[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7766-H7769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM POSTPONED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight during this hour 
of special orders to bring to the attention of this country, and 
particularly to my colleagues in this House, what is going on here in 
Washington, what is going on here in this Congress at this moment.
  We heard earlier speakers talk about this was going to be the week 
that has been postponed, and it had been postponed that we were going 
to have Reform Week, where Congress was going to address all of those 
issues that the constituents of this country, the people, have said are 
broken and need fixing. This was the week to fix things.
  Just hours ago we were told that the issue that we have all been 
waiting for, one of the biggest issues facing the United States in this 
election year, campaign reform, has now been taken off the table.

                              {time}  2145

  Postponed until next week, and who knows, if not taken up next week, 
maybe indefinitely. I am here tonight to talk with some of my 
colleagues about the importance of campaign reform. I am serving in my 
21st year of elective office, having been in local government, State 
government. I do not think there has been a time in those 21 years when 
people did not ask me what we are going to do about campaign reform.
  In California, a big State, we have done a lot. It certainly is not 
enough because there are two measures on the ballot this November that 
will radically change campaign law for election to State and local 
office. Perhaps the one that is most focused on is the Federal law that 
governs all of us who get elected to the United States Congress.
  This is an issue that we have been working on for many years. My 
colleague, Marty Meehan, from Massachusetts, has been a strong voice 
from the moment he arrived, talking about the need for Congress to 
address campaign reform. Indeed, he led a bipartisan effort to put 
together a bill that he spoke about earlier tonight that had about an 
even number of Democrats and Republicans cosponsor it.
  The Republican leadership will not even allow that bill to come to 
the floor for a vote. Why? Perhaps Mr. Meehan might want to join me 
here in discussing why his bill cannot even get to the floor, and I 
yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan].
  Mr. MEEHAN. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
California not only for reserving an hour of time but also for his 
efforts on campaign finance reform.
  The Committee on Rules is meeting right now and taking all kinds of 
testimony, so you never know, maybe they will come up with a rule that 
will allow a debate on this bill.
  I think that one of the things that many on the Committee on Rules 
are afraid of is that the President will sign the bill. President 
Clinton has said when he spoke in the State of the Union address that 
we needed campaign finance reform and he specifically mentioned the 
bill that I have been working with Linda Smith from Washington and 
Chris Shays from Connecticut. It is a bicameral and bipartisan bill.
  He challenged the Congress to pass that bill. I cannot help but think 
that part of the reason is, President Clinton has said, I am going to 
sign campaign finance reform if it limits how much money is spent in 
congressional elections and begins the process of trying to lessen the 
influence of special interests.
  There are some times, with all respect, I think that the Republican 
leadership down at the Committee on Rules are afraid the President will 
actually sign the bill. Would that not be something?
  Mr. FARR of California. Well, I think what your bill and my bill, 
which is very similar to it, very minor differences, frankly, our 
bills, we are relatively new to Congress, but our bills are based on 
what this House has been able to produce in the 103d Congress, the 102d 
Congress, the 101st Congress, going all the way back to 1988 to the 
100th Congress.
  The Democrats have led in putting our campaign reform bills that are 
very much similar to the bill that we are trying to get on the floor 
now and in fact had gotten through this House, and every time they have 
been blocked by the Republican leadership. In fact, in one case in 
1992, President Bush just before the Presidential elections in 1992 
vetoed the campaign reform passed by both the House and the Senate.
  We are back at it again, and I think what is so shocking about where 
we are now, because some of the controversies in that bill were that 
you had vouchers, essentially the process where taxpayers would help 
pay for the cost of campaigns and that was always very controversial. 
Took those out. No longer in the bill.
  And what do we see come along from the other side? Nothing about 
reform. There is no reform in the Republican leadership bill. There is 
no reform in the reform week of the Republican dialog. We are here 
tonight, three colleagues who are down in the trenches fighting for 
these issues and I think we are befuddled, we are just amazed that the 
bill they brought forth this week essentially allows you to auction off 
seats in the U.S. Congress.

