vision for the future. Our 
     elected representatives should be skilled listeners and 
     thinkers--not mere fundraisers.
       How will we recognize real campaign reform?
       In this series of essays, the Center for Responsive 
     Politics presents four essential ``guideposts'' every 
     American should use to evaluate proposals for campaign 
     finance reform.


                   guidepost #1: ENHANCE COMPETITION

       Real campaign finance reform should enhance fair 
     competition by allowing candidates of diverse backgrounds and 
     perspectives to seek public office regardless of their 
     personal wealth or access to wealth. You shouldn't need to be 
     a millionaire to be a candidate.
       Campaign finance reform . . . as if democracy mattered. 
     Because it does.
                                                                    ____


                  He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

       This truism teaches us a lot about how we finance election 
     campaigns and how our government works--a lesson known even 
     to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Bill Clinton.
       ``Congress is increasingly a system of corruption in which 
     money politics is defeating and driving out citizen 
     politics,'' said Gingrich in 1990.
       ``Many special interests are trying to stop our every move. 
     They try to stop reform, delay change, deny progress, simply 
     because they profit from the status quo,'' said President 
     Clinton in 1993.
       It's ironic that two of the biggest fundraisers in American 
     history confirm it--we have a checkbook democracy. He who 
     pays the piper calls the tune.
       Most Americans can't afford to ``pay the piper.'' The 
     biggest funders of Congressional campaigns are those who have 
     a direct interest in the business of government. Decisions 
     are skewed in their favor. Those who cannot afford to pay are 
     left out.
                                                                    ____

       Yet, all of us pick up the tab. Pork-barrel federal 
     programs, subsidies, and tax breaks for corporations and 
     industry groups are expensive: Hundreds of billions of 
     dollars every year, according to research by organizations as 
     diverse as the Progressive Policy Institute and the Cato 
     Institute. Then there's the cost to our democracy in 
     increased public cynicism, alienation and lower voter 
     participation. Confidence in government plummets.
       How will we recognize real campaign finance reform?
       In this series of essays, the Center for Responsive 
     Politics presents four essential ``guideposts'' every 
     American should use to evaluate proposals for campaign 
     finance reform.


               guidepost no. 2: restore public confidence

       Real campaign finance reform should restore public 
     confidence in government by eliminating the inevitable 
     conflicts of interest and skewed policymaking created when 
     big money buys elections and the special interest replaces 
     the public interest.
       Campaign finance reform . . . as if democracy mattered. 
     Because it does.

  Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
  [Disturbance in the gallery.]
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Any more outbreaks and we will empty the 
galleries.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the arguments of each of the three 
sponsors and proponents of this bill who have spoken here this 
afternoon almost take the form of what we were taught in college was a 
syllogism.
  Proposition No. 1. The people of the United States intensely dislike 
the present system of financing election campaigns. We see that in 
polls. We hear that in town meetings. We certainly read that in the 
editorials in the great majority of our daily newspapers.
  Proposition No. 2. The title of this bill is the Senate Campaign 
Finance Reform Act of 1996.
  Conclusion. We should pass this bill. People want campaign finance 
reform. This is campaign finance reform, therefore, it should become 
law.
  Only, incidentally, to this point in the debate has the actual 
content of the bill been discussed, and almost not at all have the 
proponents discussed the similar debate that took place more than 20 
years ago that resulted in our present campaign finance law, passed on 
the basis of precisely the syllogism that is presented to us today. In 
1974 people did not like the way in which campaigns were being financed 
and run. A number of Members in both Houses proposed what they called 
campaign finance reform, and the Congress passed it.

[[Page S6692]]

  Mr. President, one might ask Members of Congress to look at a little 
bit of history. I am convinced that if we were to open up the 
Congressional Record for those debates, somewhat more than 20 years 
ago, every one of the same propositions you have heard here this 
afternoon were presented: There is too much money in politics. We do 
not have enough people involved in it. We have to make a set of reforms 
in order to restore trust in the process.

  Mr. President, is there more trust in the process today than there 
was in 1974? I think not. Are there fewer complaints about the process 
today than there were in 1974? I think not. Are there more self-
financed millionaire candidates today than there were in 1974? I 
believe there are. Are there more independent expenditures, attempts to 
influence voting behavior by those who are not directly connected with 
the candidates themselves? The answer to that question, Mr. President, 
is there are infinitely more.
  And so what is the proposal of the proponents of this bill? ``Let's 
do more of what we did in 1974. Let's impose more restrictions on the 
process than we imposed then. Let's limit more significantly what can 
take place in an open and disorderly political world than we did in 
1974.'' All we need is more of what has failed for more than 20 years.
  I have looked through this proposal, and I do not think I am 
exaggerating to say that I believe that I find the heart of the 
philosophy of the proponents in section 201. I think I can quote it in 
its entirety. It is on page 31 of the bill, Mr. President.

       Notwithstanding any other provision of this act, no person 
     other than an individual or a political committee may make a 
     contribution to a candidate or candidate's authorized 
     committee.

  No person, other than an individual or political committee may make a 
contribution to the political process. And then, Mr. President, I get 
out my copy of the Constitution of the United States, and in amendment 
I, I read, ``Congress shall make no law * * * abridging the freedom of 
speech.'' And I weigh those two propositions against one another.
  I see a group of proponents who really, in the world of politics and 
the expression of political opinion, do not like the first amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States. So they say that any political 
campaign through a candidate, no person other than an individual or an 
authorized committee--authorized by law, passed by this Congress--can 
make any contribution to a candidate.
  Now, Mr. President, we are all quite correctly frequently quoting or 
remembering the great French observer of more than a century and a half 
ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, who found the genius of the United States 
of America to consist of free association. De Tocqueville talked about 
this country as being a place in which people got together voluntarily 
in organizations to build a church or to found an antislavery society 
or to organize a group of immigrants to the new West or to do any of 
1,000 or 10,000 other activities. Our genius was voluntary association. 
In fact, some of the most thoughtful and cogent criticisms of the 
Soviet Union in its heyday was that it prohibited voluntary 
association--prevented voluntary associations of people for charitable 
purposes, for religious purposes, but above all, Mr. President, for 
political purposes.
  The heart of this bill makes it illegal for a group of persons to get 
together to make a contribution to a political campaign for the U.S. 
Senate. If the Senator from Kentucky and I want to get together and 
form an association to promote the election of a candidate for the U.S. 
Senate in his State or my State or any other State, we will be 
violating the law if this bill becomes law. We could do it as 
individuals, but only with this tiny amount of money that has, 
effectively, been cut by two-thirds since the 1974 law was passed. Of 
course, as much as the proponents of this legislation dislike the first 
amendment, they cannot repeal it. They absolutely cannot prevent the 
Senator from Kentucky and me from getting together and forming this 
organization and going out quite independently to educate the people of 
one of these States about the misdeeds of an incumbent, or the glories 
of some other candidate. Mr. President, if they could, they would. That 
is the philosophy of this bill. They think that any organization of 
individuals is a great evil that should be prevented from engaging in 
campaigns for the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GORTON. I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator from Washington indicated it would be 
illegal under the bill for citizens to form together and form a 
political action committee and submit a candidate. But is it not true 
if an individual does it, they better do it early, because once the 
speech limit has been achieved, even the individual is shut out of the 
political process, is he not?
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Kentucky is correct. He and I, under 
this hypothetical, would not be able in, say, the last 2 weeks before a 
general election to make any such contribution if the candidate whom we 
propose to support had already reached the limits provided in this law 
and agreed to come under its provisions.
  As I say, we could not be prevented from our own independent action 
in that connection. But even the elaborate superstructure, which might 
to a certain extent lift the restrictions on the other candidate, would 
likely come too late if we ourselves were late.

  I find it fascinating that this bill is being debated on this floor, 
considering the way in which we see politics has been practiced in the 
last 6 or 8 months in the United States. We have had literally tens of 
millions of dollars spent in the most thinly veiled attack on 
incumbents, mostly in the House of Representatives, who supported last 
year's balanced budget--tens of millions of dollars. I am particularly 
sensitive to those attacks because so many of the victims are freshmen 
Members of Congress from my own State.
  Yet the definitions in this bill do not constitute those labor 
attacks on these incumbents as either contributions to their opponents 
or, for that matter, independent action, because they very carefully do 
not advocate their defeat in so many words or the election of their 
opponent. These incumbents' hands, should this apply to the House, are 
absolutely tied with respect to a response to those advertisements 
which they feel--I think even the newspapers feel--grossly misstate 
their positions on issues.
  This leads me, of course, to the second point. When you have a 
proposal--and assume for the purposes of this action the proposal is 
entirely constitutional--that limits the ability of one individual, a 
candidate, or a group of individuals, the candidate and that 
candidate's supporters, from effectively communicating their ideas to a 
large group of potential constituents in a country of more than 250 
million people, what is the impact? The impact is, if there is less 
political communication, the political communication that is still 
allowed has a greater impact.
  Now, what kind of political communication is absolutely allowed and 
not remotely touched by this bill? Why, of course, the communication 
that comes from editorial writers of the newspapers who have endorsed 
the bill. It is a bonanza for the editors of the Los Angeles Times or 
the New York Times or the Milwaukee Journal or the Portland Oregonian. 
There are far fewer people to counter whatever it is they tell their 
readers they ought to do. Nothing is provided to the candidate 
disfavored by those newspapers in the way of being able to communicate 
countervailing ideas.
  At least at the founding of our Republic we could be fairly sure that 
a town of 5,000 people had four newspapers to engage in that 
communication. Do we have that today? How does the disfavored candidate 
in the State of Kentucky deal with a series of editorials every day of 
the week, and columns every day of the week, in the Louisville Courier 
Journal in favor of his opponent, against him under this bill? How can 
that disfavored candidate possibly communicate under this bill?

  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GORTON. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator, of course, is entirely correct. It is 
totally impossible to level the playing field--the argument that we 
always hear by the proponents of this bill. As the Senator indicated, 
the expression of newspapers, of course, is not impacted at

[[Page S6693]]

all; as a matter of fact, specifically exempted from expenditure. I 
will just read this from the current law, which has not changed under 
the bill:

       The term ``expenditure'' does not include any news story, 
     commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities 
     of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other 
     periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or 
     controlled by any political party, political committee, or 
     candidate.

  In other words, that kind of speech, which is enormously significant 
in the political discourse that surrounds any particular campaign year 
is completely outside of the speech limits imposed by this bill. The 
Senator from Washington is entirely correct, to the extent that the 
speech of candidates is suppressed, the speech of others is enhanced.
  Mr. GORTON. That enhancement applies not only to the newspapers, of 
course. Just to take an example of one of the great proponents of the 
bill, Common Cause. Its ability to communicate its ideas is not in any 
way restricted by this bill, nor, of course, could it be. But the 
ability of a candidate who disagrees with the views of Common Cause, or 
the Sierra Club, or the National Rifle Association, or the AFL-CIO, is 
severely restricted and, as a matter of fact, may be rendered totally 
and entirely ineffective.
  Now, the proponents of this bill have said this is a very narrow 
bill. It only applies to the Senate, for example, and not even to the 
House of Representatives--as if we will ever end up getting a law of 
that nature. It does not apply to the Presidency. That was a statement 
made recently by, I think, the Senator from Arizona, which is entirely 
correct. It does not. But the philosophy behind the bill, that there is 
just too much free speech in politics today, is absolutely identical. 
So I think it not at all unfair, Mr. President, to say that we are 
faced today, right now, without any change in the present law at all, 
under present laws that stem exactly from the philosophy behind this 
bill, with the absolutely absurd situation in which there is only one 
person in the United States of America who may not raise money to 
communicate his ideas to the people of the United States, and that 
person is Robert Dole.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GORTON. Not at this point.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will not yield.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, under this bill, Robert Dole, at this 
point, is in exactly the position of one of the volunteer candidates 
for the U.S. Senate. A year ago, or a year and a half ago, whenever the 
key time was, he determined that he would operate under certain 
campaign restrictions in return, in his case, for a direct subsidy from 
the Federal Treasury. In the case of this bill, oh, no, not a direct 
subsidy, no taxpayer money here. We just take it away from private 
enterprise, people who own television stations, or from the public and 
postal fees. He made that determination. He did not realize at that 
time that he was going to end up with an opponent who would ignore 
these limitations and spend $40 million of his own money attacking him 
so that in order to survive through a group of primaries, he had to 
spend money he had not intended to spend. So he finds himself in a 
situation in which the other candidate for President of the United 
States, with all of the advantages that incumbency has, with $18 
million, I think, left to spend directly on his campaign, is spending 
at least some of it harassing the opposing candidate for overspending 
on his allotment.

  So we have campaign election reform. Boy, we have it coming out of 
our ears in the field of the Presidency of the United States, the net 
result of which is that one of the two major candidates cannot campaign 
effectively between now and August.
  This is a triumph of election law reform? This is a triumph for the 
first amendment of the Constitution of the United States? I do not 
think so, Mr. President. But this is exactly what they want to do to 
the U.S. Senate in this bill.
  Presumably, the great evil is that there is too much in the way of 
communication of ideas and the people of America are too stupid to be 
able to figure out who to vote for if we have a free exercise of our 
first amendment rights and the ability to communicate those ideas 
through groups, including the groups we have voluntarily chosen to 
join. Some of the most severe restrictions in this bill are on what 
political parties can do, Mr. President, for their own candidates.
  Now, I do not think there is a single State in the United States of 
America in which the political party of a candidate for the U.S. Senate 
does not appear beside his or her name on the ballot. For the Senator 
from Wisconsin, it says Democrat, and for the Senator from Kentucky, it 
says Republican right on the ballot when you go in to vote. Yet, 
somehow or another, receiving more than a modest degree of financial 
support or direct expenditures from one's political party is deemed by 
the sponsors of this bill to be corrupting in nature.

  Mr. President, I do not understand that. I absolutely fail to 
understand the theory behind that limitation.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GORTON. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As the Senator from Washington knows, that very issue 
is currently before the Supreme Court, as to whether or not it is even 
constitutional to restrict what parties can do on behalf of their 
candidates, an absurd restriction on its face.
  There has been much discussion out here on the floor about the 
advantages of incumbency. We know that political parties will support 
challengers. If we wanted to have the right kind of campaign finance 
reform, one of the first things we ought to do--and I am sure my friend 
from Washington would agree--is take the shackles off, if the Court 
does not do it for us, take the shackles off of the one institution of 
American politics that will support a challenger every time.
  Mr. GORTON. That is the party to which the challenger belongs and 
which can certainly make the determination, which was so eloquently 
outlined by the Senator from Wisconsin, as to whether or not that 
challenger is a serious one and has a real opportunity for victory. So 
if we have no limits on the amount of money----
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GORTON. In a few minutes, I will.
  If we have no limits on the amount of money the political party could 
contribute, we would certainly benefit the challengers. Of course, 
there might be a degree of loyalty on the part of the elected candidate 
to his or her own political party, the party with whom he or she 
identifies, from the beginning of his or her candidacy. No, Mr. 
President, I think it comes right back down to the way with which I 
began these remarks.
  The heart of this bill--and of the other provisions that move in the 
same direction--is that no person, other than an individual or 
political candidate, may make a contribution to a candidate. That is 
the heart of this bill. You cannot make a contribution to a candidate 
unless you do it in strict accordance with this bill.
  It is against the first amendment of the Constitution of the United 
States that says ``Congress shall make no law * * * abridging the 
freedom of speech.''
  If that law does not abridge the freedom of speech, it is impossible 
for me to devise one that does.
  If the Senator wishes to ask a question, I would be happy to answer.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. This Senator is intrigued by the Senator's discussion 
of newspapers and the roles of the newspapers today in the context of 
this bill passing and becoming law. All I hear around the country is 
that the newspapers have lost their clout and that they do not compare 
with television, cable TV, and the like.
  My question is: If it is the case that newspapers somehow have this 
power, why do not campaigns spend a lot of money on newspaper 
advertising to counteract?
  I would suggest--and it would be an interesting response--that the 
influence of newspapers is absolutely minuscule. Regrettably the 
influence of these editorial writers is minuscule compared to the power 
of television. I would suggest that is the reason that 75 or 80 percent 
of almost every Senate campaign spends its money on television.
  I would be interested in why suddenly newspapers have reached the

[[Page S6694]]

power that they have lost over the years.
  Mr. GORTON. I am convinced that the Senator from Wisconsin has made 
an excellent point, and I suspect that however we may disagree on some 
elements of campaigning that he probably did not spend an awful lot of 
money in his campaign on newspaper advertising. And I can assure him 
that I did not either for exactly the reasons that he outlined.
  I guess to take the least important part of my answer first, my 
answer would be there is a difference between newspaper advertising and 
newspaper editorial support. All of us, even when we were not spending 
money in a particular newspaper, sought the editorial support of the 
newspapers in our States. The next level of my answer to his question 
is, of course, even though that influence has declined in recent year--
I think clearly it has--this bill would clearly restore it.
  The fundamental point that I was making is that, if you restrict the 
amount of information that people have about elections, those elements 
of information that they get will be proportionately more important. If 
the candidate is severely limited in the amount of communication that 
he can effectively engage in through newspapers, or through television, 
or through any other mass media, the impact of what the media 
themselves do either in their news columns or in their editorial 
columns will be increased.
  But the most significant point that the Senator from Wisconsin causes 
me to make is that I really used newspapers as a shorthand for the way 
in which we communicate today. I suspect that the Senator from 
Wisconsin might not even have asked me the question if I had 
substituted for newspapers the NBC television outlet in his city, or 
for that matter NBC, or ABC, or a number of other television outlets in 
the country as a whole. While they have certain rules on blatant 
editorialization, there is not one of them who has not experienced what 
he or she considers to be an absolutely unfair or distorted news story 
on television which can have a devastating, or for that matter a 
tremendously affirmative, impact on the attitudes of people toward a 
campaign.

  And what this bill does is to say that no matter how devastating that 
television news story is on a particular campaign, the victim, the 
disfavored candidate, is not going to be able to effectively respond to 
it. None of the benefits of this bill accrues under those 
circumstances. And the limitations are such that the attack is almost 
certain to go unanswered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, if I could ask one more question, is it 
a fair characterization for the Senator to say that the loss of the 
last 2 years or decades of relative influence of newspapers vis-a-vis 
television may be changed by this bill? Is it fairly characterizing his 
remarks as suggesting that newspapers may gain a greater influence than 
they have under the current system?
  I believe that was the gist of the Senator's remarks.
  Mr. GORTON. No. The gist of my remarks was that newspapers would gain 
vis-a-vis television. It will be that both will gain vis-a-vis the 
ability of the candidate to project his or her own idea.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Have newspapers regained some of the ground they have 
lost in terms of influence?
  Mr. GORTON. I am not sure television has ever lost ground.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. But newspapers will regain some of the ground they have 
lost in terms of the influence. I believe that was one of the Senator's 
points.
  Mr. GORTON. I believe that is the case simply because there will be 
less in the way of alternate communication under this bill.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has the floor.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I will summarize. I know the Senator from 
Illinois has not had an opportunity to speak yet. He has waited almost 
as long as I did to get that opportunity. I will once again return to 
what I began with.
  So far the arguments, as I have heard them on the floor here today, 
are that the polls, the newspapers, and the people do not like the 
present system, and they want campaign election reform. This 
proposition 2--this bill is entitled ``Campaign Election Reform.'' 
Conclusion: We should pass this bill.
  Mr. President, I do not believe that to be the case. This bill will 
not end up restoring confidence in the political system. It will force 
money into different channels, channels which neither this bill nor any 
other bill can control, one for which the candidates will be less 
responsible, and not more I think responsible in any respect 
whatsoever.
  The Senator from Utah in beginning this debate said that the 
appropriate solution was not limitation but disclosure. I agree with 
him. That is the thrust of an opinion based by Larry Sabato, a 
political scientist at the University of Virginia which is frequently 
quoted on these subjects.
  Mr. President, we should be willing to trust the American people, as 
he puts it, with sorting out their own ideas as long as they know the 
source of those ideas and the source of the money to communicate those 
ideas. That is appropriate election reform. The Senator from Arizona 
said, ``Well, why don't you put it up as an amendment after voting for 
cloture on this bill?'' Mr. President, I think I can announce to him 
that it would be a nongermane amendment if cloture were granted on this 
bill and on this amendment. It goes way beyond the scope of the bill--
the bill and the amendment itself--because it goes to the current 
election as a whole.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GORTON. He will.
  Mr. McCAIN. I assure the Senator right now that I will agree to a 
unanimous consent request, a motion, if cloture is invoked, that any 
amendment that the Senator from Washington wanted to impose I would 
agree to.
  Second of all, if I could just comment, the Senator knows what 
section 324 means: Notwithstanding any other provisions of this act, no 
person, other than an individual or political candidate, may make a 
contribution. The Senator knows that unions cannot contribute directly 
right now. Corporations cannot contribute directly right now, and all 
it does is say political action committees cannot contribute right now, 
and the reason political action committees should not be allowed to 
contribute is because the system in America is so skewed and so unfair 
that no challenger has a chance.
  As I said in my opening remarks, if the challengers were voting 
today, I say to the Senator from Washington that this bill would be 
passed in a New York minute.
  So the fact is that what this does is it bans political action 
committees. It does not ban individuals. We have already placed 
restrictions on free speech by limiting the amount that an individual 
can contribute.
  So I would say to the Senator from Washington that perhaps it is a 
great idea just to have total disclosure and complete freedom as far as 
any contribution is concerned. This bill does require disclosure. This 
bill does require soft money to become hard money, and it also places 
some reasonable restraints, and they are voluntary. They are voluntary.
  We have the Congressional Research Service and other constitutional 
opinions stating that this is constitutional. I respect the Senator's 
opinion, but I certainly cannot allow him to get by with saying we are 
restricting anyone's freedom of speech when we ban political action 
committees where the common practice is that the Senator from 
Washington and I go to a lunch someplace, dinner here someplace in 
Washington, and are given a $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 
check or groups of checks. That is not exactly what our Founding 
Fathers had in mind.
  I thank the Senator for yielding to me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, we are at the heart of the matter now. The 
Senator from Arizona does not like the way in which first amendment 
rights are conducted or exercised at the present time. He therefore 
wants to limit them. The genius of America in voluntary associations is 
to him somehow so repulsive that no voluntary association, no 
unincorporated, voluntary association in America, none whatsoever, is 
going to be allowed to contribute to a candidate--none. You cannot get 
together in America in a

[[Page S6695]]

voluntary association and contribute to a candidate because he does not 
like the distribution of money from political action committees.
  Well, thank God for James Madison. Thank God for the prohibition on 
the part of this Congress or any other Congress to abridge the right of 
free speech just because this Senator does not like the way in which it 
is exercised at the present time.
  The present law is bad, Mr. President. This law is worse.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for just a brief question?
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GORTON. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington yields.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I know the Senator from Washington is about to 
complete his remarks, and I missed part of the colloquy, but I gathered 
at the end, if I could ask the Senator from Washington, I guess his 
view of the bill is that certain kinds of speech are more worthy than 
others. For example, would the Senator from Washington share my view 
that this bill puts a premium on the following kinds of speech: going 
down to a phone bank and volunteering your time or maybe putting yard 
signs up or making a speech?
  Mr. GORTON. As long as you do not pay for them.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As long as you do not pay for them. So would the 
Senator from Washington agree that the bill attempts to set up certain 
kinds of preferred speech that would remain acceptable in the 
postlegislative environment but other kinds of speech are viewed as 
somehow nefarious and therefore should fall under Government 
restriction? Is that essentially the point?

  Mr. GORTON. Well, it does, but in that case, in that situation, it 
does not differ from the general philosophy of the present law either 
applied to races for Congress or to the Presidency. The thrust of my 
criticism was that 20 years ago, we went into this restriction of free 
speech rights with all of the same criticisms of the then system that 
we have now, that that law was going to restore confidence on the part 
of the American people in the system, and it is worse now and so their 
cure is more of the hair of the dog that bit you.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. GORTON. I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator from Illinois yield to me for 30 seconds 
to respond?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois yield?
  Mr. SIMON. I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona has the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Washington and the 
Senator from Kentucky and I can argue about constitutionality of 
certain actions, and since we are in disagreement, then obviously at 
that point we have to refer to people who have a dog in this fight, and 
I would like to submit for the Record at this time a Congressional 
Research Service opinion from the Library of Congress, from Mr. L. 
Paige Whitaker, legislative attorney of the American Law Division, that 
declares our proposals, which the Senator from Washington was so 
roundly critical of and so astute in fashioning himself as a 
constitutional scholar, are viewed to be constitutional.
  Second, Mr. President, we do have also various opinions from people 
like Archibald Cox, Mr. Daniel Lowenstein, professor of law at the 
University of California, at Los Angeles, and others, all of which say 
that the provisions of this bill are, indeed, constitutional. The 
Senator from Washington can certainly be offended by them if he does 
not like them, but the view of most constitutional scholars on this 
issue is that it is constitutional.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator wish to enter those into the 
Record at this time?
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record the 
opinion from the Congressional Research Service. I will save the others 
as they are needed. I yield and thank my friend from Illinois.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                   Congressional Research Service,


                                      The Library of Congress,

                                   Washington, DC, April 12, 1996.
     To: Senator Russell Feingold; Attention, Andy Kutler.
     From: L. Paige Whitaker, Legislative Attorney, American Law 
         Division.
     Subject: Constitutionality of Campaign Finance Reform 
         Proposals.

