[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM SHOULD BE A TOP PRIORITY

  (Mr. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, in this past election season spending 
levels for Federal elections shattered all previous records, at nearly 
$2 billion. The President and our leadership met yesterday and agreed 
on five priority items for this Congress, but guess what was missing? 
Campaign finance reform.
  Let me make a suggestion. As David Broder noted in today's Washington 
Post, the reason campaigns are so expensive is because television 
advertising costs so much. That is why I have reintroduced H.R. 84, the 
Fairness in Political Advertising Act. It would reduce the cost of 
elections by requiring television stations to make free time available 
to both candidates as a condition of the stations renewing their 
licenses, and I urge my colleagues to join me on this bill.
  I challenge the leadership to make campaign finance reform a priority 
and to enact the Fairness in Political Advertising Act. Democracy 
should not cost $2 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, I am submitting the article referred to earlier for 
inclusion in the Record:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1997]

                     A TV Time Bank for Candidates

                          (By David S. Broder)

       When you're trying to figure out one of those interlocking 
     wooden puzzles, sometimes it helps to turn it upside down. 
     That is what happened to me one morning recently when I had 
     breakfast with Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal 
     Communications Commission.
       The topic was campaign finance legislation--or so I 
     thought. But when I remarked that the history of campaign 
     finance laws and regulations was fraught with unintended 
     consequences, Hundt immediately corrected me. ``We're not 
     talking about campaign finance legislation.'' he said. 
     ``We're talking about giving candidates and voters more 
     access, and these measures have almost always succeeded. The 
     Voting Rights Act has been a success. The provisions that 
     allowed presidential debates have worked.''
       Hundt's point was this: For decades, the campaign finance 
     debate has focused on the source and volume of funds--the 
     supply side of the problem. Government has attempted to 
     regulate who could give (and who could not), the size of 
     their contributions and, to the extent the courts allowed, 
     the amount candidates could spend.
       Hundt suggested that we turn the problem around by asking 
     where the money goes and whether that cost can be reduced, 
     i.e., examine the demand side of the equation.
       The answer is obvious. Most of the money goes into buying 
     television ad time. Campaigns are expensive because 
     television costs so much.
       In 1996, Hundt encouraged former Washington Post reporter 
     Paul Taylor's foundation-financed campaign to persuade 
     television and cable operators to make small blocks of free 
     time available to the presidential candidates. Taylor had 
     some success, but never got the broadcasters to agree on a 
     single time when all viewers would find the candidates 
     talking directly to them.
       Now Hundt is promoting a radical expansion of Taylor's 
     ``free time'' proposal. He thinks broadcasters should be 
     required to donate almost $2 billion worth of commercial time 
     to a ``political time bank'' that would be available free to 
     candidates for federal and state office.
       That sounds like a huge burden to impose, but Hundt points 
     out that the estimated $1.8 billion of paid political ads in 
     the 1995-96 election cycle was only 2.5 percent of the 
     television ad revenue in that period.
       He also noted that, under a law passed last year, the 
     government is about to hand broadcasters a gift of 
     incalculable value in the form of a new spectrum of 
     digital TV channels which can be used for movie theater-
     quarterly programs or for a wide variety of other high-
     fidelity communications.
       Last week, Hundt's longtime friend, Vice President Al Gore, 
     made that point a matter of administration policy--without 
     endorsing Hundt's specific proposal. ``Digital technology,'' 
     Gore said, ``will greatly enhance the opportunities available 
     to broadcasters to utilize multiple channels. The public 
     interest obligations should be commensurate with these 
     opportunities.''
       Hundt has found one ally high up in the broadcasting 
     industry. Barry Diller, who has been a key player for years 
     and now heads his own company that controls a number of TV 
     stations and the Home Shopping Network, told an industry 
     convention in New Orleans last month that in return for the 
     gift of the new digital TV spectrum, ``I propose that we take 
     sole responsibility for the cost of airing all political 
     advertising messages for all government candidates and to use 
     this lever as the impetus to abolish all forms of the current 
     system of political contributions.''
       Diller conceded that it ``would cost us over a billion 
     dollars in lost revenue'' in the peak year of each election 
     cycle. ``But,'' he added, ``it would also radically change 
     the nature of our rotten political fund-raising system.''
       Advocates of some campaign finance bills are considering a 
     way to incorporate the ``free time bank'' into their 
     proposals. Taylor will hold a conference on the subject in 
     Washington next month. But he and Hundt both concede this is 
     not a panacea.
       Important policy and administrative issues would remain: 
     Could independent groups buy time for ``education'' or 
     ``independent expenditure'' campaigns? Who would divvy up the 
     ``time bank'' among the thousands of Democratic and 
     Republican candidates in each election? If the national 
     parties controlled the time, how would dissident or maverick 
     Democrats and Republicans fare? And how would minor parties 
     be protected in the allocation of time?
       These are all important questions. But this proposal offers 
     a way to reduce the costs of campaigns drastically by 
     eliminating or greatly slashing the expense of television 
     advertising. It deserves to be part of the coming debate.

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