[[Page H7767]]

  It says, if you have got money, come on down. Buy yourself a campaign 
seat. Move into a district where there is a poor person living or does 
not have much wealth. Use your own wealth, because you know to run for 
Congress, interesting thing that a lot of people do not understand, the 
first time you run, you do not have to live in the district. You can 
move in and I would not be surprised if there was not an attempt to 
sort of organize people around this country to say, hey, you with a lot 
of money, if you really want to get a seat in the U.S. Congress, go 
find a district under the Republican campaign reform bill that would 
allow you to use your own money to get elected.

  There is no reform in the Republican bill, and we are here tonight 
appalled not only at that, and we will go into some of the details, but 
I think to also express our dismay at the fact that we could not get 
reform week dealt with, we could not get your bill on the floor, and 
who knows whether we will ever get our bill, the Democratic majority 
bill on the floor.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, another point I wanted to make, we were new 
to this Congress in the 103d Congress. I was part of the largest 
freshman class since 1946. We did not get campaign finance reform 
because the Republicans in the U.S. Senate filibustered so that bill 
died.
  But I cannot help but remember the freshman Democrats running for 
reelection and nearly half of them lost. That is how the Republicans 
got control of the House. Half of the freshman class lost. There is a 
message there for Republican freshmen in this Congress. If this 
Congress cannot produce a campaign finance reform that, No. 1, limits 
special interests and, No. 2, caps how much money is spent, there is no 
question that the American people are going to respond and respond 
quickly and decisively in November.
  We have seen this in the past. We have seen an inability and the 
public reacts to it. I feel strongly if this Congress or this House 
does what it looks like it is going to do, which is nothing, then the 
November elections will be an opportunity for the American people to 
respond.
  Mr. FARR of California. I agree with the gentleman. I want to defer 
here for a moment to our colleague, Frank Pallone, who has been in this 
well many, many nights. We just heard him on the concern of welfare 
reform. I really appreciate it. I think he pointed out to us that in 
that debate we have a lot of people to come down to the well as 
conservatives who seem to know the price of everything and the value of 
nothing. Transfer that into campaign reform and that price tag is in 
their favor. I appreciate you coming tonight to discuss this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I just wanted 
to day to the gentleman from California that I appreciate both your 
efforts, initiatives, as well as the gentleman from Massachusetts, in 
trying to come up with real campaign reform. As the gentleman from 
Massachusetts says, we have actually had the opportunity when the 
Democrats were in the majority, and I have been here, I guess this is 
my eighth year, we have had the opportunity in those prior Congresses 
when the Democrats were in the majority to vote on real campaign 
finance reform. I am not as optimistic as the gentleman from 
Massachusetts is, though, that the Republican freshmen who were voted 
in overwhelmingly in 1994 are necessarily going to be voted out because 
they do not campaign finance reform. I think that what they are 
counting on, at least what the Speaker and the Republican leadership 
are counting on is just being able to raise so much money, massive 
amounts of money from both special interests as well as wealthy 
individuals to just basically have those Republicans who are now 
incumbent be able to outspend their Democratic rivals, 2, 3, 4, 5 to 1. 
The sky is the limit.
  I think that this effort in the so-called Republican reform bill, 
which has now been postponed maybe indefinitely, was to accomplish just 
that, to make it possible for more money to come from wealthy people. 
We heard some of the speakers earlier say that instead of a campaign 
limit of $25,000 per election, you could actually spend, an individual, 
up to over $3 million under this Republican proposal.