       This memorandum is furnished in response to your request 
     for a constitutional analysis of three campaign finance 
     reform proposals:


 I. Constitutionality of a voluntary spending limit system linked with 
public benefits in the form of free and discounted television time and 
                        discounted postage rates

       In the 1976 landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo,\1\ the 
     Supreme Court held that spending limitations violate the 
     First Amendment because they impose direct, substantial 
     restraints on the quantity of political speech. The Court 
     found that expenditure limitations fail to serve any 
     substantial government interest in stemming the reality of 
     corruption or the appearance thereof and that they heavily 
     burden political expression.\2\ As a result of Buckley, 
     spending limits may only be imposed if they are voluntary.
       It appears that the provision in question would pass 
     constitutional muster for the same reasons that the public 
     financing scheme for presidential elections was found to be 
     constitutional in Buckley. The Court in Buckley concluded 
     that presidential public financing was within the 
     constitutional powers of Congress to reform the electoral 
     process and that public financing provisions did not violate 
     any First Amendment rights by abridging, restricting, or 
     censoring speech, expression, and association, but rather 
     encouraged public discussion and participation in the 
     electoral process.\3\ Indeed, the Court succinctly stated:
       ``Congress may engage in public financing of election 
     campaigns and may condition acceptance of public funds on an 
     agreement by the candidate to abide by specified expenditure 
     limitations. Just as a candidate may voluntarily limit the 
     size of the contributions he chooses to accept, he may decide 
     to forgo private fundraising and accept public funding.'' \4\
       Because the subject provision does not require a Senate 
     candidate to comply with spending limits, the proposal 
     appears to be voluntary. Although the incentives of public 
     benefits are provided, in the form of reduced and free 
     broadcast time and reduced postage rates to those candidates 
     who comply with the spending limits, such incentives do not 
     appear to jeopardize the voluntary nature of the limitation. 
     That is, a candidate could legally choose not to comply with 
     the limits by opting not to accept the public benefits. 
     Therefore, it appears that the proposal would be found to be 
     constitutional under Buckley.


   II. Constitutionality of requiring candidates who are voluntarily 
     complying with spending limits to raise at least 60% of their 
   individual contributions from individuals within their home state

       A voluntary restriction on Senate candidates to raise at 
     least 60% of their individual contributions from individuals 
     within their home state, with incentives for candidates to 
     comply with the ban, would also appear to be constitutional. 
     In exchange for voluntarily complying with the restriction on 
     instate contributions, a congressional candidate could 
     receive such public benefits as free and reduced television 
     time and reduced postage rates. This type of voluntary 
     restriction would most likely be upheld for the same reasons 
     that the Supreme Court in Buckley upheld a voluntary spending 
     limits system linked with public financing.
       Here, in the subject proposal, as limitations on out-of-
     state contributions are linked to public benefits as part of 
     the eligibility requirement, they would seem to be 
     constitutional for the same reasons that similar eligibility 
     requirements of the receipt of public funds were held to be 
     constitutional in Buckley v. Valeo.\5\ In exchange for public 
     benefits, participating Senate candidates would voluntarily 
     choose to limit the sources of their contributions. In 
     addition, an out-of-state contribution limit would not seen 
     to violate the First Amendment rights of out-of-state 
     contributors as they would have other outlets, such as 
     through independent expenditures, to engage in political 
     speech in support of such candidates who voluntarily restrict 
     receipt of out-of-state contributions.


 III. Constitutionality of prohibiting all political action committees 
       (PACs) from making contributions, soliciting or receiving 
contributions, or making expenditures for the purpose of influencing a 
                            federal election

       Generally, the term political action committee (PAC) is 
     used to refer to two different types of committees: connected 
     and nonconnected. A connected PAC, also known as a separate 
     segregated fund, is established and administered by an 
     organization such as corporation or labor union.\6\ A 
     nonconnected PAC, on the other hand, is one which is 
     unaffiliated with any federal office candidate, party 
     committee, labor organization, or corporation, although it 
     can be established and administered by persons who are labor 
     union members or corporate employees. Typically, nonconnected 
     PACs may be established by

[[Page S6696]]

     individuals, persons, groups, including even labor union 
     members, corporate employees, officers, and stockholders, 
     their families, and by persons who collectively work to 
     promote a certain ideology; provided, however, that they keep 
     their political funds separate and apart from any corporate 
     or labor union funds and accounts. They are required to 
     register with the Federal Election Commission after receiving 
     or expending in excess of $1,000 within a calendar year, they 
     are subject to contribution limitations, and, unlike 
     connected PACs, they are limited to using only those funds 
     they solicit to cover establishment and administration costs. 
     \7\
       A complete ban on contributions and expenditures by 
     connected and nonconnected PACs would appear to be 
     unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. 
     Although the courts have not had occasion to address 
     specifically this issue, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme 
     Court made it clear that the right to associate is a ``basic 
     constitutional freedom'' \8\ and that any action which may 
     have the effect of curtailing that freedom to associate would 
     be subject to the strictest judicial scrutiny.\9\ The Court 
     further asserted that while the right of political 
     association is not absolute,\10\ it can only be limited by 
     substantial governmental interests such as the prevention of 
     corruption or the appearance thereof. \11\
       Employing this analysis, the Court in Buckley determined 
     that any limitations on expenditures of money in federal 
     elections were generally unconstitutional because they 
     substantially and directly restrict the ability of 
     candidates, individuals, and associations to engage in 
     political speech, expression, and association. \12\ ``A 
     restriction on the amount of money a person or group can 
     spend on political communication during a campaign 
     necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting 
     the number of issues discussed, the depth of their 
     exploration, and the size of the audience reached,'' the 
     Court noted. \13\ Therefore, in view of Buckley, it appears 
     that completely banning expenditures by nonconnected PACs 
     would be found to be unconstitutional.
       In Buckley the Court found that limitations on 
     contributions can pass constitutional muster only if they are 
     reasonable and only marginally infringe on First Amendment 
     rights in order to stem actual or apparent corruption 
     resulting from quid pro quo relationships between 
     contributors and candidates. \14\ The Court noted that a 
     reasonable contribution limitation does ``not undermine to 
     any material degree the potential for robust and effective 
     discussion of candidates and campaign issues by individual 
     citizens, associations, the institutional press, candidates, 
     and political parties.'' \15\ Hence, Buckley seems to 
     indicate that a complete ban on contributions by nonconnected 
     PACs would be unconstitutional. Such an outright prohibition 
     would arguably impose direct and substantial restraints on 
     the quantity of political speech and political communication 
     between nonconnected PACs and federal candidates.
       In sum, it appears that prohibiting all expenditures by 
     PACs would not pass strict judicial scrutiny as it would 
     significantly restrict most PACs from effectively amplifying 
     the voices of their adherents or members. \16\ Moreover, an 
     outright ban on contributions, although they are less 
     protected by the First Amendment, would probably be found to 
     substantially infringe on the First Amendment rights of the 
     members of the PACs and therefore be found to be 
     unconstitutional as well.
                                                L. Paige Whitaker,
                                             Legislative Attorney.


                               footnotes

     \1\ 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
     \2\ Id. at 39.
     \3\ Id. at 90-93.
     \4\ Id. at 57, fn. 65.
     \5\ Id. at 90-92, 94-96.
     \6\ 2 U.S.C. Sec. 441(b)(2)(C).
     \7\ 2 U.S.C. Sec. 431(4) (definition of political committee); 
     2 U.S.C. Sec. 433 (registration of political committees).
     \8\ Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25 (quoting Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 
     U.S. 51, 57 (173)).
     \9\ Id. (quoting NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460-61 
     (1958)).
     \10\ Id. (citing CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 567 
     (1973)).
     \11\ Id. at 27-28.
     \12\ Id. at 39-59.
     \13\ Id. at 19.
     \14\ Id. at 20-38.
     \15\ Id. at 29.
     \16\ NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460-61 (1958). This case 
     was cited in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. at 22 to support the 
     conclusion that an expenditure limitation precluded most 
     associations from effectively amplifying the voices of their 
     adherents. See also Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 
     250 (1957).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to my friend from 
Wisconsin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am just a little puzzled by the round 
condemnation of the PAC ban provision, especially given the fallback 
provisions that we have included in the bill, because in 1993, Senator 
Pressler offered an amendment 372, which is virtually identical to our 
provision, and it was supported and voted for by the Senator from 
Washington and the Senator from Kentucky. They voted for this PAC ban 
with the fallback provision. I am a little puzzled as to why this can 
be such a central problem in this bill when it was worthy enough for 
their support just 2 years ago.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
  Mr. SIMON. I think the comments of my friend and esteemed colleague 
from Washington underscore something I have learned in 22 years here. I 
am a slow learner. I have not learned much, but one of the things I 
have learned is every reform ultimately needs a reform. That is one of 
the laws you can put down and it almost always is the case.
  I commend my colleagues from Arizona and Wisconsin, Senator McCain 
and Senator Feingold, for their foresight and their courage in offering 
this legislation.
  This is not an abridgement of free speech. The reality is we have 
restrictions. If someone in the gallery right now decides they want to 
make a speech here, the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Idaho, is 
going to say, ``No, you cannot.'' That is not unconstitutional. So we 
have sensible restraints in our society.
  The other day I saw a bumper sticker here in Washington that tells 
something of the public mood. It was a little bumper sticker that says, 
``Invest in America. Buy a Congressman.'' Kind of a sad commentary on 
where some people think we are.
  I do not believe you can buy a Congressman, but I think we have a 
system that warps the results of this body.
  I thought Senator Wellstone's speech was outstanding. I am sorry I 
did not hear the others. I hope political science teachers around the 
country will read it and give it to their classes.
  Frequently people who visit here, Mr. President, are astounded at the 
few numbers of Senators who are on the floor. I think they would be 
more astounded and more outraged if they knew this fact--and I cannot 
prove it right now, but I am reasonably sure it is true--right now, 
this minute, there are more Senators raising money than are on the 
floor of the Senate. I believe that to be the truth. It is a usurpation 
of the time that we ought to be devoting to issues, to be going out 
raising money. It affects all of us. I have never promised anyone a 
thing for a campaign contribution. But if I end up at midnight in a 
hotel and there are 20 phone calls waiting for me, 19 of them from 
names I do not recognize, the 20th is someone who gave me a $1,000 
campaign contribution--at midnight I am not going to make 20 phone 
calls. I might make one. Which one do you think I am going to make? The 
reality is you feel a sense of gratitude to people who are generous 
enough, and obviously wise enough, to contribute to your campaign. But 
it means that the financially articulate have inordinate access to 
policymakers.

  I can remember before I ran for reelection in 1990, just before we 
formed the new Congress, that two key members of my staff came to me 
and said, ``You ought to shift over to the Finance Committee.'' Why did 
they want me to shift over to the Finance Committee from Labor and 
Human Resources or the Judiciary Committee or the Foreign Relations 
Committee? So I could raise more money.
  That is a practical reality around here. Even beyond that reality, 
when people come into my office or they are on the phone and they ask 
me to vote for or against something and they have been generous to me, 
I sometimes wonder, ``Are they going away thinking I agree with them 
because of the contribution?'' That distorts things. This whole 
distortion concerns me.
  I can remember when I voted for NAFTA, a group of people who said 
they had been major contributors to me almost implied I had been bought 
and how could I possibly vote for NAFTA? The process just distorts 
everything.
  I spoke here about 2 hours ago on the west Capitol steps to the PTA. 
They are here, interested in getting more money for education. My 
friends, what if the PTA and the other groups like that had as much 
money to contribute as the defense industry? Would we have a different 
budget today? You bet we would have a different budget today. We would 
have appreciably more spent on education, which is in the national 
interest.
  This bill does not solve every problem. It does not go as far as I 
would like to see us go. But it certainly is a

[[Page S6697]]

step forward. Why is this Nation the only one of the Western 
industrialized nations not to provide health care protection for all of 
our citizens? Mr. President, 41 million Americans do not have health 
care coverage. Those 41 million Americans are not big contributors. The 
insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the people who 
profit from the present system are the big contributors, and we are 
letting this system just roll on.
  Mr. President, 24 percent of our children are living in poverty. No 
other Western industrialized nation is anywhere close to that. This is 
not an act of God. This is not some divine intervention that says 
children in America have to live in poverty more than children in Italy 
or Denmark or France or other countries. It is a result of flawed 
policy. It is a result of policy that is disproportionately responsive 
to those who can finance campaigns. The 24 percent of our children who 
live in poverty, their parents are not contributing to our campaigns. 
That is the reality. So, we do not pay as much attention to them as we 
should.
  One of the arguments I have heard against this is the least valid of 
all the arguments against it, and that is if we change this, that would 
be unfair to nonincumbents. Let me tell you, no system is better for 
incumbents than the system we have right now. We occasionally have 
people who win who spend less. I am looking at two of them, Senator 
Feingold and Senator Wellstone. But they are the rare exception. I 
managed to do that in my first Senate campaign, too. But, generally, 
incumbents under the present system have a huge advantage, and 
incumbents tend to think whatever system got us elected has to be a 
pretty good system.

  Let me, finally, say I announced right after the last election I was 
not going to run for reelection. I felt it was time for me to move on 
and do other things. Not the major consideration, but a consideration, 
was that in my last election I had raised $8.4 million. I enjoy 
policymaking. I even, unlike a lot of my colleagues, enjoy campaigning. 
I enjoy going down the streets of small towns as well as Chicago and 
elsewhere, campaigning. I do not enjoy fundraising because I think it 
is distasteful, and I think many, many people understand it is 
distorting our system.
  So I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation. I think it 
moves us in a direction we ought to be going. It is a step in the right 
direction. For my friend from Washington, who said the present bill, 
the reform adopted in 1974, is not working as it should, I would not 
like to see the present law repealed, weak as it is. My guess is my 
friend from Washington would not want to see it repealed either. This 
is a step forward. It is a step the Nation needs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 1219, 
the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1996. Let me first praise 
both the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin for being 
able to reconcile what I know are substantial differences and produce a 
piece of legislation that both of them support. I believe the exercise 
they went through is an exercise all of us need to go through if we are 
going to be able to change the law that underlies our campaign system. 
It seems to me it is very, very important for us to do so.
  First, as to why, I know there are very strong feelings. I caught a 
piece of the debate thus far between the Senator from Kentucky and the 
Senator from Washington and the Senator from Arizona. I know there are 
very strong feelings about campaign finance reform. Very often, it is 
true, the facts do not bear up the conclusion people make about the 
system being corrupted and being bad and so forth. It is very often 
true the perceptions are far, far worse than the reality.
  But as we all know, perceptions in politics can become reality in a 
big hurry. We all, I suspect, are aware that last summer, on the 11th 
of June, the two most powerful political leaders in the country, the 
President of the United States and the Speaker of the House, stood in 
Claremont, NH, in the runup to the Presidential primary, took a 
question from the audience about campaign finance reform, and agreed, 
shook hands and agreed that they were going to cooperate in the 
appointment of a commission that would make recommendations. We all 
know since that time nothing has happened.
  Also last summer, I read--and I asked staff, and they dug it out for 
me--a poll that was presented to me that I had presented asking the 
American people the following question: Who they thought really 
controlled the Federal Government in Washington, DC. That was last 
summer, summer of 1995. Twenty-five percent said they thought the 
Republicans in Congress, since they are in control of both the House 
and Senate, the Republicans control the Congress; 6 percent said the 
Democrats controlled the Congress; interestingly, 6 percent thought the 
President controlled the Federal Government; and 49 percent, up from 38 
percent in 1991, said special interests controlled Washington, DC.
  Again, I appreciate that much of this is a perception, but it is a 
very serious perception for us. People have lost trust and confidence, 
and they are asking for us to level the playing field, give 
nonincumbents a greater opportunity to clean up our campaign finance 
system.
  I actually heard very few people come to the floor and say the system 
does not need to be changed. The problem is that we always find 
ourselves coming up short, unable to finally reach agreement, which is 
why, again, I praise the hard work that the Senator from Arizona and 
the Senator from Wisconsin have done because they sat down and worked 
out their differences. I suspect they still have some things about the 
bill they are not wildly enthusiastic about, but they know it is long 
past the time that we are going to be excused by the American people 
for giving them some excuses.
  Mr. President, Nebraska has a connection between campaign finance 
reform and the history of campaign finance reform. We are connected 
because we had a son of the State, William Jennings Bryan, running for 
President in 1896. He was leading his opponent, William McKinley, until 
a man by the name of Mark Hanna, the Cleveland industrialist who was 
the top adviser to Republican nominee William McKinley and who also 
chaired the Republican National Committee, raised and spent money, at 
that time, in unprecedented amounts.
  He spent $100,000 of his own money, which would be well over a 
million dollars today, on preconvention expenses for McKinley.
  He organized and funded the distribution of 100 million campaign 
documents to what was then a nation of 71 million Americans and 14 
million voters.
  He established for the first time a line of clear national authority 
over the State party committees, which carried out his orders.
  More important, he augmented the old party fundraising system. The 
old system was to send your political appointees a note saying, ``Two 
percent of your salary is the amount. Please remit promptly.''
  But Hanna also went to the wealthy industrialists who most feared the 
free-silver policy of William Jennings Bryan. In August 1896, he met 
with New York's financial barons and assessed them according to their 
capital.
  J.P. Morgan gave $250,000; Standard Oil $250,000; Chicago's giant 
meatpackers gave $400,000.
  In the end, Hanna raised almost $3.5 million for McKinley, although 
he never did say how much he raised, but it was enough for him to crush 
Bryan in the general election, outspending him nearly 20 to 1 and 
resulting in McKinley's victory.
  Until the 1970's, Mr. President, our campaign finance laws were 
mostly futile efforts to stem the flood of money into politics.

  Lest I be completely unbalanced and reference only Republicans doing 
it, it was a progressive Republican who followed McKinley into the 
White House, Theodore Roosevelt, who proposed the public funding of 
elections in his 1907 State of the Union Address, but his proposal went 
forgotten for 60 years.
  Congress passed the Tillman Act of 1907, also backed by Theodore 
Roosevelt, which barred corporations and banks from contributing to 
campaigns. In 1925, it passed the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. But 
these laws did little to stem the tide of money in politics, which had 
become, at that time, very much a bipartisan problem.

[[Page S6698]]

  In 1932, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, John 
Raskob, the former finance chairman of General Motors, gave about 
$500,000 a year of his own money to fund the Democratic Party and gave 
nearly $150,000 alone to the campaign of Franklin Roosevelt.
  The year 1940 saw the rise of a young Texas Congressman named Lyndon 
Johnson. He revitalized what at the time was a very moribund Democratic 
Congressional Campaign Committee, with money raised from the oil and 
construction barons who dominated the politics of his State.
  Mr. President, I laid that down, and much more can be laid in this 
debate, to indicate that there is generally a sort of history of 
lawlessness about campaign finance reform that should be noted when 
this debate is going on.
  The system of funding campaigns is dramatically different. The system 
itself is much, much cleaner than it was 100 years ago or even 30 years 
ago. But, again, the perception still dominates in the land that 
special interests control our legislative process, and that seems to me 
to be the most important argument for changing our law.
  Laws which currently govern our system of campaign finance were 
passed in the 1970's.
  There was the Revenue Act of 1971, which introduced public funding of 
Presidential campaigns, as well as voluntary limits on campaign 
spending.
  The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 set up our system of 
disclosing contributors and of providing broadcast time to candidates 
at the lowest unit rate.
  The scandal of Watergate later on caused Congress to pass the Federal 
Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974. These amendments created the 
Federal Election Commission; they established individual and PAC 
contribution limits; they established public funding of Presidential 
primaries and political conventions; and they limited the amounts that 
individuals could spend on their own campaigns, a provision which would 
later be ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the first amendment 
by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  In 1976 and again in 1979, Congress passed additional amendments to 
the Federal Election Campaign Act. These amendments addressed the 
constitutional problems of the 1971 and 1974 legislation and expanded 
the role of the political parties under the law.
  But since then, efforts by Congress to pass laws that would reform 
the system failed.
  Mr. President, I believe when more than 50 percent of the American 
people believe that special interests control the Federal Government 
and when the two most powerful politicians in America meet in New 
Hampshire before the first Presidential primary and promise with a 
handshake to do something to change the law, that we would expect to 
see some action. The lack of action reinforces the view that Americans 
have of their Government.

  The American people are frustrated by our delay. They are frustrated 
with the political process that appears to respond to those with 
economic power and which, all too often, ignores the needs of working 
men and women.
  They are frustrated with the rising cost of campaigns, with a 
political system which closes the door to people of average means who 
also want to serve their country in the U.S. Congress.
  They are frustrated with a Congress which, in their minds, has been 
bought and paid for. I serve in the Senate, Mr. President, and I know 
my colleagues to be men and women of honor, but I can hardly blame the 
American people for believing that we are not.
  They see millions of dollars that go into our campaigns. They read 
the newspapers and see pictures of lobbyists huddling outside our 
Chamber with cellular phones, and the citizens wonder whose voice is 
being heard. They think the men with the cellular phones have first 
priority.
  The American people are frustrated with our tendency to talk instead 
of act. Eliza Doolittle, in the musical ``My Fair Lady,'' sang a verse 
which captures how the American people feel about campaign finance 
reform. She sang:

       Words, words, words. All I hear is words. If you love me, 
     show me.

  Mr. President, it is time for us to show the American people, not 
with words but with action. With a single vote today or tomorrow, 
Senators can act to allow this issue to move front and center on the 
political stage. With this bipartisan bill, we can show the American 
people that we mean what we say when we talk about political reform.
  S. 1219 amends the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and it also 
amends the Communications Act of 1934. It has four simple titles, and I 
have chosen to go through these titles and allow those who are 
listening to make their own determination as to whether or not this 
will improve the system.
  Title I of the bill sets up a system of voluntary spending limits for 
primary, general and runoff elections which are based upon State 
population. It also sets a voluntary limit on the amount of personal 
funds which a candidate spends.
  For example, let us say you have a woman citizen of this country who 
challenges a male incumbent. The bill would provide benefits to this 
candidate who would meet a threshold contribution requirement, and it 
works within the bill's spending and fundraising limits. It would give 
her up to 30 minutes of free air time on television and allows her to 
buy television time and send bulk mail at special low rates.

  When she runs against someone who will not accept the bill's limits, 
whether it is an incumbent or nonincumbent, it boosts her fundraising 
spending and maximum individual contribution limits so she can keep up 
with her opponents. If her opponent pledges to obey the limits, and 
then backs out, he is not only forced to pay back the benefits he 
received, but then has to start buying his television time at normal 
commercial rates instead of the lowest unit rate that all candidates 
enjoy.
  The bill requires candidates to raise 60 percent of their funds from 
residents of their State, but allows candidates in our smaller States 
to meet that requirement by having 60 percent of their individual 
contributors be in-State residents. This is a very sensible provision, 
Mr. President, which prevents the small number of powerful economic 
interests from dominating the Senate campaign politics of a given 
State.
  Title II of the bill bans contributions from political action 
committees and provides that if the courts rule the ban 
unconstitutional, that the maximum contribution limit for PAC's will 
drop from $5,000 to $1,000 per election. It bans national political 
parties from raising and spending soft money. It requires State and 
local parties to spend Federal money on activities that would affect 
Federal races. It prevents political parties from funding so-called 
501(c) organizations.
  It allows State parties to raise funds under the control of the 
Federal Election Campaign Act for grassroots activities such as get-
out-the-vote and generic ballot efforts. It requires corporations and 
unions that spend more than $10,000 for internal communications efforts 
to report their activity to the Federal Election Commission within 48 
hours.
  It restricts the bundling of contributions by counting those 
contributions toward the bundler's individual contribution limit. It 
requires those who make independent expenditures to report those 
expenditures within a matter of hours.
  Title III, Mr. President, codifies Federal Election Commission 
regulations which keep candidates from spending their campaign funds on 
themselves. It requires the FEC to allow a candidate to file their 
reports electronically. It allows the FEC to conduct random audits upon 
a vote of four of its members.
  Further, it toughens the disclaimer requirements for television ads, 
something that almost every single Member has observed is very much in 
need. It bans Members of Congress from using the franking privilege for 
mass mailing during the calendar year in which they are up for 
reelection.
  Title IV, Mr. President, the bill's final title, provides for 
expedited review of constitutional issues by the Supreme Court and 
authorizes the Federal Election Commission to implement the bill's 
provisions through regulations.
  It is not a perfect bill, Mr. President. For example, my view is that 
PAC and bundling provisions do too much to limit the participation of 
average men and women in America and too little to

[[Page S6699]]

rein in the big corporations which could stay beyond the reach of the 
law. But it is unquestionably a start, and a very important start. It 
should not be the target of a filibuster. It should not be an occasion 
for Senators to weep more crocodile tears and say, we support the 
concept of reform, but we just cannot live with this or that particular 
proposal. The voters have heard that before, Mr. President. They know 
what it means.

