[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 111 (Thursday, July 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H8538-H8540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr] is recognized for 33 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to reflect on 
what was accomplished here on the floor of this House today where we 
finally got around to what was labeled last week as reform week but 
came down to essentially reform hours, about 2\1/2\ hours

[[Page H8539]]

of reform, a discussion on campaign financing reform.
  I think those who were in the Chamber and who participated today saw 
again history being made by Republican leadership in being able to 
defeat campaign reform. It was an interesting saga today because it 
started off with a reflection on the history of where campaign reform 
had been.
  In 1987 Congress passed campaign reform. That was the 100th session 
of Congress. The Republicans filibustered the campaign finance bill in 
the Senate and were able to kill it in that year. Then in 1989 the 
House passed in the 101st Congress a bill that the Republicans delayed 
action in 1990 in the Senate until it was too late to appoint the 
conferees so that they could settle the differences between the House 
and Senate version, again a defeat by Republican leadership.
  Then in 1991 the House and Senate passed bills and later in 1992 a 
final conference report. That bill got to the President. The President 
then was George Bush, and he vetoed the bill. So from beginning in 
1987, working its way up, campaign reform on this House being dealt 
with and being defeated. Then again in 1993 the House and Senate passed 
bills. But in 1994 the Republicans blocked appointing the conferees so 
that the differences again between the House and Senate version could 
not make it to the President. At that time we had elected Bill Clinton 
as President. Had that bill gotten to the President's desk, it would 
have been signed.
  Today what we saw was that the Democrats came back again with a bill 
that I happened to author. The bill had bipartisan support. 
Unfortunately the Speaker came down to the floor and argued very 
strenuously to defeat the Farr bill and to pass the Republican version, 
the Thomas bill. An interesting vote took place. First, on the 
substitute, the Democratic substitute was defeated.
  Then the vote was taken on the underlying bill, the Thomas bill. 
Really surprisingly, historically surprising is that that not only was 
defeated by almost 100 votes, but it was defeated by Members of the 
Speaker's own party.
  So what we have seen here in the last several years, dating back to 
1987, is the inability for Congress to get sufficient votes to enact 
campaign reform. I think one of the difficulties is that that campaign 
reform movement had always been moving as the Democratic bill did today 
with one of setting limits on what Members of Congress could spend in 
campaigns. It limited it to a specific amount. Then it said, even 
though the Supreme Court has indicated that you cannot really limit 
people in what they spend because of the interpretation of the free 
speech, article 1 of the Constitution, but the courts have never 
commented on whether you voluntarily get up and say, as a candidate for 
office, that you would limit your expenditures, which is what our bill 
did.
  It said, if you go that route, then you can put limits on a Member. 
We put the amount at $600,000, quite a bit of money to run for 
Congress. Frankly, that is about the average that the winning Member of 
Congress had to spend. So if we are going to reform something, we have 
got to start with where we are and begin from there.
  In addition to limiting the amount of money, it also put in 
provisions for how much you could raise and where you could raise it 
from. It began with PAC's, which are very controversial. Always in 
campaign reform, some people want to eliminate PAC's. We think that 
that is probably unconstitutional.
  What we did in our bill is we said, all right, we will limit the 
amount that PAC's can give to the candidate. And in addition we will 
limit the amount that candidates can spend, the first time we had 
limits on PAC contributions.
  The second part of the provision said that not only will we limit 
PAC's but we will limit the amount that wealthy individuals can 
contribute. We defined a wealthy contribution as any amount $200 or 
more. We said that only one-third of your money could come from wealthy 
individuals.
  Then the third category was individuals donating less than $200, 
essentially small contributions. In that area we indicated that you 
could raise as much as you wanted from small contributions, essentially 
bringing the issue back to the constituents, back to people 
participating in the election of Members of the House of 
Representatives.
  There was no limit on the amount you could raise from small 
contributions just as long as the aggregate amount did not exceed the 
cap which we had put on Members who were voluntarily limiting 
themselves to $600,000.
  I think the most interesting part of the campaign proposal was the 
part that limited how much wealthy candidates could contribute, wealthy 
persons running for Congress could contribute to their own campaign, 
$50,000. This is a limit that we think brings the level playing field 
between wealthy candidates and those who do not have those kinds of 
resources.
  Earlier this year, or in November, actually, of last year, the 
Speaker of this House said, and I quote: ``One of the greatest myths of 
modern politics is that campaigns are too expensive. The process in 
fact is underfunded, not overfunded.''

                              {time}  1945

  Mr. Speaker, what we saw today was a bill sponsored by the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Thomas] that would allow that process of getting 
more money into campaigns to be amended into law, to lift the current 
law's limits and to provide a greater expenditure of funds.
  So I think what the public interest groups and so on were very 
instrumental in bringing to the attention of every Member of Congress, 
and particularly to people watching this issue and concerned about this 
issue, that this was not reform at all; it was moving in totally the 
opposite direction than anyone had ever intended, and that message was 
heard loud and clear when the vote was taken, with the Speaker's bill 
being defeated by, as I said earlier, by almost 100 votes.
  So where are we? We have again, in the 104th Congress, discussed 
campaign reform, developed two contrasting pieces of legislation, 
giving Members of this House the option to vote for one or the other, 
and in this case, both of them were rejected.
  I think that there is good news and bad news in that. The good news 
is that the bad bill did not get out. The bad news is that the good 
bill did not get out, either. But there is some hope because I think 
this Congress is beginning to realize, as we move toward the end of the 
104th Congress, that we are not going to be able to accomplish reforms 
of the institution or reforms of this Nation without doing it in a 
bipartisan fashion, that there is no win-win by strictly taking a 
partisan approach to problemsolving.
  So what we found out from the double defeat today was the fact that 
we need to pull together in a bipartisan fashion, and I think that I 
have seen in the last several weeks as we tried to work these votes out 
that there is a coming together. But the coming together is going to be 
much closer to what was called the bipartisan bill, which was very, 
very close to the one that I offered today, had minor differences. And 
I think the differences between that bipartisan bill and the bill that 
I authored can easily be worked out, and hopefully next year when we 
come back as a new Congress, one of the first items of the new Congress 
will be a reform package that will address some of the reforms that we 
still need to do internally, but also will incorporate those reforms 
into something we need to do externally. And externally is revising 
and reforming how Members of the United States Congress are elected.

  So, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that we are getting closer to the 
solution, and I am very pleased and thankful for the numerous Members 
of the opposite side of the aisle who helped me on the vote today. I 
just want the record to show that even though we lost, we think we were 
successful in bringing the issue to the House and to demonstrate that 
the American public has been heard in the U.S. Congress on campaign 
reform, and that is that they do not want to see, and this House has 
supported them by not supporting a bill that would go for more money in 
campaigns and lift the lids that have been voluntarily placed on it.
  So next year we come back and hopefully put together a meaningful 
bipartisan campaign reform that will be a little bit of a modification 
between the

[[Page H8540]]

Farr bill and the bipartisan bill and hopefully, given time to reflect 
on it and given support across this Nation, and given the fact that 
when we are deliberating this bill, it will not be just before an 
election. I believe that we can pass such legislation and get it to the 
President's desk for his signature.
  So again I want to thank my colleagues for supporting my bill, I want 
to thank the Republicans that helped support it, as well. I look 
forward to working with everyone next year to make a meaningful 
campaign reform, not just a discussion, not just a debate, not just a 
vote but a reality.

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