  The reason I believe very strongly why it did not, is not coming to 
the floor tomorrow is because they could not get the votes. Once people 
started to realize, both on the Republican side as well as on the 
Democratic side, that this was going to be possible and that what this 
really was is to bring more cash from wealthy people into the races, a 
lot of people balked.
  We had, I do not know, I guess about 10 Republicans who initially 
sent out a letter to their colleagues pointing that out and saying that 
the bill should not be approved. I would be very surprised if we see it 
again. I think that they have been embarrassed, essentially because of 
your work, Mr. Meehan's work, pointing out the flaws with this 
legislation.
  I just wanted to say very quickly that a lot of times I think that 
maybe people do not understand practically what all this means. If I 
could just give a brief example, some of which reflects upon my own 
races that I have run for Congress.
  I think what we are seeing more and more, and Mr. Farr, you mentioned 
it, is that you either have to be very wealthy and just spend your own 
money, unlimited funds to run for Congress, which increasingly more and 
more people do, or you have to be this person who maybe is not 
personally that wealthy but is in a position where you can tap very 
large contributors.
  Without mentioning names, I ran against someone in one of my races 
who had a chain of stores, and he basically was able to get thousand-
dollar contributions from each of the vendors or people who dealt with 
this business so that when I looked at his FEC report, it was just the 
maximum thousand-dollar contributions from quite a few individuals.
  So what you are leaving out basically is the person who has their own 
means, their own resources, or who is not in a business or in a 
position where they can tap those very wealthy individuals for those 
thousand-dollar contributions.
  If you change the law, as the Republican leadership has proposed, so 
that now instead of $1,000 that individual can get $2,500 or some of 
the other things are in this bill, you are just making the situation 
more and more that you either have to be spending your own money or you 
are just tapping these very wealthy individuals. And I think it is 
unAmerican. I really do. I think a person should be able to run for 
Congress regardless of their financial means. I think most people think 
that, but increasingly it is not the case.

  The ideal situation that I would like to see, and I have actually 
voted on it, I am not saying that everyone agrees with me, is to lessen 
the impact of any particular type of source of funding. In other words, 
you have a maximum cap, if you will, on total campaign expenditures. 
You say that only a certain amount can be raised with large individual 
donors, only a certain amount with political action committees and a 
certain amount with small individual donors. So you have sort of a 
diversity and combination of money coming in so there is not a 
dependence on any one source.
  Then you have an overall cap. I would go so far as to say that should 
be matched with public financing, although I know everyone does not 
necessarily agree with that. But this effort by the Republican 
leadership to tip the scale more and more toward very wealthy people 
contributing is definitely going to wreak havoc on the system and make 
it impossible for people of average means to run for Congress.
  Mr. FARR of California. I would like to follow up on that point 
because the bill that we designed, I think it is important to point 
out, the Democratic bill and the bipartisan bill limit the amount of 
money you can spend in an election. ``Limit,'' you will not find that 
word in the Republican bill. The word ``limit'' is not there.
  What we have tried to look at in tailoring this bill, and frankly, 
you know why it has been so difficult, because everybody who got 
elected to Congress is an expert on how they got here. And everybody 
has their own way. And they are biased in one way or another. So it is 
very difficult to put together a bill that can garner enough votes to 
get off this House, but history has shown that Democrats have been able 
to do that.
  Let me point out quickly what we do here. The Supreme Court has said 
you

[[Page H7768]]

cannot limit free speech and free speech is, essentially, you cannot 
limit what people want to spend by themselves or others want to spend 
on you unless you can show that that money is corrupting. And some of 
us argue that massive amounts of money do corrupt. But that is a debate 
yet to be held in the court.
  We have approached this saying, however, the court has never said, 
and we think it is constitutional, that if you voluntarily limit 
yourself and say, I want to run for U.S. Congress and I am going to 
operate under this proposal that we have here, that we are offering, 
that says, OK, you cannot spend more than $600,000. You limit yourself 
to that. You challenge your opponents to limit themselves to that.
  Once you have done that, that triggers the mix that you are talking 
about. OK, $600,000 is all you can spend. That is a lot of money. That 
is over a half a million dollars. That is what was the average to get 
elected, in 1994, to the U.S. Congress. You have districts like New 
York and Los Angeles and Chicago where you go out and buy media and 
radio and television, much more expensive than buying it in very small 
rural areas. So some campaigns are more expensive and some are less. 
But that is the average, $600,000.
  You say, all right, of that $600,000, going back to your mix, only a 
third of it, $200,000, can be raised from political action committees. 
By the way, we limit the amount that any one political action committee 
can give to you. We lower the current law rate. We say, OK, the other 
third, up to $200,000, can be raised from what we call wealthy 
contributions. We define those as anybody who can contribute $200 or 
more.
  The final third can be raised or even more can be raised by small 
contributions, but in no way can the small, large, and PAC 
contributions in aggregate exceed $600,000.