  It means we want to do nothing. It means we are worried about 
protecting ourselves, when we ought to be worrying about protecting our 
democracy. The best test of this bill's success is whether it makes an 
incumbent Senator nervous. If it does, then it gets the job done.
  We cannot afford to tell the voters one more time that we do not want 
to do anything. They are quickly losing their trust in us. They do not 
trust us to reform our entitlement programs and allow our children to 
retire in dignity. They do not trust us to improve the way we teach our 
children. And they do not trust us to send our troops overseas, to keep 
our Nation strong, and to lead in the world.
  Mr. President, last week 70 percent of Russian voters went to the 
polls to choose a President. They went because they thought they could 
make a difference. Meanwhile, in this country it has been a long time 
since 70 percent of our citizens, who fought and won the cold war, 
would vote in the 70-percent range.
  Mr. President, it is time for us to prove to the American people that 
we mean what we say when we talk about reforming our political system. 
Let us earn back their trust so we can go to work and build a better 
nation.
  Mr. President, I again want to say, as I said at the start, I know 
there are significant disagreements about what should be in any change 
in the 1971 Campaign Finance Act. I respect those differences of 
opinion and respect different points of view on this. But, for gosh 
sakes, let us allow the voters and the citizens of the United States of 
America to hear a full and open debate. Let us rally the 60 votes 
necessary to allow this proposal to be considered. I hope sincerely 
that we will have enough votes tomorrow so that once and for all we can 
put some action behind our words. I yield the floor.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I filed an amendment as a sense-of-the-
Senate amendment on last Friday, believing at the time that you could 
not amend the Constitution by amending a simple bill, that it would not 
be in order. I have since learned differently. So I ask unanimous 
consent that that sense-of-the-Senate amendment be modified into the 
form of a regular amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Is there objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we see really where they all stand. Now 
I can give a good sense of history, 23 years ago, we passed the act 
that gave rise to the problems we're dealing with today--the 1974 act 
was passed. So if cloture is agreed upon tomorrow, we will be around 
with that same amendment--a constitutional amendment, because I have 
just learned for the first time today--you learn something new every 
day--that you can amend a simple bill with a joint resolution to amend 
the Constitution.
  I have been told otherwise time and again for a good 10 years, ergo, 
back in the late 1980's, we were trying to get the joint resolution out 
of the Committee on the Judiciary for 2 or 3 years. We finally got it 
out. At that particular time we had the distinguished Senator from 
Oklahoma leading the charge for his particular campaign finance reform, 
Senator David Boren.
  We were trying our best to have our amendment considered. I finally 
worked out with the then-majority leader, Senator George Mitchell, if I 
could get it out of the committee, he would give me an up-or-down vote. 
So after a 3-year struggle we did get it out of the committee.
  Back in April 1988, we got 52 votes to amend the Constitution. We had 
four Republicans. Again, in 1993, in the form of a sense of the Senate 
we got 52 votes--a bipartisan effort including 6 Republican colleagues. 
At that time, I was told that one could not amend the Constitution by 
amending a bill.
  I have been told time and time again that what we really needed to do 
was to correct the fundamental flaw in Buckley versus Valeo. 
Ironically, what happens is that Buckley versus Valeo amends the 
Constitution. That is what has occurred. By equating money in politics 
with speech, the decision essentially amends free speech, because it 
dictates that those with money can talk and those without money can 
shut up.
  You know, the mother's milk of politics, as it has been said many 
times on the floor of the Senate, is money. And television, of course, 
has a great deal of control over elections. Anybody that has been 
elected--and I am proud to have been elected six times to this 
particular body--will agree.
  I remember when billboards were a sufficient form of advertising. 
Today, any consultant will tell you, do not waste your money on 
billboards or on newspaper advertising or whatever else. You get a far 
greater return on television advertising. And television advertising is 
very, very costly. Therefore those with money, those that can bear the 
cost, have a better chance to prevail.
  So I am not going to take a long time here because I am hoping we can 
get cloture, and then I will offer up my amendment, either as a simple 
amendment to the bill itself or a second degree. And we will stay here 
as long as we can because it is a simple Senate bill that we would have 
cloture upon.
  It seems the distinguished Senator from Kentucky will not allow me an 
honest mistake, made because I have been instructed over the many years 
that one could not submit a constitutional amendment. Well, I harken 
the memory of everyone to when we voted last year on the flag burning 
legislation. At that time I was asked if I had any amendments. I said, 
``Yes, I have two,'' because I had been waiting all year long to bring 
up the joint resolution to amend the Constitution for a balanced 
budget. Senator Dole's amendment, S. 1 of this particular Congress 
provided for a balanced budget using Social Security trust funds, 
thereby abolishing the law that protects the fund. I thought we ought 
to retain that protection and not decimate Social Security trying to 
balance the budget. We never could get that up.
  The leadership was very astute. They did not call any joint 
resolutions except to call up the flag burning amendment. When that 
arose, I said, ``Oh, yes, I have two amendments: one to balance the 
budget and the other one that pertains to campaign finance reform.'' 
So, as everyone saw in the U.S. Senate, my amendments failed.
  They talk about a New York minute: if there is a lesser time period 
to measure, it is political air. If my amendment passes, we will have 
this adopted here in a few months, in November, by all the several 
States. The States came to me, back some 10 years ago when I was 
working on this and said, ``Please, please, put us in there, too.'' So 
the legislation will not dictate that just the Congress of the United 
States is hereby empowered to regulate or control expenditures in 
Federal elections, but that the States be permitted, also.
  So that is my amendment, a very simple one. How it is implemented, 
what they do about bundling, what they do about separate committees and 
what they do about disclosure, it can be done constitutionally. That is 
the fundamental flaw in not only the Buckley versus Valeo decision, but 
in the pending amendment by my distinguished colleagues, the Senator 
from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin. They are trying to face up 
to a real problem, but the solution they propose does not control 
spending in Federal elections. That is the evil that we confronted back 
in the early 1970's.
  You go back to the 1968 Presidential race. You had institutionalized 
campaign financing. The fundraisers came, for example, to the textile 
industry. The textile industry, predominant in my State, is almost like 
the United Fund or the Community Chest. They said, ``Your fair share is 
$350,000.'' Mr. President, they got 10 textile industries together and 
they collected $35,000 apiece from each of them in order to comply. 
This got a lot of people in legal trouble.

[[Page S6700]]

  I could go on, but that is not the point here. The distinguished 
Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, spoke about buying a 
Congressman--he told of a bumper sticker he saw, ``Invest in America. 
Buy a Congressman.'' That was the problem 25 years ago. After the 1968 
election when President Nixon took office, John Connally, the Secretary 
of the Treasury, stated to President Nixon: ``There are a lot of people 
that have given you millions and thousands and thousands of dollars, 
and they have not even had a chance to shake your hand. Some you 
haven't met. I know you want to thank them.''
  President Nixon said, ``Fine, I would love it. Give me the chance.'' 
Connally says, ``Well, come down here in a couple of weeks to my ranch 
in Texas, and we will have a barbecue. I will invite them there. We can 
have a grand time. You could meet them and thank them.'' The famous 
prankster Dick Tuck, a Kennedy confidante, got himself a Brinks' truck, 
and he put the truck out there on the main road, by the Connally ranch. 
The press took a picture of the truck and blew it up. They said, 
``There it is, Washington is up for sale.'' Republicans and Democrats 
were hollering. They could not stand it. There was no complaining about 
disclosure.
  We just went ``ticker tape'' on all the things we wanted. No. 1, cash 
was absolutely forbidden, against the law. Contributions were limited. 
To an individual, $1,000; a race, $2,000, the primary and general 
elections; and PAC's were limited to $5,000.

  With regard to PAC's, we said representative groups like the teachers 
association or the doctors in the group or whatever, like labor unions, 
they ought to be able to band together. So we decided they should be 
limited to $5,000. So we set the limit there. We said, now we will have 
complete disclosure. You will have to file every dollar in and every 
dollar out, not just with the secretary of the Senate, but with the 
secretary of state in your own home State, so the people back home can 
see it and know.
  Then we said we are going to limit spending overall. Based on a 
formula: so much per registered voter in each one of the States. My 
little State of South Carolina, then, would have been limited--we 
calculated it at around $670,000. This was back in the mid-1970's. Now, 
double it here from 20 years ago to a million and a half, which is, my 
gracious, plenty--not $3.5 million and $4 million that it costs for 
that statewide race.
  Look at the reports and the amounts and everything else, and the 
Senator from Illinois is right. More Senators this minute are out 
collecting money than Senators that avail themselves of the opportunity 
to participate in this discussion on the floor of the Senate itself. 
That is a crime.
  According to the FEC reports, during the 6-year period, a Senator 
must raise something like $12,000 or $14,000 a week, each week, in 
order to run for reelection. Then, if you get one of these high-fliers 
coming in that spends $12 million of their own money, then the ox is in 
the ditch. You are in real trouble there--people who have achieved 
financial success by way of family or otherwise, suddenly decide that 
running for the U.S. Senate would be a fun thing to do. Well, that has 
to stop.
  First of all, we must eliminate the poisonous influence of large sums 
of money. Second, we must get rid of the poisonous influence of the 
amount time it takes to raise these sums.
  The flaw in Buckley versus Valeo, and the flaw in all of these 
amendments, is that money is not controlled, which is ultimately what 
everybody wants to do.
  Everybody wants that done: we who serve and have to collect the 
money, those who give it and participate--whether individual PAC's or 
otherwise--and it is easily done. If you go back to the last five or 
six constitutional amendments, they deal with elections. Do not give me 
this acrimony. I have had this before the Judiciary Committee. Oh, they 
have so many thousands of amendments, and everybody wants to change 
them. I have to agree that this is a bad atmosphere up here because the 
contract crowd wants to amend everything in the Constitution.
  This is one amendment that has been dutifully considered and voted on 
by way of a majority at least twice in the last 10 years. I think we 
can get an even larger majority now that Senator Dole ran into Steve 
Forbes. He came in like a bolt out of the blue with $35 million and ran 
around hollering ``Flat tax, flat tax, flat tax.'' Of course, some 
voters thought, ``They are going to lower my taxes so I will vote for 
them.'' Come on, Senator Dole was the one calling on the President for 
a balanced budget. I want to tell Senator Dole, ``Call your colleagues, 
get on Senator McConnell from Kentucky and tell him now is the time to 
limit spending.''
  The Senator from Kentucky has been frank and straightforward. He says 
we spend more money on Kibbles and Bits and cat food and dog food than 
we spend on political campaigns, and we ought to spend more. The 
Senator from Utah started out the debate. He said: ``If I had to solve 
it, I think it ought to be recorded, but collect all the money you want 
and spend it all the time, wherever you want.''
  That is exactly the opposite of the intent of campaign finance law. 
The way we passed that law--Republican and Democrat, overwhelmingly--
was to control spending in Federal elections. Our friend, Senator 
Buckley of New York at that time, took issue. He sued the Senate, in 
the person of the Secretary Valeo. That is where we got the Buckley 
versus Valeo decision. I have the appropriate references here in the 
prepared remarks.
  Mr. President, all I can say is here we go again with the same sing-
song--a half-hearted attempt to fix the chronic problems surrounding 
campaign financing. Problems flowing from the Supreme Court's flawed 
decision of Buckley versus Valeo. We all know the score--we're 
hamstrung by that decision and the ever increasing cost of a 
competitive campaign. With the total cost of congressional campaigns 
skyrocketing from $446 million in 1990 to over $724 million in 1994, 
the need for limits on campaign expenditures is more urgent than ever. 
For nearly a quarter of a century, Congress has tried to tackle runaway 
campaign spending with bills aimed at getting around the disjointed 
Buckley decision. Again and again, Congress has failed.
  Let us resolve not to repeat the mistakes of past campaign finance 
reform efforts, which have become bogged down in partisanship as 
Democrats and Republicans each tried to gore the other's sacred cows. 
During the 103d Congress there was a sign that we could move beyond 
this partisan bickering, when the Senate in a bipartisan fashion 
expressed its support for a constitutional amendment to limit campaign 
expenditures. In May 1993, a non-binding sense-of-the-Senate-resolution 
was agreed to which advocated the adoption of a constitutional 
amendment empowering Congress and the States to limit campaign 
expenditures. Now we must take the next step and adopt such a 
constitutional amendment--a simple, straightforward, nonpartisan 
solution.
  As Prof. Gerald G. Ashdown has written in the New England Law Review, 
amending the Constitution to allow Congress to regulate campaign 
expenditures is ``the most theoretically attractive of the approaches-
to-reform since, from a broad free speech perspective, the decision in 
Buckley is misguided and has worsened the campaign finance 
atmosphere.'' Adds Professor Ashdown: ``If Congress could 
constitutionally limit the campaign expenditures of individuals, 
candidates, and committees, along with contributions, most of the 
troubles * * * would be eliminated.''
  Right to the point, in its landmark 1976 ruling in Buckley versus 
Valeo, the Supreme Court mistakenly equated a candidate's right to 
spend unlimited sums of money with his right to free speech. In the 
face of spirited dissents, the Court drew a bizarre distinction between 
campaign contributions on the grounds that `` * * * the governmental 
interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption 
outweighs considerations of free speech.''
  I have never been able to fathom why that same test--the governmental 
interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption--
does not overwhelmingly justify limits on campaign spending. However, 
it seems to me that the Court committed a far graver error by striking 
down spending limits as a threat to free speech. The fact is, spending 
limits in Federal campaigns would act to restore the free

[[Page S6701]]

speech that has been eroded by the Buckley decision.
  After all, as a practical reality, what Buckley says is: Yes, if you 
have personal wealth, then you have access to television, you have 
freedom of speech. But if you do not have personal wealth, then you are 
denied access to television. Instead of freedom of speech, you have 
only the freedom to shut up.

  So let us be done with this phony charge that spending limits are 
somehow an attack on freedom of speech. As Justice Byron White points 
out, clear as a bell, in his dissent, both contribution limits and 
spending limits are neutral as to the content of speech and are not 
motivated by fear of the consequences of the political speech in 
general.
  Mr. President, every Senator realizes that television advertising is 
the name of the game in modern American politics. In warfare, if you 
control the air, you control the battlefield. In politics, if you 
control the airwaves, you control the tenor and focus of a campaign.
  Probably 80 percent of campaign communications take place through the 
medium of television. And most of that TV airtime comes at a dear 
price. In South Carolina, you're talking between $1000 and $2,000 for 
30 seconds of primetime advertising. In New York City, it's anywhere 
from $30,000 to $40,000 for the same 30 seconds.
  The hard fact of life for a candidate is that if you're not on TV, 
you're not truly in the race. Wealthy challengers as well as incumbents 
flushed with money go directly to the TV studio. Those without personal 
wealth are sidetracked to the time-consuming pursuit of cash.
  The Buckley decision created a double bind. It upheld restrictions on 
campaign contributions, but struck down restrictions on how much 
candidates with deep pockets can spend. The Court ignored the practical 
reality that if my opponent has only $50,000 to spend in a race and I 
have $1 million, then I can effectively deprive him of his speech. By 
failing to respond to my advertising, my cash-poor opponent will appear 
unwilling to speak up in his own defense.
  Justice Thurgood Marshall zeroed in on this disparity in his dissent 
to Buckley. By striking down the limit on what a candidate can spend, 
Justice Marshall said, ``It would appear to follow that the candidate 
with a substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a 
significant head start.''
  Indeed, Justice Marshall went further: He argued that by upholding 
the limitations on contributions but striking down limits on overall 
spending, the Court put an additional premium on a candidate's personal 
wealth.
  Justice Marshall was dead right and Ross Perot and Steve Forbes have 
proved it. Massive spending of their personal fortunes immediately made 
them contenders. Our urgent task is to right the injustice of Buckley 
versus Valeo by empowering Congress to place caps on Federal campaign 
spending. We are all painfully aware of the uncontrolled escalation of 
campaign spending. The average cost of a winning Senate race was $1.2 
million in 1980, rising to $2.9 million in 1984, and skyrocketing to 
$3.1 million in 1986, $3.7 million in 1988, and up to $4.3 million this 
past year. To raise that kind of money, the average Senator must raise 
over $13,800 a week, every week of his or her 6-year term. Overall 
spending in congressional races increased from $446 million in 1990 to 
more than $724 million in 1994--almost a 70 percent increase in 4 short 
years.

  This obsession with money distracts us from the people's business. At 
worst, it corrupts and degrades the entire political process. 
Fundraisers used to be arranged so they didn't conflict with the Senate 
schedule; nowadays, the Senate schedule is regularly shifted to 
accommodate fundraisers.
  I have run for statewide office 16 times in South Carolina. You 
establish a certain campaign routine, say, shaking hands at a mill 
shift in Greer, visiting a big country store outside of Belton, and so 
on. Over the years, they look for you and expect you to come around. 
But in recent years, those mill visits and dropping by the country 
store have become a casualty of the system. There is very little time 
for them. We're out chasing dollars.
  During my 1986 reelection campaign, I found myself raising money to 
get on TV to raise money to get on TV to raise money to get on TV. It's 
a vicious cycle.
  After the election, I held a series of town meetings across the 
State. Friends asked, ``Why are you doing these town meetings: You just 
got elected. You've got 6 years.'' To which I answered, ``I'm doing it 
because it's my first chance to really get out and meet with the people 
who elected me. I didn't get much of a chance during the campaign. I 
was too busy chasing bucks.'' I had a similar experience in 1992.
  I remember Senator Richard Russell saying: ``They give you a 6-year 
term in this U.S. Senate: 2 years to be a statesman, the next 2 years 
to be a politician, and the last 2 years to be a demagogue.'' 
Regrettably, we are no longer afforded even 2 years as statesmen. We 
proceed straight to politics and demagoguery right after the election 
because of the imperatives of raising money.
  My proposed constitutional amendment would change all this. 
Unfortunately, Senate procedure prevents me from offering my amendment 
to this bill, but, hopefully tomorrow when we see yet another attempt 
to reform our campaign spending laws fail, we will realize a 
constitutional amendment is the only viable solution. It would empower 
Congress to impose reasonable spending limits on Federal campaigns. For 
instance, we could impose a limit of, say, $800,000 per Senate 
candidate in a small State like South Carolina--a far cry from the 
millions spent by my opponent and me in 1992. And bear in mind that 
direct expenditures account for only a portion of total spending. For 
instance, my 1992 opponent's direct expenditures were supplemented by 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures by independent 
organizations and by the State and local Republican Party. When you 
total up spending from all sources, my challenger and I spent roughly 
the same amount in 1992.
  And incidentally, Mr. President, let's be done with the canard that 
spending limits would be a boon to incumbents, who supposedly already 
have name recognition and standing with the public and therefore begin 
with a built-in advantage over challengers. Nonsense. I hardly need to 
remind my Senate colleagues of the high rate of mortality in upper 
Chamber elections. And as to the alleged invulnerability of incumbents 
in the House, I would simply note that well over 50 percent of the 
House membership has been replaced since the 1990 elections.

  I can tell you from experience that any advantages of incumbency are 
more than counterbalanced by the obvious disadvantages of incumbency, 
specifically the disadvantage of defending hundreds of controversial 
votes in Congress.
  I also agree with University of Virginia political scientist Larry 
Sabato, who has suggested a doctrine of sufficiency with regard to 
campaign spending. Professor Sabato puts it this way: ``While 
challengers tend to be underfunded, they can compete effectively if 
they are capable and have sufficient money to present themselves and 
their messages.''
  Moreover, Mr. President, I submit that once we have overall spending 
limits, it will matter little whether a candidate gets money from 
industry groups, or from PAC's, or from individuals. It is still a 
reasonable--``sufficient,'' to use Professor Sabato's term--amount any 
way you cut it. Spending will be under control, and we will be able to 
account for every dollar going out.
  On the issue of PAC's, Mr. President, let me say that I have never 
believed that PAC's per se are an evil in the current system. On the 
contrary, PAC's are a very healthy instrumentality of politics. PAC's 
have brought people into the political process: nurses, educators, 
small business people, senior citizens, unionists, you name it. They 
permit people of modest means and limited individual influence to band 
together with others of mutual interest so their message is heard and 
known.
  For years we have encouraged these people to get involved, to 
participate. Yet now that they are participating, we turn around and 
say, ``Oh, no, your influence is corrupting, your money is tainted.'' 
This is wrong. The evil to be corrected is not the abundance of 
participation but the superabundance of money. The culprit is runaway 
campaign spending.

[[Page S6702]]

  To a distressing degree, elections are determined not in the 
political marketplace but in the financial marketplace. Our elections 
are supposed to be contests of ideas, but too often they degenerate 
into megadollar derbies, paper chases through the board rooms of 
corporations, and special interests.
  Mr. President, I repeat, campaign spending must be brought under 
control. The constitutional amendment I have proposed would permit 
Congress to impose fair, responsible, workable limits on Federal 
campaign expenditures.
  Such a reform would have four important impacts. First, it would end 
the mindless pursuits of ever-fatter campaign war chests. Second, it 
would free candidates from their current obsession with fundraising and 
allow them to focus more on issues and ideas; once elected to office, 
we wouldn't have to spend 20 percent of our time raising money to keep 
our seats. Third, it would curb the influence of special interests. And 
fourth, it would create a more level playing field for our Federal 
campaigns--a competitive environment where personal wealth does not 
give candidates an insurmountable advantage.

  Finally, Mr. President, a word about the advantages of the amend-the-
Constitution approach that I propose. Recent history amply demonstrates 
the practicality and viability of this constitutional route. Certainly, 
it is not coincidence that all five of the last six recent amendments 
to the Constitution have dealt with Federal election issues. In 
elections, the process drives and shapes the end result. Election laws 
can skew election results, whether you're talking about a poll tax 
depriving minorities of their right to vote, or the absence of campaign 
spending limits giving an unfair advantage to wealthy candidates. These 
are profound issues which go to the heart of our democracy, and it is 
entirely appropriate that they be addressed through a constitutional 
amendment.
  And let's not be distracted by the argument that the amend-the-
Constitution approach will take too long. Take too long? We have been 
dithering on this campaign finance issue since the early 1970's, and we 
haven't advanced the ball a single yard. It has been a quarter of a 
century, and no legislative solution has done the job.
  Except for the 27th amendment, the last five constitutional 
amendments took an average of 17 months to be adopted. There is no 
reason why we cannot pass this joint resolution, submit it to the 
States for a vote, and ratify the amendment in time for it to govern 
the 1998 election. Indeed, the amend-the-Constitution approach could 
prove more expeditious than the alternative legislative approach. Bear 
in mind that the various public financing bills that have been proposed 
would all be vulnerable to a Presidential veto. In contrast, this joint 
resolution, once passed by the Congress, goes directly to the States 
for ratification. Once ratified, it becomes the law of the land, and it 
is not subject to veto or Supreme Court challenge.
  And, by the way, I reject the argument that if we were to pass and 
ratify this amendment, Democrats and Republicans would be unable to 
hammer out a mutually acceptable formula of campaign expenditure 
limits. A Democratic Congress and Republican President did exactly that 
in 1974, and we can certainly do it again.
  Mr. President, this amendment will address the campaign finance mess 
directly, decisively, and with finality. The Supreme Court has chosen 
to ignore the overwhelming importance of media advertising in today's 
campaigns. In the Buckley decision, it prescribed a bogus if-you-have-
the-money-you-can-talk version of free speech. In its place, I urge the 
Congress to move beyond these acrobatic attempts at legislating around 
the Buckley decision. As we have all seen, no matter how sincere, these 
plans are doomed to fail. The solution rests in fixing the Buckley 
decision. Unfortunately, today we are barred procedurally from getting 
to take such a vote. It is my hope that before this Congress is out, 
the majority leader will provide us with an opportunity to vote on my 
amendment--it is the only solution.
  Mr. President, this is a significant reference, and it has been 
prepared for me with respect to the substituting, or actually amending, 
a simple bill by a constitutional amendment. The Parliamentarian says:

       The most significant question addressed here is whether the 
     form for proposing a constitutional amendment is prescribed. 
     Article V of the Constitution provides that Congress may, 
     upon a two-thirds vote in each House, propose amendments to 
     the Constitution, subject to ratification by three-fourths of 
     the States. In the alternative, Congress may, upon 
     application of two-thirds of the States, call a convention to 
     consider proposed amendments. Neither the Constitution nor 
     the Standing Rules of the Senate specify the form that the 
     proposal should take. The vast majority of measures proposing 
     amendments to the Constitution introduced in either House of 
     the Congress have been in the form of a joint resolution. A 
     report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, or 
     reference service of the Library of Congress, in 1985, which 
     built upon two earlier compilations of this material states 
     that 9,994 proposals to amend the Constitution had been 
     introduced since 1789 through the 98th Congress (report 
     number 8536, page 3). Of these, only the following 6 have 
     been determined to be in a form other than a joint 
     resolution: S. 2 (December 4, 1889); S. 3000 (January 5, 
     1916); S. Con. Res. 4 (January 9, 1924); H.R. 9468 (February 
     17, 1926); S. 199 (January 4, 1935); S. 1020 (April 20, 
     1981). This enormous weight of practice has, however, never 
     resulted in a Senate precedent. To the contrary, in the only 
     Senate precedent on this point, Vice President Barkley 
     stated, in response to a related point of order: ``On the 
     question of whether an amendment to the Constitution must be 
     submitted in the form of a joint resolution, or in the form 
     of a bill, the only requirement of the Constitution is that 
     the question shall be submitted by a two-thirds vote. It does 
     not require that it be done by joint resolution. It may be 
     done in the form of a bill (January 25, 1950, Congressional 
     Record, page 872, 8lst Congress, second session). On May 9, 
     1962, in response to an inquiry, the chair implied that a 
     constitutional amendment could be proposed as a substitute 
     for a House private relief bill. Therefore, no point of order 
     would lie against a bill which proposed to amend the 
     Constitution.''