                              {time}  2200

  So we have the mix there. You cannot be unduly influenced. We have 
limits there. And that is so important to beginning a step about 
campaign reform.
  And lastly let me say one of the things that really bothers me about 
the Republican bill.
  It sounds like good government, and I think a lot of people listening 
will say it is. They require that if you are going to run for Congress, 
you have to raise 50 percent of your money in your district. That 
sounds good, in your district. But think about it for a minute. What if 
you live in a really poor district, and because in their bill they put 
no limits on what an individual can contribute, and by the way in our 
bill you cannot contribute more than $50,000 of your own money. So if 
you are a very wealthy person, you are limited if you want to go by the 
campaign reform limits. But they do not do that.
  So what you are doing is you are saying this is where you get into 
this debate about the fairness of this in-district stuff, and you will 
find if you go around in Congress, it is not the people that have the 
money that are worrying about this. It is the people that come from 
districts that do not have the money that are very worried. They are 
worried that they are being penalized.

  I have to raise my money from my district, and I can have my opponent 
spend any kind of money they want and get help from their party on a 
national level on top of that. The reform bill, the bipartisan bill, 
was fair about that. They addressed it and say you have to raise the 
money in your State. They did not limit it just to your district.
  So I think, frankly, if we go back and look at the Republican effort 
and why it is so threatening, so damaging, to representational 
government is--and you listen to the people who got elected, people of 
color, women, the things that the kind of people that ought to be in 
the United States Congress--we ought to be reflective of the people we 
govern out there, and frankly we know, sitting here tonight, and, you 
know, three white males; that is the dominant composure of the United 
States Congress. That is not the dominant composure of the American 
electorate.
  Mr. MEEHAN, If the gentleman will yield, to follow up on that, not 
only those from poorer districts, but what has also happened with the 
recent United States Supreme Court decision relative to political 
parties making contributions in districts, this bill would allow, the 
Republican bill, would allow hundreds of thousands of dollars of 
special-interest contributions that a party would raise and go in and 
basically try to buy that election.
  Well, why would they want to do that? Well, they want to do that 
because they are out-raising Democrats by record numbers. Why are they 
out-raising Democrats? Because we do not have hearings any more in the 
House of Representatives. All of the legislation that we are dealing 
with, somebody decides over here or over there without a hearing, 
behind closed doors, and then it comes to the floor, and we see that 
the very interest that we are to be protecting people against have 
helped write the bills. And those same interests time and time again 
show up on campaign reports, show up contributing to the parties, and 
then the parties are going to be able to take this money and influence 
individual districts all over America. That is taking the power away 
from individual districts and bringing it into the party bosses in 
Washington where they will determine whether it is 2 or 3 or $400,000 
in negative ads or whatever they are going to decide.
  That is exactly what the American people do not want. They do not 
want Washington to be determining who wins a congressional election. 
They want to decide those races at home.
  So that is the other point on that, this bill that would, according 
to the Republican bill, an individual could conceivably donate $3.1 
million to State and national parties cumulatively.
  Think about it.
  Mr. FARR of California. That is each year.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Each year. Absolutely, each year. Can you imagine how 
much money that is?
  So you have all of these millionaires contributing up to $3 million 
to the political parties, and then the parties, taking that money, 
using the recent Supreme Court decision and funneling millions and 
millions and millions of dollars into individual districts all across 
America from Washington to tell them in the form of 30-second ads who 
they should elect to Congress.
  It is exactly the wrong message; it is exactly the opposite of what 
the American public is demanding.
  So this bill is without--this Republican bill is a disaster, and the 
Democratic bill and the bipartisan bill are very, very similar in that 
for real campaign finance reform you have to do two things: One is you 
have to limit, do voluntary limits, the overall amount of money that is 
spent. Second, what we need to do in America is try to find a way to 
limit the role the PAC's are playing. Both bills do; there is no 
question both bills do that. Unfortunately, this Republican bill does 
nothing but infuse millions and millions and millions of dollars from 
millionaires.
  I mean do millionaires not really have enough influence in America? I 
think most people in America would say that they already have enough 
influence in everything we do. For crying out loud, the tobacco lobby 
has contributed $10 million in the past 10 years to Members of 
Congress. If you look at how much money they have contributed to the 
Republican Party since they have gotten in office, it has grown 
dramatically.
  So that is what this is all about. It is about Republican Party takes 
control, raises millions and millions of dollars setting all kinds of 
records and then says, well, we want the person with the most money to 
win.
  Mr. PALLONE. If the gentleman would yield, I think in many ways the 
most significant thing that both of you mentioned was--and 
specifically, Mr. Farr mentioned--that none of the Republican bills, 
and maybe I should not say none, but certainly none that I have seen, 
actually have a cap on campaign spending, and that is what is really so 
important. Whatever means I think the Republican leadership can find to 
try to spend as much money as possible is what their real goal is here, 
and that is why they are bringing forth this bill or tried 
unsuccessfully so far to bring forth this bill that allows so much more 
money to come from large contributors.

  I just had this quote, which I looked at before but I just have to 
read again, where Speaker Ginrgich calls for more money in politics, 
not less, and it is

[[Page H7769]]

from last year where he said one of the greatest myths of modern 
politics is that campaigns are too expensive, the political process in 
fact is underfunded. It is not overfunded. I would emphasize far more 
money in the political system.
  Now that says it all. I mean he just wants more money to be available 
and more money to be spent, and the whole idea, the cap on campaign 
expenditures, is anathema to him and, I believe, to the Republic 
leadership, and that is why you are not going to see a cap. Regardless 
of the mix that is achieved to reach that cap, you are not going to see 
that cap in something that they support because they just do not think 
they want to spend more money.
  Mr. MEEHAN. If my colleague will yield, that point is right on point 
and exactly the truth. Since the beginning, Republican leadership has 
been wedded to the special-interests corporate contributions that drive 
their agenda. That is what they have been wedded, protecting big 
tobacco, sheltering corporate subsidies, promoting environmental 
regulation and rolling back environmental laws. These goals are not 
driven by the views of the American people, they are not driven by the 
views of the public. They are on the high-priorities list of the 
biggest contributors to the Republican Party.
  That is was this is about.
  Mr. FARR of California. And look what has happened this year and last 
year. What we have seen here and why we even need to have a reform week 
is some of the abuses of this institution that have been carried out by 
this leadership, lobbyists literally sitting and writing the bills, not 
the paid professional staff of Congress. Lobbyists and former Members 
who are lobbyists being able to be at the dais during a debate, the 
fact that the attack has been on sort of the monied interests, the 
money interests that would rather cut it out for us rather than 
preserve it, the money interests that would rather pollute our drinking 
water than clean it up, the money interests that would rather keep 
minimum wage from being passed and signed into law, the money interests 
that would like to make sure that welfare reform is all about just 
making people work, which is fine, but who is going to provide the jobs 
out there?