  I thank the distinguished Chair and my colleagues for their 
indulgence.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Stevens pertaining to the introduction of S. 1899 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about 
this campaign reform bill which is before us. It is with reluctance 
that I come to the floor to make these statements because I, also, 
along with Senator Hollings, was a member of the conference committee 
that brought forth the Senate and the House bill, and sent to the 
President what I considered to be a real reform bill. We did that 
coming out of the days of the disclosures of the Watergate era. I 
believe we have come through several reform eras, and unfortunately 
those who have come in after the reform has taken place do not 
recognize that what they see has been reformed, when compared to the 
past.
  When I first came to the Senate there were campaign chairmen who went 
from State to State with suitcases full of cash. There was no 
disclosure as to where it came from. We did a lot to reform politics in 
the United States with the acts that have already been passed. If those 
acts had only been really followed perhaps we would not be here today 
arguing over whether this is a reform bill. I come to the Senate 
because in recent weeks Alaskans who were worried about the impact of 
this bill have contacted my office. They came to me from the Alaska 
Broadcasters Association, they came to me as members of various church 
related organizations, and they came just as individuals who are 
concerned about the limits placed on their political freedom by this 
bill.
  I agree with the statements earlier made by the Senator from 
Washington concerning the freedom of association. I view this bill as 
being directly contrary to one of the basic freedoms of our country. 
And it is not a bill that is a reform bill at all. It is a bill that 
people want to call reform because they want to have some symbol in 
this campaign to use against those of us who are candidates, and they 
think we will not have the guts to stand up and oppose this bill. They 
are wrong.
  This bill is not a reform bill. I believe we must clean up the system 
even more than we have in the past and make it fair. But we cannot do 
that by limiting people's freedom, or by forcing upon the public the 
cost of financing campaigns.

[[Page S6703]]

  To me this bill places unfair restrictions on advocacy groups and 
associations. People in this country ought to be free to associate 
together and pool their money as long as there is disclosure of where 
it has come from and there is a record of it. The bill restricts 
organizations that are the eyes and ears of people who are far distant 
from this place, and bans political action committees.
  Mr. President, the political action committee itself was a reform. It 
required that people who band together disclose who contributes to 
their campaign fund, and it requires those to whom the funds are given 
disclose the receipt of it as well as the committee disclosing the 
contribution of it. This bill would discourage voter guides that are 
given to members of groups such as the Christian Coalition or 
individual churches, or fishermen's organizations in my State. They are 
records to guide their membership as to the actual voting that takes 
place here on the floor, and the positions taken by candidates.
  I think that ought to be encouraged in a democracy, and not 
discouraged. This bill will discourage it.
  This bill requires broadcasters--and in my view unconstitutionally--
to provide free air time to participating candidates.
  I happen to have in my State a series of very small broadcasters. I 
sometimes wonder how they survive. As a matter of fact, one of them, Al 
Bramstedt of a network affiliate in Anchorage, flew in and testified at 
our Rules Committee and set forth their objections to this bill. Mr. 
President, at this point I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Bramstedt's 
testimony be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the testimony was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           Oral Testimony of Al Bramstedt on Campaign Reform

       Thank you, Mr. chairman. My name is Al Bramstedt. I am 
     general manager of the NBC affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska. I 
     thank you and Senator Stevens for allowing me to speak to you 
     this morning on the impact broadcast provisions of campaign 
     reform proposals would have on small-market television. 
     During the new few minutes I want to discuss the effects of 
     the bill's free-time provisions. And you'll hear examples of 
     how these provisions, with reductions in the lowest unit rate 
     and revised classification of time, would bring about 
     financial harm for many smaller stations.
       Changing technologies will present us new challenges in the 
     future, but with calm minds and stout hearts America's 
     television broadcasters, even most of the small-market 
     broadcasters, will meet these challenges and remain viable. 
     Today, and in the years ahead, that viability depends on 
     stable income.
       A.C. Nielsen ranks Anchorage, Alaska number 156 in market 
     size. Although that's considered small, there are dozens of 
     other markets even smaller. In our market, with its low 
     television station profit margins, every dollar makes a 
     difference.
       Political advertising revenue is no exception. In 1994, 
     Anchorage market television cash revenue totaled over $19 
     million dollars. Political advertising represented more that 
     10 percent of that total--close to $2 million dollars.
       In any business decision, I believe we must consider the 
     impact of Isaac Newton's third law of physics. Newton taught 
     us that for every action there is an equal and opposite 
     reaction.
       The action of the free-time provisions of S. 1219 would be 
     to disrupt and reduce revenue from political advertising upon 
     which we, as small-market television broadcasters, are 
     dependent.
       Our stations' regular advertisers in turn depend on 
     television to deliver the vital fourth-quarter revenue that 
     sustains them the other nine months of the year.
       Local broadcasters also depend heavily on fourth quarter 
     revenues to meet their overall profitability. S. 1219 and 
     proposals like it would reduce television's effect as an 
     advertising medium for commercial advertisers each political 
     season and would directly impact our ability to operate 
     profitably.
       These free political ads would not really be free. Newton 
     was right: there will also be a reaction.
       To make up revenue lost by displacing regular advertisers, 
     broadcasters would have to increase already challenging 
     fourth-quarter rates for their year-round advertisers, or 
     simply eat those costs themselves.
       There is no such thing as ``free'' time. The cost of 
     providing this time under S. 1219 would be paid by 
     advertisers and broadcasters.
       Mandated free time proposals are unnecessary. Broadcasters 
     already are providing ever-increasing news and public affairs 
     coverage of federal candidates' campaigns, without the force 
     of federal law.
       It is unfair that, while more coverage is taking place, 
     broadcasters are being singled out by this proposed 
     legislation--unlike our major advertising competitor, 
     newspapers.
       The current lowest-unit-rate law contains remarkable 
     benefits for political candidates. Forty-five days prior to 
     the primary and 60 days before the general election, legally 
     qualified candidates receive the lowest unit rates the 
     station provides to its most favored advertisers.
       Even in small markets, to receive these substantial 
     discounts--typically 25 percent or more--non-political 
     advertisers must spend at least $100,000 each year.
       Under the current lowest-unit-rate provisions, during the 
     most important pre-election period candidates pay the lowest 
     rates possible without a commitment of any kind.
       Any greater discount formula, much less any free-time 
     provisions, would be unfair not only to television 
     broadcasters, but also to every fourth-quarter advertiser.
       In conclusion, I urge you to reject S. 1219. The free-time 
     provisions contained in this bill would harm television 
     broadcasters financially and disrupt advertisers 
     significantly. Further discounts and revising the 
     classification of time simply would make the fourth quarter 
     of every election year unmanageable for television 
     broadcasters. Thank you.

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, these broadcasters are the people who 
deliver over-the-air free television and free radio to people who live 
in rural America. And if there is any place that is rural it is my 
State, one-fifth the size of the United States.
  To have a bill that says these people must provide the candidates 
free time is a burden from which many of those broadcasters cannot 
survive. If they do survive, it will be by charging their advertisers, 
their customers, to pay higher rates to cover the cost of this free 
time mandated by the Congress, if this bill is enacted. I think that 
too is unconstitutional.
  It also burdens the Postal Service. Mr. President, I now have served 
on the Post Office and Civil Service Subcommittee of this Senate longer 
than any Senator in history. I have really spent a lot of time trying 
to help the Postal Service survive. It is something I believe must 
continue. Today, there are many, many Members of Congress would like to 
just do away with it altogether. This bill would start the process 
because it would require that the Postal Service provide reduced postal 
rates to the participating candidates. It is other postal users, their 
customers again, that pay those costs, or else there will be a deficit 
for the Postal Service.
  This bill is simply public financing of political campaigns again. It 
is masked. It is in disguise. It is not a reform bill. The broadcasters 
will pass along their costs to advertisers who try to support free 
over-the-air radio, or television, if they can. It will require the 
Postal Service to pass on their costs to the users of the Postal 
Service, if they can. In effect this bill may be raising the rates for 
everyone else in the country who uses the Postal Service. The Postal 
Service is not supported by the taxpayers. It is supported by the 
ratepayers.
  I believe that reform of the system is possible. But it must be 
constitutional, and it must be fair. It cannot place the financial 
burden of reform on the public.
  I support changing the system in many ways. I have discussed these 
before. All contributions and campaign expenditures I think should be 
held to the strictest standards of disclosure. I do not believe in soft 
money whether it is given to political parties or to candidates, or in 
bundling of contributions from many sources. I think sunlight is the 
best disinfectant for the political process, but there is no sunlight 
under this bill at all.
  I support the concept that political action committees should be held 
to the same disclosure standards and the same contribution limits as 
individuals or as associations of individuals. In my judgment, business 
people, fishing groups, and even Alaska whaling captains ought to have 
the right to participate in the system as a group. But it is not a 
stronger right I think than individual citizens.
  Cash contributions I think should be banned in any amount, whether it 
is called soft money, or whatever you want to call it. It ought to be 
banned. Cash is too difficult to track, too difficult to monitor, and 
it is ripe for abuse. I do not want to go back to the days when 
campaign chairmen traveled with suitcases full of cash.
  They do not do it anymore, Mr. President. There has been reform. And 
not too many people remember the reforms.

[[Page S6704]]

  Corporate contributions of any sort to candidates or to parties ought 
to be banned. We thought we had banned it before under the act that 
passed the Congress, and there have been ways found around it. But I do 
not think we should allow corporate contributions of any sort to 
candidates or parties. All contributions to parties or individuals who 
are candidates ought to be after-tax dollars. There should be no burden 
on the taxpayers as a result of the political process.
  I would support an additional constitutional amendment to get around 
the problem of Buckley versus Valeo, the Supreme Court case that held 
that the bill we passed was unconstitutional as far as the spending of 
the money that belonged to an individual candidate or his family. I 
support a constitutional amendment that would limit a candidate's 
personal spending to a reasonable amount--a quarter of a million 
dollars, shall we say. That ought to be enough for anyone to spend of 
their own money to run for political office. Congress ought not to 
become a special preserve for the wealthy.
  But it also ought not to be so structured that it denies an 
individual or a group of individuals to freely associate and freely 
conduct themselves in a political process.
  Again, I say I was in the chair when one Member kept repeating that 
this is the reform bill of this Congress. If this is the reform bill of 
this Congress, if this is the best that we can do, we ought to go home 
now.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, perhaps this would be a good time to 
spend just a few minutes on distinguishing what is in this bill and 
what is not in the bill.
  We have heard a number of concerns from the opponents that apparently 
relate to other pieces of legislation. What I would like to do just 
briefly is indicate what we do have in the bill, and then the Senator 
from Arizona, I think, will more plainly explain the basic structure of 
the bill.
  The Senator from Alaska just made a few comments about the bill 
which, unfortunately, simply do not reflect what the bill does now. A 
concern was raised in the past about these voter guides that people 
want to be able to send out. The concern was heard. The Senator from 
Arizona and I specifically included a provision in this bill which 
reads as follows:

       The term ``expressed advocacy'' does not include the 
     publication and distribution of a communication that is 
     limited to providing information about votes by elected 
     officials on legislative matters and that does not expressly 
     advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified 
     candidate.

  We heard the concern. It has been taken care of. This is another red 
herring.
  Second, speaker after speaker in the opposition today has said that 
there are mandatory spending limits on this bill, that it is a return 
to the legislation in the early 1970's. That is just false. We read 
Buckley versus Valeo. We understand there is a concern in that 
decision, and that is why we have a voluntary structure. You only have 
to limit your campaign spending voluntarily. If you do not want to, you 
do not have to.
  Third, the Senator from Alaska says that small TV stations in places 
like Alaska will have a problem with the free television time. We were 
aware of that problem from the beginning and specifically have included 
a hardship provision where a station can easily demonstrate--a smaller 
station, which is not very likely to be the station used for the free 
time anyway, can get out from under those provisions. Again, a red 
herring.
  And finally, the concern about the postal service. Senator McCain and 
I have included a sense-of-the-Senate provision suggesting that the 
money we save on not having franking done in an election year by people 
running for office be used to fund the postal reduction. So this is not 
some kind of new public financing or new burden on the post office if 
it is done right.
  Mr. President, let us talk a little bit about what the bill really 
does. The proposal does not advocate taking money completely out of the 
process. Consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley versus 
Valeo, we do not limit any single candidate's ability to spend as much 
money on their campaign as they want.
  No matter how many times the opposite is said to try to confuse the 
issue, all we try to do here is set up a fair fight. That is all, just 
a fair fight. We want to ensure that all qualified candidates, not just 
those with access to big money, have the ability to adequately 
participate in the political process. All this talk about a gag rule or 
automatic limitations simply does not relate to our bill. What the 
overwhelming majority of Americans believe, Mr. President, and what I 
suspect most Members of this body believe is that our current campaign 
system which has as its foundation unlimited campaign spending has 
become about as dysfunctional as it can possibly get.

  So what does our bill actually do? None of the things that have been 
said in the Chamber today by the opposition. What it does do is create 
a simple, voluntary system.
  What are the things that one must volunteer to do in order to get the 
benefits of the bill? Three major things. First, you have to agree, in 
order to get the incentives that the Senator from Arizona says, if you 
want to get the incentives, you have to agree to limit how much you 
spend in total based on the size of your State--$1 million in a smaller 
State, something like $9 million in California and all the States in 
between. You do not have to. But if you want the benefits of the bill, 
that is what you need to agree to.
  Second, you need to get 60 percent of your campaign contributions 
from individuals from your own home State. That means all the PAC money 
and all the out-of-State contributions have to be less than 40 percent. 
If you do not want to do it, you do not have to. If you want to spend 
$20 million in out-of-State money or PAC money, you can do it. But if 
you want the goodies, if you want the benefits, if you want the 
fairness of this system and not spend all of your time raising money 
from out of State or from PAC's, then you have to agree to this 60 
percent limitation.
  Third, you cannot spend any amount of your own personal money in 
order to get the benefits of the bill. In the largest State, you cannot 
spend more than $250,000. In my State, you could not spend more than 
$150,000. This is irrelevant to me and some of us in the body, but 
assuming you have that, that is what you have to do. But again, you can 
do whatever you want. Mr. Huffington could still spend $30 or $40 or 
$100 million in California. He just would not get the benefits of the 
bill. So it is all voluntary.
  It is a major distortion to suggest that any of that is mandatory. It 
simply is not. We crafted it that way because, of course, we intended 
for this bill to be constitutional, and we strongly believe it is.
  What does the person get if they abide by these rules? They sure do 
not get equality. That is not what the Senator from Arizona and I 
believe is the result of this bill. They just get a fighting chance.
  One of the things a person gets who obeys and abides by the rule is 
half price on their television time. They get half of the lowest 
commercial rate--30 days before the primary and 60 days before the 
final. That is the biggest expenditure of most campaigns. That is what 
they would get.
  Second, they get 30 minutes of free television time if they make it 
to the final election.
  And third, they get the equivalent of two statewide postal mailings 
at the third class rate given to nonprofits. That is all they get.
  They do not get public financing. They do not get equality with their 
opponent, and the opponent can still spend $5, $10, $15, $20 million. 
Again, the notion that these provisions are either unconstitutional or 
mandatory is simply false.

  In addition--and this has not been brought out yet--this bill puts 
the toughest restrictions on soft money ever in a piece of legislation 
in this body. In other words, we are going to shut down on this 
practice of pretending that there are hard money limits of $1,000 or 
$5,000 for PAC's and then somehow allowing individuals and political 
action committees to come through the back door and end up spending 
anything they want. Currently, individuals can only give $1,000 to 
candidates per election, but, with

[[Page S6705]]

soft money, individuals can give unlimited contributions to a national 
party's non-Federal account. PAC's are limited under the law today to 
$5,000 for hard money, but they may make unlimited contributions to a 
national party's non-Federal account. Corporations and unions today are 
prohibited from making direct contributions to Federal candidates or 
national parties, but they may make unlimited contributions to a 
national party's non-Federal account. The McCain-Feingold bill shuts 
this down.
  So there is a voluntary scheme that candidates need to abide by to 
get the benefits, but, yes, there is a scheme of cracking down on soft 
money that would make the process much more fair and much more 
accountable.
  Mr. President, I want to emphasize, because of the criticisms of the 
bill as being unconstitutional, the voluntary nature of the bill. If a 
particular candidate wants to spend more than the system allows or if 
the candidate is spending $1 million and wants to drop more money into 
the campaign, they can go ahead and do it. All the candidates can 
operate as under the present system.
  Mr. President, in the time remaining, let me indicate specifically 
that the authors of this bill strongly reject the notion that this bill 
is not constitutional. Let me read from the opinion of L. Paige 
Whitaker, the legislative attorney for the Congressional Research 
Service, who was specifically asked the question about the 
constitutionality of our voluntary scheme. He said as follows:

       In the 1976 landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme 
     Court held that spending limitations violate the first 
     amendment because they impose direct substantial restraints 
     on the quantity of political speech. The Court found that 
     expenditure limitations failed to serve any substantial 
     Government interest in stemming the reality of corruption or 
     the appearance thereof and that they heavily burdened 
     political expression. As a result of Buckley, spending limits 
     may only be imposed if they are voluntary.

  Mr. Whitaker continues:

       It appears that the provision in question would pass 
     constitutional muster for the same reasons that the public 
     financing scheme for Presidential elections was found to be 
     constitutional in Buckley. The Court in Buckley concluded 
     that Presidential public financing was within the 
     constitutional powers of Congress to reform the electoral 
     process and that the public financing provisions did not 
     violate any first amendment rights by abridging, restricting 
     or censoring speech, expression and association but, rather, 
     encouraged public discussion and participation in the 
     electoral process.

  Indeed, as Mr. Whitaker quotes the Court, he says:

       The Court succinctly stated, ``Congress may engage in 
     public financing of election campaigns and may condition 
     acceptance of public funds on agreement of the candidate to 
     abide by specific expenditure limitations. Just as a 
     candidate may voluntarily limit the size of the contributions 
     he chooses to accept, he may decide to forego private 
     fundraising and accept public funding.

  Finally, applying this principle to this bill, which does not involve 
public financing, he says:

       Because the subject provision does not require a Senate 
     candidate to comply with spending limits, the proposal 
     appears to be voluntary. Although the incentives of public 
     benefits are provided in the form of reduced and free 
     broadcast time and reduced postage rates to those candidates 
     who comply with the spending limits, such incentives do not 
     appear to jeopardize the voluntary nature of the limitation. 
     That is, a candidate could legally choose not to comply with 
     the limits by opting not to accept the public benefits. 
     Therefore [he concludes] it appears the proposal would be 
     found to be constitutional under Buckley.

  The constitutional analysis that has been given to this closely reads 
Buckley versus Valeo and concludes what is inescapable, and that is, if 
it is a voluntary scheme, which this is, it will pass constitutional 
muster. All the claims that have been made today that this bill that is 
before us today is somehow the bill that was passed 20 years ago are 
simply false. This is a constitutional provision; we drafted it that 
way with that in mind, and this is, again, perhaps, the largest red 
herring that is being offered by the other side.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. PELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, as one of the original cosponsors of the 
McCain-Feingold bill S. 1219, I rise in support of the bill and urge 
that it not be set aside by a cloture vote. It is by no means a perfect 
bill, but it does move us several steps closer to a better campaign 
finance system.
  More than 35 years in the Senate I have joined in sponsoring and 
supporting virtually all major campaign reform legislation before the 
Senate. In my view, many of these reforms have worked quite well, 
notwithstanding the traditional laments about the evils of the system.
  Just consider how far we have come in improving the system since the 
Watergate era. We have an effective reporting and disclosure system 
which works very well; it uses electronic technology and is light years 
beyond the previous system. We have a system for public funding of 
Presidential elections, which while compromised by recent practice, is 
still at core an effective counterforce to flagrant abuse. And we have 
the Federal Election Commission which fulfills the indispensable role 
of a neutral--or at least bipartisan--referee, notwithstanding the 
structural problems inherent in such a role.
  To be sure, there are major flaws and problems crying out for 
resolution. They include the glaring problem of soft money, the 
disproportionate influence of PAC's and the exorbitant cost of media 
advertising. The McCain-Feingold bill addresses these problems in a 
straightforward way.
  Indeed, one of the main reasons I joined as an original cosponsor of 
the bill is that it provides an entitlement of free broadcast time for 
candidates who voluntarily comply with the spending limits proposed by 
the bill.
  The concept of free broadcast time for Federal candidates is an idea 
that I have embraced for many years. I believe that the provision of 
free media time to educate the electorate should be a basic condition 
of a grant of a license for commercial use of a segment of the 
broadcast spectrum.
  I have sponsored legislation providing various schemes for free time 
grants for political campaigns for the past 10 years, and I remain 
hopeful that the concept will one day become law.
  When I first introduced legislation providing for free media time in 
1986, the idea was viewed as being quite far out of the mainstream--so 
much so that the bill was not taken very seriously. But by 1993, the 
concept had gained enough momentum to attract 32 votes in the Senate 
when I offered it as an amendment to Senator Boren's Election Reform 
Act. So while the amendment failed to carry the day, the idea had 
indeed come into its own. And now the McCain-Feingold bill takes it a 
step further.
  I would point out that my own proposals for free broadcast time 
differ from those in the bill in two respects. First, I believe free 
broadcast time should be made available for all legitimate candidates, 
regardless of whether they agree to spending limits, because all should 
be sharing in an equal claim on a public resource, namely the broadcast 
spectrum. And my plan would actually distribute the free time through 
the political parties, to allow for the problem of overlapping claims 
on broadcasters, which might result from direct distribution to 
candidates.
  Second, I would note that my 1993 amendment to the Boren bill 
contained a contingency provision of tax deductibility for broadcasters 
of the value of free time made available for political campaigns. Some 
such consideration seems necessary to overcome the objections of the 
broadcast industry.
  Finally, Mr. President, I have a basically different view of 
political action committees than is reflected in this bill. In my view, 
PAC's play a useful and legitimate role in conveying valid political 
interests to the campaign process. I do fully agree that they have come 
to wield disproportionate influence and that their techniques have 
frequently created the appearance and often the reality of undue and 
improper influence.
  But the solution, I believe, is not to ban PAC contributions 
altogether from the political process. Surely, there must be a middle 
ground that would permit PAC's to make their legitimate contribution to 
the political process without compromising the beneficiaries.
  One approach that I find intriguing is the idea of an intermediary, 
or buffer, between the contribution PAC and the

[[Page S6706]]

beneficiary candidate both for purpose of sanitizing the transaction 
and enforcing an overall limit of PAC expenditures per candidate.
  This would entail the creation of a neutral entity which might be 
called the national political action fund, to be the central repository 
to which all PAC contributions must be sent, with a pubic listing of 
intended beneficiaries. The fund would be administered by a neutral 
authority, possibly the Federal Election Commission.
  Part and parcel of this concept would be the provision of statutory 
limits on the aggregate amount of contributions a candidate could 
receive from all PAC's in an election cycle. A model for such a 
provision is the standby limitation proposed in S. 1219, which is 20 
percent of the applicable spending limit per State.
  Under the plan I am outlining, PAC's could designate intended 
recipients for payments up to the existing $5,000 limit, and the 
neutral administrator of the fund would make the payments accordingly, 
up to the statutory aggregate limit for a given candidate. Any 
surpluses remaining in the national political action fund at the end of 
each cycle could be transferred to the Presidential Election Campaign 
fund, or some similar appropriate source.
  Mr. President, I offer the outline of this plan for further 
development. The process of political campaign reform is an 
evolutionary process, and I am pleased to have been part of it so far. 
It remains for those who follow to take up the cause and carry it to 
new levels of improvement. I urge them to be persistent and patient.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleagues in 
supporting S. 1219, the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act. First, I 
wish to commend my colleague, Senator Russ Feingold, for his tireless 
work in bringing this issue to the floor. Senator Feingold has done a 
tremendous job in keeping this issue before the Senate and ensuring 
that we have a full debate on this bill. I also wish to commend Senator 
John McCain, another stalwart advocate of campaign finance reform. 
Without his bipartisan leadership, we would not be debating this bill 
today.
  Mr. President, we all know our campaign finance system is broken. We 
all know that the American public is losing trust in our government 
institutions and electoral system more and more each year. It seems 
that all members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, agree that 
reform is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, that is where the 
agreement ends. For a variety of reasons, it seems impossible for 
Congress to pass and for the President to sign meaningful campaign 
finance reform. This issue is consistently mired in partisan politics, 
tinged with the self interest of some individuals and groups who have a 
vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
  That is why today's proposal is so unique. The Senate Campaign 
Finance Reform Act is the first, real bipartisan reform plan to reach 
the Senate floor in decades. In the House of Representatives, there is 
a companion measure which also has garnered bipartisan support. These 
two bills have widespread grassroots backing through the United States, 
from groups as diverse as United We Stand to the Gray Panthers to the 
Children's Defense Fund.
  This legislation strikes at the heart at much of what is wrong with 
our campaign finance system: it eliminates PAC contributions; caps the 
amounts that can be spent in campaigns; curtails the practice of 
bundling contributions; and closes the loopholes allowing so-called 
soft money contributions. The legislation establishes many of these 
limits through a voluntary system, thereby conforming with Supreme 
Court rulings governing campaign financing.
  Like many Senators, if I had drafted my own bill, I would have 
omitted some provisions of this legislation and included others. But 
any meaningful bipartisan reform must be a compromise between competing 
proposals. And campaign finance reform must be done in a bipartisan 
fashion--legislation crafted by one party and rammed through the 
Congress will not and should not get the support of the American 
people.
  Mr. President, I recognize there are deep divisions among Members of 
Congress over the how to reform our campaign finance system. These 
divisions have led to stalemate after stalemate over 20 years. Without 
serious reform, the American public will continue to mistrust not only 
the way we elect candidates, but the very fundamental precipes of our 
government. This must not go on.
  S. 1219 is the best option currently moving through the Congress to 
begin renewing America's faith in our elections and curtail the 
influence of special interest contributions. I am pleased to be a 
cosponsor of this bill, and urge my colleagues to vote in favor of 
cloture.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I understand we have a unanimous-consent 
agreement concerning tomorrow's activities on this particular measure, 
as well as the rest of today. In the meantime, I would like to make 
some additional remarks.
  I am pleased today we have begun debate on the issue of campaign 
finance reform. It is a very important issue, one that affects every 
Member individually, perhaps more than any other issue that will come 
before this body. There are strong views on this subject. I appreciate 
the sincerity of those views, but I think we must recognize the public 
is rightfully demanding reform, and we have an obligation to act on 
that demand.
  Today, as we begin debate on this legislation, the bipartisan Senate 
Campaign Reform Act of 1995, introduced by myself, Senators Feingold, 
Thompson, Wellstone, Kassebaum, Simpson, Graham of Florida, and others, 
we are taking a step in the right direction.
  Tomorrow we will be faced with the next step. Tomorrow the Senate 
will vote on cloture on this measure. Make no mistake, that vote is a 
vote for or against campaign finance reform. A vote for cloture is a 
vote to move forward, a vote to reform the system. A no vote on cloture 
is a vote against reform, a vote to preserve the status quo.
  This Congress has taken positive steps in the area of institutional 
reform. The Senate has passed both lobbying reform and gift ban reform 
legislation. The Senate deserves great praise for this action. The 
public is justifiably now demanding we take action on the most 
important sweep of reforms, campaign finance reform. Failure to do so 
will result in greater public disdain for the Congress.
  I hope my colleagues recognize that the status quo has led to dismal 
approval ratings of the Congress. According to a recent poll conducted 
by CBS News and the New York Times, only 19 percent of the American 
people approve of the job that Congress is doing, while a staggering 71 
percent disapprove.
  We must do something to restore the public's confidence in the 
Congress as an institution. Our bill is not perfect, but we should not 
let ``perfect be the enemy of the good.'' After cloture is invoked, my 
colleagues will have the opportunity to offer amendments and attempt to 
improve the bill. I hope we can move forward.
  Mr. President, this bill is about restoring the public's faith in the 
Congress and the electoral system. It is about elections being won and 
lost on ideology, not fundraising. It is about leveling the playing 
field between challengers and incumbents, and it is a bipartisan effort 
to bring about a dramatic change to the status quo.
  Again, I want to note, this bill is about placing ideas over dollars. 
Last year, the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate, 
not due to fundraising but due to ideas that the American people 
understood and related to. Campaigns are not run for free. This bill 
recognizes that fact. It does not end campaign spending, but it limits 
it in a manner that forces candidates to rely more on their message 
than on their fundraising prowess.
  Mr. President, poll after poll demonstrates that the public has lost 
faith in the Congress. One of the reasons this has occurred is that the 
public believes, rightly or wrongly, that special interests control the 
political and electoral system.
  In order to limit the ability of special interests to control the 
process, we must enact campaign finance reform. A recent USA-CNN-Gallup 
poll revealed that 83 percent of the American people want to see 
campaign finance reform passed.

[[Page S6707]]

  According to the same poll, the only two issues that the public felt 
more important were balancing the Federal budget and reforming welfare. 
Other polls show how badly campaign finance reform is needed.
  I made reference earlier to a poll conducted by Mr. McInturff of 
Public Opinion Strategies, which asks three questions: ``Which of the 
following do you think really controls the Federal Government in 
Washington?''
  Registered voters responded: the lobbyists and special interests, 49 
percent; Republicans in Congress, 25 percent; have not thought much 
about it, 14 percent; the President, 6 percent; the Democrats in 
Congress, 6 percent.

  When asked ``those who make large campaign contributions get special 
favors from politicians,'' respondents said: this is one of the things 
that worries you most, 34 percent; worries you a great deal, 34 
percent; worries you some, 20 percent; worries you not too much, 5 
percent; and worries you not at all, 3 percent.
  Finally, when asked ``we need campaign finance reform to make 
politicians accountable to average voters rather than special 
interests,'' the voters stated: this was very convincing, 59 percent; 
somewhat convincing, 31 percent; not very convincing, 5 percent; not at 
all convincing, 4 percent; and don't know, 2 percent.
  Mr. President, I think that pretty well describes the view of the 
American people on this issue. I would like to outline, again, because 
of a lot of the statements that have been made already on the floor on 
this issue, again, what the bill does, because there has been either a 
misunderstanding or misconstruing of what this legislation does. It 
contains voluntary spending limits and benefits. Spending limits would 
be based on each State's voting-age population, ranging from a high of 
over $8 million in a large State like California to a low of $1.5 
million in a smaller State like Wyoming.
  Candidates who voluntarily comply with spending limits would receive 
free broadcast time. Candidates would be entitled to 30 minutes of free 
broadcast time, broadcast discounts. Broadcasters would be required to 
sell advertising to a complying candidate at 50 percent of the lowest 
unit rate, reduced postage rate. A candidate would be able to send up 
to two pieces of mail to each voting-age resident at the lowest third-
class nonprofit bulk rate.
  As my colleague from Wisconsin pointed out earlier, by eliminating 
the franked mail, the free mail that Senators make use of during this 
time period, that would be the way that we would pay for the reduced 
postage rates.
  I also point out this free broadcast time of up to 30 minutes in 
every 6-year cycle in a State I do not believe would be a debilitating 
experience for most broadcasters. However, if a small station can prove 
that that would have harmful--in fact, damaging--financial effects on 
them, then there is a way to get dispensation from this requirement.
  There is a new variable contribution limit. If a candidate's opponent 
does not agree to the spending limits or exceeds the limits, the 
complying candidate's individual contribution limit is raised from 
$1,000 to $2,000 and the complying candidate's spending ceiling is 
raised by 20 percent.
  The bill limits the use of personal funds. Complying candidates 
cannot spend more than $250,000 from their personal funds. Candidates 
who spend more than that amount are considered in violation of this act 
and thereby qualify for none of this act's benefits.
  The legislation requires candidates to raise 60 percent of campaign 
funds from individuals residing in the candidate's home State. If a 
candidate is running from a small State, a candidate may still qualify 
for the benefits contained in this bill if 60 percent of the 
individuals contributing to the candidate's campaign committee legally 
reside in the candidate's State, as compared to the larger States where 
60 percent of the dollars raised must come from within the candidate's 
State. All such individuals must be reported to the FEC.

  There was a legitimate and, I think, sincere concern on the part of 
Members from small States, and I think this modification that we have 
made will be very helpful in that direction.
  The legislation bans political action committee contributions. While 
the bill bans PAC's, in case a PAC ban is ruled unconstitutional by the 
Supreme Court, backup limits on PAC contributions are also included.
  In such an instance, PAC contribution limits will be lowered from 
$5,000 to the individual contribution limit.
  Additionally, candidates could receive no more than 20 percent of 
their contributions from political action committees.
  Mr. President, I have heard the arguments today, and will hear them 
again tomorrow, about how political action committees are simply 
collections of individuals who want to see good Government. That is not 
the problem. I believe that individuals can contribute significantly, 
but the problem lies not in the political action committees being 
formed, the problem is that the political action committees cause a 
dramatic unlevel playing field.
  I do not know how a challenger really thinks that they can compete 
when in 1995--and the numbers will be similar for 1996, Mr. President--
$59.2 million went to incumbents and $3.9 million went to challengers.
  That is what is wrong with the political action committee, Mr. 
President. It is where the money is going. You know, I said half 
facetiously earlier in the debate, if challengers were voting on this 
bill, it would go through in a New York minute. I understand how many 
incumbents have come to rely on political action committee funding. But 
what we have to do here is try to give challengers an opportunity.
  This frustration with challengers not having an equal opportunity in 
the political playing field has been manifested in the term limits 
movement. Why is it that we have seen in recent years this tremendous 
increase in support for term limits? It is because incumbents stay too 
long, in the view of the voters.
  I suggest to you a better solution than term limits--although I have 
supported term limits because that is the view of the majority of the 
people in my State--but if you really want to keep the good and great 
people, many of whom have graced this body and the other one, then you 
should make sure that there is an equal opportunity for all in the 
political arena, and thereby you keep the best people and you get rid 
of the worst.
  There were a lot of comments made in the last election that there was 
this huge turnover in Congress, especially in the other body there was 
this huge turnover. There were some very spectacular defeats of some 
long-term incumbents.
  Mr. President, I also remind you that 91 percent of the incumbents 
overall were reelected in the last election in this and the other body 
in the numbers of incumbents who sought reelection.
  Mr. President, this is obviously a very, very emotional issue, this 
issue of political action committees. It is an emotional issue. There 
is a question about its constitutionality. That is why, if a complete 
ban is declared unconstitutional, then the limits on spending will be 
reduced to that of an individual contribution. Yet at the same time, 
Mr. President, this situation, in the view of the majority of the 
American people, I think very correctly, is that political action 
committees distort the political process. Looking at those numbers, I 
do not know how you reach any other conclusion except that they distort 
the political process rather dramatically.
  Mr. President, the bill also bans all franked mass mailings in the 
calendar year of a campaign.
  It increases disclosure and accountability for those who engage in 
political advertising. In order to discourage negative advertising and 
encourage accountability, any political ad must contain a disclosure 
where the individual running the ad states, ``(the name of the 
individual) is responsible for the contents of this ad.''
  For example, if I was running against the Senator from Colorado, who 
is in the chair, for the U.S. Senate and I had something negative to 
say about him, then at the bottom of the television ad it would say--if 
my committee paid for it, if contributions to my campaign paid for it, 
down at the bottom of the television commercial it would say, ``John 
McCain is responsible for this message.''
  Mr. President, it would not say, ``Paid for by Joe Smith, treasurer,

[[Page S6708]]

McCain for Senate.'' It would not say a lot of the other things that 
you see which are a little confusing to voters. It would say, ``John 
McCain is responsible for the contents of this ad,'' so that there 
would be no doubt as to who was responsible for the message. I think it 
would do two things. I think it would dramatically contribute to truth 
in advertising, and I think it would also be discouraging to those who 
want to engage in negative advertising.

  It limits bundling. The legislation also requires full disclosure of 
all soft money contributions. In other words, soft money is made hard 
so that it can be tracked.
  The Scranton Times noted ``the soft money racket is a national 
scandal that perpetuates special interest dominance of the 
congressional debates on innumerable issues. Both parties troll the 
soft money waters for contributions.''
  Finally, the bill bans the personal use of campaign funds. The bill 
codifies a recent FEC ruling that prohibits candidates from using 
campaign funds for personal purposes, such as mortgage maintenance or 
vacation trips.
  Mr. President, I have been on the floor on this issue before. I have 
always been amazed at the creativity of some Members of Congress as to 
how they have been able to spend campaign funds. Clearly, it is an 
abuse that needs to be brought to a stop.
  This bill will affect both parties equally. It does what other bills 
in the past did not. It does not benefit just one party. That is also 
why it has bipartisan support.
  Is this a perfect bill? No. I do not know if it is even possible to 
write a perfect bill on this subject. But it is a good bill, and as the 
Washington Post said, ``it would represent a large step forward.''
  That is why this bill has so much support. Groups ranging from United 
We Stand to Common Cause to Public Citizen, to the AARP support this 
bill.
  Two hundred sixty-one editorials from 161 newspapers from around the 
country have opined in favor of campaign finance reform. Mr. President, 
I ask unanimous consent that a list of the 261 newspapers be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Below are 261 editorials from 161 newspapers and 
     publications, urging support for campaign finance reform. 
     These editorials have been published since January 1, 1995:
       Akron Beacon Journal, Akron, Ohio.
       Alameda Times-Star, Alameda, California.
       Times Union, Albany, New York.
       Alexandria Daily Town Talk, Alexandria, Louisiana.
       Altoona Mirror, Altoona, Pennsylvania.
       Amarillo Daily News, Amarillo, Texas.
       Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage, Alaska.
       Asheville Citizen-Times, Asheville, North Carolina.
       The Athens Messenger, Athens, Ohio.
       The Daily Post-Athenian, Athens, Tennessee.
       The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia (5).
       The Atlanta Journal, Atlanta, Georgia (3).
       Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine (3)
       Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine (3).
       The Times Argus, Barre, Vermont.
       The Birmingham News, Birmingham, Alabama (4).
       The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts (4).
       Boston Herald, Boston, Massachusetts.
       The Brainerd Daily Dispatch, Brainerd, Minnesota.
       Brattleboro Reformer, Brattleboro, Vermont (3).
       Connecticut Post, Bridgeport, Connecticut (2).
       The Courier-News, Bridgewater, New Jersey,
       Brownwood Bulletin, Brownwood, Texas.
       The Times Record, Brunswick, Maine (2).
       The Buffalo News, Buffalo, New York.
       Times-News, Burlington, North Carolina.
       The Burlington Free Press, Burlington, Vermont.
       Cadillac News, Cadillac, Michigan.
       The Repository, Canton, Ohio (4).
       Public Opinion, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
       Chapel Hill Herald, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
       The Charleston Gazette, Charleston, West Virginia.
       Chattanooga Free Press, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
       Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago, Illinois.
       Chicago Life, Chicago, Illinois.
       The Leaf-Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee.
       The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio.
       Daily Editor, Cobleskill, New York.
       Billerica Minute-Man, Concord, Massachusetts.
       Concord Monitor, Concord, New Hampshire.
       Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Corpus Christi, Texas.
       The News-Times, Danbury, Connecticut.
       Danvers Herald, Danvers, Massachusetts.
       Danville Register & Bee, Danville, Virginia.
       The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa (2).
       Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan.
       The Dothan Progress, Dothan, Alabama.
       Durango Herald, Durango, Colorado.
       The Herald-Sun, Durham, North Carolina.
       The Express-Times, Easton, Pennsylvania.
       Imperial Valley Press, El Centro, California.
       Times-Herald, Forrest City, Arkansas.
       Sun-Sentinel, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (2).
       The Middlesex News, Framingham, Massachusetts.
       The Gainesville Sun, Gainesville, Florida (11).
       Georgetown Times, Georgetown, South Carolina.
       Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls, Montana (2).
       News & Record, Greensboro, North Carolina.
       The Record, Hackensack, New Jersey.
       The Times, Hammond, Indiana.
       The Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut (4).
       The Daily Review, Hayward, California.
       Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
       The Coastal Courier, Hinesville, Georgia.
       Hobbs Daily News-Sun, Hobbs, New Mexico.
       Houston Chronicle, Houston, Texas.
       Independence Daily Reporter, Independence, Kansas.
       Jacksonville Journal-Courier, Jacksonville, Illinois.
       Johnson City Press, Johnson City, Tennessee.
       The Joplin Globe, Joplin, Missouri.
       The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Missouri (3).
       The Keene Sentinel, Keene, New Hampshire.
       The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Knoxville, Tennessee.
       La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
       The Ledger, Lakeland, Florida (3).
       Las Cruces Sun-News, Las Cruces, New Mexico.
       Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown-Bristol, 
     Pennsylvania.
       Lodi News-Sentinel, Lodi, California.
       Newsday, Long Island, New York (3).
       The Daily News, Longview, Washington (2).
       Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California (2).
       Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Lubbock, Texas.
       Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin.
       Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Connecticut.
       Herald Times Reporter, Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
       The Times Leader, Martins Ferry, Ohio.
       The Middletown Press, Middletown, Connecticut.
       Times Herald-Record, Middletown, New York.
       The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2).
       Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
       The Mobile Beacon-Alabama Citizen, Mobile, Alabama.
       The Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, Alabama.
       The Muskegon Chronicle, Muskegon, Michigan.
       The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee (6).
       New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, New Braunfels, Texas.
       The New York Times, New York, New York (6).
       The Queens Jewish Week, New York, New York.
       The Times Herald, Norristown, Pennsylvania.
       The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California.
       Ocala Star-Banner, Ocala, Florida.
       The Olympian, Olympia, Washington.
       Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Kentucky.
       The Paris Post-Intelligencer, Paris, Tennessee.
       The Parkersburg Sentinel, Parkersburg, West Virginia.
       Star-News, Pasadena, California.
       East Oregonian, Pendleton, Oregon.
       The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (8).
       Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
       Port Arthur News, Port Arthur, Texas.
       Portland Press Herald, Portland, Maine.
       The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (2).
       The Daily Times, Primos, Pennsylania.
       The Providence Sunday Journal, Providence, Rhode Island.
       The News & Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina.
       Record-Courier, Ravenna, Ohio.
       Roanoke Times & World News, Roanoke, Virginia (5).
       Rockford Register Star, Rockford, Illinois.
       Rutland Herald, Rutland, Vermont (2).
       The St. Augustine Record, St. Augustine, Florida.
       St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri (3).
       St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, Florida.
       Statesman-Journal, Salem, Oregon.
       Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas.
       San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio, Texas.
       Examiner, San Francisco, California.
       San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, California.

[[Page S6709]]

       Telegram-Tribune, San Luis Obispo, California (2).
       Santa Cruz County Sentinel, Santa Cruz, California (2).
       Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sarasota, Florida (2).
       Savannah News-Press, Savannah, Georgia.
       The Scranton Times, Scranton, Pennsylvania.
       The Tribune, Scranton, Pennsylvania (2).
       The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington (2).
       The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
       Simi Valley Star & Enterprise, Simi Valley, California.
       South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana.
       Statesboro Herald, Statesboro, Georgia (3).
       Stevens Point Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
       Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania (2).
       Syracuse Herald-Journal, Syracuse, New York.
       The News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington.
       Temple Daily Telegram, Temple, Texas (2).
       Thousand Oaks Star & News Chronicle, Thousand Oaks, 
     California.
       The Blade, Toledo, Ohio.
       The Times, Trenton, New Jersey.
       Tyler Morning Telegraph, Tyler, Texas.
       The Columbian, Vancouver, Washington.
       Vero Beach Press-Journal, Vero Beach, Florida.
       Vicksburg Evening Post, Vicksburg, Mississippi (2).
       Waco Tribune-Herald, Waco, Texas (2).
       The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. (10).
       USA Today, Washington, D.C.
       Watertown Daily Times, Watertown, Wisconsin (2).
       Central Maine Morning Sentinel, Waterville, Maine (3).
       San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, California.
       The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Florida (4).
       The Whittier Daily News, Whittier, California.
       Morning Star, Wilmington, North Carolina.
       The Potomac News, Woodbridge, Virginia.
       Yakima Herald-Republic, Yakima, Washington.
       Consumer Reports, Yonkers, New York.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I would like to just note some of the many 
papers that have editorialized on this subject. I also want to point 
out that a couple of the editorials have made note of the fact that 
opposition to this legislation has made interesting bedfellows.
  Mr. President, I do not know of a piece of legislation that is 
opposed by the American Trial Lawyers Association, the major business 
organizations in America, and the Christian Coalition. Let me quote 
from the Atlanta Journal editorial of this year:

       Time was when lawyers in this country worked at making 
     democracy work. Some still do. So it's discouraging to learn 
     that among those creating a coalition against campaign 
     finance reform is the American Trial Lawyers Association. 
     Actually, it is discouraging that the nation's top business 
     lobbying organization, which includes physicians as well as 
     realtors and the AFL-CIO, which represents a whole lot of 
     average folks, are also not giving up the money game. Our 
     Washington reporter Andrew Mollison uncovered a plan for the 
     probusiness National Association of Business Political Action 
     Committees to form a coalition with the AFL-CIO and the trial 
     lawyers to block a bill that the Senate will be considering 
     next week cosponsored by Republican John McCain and Democrat 
     Russell Feingold. The bill marks the first time ever the 
     Republicans and Democrats have agreed on such reform and 
     includes some honest changes.

  Mr. President, as I say, I have never known of a piece of legislation 
that has been opposed by this conglomerate of individuals who have 
different interests. I can assume only that they feel threatened by 
this reform in order for them to join together in what must be and some 
would view as an unholy alliance.
  Mr. President, the editorial writers from around the country of 261 
newspapers support this bill because, first, it is the right thing to 
do. It recognizes the system needs fixing, and they also recognize that 
if any bill is to pass, it must affect both parties equally and fairly. 
This bill does that, and for that reason it has bipartisan support. My 
friend from Kentucky will contend that it is not bipartisan on that 
charge. I must disagree. This is a bipartisan, balanced bill. It favors 
neither party.
  As the Philadelphia Inquirer stated:

       To get the big money and its corrupting influence out of 
     campaigns for Congress, hundreds of incumbents must abandon 
     the system that coddles and protects them. [S. 1219] isn't 
     just another high-minded reform headed nowhere. It's a hard-
     headed, achievable plan to cleanse a system that delivers 
     legislative influence to the bidders while stacking the deck 
     against challengers. Citizens should tell their lawmakers to 
     get with it.

  Second, in a dramatic change from past campaign finance bills, it 
contains no public financing. This is not a reincarnation of past 
partisan bills. Those bills may have contained spending limits, but the 
comparison ends there.
  Third, the bill is constitutional. The Senator from Kentucky and 
others do not agree with me on this point. But many legal experts from 
around the country do.
  Mr. President, I will submit for the Record several letters making a 
compelling argument for the constitutionality of S. 1219. These letters 
are from the American Law Division of the Congressional Research 
Service; Prof. Frederick Schauer, professor of the first amendment, 
Harvard University Law School; Prof. Daniel Lowenstein, professor of 
law, University of California, Los Angeles; Prof. Cass Sunstein, 
distinguished service professor of jurisprudence, University of Chicago 
Law School; Prof. Marlene Arnold Nicholson, professor of law, DePaul 
University; and Prof. Jamin Raskin, associate dean, the American 
University College of Law.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those letters be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                   Congressional Research Service,


                                      The Library of Congress,

                                   Washington, DC, April 12, 1996.
     To: Senator Russell Feingold; Attention, Andy Kutler.
     From: L. Paige Whitaker, Legislative Attorney, American Law 
         Division.
     Subject: Constitutionality of Campaign Finance Reform 
         Proposals.

       This memorandum is furnished in response to your request 
     for a constitutional analysis of three campaign finance 
     reform proposals:


 I. Constitutionality of a voluntary spending limit system linked with 
public benefits in the form of free and discounted television time and 
                        discounted postage rates

       In the 1976 landmark case of Buckley v. Valeo,\1\ the 
     Supreme Court held that spending limitations violate the 
     First Amendment because they impose direct, substantial 
     restraints on the quantity of political speech. The Court 
     found that expenditure limitations fail to serve any 
     substantial government interest in stemming the reality of 
     corruption or the appearance thereof and that they heavily 
     burden political expression.\2\ As a result of Buckley, 
     spending limits may only be imposed if they are voluntary.
       It appears that the provision in question would pass 
     constitutional muster for the same reasons that the public 
     financing scheme for presidential elections was found to be 
     constitutional in Buckley. The Court in Buckley concluded 
     that presidential public financing was within the 
     constitutional powers of Congress to reform the electoral 
     process and that public financing provisions did not violate 
     any First Amendment rights by abridging, restricting, or 
     censoring speech, expression, and association, but rather 
     encouraged public discussion and participation in the 
     electoral process.\3\ Indeed, the Court succinctly stated:
       ``Congress may engage in public financing of election 
     campaigns and may condition acceptance of public funds on an 
     agreement by the candidate to abide by specified expenditure 
     limitations. Just as a candidate may voluntarily limit the 
     size of the contributions he chooses to accept, he may decide 
     to forgo private fundraising and accept public funding.'' \4\
       Because the subject provision does not require a Senate 
     candidate to comply with spending limits, the proposal 
     appears to be voluntary. Although the incentives of public 
     benefits are provided, in the form of reduced and free 
     broadcast time and reduced postage rates to those candidates 
     who comply with the spending limits, such incentives do not 
     appear to jeopardize the voluntary nature of the limitation. 
     That is, a candidate could legally choose not to comply with 
     the limits by opting not to accept the public benefits. 
     Therefore, it appears that the proposal would be found to be 
     constitutional under Buckley.


   II. Constitutionality of requiring candidates who are voluntarily 
     complying with spending limits to raise at least 60% of their 
   individual contributions from individuals within their home state

       A voluntary restriction on Senate candidates to raise at 
     least 60% of their individual contributions from individuals 
     within their home state, with incentives for candidates to 
     comply with the ban, would also appear to be constitutional. 
     In exchange for voluntarily complying with the restriction on 
     instate contributions, a congressional candidate could 
     receive such public benefits as free and reduced television 
     time and reduced postage rates. This type of voluntary 
     restriction would most likely be upheld for the same reasons 
     that the Supreme Court in Buckley upheld a voluntary spending 
     limits system linked with public financing.

[[Page S6710]]

       Here, in the subject proposal, as limitations on out-of-
     state contributions are linked to public benefits as part of 
     the eligibility requirement, they would seem to be 
     constitutional for the same reasons that similar eligibility 
     requirements of the receipt of public funds were held to be 
     constitutional in Buckley v. Valeo.\5\ In exchange for public 
     benefits, participating Senate candidates would voluntarily 
     choose to limit the sources of their contributions. In 
     addition, an out-of-state contribution limit would not seen 
     to violate the First Amendment rights of out-of-state 
     contributors as they would have other outlets, such as 
     through independent expenditures, to engage in political 
     speech in support of such candidates who voluntarily restrict 
     receipt of out-of-state contributions.