  So you begin to see that there is a very conservative agenda building 
in Congress, and that agenda is only thwarted by the fact that this 
room is made up of a awful lot of diverse people who come here with 
viewpoints different from just a one standard cookie-cutter financial 
bottom line ``what is in it for me,'' and that has been able to make 
the Congress the vibrant place that it is.
  If you do not like the product that is coming out of here and the 
product that the Democratic leadership is adding here, you want to 
change that, and the best way to change that is to change the Members 
of Congress, and if you can make those Members of Congress more reflect 
just that bottom-line mentality that everything has a price tag on it, 
there is not a better way to do that than the campaign reform bill, the 
campaign--no reforming it--the campaign bill that has been introduced 
by our colleague, Mr. Thomas.
  Mr. MEEHAN. If the gentleman would yield, let me just get into a 
couple of specifics. These are probably the five worst things about the 
Republican bill. But the Republican bill vastly increases all of the--
nearly all--of the contributions set in current law.
  Reforming campaigns, let us face it. It is about limiting the 
influence of money, not expanding it.
  The Republican bill would also allow an individual to contribute 
$310,000 to campaigns in political parties in a single election cycle. 
That is more than 10 times the current legal limit.
  Now, we have already mentioned that according to the Republican bill, 
an individual could conceivably donate $3.1 million to State and 
national parties cumulatively. The Republican bill also codifies the 
soft-money loophole in the current law, which is how millions and 
millions of these dollars slip in. It is through the soft money.
  The Republican bill also vastly increases the role of national 
parties in local elections. That is a move that would clearly benefit 
the Republican parties because, as they are in the majority, raising 
millions and millions of dollars, they are hoping, as we said earlier, 
that they can buy close elections because of all of the money they are 
raising.

  Those are five of the worst reasons, worst things about this bill, 
and I think the reason they cancel Reform Week, and let us be clear 
about this. How long have we been hearing about Reform Week? We are 
going to straighten everything out in Reform Week, we are going to 
limit how much money is spent, we are going to change the system, we 
are going to change the way Congress does business.
  Nonsense. Here we are. It is Wednesday night at 10:15 Washington 
time, and we do not have Reform Week. The Committee on Rules is up 
considering a bill that goes in the opposite direction.
  Newt Gingrich is one of the only people in America that thinks you 
reform the system by putting more money into it. It is absolutely 
ridiculous, and I cannot imagine the response of people in this country 
over the next few days when they realize Reform Week was a sham, it 
never happened. Maybe some day next week, maybe next month, maybe next 
year.
  I think the American people are going to respond very, very angrily 
to what has happened here tonight.
  Mr. PALLONE. If the gentleman will yield, and I have to confess that 
I am going to have to leave after this remark, but one of the myths 
that I constantly hear from the Republican leadership is this notion 
that somehow individual contributions, large individual contributions, 
are not exerting influence on Congress or on politicians the way, for 
example, that political action committees would, and to me it is sort 
of ironic because I do not really put a tag on any particular kind of 
contribution. I really think that what we need to do is to create a 
diversity of contributions and limit the overall amount of money that 
is spent which is essentially what your bill would do, Mr. Farr.
  But this myth that somehow if someone gives a thousand dollars 
individually, that is clean, or under this Republican proposal that 
they give $2,500, that that is clean, but a PAC is not clean or some 
other method is not clean. And I always think to myself, if there is a 
large corporation and the individuals in that corporation contribute to 
the political action committee and then a check was written for $5,000 
to a Congressman from that PAC so to speak, how was that any different 
from the five individuals or ten individuals each; you know, the 
chairman of the corporation, the president of the corporation, the 
various vice presidents of the corporation, each writing an individual 
check for a thousand dollars, or in this case, you know, as they 
proposed it would be $2,500. The ability of people to influence is no 
different whether they are running an individual check or they are 
contributing to a political action committee.

  I think that the answer is to simply limit the overall amount that 
can be spent and the amount that can be contributed, if you will, from 
these individual sources so that if you say, for example, that a PAC 
can give $5,000, but you require that a lot of that be small donations, 
OK, maybe that is some sort of reform, or if you say that, as you 
propose, that you can only have so many individual large contributions 
or so many PAC contributions, that is reform. But they keep, the 
Republican leadership, keeps putting out this notion I call a myth that 
individual contributions are somehow OK and that they are not going to 
influence people, and therefore it is OK to increase them and perhaps 
to almost unlimited amounts, and it is simply not true. There is no 
difference between the president of the corporation writing me a check 
and having him contribute to a PAC that writes me a check. I do not see 
it, and I know for a fact that a lot of times when individuals 
contribute to your campaign, and particularly if it is a large 
donation, a lot of times they expect, you know, to have access or to be 
treated or, you know, to have your ear just as much or if not more than 
some of the other special interests that contribute through a political 
action committee.

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