 III. Constitutionality of prohibiting all political action committees 
       (PACs) from making contributions, soliciting or receiving 
contributions, or making expenditures for the purpose of influencing a 
                            federal election

       Generally, the term political action committee (PAC) is 
     used to refer to two different types of committees: connected 
     and nonconnected. A connected PAC, also known as a separate 
     segregated fund, is established and administered by an 
     organization such as corporation or labor union.\6\ A 
     nonconnected PAC, on the other hand, is one which is 
     unaffiliated with any federal office candidate, party 
     committee, labor organization, or corporation, although it 
     can be established and administered by persons who are labor 
     union members or corporate employees. Typically, nonconnected 
     PACs may be established by individuals, persons, groups, 
     including even labor union members, corporate employees, 
     officers, and stockholders, their families, and by persons 
     who collectively work to promote a certain ideology; 
     provided, however, that they keep their political funds 
     separate and apart from any corporate or labor union funds 
     and accounts. They are required to register with the Federal 
     Election Commission after receiving or expending in excess of 
     $1,000 within a calendar year, they are subject to 
     contribution limitations, and, unlike connected PACs, they 
     are limited to using only those funds they solicit to cover 
     establishment and administration costs. \7\
       A complete ban on contributions and expenditures by 
     connected and nonconnected PACs would appear to be 
     unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. 
     Although the courts have not had occasion to address 
     specifically this issue, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme 
     Court made it clear that the right to associate is a ``basic 
     constitutional freedom'' \8\ and that any action which may 
     have the effect of curtailing that freedom to associate would 
     be subject to the strictest judicial scrutiny.\9\ The Court 
     further asserted that while the right of political 
     association is not absolute,\10\ it can only be limited by 
     substantial governmental interests such as the prevention of 
     corruption or the appearance thereof. \11\
       Employing this analysis, the Court in Buckley determined 
     that any limitations on expenditures of money in federal 
     elections were generally unconstitutional because they 
     substantially and directly restrict the ability of 
     candidates, individuals, and associations to engage in 
     political speech, expression, and association. \12\ ``A 
     restriction on the amount of money a person or group can 
     spend on political communication during a campaign 
     necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting 
     the number of issues discussed, the depth of their 
     exploration, and the size of the audience reached,'' the 
     Court noted. \13\ Therefore, in view of Buckley, it appears 
     that completely banning expenditures by nonconnected PACs 
     would be found to be unconstitutional.
       In Buckley the Court found that limitations on 
     contributions can pass constitutional muster only if they are 
     reasonable and only marginally infringe on First Amendment 
     rights in order to stem actual or apparent corruption 
     resulting from quid pro quo relationships between 
     contributors and candidates. \14\ The Court noted that a 
     reasonable contribution limitation does ``not undermine to 
     any material degree the potential for robust and effective 
     discussion of candidates and campaign issues by individual 
     citizens, associations, the institutional press, candidates, 
     and political parties.'' \15\ Hence, Buckley seems to 
     indicate that a complete ban on contributions by nonconnected 
     PACs would be unconstitutional. Such an outright prohibition 
     would arguably impose direct and substantial restraints on 
     the quantity of political speech and political communication 
     between nonconnected PACs and federal candidates.
       In sum, it appears that prohibiting all expenditures by 
     PACs would not pass strict judicial scrutiny as it would 
     significantly restrict most PACs from effectively amplifying 
     the voices of their adherents or members. \16\ Moreover, an 
     outright ban on contributions, although they are less 
     protected by the First Amendment, would probably be found to 
     substantially infringe on the First Amendment rights of the 
     members of the PACs and therefore be found to be 
     unconstitutional as well.
                                                L. Paige Whitaker,
                                             Legislative Attorney.


                               footnotes

     \1\ 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
     \2\ Id. at 39.
     \3\ Id. at 90-93.
     \4\ Id. at 57, fn. 65.
     \5\ Id. at 90-92, 94-96.
     \6\ 2 U.S.C. Sec. 441(b)(2)(C).
     \7\ 2 U.S.C. Sec. 431(4) (definition of political committee); 
     2 U.S.C. Sec. 433 (registration of political committees).
     \8\ Buckley, 424 U.S. at 25 (quoting Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 
     U.S. 51, 57 (173)).
     \9\ Id. (quoting NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460-61 
     (1958)).
     \10\ Id. (citing CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 567 
     (1973)).
     \11\ Id. at 27-28.
     \12\ Id. at 39-59.
     \13\ Id. at 19.
     \14\ Id. at 20-38.
     \15\ Id. at 29.
     \16\ NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460-61 (1958). This case 
     was cited in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. at 22 to support the 
     conclusion that an expenditure limitation precluded most 
     associations from effectively amplifying the voices of their 
     adherents. See also Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 
     250 (1957).
                                                                    ____



                                           Harvard University,

                                    Cambridge, MA, March 17, 1996.
     Re S. 1219--Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1995.
     Hon. Russell D. Feingold,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feingold: You have asked me to provide to the 
     Senate my views about the constitutionality of the proposed 
     S. 1219, the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1995. I am 
     pleased to respond to your request, and I hope that my 
     analysis is useful to you and your colleagues.
       At the outset, I should note that my political affiliation 
     is independent, and I have not registered as a member of a 
     political party in over twenty years. Moreover, I have no 
     political, financial, or fiduciary connections with anyone 
     who might be helped or hurt were this legislation to be 
     enacted. Indeed, consistent with my longstanding practice, 
     and consistent with my views about academic independence, I 
     do not represent clients, directly or indirectly, and I do 
     not enter into consulting relationships. Finally, I should 
     note not only that I have had no prior dealings with you or 
     your office, but also that when Mr. Kutler called me to ask 
     if I might undertake this analysis, he did not inquire about 
     my views, tentative or otherwise, on the advisability or 
     constitutionality of this or related legislation.
       For constitutional purposes, the central features of S. 
     1219 are Section 101, which provides various incentives to 
     Senate candidates who limit their total campaign 
     expenditures, and Section 201, which prohibits political 
     action committees from contributing to candidates for federal 
     office. I will consider them in turn.
       Section 101 would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act 
     of 1971, the Communications Act of 1934, and several other 
     laws by providing to Senate candidates who agree to limit 
     their total campaign expenditures a package of incentives 
     consisting primarily of discounted broadcast advertising 
     rates, thirty minutes of free broadcast air time, and 
     discounted postal rates for campaign mailings.
       In evaluating the constitutionality of this proposal, two 
     potential constitutional problems are presented. One is the 
     indirect restriction, by way of incentives, on candidate 
     expenditures of their own resources, expenditures that since 
     Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), have been considered to 
     be themselves protected by the First Amendment. Another is 
     the potential restriction on the First Amendment rights of 
     broadcasters to allocate their air time as they see fit. I 
     will address these concerns in that order.
       In Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court held 
     unconstitutional a restriction on the amount of a candidate's 
     own funds (the major corollary of permitting contribution 
     limitations) that he or she could spend in the context of an 
     election. 424 U.S. at 39-59. The Court held that the First 
     Amendment protected the right of a candidate to spend an 
     unlimited amount of his or her own funds in the service of 
     advocating his or her candidacy. The Court reasoned that 
     since spending one's money to make a political speech or 
     support a political cause was plainly protected by the First 
     Amendment, it would be anomalous to create an exception where 
     the political cause was the cause of one's own election to 
     office. And although this dimension of Buckley was criticized 
     then, and is still criticized today, there is little in 
     subsequent developments to indicate that it is not ``the 
     law.'' In no subsequent campaign financing case, and there 
     have been about a dozen, has the Court retreated in any way 
     from its 1976 conclusion that personal expenditure 
     limitations violate the First Amendment.
       Although this bill does not directly restrict the right 
     recognized in Buckley, it does provide an incentive for 
     candidates to relinquish that right. In many other contexts, 
     this form of indirect restriction would create the 
     constitutional problems often discussed under the rubric of 
     ``unconstitutional conditions.'' See Speiser v. Randall, 357 
     U.S. 513 (1958). To take an obvious example, it would be 
     plainly unconstitutional for the federal government to offer 
     a tax credit to anyone who agreed not to criticize the 
     President, and it would be equally unconstitutional to 
     provide discounted postal rates for pro-American but not 
     anti-American publications, or for Protestant but not 
     Catholic magazines. The idea of the doctrine of 
     unconstitutional conditions is that it is impermissible to 
     allow the government to do indirectly what it cannot do 
     directly, and that the potential for such indirect 
     restrictions are enormous given the number of governmental 
     programs on which people routinely depend. See also Arkansas 
     Writer's Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221 (1987).

[[Page S6711]]

       Yet the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, even in 
     First Amendment context is much narrower than the First 
     Amendment itself. As the Supreme Court (controversially) held 
     in Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991), the doctrine does 
     not require the government to be neutral in terms of the 
     programs it wishes to create or the activities it wishes to 
     subsidize. See also Regan  v. Taxation With Representation of 
     Washington, 461 U.S. 540 (1983). The government may 
     support a Fund for Democracy without having to offer equal 
     support for the Fund for Theocracy or the Fund for 
     Aristocracy. Similarly, there is no doubt that a high 
     level employee of the Department of Defense can be 
     required as a condition of employment to relinquish his or 
     her right to express public support for the present 
     government of Iraq, even though that right is one 
     protected by the First Amendment when exercised by 
     ordinary citizens. Although there is some force to the 
     doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, it is thus a 
     mistaken oversimplification to maintain that citizens may 
     not constitutionally be induced by government to give up 
     what would otherwise be their constitutional rights. 
     Especially when the restriction is not, as it is not here, 
     one based on the viewpoint of the speech, it is a 
     misstatement of the current law to say that it is 
     unconstitutional for the government to provide incentives 
     for citizens to forego their right under Buckley v. Valeo 
     to spend unlimited funds in support of their own political 
     candidacies.
       Although reasonable minds might disagree with the foregoing 
     analysis, it is clear that the Supreme Court in Buckley did 
     not. In Buckley the Court explicitly concluded, even while it 
     was protecting the First Amendment rights of expenditure, 
     that Congress could, consistent with the First Amendment, 
     provide incentives to encourage political candidates to 
     accept voluntary limitations on their own campaign 
     expenditures. ``Congress may engage in public financing of 
     election campaigns and may condition acceptance of public 
     funds on an agreement by the candidate to abide by specified 
     expenditure limitations. Just as a candidate may voluntarily 
     limit the size of the contributions he chooses to accept, he 
     may decide to forego private fundraising and accept public 
     funding.'' 424 U.S. at 57 n. 65. In Buckley the question 
     arose in the context of Presidential campaigns, but the 
     Court's just-quoted broad statement was not so limited, nor 
     is there any reason to suppose that there could be a 
     plausible distinction between the Senatorial campaigns that 
     are the subject of S. 1219 and the Presidential election 
     financing plan that prompted the Court's broad statement in 
     Buckley. Moreover, when a three judge United States District 
     Court in 1980 explicitly rejected an attack on voluntary 
     expenditure limitations in exchange for public financing, and 
     when the Supreme Court summarily affirmed that judgment, the 
     argument that the exchange was not truly voluntary was 
     rejected. Republican National Committee v. Federal Election 
     Commission, 487 F. Supp. 280 (three-judge court, S.D.N.Y. 
     1980), affirmed without opinion, 455 U.S. 955 (1980).\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Footnotes at end of letter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       In examining the incentives in S. 1219, I cannot see any 
     appreciable difference, on this issue, and from the 
     perspective of the candidate, between public funding, as in 
     Buckley, and the discounted advertising and postal rates that 
     are offered in S. 1219. First of all, both have the effect of 
     providing financial benefits for the candidate, and any 
     difference between the two would be a difference, from the 
     candidate's vantage point, of form and not of substance. In 
     addition, the discounts available under S. 1219 are, if there 
     is any difference at all, somewhat less direct. If a direct 
     cash subsidy is not, in the Supreme Court's eyes, an 
     unconstitutional inducement to relinquish a constitutional 
     right, then it is hard to see how the indirect inducements in 
     S. 1219 would be.
       This is not to suggest that there is no merit in the 
     argument that the inducements offered make the seemingly 
     voluntary relinquishment not voluntary in fact. The line 
     between an inducement whose acceptance is truly voluntary and 
     one that begins to verge on the coercive is a wavering one, 
     and the special circumstances of a political campaign, in 
     which acceptance by a candidate's opponent would make the 
     rejection of the inducement even more costly, accentuate this 
     effect. Insofar as S. 1219, in section 105, offers increased 
     benefits to candidates whose opponents reject the 
     limitations, the coercive effect increases.\2\ Yet the 
     fundamentals of this phenomenon existed in Buckley itself, 
     since even without an amount keyed to acceptance or rejection 
     by a candidate's opponent, a candidate still is faced with a 
     choice under circumstances in which the candidate's opponent 
     will be subsidized by the government. Nor is there any 
     suggestion in Buckley that the constitutionality of the 
     conditional public funding should depend on case-specific 
     determinations of the circumstances under which a candidate 
     exercised the option. Thus, the grounds for current 
     objections existed in large part in Buckley and existed in 
     all of the subsequent court decisions,\3\ all but one \4\ of 
     which have accepted the exchange that provides the linchpin 
     of S. 1219. So although there are plausible objections to the 
     voluntariness of the arrangement in S. 1219, these objections 
     go back to Buckley itself, which concluded as a matter of law 
     that such exchanges were voluntary rather than suggesting 
     that a case-specific and factual voluntariness inquiry was a 
     condition for constitutional acceptability. This leads me to 
     conclude that the various objections now offered to S. 1219 
     and related proposals are not so much to the 
     unconstitutionality of S. 1219 under current law, but rather 
     to the state of the current law itself. The essence of the 
     objection is far less that Buckley supports the objection 
     than that Buckley was mistakenly decided.\5\
       Much the same characterization applies to S. 1219 as a 
     restriction on broadcasters. In giving candidates broadcast 
     time, S. 1219 does to broadcasters what it plainly could not 
     do to newspaper publishers were the time (or space) offered 
     to be in newspapers, magazines, or even, in most contexts, 
     cable television. Under Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. 
     Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), the First Amendment protects 
     total editorial control over the contents of a newspaper, 
     even in the face of a claim that granting space in a 
     newspaper would broaden rather than narrow the range of 
     public debate. There is no doubt, therefore, that the 
     First Amendment would not allow Congress to provide free 
     or discounted newspaper space (without the consent of the 
     newspaper, of course) as part of the inducement for 
     candidates to accept voluntary expenditure limitations.
       Broadcasters are not newspapers, of course, not only as a 
     matter of fact, but also as a matter of law. The Supreme 
     Court rejected the broadcaster-newspaper analogy in Red Lion 
     Broadcasting Company v. Federal Communications Commission, 
     395 U.S. 367 (1969), agreeing with the congressional judgment 
     in 1934 that the airwaves were public property, to be 
     assigned in the public interest, and subject to limitations 
     designed to ensure that the public retained part of their 
     use. This has been embodied in the personal attack, equal 
     time, and (now obsolete) fairness doctrines, all of which has 
     the effect of ``giving'' some of the time encompassed by a 
     broadcast license to the public.
       In rejecting the claim that broadcasters have an unlimited 
     First Amendment right to unfettered editorial control over 
     the time encompassed by their license, the Supreme Court in 
     Red Lion relied in part on the controversial notion that the 
     airwaves ``belonged'' to the government and could thus be 
     licensed subject to otherwise impermissible content-based 
     restrictions, and in part on the even more controversial, and 
     potentially technologically obsolete, argument that because 
     there were a limited number of broadcast bands (what is known 
     as the scarcity argument), those bands could be allocated 
     under content-based conditions that would never be permitted 
     for newspapers. Again, however, it is very important to 
     distinguish complaints about the existing law from the 
     argument that the existing law prohibits this legislation. As 
     long as Red Lion remains the law, Congress may within limits 
     consider broadcast time to belong to the public, and to be 
     subject to allocation in the public interest. In this 
     respect, therefore, price restrictions on advertising, and 
     direct grants of broadcast time, will not violate the First 
     Amendment as it is presently interpreted.
       Finally, let me add a few words about the Political Action 
     Committee (PAC) contribution limitation in Section 201. As I 
     am sure you know, this restriction, in light of Federal 
     Election Commission v. National Conservative Political Action 
     Committee, 470 U.S. 480 (1985), is likely unconstitutional 
     under current law, although the narrow majority opinion in 
     Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990), 
     might provide some basis for suggesting reconsideration of 
     the earlier case. Given the state of the law, however, the 
     issues now are much different, involving questions about the 
     responsibility of Congress in the face of contrary Supreme 
     Court precedent. There is a line of academic and political 
     opinion that maintains that Congress should engage in its own 
     direct consideration of what the Constitution requires, 
     without regard for, or at least not subject to, the authority 
     of contrary Supreme Court options. I do not subscribe to this 
     view, and I do not urge it on you, although the reasons for 
     my belief encompass the full domain of constitutional 
     jurisprudence. Since this is not the place to engage that 
     issue, I will simply assume that you believe that Congress 
     should respect the role of the Supreme Court as authoritative 
     interpreter of the Constitution.
       Yet even within this view, it is of course possible in good 
     faith to believe that times change, that Justices change, and 
     that constitutional law changes. And it is possible, 
     therefore, to believe that Congress can act responsibly in 
     giving the courts the opportunity to reconsider their earlier 
     views in light of changed circumstances or in light of the 
     possibility that their earlier views may have been mistaken. 
     The rapidly escalating cost of elections make this a 
     plausible circumstance to give the Supreme Court this 
     opportunity, and just as it is ``legitimate'' for opponents 
     of section 101 to believe in good faith that the Court should 
     reconsider its judgment in Buckley that public inducements 
     for voluntary expenditure limitations do not violate the 
     First Amendment, so too is it legitimate for proponents of 
     section 201 to believe in good faith that changing 
     circumstances, or the bipartisan nature of this initiative, 
     are sufficient to invite the Court to reconsider its judgment 
     in Federal Election Commission v. National Conservative 
     Political Action Committee. Still, as a matter of existing 
     case law, section 201 is far more problematic, as I am sure 
     you know, than section 101.
       To conclude, I believe that existing caselaw strongly 
     supports the constitutionality of sections 101 and 241, and 
     casts considerable doubt on section 201.\6\ In both

[[Page S6712]]

     cases, there are arguments that could be made against the 
     caselaw, but it remains important to distinguish arguments 
     against the caselaw from arguments from the caselaw.
       I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to contact me 
     at any time if I may be of further assistance.
           Yours sincerely,

                                            Frederick Schauer,

                                    Frank Stanton Professor of the
                          First, Amendment, Harward University.\7\


                               footnotes

     \1\ The summary affirmance is technically a decision by the 
     Supreme Court, but increasingly since 1980 the Court has made 
     it clear that summary affirmances are at best of limited 
     precedential value.
     \2\ This is the argument in a Student Note, The Pitfalls of 
     Contingent Public Financing in Congressional Campaign 
     Spending Reform, 44 Emory Law Journal 735 (1995).
     \3\ See, in addition to the previously noted Republican 
     National Committee v. Federal Election Committee, cases such 
     as Vote Choice, Inc. v. DiStifano, 4 F.3d 26 (1st Cir. 1993); 
     Weber v. Heaney, 793 F. Supp. 1438 (D. Minn. 1992).
     \4\ See the dicta in Weber v. Heaney, 995 F.2d 872 (8th Cir. 
     1993).
     \5\ In light of the distinction that the Buckley court drew 
     between expenditure limitations and contribution limitations, 
     the source restrictions in section 241, especially when seen 
     as part of a voluntary choice by the candidate, seem 
     especially non-problematic.
     \6\ Although not on section 201's ``fallback'' provision.
     \7\ From an abundance of caution, I emphasize that my views 
     are not to be taken as the views of the John F. Kennedy 
     School of Government, the Harvard Law School, or Harvard 
     University.
                                                                    ____

                                         University of California,


                                   Los Angeles, School of Law,

                                                   March 26, 1996.
     Senator Russell D. Feingold,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feingold: Thank you for your letter of 
     February 14, 1996, in which you asked for my assessment of 
     the constitutionality of three provisions in S. 1219, the 
     currently pending campaign finance bill authored by you, 
     Senator McCain, and others.
       In summary, I believe the provision of discounted 
     television time and postage rates, conditional upon the 
     candidate's compliance with voluntary spending limits, is 
     constitutional.
       It is more difficult to form a confident opinion with 
     respect to the other two provisions, because there is very 
     little from the Supreme Court on which to rely. The first of 
     these is a requirement that candidates who accept the 
     discounted television time and postage rates must agree that 
     at least sixty percent of contributions received come from 
     individuals residing in the candidate's state. I believe this 
     probably is constitutional, at least in part. The second is a 
     ban on PAC contributions to federal candidates. This may be 
     unconstitutional, but in light of the ``back-up'' provision 
     in S. 1219, the chance may be worth taking for those who wish 
     to eliminate PACs, since a declaration that the provision is 
     unconstitutional will not jeopardize the legislation as a 
     whole.
       1. Voluntary spending limits. The Supreme Court held, in 
     Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), that as a general rule, 
     limits on the amount that a candidate's campaign can spend 
     are unconstitutional. However, the Court also opened a 
     loophole in this general ban on campaign spending limits, in 
     footnote 65 of the Buckley opinion:
       ``. . . Congress may engage in public financing of election 
     campaigns and may condition acceptance of public funds on an 
     agreement by the candidate to abide by specified expenditure 
     limitations. Just as a candidate may voluntarily limit the 
     size of the contributions he chooses to accept, he may decide 
     to forgo private fundraising and accept public funding.''
       Although footnote 65 may raise many more questions that it 
     answers, it does seem to answer the question whether it is 
     constitutional to condition discounted television time and 
     postage rates on the acceptance of spending limits. The only 
     difference between this case and the case considered in 
     footnote 65 is that in the former, the government is offering 
     in-kind benefits to the candidate, while in the latter it is 
     offering money. The money gives the candidate more 
     flexibility in the management of his or her campaign, and 
     therefore is presumably of greater value than an equivalent 
     amount of in-kind benefits. But there is no apparent reasons 
     why this should make a difference for constitutional 
     purposes. In each case, the government is providing a real 
     benefit. If the in-kind benefit is less valuable to 
     candidates than cash, then it may be less likely that 
     candidates will accept the in-kind benefits than that they 
     will accept the cash. But candidates who do accept the 
     benefits/spending limits packages do so equally voluntarily 
     in each case. Therefore, I conclude that these provisions of 
     S. 1219 are constitutional.
       2. Limit on organizational and out-of-state contributions. 
     Part of the benefits/spending limits package that is offered 
     to candidates under S. 1219 is that at least 60 percent of 
     the contributions accepted by the candidate must be from 
     individuals who reside within the candidate's state.
       I have argued above that for purposes of footnote 65 of 
     Buckley v. Valeo, the fact that in-kind benefits are being 
     offered to candidates instead of cash should make no 
     difference. In footnote 65, the provision of benefits was 
     conditioned on the candidate's acceptance of spending limits. 
     Here, the benefits are conditioned on accepting two combined 
     aggregate contribution limits--on contributions from non-
     individuals, and on contributions from out-of-state 
     individuals. Does this make a constitutional difference?
       There is an obvious basis for answering this question in 
     the negative. Buckley and subsequent decisions of the Supreme 
     Court have generally treated restrictions on contributions as 
     less constitutionally offensive than restrictions on 
     expenditures. If voluntary expenditure restrictions tied to 
     benefits to the candidate are permissible, why not voluntary 
     contribution restrictions?
       Insofar as the restriction is on the amount that can be 
     accepted in contributions from non-individuals, the voluntary 
     restriction should be constitutional. The government may 
     prefer contributions from individuals on at least two grounds 
     that seem plausible. First, organizations typically are 
     formed for a limited set of purposes. A contribution by an 
     organization is likely to be made in furtherance of the 
     limited purposes of the organization. Accordingly, it may be 
     more likely than a contribution from an individual to create 
     the sort of conflict of interest that the Court refers to as 
     ``corruption or the appearance of corruption.'' Of course, 
     contributions from individuals may create the same 
     conflict of interest, but because the purposes of 
     individuals are not artificially limited, individuals are 
     more likely to contribute for a variety of reasons 
     unrelated to influencing legislation on particular issues. 
     Second, it is widely accepted that the principle of 
     freedom of speech protects both instrumental interests 
     such as the airing of public issues, and individual 
     interests such as the need of humans to express 
     themselves. The second category of First Amendment 
     interests applies to individuals, and this may provide 
     some basis for the government preferring contributions 
     from individuals over contributions from organizations.
       It is much more difficult to justify the restriction on 
     contributions from out-of-state individuals. I have 
     occasionally made small contributions to Senator Joseph 
     Lieberman, because he was a college classmate of mine. Under 
     S. 1219, if Senator Lieberman had already received forty 
     percent of his contributions from non-individuals or out-of-
     state residents, he would be required to reject my 
     contribution. Yet, I can see no danger whatever to the public 
     interest from my contribution, arising from the fact that I 
     live in California rather than Connecticut. If anything, this 
     restriction would enhance the likelihood of conflict of 
     interest, by heightening the pressure on Senator Lieberman to 
     raise money from individuals who reside in Connecticut. There 
     is no apparent reason for assuming that in-state 
     contributions are more or less corrupting than out-of-state 
     contributions, but anything that reduces the flow of money 
     from one source heightens the candidate's need for money from 
     the remaining sources and thus may increase the likelihood of 
     pressure.
       Campaign spending limits can reduce conflict of interest by 
     reducing the pressure on candidates to raise funds. Limits on 
     contributions from organizations can be justified for the 
     reasons stated above. Limits on contributions from out-of-
     state individuals serve no good purpose. Nevertheless, the 
     emphasis in Buckley's footnote 65 is on the voluntariness of 
     the candidate's acceptance of a restriction, not on the 
     utility of the restriction. It is difficult to say whether 
     the lack of utility of a restriction would enter into the 
     Court's constitutional equation.
       For the reasons, I conclude that the restriction on the 
     proportion of contributions a candidate may accept from 
     organizations is constitutional. The restriction on the 
     proportion of contributions a candidate may accept from out-
     of-state contributions presents a close question, but there 
     is a substantial possibility that it would be upheld.
       3. Ban on PAC contributions. S. 1219 prohibits all 
     contributions and expenditures in federal elections except 
     from individuals and from committees controlled by candidates 
     and political parties. The practical consequence is that PACs 
     are banned from making contributions and expenditures in 
     federal elections.
       In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 
     (1990), the Supreme Court upheld a state ban on independent 
     expenditures by corporations. In Austin, the Court pointed 
     out that there was no absolute ban on corporate political 
     spending because corporations were permitted ``to make 
     independent political expenditures through separate 
     segregated funds'' (i.e., through PACs). Although Austin does 
     not hold that a ban on corporate independent spending that 
     extended to PACs would be unconstitutional, it suggests that 
     a ban on independent spending by PACs would be highly suspect 
     under the First Amendment.
       Thus, the S. 1219 ban on expenditures by PACs is probably, 
     though not certainly, unconstitutional. Whether the ban on 
     PAC contributions is constitutional is much harder to say. As 
     was stated above, the Supreme Court has been more tolerant of 
     restrictions on contributions than on expenditures. In 
     Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley, 454 U.S. 
     290 (1981), the Court devoted some rhetoric to the value of 
     ``the practice of persons sharing common views banding 
     together to achieve a common end,'' and the ``tradition of 
     volunteer committees for collective action.'' But that was in 
     the context of a limit on contributions to a campaign 
     committee, not to a PAC that would be making contributions in 
     turn to other committees. A ban on PACs is a more severe 
     restriction on association for campaign fundraising purposes 
     than anything the Court has upheld, and it would have a 
     severe practical effect on the ability of many small 
     contributors to participate in the campaign finance

[[Page S6713]]

     system. Union members and contributors to ideological PACs 
     are examples of people who traditionally have depended on 
     such organizations to pool their individually insignificant 
     contributions. I know of nothing in the Supreme Court's 
     precedents that gives much guidance as to how this question 
     would be resolved.
       I conclude that the ban on PAC expenditures is probably 
     unconstitutional. The constitutionality of the ban on PAC 
     contributions is uncertain.
       S. 1219 has a ``fallback'' provision that, in the event 
     that the PAC ban is struck down, candidates must limit the 
     aggregate amount they receive from PACs to an amount equal to 
     20 percent of the spending limit. The constitutionality of 
     such aggregate contribution limits has not been considered by 
     the Supreme Court. I believe they are not unconstitutional in 
     general, though they may be if they are overly restrictive. 
     The S. 1219 fallback provisions are certainly restrictive, 
     but whether they are so restrictive that the Supreme Court 
     would declare them unconstitutional is a matter for 
     speculation.
       I have given extensive attention to the constitutionality 
     of aggregate contribution limits in a law review article, and 
     rather than report the analysis here, I simply refer you to 
     Daniel Hays Lowenstein, ``A Patternless Mosaic: Campaign 
     Finance and the First Amendment After Austin,'' 21 Capital 
     University Law Review 381, 413-424 (1992). More generally, 
     the remainder of that article and the articles in the same 
     symposium by Professors Roy A. Schotland and Marlene 
     Arnold Nicholson may be of interest to you, your 
     colleagues and your staff on this difficult issue.
       The foregoing is my response to your questions. Let me add 
     the obvious point that I have confined this letter to the 
     questions of constitutionality that you posed, and have not 
     attempted to state my policy views on S. 1219 or the subjects 
     with which it deals.
       Thank you for extending me the opportunity to participate 
     in the Senate's deliberations. If I can be of any further 
     assistance, please contact me.
           Sincerely,
                                             Daniel H. Lowenstein,
     Professor of Law.
                                                                    ____



                             University of Chicago Law School,

                                       Chicago, IL, April 4, 1996.
     Senator Russell D. Feingold,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator: This will respond to your request for my 
     views on the constitutional issues raised by S. 1219. I am 
     writing under unusual time pressure, and I hope you will 
     forgive me for offering a brief and somewhat preliminary 
     analysis.
       S. 1219 raises many difficult and complex questions, and my 
     most general thought is that to sort out those questions, it 
     would be best to hold hearings with some extended discussion 
     of the underlying factual issues and the caselaw law. For the 
     moment, I will devote my attention to three provisions about 
     which you express most concern. The first of these provisions 
     is probably constitutional; the second raises new issues and 
     any judgment must be tentative; the third is probably 
     unconstitutional.
       1. Section 101 provides certain financial incentives to 
     candidates to limit their spending. In exchange for agreeing 
     to limit overall spending, a candidate will receive free and 
     discounted television time, and also discounted postal rates.
       I believe that this provision should and would be upheld. 
     With respect to candidates, it is not direct coercion. It 
     does not discriminate on the basis of point of view. It is 
     also supported by the legitimate interests in promoting 
     attention to electoral issues and in using public money to 
     enlarge public discussion and participation. The best 
     authority here is Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), where 
     the Supreme Court upheld a provision making major party 
     candidates eligible for public financing if and only if they 
     agreed to forego private contributions and to limit their 
     expenditures to the amount of the major party subsidy. This 
     basic principle strongly supports section 101.
       Some complex questions might be raised by requirements of 
     free television time for specified candidates. Such 
     requirements have no clear precedent. But a general 
     requirement of free television time violates no one's first 
     amendment rights so long as it is viewpoint-neutral, cf. 
     Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445 (1994), 
     and the forms of selectivity in section 101 are consistent 
     with Buckley. Most generally, a system that promotes more 
     coverage of candidates through free media could enhance free 
     speech purposes by counteracting the ``soundbite'' phenomenon 
     and enhancing democratic processes. See Sunstein, Democracy 
     and the Problem of Free Speech 85 (1993). The legal issues 
     are not entirely settled, but my preliminary judgment is that 
     section 101 should and probably would be upheld.
       2. Section 241 would require candidates voluntarily 
     complying with section 101 to raise at least 60% of their 
     individual contributions from people within their own state. 
     This provision is a bit more problematic and it raises novel 
     issues. The major question is: What is Congress' legitimate 
     justification here, and what factual evidence supports that 
     justification? Apparently the proposal is a response to the 
     perceived problem of out-of-state money affecting state 
     elections, so that candidates receive support not because the 
     real voters want them, but because out-of-state financial 
     interests have allowed for a great deal of advertising. 
     Perhaps Congress could find that the interest in in-state 
     control of state elections justifies a measure of this kind, 
     at least when the relevant law is tied to a voluntary 
     restriction.
       It is possible that this justification can be made 
     legitimate and sufficiently weighty. But under existing law, 
     the answer is not clear. The Court has not dealt with this 
     particular justification. Moreover, it is possible that in a 
     national system, out-of-state money legitimately affects 
     state elections, and it is possible that the Court would find 
     it unacceptably paternalistic to ban out-of-state money to 
     ``protect'' in-state voters. See First National Bank v. 
     Bellotti, 434 US 765 (1978) (questioning efforts to protect 
     voters from ``excessive'' speech). Distinctive issues 
     involving federalism are obviously raised by section 241. A 
     set of hearings would be helpful in sorting out this 
     important issue.
       3. Section 201 would prohibit political action committees 
     (PACs) from contributing to federal candidates. This 
     provision appears to be unconstitutional under FEC v. NCPAC, 
     470 US 480 (1985), where the Court invalidated a provision 
     prohibited any PAC from spending more than $1,000 to further 
     the election of a presidential candidate receiving federal 
     funding. Any regulation of PACs will have the best chance of 
     success if it builds on CMA v. FEC, 453 US 182 (1981), where 
     the Court upheld a system banning any individual from 
     contributing more than $5,000 per year to PACs.
       If Congress wants to put the Court's decision in the NCPAC 
     case in question, it would do best to hold extensive hearings 
     uncovering problems that the Court did not see in 1985, or 
     proposing alternative mechanisms to allow organizations to 
     give financial aid to candidates, or perhaps attaching 
     ``strings'' to the receipt of money by PACs. This is a matter 
     that could require a high degree of creativity.
       My basic conclusions, then, are that section 101 is 
     probably constitutional; that section 201 is almost certainly 
     unconstitutional; and that under existing law, the 
     constitutionality of section 241 is unsettled, and that is 
     validity would turn on the underlying evidence and on a 
     careful identification of a legitimate legislative interest. 
     My more general suggestion is that because of the difficulty 
     of these issues, and associated issues in these and other 
     provisions on which I have not touched, it would be highly 
     desirable to hold hearings to get a range of views about the 
     underlying issues of fact, policy, and law.
       I hope that these brief comments are helpful.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Cass R. Sunstein,
     Professor of Law.
                                                                    ____

                                                DePaul University,


                                               College of Law,

                                      Chicago, IL, April 30, 1996.
     Senator Russel D. Feingold,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feingold: Thank you for your letter of April 
     12, 1996, asking for my assessment of the constitutionality 
     of provisions of S. 1219. I believe that the prospects for a 
     finding of constitutionality are mixed. There is a high 
     likelihood that the aspect of the bill which seems to be the 
     central focus--voluntary expenditure limitations in return 
     for in-kind benefits--would be found constitutional. 
     Conversely, I believe the PAC ban would almost certainly be 
     found unconstitutional. Predictions with respect to other 
     aspects of the bill are less clear. I will discuss these 
     conclusions below. I should note that some of the provisions 
     present novel constitutional issues and that the analyses 
     necessary to resolve some of the issues would be quite 
     intricate and lengthy. Therefore my remarks below will be 
     rather general and I will not attempt to explore the issues 
     in depth in this letter. However, if you would like a more 
     complex analysis in the future I would be happy to assist you 
     further.
       1. The spending limit condition attached to receipt of in-
     kind benefits.
       In the well known Buckley footnote 65 the Supreme Court 
     clearly stated that despite the fact that expenditure 
     limitations are otherwise unconstitutional, when made a 
     condition to the voluntary acceptance of public subsidies 
     they are valid. Although this footnote must be considered 
     dicta, as the constitutionality of the provision was not 
     being challenged, it should be noted that the Supreme Court 
     later summarily affirmed a case which rejected a direct 
     constitutional challenge to the condition. Republican 
     National Committee v. Federal Election Commission (RNC) 487 
     F. Supp. 280 (S.D.N.Y.) aff'd, 445 U.S. 955 (1980). A summary 
     affirmance is a decision on the merits, and is therefore 
     binding precedent; however, the Supreme court may feel less 
     compunction about overturning such a decision that one 
     supported by a written opinion.
       In RNC the district court asserted that there was no real 
     burden on First Amendment expression because a candidate 
     would only choose the public subsidy if it would enhance his 
     or her expression. Alternatively, the court determined 
     that even if there was a burden on expression the 
     restrictions would satisfy strict scrutiny because they 
     were necessary to compelling government interests in 
     preventing undue influence and saving time and energy for 
     expression other than fundraising. (See my enclosed 
     article from the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly for 
     a more thorough discussion of this

[[Page S6714]]

     case and the unconstitutional condition doctrine 
     generally.)
       The reasoning of the district court in RNC has been 
     reinforced by practical experience in the years since it was 
     decided. The public's growing perception that campaign 
     contributions cause undue influence cannot be controverted. 
     The degree of validity of that perception can probably never 
     be definitively determined. But regardless whether that 
     perception is correct, it has added to the rampant 
     disillusion with our political system which we are currently 
     experiencing. In Buckley the Court made clear that preventing 
     the appearance of impropriety as well as the reality is a 
     compelling government interest. Furthermore, the 
     extraordinary amount of time spent by candidates on 
     fundraising--time taken away from other kinds of campaigning 
     that reaches more people--from attending to official duties. 
     The latter concern alone might today be considered a 
     compelling government interest. The in-kind benefits combined 
     with expenditure limitations will advance the interests 
     asserted in RNC  and Buckley because they will substitute for 
     a substantial number of contributions which would otherwise 
     be raised by those candidates who choose to comply. To the 
     extent that candidates fail to comply the interests will not 
     be forwarded; however, this will merely maintain the status 
     quo with respect to the campaign activities of noncomplying 
     candidates without burdens to their first amendment 
     expression. It is very clear that without expenditure 
     limitations subsidies or in-kind benefits would merely be 
     used to augment rather than substitute for fundraising and 
     would therefore not serve the aims of S. 1219.
       Expenditure limitations will no doubt be challenged as 
     aiding incumbents to the disadvantage of challengers. 
     However, the fact that the limitations are voluntary greatly 
     weakens that argument. In addition, if one looks at the 
     combined effect of the various provisions of S. 1219 the 
     extent to which they would cut into major funding sources of 
     incumbents is quite remarkable. I am referring to the 
     restrictions on PACs, bundling, soft money, out-of-state 
     contributions and leadership committees. The restrictions on 
     the use of the frank further diminishes the advantages of 
     incumbency.
       2. The condition of limitations on contributions from 
     organizations and out-of-state individuals.
       I presume that the rationale for this condition on in-
     kind benefits is that in-state individuals are likely to 
     contribute for reasons having to do with a generalized 
     interest in representation, while organizations, and to a 
     lesser extent, out-of-state individuals are likely to 
     contribute to pursue a limited purpose that would be more 
     likely to involve undue influence. It is difficult to 
     reach a conclusion as to whether the Court would consider 
     this distinction strong enough to uphold the restriction. 
     The fact that the Court has generally been more accepting 
     of contribution limitations than expenditure limitations 
     will be a help, as will the fact that it is a voluntary 
     restriction applicable only to candidates who accept the 
     in-kind benefits. Although the aggregate limitation may be 
     viewed as rather severe because it in effect bans 
     contributions from some sources after the threshold has 
     been reached, it is a particularly effective means of 
     preventing undue influence. As Professor Daniel Lowenstein 
     has persuasively argued, such restrictions vitiate the 
     undue influence producing effects of even those 
     contributions that are accepted below the threshold 
     amount. This is because the supply of such contributions 
     will ordinarily be greater than the legal demand, thereby 
     lessening the importance of any one contribution.
       3. The requirement that the media time be used in intervals 
     of 30 seconds or more or less than 5 minutes.
       I assume that the purpose for this limitation is two-fold. 
     The 5 minute provision probably is an attempt to avoid 
     onerous burdens on the media which will be required to cede 
     time to candidates. This interest is certainly permissible 
     and should not pose First Amendment problems. The minimum of 
     30 seconds does create what I consider to be a technical 
     First Amendment problem. I use the term ``technical'' because 
     it arises as the logical consequence of holdings in some 
     Supreme Court opinions. I would argue that were the Court to 
     invalidate this requirement it would be an example of 
     carrying logic to an absurd conclusion.
       The constitutional issue arises because the provision seems 
     to be an attempt to cause candidates to formulate their 
     message in a particular way. This runs into case law that has 
     held that individuals can express themselves using whatever 
     words or symbols they choose, with the possible exception of 
     certain speech which is imposed on a captive audience. 
     Compare Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), and Texas v. 
     Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), with FCC v. Pacifica 
     Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). Also, somewhat relevant are 
     cases holding that the government cannot force individuals to 
     speak. See Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1977). The 
     minimum 30 second commercial requirement in the bill, unlike 
     the cases cited, does not directly target content. No one is 
     forced to use particular words or avoid others, or to convey 
     a particular message. The issue of content regulation comes 
     into play because it appears that the purpose of the 
     regulation is to cause candidates to express themselves using 
     a format that is more likely to have serious content than the 
     typical 10 second spot, thus encouraging a thoughtful 
     exploration of real issues. The Supreme Court has never 
     dealt with a case involving a simple time regulation of 
     speech which is aimed at affecting content. Therefore, the 
     cases presenting constitutional obstacles would not be 
     directly on point--rather, general statements taken out of 
     context would be used to challenge the regulation.
       I believe that a credible response to such challenges would 
     stress the following arguments: Even if the aim is to affect 
     the content of the speech, the concern with content is quite 
     general. There does not appear to be an intent to regulate 
     viewpoint, which is the most serious of content regulation 
     problems. Indeed, the concern is not even with the somewhat 
     less serious matter of regulation of subject matter, as the 
     candidate can use the time to discuss any subject he or she 
     wishes. Rather the regulation is an attempt to encourage the 
     candidate to actually say something meaningful. But the 
     candidate can thwart the government and still use his or her 
     time for totally vacuous expression without suffering any 
     detriment other than the possibility that the vacuousness 
     will be more obvious to the audience than it might be if the 
     commercial was shorter. Such a detriment hardly seems to rise 
     to the level of a serious First Amendment concern.
       The fact that the restrictions only apply to candidates who 
     voluntarily accept the in-kind benefits should be an 
     important factor in favor of a finding of constitutionality. 
     Although a more definitive content regulation attached as a 
     condition of a benefit would be unconstitutional, the 
     regulation in question should not meet the same fate because, 
     for the reasons discussed above, it has little in common with 
     the kind of content regulations which the Court has shown 
     serious concern for in past cases. Furthermore, I find it 
     hard to believe that the fact that the purpose of the 
     regulation is to encourage an intelligent discussion of 
     election issues will not influence the Court positively, even 
     though that concern can be described as generally content 
     based.
       4. The increased spending limit in Section 502 and the 
     increased contribution limit in Section 105 applicable to 
     complying candidates opposed by non-complying candidates.
       These two sections of S. 1219 present potentially serious 
     constitutional problems, and it is very difficult to predict 
     how they would be resolved by the Supreme Court. There is no 
     Supreme Court case law dealing with an analogous provision. 
     Although there are two federal circuit court cases addressing 
     somewhat similar statutes--one upholding and one invalidating 
     the provisions--the cases involved statutes that are 
     distinguishable from S. 1219 and from each other.
       In Vote Choice v. DiStefano, 4 F.3d 26 (1st Cir. 1993) the 
     federal circuit court upheld a Rhode Island law which 
     provided subsidies conditioned on spending limits and also 
     increased the $1,000 contribution limit to $2,000 for 
     candidates agreeing to the expenditure limitation. 
     However, in Day v. Holahan, 34 F.3d 1356 (8th Cir. 1994), 
     cert. denied 115 S. Ct. 936 (1995), the court invalidated 
     a Minnesota statute which provided that when independent 
     expenditures where made opposing a candidate complying 
     with the spending limits (which were conditions of state 
     subsidies), or supporting his or her opponent, the state 
     subsidy would be increased in an amount equal to one half 
     the independent expenditure. In addition, the overall 
     campaign expenditure limitation of the complying candidate 
     would be increased in an amount equal to the independent 
     expenditure.
       A third case, relied upon by Professor Joel Gora in his 
     testimony, is somewhat analogous, but easily distinguishable. 
     Shrink Missouri Government PAC v. Maupin, 71 F.3d 1422 (8th 
     Cir. 1995) involved a statute which banned contributions from 
     organizations to candidates not complying with expenditure 
     limitations. The court stressed that this statute was not 
     analogous to Buckley because the restrictions were not a 
     condition of the receipt of any return benefit and because 
     the ban on organization contributions could not have been 
     constitutionally imposed independently of an agreement to the 
     expenditure limitation. The Court concluded that ``No 
     candidate would voluntarily agree to comply with the 
     expenditure limits in exchange for access to sources of 
     funding to which he or she already has a constitutional right 
     of access.'' Id. at 1425.
       Rather than engage in the very intricate and lengthy 
     constitutional analysis which would be required to attempt to 
     determine the significance of DiStefano and Day to the 
     somewhat similar provisions in S. 1219, I will make a few 
     general comments. In my view the provisions in S. 1219 fall 
     somewhere between the provisions reviewed in the two cases, 
     both with respect to the burdens on expression and the 
     importance and legitimacy of the government interests being 
     pursued. For this reason it is particularly difficult to 
     determine whether either of the two circuit courts would have 
     upheld the provisions in S. 1219. My guess is that the 
     results in the two cases reflect an approach sufficiently 
     different from each other that one circuit would uphold the 
     provisions in S. 1219, while the other would find them 
     unconstitutional. However, the two cases could be 
     distinguished from each other in manner which would reflect 
     negatively on the provisions in S. 1219. This is because a 
     somewhat stronger case can be made for a chill on expression 
     when a complying candidate obtains a comparative benefit 
     based on the expressive actions of the other candidate or his 
     supporters than when it is the action of the

[[Page S6715]]

     complying candidate which results in his or her comparative 
     benefit.
       5. the PAC BANS and the ``fallback'' provision
       I consider the PAC bans to clearly unconstitutional. 
     Although there is a weak argument in favor of the 
     constitutionality of the bans on contributions, there is no 
     argument consistent with the Supreme Court's campaign finance 
     jurisprudence which would lead to affirmance of a ban on 
     expenditures. The ``fallback'' provision, however, is 
     consistent with the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on campaign 
     finance regulation. I am generally in agreement with the 
     analysis submitted by Professor Lowenstein on these 
     provisions, so I will not repeat that discussion here.
       Thank you inviting me to comment upon the proposed 
     legislation. If I can be of any further assistance, please do 
     not hesitate to contact me.
           Sincerely,
                                         Marlene Arnold Nicholson,
     Professor of Law.
                                                                    ____

                                              American University,


                                           Office of the Dean,

                                      Washington, DC, May 2, 1996.
     Senator Russell Feingold,
     Hart Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feingold: Thank you for inviting me to provide 
     comments on the constitutionality of S. 1219. It is an honor 
     to give you my thoughts on this important legislation. It 
     would probably be most useful for you to have a 
     constitutional analysis based on existing case law, and so I 
     have given you my best interpretive efforts based on the 
     state of constitutional doctrine as it exists today.
       Section 101: There is no general problem with conditioning 
     the receipt of public funding or benefits by candidates on an 
     agreement to abide by limits on overall campaign spending. 
     This exact regime for financing presidential campaigns was 
     upheld in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). The Court 
     stated in no uncertain terms: ``Congress may engage in public 
     financing of election campaigns and may condition acceptance 
     of public funds on an agreement by the candidate to abide by 
     specific expenditure limitations. Just as a candidate may 
     voluntarily limit the size of the contributions he chooses to 
     accept, he may decide to forgo private fundraising and accept 
     public funding.'' Id. at 58, n.65. The Supreme Court has 
     maintained this general posture towards the conditioning of 
     public benefits since Buckley was decided. See, e.g., Rust v. 
     Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991) (holding that the government 
     could restrict speech within a publicly funded family-
     planning program so long as it was on a viewpoint-neutral 
     basis).
       It makes no difference to the analysis here that the 
     campaign benefits awarded to participating candidates will be 
     in the form of free and discounted television time and 
     discounted postage rates. These goods have an easily 
     ascertained monetary value and have no more coercive effect 
     than money. Nor does it make any difference that 
     participating candidates must abide by limits on what they 
     spend of their own personal funds (Section 502) since the 
     element of voluntary choice to participate in the public 
     benefits regime remains effective and meaningful.
       One problem that I see potentially arising with Section 101 
     relates to Section 502, which increases an eligible 
     candidate's spending limit by 20% if a non-participating 
     candidate collects contributions or spends personal funds 
     over the spending limit by 10% or more. It may be argued--
     although I think with little force--that such a rule in 
     effect punishes the non-complying candidate spending 
     beyond the desired ceiling by giving the complying 
     candidate for an extra benefit beyond the original 
     bargain. There is actually an Eighth Circuit Court 
     decision that stands for something like this proposition. 
     See Day v. Hollohan, 34 F.3d 1356 (8th Cir. 1994), cert. 
     denied, 115 S. Ct. 936 (1995). (striking down a provision 
     that increased a complying candidate's spending ceiling by 
     the amount of money he or she is overspent by a non-
     complying opponent and providing half of the difference in 
     public money).
       Whatever the merits of this strange decision, however, it 
     does not apply here because of a key difference in the way 
     the Minnesota plan and this one work. S. 1219 would not 
     directly provide additional public funds to compensate for 
     the difference in what complying and non-complying candidates 
     spend. Rather, this provision simply increases the ceiling on 
     what the complying candidate is authorized to raise on his or 
     her own. Even if the Day v. Hollohan decision is right that 
     we cannot directly, albeit partially, subsidize political 
     speech to meet political speech--a shocking and novel concept 
     if true--nothing like that is going on here. Congress is 
     simply allowing for eligible candidates to achieve a rougher 
     parity of resources and quantity of expression without 
     altering the necessity for them to raise their own money. It 
     should also be noted that under this regime it would still be 
     perfectly possible for a candidate running outside of the 
     public regime to outspend his or her opponent by huge amounts 
     of money and margins of 2 or 3 or 4-to-1 or indeed more.
       A similar conceptual problem is raised by Section 105, 
     which would raise the limit on individual contributions to an 
     eligible candidate if he or she is running against a non-
     participating opponent who has either received contributions 
     or spent personal funds in excess of 10% of the general 
     election limit. According to this provision, individuals 
     contributing to eligible candidates could give $2,000 as 
     opposed to the $1,000 limit that individuals giving to their 
     opponents would have to observe. There may be a strong 
     argument that this provision does not conform to the logic of 
     Buckley. Recall that the $1,000 individual contribution limit 
     was upheld as a narrowly tailored means of implementing the 
     compelling interest in combatting the reality and appearance 
     of corruption. See Buckley, 424 U.S. at 30. As soon as you 
     raise--indeed double--the $1,000 limit in some cases, you may 
     have undermined the argument for the necessity of the basic 
     limit itself, especially when you have doubled it for 
     contributors to those candidates who will, almost by 
     definition, end up with a smaller overall pool of 
     contributors than their rivals. If it is not inherently 
     corrupting for candidate X to receive a $2,000 contribution 
     from one of 500 contributors, why is it inherently corrupting 
     for candidate Y to receive a $2,000 contribution from one of 
     1,000 contributors? This provision is potentially vulnerable 
     to the objection that it is not narrowly tailored to 
     advance Buckley's anti-corruption rationale and creates 
     major disparities in the legal rights of third parties--
     citizen contributors--based simply on decisions that 
     candidates make.
       However, a strong argument can also be made in favor of the 
     disparate contribution limits. In Vote Choice, Inc. v. 
     DiStefano, 4 F.3d 26 (1993), the United States Court of 
     Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a very similar state 
     campaign financing provision which provided different 
     contribution limits for publicly-financed and privately-
     financed candidates. In that case, the court considered Rhode 
     Island Gen. Law sec. 17-25-10.1 and 17-25-30(3). These 
     provisions generally capped contributions for political 
     candidates at $1,000. However, if a candidate qualified for 
     and accepted public financing, then his or her contribution 
     limit from individual citizens was raised to $2,000.
       The First Circuit held that this disparity was a 
     permissible and narrowly tailored incentive encouraging 
     candidates to accept public regulation and financing. The 
     court dismissed the argument that a disparate cap was 
     unconstitutional punishment for not accepting public-funding. 
     Vote Choice, 4 F.3d at 37. Contrary to the analysis I 
     suggested above, the court held that this provision was 
     narrowly tailored to the ultimate goal of preventing 
     corruption and the appearance of corruption. Id. at 41. Thus, 
     there is some strong support for the proposition that even a 
     special $2,000 limit for participating candidates could be 
     seen as narrowly tailored to the anti-corruption goals 
     promulgated in Buckley.
       Section 241: This Section requires participating candidates 
     to raise at least 60% of their total sum of individual 
     contributions from individuals residing within their states. 
     It is, in my estimation, perfectly constitutional. Indeed, it 
     is my conclusion that the provision would be equally 
     constitutional if it required that 100% of the complying 
     candidate's contributions come from within state. The 
     decisive point, of course, is that no candidate is forced to 
     accept public financing, and so those who accept it can be 
     asked to abide by the government's reasonable and viewpoint-
     neutral regulations. See, e.g., Rust v. Sullivan, supra. But 
     even if it were an outright rule applying uniformly to all 
     candidates--participating and non-participating alike--
     Section 241 would be lawful since it is safely rooted in 
     three different constitutional principles: the Seventeenth 
     Amendment guarantee of popular election of Senators, the 
     equal protection principle of one person-one vote, and 
     constitutional federalism, including Article V's command that 
     ``no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of it's 
     equal Suffrage in the Senate.''
       The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed 
     in 1913, replaced the system of election of United States 
     Senators by the state legislatures with election ``by the 
     people [of] each State.'' This language, on its face, 
     establishes a presumption in favor of the constitutional 
     validity of federal and state laws that confine political 
     participation in a state to the ``people'' or citizens of 
     the state itself. Moreover, the legislative history of the 
     Seventeenth Amendment reflects that it was added to the 
     Constitution in order to break the political stranglehold 
     that out-of-state money interests had over Congress. New 
     York Senator Joseph Bristow, the author of the amendment, 
     declared that the ``great financial and industrial 
     institutions'' were using their power ``in almost 
     reprehensible and scandalous manner,'' spending ``enormous 
     amounts of money in corrupting legislatures to elect to 
     the Senate men of their own choosing.'' Standing on the 
     Senate floor in 1911, he asked: ``Shall the people of this 
     country be given an opportunity to elect their own 
     senators, or have them chosen by legislatures that are 
     controlled by influences that do not many times reside 
     within the State that those senators are to represent?''
       Thus, if we take seriously the language, history, structure 
     and spirit of the Seventeenth Amendment, it seems clear that 
     Congress has the authority under Article I, Section 4, to 
     enforce the boundaries of popular election of United States 
     Senators.
       The second Constitutional principle reinforcing the 
     Seventeenth Amendment basis for Section 241 is that of one 
     person-one vote under the Equal Protection clause. In 
     Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), the case which 
     constitutionalized the principle of one person-one vote, the 
     Supreme Court connected

[[Page S6716]]

     resident citizenship in a state to participation in its 
     political processes:
       ``. . . representative government is in essence self-
     government through the medium of elected representatives of 
     the people, and each and every citizen has an inalienable 
     right to full and effective participation in the political 
     processes of his State. . . .'' Id. at 565.
       If one person-one vote guarantees every citizen's right to 
     participate in the ``political processes'' of his or her own 
     state and political community, it is equally clear that non-
     citizens of a state have no such right. If non-residents were 
     allowed to participate, their votes would, in both a 
     mathematical and constitutional sense, ``dilute'' the equal 
     representation of members of the community. Thus, we might 
     usefully think of Reynold's one person-one vote principle as 
     establishing a rule of one resident-one vote.
       The Supreme Court has accepted as a premise of American 
     federalism that states may confine formal political rights 
     to their own citizens and prevent citizens of other states 
     from participating in their political processes. The Court 
     has continually ruled that states have the power to 
     categorically exclude both from the franchise and from 
     political candidacy American citizens who are not citizens 
     of the state or residents of the given election district. 
     See Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621 (1904); Kramer v. 
     Union-Free School District, 395 U.S. 621, 626-28 (1969); 
     Evans v. Cornman, 398 U.S. 419, 422 (1970); Dunn v. 
     Blumstein 405 U.S. 330, 344 (1972); Holt Civic Club v. 
     Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 68 (1978).
       By linking a person's membership in a state or local 
     political community to the person's physical residence within 
     the state or community's legal borders, the Supreme Court has 
     tapped the deepest roots of American constitutional and 
     political philosophy. The Declaration of Independence began 
     with the principle that governments ``deriv[e] their just 
     powers from the consent of the governed.'' The Declaration of 
     Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776). This principle means not 
     only that all those who are governed have a presumptive right 
     to participate in politics but that all those who are not 
     governed have no such right. This principle is closely 
     related to the founding American maxim of ``no taxation 
     without representation,'' whose obverse corollary is ``no 
     representation without taxation''--that is, no right of 
     political participation for those not subject to the 
     government's taxing power.
       The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the power of states 
     to confine political process rights to their own citizens and 
     to the members of specific sub-state political jurisdictions. 
     In Holt Civic Club,  the Court rejected the voting rights 
     claims of Alabama citizens who were partially governed by a 
     municipality but not permitted to vote in it. Chief Justice 
     Rehnquist stated: ``No decision of this Court has extended 
     the `one man, one vote' principle to individuals residing 
     beyond the geographic confines of the governmental entity 
     concerned, be it the State or its political subdivisions. On 
     the contrary, our cases have uniformly recognized that a 
     government unit may legitimately restrict the right to 
     participate in its political processes to those who reside 
     within its borders.'' Id at 68. (emphasis supplied)
       In Dunn v. Blumstein, the Supreme Court struck down an 
     illegitimate one-year durational residence voting requirement 
     in Tennessee but carefully distinguished it from a legitimate 
     bona fide residence requirement. See 405 U.S. at 343. The 
     Court found that, unlike an arbitrary requirement that 
     residents spend a year in-state before gaining the right to 
     vote, a basic threshold requirement that all voters be bona 
     fide state residents is presumptively legitimate. For, as the 
     Court put it, an ``appropriately defined and uniformly 
     applied requirement of bona fide residence'' may be 
     ``necessary to preserve the basic conception of a political 
     community, and therefore could withstand close 
     constitutional scrutiny.'' Id. (emphasis supplied)
       In Evans v. Corman, 398 U.S. 419 (1970), the Court stated 
     that it assumed that any state had a compelling interest in 
     ``insurin[ing' that only those citizens who are primarily or 
     substantially interested in or affected by electoral 
     decisions have a voice in making them.'' 398 U.S. at 422.
       All of the Court's relevant decisions thus establish the 
     government's compelling interest in confining participation 
     in a state's formal ``political process'' to the state's own 
     citizens. This interest can be defined as a political 
     sovereignty interest, and may be vindicated also by Congress 
     using its powers under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
     See Katzenback v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966) (holding that 
     Congress has power under the Fourteenth Amendment to 
     elaborate and define the meaning of equal protection beyond 
     minimal constitutional requirements, especially in the voting 
     field).
       The remaining question is whether making campaign 
     contributions can be treated by Congress as part of the 
     formal political process. The teaching of Buckley, of course, 
     is that political contributions are a formal and irreducible 
     part of the political process. But, because we have no 
     precedent directly on-point governing Section 241, we can 
     shed light on this question by examining federal and state, 
     statutory and judicial treatment of campaign contributions, 
     and specifically contributions offered by outsiders to 
     candidates in a political community.
       Like voting and candidacy, the process of making campaign 
     contributions is closely regulated by federal and state 
     statute. This regulatory structuring is radically opposed to 
     the laissez faire treatment of informal political activities 
     like volunteering to help a campaign, endorsing a candidate, 
     or speaking to the press or the public, all of which are not 
     regulated by state or federal legislatures. The Federal 
     Election Campaign Act, which was mostly upheld in Buckley, 
     closely regulates federal campaign contributions, and similar 
     statutes exist in every state. This vast and expansive 
     regulatory treatment reflects the fact that campaign 
     contributions have become a formal and integral part of the 
     political process.
       It is instructive to consider how federal law treats the 
     desire of foreign nationals to participate in political 
     campaigns by making money contributions. The United States 
     Congress has categorically banned all campaign contributions 
     in federal, state and local elections by foreign nationals--
     that is, persons who are not members of any of the relevant 
     political communities. 2 U.S.C. sect. 441e(a) (1995) (``It 
     shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or through 
     any person to make any contribution of money or other 
     thing of value, or to promise expressly or impliedly to 
     make any such contribution, in connection with an election 
     to any political office or in connection with any primary 
     election, convention, or caucus held to select candidates 
     for any political office; or for any person to solicit, 
     accept, or receive any such contribution from a foreign 
     national.'') When Senator Lloyd Bentsen introduced the 
     original 1974 legislation banning campaign contributions 
     by non-citizens, he made the following apposite statement: 
     ``I do not think foreign nationals have any business in 
     our political campaigns. They cannot vote in our elections 
     so why should we allow them to finance our elections? 
     Their loyalties lie elsewhere . . . '' 120 CONG. REC. 8783 
     (1974).
       The categorical prohibition adopted by Congress on ``money 
     speech'' by non-U.S. citizens in American campaigns reflects 
     the American political system's understanding that the right 
     to finance campaigns belongs to members of the electoral 
     community itself. From a constitutional perspective, a 
     citizen of Florida or Puerto Rico or Vermont or the District 
     of Columbia has no more of a cognizable interest in making 
     campaign contributions in Wisconsin than he or she does 
     voting there. Viewed through the proper lens of American 
     federalism, all persons who are not legal residents of 
     Wisconsin are not citizens of Wisconsin and should have no 
     formal political rights to participate in state or federal 
     elections there. Put in the starkest of terms, if a resident 
     of New York has no constitutional right or interest in voting 
     or running for office in Wisconsin's elections, he or she 
     should have no such right or interest in making campaign 
     contributions there that could have a far more decisive or 
     sweeping effect on the outcome of an election.
       In another closely analogous case from a statutory context, 
     the United States Supreme Court upheld a blanket union rule 
     forbidding candidates for union office to accept campaign 
     contributions from persons who are not members of the union. 
     United Steelworkers of America v. Sadlowski, 457 U.S. 102 
     (1982). The Court found that the Steelworkers' rule banning 
     ``outsider'' contributions did not violate the Labor-
     Management Relations Act or the First Amendment. The Court 
     emphasized the legitimacy of the Steelworkers' desire to see 
     that ``nonmembers do not unduly influence union affairs.'' 
     Id. at 115. The union justly ``feared that officers who 
     received campaign contributions from nonmembers might be 
     beholden to those individuals and might allow their decisions 
     to be influenced by considerations other than the best 
     interests of the union. The union wanted to ensure that union 
     leadership remained responsive to the membership.'' Id.
       Thus, it seems inescapable that Congress has a compelling 
     political equality interest in preventing a situation to 
     develop in which a majority of the money raised by U.S. 
     Senate candidates comes from non-citizens.
       Third, Congress has a compelling constitutional interest in 
     protecting federalism and the states' ``basic conception'' of 
     their political communities. Intervention in Senate races by 
     non-citizen contributors changes the definition of the 
     state's political community, distorts the character of the 
     campaign process and the nature of campaign appeals, 
     potentially changes the outcome of elections and damages the 
     relationship of loyalty that ought to exist between residents 
     and their officials. In sum, out-of-state and out-of-district 
     money contributions are as distorting a political 
     intervention by non-citizens as would be out-of-state and 
     out-of-district votes and candidacies. If, as the Supreme 
     Court has held, the principal constitutional protections for 
     federalism lie in the political structure of state 
     representation in Congress, then there is clearly a 
     compelling governmental interest in preserving the integrity 
     of each state's political autonomy. Congress has 
     constitutional authority to preserve the ``equal Suffrage'' 
     of each state's representation in the Senate as provided for 
     in Article V.
       Beyond the Seventeenth Amendment, one person-one vote and 
     federalism justifications for Section 241, Congress can spell 
     out compelling anti-corruption interests in enacting this 
     provision. Thus, even if one were to apply First Amendment 
     strict scrutiny to Section 241, I believe that the compelling 
     state interests and correspondingly narrowly tailored means 
     exist here.

[[Page S6717]]

       There are two anti-corruption interests that the Supreme 
     Court has found sufficiently compelling to uphold public 
     regulations of campaign contributions and expenditures. 
     First, in Buckley, the Court found sufficient justification 
     for Federal Election Campaign Act caps on campaign 
     contributions in Congress' ``primary purpose'' of 
     ``limit[ing] the actuality and appearance of corruption . . 
     .''
       This interest is present here as well, but in an even more 
     striking way. There is a great risk of corruption when non-
     citizens participate in the financing of a state's federal 
     candidates' campaigns since non-citizens are far more likely 
     to be motivated by a material or economic interest. The 
     Center for Responsive Politics has consistently found that 
     special interests and PACs give overwhelmingly to members who 
     sit on the congressional committees that legislate over them 
     regardless of their state affiliations. Open Secrets, the 
     Center's ``Encyclopedia of Congressional Money and 
     Politics,'' reveals further that a majority of Senate and 
     House committee chairs receive a majority of their money from 
     out-of-state contributors. Out-of-state and out-of-district 
     contributors are more likely to have a narrow material 
     interest in legislation, to exercise a corrupting effect on 
     legislation and legislators, and to promote the appearance of 
     quid pro quo corruption and trades.
       The second anti-corruption interest upheld by the Supreme 
     Court is in guaranteeing that the levels of money spent on 
     behalf of a candidate authentically reflect popular support 
     rather than extrinsic and antidemocratic factors. This 
     interest was identified in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of 
     Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990). In Austin, the Court upheld a 
     Michigan law preventing corporations from using corporate 
     treasury funds to support or oppose candidates for state 
     office. The Court reasoned that a corporation amassed profits 
     on the basis of its economic prowess and the state's valuable 
     conferral of benefits to all corporations--not on the basis 
     of the public's support for the political ideology of the 
     corporate directors or management. Thus, Michigan was 
     perfectly justified in refusing to allow corporations to 
     convert their profits into political advocacy for particular 
     candidates. In allowing regulation of political money beyond 
     quid pro quo arrangements, the Court validated regulation of 
     ``a different type of corruption in the political arena: the 
     corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of 
     wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate 
     form and that have little or no correlation to the public's 
     support for the corporation's political ideas.'' Id. at 660.
       Austin established that money contributions from sources 
     other than the individual citizens who make up the community 
     are inherently corrupting of democratic norms. The Court 
     stated that ``the political advantage of corporations is 
     unfair because `[t]he resources in the treasury of a business 
     corporation are not an indication of popular support for the 
     corporation's political ideas. They reflect instead the 
     economically motivated decisions of investors and customers.' 
     '' Id. at 660 (quoting FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for 
     Life, Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 257 (1986).
       Just as contributions drawn from a corporate treasury have 
     ``little or no correlation'' to the public's support for the 
     corporation's political ideas, contributions sent from non-
     citizens who live out-of-state and out-of-district have 
     ``little or no correlation'' to the public's support for the 
     political ideas of such outsiders. These contributions 
     instead mostly reflect the economically motivated 
     contributions of outside interests and political investors. 
     Thus, corporate treasury funds and funds from out-of-state 
     sources inhabit the same vulnerable constitutional position 
     of antidemocratic political money that does not reflect the 
     popular preferences of the actual voting public.
       If it advances compelling interests, Section 241's partial 
     ban on out-of-state contributions is also narrowly tailored. 
     First of all, it allows non-citizens to give campaign 
     contributions up until the point that they would become 
     almost half of the candidate's total receipts. Moreover, like 
     the contributions caps upheld in Buckely, this provision 
     leaves in place the unhampered ability of the regulated 
     parties--here, the out-of-state contributors--to spend 
     unlimited amounts of money on direct campaign expenditures 
     expressing their own political views in support of, or 
     against, a particular candidate. Thus, while a ban on 
     expenditures by non-citizens would presumably violate the 
     Court's Buckley ruling, ``a limitation upon the amount 
     that any one person or group may contribute to a candidate 
     or political committee entails only a marginal restriction 
     upon the contributor's ability to engage in free 
     communication . . .'' Buckley, 424 U.S. at 20. Such a ban 
     ``does not in any way infringe the contributor's freedom 
     to discuss candidates and issues.'' Id. at 21.
       Section 241 mirrors the regulation upheld in Buckley. It 
     works effectively to ban the political dominance created by 
     an overwhelming cash nexus between out-of-state contributors 
     and U.S. Senators. If non-citizens seek to promote a 
     meaningful political or ideological point as opposed to a 
     relationship of political debt with public officials, they 
     can still spend untold millions of dollars speaking and 
     making their views known. What they cannot do under this 
     provision is threaten the systemic corruption of Congress. 
     Although I would prefer to see it ban all out-of-state 
     contributions categorically, Section 241 is still shaped to 
     isolate the corrupting and antidemocratic effects of 
     involvement by out-of-state interests while allowing them 
     every opportunity to get a valid, non-corrupting message 
     across.
       To conclude, voting and running for office are fundamental 
     rights of U.S. citizenship protected by the Constitution, but 
     the Constitution allows states to deny the right to vote and 
     run for office to persons who are not citizens of the 
     relevant state. The confinement of formal political rights to 
     voting citizens is always presumptively based on compelling 
     state interests in sovereignty, loyalty and honest 
     government. The making of campaign contributions to 
     candidates for public office constitutes just such an 
     exercise of a formal political right. Congress may declare 
     the existence of compelling interests in preserving the 
     constitutional sovereignty of the people and in combatting 
     the corruption of their political and governmental processes 
     by non-citizens. Section 241 advances these interests with 
     considerable effect while still leaving unlimited room for 
     campaign expenditures by outside interests.
       Section 201: This Section prevents political action 
     committees (PACs) from making independent expenditures or 
     giving to federal candidates. It seems clear that the ban on 
     expenditures runs counter to the Court's holding in FEC v. 
     NCPAC, 470 U.S. 480 (1985), that independent PAC expenditures 
     have the full measure of First Amendment protection since 
     they do not threaten quid pro quo corruption. However, I read 
     that case as relating only to independent expenditures and 
     not direct contributions to candidates, which pose a far more 
     serious risk of the kinds of corruption identified in 
     Buckley. Indeed, Congress can fairly invoke the last 20-odd 
     years of experience with disproportionate and systematically 
     corrupting PAC influence on federal campaigns and national 
     public policy to demonstrate a compelling interest in passing 
     a ban on direct PAC contributions to federal candidates.
       It is important to remember that a ban on PAC contributions 
     to candidates still leaves in place the right of every voter 
     to give directly to a candidate and the right of every PAC, 
     or group of voters, to spend whatever it wants independently 
     advocating or disparaging a particular candidate. Thus, all 
     of the voters' legitimate constitutional interests--the right 
     to associate with a candidate's campaign with a direct 
     contribution and the right to associate with other voters and 
     promote a particular candidate--are still vindicated by a ban 
     on PAC contributions.
       I hope that these thoughts are useful to you and that you 
     will feel free to call on me for assistance in the days 
     ahead.
           Very truly yours,

                                              Jamin B. Raskin,

                                                 Professor of Law,
                                                   Associate Dean.

  Mr. McCAIN. For those who question the constitutionality of this 
bill, I hope they will take the time to read the opinions of these 
legal experts.
  Fourth, and the most important, this bill makes message, and not 
money, the most important part of any election. And as such, 
challengers will have a more fair and equal footing when running 
against an incumbent.
  Spending limits will do more to level the playing field in an 
election than any other contemplated reform. Analysis of past races 
shows incumbents raised and spent considerably more money than the 
challengers and that the candidates who spent the most money usually 
won the election--this is especially the case in races where 
multimillionaires outspent their rivals. It is especially interesting 
to note that in competitive open seats, the candidate who raises the 
most money tends to win the election. Spending limits would change that 
dynamic.
  This perverse system under which the richest takes all has resulted 
in entrenched incumbents. The nonpartisan Congressional Research 
Service has compiled an analysis of congressional races in recent years 
and the conclusion of that study is that the candidate who raises and 
spends the most money, even if that money is his or her own, usually 
wins the election. Elections should be about message, not money.
  The flow of PAC money is especially enlightening about how the system 
favors incumbents. I pointed out earlier how much that disparity is. 
Challengers basically receive $1 in PAC contributions for every $20 
given to an incumbent. Which is why entrenched incumbency is such a 
problem, and why we must do something to fix this situation.
  Mr. President, the Supreme Court has ruled we cannot stop someone who 
is willing to spend an unlimited amount of money for a Federal office 
from doing so. That is the law of the land. Our bill conforms to it. 
But the bill does provide strong incentives for candidates to 
voluntarily comply with spending limits, regardless of personal wealth. 
Candidates who choose to spend unlimited amounts of their own

[[Page S6718]]

money receive none of the bill's benefits. Further, the bill raises the 
individual contribution limit for candidates who comply with the bill's 
provisions when they run against someone who either refuses to comply 
with the spending limits or exceeds the personal contribution limit.
  Some have said that the simple solution of raising the individual 
contributor limit is the answer to the problem. That solution just is 
not true. Raising the individual contribution limit does nothing to 
control or limit the amount of money spent in a race. It may actually 
have the perverse effect of discouraging candidates of modest means 
from seeking office when confronted with an incumbent with unlimited 
resources. Under the current system, an incumbent's access to PAC 
contributions and an incumbent's appeal to well represented interests 
in Washington who like to bet safely on election favorites will almost 
always allow the incumbent to outspend his or her challenger.
  Increasing contribution limits would do nothing to level the playing 
field and may, in fact, only further entrench incumbents who will 
always have superior advantages when it comes to attracting big money. 
It has been said several times that the public spends more on yogurt 
than is spent on campaigns. That is almost a catchphrase around here. 
My friends use the example to demonstrate that spending limits are not 
needed. Mr. President, I must respectfully disagree. This comparison is 
amusing but completely irrelevant. There is not a crisis of confidence 
in the yogurt industry. Confidence, trust, and faith in the yogurt 
industry is not important for the well-being of future generations. 
This country is not the great Nation it is today due to the yogurt 
industry.

  We live in the greatest democracy in the history of the world because 
of the foresight of our Founding Fathers to create a government that 
represented and had the trust of the people. It is that trust that we 
must seek to restore.
  Poll after poll reveals the public's urgent demands for genuine 
finance campaign reform. These polls mark the progress of public 
sentiment on this question. The people's cynicism over the way we seek 
office has grown into contempt for the way we retain office. The 
foundations of self-government rest on the public's faith in the basic 
integrity of our legal system. That faith is shaken today.
  This bill will not cure public cynicism for politics. But we believe 
it will prevent cynicism from becoming contempt, and contempt from 
becoming utter alienation.
  Our bill represents substantial, necessary change to the status quo--
a status quo that has generated a reelection rate of over 90 percent 
for Members of the House and Senate. We know the current system has 
served incumbents well, and we know what a daunting task it will be to 
convince the Congress to reform this system.
  Our appreciation for the political realities and institutional 
impediments arrayed against reform will not extinguish our 
determination for reform because we know the consequences of failing to 
act are far more frightening than the personal prospect of involuntary 
retirement.
  We must move forward. We must pass meaningful campaign finance 
reform. The American people expect us to do at least that much.
  Today's Washington Post stated: ``Give them a vote, and perhaps for 
another Congress the issue will go away: That's the leadership 
position. It's the way both parties deal with the issue; they spend 
half their time endorsing reform and the other half making sure it 
won't occur.''
  Mr. President, I challenge my colleagues to prove the Washington Post 
wrong. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture and make reform more 
than an unkept promise.

                          ____________________